The golden disk of the sun broke over the horizon, painting a picture of pinks, oranges, and blues over a village already bustling with activity. There was water to carry, prayers to be made, and fields to harvest. Time waits for no mortal, after all.
In a single house, the morning routine was broken by the squalling cry of a newborn child, fresh with outrage and fear at the newness of it's world. It's mother held it and nursed it, quieting it's protests. It's father, still hung over from the celebration last night, looked on proudly, even as he held his head.
The woman who had delivered the child took it gently from it's mother's arms and presented it to the dawn, to the sun which ruled this world.
The sound of young children laughing and playing in the village green mingled with the songs of the birds and the rustle of the early autumn leaves, and the constant cheerful murmuring of people without worries soothed her mind.
Perhaps she was wrong - she had been so before, and she will be again, she thought wryly. But yet... all her studies, all her investigations, and all her divinations pointed towards this is as the peace before the storm.
That was why she had been posted here for the last twenty years, rather than teaching in the Order's classrooms. Not that she disliked it here - she found it restful. But she had been too loud in her worrying, and had been labeled as a doomsayer and an alarmist by her superiors. Thus she, one of the best diviners in the entire Immaculate Order (or so she had been told) worked as the village healer in a small community.
Perhaps they were right, and she was wrong. She certainly hoped so. The empress still reigned with a strong hand, and the fair folk hadn't been seen in large numbers inside the realm for a long time. The borders were stable, and only occasional disturbing rumors reached her ears of threats to that stability.
And yet... and yet...
She hoped this child would live out it's life free from the fears and agonies of war and strife, but she feared that it would see more than it's share of them before it died...
AN: World of Exalted
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(Posted Sat, 19 Apr 2003 23:16)
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