Starfire

Prologue: -Omens-

   It was a starlight night, and everything was starting tonight. Sayid tried not to let it get to her, one more strange coincidence that spelled out one more letter in the book of fate.

   Sayid didn't think she could find any record of the first Starlight night no matter how far back in the histories she checked. It had always been something to happen, and seemingly always would. It shouldn't be anything special, and if this had been any other mother and child, it wouldn't have been. She made every attempt to chase the thoughts away.

   The stars shone so brightly beyond the rock ceilings she had nested under, it nearly made her sad to think that she wouldn't see them this time. They had always seemed almost magical... but magic was nothing but science they didn't yet understand.

   Sayid had learned this much from her father, training endlessly as she had since she was brought into the world. So many lessons... she allowed them to flit through her mind very briefly before she shut the thoughts down all at once. She'd learned soon enough after starting her training that it wasn't magic at all that made the stars shine more brightly for one night. The movements of the planet beneath her dictated it, and a subtle change took place in the atmosphere every year on the exact same day. It was the planet's way of cleaning itself, and it just so happened to have a breathtaking result on the night that the atmosphere was so much clearer. It was the doing of the trees, for the most part. One more thing to thank them for.

  Though she knew the night was full of heavenly light, she could not see the stars tonight, and she wouldn't be permitted to until the ordeal with the child was over, and probably for a while after that as she cared for herself and a young one. The bright shine would be long gone by then. She knew that this would happen eventually, but she couldn't even remember the last time she'd missed a Starlight night.

  But this all had to be done. It was all a part of things she couldn't change.

   She had been destined to hold a council seat before she, herself, had ever come into the world. Why did it have to be her? Even now, so many thoughts were working through her head, even when lying flat on the moss in preparation for her own first youngling to arrive. Her thoughts always chose the most inopportune moments to churn, shooting off in whichever direction they pleased.

   The span of her wings barely fit in the cave pod, deep in the nursery. She could hear as much as see the elders that assisted her, moving about in the dark, preparing for their future ruler. Gentle rustling and vague shadowy shapes. Everything had to go perfectly... Even her breathing felt too loud.

   She tried to focus but failed.

   That night so long ago now pressed into her mind. It had seemed the start of it all... It had been a Starlight night as it was now, and the council had been gathered to hear a frantic message from the time watchers and their pools deep within the planet. They showed something horrible, something far too awful for her to hear as such a young seat holder, and she'd had to hear it anyway.

   Blood, a slaughter. The long peaceful race of judges and law-keepers, gone forever. They saw not when it came to be, but what they did see was the heir. The heir that she had already been planning to bear by Alfaragh at the time.

   They saw the child—her child—and they saw him bathed in the blood of his entire race. A genocide or a distaste or a war... The ultimate decimation, everything gone.

One of the readers had even gone into a craze of fear and remorse for something that hadn't yet happened. Such a thing had never occurred before, though many adversaries and ill happenings had been foreseen in times long gone. It spoke nothing good for the future, nor for the yet-faceless child she would be meeting so soon. She tried to remember the exact visions, but they had been so vague, even then...