DWC Novemeber 2025 - Day 7 - Premonition / Drop - Mesandreaux
(New character! - Days before the Legion invasion of Suramar)
‘The stacks are quiet today.’ Her lips quirked and her eyes narrowed with the tiny smile, amused at herself. The joke was poor, and yet she still made it at least once a week. Truthfully, she knew things were destined to be quiet everyday. Most of the time she preferred it that way: the silent company of scrolls and books, with an occasional arcane buzz from the lamps hung on the wall. The sounds of her slippered footfalls and the intermittent squeak of the wheels on her book cart (she made a mental note to oil them) were far from music, but she thought they seemed like reasonable conversation for the archives.
She would often lose herself down here. It was her favorite place in all of Suramar. Yes, it was dark and sometimes musty, but the shelves rose up and around in her artful whorls and gently arcing rows that paralleled the rounded shape of the stone walls. It was comforting. She had grown up in these spirals and moon shapes. The alcoves with the statues of the Goddess and the lunar windows dotting the outside walls were all a few floors above this one. That was where the moonwell had been intended, though now the basin was cracked and no water pooled. There were no moonbeams, though she tried to imagine what they must look like. It would have been lovely, she was sure. Up there, she had been told, was where offerings had been given and songs raised to the night sky. She had never seen it.
Down here was where the clerics had worked. Her eyes swept across the bookcases and she paused in her reshelving, imagining the priestesses bringing movement and sound to the space. She sighed, wistful. The book slid back into its place with a satisfying fit. She knew where every volume lived and no longer had to consult the fading labels. This archival floor was dry and the temperature carefully maintained to preserve and protect the works therein, but time still affected its own sort of weathering. Protective runes still glowed dimly at intervals, to ward off any catastrophes of flood or fire. The shelves had once steadily filled with texts and poetry; papers with praise, research, and philosophy had grown up like leaves on trees. Or so she had been told.
This was the library her family maintained and it had hardly changed in her lifetime. Now, it was more statue rather than grove. New 'leaves' appeared very rarely. Messy was unsure the last time something had been properly added to the collection. It was still decorated with the faith of her forebears and prayers were still penned (occasionally even in her own hand!) but she could easily recall each of the days someone other than her family had visited. Tucked below the City, nearly forgotten; except by the desperate or wildly devoted. That seemed the way of her Goddess. Elune had not been cherished here in the City. Not after Suramar had hidden itself away. Not after Arcane had supplanted Astral. Not after the demons had scoured their world and the greater Temple had been altered.
They had been called antiquated. Deluded. Provincial. All manner of elitist distaste had soured Suramar on her family. On her faith. For so long they had been left to their own peculiar devices. Now viewed with the lazy amusement, a far cry from the respect and fellowship commanded in the ancient days. Or so she had been told.
Like most days, she slid out a favorite prophetic tome and she sat at a desk to read. But unlike most days, after only a few hours of study, she was inexplicably drawn up and out of her family’s temple and into the too-loud streets, her spirit tugged and pulled nearly physically. She stepped out of the open doorway, blinking against the light of Suramar.
Her breath caught and she tightened her grip on the book in hand. She struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. Everything was distorted; like opening your eyes underwater, images trembled half seen and the sounds of people shouting were tinny and muffled. She stumbled to the side with a cry when one of the strangely translucent figures ran at her. She had dropped her book and brought her hands up to ward off the shadowy woman’s rush, tensing for the impact.
But there was no collision as the ghostly figure simply moved through her, dragging an equally shadowy child behind to dart into the temple. They were fleeing something, Mesandreaux instinctively knew. More of the hectic half-there figures passed on the street. The young archivist shuffled into the street and turned slowly, trying to parse the two visions she was seeing, overwhelmed with confusion and her heart pounding in distress.
Until she looked up. She saw the Barrier, blocking out all view of the outside world, just as she had seen every day she could remember. But shifted just to one side of her spirit, there was also something she had never seen before: the sky. The stars. Her heart jumped and seized. Joy and terror electrifying her simultaneously.
For the first time, Mesandreaux saw the White Lady. Mother Moon had sent her this premonition. She was being called to act. She was being called as an Oracle of Elune. Her gut knew with quivering certainty: the Barrier was going to come down and there was ruin coming for her people.
@daily-writing-challenge
