Aviendha

Aviendha (ah-vee-EHN-dah) is a Wise One of the Nine Valleys sept of the Taardad Aiel, and one of the three lovers of Rand al'Thor.
Aviendha was once of the Far Dareis Mai, and was sent west of the Spine of the World to hunt for He Who Comes With the Dawn. On her return to the Three-Fold Land, she was made to give up the spear and train with the Wise Ones, as she was discovered to have the ability to channel the One Power, and was made an apprentice after her first visit to Rhuidean. She did not want to admit her feelings to Rand as he had declared his love to Elayne Trakand, but after he became the car'a'carn, she eventually became the second woman to become his lover, and the first to lie with him.
After the battle between the Shaido and the other clans, Aviendha ventured west of the Waste once more, and traveled to Salidar hoping to meet Elayne. Aviendha joined the Aes Sedai mission to find the Bowl of the Winds with the Kin and Windfinders, where she grew close with Elayne, returning to Caemlyn with her. The two were bonded as first-sisters, and later bonded Rand as her Warder after she, Elayne, and Min agreed to love Rand together and respect one another. 
As Elayne's quest for the throne of Andor was nearly complete, the Wise Ones summoned Aviendha for training again, and she was considered ready to go to Rhuidean again to become a full Wise One. During her visit to the city, she experienced visions of a bleak future, which she informed the other Wise Ones about, having the Aiel included in the Dragon's Peace in hoping of preventing the doom of the Aiel. Aviendha fought bravely during the Last Battle, where she battled Hessalam after the Forsaken started turning the forces of the Light against one another using Compulsion. Aviendha defeated Hessalam by turning her own Compulsion against her, but a great explosion left Aviendha maimed. She is one of the four women who know that Rand is truly alive following the Last Battle.
==Appearance==
Aviendha is tall and athletically built, though with ample curves. Her eyes are blue-green and she has dark reddish hair, once short and now held back with a scarf as it is growing out. 
==Channeling abilities and Talents==
Aviendha is among the strongest living female channelers, just below the Forsaken level. Her current strength level is 11(+2), but she has a potential equal to that of Elayne Trakand and Egwene al'Vere, 8(+5). 
As many of the strongest channelers Aviendha is a "fast learner" which is the ability to learn how to compose a new weave seeing it formed a very few times (it is not clear if this is properly talent or a skill linked to the strength in the One Power, in fact usually it may take the weakest channelers a lot of time of study in order to learn a new weave. But there are very weak channelers as Sorilea and Asra with the unique ability to learn quickly like the strongest).
Aviendha has the very rare talent to "understand a ter'angreal" which is the ability to discern the purpose of a ter'angreal of unknown use till that moment. To perform such ability Aviendha needs to touch the ter'angreal for a while.
Finally Aviendha has the very rare Talent that also the Kinswoman Asra shows: she can understand what a weave would do before it is completed; even if she has never seen it before.
Aviendha has a good skill in "Unweaving" which is the ability to pick apart a weave, so as to leave no evidence of it behind (for instance it is necessary to avoid hostile channelers with the talent to read residues to track the destination of gateways). This is an ability uncommon amongst Aes Sedai and it is known to be very dangerous to those who try it without skill, nevertheless Aviendha and some of the Wise Ones are capable of this feat.
Her wards against eavesdropping were better than Aes Sedai's.
==Activities==
===Background===
Aviendha was born in . She is from the Nine Valleys sept of the Taardad clan, though an early authorial error has her listed as being of the Bitter Water sept. She has a first-sister (born of the same mother) six or seven years older than her named Niella. Her sister-mother (aunt) is Lian. Aviendha has wanted to be Far Dareis Mai since childhood.
