"I have a gift."

Such were the words of a sage in the western wilds, and true was his
promise. A twisting of vines and a circlet lay in his hands. A quick
threading of rare blooms and a delicate, elegant corsage rested before
me.

Long a student of the herbal arts, I mourned the loss of my estate. The
garden there held years of research: plants, shaped, through
generations, to arcane goals, sprouted beside the natural toxins of the
land, blossoming in a brilliant, deadly garden.

Under the druid's guidance, my knowledge flourished, and the simplest
scrutiny of growth was suspect to analysis. Oddly, as this perception
came to me, so did strange thoughts - violent, powerful images of
hunters rending life from limb, alongside the pulse-quickening chant of
the hunt, mingled with the soothing croons of the Life restorer. It
quickly became clear that work with the herbs and flowers threw me into
a violent and antagonistic trance - a dangerous thing, one which I
struggled out of quickly.

But we do odd things for love, and the tending of the growth called to
me. Cautiously, I worked my ways through the trials, gaining the rare
skill of floristry. As a salute of respect, I was gifted with a rare
delphinium bloom - careless, I inhaled, and my world upended.

To many, the flower is merely lovely, with a heady scent which hints at
sleep. To a former Syssin, who has spent years working with the toxin,
decades with it leeching into their skin, but now - exiled - years
without, the effect was near deadly. Sleep claimed me with violent
claws, dragging me down into the bowels of the dreamworld, and holding
me there captive for ages.

Finally struggling out of the toxin's baleful curse, I emerged, changed,
more aware, attunted to the most simple ticks in the land's scale of
balance. My eyes watched the movements of the world, and I chose,
finally, on my path: Nature itself, the realm I was rarely and divinely
Talented in, a route forged by few.

My prior observations on the Hunter are, of course, drastically
different from my current view.


Penned by my hand on the 16th of Variach, in the year 249 MA.