The Heralding Darkness: A Moon Elf's Birth Under the Aberrant Eclipse
The sacred grove was silent, save for the whispers of trembling leaves under a pale, silver moon. Moon Elves, adorned in robes woven with threads of starlight, gathered in reverence for the long-prophesied birth. A destined child, born on the night of a blood moon eclipse, was to bring wisdom, power, and balance to their kind. The rituals had begun hours ago, chants rising in harmonious unity, their voices weaving an ethereal hymn to the celestial realms above.
But the heavens did not answer as they should.
As the blood moon began its ascent, bathing the grove in crimson light, the first signs of unease rippled through the assembly. The chanting faltered. The wind stilled. The vibrant red glow, once seen as an omen of destiny, began to dim unnaturally, being consumed by something unseen. The crimson light twisted, deepened, and then began to bleed away, slowly, agonizingly.
A presence loomedā - a suffocating, impossible weight pressed upon the grove. The blood moon began to fracture, its surface crawling with tendrils of impenetrable darkness. This was madness, manifest. The sky itself seemed to writhe, folding in upon itself, revealing a void that devoured starlight and sound. It was as though existence itself recoiled in terror.
The gathered Moon Elves cried out, their voices now sharp with panic. Their silvered eyes, once alight with divine serenity, now widened in primal fear. The High Matron fell to her knees, her voice trembling as she clutched the crescent moon amulet around her neck.
"This is- this is not the moon we know!" she choked out. "Somethingā¦someone watches us!" The air thickened, tasting of iron and decay, and the sacred grove contorted. Trees bent away from the void, their branches clawing at the earth as if to escape.
The light of the ceremonial crystals flickered and died, leaving only the dying light and oppressive darkness. Shadows became distended and long, their shapes contorting into forms that defied reason.
The laboring mother, lying upon the woven altar at the grove's heart, screamedānot from pain, but from something deeper, more primal. Her cries mingled with the cacophony of the panicking elves, body wracked by unseen forces none could understand.
The midwives, trained in the arts of sacred birthing rites, abandoned their composure, clawing at their temples as whispers filled their earsāalien truths that fractured their minds.
And then, as if in answer to the chaos - silence.
The grove fell deathly still, the oppressive darkness pooling into the center of the altar. The child was born in that suffocating quiet, her first action splitting the unnatural calm like a blade. The void trembled, and thrummed, the shadows dancing at the wave of her tiny hand.
The babe glowed faintly, not with the soft silver light of her kin, but with a dim, extraplanar evil that pulsed in time with the darkness above. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, were shrouded in an otherworldly shadow that was not her ownāancient, knowing, and devoid of innocence. She did not wail as newborns do; she stared, silent and solemn, at the shattered and shadowed heavens.
She knew.
As the gathered elves watched, frozen in terror witnessing the all-consuming abject horror, the incomprehensible void fully emerged from the fracture in reality it tore asunder. The blood moon, now fully eclipsed, disappeared from the sky entirely, leaving an empty, starless sky in its wake. A soundless wave rippled through the grove, shattering the ceremonial crystals and rending the moonlit altar, splintering it entirely.
Despite the wave of force, no sound was heard. It was only felt.
When light returned, it came back pale and aching, the silver moon once again exposed - diminished. The elves' exchanged panicked whispers amongst themselves, their words as frantic and broken as their minds. This was no destined birth as they had foreseen. This was a heralding of something far greater, far darker.
The High Matron, trembling, approached the infant, her voice a hoarse whisperā¦
"She is not ours. She belongs toā¦to -" she clutches at her throat before she can finish, eyes bulging. Those words, that name...could not formed by mortal lips.
Though no one dared speak its name, they all still felt it lingering deep in their minds and bodies. The child, swaddled in cloth woven from their sacred moonlight, tainted the light with her touch, corrupting it into a shadowy cloak with stars sparkling within. Her tiny hand reached outward, her fingers curling, as if to command respect from the trembling cosmos.
The dull grey moon above, drained of its silver light, shifted ever so slightly in its course - bowing not simply in respect, but in fearā¦in desperation.
The elves knew, in their hearts and their bones, that their livesāand the world itselfāhad been irrevocably changed.
Something had to be done.
