Ebou Dar, Midwinter [evening]

[bloody_luck]

In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the east, howling across the Spine of the World and through settlements mostly abandoned by the hundreds of thousands of Aiel, urged by prophecy to follow the Dragon Reborn across the the mountains and into what they called the Wetlands beyond. It whipped snows across Cairhien, doing nothing to soften the wreckage that was left by an attack on the palace there. The wind picked up a thousand rumors from the wind about who had led the attack--the Dragon Reborn had gone mad and struck out at his supporters; his hated Asha'man had gone mad and tried to Rebreak the world; the Dragon Reborn was dead; no, the Dragon Reborn was King of Illian; the Dragon Reborn had tried to throw the Sanchan--no, Seanchan--back into the sea and had failed--and raced across the plains of Ghealdan where Perrin Aybara had tossed aside his mission from the Dragon Reborn to reign in the insanities of the Prophet of the Dragon to track down a band of rogue Aiel who had kidnapped his wife. It blew back the cloaks of the rebel Aes Sedai as they plotted their final attack on Tar Valon and chased Elayne and Nynaeve on their way to Caemlyn.

And it ruffled the curtains in Mat's sickroom, where he learned about none of these cataclysmic world events as he spent yet another day in bed convalescing from the Seanchan takeover of Ebou Dar.

"I am so bloody bored," he complained to no one.