===First encounter===
Aviendha is one of the Aiel who ventured out of the Aiel Waste, across the Spine of the World and into the so-called "wetlands" in search of the Car'a'carn, the Aiel chief of chiefs, He Who Comes With The Dawn. Along with Bain, Chiad, and Jolien, Aviendha first met  Egwene al'Vere, Elayne Trakand and Nynaeve al'Meara on their way to Tear. Her group had been attacked by Cairhienin and asks Nynaeve to heal their friend, Dailin, another Maiden. Later, Aviendha helped rescue the Accepted from Myrddraal with Rhuarc but Dailin dies. Aviendha eventually reaches the Stone of Tear when Rand al'Thor took Callandor, the crystal sword sa'angreal. There, Aviendha befriends the three women further, especially Egwene and Elayne, who she begins to call her near-sisters according to Aiel custom.
===To Rhuidean===
Aviendha is with Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve when they question Joiya Byir and Amico Nagoyin about the Black Ajah's plans. When Moiraine returns, she sends Aviendha to ask the Captain for two men.
After the attack on the Stone of Tear, she is with Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne when Egwene prepares to enter Tel'aran'rhiod. When Egwene wakes, she mentions a Wise One named Amys, and Elayne asks Aviendha if she knows her. Aviendha is agitated, but explains her relationship to Amys and the concept of sister-wives. Egwene has just announced her intention to go to the Aiel Waste with Aviendha as her guide, when Moiraine enters with a letter from the Wise Ones Amys, Bair, Melaine, and Seana, summoning Aviendha to Chaendaer, above Rhuidean in the Aiel Waste. Aviendha is angry that the Wise Ones are telling her what to do, and would have gladly instead accompanied Elayne and Nynaeve to Tanchico to hunt the Black Ajah, but has little choice.
Aviendha is among Rand's procession when he is departing the Stone. She is the first to find the Portal Stone to Rhuidean. Upon arriving at Rhuidean in the company of Rand, Egwene, Moiraine, and Lan Mandragoran, Aviendha is confronted by the Wise Ones. Her spears are broken and it is revealed by Amys that she had been summoned because she could learn to channel, and would be trained to join the ranks of the Wise Ones. She is about as strong in the One Power as Elayne and Egwene, making her one of the strongest female channelers alive. She enters Rhuidean, boasting that she will beat Rand and Mat who have also gone into the city.
===With Rand al'Thor===
She remained with the Aiel that accompanied Rand's campaign against the rogue Shaido clan in Cairhien, and assisted in his strike against Rahvin in Caemlyn.
At Rhuidean, Aviendha saw that she was fated to fall in love with Rand. She'd promised to keep anyone from stealing Rand out from under Elayne's nose, only to discover that she herself was going to end up becoming involved with him. Doing so after promising to Elayne to keep other women away from Rand had the potential to stain her honor in a way that she found to be unacceptable. Blaming Rand for her predicament, Aviendha became suddenly hostile, behavior that baffled him. The situation was exacerbated when the Aiel Wise Ones instructed Aviendha to teach Rand about the Aiel people and eventually even sleep in his tent, as they hoped that she would become more intimately involved with him. The situation finally came to a head when one day Rand happened to come upon Aviendha while she was trying to bathe in his room. Panicking, she made a gateway (incidentally a feat she is not able to reproduce until much later in the series) to the opposite side of the world and fled through it into a blizzard. Rand, realizing that she would not survive long without clothes in a freezing, foreign land, grabbed blankets and pursued her. After Rand fished her out of a river that she fell into, Aviendha declared that she would run from her fate no longer and revealed her love to Rand in the form of sudden and unexpected sexual intercourse.
Rand kept her close (albeit awkwardly at times) through the battles with the Shaido and the attack on Rahvin, though Aviendha decided to forgo anything physical again until she could talk with Elayne. Fortunately, their liaison did not seem to have damaged Rand's love for Elayne, nor Aviendha's and Elayne's friendship.
