Blackfeather Woods I send a pestilence, a plague

AW but @Vaati @Koume especially welcome?

There was so much he had missed in his absence. So much that he failed to pay attention to.

His sister gone, Mother off to follow, eventually returning. The Dark Mistress fading away, and a new Master (who was once Master but dethroned) took her place with the woman's daughter at her side. All the while he kept to the Temple and the Redgrove and the Weeping Tree, the sacred, mystical places where magic thrived.

He had tended to Mother's herb stores as best he could, but he lacked the art and knowledge she had locked within her, and could not perfect the poultices and fetishes that she devised. When he wasn't staring at the sky, thinking, he trained, sparring with his nuncle. He had grown and was still growing, his body thickening with every session.

He wasn't sure what to make of himself yet. Everyone was so set on one particular path — spy, assassin, priest — but he felt himself straddling rather than following it straight forward. Why couldn't he be a warrior-priest? Why couldn't he be a Sorcerer-King?

He pondered this as he sifted through Mother's stores, organizing the new herbs as she had instructed, his life's goals distracting him.