Lockial Draenara's Storybook of Heroes

Wildmother's Grace

One day there was a woman who loved nature like no one else. She tended to all things arboreal, beastial, and everything in between. Dedicated her life to it really.

Then, she became dreadfully ill, her children, of which she had five, all went out in search for a cure.

The first, her eldest son, went to the city of Emon, and asked the priests and herbalists of that great city to see if they knew of the disease. They did, but the cure would cost him, dearly. The son, being from a poor, simple life, could not hope to amass the coin needed for the cure. But he still tried, he would work from before dawn, till far after dusk, to earn enough coin. Eventually he bought the cure, and took it straight away to his mother, but his mother, upon looking at her poor son, who had worked himself nearly to death, caused her to go into a fit of greif over his condition, all because of her. This grieving made it nearly impossible for the cure to work. And so the son's efforts were wasted.

The second, her eldest daughter, went to Syngorn via connections her friends had made with some of the elves there. It was a long and arduous journey, full of perils and many losses. Bandits repeatededly attacked their poor caravan, and the soldiers they had hired to protect them started to be picked off slowly by the increasing attacks. Still they went forward, until there was a terrible storm, in which, bandits came again, for the last time. Under the cover of darkness and their movements quieted by the rain, they killed the last of the guards and killed the girls. Taking all of their possessions, which, sadly, was not much at all. In the morning, all that was left were their bodies laying limply on the wet earth.

The third, her adoptive half-elven son, went out into the nearby woods to find herbs that could slow the progression of the disease. Milkweed, lemongrass, buttermilk, moonflower, nothing worked. Day after day, night after night, he tirelessly went out into the woods. His mornings were spent brewing new tonics and teas, his afternoons, tending to his mother and littlest sister, his evenings he spent out gathering herbs, and his nights he planned new routes in the wilderness, wrote up new recipes for anything medicinal that could help, and tried and failed to sleep. His usual cheerfulness was sucked dry by this routine, the spring in his step gone, and hs mother noticed. She urged him day after day to relax, to sleep, and to leave her be. One day, he didn't come back for supper after his evening gathering. The house was quiet, and empty, save the mother laying in her bed and her daughter reading. And she weeped, because she knew that he wasn't coming back. One of the townsfolk came the following day to tell her that they had found her son's body in the woods, lifeless.

Her fourth child, an apprentice sorcerer, began working on a spell that was meant to cure all diseases. It was a slow process, tedious, as each step needed to be checked again and again. But every problem that he solved, a two new problems replaced it. The days, the weeks went by, and little progress had been made. Eventually the spell was complete, and he looked for someone to act as a test subject. Finding no one, he turned to himself. He went to a home for the sick, and purposefully caught as many diseases as he could, confident that his spell would work. Hearing that her son was helping out the sick, his mother was overjoyed to know that he had found purpose, and was using his spells for good. Her son however, was not exactly doing that. After he became dangerously sick, he cast the spell. At first it worked, he could feel his stomach lighten, and the headache disappear. But then he felt the searing pain, and he knew then that he had failed. He was dead before his body had even hit the floor.

The fifth child was a little girl of only 11 years. She was an avid reader and so did what she did best. She went to the library and researched her mother's affliction. She asked others who had studied disease what they thought it was, and she researched. She would read mostly at home, that way she could take care of their mother when her brother wasn't home, and so she could check her mother for any of the signs mentioned in her books. She took notes, gathered samples for her brother, and read. Whenever neighbors came by she shooed them away, accepting their meager gifts. And still she researched. Every waking moment was spent with her nose shoved in between the pages of a book. The only time she put down her book was once. And then she never picked it up again.... it was the day that her mother died.

She had died after hearing the news of her daughter's death. News was slow to travel. All of her children, save her youngest daughter and her eldest son, had perished. And yet she persisted in living. Her sweet daughter, gone to get help from elves, murdered on the road. Her adopted son, the meticulous boy, mauled in the woods by some animal. Her youngest son, all his promise, his bright future, self-extinguished. She could not bear it. And making a final prayer to the Wildmother, her old heart gave out.

She was buried under the oldest oak in the village. And her two remaining children left, for they could not bear to see their once-beautiful home and be constantly reminded of their mother, and of their siblings. They were never heard from again...

But their mother, who was so close to nature and all of its wonders, who had dedicated her life to the Wildmother, was said to not truly have died. Some say that the Wildmother blessed her, and made her soul one of the immortals. Forever to be reincarnated into this wonderous world. Maybe one day you'll notice a deer's eyes looking at you, in a way that's not that different than our own, and you'll know...