===Learning to love===
Shortly after Rahvin's demise, Rand foisted Aviendha off on Mat Cauthon because he believed that any woman near him would be in danger, and he couldn't stand to see her hurt. As she had business with Elayne at any rate, Aviendha left of her own volition (and Rand did not tell her why he wanted her gone due to the fact that she would have almost certainly taken it as an insult). After they arrived at Salidar, Aviendha agreed to accompany Elayne and Nynaeve to Ebou Dar; she assisted in the use of the Bowl of the Winds once it was found. She has also been given a woman shaped angreal by Elayne to use. Now safely in Caemlyn, she has finally had a chance to meet Min Farshaw, the third member of Rand's women, and they seem to be getting along. She and Elayne have also formally become first-sisters, an Aiel ceremony that invokes a Power-wrought connection not unlike a Warder bond. Also, Aviendha, along with both Elayne and Min, have Bonded Rand as their 'Warder' in a private ceremony. She remains in Caemlyn, safeguarding Elayne and, according to Min, Rand's newly conceived twins. Min has seen in her visions that Aviendha will have four of Rand's babies at once, but that there is something odd about it. The children will be born healthy, but there is something odd about that, too. This might be an allusion to the fact that all four children would be born holding the power at all times, as later seen during her second trip to Rhuidean.
===What Rhuidean revealed===
When Rand and Nynaeve are trying to cleanse saidin, both Elayne and Aviendha sense huge amounts of channeling without knowing what is going on. Elayne, feeling Rand involved in that direction, suggests going to help him, but Aviendha reveals that this event is one of the visions she saw while in Rhuidean. If they Travel there something bad will happen to them or Rand, so they must ignore the event.
Aviendha recently discovered a Talent for identifying the function of ter'angreal. Shortly after that, she is taken away from Caemlyn by the Wise Ones to resume her apprenticeship in Arad Doman with the rest of her clan.
thumb|250px|right|Aviendha painting by Todd Cameron Hamilton.
=== Restoring order to Arad Doman ===
When she arrives in Arad Doman she begins to scout with Rhuarc. She is at the meeting with Rand and the Aiel clan chiefs when Rand gives the order for the Aiel to capture the Council of Merchants. She is also given increasingly more meaningless tasks designed to shame her for "not learning quickly enough". While carrying out one of her meaningless tasks, she witnesses a Bubble of evil combust the Saldaean soldier Adrin. His remains then catch fire to the nearby manor. She weaves a massive column of Air and Water from a nearby river and transports water onto the fire, with help from Naeff and manages to put the fire out.
She is present when Davram Bashere and Damer Flinn arrive at the Traveling grounds after being sent to the Daughter of the Nine Moons to request her to meet with Rand.
Aviendha feels the pain when Semirhage captures Rand and raises the alarm. The next day Min seeks her out and although the two are awkward around each other, they both respect each other. Min points out the pointlessness of her tasks which finally makes Aviendha snap and confront the Wise One's over the fruitlessness of her punishments. In the end, what she was not learning quickly enough was to stand up for herself and see herself as their equal, which was the last step in her training as a Wise One. Upon finally doing so, she departs for Rhuidean to walk through the pillars there.
===Return to Rhuidean===
In order to contemplate her future and prepare for her journey to Rhuidean itself, Aviendha Travelled to Cold Rocks Hold and proceeded on foot towards Rhuidean. One night during her travels, she met a mysterious stranger calling herself Nakomi, who engaged Aviendha in conversation regarding the future of the Aiel. This caused Aviendha to seriously contemplate where the future lay for the Aiel as a people, since their reason for being in the Three Fold Land seems to have come to its conclusion.
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Upon reaching Rhuidean, Aviendha walked through the Glass Pillars, but felt little different afterwards, as Rand had already revealed what the Pillars held. Sitting beneath Avendesora, Aviendha decided to study the Glass Pillar "ter'angreal", but backed off after realizing it was beyond her Talents, and incomprehensible to a single person. Deciding to leave Rhuidean, her first step led to a disturbing vision from the Glass Pillars of the Aiel's future, showing the destruction of the Aiel people. Shocked and afraid of what she would find, Aviendha nevertheless decided to walk through the Pillars again. The pillars began to show the future instead of the past, and Aviendha experiences the eventual decline of the Aiel.
:The First vision is seen through the eyes of Malidra who is a scavenger. She is murdered by a Lightbearer with a Lightstick for feeding off of their garbage.
