The Chronicles of Su-jii Spitfire
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A comely half elf knelt in prayer at a shrine in the Silver valley, meditating on the tasks she had alloted herself for that day. As she knelt, she solemnly intoned the following words:
"Chauntea hear my prayer, and grant me your succor for the trials of the coming day, your servant Ji"
Although it had only been a brief few days since she arrived in Jiyyd, the town at her journey's end, she already felt at home there. She had made friands among the locals and perceived a need in this place for the ministry of her Church- to grant succor to the tillers of the land and to protect the harvest that the bounty of the land should be rich.
She meditated on the kindness shown her by people she now considered friends. She remembered how Anna and her husband had shown her the ways about the land and treated her to the hospitality of their home; how Constantin had taken her to the beautiful Gypsy camp where he lived, to watch the music and dancing under the stars by the fire, and how his Dwarven companion had forged for her a skinning knife with his own hands. She remembered these acts of kindness and she gave thanks.
Her journey to this place had been a long and perilous one. Her home, an island in the Sea of Fallen Stars, was countless leagues away, but nonetheless unforgotten in her prayers. She prayed for the land there, and for her family, even as she prayed for the lands and peoples here, in her new home.
As a child, she had grown up in touch with the land. Her father, one of the settlers come to till the land, married one of the local Wood Elves, and for a time they were happy. When Ji arrived into the world, it seemed their home had truly been blessed. The three of them lived far from the nearest town, but within their household was contained the great joy and warmth that comes with love.
Her mother had not been well after the birth of the child however, and after the work of the second harvest since Ji's birth was done, she retired to her bed. She would not emerge to see the spring flowers- during that long winter, she sickened and died. Her father, stricken with grief, buried her according to the traditions of her people- and planted a tree into the soil of her final resting place, that her bones would feed the tree and the cycle of life continue.
Seasons passed, and the tree grew strong. As did Ji- as a toddler she had followed her father into the fields, emulating clumsily his movements with the scythe and the flail. A stick for her plow, the little girl had planted rows of beans and tended them. As a youth, she shared the work with her father, her skin browned under the sun, her muscles grew whipcord strong and her tongue sharp like her mother's. Her father's joy was contained within her growth- as the pencil marks measuring her height crept up the wall as seasons passed, so grew his joy and his pride in her. The two of them worked hard, and the farm prospered- the tree marking her mother's last resting place grew into a mighty oak, and gave them shade as they picnicked by the stream in the spring.
As she grew, it became apparent that the girl was special. She had what they called "the touch"- a talent for healing and a way with growing things. In time, as neighboring farms sprung up around them and a small hamlet grew in the valley below, people started coming to her with their hurts and ailments, and she salved them. They brought her sick plants and she coaxed them into life- they brought her cuttings which she returned as saplings. Then one day a priestess showed up at the door dressed in white and carrying a sickle. She looked at the girl and smiled. That evening as Ji slept, the priestess and her father talked long into the night.
The priestess became a regular visitor at the little farm on the hill- she brought books and little gifts for Ji, and supplemented her instinctive knack with growing things with her own education. It was thus Ji learned her mother's tongue, and how to read and write. During the long cold winters, the priestess stayed at the farm, and taught Ji what she knew of religion, history, physic and politics. As the girl grew into a woman, it was the priestess who passed onto her the knowledge of the mysteries of life.
When Ji celebrated her sixteeenth birthday, about the time of the harvest moon, the priestess called her aside from the celebrations.
"Ji, your father and I have been waiting for a time to tell you a thing. I believe that time has arrived."
The girl blinked and said nothing, and the priestess continued: "As I minister to the tillers of the land hereabouts, so do many lands require those of our Sisterhood to grant the succor of the lady Chauntea unto them. Your father and I wish you to travel to the Temple across the sea, there to take Holy Orders and join the Sisterhood yourself. You have the talent. The choice, however, is yours."
"But what will become of father, and our farm?" the girl asked.
"Place your hand on my belly, Ji."
The girl complied, and felt within there the stirrings of new life. Her eyes widened in shock.
"Your father and I are to be married. Give it thought, and I will ask for your decision the next moon."
The next spring, a man, his wife and their newborn child waved as a boat left the dock to cross the seas to the mainland. On the boat, a young girl dressed in white waved back.