It must have also helped my outlook that I was very good at working with plants.  I talked to the crops, encouraged them to grow strong and healthy.  My parents told me that I had a verdant thumb, a kinship with plants, so to speak.  I also had my lucky stick, which had been in my possession for as along as I could remember.  I used my stick to help till the weeds from the fields, and I knew every knot upon it.  Together my stick and I raised many a crop to fruitful harvest.  My talents with plants were noticed by a local alchemist, who bought me to tend his own special garden.

    The parting with my family must have been terribly sad, for I remember little of it.  The tears of my youth must have wiped my memory clean.  I like to think of it this way:  Plants must set their seeds to the wind to find their own place to grow.  It was my time to fly upon the zephyrs and see where I might land.  Still but a girl, I went with the alchemist, knowing not what would become of me.

    The alchemist, who always told me to refer to him as Saoi, was not cruel nor abusive.  Indeed, he was kind and treated me well.  He had a garden of the most unusual plants.  They required quite a bit of extra care.  Blankets to keep them warm on cold nights, fish emulsions to feed their hungry roots, and plenty of attention.  Under my loving care, the garden thrived and bore many strange fruits over the deochs.  Saoi must have taken a liking to either me or my work, for in my spare time he taught me to read and write, something most peasants never learn during their lifetime of toil.  Saoi even taught me the most basic of magics, the divining of the time from the position of the sun and moon, Nis.  Perhaps Saoi felt guilty about having purchased me, taking me from my family.  Perhaps he thought of me as his own daughter.  Saoi wasn't one to share his feelings, but he did share his knowledge.  Whatever Saoi's reasons for his actions, I was secure with my place in life.  Saoi was my family now.  Tending his garden was now my purpose.

    I know not what Saoi did with what he took from the garden.  Sometimes he requested I even save some of the slugs and other parasites that wandered into the small field.  Whatever it was he made, he felt sure there was a market for it.  One season, after Saoi had just finished tinkering with the fruits of the garden, and was ready to take his products to market in Mileth, he asked me to join him, to my surprise.  Perhaps he felt as though I was a part of his family, as much as I felt he was a part of mine.  Perhaps he was training me to continue his work after him.  Regardless, Saoi was offering me a chance to see Mileth town and sleep in an actual bed.  What more could a peasant girl want?

    The journey to Mileth Town was uneventful.  Saoi said little, but did allow me to ride up with him on the seat of the cart.  We booked a stay in the local Inn, and Saoi went out to sell his wares somewhere in town.  Being tired from the trip, I decided to take a nap in a bed far softer than the pile of straw to which I was accustomed.  It was the most comfortable place I had ever been, and I quickly fell to slumber and entered the realm of dreams.

    Safe and secure in the Mileth Inn, I dreamt a dream most strange.  I dreamt of apples and wax, of mice and mold.  It felt as though I was being prepared for something.  Knowledge was being imparted to me from some divine source.  To what end I could not say.  As is the way with dreams, you simply do what is being done, however strange.

    I awoke to a whole new world.  Indeed, it was the same as when I had fallen to slumber, but the fairie light swirling about me seemed to make the world look more vivid, more alive.  Saoi has spoken to me of this phenomenon, but I had never dreamed Deoch would choose me to become an Aisling.  Suddenly the purpose of the dream was clear.  I was now one of the chosen, one of the lucky few who were destined to help change the world.  It was as if I was reborn.

    Saoi returned from his errands shortly thereafter.  With jubilant glee I told him of what had transpired.  When I had finished, he looked deep into my eyes.  He told me that I had an obligation now.  Saoi told me that as he had purchased me from my family, Deoch now had taken me into the service of light from him.  With a smile upon his face, he bade me farewell and wished me the best.  Still flustered with excitement, I left the room and Saoi behind me, toward a life full of new promise.  I started my new life with only the ragged blouse I had always worn and my beloved stick.