:The Second vision is seen through the eyes of Norlesh. Norlesh and the rest of her family go to merchants of the Raven Empire and offer them rocks they are seeking. They are turned down as they are required not to trade with Aiel or risk losing their charter allowing them to mine in the area.
:The Third vision is seen through the eyes of Tava. She is part of a group of Aiel being attacked in a hold, by Raken with Seanchan using Lightsticks (Assumed to be a sort of musket). The Aiel are mostly destroyed and abandon the hold.
:The Fourth vision is seen through the eyes of Ladalin who is an Aiel Wise One descended from the Dragon. During a meeting with the other Wise Ones and Clan Chiefs they learn the White Tower has fallen. Jorshem states that the war with the Ravens has been lost. Ladalin tells the others that to surrender would be the end of the Aiel as they would be made gai'shain. They decide to retreat back to the Three-Fold Land.
:The Fifth vision is seen through the eyes of Oncala who is Aviendha's granddaughter. Oncala and Hehyal meet with Queen Talana who is Elayne Trakand's granddaughter. The Aiel show plans for an attack on Andor which they stole from the Ebou Dari palace. They didn't tell her that it was only going to be used if Andor entered the war. (This leads to the Seanchan gaining the dragons and thus Lightsticks.)
:The Final vision is of Aviendha's daughter Padra who attacks a group of Seanchan who wandered into their borders after the peace has been signed between wetlander nations and the Seanchan, (but not the Aiel). They decide that because the Seanchan hadn't released their Wise Ones and the Aiel aren't part of the Dragon's Peace the Aiel are going to march to war against the Seanchan. .
Stepping out of the pillars Aviendha resolves to do all she can to prevent this future from coming to pass and leaves Rhuidean to rejoin with her people.
===The Last Battle===
====The Field of Merrilor====
Aviendha tells a group of Wise Ones about her visions of the future, and the fall of the Aiel. The women rationalize that it is because Rand will leave the Aiel adrift by excluding the Aiel from his plans tomorrow. They plan to fight this future, even if it cannot be changed. Bair orders her to open a gateway to Rhuidean so she can see this future for herself and advises Aviendha to change the name of one of her children and never speak the name again; with the hope that the future can be changed.
Aviendha sneaks through the Field of Merrilor, to Elayne's tent where she gets inside without being noticed. Elayne is discussing with some of her High Seats about the loss of Caemlyn when she finally notices Aviendha in the tent. After the High Seats leave, Min is invited and the three talk about how they will share Rand with each other. Aviendha then goes to Rand's tent and offers him a proposal, he must accept all three of them or none of them. Rand agrees to the arrangement and the two spend the night with each other. Upon waking Aviendha asks him for a boon, but won't tell him what it is. Rand accepts and she leaves to prepare for the meeting. Rand then has a "shower" with her, channeling water and soap around them, as was done in the Age of Legends.
====The Dragon's Peace====
As initial arguments begin to die down, Aviendha asks Rand for her promised boon. She demands that the Aiel be included in the Peace. Rand, confused, tells her that he trusts the Aiel above everyone, that including them would mean that they can no longer fight, and that she doesn't speak for all the clans. The other Wise Ones and Rhuarc begin to stand behind Aviendha in support. Aviendha also says that the Aiel will not fight the Seanchan- ever. Rand relents and gives them what they ask for and orders them to be arbiters of the peace between nations after a meeting with Perrin. Aviendha is in attendance at Elayne's initial war-council, where it is decided that the army will fight on four fronts led by the four Great Generals. The Aiel bristle at the thought of being led by Rodel at Shayol Ghul, but are put in their place by Elayne, who tells them that it was the Aiel themselves that insisted on being part of Dragon's Peace. The Aiel will do as ordered. She is with Rand, when he stands just outside Shayol Ghul, testing whether the dull dagger works.
