Sintiang, Stedding. A stedding located in the Spine of the World.
Sisnera, Darlin. See Darlin Sisnera
sister-mother, sister-wife. See Aiel kinship
Siswai. Aviendha’s leggy arch-necked gray horse.
siswai’aman. In the Old Tongue, “the spear of the Dragon”; Aiel men who wore a strip of red cloth around their forehead with a black-and-white disc above their brows, and who were dedicated to the Dragon Reborn.
Sitter. An Aes Sedai who represented her Ajah in the Hall of the Tower; each Ajah was represented by three Sitters.
Siuan Sanche. A Tairen Aes Sedai of the Blue Ajah and the rebel contingent, with an original strength level of 13(1); after being stilled and Healed, her strength level was 35(23). Born in 957 NE to a poor fisherman’s family, she went to the White Tower in 972 NE. Spending three years as a novice and three years as Accepted, she was raised to the shawl in late 978 NE, after the Battle of the Shining Walls; Moiraine was raised at the same time. Siuan was raised to the Amyrlin Seat in 988 NE, then the youngest to hold the post. In 999 NE, she was deposed and stilled. Her Warder Alric was killed the same day. About 5'5" tall, she was fair-skinned, blue-eyed and more than handsome but less than beautiful. After she was deposed and stilled, she looked young, about twenty-two or twenty-three, and no longer like an Aes Sedai. Men in Lugard considered her pretty, which astonished her. Her eyes could flash fire and bore holes in stone when she wanted them to. She had a fairly small ability with Healing, and she had the minor Talent of being able to see ta’veren; to her eyes, a ta’veren person was accompanied by or surrounded by a glow proportional to the strength with which he or she was central to the weaving of the Pattern. This ability was recovered after she was Healed from being stilled.
Siuan was novice and Accepted with Moiraine. The pair were very close friends. The two most common pairings of extremely close friends among novices and Accepted were between women who were from very much the same sort of background, and between women who were from what seemed opposite backgrounds. She and Moiraine began as friends who cried on each other’s shoulder about the hardships of being a novice or after a switching from the Mistress of Novices, and they eventually became pillow friends. This relationship continued after they became Accepted, and even for a time after they were raised Aes Sedai, though never again with the same intensity as when they were younger. As novice and Accepted both, it was Siuan who always took the lead between her and Moiraine. That startled Moiraine at first, until she decided that Siuan had been born to lead.
Siuan and Moiraine played a good many pranks, always together. They were caught for a number of these and punished together, so much so that it was said that if one was spotted waiting to go into the Mistress of Novices’ study, the other was already inside.
A great effort was made to clean up Siuan’s language when she was a novice, and it was apparently successful, but as soon as she gained the shawl, she reverted. In the same way, she apparently forgot many if not all of her deportment lessons.
As Accepted, Siuan and Moiraine were attending the Amyrlin, Tamra Ospenya, and the Keeper, Gitara Moroso, in the final hours of the Battle of the Shining Walls. Gitara had a Foretelling that the Dragon had been reborn, and fell over dead. Although Tamra did not encourage it, Siuan and Moiraine began the hunt for the Dragon Reborn as soon as they could. They were raised to the shawl soon thereafter, and Cetalia Delarme, the head of the Blue eyes-and-ears, chose Siuan to be her assistant, leaving Moiraine to begin the search outside the Tower on her own.
In her job, Siuan learned that all of the women Tamra had set on the task were being killed; she made haste to meet Moiraine in Kandor. After Moiraine defeated Merean of the Black Ajah, Siuan puzzled out that men who might be able to channel were being killed.
Siuan made her way back to the Tower and resumed working for Cetalia. It was a job that brought her information from every quarter of the world, not only hints as to the presence of the Dragon Reborn but also as to the presence of the Black Ajah. She was not pleased to go back; since she had run off without telling Cetalia and had left a large stack of reports behind, she was sure that Cetalia would hang her out in the sun to dry, and she was not far wrong. That was the beginning of her being pulled deeper and deeper into the politics of the Tower, with the eventual result of her being chosen Amyrlin only nine years later.
As Amyrlin, Siuan went to Fal Dara in 998 NE to see Moiraine and Rand, whom Moiraine had identified as the Dragon Reborn. Siuan kept the knowledge a secret from the rest of the Aes Sedai. That choice led to her deposition when Elaida became suspicious and led a coup. Siuan and her Keeper, Leane Sharif, were stilled and imprisoned. Min freed them, and with Logain, started out to find the rebel Aes Sedai. On the way, Siuan and Min, Leane and Logain took shelter in a barn in Kore Springs; when they were discovered, Logain hit the farmer, causing him to drop his lantern and set the barn alight. The barn and milkcows were lost; Logain escaped, but the women were taken for trial. Gareth Bryne presided, and they swore service to him long enough to repay the cost of the barn and cows. Siuan, saying that she intended to fulfill her oath, and the rest then fled when Logain gave them the opportunity. They learned that the rebels were in Salidar, and made their way there, with Bryne in pursuit.
When she joined the Salidar rebels, Siuan was welcomed warmly by many, for herself and for representing hope against what every Aes Sedai feared beyond death; just as many or more offered toleration or condescension or both, blaming her for their situation. She was no longer bound by the Three Oaths, though few knew this; she used her freedom to convince the Aes Sedai that Logain had been set up as a false Dragon by the Reds. She also convinced them that they needed a young, malleable woman for the new Amyrlin, one they could manipulate and guide. Nynaeve Healed Siuan, but her strength level was dramatically lower than before. In general it was believed—and rightly—that Siuan adapted to her new circumstances much less well than Leane. Siuan could accept that she was no longer Amyrlin and would not be, though barely. What she found almost impossible to adjust to was her greatly reduced status in the hierarchy; not only that she was so much lower, but that she reacted automatically to it sometimes, that she had to defer to sisters who before her stilling, even had she not been Amyrlin, would have listened attentively and accepted her suggestions as the next thing to orders. She did not like the lesser status, and she did not like the fact that she was beginning to accept it without thought.
When Egwene was raised to the Amyrlin Seat, Siuan was told to teach Egwene the protocols of her position, and became seen as somewhat attached to Egwene, but sullenly and grudgingly. In fact, she came to be a great help to Egwene. She kept the Amyrlin’s eyes-and-ears, showing the reports to Egwene, but Aeldene Stonebridge snatched the Blue eyes-and-ears away from her. Siuan’s attitude was improved by her relationship with Gareth Bryne—the two were in love with each other long before they admitted it. Because he loved her, Bryne insisted she work off the debt to him so he could keep her near him, agreed to lead the army for the rebels and offered that army to Egwene, whose one real supporter and friend was, it appeared, Siuan. Min had also had a viewing concerning Siuan and Bryne: that Siuan had to stay close to Gareth Bryne or she would die.
After Egwene was taken by Elaida’s Aes Sedai, she talked to Siuan in Tel’aran’rhiod and forbade a rescue attempt. When the Seanchan began their attack, however, Siuan and Gawyn decided to take matters into their own hands; Bryne agreed to help if Siuan bonded him as her Warder. They went into the Tower through a watergate. Bryne saved Siuan’s life, and she his; Siuan was convinced that Min’s viewing had been fulfilled. They succeeded in rescuing Egwene, although she was not pleased.