    As is the way with waking from a dream, I recalled only the last moments clearly.  I was to find a guide.  Someone to teach me the ways of Aislings, and aid me in my hour of greatest need.  I spoke to the innkeep, a lovely lady named Riona.  She turned from her reflection and spoke to me of Mundanes and Aislings.  She hinted at where a guide might be found for a new Aisling like me.

    Filled with all the hope and promise of a newly sprouted seed, I set about finding a noble Aisling to guide me upon a path.  Alas, my joy quickly faded.  Aislings, the chosen of the gods, were all apparently too busy to help a new Aisling.  Their quests and glory-seeking were seemingly of paramount importance to them.  These were the children of light?  After many moons of being ignored, I decided to seek the gods myself and swear myself to their way of life.

    The Temple of Choosing held many strange wonders inside its walls.  To my chagrin, my destiny was not encased therein.  The servants of the gods told me that I was a fool.  A guide was required, they told me.  I wondered for a while how it was that the first Aislings chose their path when there was no guide to set them upon it.  The servants had no answers for me.  My pleas fell upon deaf ears.  Disheartened and alone, I left the Temple of Choosing nearly in tears, and sat upon its steps.

    I stared at my only friend in the world, my stick.  Thoughts of self-doubt and shudders of unworthiness coursed through me.  Was I not good enough?  Why would nobody guide me?  Why had Deoch blessed me with the gift of divine light if I could not use it?  Was I not now an Aisling?  As I sat there, wilting like a plant deprived of nourishing water,  I suddenly came to an epiphany.

    My stick was the simplest of instruments, yet with it I had tended entire fields of crops, nourishing them to fruition.  Fancy tools and tricks were not required to accomplish a task; A strength of purpose, if great enough, was all one needed.  As I had often heard, mighty oaks from humble acorns grow.  Deoch had chosen me to be an Aisling as a simple peasant, not as a warrior, priest, or any other vocation.  I had my stick, after all.  Many a garden pest had met its doom at the painful end of that stick.  I had never met an obstacle that my beloved stick and I could not overcome.  It was all so clear now.  I was not able to find a guide because I was not meant to be guided!  I would be a peasant Aisling!  I would fight with the strength of my body and mind to beat back the spawn of Chadul from the face of Temuair.

    I started humbly, helping the Mileth mundanes with their chores.  I chased down rats for their fungal droppings.  My mighty stick beat spiders to bits so I might harvest their eyes and silk.  Wasps in the wasteland came to fear the sound of my stick slicing through air with all the strength I could muster.  Then, one day, after many days of fetching sticks for the local smith, he rewarded my efforts with the most befitting gift:  a new stick made of mighty oak.  With the love of the local mundanes as my fertilizer, my heart grew strong.  My strength also grew like kudzu, along with my determination to prove that I could make my way in the world without a guide.  I learned to make use of a shield.  Gauntlets and greaves protected me from the thorns of battle.  I safely stored my oak stick with the higgler, that I might replace sticks with swords.  I also found others who walked the same path as the one I had chosen.  We supported each other where others would only scoff.

     As my abilities continued to bloom, other Aislings took notice of me.  A peasant wielding a mighty sword meant for warriors draws some attention.  I merely thought of the sword as a heavier, sharper stick.  But it did show others how far I had progressed as a "mere" peasant.  Strangely enough, they started to ask if they could be my guide!  Now, they wanted to "help" me?  Where were they when I was crying out for a guide?  I was as ignored as a common weed when I was a newly reborn Aisling, doing only as bidden, seeking a guide to help me understand the gifts Deoch bestowed upon me.  Now that I had blossomed into a rare wildflower, they sought to claim me?  I could only laugh at this.  My destiny was clear to me.  Being guided was not a part of it.

    Come what may, I will continue on the humble path of the peasant.  I will continue my fight with my own strengths.  Make my own path.  I shall be the simple stick that beats back the pests from the fields of life.