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[Sylvan Sherwood]

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Sylvan grew up hating her family. They were a family of necromantic mages, and it never set well with her. Manipulating unseen forces seemed dangerous to her. When, as an adolescent, her family forced her to the world of Sosaria (by magical means that she could or would not understand), it was to her great dismay that their magic was so much stronger there. Everywhere she turned, it seemed, there were those who wielded some sort of magic or another. There were times she lay abed at night, pondering which was worse: the magic or the many non-human creatures, most of which were nothing but mere myth or ancient legend in her homeland.

The family made many attempts to bring her into their fold, and teach her, because she had strong abilities of her own that came through despite being in a world whose magic was weak and long forgotten by most 'modern day' people. As with the rest of the family, her own powers became stronger after the emigration. She could move things, and project thoughts and images to people, and other similar things--but it almost always came accidentally. The 'normal' kids who saw examples of her powers teased her and called her a freak. There had been an unfortunate instance in school once, where she was so upset by another child's cruel teasing that something unseen threw the child out of their seat and to the floor, causing terrible welts and scratches. The teacher dragged her, sobbing, to the headmaster's office--all the while telling her what an evil child she was. Her childhood was, in every sense of the word, a disaster. She became sullen and withdrawn. Those known as psychologists back in her birthplace might have called her antisocial and perhaps depressive and paranoid, because of Sylvan's inability to trust people in general.

Before the traumatic move to the desert highlands, Sylvan had turned to a faith called Catholicism in an effort to soothe her mind. She was tired of feeling like a circus side-show among the other children who were not of families like her own. Going to the church was a mistake, in that it only served to prove to Sylvan that she was evil and that her soul would be forever damned.

Coming to Malas was, by all means, good for the rest of the family. For Sylvan, it was only positive in the sense that she no longer felt surrounded by people who thought her, or her family, odd. But there was no church to turn to, no solace. She turned to sword fighting, and showed a natural prowess for the art. Then one day she discovered the way of the paladin, and their virtues. It seemed to her that by and large, in its purest form, their ways were the very same things she had yearned for her entire life. She embraced their faith.

Soon enough, Sylvan discovered that many paladins were hypocritical in their faith, much like those she had met back in London where she started her life. They professed to be full of virtue yet were able to justify the taking of human lives because of the fundamental differences between their beliefs and those of others. To Sylvan, all human life was to be cherished. It was not up to mortal men to judge the hearts or souls of others, or to force beliefs upon another. She believed firmly in free will, and the responsibility that went with it. Over time, Sylvan managed to merge her belief systems together in a way that worked for her.

Or so she thought.

No matter how hard she tried to suppress her natural born abilities, they refused to stay in the mental grave she created for them. Stressful situations, with increasing frequency, caused bursts of telepathic and telekinetic energy as well as bouts of precognition, and it always left her feeling distressed and tormented. These events began to cause sleeplessness, and terrible headaches that often were accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound. The headaches made her sometimes wish for death, and death she would have provided for herself had she not believed her soul would be truly damned if she took her own life. It became a vicious cycle, and there was nobody to turn to. Healers she visited often looked at her as if she were mentally disturbed.

It was during one such headache that she, by chance, encountered a contemporary of her mother's. Though she did not know the man, he seemed to know of her. The man seemed pleasant, and well educated. He had a lilting, almost musical way of speaking, and though it was not really her nature, she found it easy to open up to him. As the pain of the headache she was experiencing increased, Sylvan again showed her power accidentally.

But this man was able to see the thoughts she projected! He understood, and suggested that the cycle of her pain and her refusal to accept her powers somehow went hand in hand. He offered to help teach her how to control the powers so the fear of them did not dominate her world. The man offered her a medicinal plant to chew on, and take away the nausea that she was suffering, he made her tea that eased the pain--a tea he concocted after questioning her about her symptoms.

It was when the tears began to come that Sylvan felt the need to be alone. Tears were for the weak, and she refused to acknowledge the need to let her emotions come to the surface . . . especially in the company of another human being who she barely knew. She found she could not choke back the tears, and she begged the man's forgiveness and fled. As she bolted toward the door, she had a promising thought.

Maybe there was hope, after all.