Zenitha Saldun

About

Zenitha Sedai is approximately 100 years old with cinnamon hair and deep, chocolate eyes. She is somewhat plain to behold, but some of that is her cheerful, albeit eccentric personality. She continues to wear the styles of clothing reminiscent of her homeland in Tarabon, and donned in veils, jewelry and ornate dresses, she can appear rather exotic.

She does not involve herself in the politics of the White Tower, caring only for her research and academic pursuits. She sometimes references the incorrect Amyrlin Seat, having forgotten who is on the seat since last she noticed. Such blunders are taken in good measure, as Zenitha is such a cheerful, genuine person, nobody seems to hold a grudge against her long. In fact, most outside her Ajah find her to be slow-witted, naive, and outright silly. Within her Ajah, she is the author of highly respected theories about the nature of the Pattern.

Origin

Zenitha Saldun was raised in the gilded lap of Tarabon’s merchant aristocracy of Tanchico, among the ancient palaces overlooking the Aryth Ocean. The Saldun family, renowned for their extensive trade networks, provided Zenitha with a childhood wrapped in luxury and the cosmopolitan culture of one of the greatest cities in the Westlands.

Zenitha displayed an unquenchable curiosity as a child, often found exploring the vast, verdant gardens of her family estate or poring over the diverse collection of books in their private library. Her father, a sagacious trader of rare artifacts, occasionally brought home strange and ancient items, fueling Zenitha’s fascination with history and the arcane.

One such artifact was a bit of a stone with markings in a language believed to be older than the Old Tongue. Her father was told that the small, intricately carved stone shard was a fragment of a portal stone, and it captivated young Zenitha. Her father explained that according to legend, these stones were once used for instantaneous travel across vast distances, even between worlds in ages long past, but that was the extent of his stories. The concept of such stones and the mysteries of how they worked sparked a deep-seated desire in Zenitha to understand the hidden workings of the world, the Pattern itself. She stayed awake at night staring at the stars, pondering the meaning of existence itself.

As Zenitha grew, so did a discreet ability to channel the One Power, a talent noticed by a visiting Aes Sedai who recognized the spark in her. Excited, but nervous, she left her comfortable life in Tanchico to train at the White Tower in Tar Valon. There, her insatiable curiosity for the abstract secrets of the Pattern was nurtured. She spent so much time in the library, everyone assumed that her future shawl would be fringed in brown. Yet she struggled to fit in among the novices. She often misjudged what others were feeling or going through, and demonstrated profound naivety in many areas of life, particularly outside the white tower. By that time, it was remarked by the Mistress of Novices, that if she ever made it to the shawl, only the eccentricities of the Brown Ajah would accept her. 

Aes Sedai of the White Ajah

Choosing the White Ajah was an unexpected progression for Zenitha. Although, in retrospect, her Sisters saw that the White halls aligned perfectly with her passion for research and discovery, not to mention she displayed the same oddity of behaviors they were known for. Within the tranquil, scholarly halls of the White, she devoted herself to the study of the Pattern and the theoretical underpinnings of the One Power. There was little she could do to prove her ideas, but she wrote, hypothesized, and philosophized about the workings of the Pattern itself. 

Numbers of Chaos

“The Lines that join the Worlds That Might Be, laid by those who knew the Numbers of Chaos” 

However, her childhood fascination with the fragment of a portal stone never waned; eventually, it evolved into a scholarly pursuit. Zenitha became convinced that the portal stones, relics of a bygone age, held the keys to understanding not just the geography of all worlds but the very fabric of the Pattern itself. She sought one members of the Brown Ajah who were aware of the lore around portal stones, and Zenitha would fall into long, philosophical conversations about their function. She was particularly obsessed with the notion of the Numbers of Chaos, and spent the majority of her life attempting to recreate them.

Only once did she leave Tar Valon, and that was to travel to her home town and review her father’s collection of artifacts. Among the counterfeits were some genuine, priceless items. Even one was a ter’angreal that she discovered only upon sensing its resonance with saidar. She was delighted to journey in the company of Sisters to Tanchico, all in Tarabon for various businesses of their ajahs, but upon returning home, they all (except perhaps the Brown) were exhausted by Zenitha’s exuberance and oddities. 

Rebirths

1st Age – Danika Zayed, theoretical astrophysicist

2nd Age – Selyna Mythea Atmosfera, researcher in portalistics

3rd Age – Zenitha Saldun, Aes Sedai of the White Ajah

5th Age – Nisaba, Sumerian goddess of knowledge, wisdom, writing and the heavens

6th Age – Urania, Muse of Astronomy