My father was a warrior, skinner and fisherman. He knew death in all its forms, but still the death of my mother crippled him. Dying in childbed is not a thing that elven woman normally do; but none the less, this was how I lost mine. My mother, so Im told, whispered my name as she drew her last breath, granting me the gift of life she was being taken. The midwife and her best friend Elanora took me away, knowing that I was in dire danger so close to my father. His scream of despair followed her fast steps away from the grove and it was said to be heard all the way to Astranaar. My father went mad and vastly left alone by the other villagers, he let himself be engulfed by his deep sorrow, while Elanora took care of me. When the darkness seemed to lift from his mind, I was returned to him to be his comfort in his grief. That was not the case. On the contrary.
So I was brought up by everybody else in my tiny village in Ashenvale, Elanora and her family becoming my closest relations. The first many months of my life I remained nameless, the villagers hoping for my father to reveal my true name. But he kept silent. As time went by my love for everything green, growing and glowing gave me my name and people stopped thinking about, what my true name might be. Not knowing better, I had a childhood that I remember as happy, though always lacking something. I spent most of it everywhere else than at my own home and slept many nights in the home of Eleanora. Her daughter Tayanita playing the role of my elder sister. She was the cause of much turmoil and problems and many also believed my fathers incapability to love me to be her fault. I don't know. When I was ten, her mother gave up on her and she was send to the temple of Elune to be trained as a priestess.
The death of my mother, and me being the cause of It, put a canyon between my father and myself. It was never bridged, though I tried all kind of things to make him just notice me. Not long time ago, it seems, I came up with a new scheme to earn my fathers love. I had sucked knowledge from the midwife and everybody else for years, and knew every plant around the village. So I ventured out to gather specimens, collecting them in a small volume I proudly and childishly called Greensleave's dictionary of woodland plants". Little did I know, that my mother, being one of the most skilled and widely sought herbalists of her age, had done the exact same thing with the help of my father. Together they had travelled the known world to make a grand volume, that Eleanora continued expanding after her death. My childish and clumsy attempt to, unknowingly, follow in my mothers footsteps was what made it clear to even my father: I was the spitting image of my mother - right down to her druidal talents for herbalism, shapeshifting and healing. He didn't say anything, just looked at me with such a hate in his eyes as I had never witnessed before. Fear struck me, as I backed away from his mighty figure, not daring to loose eye contact. Then he crumbled. For the first, and only time, I saw him weep, silently. Then he got up, collected his belongings and left, not even looking at me. Though never mentally present, I had at least had him in my life, always with the tiny hope of one day achieving the acceptance and love that every child needs from her parent. Now even that dim hope had vanished together with his presence. I sat down and wept, my heart being broken by the one person it should never haven been broken by.
I do not know for how long I said there, time eludes me, but I was brought back to reality by the sound of the door squeaking. The light of the sun was blocked by a figure, I briefly hoped to be my father, but it was only Eleanora. She sat down besides me, wiped the crusts of many dried tears away from my face and looked sternly at me. ""You must leave now"", she said quietly. I couldn't believe what I heard. Not only had my father left me, but now I was send away by the only person who had ever cared for me! "I cannot take responsibility for your training. You are almost grown up an it has been put up for much too long, us hoping for you and your father to come together before you had to leave. But now that hope has ceased and you must take your life in your own hands!" She took my long, slender hands in hers, squeezing them assurantly saying "You will become what you have always been destined to be: a druid knowing the plants of the world, commanding them to your aid in times of need and using them to the benefit of others. You will be able to travel everywhere in the shape of whatever animal fits the best. You will know, use and cherish the gifts Elune has given to you and perhaps" she looked at me with sorrow in her eyes "you will one day meet you father again, gain his love and find out your true name"
And so I set out to meet my destiny, knowing at least to be the child of Elune, the mother of all living.
