Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." .... I am no good....I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Lyavain had just returned to the garden courtyard behind Heart Notes where he was prepared for King John's favorite game of pretending to vanquish his oversized, lupine opponent. Instead of meeting an egotistical peacock strutting around, he was met with both of the peafowl squawking a panicked alarm. At the same moment, he overheard loud crashes and other strange noises spilling out of the windows from rooms above the parfumerie. All three were worried about their mistress. He was a streak of blurred white as his powerful limbs bunched up and then extended to launch him past the flurry of painted feathers fanning frantically in his path. He banged open the rear door, navigated the narrow turn and lunged up the staircase to the second floor where the chaos sounded like it was escalating with every padded step. He needed neither his nose nor his eyes to find his charge ? her distress was a blaring beacon that guided him to her side.
Lyavain shouldered his way into one of the guest rooms which Elessaria had transformed into a nursery after she had come to accept her pregnancy. A quick duck of his head enabled him to dodge a flying, silver baby rattle, but he was not able to dodge the stuffed wolf toy that smacked him directly on his left flank. It was in the center of this maelstrom, with all of the furniture upended and the room's contents swirling about as if caught in the cyclic winds of a tornado, he found the fragile elfess kneeling with the baby blanket Collie had gifted her clutched desperately in her tiny fists.
Earlier that morning, The Empath had decided it was time to take apart the nursery. She had thought she was ready. She had believed she was strong enough to face her fears and her emotions; her baby was not coming back anytime soon and there were children in need who could use all of the accoutrements she had assembled while waiting for his birth—that special joy that was stolen from her yet again.
Elessaria was wrong. It did not matter how many times she and Connar had jested only one night prior that she was always right. She had miscalculated her strength and abilities. The unease and the persistent sense of foreboding were just enough to threaten her confidence and eat away at the tenuous grasp she had on her emotions. They threw off the already precarious balance she had tried to maintain. Eless plummeted straight into the darkest depths of despair, drowning in a sea of surging sentiments without any of her empathic shielding intact. She was lost in the abyss, swirling without any anchor as each emotion pummeled her both physically and mentally. Her heart-wrenching wails hurt not only his sensitive ears, but his heart as well.
This was why their god had sent Lyavain to protect the Lady Fire of Evandar. He was not only to help guard against those of the Dark, but also to keep her from harming herself. He lowered himself to crawl across the plush royal blue rug in order to avoid being hit by broken bits of what had once been a mobile for above the rosewood crib. It did not matter how many times the intense anguish assaulted him, nor how many stray shards of stained glass sun catchers littered his path. He would not fail his mistress. When he reached her side, battered and bruised, he gently nuzzled her cheek with his large muzzle and then mutely rested his massive furred head in her lap. He would loyally remain at her side, riding each and every painful wave with her.
He would be her anchor in this storm.
