Hope

Moonlight tiptoed to the domed windowpanes of the lowermost rooms of the Tower of Dreams. Trickling inside, it cast silhouettes, revealing stealthy portals and the inhabitants within. Basking in the glow of fluttering candles, herbs simmered in small indigo pots, and on a table carved from honey-wood, several vast books lay strewn.
Slumped beside a massive tome, a reader lay in obstinate sleep, a frown etched upon her brow. In one ink-smudged hand she held a quill of speckled turquoise. In the other, she clutched an eagle's feather.
Shifting with the rhythm of the night, a breeze slipped through a slit of open window to glide past the pots of simmering moat-mud which boiled on the windowsills. Flicking tenderly at the open pages of books, the breeze snuffed the waning candles. Moon-glow caressed the sleeper's face. At her feet, a dog snored gently, his grey muzzle twitching in dreams. The chamber deepened in peace.
Gathering the skipping moments, the moonlight briefly faltered then surged in a steady rise—a strip of sheer radiance—until it reached the room's highest point. And there, in the ceiling-high bookshelves that lined the walls, gaps revealed that the books on the table were volumes taken from the top.
But these were no works of learning, or even daily things. On their spines, dates were marked. Embossed, their titles read: The Beginnings, Life and Times of The First Ones.
Exhausted by the enormity of what she had been reading, the sleeper was only half way through Volume One.