Moonlit Meadow

The Moonlit Meadow, sacred sanctuary of Sehanine the Lunar Lady, nestled itself in a hidden dell within the Jamin District, far removed from the clamor of Shal’Azura’s heart. There, where the city’s edge spilled over into the great nothingness of sky, the land dipped and curled, forming a natural amphitheater cradled by gently sloped ridges, ribboned with pale moss and poppy blue grass. Each evening, as the sun bled its last onto the horizon, the canyon’s lip caught the world’s first taste of moonlight, casting the floor below in shifting silver bands—a sight known to pilgrims as Sehanine’s Blessing.   The meadow itself was a living tapestry. By day, thistle and foxglove and twisted lunar lilies—flowers bred to open only beneath the cold gaze of twilight—dotted the long, rippling grass. At dusk, pale-faced moths and phosphorescent beetles rose in gentle clouds, filling the air with a subtle perfume of honey and frost. Underfoot, the grass hummed with the secretive life of hundreds of burrowing creatures, whose passage softened the earth and lent the entire glade a spongy, yielding quality, as if the Lunar Lady herself had bid it never to bruise or break the footfalls of her followers.   The architects of Moonlit Meadow, in their devotion, had shaped the grounds to echo Sehanine’s myths. Buildings—if such a term could be fairly applied—seemed to grow sideways from the stone or burst forth from the trunks of ancient moon-cedars. The main hall, a crescent-shaped oculus open to the sky, was crafted entirely from opaline glass and salt-white birch. Its interior shimmered with a thousand tiny mirrors, so that even on cloudy nights, the smallest glimmer from above was caught and multiplied, bathing congregants in perpetual lunar glow. Around it and away, footpaths paved with obsidian and pearl wound in looping, non-Euclidean spirals—labyrinths for meditative night-walks that always somehow led pilgrims home, even if they swore they’d been wandering in circles for hours.   To the north and south, natural hot springs had been coaxed into a series of pools and channels, each assigned to a different phase of the moon. During the full, the largest pool reflected the moon’s round face so perfectly that initiates called it the Second Sky. During the new, novitiates would immerse in the Blackwater Run, a pool lined with midnight-colored algae that left their skin tinged and sparkling with faintly luminous pinpricks—an outward sign of Sehanine’s touch, a rite both cleansing and transformative.