This image is for Stacy, Iceshark. Stacey has been a friend of mine on this site for a long time and is a companion of the Goddess journeys. Blessed be dear Stacey and I hope that you had a fine day of it! Thanks to DoArte for this beautiful background, although Wayne may not recognize it as it has been heavily aged and mutated in my photoshop lab! A note: If I cannot get the phrase "Delphinium Order" into an image title they will be tagged D.O. for brevity. ------ Another find will rummaging in my Grandmothers attic. And this one, though a bit dark and badly stained is a real prize, for it is nothing less than a print of Lady Larkspur. She was both high priestess and Captain of the Delphinium Dragon Defenders during Anna's time. Lady Larkspur, she was highest of the dark elves and one of the few of her kind to become high priestess of the Delphinium Order. Traditionally, most dark elves kept to themselves, living in small clan units that roamed freely in the depths of the Black Forest. Not only were they solitary beings, they also preferred to be out and about from dusk to dawn. This made interaction with the gregarious Light Elves a might bit awkward. So the two groups would pretty much ignore each other for eons, only coming together in times of strife. And when such was the case leadership would typically fall to a Light Elf, as their clock was set to that of most of the other creatures and not coincidentally that of the humans. But Lady Larkspur was of the Nightshade family and as such she had a rare lineage that included members of both Light and Dark Elf nobility. Hence the suffix "shade" in her name, denoting a hint of light in this otherwise dark clan. She was very much of the Delphinium Order; her practice was as deadly as the rest of them. Lady Larkspur was given her moniker when she graduated into Knighthood as a Delphinium Dragon Defender. The flower Larkspur is amongst the most beautiful of the Delphinium family giving rich blue, purple, and red colors to forest edges on cold alpine slopes. But it is also the most deadly; a single bite into the plant can kill a full grown bull. Lady Larkspur earned her title for she was as lethal as she was beautiful. It was said that a single kiss from her could kill a man; any touch, uninvited, could prove fatal. And though skilled in steel, Lady Larkspur spurned such devices. She was always seen, as here, with just her wand, which constantly seethed and glowed with a rippling, radiating power- wound up like a cat about to strike. Oh yes, Lady Larkspur was one wicked woman package and the other elves knew it..you would be a fool, or dead, if you did not. And so Lady Larkspur, daughter of the Dark Elves, swiftly rose in rank to become the mightiest of the Delphinium Dragon Defenders. There had really only been one notable blight on her record. As was required of all newly pledged knights she had to go on a vision quest. Such journeys of solitude, to remote sites, typically lasted in the order of days or a week at most. Lady Larkspur was gone for a year. Everyone had assumed she was dead. But a year later there she was at the gates of the Delphinium Order demanding to be let in. When queried as to where she had been she refused all answer. Even the high priestess of the time, Abigale, could cajole no word from her. And so they let it be; it was to be just another mystery of this most mysterious of Dark Maidens. Previous

"The Mentor - Delphinium Order"