Essence

Essence is the overall name of a single sphere of Self. within Essence is Body, Mind, Heart and Spirit, among other things. All living beings have Essence, denoting them as a living, functioning being. While it is widely beleived that only sentient, civilized beings have Essence, Essence can be found and studied within the smallest of living beings, such as insects and flora.
Essence serves as the conduit that links Body, Mind, Heart and Spirit together to form Self. Furthermore, Essence links Self to Existance. If the Essence of a being is destroyed, it ceases to exist. A person who has died looses their essence over an unimaginably long period, starting from the moment that they were last remembered. While Essence will not replenish if the memory is rekindled, it will pause its deterioration until it is forgotten once more. When the Essence of a being depletes completely and returns to Existance, the being it belonged to is "lost to time", never to be remembered again. The Angel of Balance, Tahi Relle, is the sole being, even among the deities, that can willfuly destroy Essence.
Essence exsist in and around Self as a chaotic cloud of being, similar to the physiology of an atom. The nuecleus and protons sit at its core, representing the visable, physical portion of self, while the electrons whirl around the nuecleus in a mealstrom of probability. Because of this, Essence is at all times in all places in and around the being it is linked to.
Essence, while not a tangible substance, can be manipulated and read as easily as picking up a book. A sorcerer trained in reading Essence need only reach out, sometimes from meters away, and "grab" a portion of the cloud, and then veiw it. The "book" of Essence, however, is so far beyond mortal understand that only the simplist of portions are for mortal understanding. The rest remains exclusive to the deities and angels.
What CAN be read from Essence are things such as a being's Elemental Alignment. A skilled psychic may be able to read and describe the person's Spirit in a physical sense, even if they lack the ability to summon their spirit through Metaformation. In addition to information, Essence can be harnessed and manipulated to provide a considerable degree of energy. Enchanters can temporarily change the "appearance" of Essence, most often for making Evocation easier.
==Elemental Alignment==
Within a being's essence is the code which binds it to existance, and the things that are bound with it. The Elemental Alignment is an example of this code. Each being, regardless of origin, has an elemental alignment. Spirits and Fairies are aligned to one element, while beings made of compounds are aligned to two or in rare cases three.