Just off the North Trade Road, where the road forks to Westmark, is a waystation and a temple. The temple maintains the small waystation, but it also serves as a larger waystation for when more Heralds or travellers pass through, providing sanctuary for the few who might need to time to themselves for contemplation (as Priestess Scarlet once did at another temple). It saves on the land taxes by being a temple and by being the sole supplier of the waystation and for all the services it offers to Heralds. Priestess Scarlet used all her funds to purchase the land and build upon that space a temple, not perhaps what her family expected when she inherited the funds from a deceased relative. They felt she ought to have used to it gain influence at court, secure a good marriage, or maybe invest it. Owning land is a good investment… but for a temple?!
Those other things mattered not to Scarlet. She had always followed her heart, and this was her calling. She tracked the changing moon’s phases, noted the shifting energies, felt it call to her heart. The moon lit the darkness, or it became darkness when one should look inward. To Scarlet, it signified Wisdom in its most divine form. She secretly believed that it was this deity that sent forth the moon-white shining steeds that became the Companions. Break the shackles and live free. There is no one true way. Mottoes of Valdemar. These deeply resonated for Scarlet, and she embroidered them on long fabric scrolls that she hung in her temple. She vowed that all forms of light and wisdom, all forms of religion, held value and thought that it was just as possible to be devoted to such a broad concept as one who is devoted to a specific deity. And so, the Temple of Wisdom’s Light serves all religions. The temple has a small, attached inn and stable with kitchens and a common room. Above that is a second floor with more rooms, connected to the second floor of the stable that contains stable supplies. A covered open outside passage runs the length of the buildings from front to back between the inn and the temple proper. There are a few meditation rooms on the main floor of that main Temple building and a meditation space in the courtyard. The courtyard has a 20 foot wide walking labyrinth made of shining white stones. In the center is a large peach tree and a bench for sitting and meditating. A larger worship space is inside, and it holds an inner sanctum in the back that few have ever been in. That inner sanctum is painted all dark with a large meditation mat covering the entire 8-foot by 8-foot floor space. Above the Inner Sanctum was the greatest expense Scarlet had put out from her inherited funds. It is a domed skylight that captures the moonlight. On the other side of the Temple from the inn are a row of small rooms for clergy and a second floor with a supply room and two larger rooms that could be used for teaching or healing. A small collection of gardens growing herbs and vegetables and some fruits supported the temple, as did the moon peaches (as Scarlet called them, for they were paler than the average peach and the inner flesh was almost white). The best thing the Temple gardens produced was tea. The hills northward of the Temple grew rows of tea bushes. Past the gardens and beside the tea bushes and trees, was space for more buildings if they became necessary. For now, Scarlet did not construct more cloister rooms, nor staff housing. She prayed this temple would gain some followers, maybe some people to work the inn in exchange for room and board, and that it would be able to stay in good repair. Was it silly to think that if you build it, they will come? She hoped. She felt it was an ideal location, a crossroad (or fork) usually was. Her father, a good businessman, had suggested this spot when he realized Scarlet could not be swayed from her vocation, in case Scarlet DID give up this strange spiritual calling and turn the land into an actual business.
Scarlet’s family owned a successful vineyard outside Winefold. Scarlet was never interested in wine or wine-making… or anything to do with the family business at all. They specialized in sweet, iced wines of the white variety and had dipped their toes into making iced ciders with apples they would purchase in large quantities and left out to freeze over winter before fermenting. She had been educated by a local priest, Jaypheth, and adored every scrap of information he could offer her. This priest lived in a little temple on the far side of the vineyard where he taught all the children on the area in the standard ways of reading and writing and mathematics. He and her uncle were her whole world sometimes as her parents often travelled for business, family engagements, or to visit the court in Haven. She benefited most from the doting of her Uncle Paeder, who shared her disinterest in wine and the work to make the brew. He was quite elderly as he was actually something closer to a great great uncle. He loved stories, though never had enough skill nor talent nor gift to be a Bard. Scarlet loved to listen to his stories just the same, and later thrived on his discussions with the priest on topics of philosophy and faith. It was he who always told her to follow her heart. And when he passed, it was he who provided her with the means to do so, but that was many years later.
Scarlet has an older sister and brother. They are both very much older than her (12 and 10 years respectively). Her sister Sheyla is a stout woman standing at barely five feet three inches tall. Scarlet herself is only half an inch shorter and the two often sized each other up by height. Sheyla had long blond hair like their grandmother. She unfortunately came home pregnant one year and now refuses any husband, as the man who got her pregnant betrayed her and hurt her badly. She has chosen to stay home with the family and raise her daughter there (the daughter is but four years younger than Scarlet). Scarlet was named for her scarlet red hair, same colour as their mother. All three children have the stormy blue eyes of both their parents. Scarlet’s brother Tomrik looks just like their father, tall with dark red-brown hair worn very short because the only direction it wants to grow is sticking straight up. Tomrik will inherit the family vineyards and manages the business now with their father. Tomrik married a foreign woman with a flat face and dark slanted eyes. The have two sons now, after having lost the first in a miscarriage. Scarlet’s Uncle Paeder was by far her favourite person. He was old and wise, and she and he shared so much that you would wonder if they were bonded.
