( A dark twist of her lips looking at that dark water. Hearing this young woman's story, it adds up in no pleasant way. Things aren't exactly straightforward in the darkness that's unfolding back home, but here there aren't even the markers of half familiar stories from earlier turnings of the Wheel: there's just this. Patterns woven to another weft. )

It takes hold, the waters. Fills a person, tries to become a person. So I've heard, and seen.

( She looks back to where Elayne holds a vial of dark water, and frowns, stepping closer while avoiding the slow spreading, viscous fluid at their feet. Feels the flicker of annoyance and lets it warm her belly when Elayne manages to look smug over something that is, in and of itself, extremely annoying. )

It hardly matters.

( She lifts her gaze, lips thinning. )

The forces we face here are unconcerned with the One Power, tainted or clean. It's something entirely different. Not limited in who can learn.

( Something far more equal, from the woman who chooses not to think about her own display of overwhelming power that had saved all but one from dying of the wounds that should have seen them all good for little but the next turning of the Wheel.

She flicks her fingers to the vial: )

The magic that makes this doesn't need weaving. It purposes itself.