2nd Ymiden, 719
From the start of life
The garden.
As Faith knelt and pulled weeds from the ground around her herb garden, she did so without much in the way of thought or lucid consideration. After all, she'd done this a hundred hundred times before. She was a keen gardener and she enjoyed the almost-science, wrapped up in mystery of putting a seed into the ground. These trials, she had an excellent garden and she tended it with love. As she knelt there, Faith recalled the time, in Scalvoris, where they'd been kneeling in the garden together like this, planting. Padraig had been squinting against the light and it was right at the beginning of what she thought was Lightbane. It hadn't been, of course, not at all. Faith sighed, her hands moving to pull up more weeds and her mind wandering. Leaning back so that she was sitting on her heels, her eyes surveyed the scene.
She'd always had a tendency to take the blame for things, she knew this. To not argue, to go along and accept responsibility. It was very much her way of being in the world, and always had been. But now, she found herself in a unique situation. The War General of an Immortal, engaged in what she could only describe as an Unholy War. Or war against the unholy, certainly. Looking up at the sky, she smiled slightly and realised just how small and insignificant she felt. Too small, certainly, for any kind of responsibility, too tiny and insignificant to be of any use in this endeavour. As she lifted her head, Faith realised just what she was feeling and she found it a little strange, all things considered.
In that moment, she wanted her mother.
Yet, Faith had no mother. Not in any way which counted. The woman who had given birth to her had, within a break, sold her. That woman wasn't a mother, not in any way at all and, somehow, as Faith remembered her ~ with perfect, clear memory which came from Vri's blessing ~ still she wondered what it was that had meant she wasn't good enough. Not enough for the woman who should love her unconditionally, yet had traded her for a bag of coin. Even that thought didn't stop the sting of tears which threatened to spill from her eyes, though she blinked back and shook her head. There was no time for tears and she would not shed them. Yet, her children had no grandparents, no notion of their family history because of the actions of her parents.
It was all too much and she looked down at the herb garden and wanted, in that moment, to fling herself on to it, to shout and shake her fist at the world or to sob into the ground. "Well, I'm glad we're not feeling melodramatic," she muttered to herself as she realised that. Breathing in, she calmed herself and considered what it was that she was feeling here. As she did that, she examined her emotions with a calm, almost dispassionate expression on her face. She was overwhelmed with emotion, tired, and she wanted her mother.
Lifting her hand to her chest where the tattoo of a willow tree marked her as Moseke's Adored, Faith smiled. She wanted her mother and she knew who her true mother was.
