In Search of the Druidic Grove

[Joyau delaLune]

1st cycle of Craxaum, Spring

Joyau flew through the forest, happy to be in the beautiful mystical city of Natura. Everything she had experienced the last year and a half, made her appreciate the forest's ambience even more. There was a feeling of joy in the very air of Spring. Not since she left her home had she felt the absolute joy of Spring, like she did here.

She was dressed in a new yellow spring dress she had bought in Demios. The folds of it swished around her legs as she flew. Tiny gold slippers adorned her feet, not the sensible leather Mary Janes she had worn earlier in her meeting with the Thane. Although she had determined she would open up the free clinic in Natura, it was really the druidic grove she was searching for in the forest, the place where she would find the Archdruidess.

In Medonia she had witnessed the healing power of the druid. From the time of infancy she had known Diana was her diety; and she had pledged her life to her in service to the healing mission she embarcked upon when she had first traveled to Aelyria Prime to study healing and herbalism. Now she was conflicted. How could she gain the healing power of the druid in her mission and not anger Diana, her goddess. In her unbinding she had first felt the freedom of arcana flowing through her small body to learn Thaumaturgy. She had had no time to even practice her Thaumaturgy, though her new love, Uriel, was also a Thaumaturgist so she could work with him on that skill, but how was she supposed to go about balancing the two, Thaumaturgy and Druidism. Her heart was set on trying, plus learning more about herbs, how to gather, store and prepare the potions she read about and used in her healing. It was expensive to buy ready made potions, she wanted to learn to make her own.

Joyau knew she was an overachiever, however, there was a burden on her little shoulders, placed there by the hopes and dreams of her murdered parents, that she would fulfil the family prophecy of a girl child who would become the greatest healer in the Empire. Now, of course, there seemed to be no Empire, but the battle scenes she had seen in Taralon were still with her. The dead and the dying, the ones she could fix, and heal, and the one's beyond her experience to heal. Thousands of humans had died because of the limited scope of her healing. Yet by having the city put under quarentine she had saved countless others, and the herbs she had told the Governor to get from the other provinces, had kept the fever down so that many more lived. Still she was frustrated at her limited skill. Her ambitions were not only for herself, but for the hopes and dreams of her family.

As she flew through the beautiful peaceful forest though these troubling thoughts were a little lessened by the love which had come into her life. Could she relax her burden for a small while and enjoy the sensations of being a girl in love for the first time in her life. A part of her wanted this, yet a part of her felt just a little guilty for any distraction from her healing mission. She hoped she could find a balance in her life. Perhaps Uriel could show her a way.

But for right now, she felt she had to find the Archruidess. Maybe she would know how Joyau might meld her passion for healing with her devotion to her goddess, if there was a conflict.