bug_a_hug

Cordelle was born to loving Wood Elf parents whose first few children had already grown and left the home, and she spent her childhood in their little cottage, hidden away in the woods, surrounded by mushrooms, moss, and ancient trees. In her earlier years, she would run barefoot through the forest, picking mushrooms as fast as she could, racing her father to see who could gather more for supper. Her mother would never acknowledge it if she won, preferring to keep her child humble. Small things like this would eventually lead Cordelle to develop a desperate urge to gain affection and praise from those she looked up to, whether it be peers, her parents, or even strangers passing by. She remembers the day her father collapsed in the woods, on their daily mushroom hunt. His illness left him bedridden for months, and he never recovered from it fully. Cordelle's mother would blame her for her father taking sick, always hinting that her urge to outshine him pushed him to the point of exhaustion, and constantly suggesting that she was to blame for her father's illness.

One day, when she was around ten, Cordelle had had enough of her mother's snide remarks and offhanded comments, and decided to simply leave the house in favor of sleeping in the woods, living like a vagrant. She would never fully abandon her family, though, as she constantly left bundles of foraged foods and occasional pouches of coins on the doorstep and her father's windowsill. She felt that keeping a distance between her and her mother was best, but she always knew her way back to the cottage, and would often watch the house from afar, making note of what she would need to bring the next time she decided to drop by and leave a little package at the doorstep or windowsill. Each package or bundle was left with a note in her scrawled handwriting, to make sure her family did not feel cut off from her, or worse, forget her entirely.

After leaving the cottage, she established a little hidey-hole of sorts, where she slept and kept her trinkets. She made sure to keep it very well hidden, in a place only she would find. In another hidden place, she tended to a small garden of sorts, where she tried to grow her own vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Her closeness to nature made it easy for her to propagate plants she held in particular interest, and she would find convenient shortcuts every so often, despite clearly remembering that those shortcuts did not exist before.