====The Last Battle====
Aviendha is part of a scouting party in The Blasted Lands with Rhuarc, Amys and a Stone Dog named Shaen. Her fingers are burned from the extreme cold of the ground. They observe the Forges at Thakan'dar , where they are joined by Rodel Ituralde, who moves quietly, for a wetlander. Aviendha is still struggling with her vision at Rhuidean. She and the others discuss a plan to free the prisoners at the Forges. They wonder how long it will take Rand to defeat The Dark One. Aviendha returns to Rand's camp. Rand is studying the peak of Shayol Ghul. She is struck by how alike they are, and how strange it is that she is just realizing it now. Rand moves to stand next to her, facing the same direction with their shoulders just touching, and he greets her as "Shade of my heart" He asks her what she has seen. "A Tomb" Aviendha says. When Rand asks her if it is his She says no, that it is The Dark One's. Aviendha is given command of all the channelers at Shayol Ghul. She accompanies Rand to his tent, where Moiraine, Nynaeve, and Min are waiting They discuss Callandor's flaw, and Rand decides to take it to The Pit of Doom with him.
She Travels to the valley of Thakan'dar with an army of Aiel and a group of channelers. She is the leader of the channelers of the Light in Shayol Ghul. They first liberate the menial defenses within the valley itself. A number of Forgers are within the valley to and with the help of the channelers, are defeated fairly quickly. Aviendha and her group then liberate the pens, freeing all the prisoners and creating a gateway for them back to safety. She watches Rand, Moiraine and Nynaeve make their way into Shayol Ghul. Aviendha then feels the presence of a strong female channeler. Aviendha commands her group to link with her to create a circle. The female channeler fires balefire at Aviendha and her group. They manage to escape by creating gateways and leaping through, always on the move. Aviendha manages to get behind the channeler, who is extremely ugly and does not match the description of any member of the Black Ajah or Forsaken. The channeler somehow manages to Travel away from Aviendha, without any channeling being detected. Falion and Duhara are not as quick and are killed by Aviendha. Bera Harkin Heals Aviendha, as her vision was damaged in the skirmish. Aviendha splits her group into three smaller circles, one to actively engage in battle and the other two to wait in ambush for any side attacks.
Throughout the battle Aviendha confronts not only the horrid member of the Forsaken and dreadlords, but the Samma N'Sei, male Aiel channelers who were turned to the Dark One's side. When fighting in a circle, they are surprised by Hessalam who kills Faeldrin and Kiruna, injures Damer Flinn badly and places Sarene under Compulsion before disappearing. She reunites with Cadsuane and Amys often to discuss the Aiel channelers and the Forsaken.
The Forsaken returns with a small army of her own, people she placed under Compulsion, including Sarene, Sashalle and Rhuarc. Aviendha is horrified when she notices she killed Rhuarc, but realises that the man she had killed was not Rhuarc any longer.
Aviendha restarts her fight with Graendal while Amys, Cadsuane, Talaan and other channelers help her. The two women end up fighting alone and, as Aviendha's strength is being spent in a gateway, Graendal prepares weaves of Compulsion. To the Forsaken's surprise, Aviendha begins unweaving the gateway. Picking the wrong weave apart, Aviendha's gateway caused a huge explosion that took several of her toes.
The explosion may have been what caused the weave of Compulsion to turn against Graendal as she was last seen carrying Aviendha to the camp.
She is finally Healed in the end of the battle and joins Min and Elayne by Rand's pyre but not before being confronted by Nynaeve and her suspicions regarding Rand's bond.
==Viewings and visions==
Min has a vision indicating that Aviendha would have four children by Rand all at once at some point in the future, but there would be something strange about them. As seen in Aviendha's visions of the future in Rhuidean, Aviendha does indeed have quadruplets to Rand. They are named Padra, Alarch, Janduin and Marinna. The strange thing about them could be that they could channel since childhood and perpetually embrace the True Source. It is speculated that this may be due to having children with Rand after he had exchanged bodies with Moridin, allowing for Rand's unexplained abilities to light his pipe to be inherited.
==In the television series==
In the television series, is played by actress .
it:Aviendha
Category:Far Dareis Mai
Category:Wise Ones
Category:Aiel (people)
Category:Channelers
Category:Farm Group
Category:POV character
Category:Notes needed
Category:Sparkers