Role

Chapter 1

Rallientha knew that today was the day she would welcome her new daughter into
the world. Just as she knew that she would have a daughter and not a son. How?
She did not know, exactly. But she had felt connected to this child in a way
she could not explain, almost as if the child was speaking to her somehow in
the womb.

And it was so. A healthy baby girl was born, bleating its beautiful first cry
into the universe. As the midwife placed the baby in her mother's arms,
Rallientha gasped. The little girl looked up at her calmly with huge,
violet-colored eyes. Meeting those eyes, the mother felt as though she was
looking into the depths of some mysterious hidden realm.

They christened the child Nalaea'elan'thiannae. As the child grew, her
strange, calm demeanor continued. Her parents would find the child staring off
into the trees, as if transfixed by something they could not see. And the girl
was a natural with animals. Birds would fly down from the trees to land on her
small hands, the child's bright, violet eyes seeming to somehow communicate
with the beasts silently.

Concerned, Nalaea's parents took her to the druids, who examined and observed
the child thoroughly.

"This child is special," the head druid told them. "She is a very rare soul. I
have never seen anyone like this one in my long life, but there are stories of
those like her. The tales say that part of her soul resides within the plane
of spirit. In a way, this child lives between the physical and spiritual,
equally rooted in each. And yet equally disconnected as well. She may learn in
time to be able to focus the part of her that lives in the physical to be in
the here and now, but her true nature will always be to live in-between.

"The stories further tell that elves such as Nalaea will find a natural
affinity with the animal kingdom. Animals have a natural sense of the
spiritual realm. And souls such as Nalaea will have a natural connection to
animals as a result."