Some of Scarlet’s favourite things included reading and writing, exploring anywhere that would allow her to meet new people, riding, and sometimes painting or embroidery. She lamented often about there not being enough colours of ink to write with or complained of the lack of bound books for just writing in. So, she collected paper, parchment, and anything she could to make her own small hand-stitched booklets. It kept her busy, but she most wanted to learn more. Her very practical mother often said, “Anything in the world can be taken from you, except that which you learn. No one can take away your education.” If only she knew back then that Scarlet would hold to that so strongly as to not want anything but that education.
When she turned 12, her father took her to Haven and enrolled her into the Collegium. She donned her blue uniform with far too much excitement and enthusiasm. Here she had the opportunity to learn SO MUCH! She learned the Breath of Life techniques taught to Healers and anyone else willing to learn. This is something she intends to travel to Haven to relearn every few years so that it remains fresh in her mind, along with some basic field healing. You never knew when you might be the one to keep someone alive till a healer could arrive. However, she never learned to swim well. Deep water scared her, still does. Other courses she studied in the Collegium included: literature and lore, ethics, philosophy, religions of Valdemar, history, courtly etiquette, local politics, basic economics (which she was never particularly good at), business management, sciences, leadership, stewardship, and then a smattering of personal interests. Unsurprisingly, those interests centered around the making of paper, binding of books, cutting of quills, and the crafting of ink. She also deepened her education in religions, studying from any priest willing to teach her without officially dedicating her into their faith. She found a new interest while at the collegium: TEA! Yes, Tea. She studied everything she could of tea: its medicinal uses, its social uses, and its spiritual uses. She shared everything she learned with her Uncle Paeder, and it only enriched their discussions. He taught her critical thinking and logic, taught her how to ask the right questions and when. And he listened to any gossip or news she brought back from her time at the court and Collegium every time she visited home.
Scarlet graduated from the collegium as a Master Scholar. She wrote several treatises on tea with her mastery paper about the spiritual practices and used of tea within one religious tradition. As a Master Scholar, she tutored others for several years. While this may have been an excellent career, though not the kind that got her wed to a wealthy noble (as her family wished), it always fell short of satisfying her. She found herself always wanting to be in one temple or another, trying to find something that fit, something that filled in some empty space in her soul like a missing puzzle piece.
The calling in her heart grew too strong to ignore any longer, as did the frustration of not finding an established religion that matched what she sought. So, she decided to work out what her beliefs were for herself, founding in a way a new religion. She devoted half her time to this vocation, letting it grow and take on more shape, gaining more knowledge from more open temples and priests. When her uncle died, it felt like her whole world crashed around her. She stopped everything and retreated into a small hedge temple for almost a year to find inner peace. She thought that the loss of her uncle cut so deeply that she very much understood the pain of a Herald or Companion should one die leaving the other alive. Through her year of meditation, she concluded that she could indeed continue on. The moon still shone in the night as a guide. She came home to her family to learn that her uncle left his wealth to her, along with a few of his belongings and some sealed letters. She knew exactly what to do with the inherited funds.
Thus, now stands the Temple of Wisdom’s Light, a Sanctuary for all. A few people have passed through since the completion a year or so ago. One young man, Alex, has stayed, intrigued perhaps by the temple, and has engaged often in discussion with Scarlet on the matter of faith. He helps now with the running of the inn and temple. He is a tall young man with a long beard and shaved head. He enjoys tea as much as Scarlet, and he feels like kin when talking about religion and Scarlet’s own devotion. She has since created rituals for all occasions and even those for dedicating others into her religion, though has not yet offered to dedicate Alex. She is waiting for him to ask. Sometimes she questions whether she should wait for him to ask or whether she should ask him. She sits on the bench under the peach tree, contemplating this often.
It took Scarlet a full year from the time the temple was completed to set up a little ancestral shrine to her uncle. This whole endeavour would not have been possible without him. She had had a small plaque engraved with his name, date of birth, date of death, and a small epitaph: Follow your heart. She always kept a fresh cop of tea and the collection of his sealed letters on this shrine. One day, she might move it out of her room to the main worship room as a proper memorial. However, she was not ready to share him with others. She spoke to her uncle as if he were there and could hear her. She spoke to him almost as often as she did to the divine. She swore to herself that on the third Dark Moon from this moment she would open those sealed letters.
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