I have seen things in my 20th year that many people have not seen in a lifetime. Many people dream of going on quests and adventures, but by a strange turn of events I ended up on one. As the Aes Sedai tell me, "The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills" and I was somehow meant to play a part in these events, events that will impact what happens at the Last Battle. One day I was a young woman who had never left her village, and the next I was swept up in an adventure that would take me to strange places and even stranger people – Aiel, Aes Sedai, Asha'man, False Dragons and more. I still get homesick, occasionally, and long for the simple life I left behind. I still wonder what would have happened if I had refused to leave my village, but somehow that seems impossible to imagine. And is it too presumptous to think that if I hadn't left, all I hold dear would be destroyed? I had to go.
My name is Linnea Korozani. For twenty years, I was content to stay in the place of my birth, a small village in Saldaea. I'm sure you've never heard of me, nor would you have if none of this had happened, for there isn't much remarkable about me. I am an only child, and my parents were simple ice pepper merchants. I have been told by Southlanders that my titled, violet eyes are particularly striking, but other than that I know I am plain to look at – pretty, at best, though few would call me beautiful. My raven black hair was often pulled back in a tight bun or braid, and while my figure was girlishly plump and pleasant to look at, I often wore clothes more suited to comfort and utility that obscured any curves I may I have had.
I say I was content in Saldaea, but not completely happy. I am not the ideal picture of a Borderlander. Ever since the complications at my birth, I have been more fragile than the doughty warriors you surely think of when you hear about the Borderlands. Like most women here, I carry a small dagger with me, but I have never been very proficient with it. I have always been shy, and while I was never maligned by my peers, I could never quite relate to them.
For not only was I considered a weakling, there was something odd about me, something that people just couldn't put a finger on. Despite being shy, I was always strangely perceptive. People I only talked to a few times in my life, I seemed to just know things about. I could percieve the feelings - especially suffering - of the most stoic villager, and was uncannily able to help. Sometimes it seemed if I needed something bad enough I would get it. I remember, when I was very young, ten or so, my father and I had gone into the woods to collect firewood. There had been a storm recently, so there were many fallen logs and broken branches in the trees. One fell from above and knocked my father unconscious. I was close to both of my parents, and instead of running back to the village as I should have, I stayed with him, desparately trying to wake him. After twenty minutes or so, he suddenly came to, and it was as if nothing had happened - he didn't even suffer a bruise!
It was shortly after that the sicknesses came. I was already seen as frail, but this made it worse. I would be periodically subject to chills, aches, dizzyness or numbness that would strike without any warning and confine me to my bed for hours and then leave me just as suddenly. Sometimes I was struck with dangerously high fevers or delirium where I would babble nonsensically for hours. Sometimes it was a kind of mania that made me feel invincible, or reduced me to hysterical laughter at the slightest provocation. There were times my movements were so uncontrolled and my speech so slurred I was accused of pilfering ale from the inn, until it was realized it was another form of the sickness. I, and those around me, feared I was going insane, or worse, was somehow possessed by the Dark One. But, within a half year, all traces of these mysterious afflictions had dissapeared, and I have not suffered since. Nobody in the village has forgotten however, and I will always be marked by it.
I also developed a keen weather sense, and could somehow feel subtle changes in the air, as if the wind itself was speaking to me. I thought this was perfectly normal, until I began speaking of it and was only rewarded with strange looks. However, my weather sense caught the attention of the village wise woman, and she took me on as her apprentice when I was 13. It was with her that my one true talent was discovered - healing. Within months, rumors of my tremendous skill and empathy for those in pain had spread to the neighboring villages, and despite my youth I was one of the most demanded healers in the area. I was overjoyed, and studiously applied myself to herb lore and other healing matters. Finally, I had found a way to be useful to my people, and to assist in our great duty of protecting the land from Shadowspawn. I spent the next years of my life perfecting my talents, truly desiring to help those in need. Living so close to the Blight, I have seen a lot of violence and death and suffering, and I want nothing more than to allieve it.
I didn't realize the truth about myself until I was 16. One summer, an educated traveller stayed at our inn. I loved listening to her stories about the world outside our village, and found she even had dealings with Aes Sedai once! I listened excitedly as I begged her to tell me all she knew of them, of the women who were both feared and admired. I listened as she talked about how they recurited sisters, and how some of them had unwittingly touched the Source and learned to control it. Wilders, they were called. The more she spoke, the more I realized she was describing me. What else could explain my ability to heal afflictions that should have left people dead, or my accurate weather sense or odd perceptions? The strange sicknesses I had suffered were reactions to touching the True Source, and I realized with a shock that they had all indeed followed events that demonstrated my "strangeness". All wilders had a block, she said, a state of being they had to be in in order to channel. Thinking for a moment, I saw the similarities between the odd events that had led to the sicknesses - they had all originated from me being in a state of mind where I feared for somebody's life or saw them in extreme suffering - something there were many opportunities for me to see in the Borderlands. I was one of the lucky ones, I knew - one of the few who was able to gain a rudimentary control over the Power before it killed me.
Ever since that day, I dreamed of going to the White Tower, and to one day joining the Yellow Ajah - the caste dedicated to the healing arts. I knew that if I could become an Aes Sedai, I could help my people even more than I did already. But, I never made it there...there were always obligations that kept me tied to the village, and I never found the courage to strike out on my own. The years flew by, and at 20, I knew I was too old to be admitted to the novice book. I contented myself with my herb lore, and the occasional assistance I got from the Power. The old healer had died when I was 17, and since then I have taken her place, living in a small house next to the inn. I was self sufficient - I made most of the medicines in my healing pack myself, and the belt pouch I carry all my supplies in has great sentimental value for me - I purchased it myself with the money I earned from my first payed healing jobs when I was 15. I even have my own horse, a sweet tempered mare named Sorel, who was paid for partially from my own earnings, and partially by my parents as a gift to show their pride in me. I have earned the respect of my people, and knew I was doing them good. They even sought me for love advice at times - why I have always been so adept at that I do not know. I doubt it is Power related, but I've always been a romantic. Of course my mother taught me the sa'sara when I was young, and I would practice it, hoping one day to find a true love with whom I could share the beauty and sensuality of love, although I felt it was a futile wish. I knew I would never leave my village.
Or so I thought...
My story begins in the forests outside my village, although it does not begin with me. I have done my best to get an accurate picture of what went on before I joined the quest. I believe Ryah, another member of our party, has also written her account of our adventures. I am no gleeman, so I am not adept at spinning tales, but I hope you can enjoy this memoir.
