Ysaeril (prime)/Sun Puddles
From a forum post dated 07/14/2020, here's a bit of Ysaeril's thought process as she worked through the design of the Handmaidens' Solarium with her peers, Ithilwyn and Amalexia.
Sun Puddles
Early Olaesta, 5120 --
Ysaeril waxed the night away day after day, oft forgetting about the dinner perched on the end of her drawing table. She was too engrossed in spatial relations of tr-tiered bookshelves and ladders to care for dinner. Faerinn came and went, one night after the next, before finally pulling the elven woman from her task.
"What's the roadblock?" he asked. "A reading room just isn't right. We have plenty of those around Ta’Illistim!" "Well, draw on knowledge and on your memories, Ysaeril." She sighed with resignation. "You need a break," Faerinn finally demanded.
Ysaeril acquiesced and left the task to languish. The two dear friends stole away in the middle of the night to sit in the moonlight at the edge of the city to share a snack. They gazed out over the cliff face, down at the forests and valleys far below, as the colors of night danced and churled along the northern reaches of the skyline. Well past midnight, the pair finished their jaunt and said their goodbyes once again.
Her dreams were graced with what she hoped for.
The Ostrylae estates, a vineyard on the edge of the Darkling Wood, featured a large indoor garden for harvesting in the cool winter months. Ysaeril happily dreamt of her visits to Ta'Ardenai a century ago, with notions of carefree galavanting in the greenhouse at the edge of her mother's ancestral home. Young children accompanied her in this dream, dancing gaily between the endless rows of plantings, though they never had in the past... Curious she could remember even this detail as she slept, but such is the way of lucid dreaming.
Slumber in a sun puddle at daybreak drew Ysaeril to her former childhood home on Moonglae Var. She dreamed of the observatory in its boughs, watching out over the city from its impressive height. The colors were inverted though; the sky was yellow-orange instead of blue, and the foliage of the tree was scarlet red, where otherwise a rich green would grow. Ysaeril gazed through the telescope affixed to the willow’s platform, but her view was distorted and unclear; not unlike a goldfish on a high shelf, perhaps? The view melted her eyes, but it was not a painful sensation; more like water running down her face from a warm solar shower...
Ysaeril woke with a start in the warm spring light, and made sure her face was still intact. “How bizarre!” she mused with a dazed grin.
It was exactly the inspiration she needed. Ysaeril knew then, she could start over, trash her old plans with something new and fresh. Like bulbous panels of a fishbowl, to watch out over the city with a new perspective amid ever-green plants in all seasons. A solarium, rich with life and merriment!
Surely a focal point, a specimen piece would be required. But what would be the spectacle at its center? She consulted with her handmaidens, and both Amalexia and Ithilwyn mentioned a lasimor, should it be transportable from Ta’Vaalor. The solarium fit, with its humid atmosphere. Notions of home. What a perfect connection. And the lasimor, it matched her dreams as well.
It must have been fate!