After years of long and hard work, it had finally happened. Adolphus Aldous had finally received the rank of Ashanderi. The pin looked foreign to him, even though it wasn't all that different from the one he used to wear. It made so many things much easier for him, but the complications it would bring far outweighed any joy Adolphus could find in his promotion. Sure he had put the smile on that everyone had expected to see, and he accepted the congratulations that came good-naturedly, but there was so much that needed to be settled that the thought of facing it left him feeling very empty inside.

Alhanna might come expecting him to keep a promise he had made in a happier time, even though she must know that her new Warder would mean Adolphus would flee from her at the first opportunity. No, he would never hold her bond as long as that man held it, and he probably would probably be dead long before that bond changed. And yet Adolphus did the only thing he could do. He prepared.

Kristal Sedai had been an ever-present help recently, and their time spent together on Nefertariamun's errand had made them friends. She understood him better than anyone might ever be able too, thanks to her Bond to Griever. Of course that brought a whole different set of problems. Would she ask him to hold her Bond, now that he was of the appropriate rank? Would he be able to put her in the risk of loosing yet another Bondmate to the madness that Adolphus was slowly learning to control? And so many more questions, and all Adolphus could do was prepare.

And then there was the one thing Adolphus knew he must do. The orphanage sat on the outskirts of Darhien, just across one of the many bridges that led away from Tar Valon. Adolphus hadn't been there sence he had come to the Tower at the age of sixteen, Light! Has it really been twenty years? He knew it was time to go visit. M'am was probably long dead, but surely some of the kids were still there. He needed to know that the place he had helped survive for so many years was still standing. Sure, he had made trips out of the great city, but Traveling didn't exactly give you time to visit places along the way. And so Adolphus wondered, and he prepared.

What was to happen to the Wolfkin who so recently decided that he simply wasn't going to let himself go mad? What would the next week hold for him, and, if he made it a week, could he put a month behind him? Perhaps a year? These things all ran through Adolphus's mind as he calmly moved his things into his private room from the barracks he hardly ever saw the inside of. Maybe he would start using this room. It was private after all, and it had a lock. There was a decent view of the training grounds if the Siswai and Manshima decided to roust the monster form their midst. (A perpetual fear that, and a potentially ugly one to boot.)

Adolphus decided that he didn't know what was going to come his way, but that what ever it was he needed to be prepared. And so he gathered every last piece of gold he had pilfered, earned, and saved in his time at the tower and prepared to go to the place where his memory first began. There would always be an orphanage in Darhien if Adolphus had anything to say about it, and he sure was going to try and make his voice heard.

M'am wouldn't want the kids going hungry, and I don't either. They could curse him and chase him away if they wanted to, but the donation would be made all the same. He thought about going to ask Kristal to hide his eyes, to use the power the way Alhanna had once done to make his eyes look green again so that people would not run at the sight of him. He dashed the thought aside quickly enough though. He would go as he was, as what he had become, and not as some parlor trick pulled to hide what he was. He had become proud of it in recent years, and wasn't the least bit shy about using his abilities to his advantage. So why should he hide their source from the world?

Adolphus moved through the streets of Tar Valon like a snake and made his way to the bridge he had never dared to cross in all these years. He knew that from the peak of the bridge he would be able to see the roof of the orphanage, and after the first step, he burst into a run so that he might see his home sooner. But what he saw brought no joy to Adolphus's heart. It brought anger, and fear, and rage into his heart and mind. Fire was blooming just past Darhien, and it was the orphanage that was on fire. Adolphus let out a Howl of morning that was echoed in the forests beyond and from the Tower grounds as the picture in his mind slammed into the minds of the wolves. Adolphus set off at a run.