When I was a teenager, I'd always run away from my life as a proper lady.

Away from my parents.

Away from their arguments.

My escape, was the outdoors.

My mother hired a gardener, to tend to the plants and our land.

Her name was Ceilo.

Spanish for sky.

And each day she'd watch me run outside into the gardens to reminisce in the sweetly scented plants and cool breeze.

She's the one who taught me about tenalach.

The relationship one has with the land, the air, and the water.

A deep connection that makes you one with nature.

She would show me how to sow the soil properly.

How to plant the seeds so they'd be fruitful.

How to cultivate the land respectfully.

She'd always been taught that a connection with your environment around you was key to living a long and full life.

She explained that mother nature is one of the strongest forces in our universe, gifted with the ability to destroy an entire village if she so pleased.

Because of this, it was crucial for us to be respectful to mother nature, just as my mother taught me to be respectful to my elders and nobles.

She told me the Ardenian's had once believed this themselves, their spirits the perfect representation of tenalach.

But those spirits had been destroyed the second Rochdale invaded their land, destroying the tenalach connection they had, as well as their beliefs.

Now, she said the Ardenian's believed such a connection as one they had could never be rebuilt, and they'd given up on tenalach entirely.

So I took it upon myself to learn the ways of tenalach.

There was a reason people always believed me to have a free spirit.

Because I was one with nature,

And she was one with me.

I took the most pleasure in the wind, and rain, and strong ground beneath me.

Without tenalach,

Who could be sure what'd I'd be?

-Brianna Cecille Blades