Walnut, Cleric of Lucifael


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"A name for our young one?" asked Aeran, cradling his dear wife in her arms as she lay in the grasses under the tree. She, in turn, held a newly born child, a girl with a dark shock of hair on her crinkled face. She slept now, the little one, the hard work of being born having exhausted her. Here in her mother's arms she felt comforted from the cold world. Drianna looked up into her husband's eyes. "Here, my love, she looks so small and curled up. Yet she will grow strong as this tree we lie beneath. Let us name her for it, which has sheltered us from the rain this very day."

Parents can be so unintentionally cruel.

Born in troubled times, as there have always been in Llyonne, Walnut grew in the care of her mother and father, seeing Light in everything, seeing the wonders of the world in the small area they called home.

Every day her father took her for walks outside, and she grew healthy and strong in the breeze. They visited the walnut tree, and Walnut knew that it was her tree. When she learned to talk, she talked to it in secret. She told it all her dreams and hopes, and always felt that it listened to her.

She never thought it odd until she was five when she met some other children for the first time. "Yer name's..." the boy taunted, laughed at her, "Walnut???" The others joined in with taunting her for her name. Before long she ran crying to her mother, but as much as Drianna coaxed, she could not get the little girl to tell her what the children were saying. From that night on, Walnut never spoke to the tree again, always hiding inside her feelings and dreams.

By the time a few years passed on, her parents grew worried at the serious and studious track she had taken to. Sure, Walnut still ran and played outside, and by now took on her fair share of the farmwork. Still, they felt that something was not right, and thought perhaps to have her join her cousins in the city. "After all," said her father, "Walnut should have more friends than just the animals we tend." Her mother agreed, and with sadness, Walnut departed for the city.

Indeed, for a time, Walnut did brighten a little. The city of Gaellen offered much to be seen and a natural curiosity overcame at first her shyness. Still, she did not speak much to those she did not know. Her cousins, being a few years older invited her along with them, but often did things which she did not yet understand. She took to following around Thaeben most of all, the closest to her age. He aspired to be a Cleric, and he spoke to her of the greatest of all duties to one's calling to heal and to help those in need.

When Walnut was sixteen, she had begun her own study and looked to the sky and the trees and nature. She thought back to how her tree, the very tree which she had always thought protected her, how she had never spoken to it in all these years. And she wept.

Packing her bag, she told her Aunt and cousins goodbye, and struck out toward the countryside, toward the home she once knew. Her parents as always were overjoyed to see her, for she visited rarely nowadays.

"Tonight, mother, father, I must hold a vigil by the tree and seek guidance for the future," she told them solemnly. "I wish to become a cleric and look for the enlightenment I will need." Walnut took a small blanket and set it before the tree, leaning back into a crook in its trunk. She closed her eyes...

What do you want?Came the voice
Who... are you?Was her answer
Are you frightened?Came the voice
No.Was her answer
Come with me then.

A small light then existed in front of her, a pinpoint, growing larger and larger until she saw what looked to be a doorway in front of her. She walked toward it. Through the doorway she saw her yard, where she grew up though as through a haze. She saw her mother and her father tending to the gardens. She saw the goat, munching on the grass.

She saw the young boy. He turned to look at her. His eyes burned, taunted. She could hear the taunts in her head, ringing around back and forth. Ringing ... "STOP!!!!!" she screamed, lashing out at him...

Walnut woke from her trance, not remembering much of what she had seen. Around her the blackened ground stretched. She looked up, back at the tree, which had shrunk away from her, twisted. Fearfully, she turned to look at her parent's house...

It raged, burning fiercely. Quickly she ran to find them, to find her parents... she stopped short as a man's voice said quietly behind her. "I will teach you to control your power." Walnut turned slightly, to see a handsome man wave his hands. The flames engulfing the house disappeared. Quickly she ran to the house. Her parents lay inside, unconscious. Quickly she dragged them outside but nowhere was the man to be seen. "Help me..." she whispered. "Please... please wake up..." She felt her hand tremble of its own accord. Soon her parents were breathing again, their hair singed.

Walnut looked up as they awoke, seeing upon the hilltop the man gazing down upon them. After helping her parents rebuild, she sought out her new calling.