I guess, the best thing to do is to start at the beginning. But whose beginning should I start with? My own, or the other’s? Should I start with Gaea, or Lucas. Perhaps I should start with Celeste, or maybe I should just start with my own story as the others have each told their own already. That sounds best. Greetings reader, I am Aria D’LaFon and I am the Crone aspect of Mother Nature.
My life was auspicious, in fact I should have never been born in the first place. However, mother persevered and father celebrated with joy when he figured out she wasn’t trying to pull a prank on him. There was a family curse, but I don’t know what it entailed. Mother never told me. The only thing she ever said was that I was a miracle and that both she and father loved me very much.
I was, sheltered, to say the least. Of course, any who knows my mother knows that this would be an eventuality as children are treasured beyond measure for my mother’s family. Of course, being my father’s only child, he coddled me as well. But to say I was spoiled would be a lie. My mother made sure that I knew spells and enchantments from the moment I could walk and speak legible vocabulary. My father tried to teach me the ways of the wild, but I am afraid that the lessons didn’t take that well in my early years.
But I digress.
It was shortly after my uncle Neor married the Guild Leader Exsie that I was born. She had conceived and gave birth to his twin children. Uncle Neor gave up on of his arms to heal Aunt Exsie when she nearly died from giving birth too early. That was the catalyst, I believe, to my own story.
Mother Nature had been cursed thousands of years ago, before everyone’s time but Uncle Neor’s and mother’s it seems. She had been cast to the Mortal Realm to live her life as a mortal. Gaia’s all over the different realms of reality found themselves displaced and living as mortals in various degrees. However, the one I am attached to married my uncle and gave him three children. She gave up her immortality for him, giving up all chances of becoming a Goddess again so that she can live the rest of her long life with Uncle Neor. Only their would-be happy ending ended when Uncle Neor’s enemies found her and their children and killed them at the base of her tree. The Tree of Life died the same night Aunt Gaia died.
No one knew where her soul went, all they knew was that it was no longer in her realm of reality. There were several who could feel the soul calling to them, the power begging them to come and take what they desired, but only a rare few answered the call. I was one of the rare few. At the age of five I felt the call so strongly that I could no longer sleep at night. I could barely eat. I would wonder off and only become aware of my surroundings when my parents caught up to me.
Finally, I could take it no longer. I begged my parents to let me go and search for this mysterious feeling that haunted me day and night. My mother agreed, only if my father accompanied me. I agreed, as did he, and we went out that very afternoon to find the reason I felt that something was calling for me.
As we traveled, I grew lost. Father tried to help me meditate on the feeling, asking it to show me where it was so that I could find it, but it reached out too quickly and I got a migraine and passed out. When I woke up, my father was cradling me in his arms, rocking me back and forth. While I was asleep, the…thing I guess I would call it at that time; I later found out it was the voice of the Crone aspect, sent more clear directions to the location of what called out to me.
I guided my father to a sick looking forest. The trees were black and twisted, bent over nearly double and they grew darker the deeper in we traveled. Father was nervous, I could tell by the way his ears kept laying back and shooting forward at the smallest of noises. The voices assured me the way was safe, that nothing would harm me, so I didn’t startle at the noises like Father did.
When we finally broke through the tree-line, we found the clearing in the middle of the trees was the healthiest we have ever seen, even the grass was so soft that I immediately took off my shoes and walked blissfully on the green carpet. A large flower, bigger than my parents house, stood in the middle of the clearing. It pulsated light and energy, I could feel that this was what I had been looking for. To the side, a sick deer stumbled into the clearing, and the flower turned towards the deer, a wave of light went over the beast’s body and as it did I could see the fur brightening, strength returning to the animal’s body. It’s eyes cleared and once more it was a majestic animal of the forest.
“Aria, I don’t think….”
That was the only thing I heard from my father as I walked towards the flower and reached out my hand. The large plant bowed down towards me, opening like the flowers at home do when the sun rises. In the middle sat what appeared to be a crown of yellow buds, the outside petals a mixture of pink and purple, green and blue. I could hear my father’s voice speaking to me, but all I heard was the soft chant, “home, come home. Home. Home!”
My hand was barely touching the flower’s center when I felt the power begin to infuse me. A burning sensation filled the palm of my hand, and I could feel my body lifting up as the power poured from the flower to my hand and the rest of me. Once more, I passed out.
When I awoke, there was a strange human-looking wolf-woman standing over me, a lion-like tail peeking over her shoulder. Some part of me recognized her, a strange voice in the back of my head telling me who she was.
“Interfering wolf-bitch. Let’s see how she likes being on top of a tree.”
The next thing I knew, after hearing those words in my head, the white-furred wolf-woman had dropped me and was sitting on a large stump. Her yelp ringed out in the meadow as she found herself sitting on the stump and I ran towards my father. The insidious chuckle from the unknown voice inside my head ringing.
Thus began my journey as the Crone.