Bay’s Story Time – Mindsoother’s Strength

The Soul Healer’s gift isn’t the only story we’ll tell. Here, now, is part five of the legends series: the story of the Mindsoother. This tale will bring us closer to Sorcha by introducing her nearest and dearest friend in all of Ireland, Skye and Avalon combined.

Mindsoother’s Strength

Now, I’ve told you of the soul healers and the druid Queen and her children. But that’s only one small part of the druid legend. Only the very beginning of the story.
The mind soothers are a far more rare breed than the soul healer’s, for it takes a great deal more strength to survive what a mind soother comes in contact with.
Often times, a troubled mind is harder to heal than a troubled soul.
You see, for either a soul healer or a mind soother to use their skills effectively, the person they intend to heal must be a willing recipient of their gifts. Someone with soul wounds may well be willing, while someone with a troubled mind may well be so lost that they don’t wish to be helped.
The Druid Princess had a handmaiden who devoted herself to taking care of the princess even though the druids lived as equals on Skye.
Her name was Aìne of the clan known today as Walsh. She had grown up alongside Sorcha, taught like her princess to treasure the gift she had been born with and use it to help those in need.
For we have been blessed that we may help.
Aìne worked hard to learn her gift. She helped many warriors forget about what they had seen in battle and many men and women remember things they had thought long forgotten.
She learned to mindwalk, to tread another’s thoughts and memories. Often, when the Princess felt it wasn’t safe to voice her thoughts or simply couldn’t bear to, Aìne would mindwalk, read what the Princess was thinking.
Many nights, Sorcha and Aìne would be found sitting side by side, both entranced as Aìne would search the Princess’s mind and soothe her nerves.
When asked, the Druid Princess would tell you that Aìne was her strength. That her handmaiden was the reason she was able to be the Princess her people needed.
But Aìne had to work at her gift to be as skilled as she was. A Mindsoother’s risk is perhaps the greatest of all.
If she is in contact with a troubled mind too long and without proper shielding, it will slowly drive her to a madness she doesn’t control. Only the strongest among the mind soothers truly escapes unscathed, the rest bear others’ scars upon their minds.
One night, after Aìne had begun traveling with Sorcha and the women of her council, she found herself listening to the tales of a warrior who had seen many battles, his dreams plagued by the lives he had taken.
“I can help,” She had whispered, reaching for his hands, “If you’ll be willing to let me. And if you don’t mind a bit of Magick.”
“Your Magick keeps my wife close to my soul and protects her from what I’ve been through,” The warrior laid his hands in hers, opening his mind to Aìne’s Magick and her healing.
In the moments their hands touched, she had allowed her Magick to flow freely, healing the wounded mind of the warrior. He would still remember, but the memories would no longer keep him awake at night.
In that moment, as she felt his relief before she withdrew from his mind, Aìne came to understand the power she held inside. The ability to give a troubled mind a second chance to live free of the shackles.
That very night, she shared her experience with Princess Sorcha, marveling in what she had felt and discovered about herself, much to the amusement of the older women who made up Sorcha’s council.
Soon, they would learn about the strength of the sense when women with two versions of the Irish sense worked together, how a mind soother and a soul healer could do more together than apart and that it was no accident she and the Princess had been brought together.