Children of the Stars

Suramar, Year -10,040

(Art by noirsnow on tumblr)

   The world of arcane science was increasing so rapidly that they could hardly find enough mages to study it all. Each new discovery lead to more and more branches of study. Azaern was originally trained as a botanist, but was quickly recruited into arcane study as they discovered a way to incorporate both druidic and arcane magic. She had to move from her more rural home town to the heart of Suramar, where she now spent most of the days in her lab, caring for her plants as they develop to be more and more powerful.

   Her lab was a room downtown, cramped and small. It's only benefit was a small staircase that lead up to the roof. The roof of her building and some of the buildings around her were her reign to use as a place to grow and experiment on the new arcane trees and plants.

   It was her favorite place in the world, her purple and green trees grew from every corner. A few Greenhouses and canopies occupied the space too, and one roof was devoted completely to flowers. She spent the early evenings doing basic upkeep on the garden, and each night trying to get the arcane energy to flow through her garden beds in artificial leylines.

   This one evening, she had to fix a breakage in one of her arcane routers. She had her head stuck under one of the raised beds when she heard footsteps coming up the steps to the roof.

   "The reports are downstairs on my desk!" She called, thinking it was on of the mages from the bureau coming to check on her progress.

   The footsteps stilled, and a loud voice answered her, "I'm not here for the reports."

   She stopped what she was working on, and sat up. A tall elvish man stood in front of her, dressed in extremely fancy clothes with a sour look painted on his pale face. He had an aura of prestige surrounding him.

  "Then how may I help you?" She sat on the floor and looked up at him, making no attempts to match his confident stature.

   "I've been assigned to help you with your study of the arcane. I was told this team only had a botanist, and needed someone with a higher knowledge of the arcane," His voice was tinted with an accent she couldn't quite place.

   "If you're here to help, this artificial leyline router has been giving me trouble." She stood and gestured to the tools littered around the floor, "I have to take care of some of the trees, so I'll be close by."

   She walked off and began to watch him through a greenhouse window. He first looked at the tools with distain, but eventually went over and began to work. His face disappeared under the planting bed, but she could see traces of magic flowing out around him. It was too early for the street lights to come on, so the only light around them was the last remains of the sunset and the glow of his magic.

Realising she had some actual work to get to, she began weeding some of the pots inside the greenhouse. The weeds were interesting here, because the leylines affected them too. They grew bright purple or blue and some would glow softly. Her favorite were the tainted wishing flowers. When a breeze hit them, their seeds would blow up into the air and would look like shooting stars.

   She grabbed one and blew on it. The seeds blew around the greenhouse, before exiting and flying into the evening air. She looked out the greenhouse as the seeds continued their dance. They went strait towards the strange man and his cloud of magic. When they reached the arcane glow they grew brighter and brighter, until they shone like small stars. Azaern had never seen this happen before, the flowers reacting to arcane energy outside of the leylines? They stayed bright for a moment more, before many loud popping sounds filled the air. She gasped.