#audden

He was incredibly naive a first, even for a sapling, having to learn each new concept for the first time like a child rather than knowing the basics when he woke. The Firstborn and other sylvari tried to study and understand him, to unravel what he could be and what his existence meant for their people. The end? A new beginning? Audden struggled to connect with anyone, being prodded and monitored like a rat in a cage. As kind and polite as they were, the other sylvari still treated him as an anomaly, an "other." He grew to view the Grove as nothing more than a beautiful prison, and quickly became frustrated with sylvari society, the Grove, and the Pale tree who claimed to care for him, despite there clearly being no bond between them at all. He felt no love for her, and no love from her. He knew he was wrong, out of place, too different from anyone to be happy-- like a cuckoo egg left in a sparrow nest to be raised by strangers, he grew to fear the idea that he wasn't sylvari at all, but something planted there. A parasite, left to feed on resources not meant for him and grow. He worried that he could belong to the Nightmare he'd heard about, that his true nature must be something twisted and evil. Or perhaps he was something even worse, something that would wipe out these kind, well-intentioned people who seemed to want so badly to help him connect with their world.

He wanted nothing more than to run from the Grove, but feared that doing so would allow the Court to find and take him. Eventually, too miserable to remain in one place any longer, having Ventari's teachings drilled into him and told his nature, he ran away, creeping out of the Grove and fleeing to the south. He managed to evade Courtiers for a time, but was ultimately too naive to make it far and stay out of trouble.

Lychen of the Pale Sentinels picked him up. Audden couldn't trust him at first, not as another sylvari, another of "their" mother's children, or perhaps a Courtier -- it is often hard, upon meeting Lychen, to tell if he's a good person to put your faith into or not. Lychen earned his trust through sheer disinterest, and Audden was eventually willing to travel with him to the Sentinels' headquarters and go before Lacrimosen. Lala saw in him an opportunity to further the reach of their organization, as well as something to strive for--but Lychen warned him that Audden had already spent his life being studied, and that such lab-rat treatment was the reason he'd run away; treating him as any kind of anomaly was certain to drive him off. He further suggested that since Audden was, in a big way, untouched by the Dream or the Nightmare, leaving him be and watching from afar would be a better course of action to see how an uninfluenced Sylvari might develop-- a sort of control experiment.