Nothing big here, but I was reading through some of WH the other day, and came upon the chapter when Rand bonds Elayne/Avi/Min.

It was noteworthy, and pretty darn cool, as I had forgotten such a little detail (go figure!) as this: Min's POV after the bonding describes Rand's love/emotions as "veins of gold", multiple times. Thereby proving to Min that basically there was a human inside the cold sheepherder, and he did care!

This brings more power to TGS conclusion on Dragonmount, and as I said, I found it to be pretty darn cool. The title "Veins of Gold" at first didn't ring true with me, but after some re-reads, and now especially after the WH find, I think it's pretty special.

It's really going to be interesting to see how Rand reacts to each of the 3 women from here out, as the original veins of gold were for them, and TGS veins of gold were more or less for Ilyena. Clearly, the overall context was the issue of finding love again and having a chance to correct past wrongs. How that will shape Rands future interactions with the 3 should be interesting. Will he find just one of them to be the redemption for Ilyena? Will he see part(s) of Ilyena in all 3? Will he now expect to find a re-born Ilyena in one person? In all 3 women combined? Will he feel that loving/bonding/mating with all 3 is sufficient for "healing" past wrongs? Will he feel more needs to be done with them along these lines (perhaps this will lead to the impregnation of Avi and...dare I say...Min)?