The Vision of Claudine Lambert

I closed my eyes and rested. Allowed my thoughts to drift, to flow wherever they may lead. Drip, drip, drip, the water fell around me... and then... silence. I felt the cool breeze on my face. I opened my eyes, and I saw the familiar site of my Lady's gardens.
My Lady came to me. She does not speak, but no words were necessary for me to see the pain and worry across her face. Her hair was dry and matted, and the skin around her cheeks cracking as if the ground at the end of a long, hot summer.
"My Lady, we must get you back to the water immediately!" I exclaimed, and took her hand, trying to pull her into the fountain behind us. But she did not move. She looked me straight in the eye, and a single tear began to trickle down her left cheek. "Show me."
She turned, and we walked together through the garden, down a narrow path through overgrown bushes, arriving finally at a doorway through the wall. A gate barred the way, but we stood up close to it, noses poking through the bars like young children watching the lords and ladies ride by. Through the gate was another world, another place. There was a room, an open space with a large circular table in the centre, and 8 chairs sat around it. A female figure sat opposite us. As she waited, one by one each chair became filled by a figure. I could not see clearly, but it felt like behind each chair were more people, stood watching.
The lady opposite stood, and reached forward above the table. She pinched her fingers together, and a shimmering golden strand of light appeared. As she pulled on it, it was like a thread being pulled from a spool, and she took the thread and wove it into a fabric. But a moment later, a large sheet took form, and she spread it across the centre of the table. She pinched the thread again above the table, cutting it, and passed the loose end to the first figure, sat to her right. As they took it, the golden glow faded, to show the fabric dark and black.
She reached out into the air above the table again, and pulled a second thread. She wove it into a fabric, laying it atop the first. She passed the loose end to the second figure around the table, and the glow faded again, revealing a crimson sheet. Five more times she wove a sheet of fabric. Brown, then Green. Aquarmarine and Azure, and finally a crisp bright white. Each of the figures around the table held a loose end.
She invited everyone to stand. She breathed out, and closed her eyes. The layers of fabric separated, floating above each other. She opened her eyes, and nodded. She took one last look around the other figures at the table, smiled, turned and left, fading into darkness.
Some time passed. The layers drifted in the air. Sometimes still, sometimes rippling, as if the surface of a pond when a stone has been thrown in. Sometimes they drifted closer, sometimes they drifted further apart. But wherever they drifted, they soon enough drifted back again.
My lady took my hand and squeezed it, hard.
The layers began to drift again, closer in the some places, more active in others. But this time they did not calm. The table and its guardians seemed to grow smaller, being squashed together. The figures began to push at each other, jostling for position and sending ripples into their layers.
Behind them, darker shapes emerged. And then a glint of light, reflected from a pin. A hand reached out from the dark, and poked a hole through the a layer of fabric with the pin. Then another hand reached out from the other side of the table. A quick flash, and a new glowing hole in another layer. Then a third. Soon the pins were replaced by blades, cutting and slashing at the sheets, leaving glowing gold ends loosely hanging across the layers. The room seemed ever smaller, and the layers rippled faster and closer. More hands reached in; some trying to separate the layers, some trying to hold loose ends, some tugging at them.
The scene became ever more chaotic, until eventually someone pulled too hard on something, and a great tear ripped across all the layers. A moment of panicked stillness came across every figure in the room, and then mayhem. As they scrambled to grab the loose writhing ends, the whole sheets of fabric unravelled themselves, and fell into a tangled mess of thread across the table top.
My lady pulled away, dragging me after her. As we ran back through the garden, tears fell from her face, and from mine. We threw ourselves into the fountain, and buried our faces into the water, as if by submerging ourselves our tears would wash away. We sat amongst the lily pads, and wept together.
"What can be done? Can we change what has not yet come to pass?" I asked desperately, knowing there was little chance of an answer.
My Lady looked at me, and I heard her voice, for the first time in the hundreds of times we have met. It rang like a bell from all the corners of the garden at once, as her deep blue-green eyes piereced into my soul.
"Find the mother!"
I awoke, here. Dripping wet with water and tears. I sat alone, for maybe an hour, maybe a day. I do not understand exactly what I saw, but I know we cannot sit still and allow the tragedy to unfold. We must put our faith in the mother. We must find her children, and bring them to order. We must repair what has been broken, before it is all too late.
This is your path. This is why you have come to visit me. I cannot change the future, I can only see the futures that may come to pass. You can. You have already prevented a war. You must now prevent worse.
Go to the elves. They are the longest lived of all the peoples of Troyvalden, and perchance with their long memories they can interpret what I have seen. I wish you luck. You will need it, and so will all of us.