EGWENE: Sit down, Daughter! Tell me, how does your Ajah justify its existence?

GREEN: We are the Battle Ajah,.mother! We devoted ourselves to preparing for Tarmon Gai'don by training in the military uses of the One Power as best we could (considering the limitations imposed by the Three Oaths), and Green Sisters often spent time in the Borderlands, helping their soldiers drive back Trollocs and Myrdraal when they came out of the Blight.

EGWENE: Hmmm. Yes, and that's also why you have so many Warders?

GREEN: Well . . . that's part of it.After all, even our strongest sisters need someone to watch their backs while they channel at a particular target. Or to keep watch while they sleep, and so forth. As the Battle Ajah, we use up Warders more frequently than most . . . I could name you Greens in the Tower right now who have each seen at least five of their Warders die in battle over the years.

EGWENE: Yes. But tell me - your Ajah has a reputation for being more "intimate" with Warders than most. Is that really necessary? It seems to inspire some dirty jokes in the minds of the common people, when they hear a boy wants to be Warder.

GREEN: Necessary? It's VITAL to the Warder Training Program! The way we see it, Mother, hardly ANY Sister would be able to find a properly trained Warder if not for our Ajah!

EGWENE: Beg pardon?

GREEN: Mother, do you really think adventurous young men travel to Tar Valon with the ambition of becoming a Warder for a Brown and watching her search through dusty old manuscripts, or for a Yellow and standing around twiddling their thumbs while she Heals people? Of course not! The vast majority of candidates come because of all the rousing stories they've heard about fabled Green Sisters of breathtaking beauty and great courage, who hunt down Shadowspawn and Darkfriends and engage them in duels to the death no matter how bad the odds! And of course . . . [she blushes slightly] it is commonly known that there are certain . . . fringe benefits in being the Warder of a Green Sister, a woman who will stay young and - well, shall we say, young and ENERGETIC? - for a VERY long time. It's not like marrying some girl back home who will start acquiring wrinkles and gray hair and so forth within a couple of decades. And these . . . fringe benefits . . . are not always available with sisters of other Ajahs, but we Greens carefully ensure that the only young women who join our ranks are women with a, ah, strong affection for good men! Our Warders NEVER need feel neglected.

EGWENE: Ah . . . I think I see your point. But not all candidates can BECOME Warders of Greens, after all . . .

GREEN: True enough, mother! Even men can gradually grow wiser as they grow older, if you just teach them properly and wait long enough for it to sink in. As they adapt to the stern regimen of Tower Training, they begin to see that there are more important things in life than having a close relationship with an ageless woman . . . more important than the opportunity to kill a Trolloc every day before breakfast, even! They begin to see some of the scope of the manifold activities of the sisters of the various Ajahs, and how each plays it part in making the world a better place, and how sisters DO need protection - even when they are supposedly in "civilized" nations. They have access to the Tower Library and acquire a deeper understanding of the world . . . and many of them decide that being Warder to a Green is not what will best suit them. But they only outgrow their adolescent dreams AFTER those dreams have already carried them to the Tower, you understand.

EGWENE: Ah. So you Greens are the lure that pulls in the fish close enough for the hook to sink into its flesh.

GREEN: Something like that . . . and of course there's our recycling program for Warders.

EGWENE: Beg pardon?

GREEN: We encourage some of our sisters to take care of Warders whose first Aes Sedai have died, to try to save them from the suicidal depression that accompanies the snapping of the bond. Myrelle Sedai, for example, has had success with two - or even three, if you count her brief tenure as the caretaker of al'Lan Mandragoran after his bond with Moiraine was broken during her time in another world . . . [she sees Egwene's glare at the reminder of the way Lan was treated by Moiraine and Myrelle, and hastily changes the subject] But the point is, we are always trying to save them! And since no other Ajah accepts more than one Warder per sister at a time, it's usually up to us to make the effort! There are several Warders alive right now who survived Tarmon Gai'don even though their sisters did not, and we're trying to coax them into second bondings . . .

EGWENE: Daughter, that reminds me of something I've always meant to ask you. Logically, each Green ought to have a horde of children running around after she's been, er, bonded to one or more Warders for a number of years . . . but this doesn't seem to happen. Why not?

GREEN: Mother, have you ever tried to fight a battle while seven months pregnant? Tired, prone to mood swings, heavier and less agile than you would like to be, desperately concerned that TWO lives might be lost if anyone kills you, instead of just one? Or even afraid that all the stress might send you into an early labor at the WORST possible time?

EGWENE: Er, no. I've never had that experience, come to think of it.

GREEN: Our ancient records show it doesn't work very well. Early in our Ajah's history, it was decided that the Battle Ajah must always be ready for battle at a moment's notice, and that "ready" meant not pregnant. So . . . we do not permit our bodies to become pregnant. Period. After all, we could hardly expect the Dark One to publish a calendar of when his next major offensive would occur, could we?

EGWENE: So you use some exotic weave I never heard of before?

GREEN: A thing of the Power, yes. I wouldn't know if you had ever heard of it before . . .

EGWENE: Well, that clears up that question. Now tell me, daughter, what do the Greens intend to do now that Tarmon Gai'don has finally been won?

GREEN: Well, mother, there are still the Seanchan to cope with. Something has to be done about all those poor women they have in collars. And there are the Asha'man . . . we simultaneously want to A) practice linking with them, and exploring new aspects of channeling that were never available when we could only use saidar, and B) Prepare to fight them at a moment's notice, if necessary, because frankly, we don't trust them as far as we could throw them. They are arguably the biggest threat we have on the map today.

EGWENE: Threat? What have they done?

GREEN [Very firmly]: Nothing, except demonstrate that (as we had feared would be the case) the "average" male channeler has a potential strength much greater than that of the "average" female channeler. In military parlance, when we talk of a "threat estimate" it refers to how much damage a particular organization COULD do to us if it wanted to, regardless of whether or not we think they WANT to do it right away. So, they are the most powerful organization we know of, hence the biggest threat.

EGWENE: Isn't that a tad paranoid?

GREEN: It's our duty to ALWAYS be ready for battle, mother. With ANYONE.

EGWENE: What would you say to a plan to integrate the Asha'man into the Tower and make the Aes Sedai an organization of both genders, as it was in the beginning?

GREEN [gasps]: LET THEM INTO THE TOWER? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?

EGWENE [sighs]: That's what I thought you'd say. You are dismissed, daughter. On your way out, send in the Red Sister who's waiting to see me, will you?

Raina's Hold / Raina's Library / Other People's Humour / Renovating the White Tower