Lorewalker Shuchun was going through someone else's work. This was a common part of her duties, of course. She frequently found gaps within the libraries she frequented and had to consult the knowledge others had gathered. Anything older than twelve thousand years was hard to find: the Mogu had destroyed most of the history that came before in an effort to deprive the Pandaren of the knowledge of the past.
When Lorewalker Towasuu had passed away, her collection had not been disturbed. At the last meeting the Lorewalkers had called, in the muggy halls of the Temple of the Red Crane, they had reluctantly agreed that someone must step into the Lorewalker's sanctum and distribute what she had gathered. Knowledge that was compiled in one place, but no one else was able to look into, was far from useful.
It was with great reverence that Shuchun entered the Lorewalker's sanctum, a dusty set of rooms in a library. The coastal village she'd come to was small, even by Pandaren standards, and only Lorewalker Cho and Pao had known the name of the place.
Shuchun's curiosity guided her now. She had cleared a shelf of books, a group of related volumes about various medicinal herbs that could only be found on this stretch of coastline. The books in question were almost four centuries old, and appeared to be a collection put together by several herbalists, who'd related their findings to a healer.
In the process of clearing that shelf, she found a rueful note from Towasuu about how those herbs had been difficult to find when an outbreak of Heaving Cough had passed through the village. Many had died by the time they were recovered, brought here, and then used. The sickness had claimed many who were Shuchun's age. The note certainly explained why she'd found mostly very old or very young Pandaren here – her generation had been nearly destroyed in this place…
Towasuu kept good notes, and most of her collection had built up as questions from the villagers reached her. Curiosity had been her guide as well, wherever the Lorewalker's mind had led her had drove her to seek out certain volumes from other lorewalkers. A few had slips attached to them explaining that a lorewalker had died in another village and their assistants didn't desire the volume returned at that particular time.
It was in the process of dusting off a shelf higher than the one she'd cleared that Shuchun heard a clatter. She reached up and removed an oval board…a board into which a picture had been set, but had fallen out of. Scrabbling for it, Shuchun found the picture in short order. Her eyes widened at once.
It was no mere picture – the colors were those of a portrait artist, and one with no small degree of skill. Though it was a small portrait and had fallen free of its frame, the painting captured its subject vividly. A Pandaren woman with accosting blue-grey eyes stared over Shuchun's shoulder, her nose bearing a trio of scars and a cut just above her right eye. Her face was worn, but there was a fire in those blue-gray eyes that remained after all these years…the kind of look that commanded many lives. Shuchun supposed they might well have regarded the fates themselves with equal vigor, and might have well dared them. A black jacket with strange silver bars that resembled no Pandaren outfit Shuchun had ever seen framed the woman's shoulders.
The woman was the central focus of the picture, but the background retained its colors and image excellently. Was this enchanted ink that had been used? Shuchun suspected it must be so. The background of the picture was of a coastal village, with tossing, raging waves that almost seemed to be alive with froth. A ship forged against them, striving for the sea, a spread of sails raised against them.
Shuchun turned over the painting's frame to see if there was anything else. The characters had been written by a skilled hand, and appeared to be faded as far as who the artist had been. The line indicating who the subject was had survived, though Shuchun had to use a finger to remove the dust from it.
"Kaara Sunstriker – Captain of the Quaking Coast"
Shuchun sat back in the chair that had once been Towasuu's and closed her eyes. For a moment, she imagined the coastline, a bold captain in command, a vessel to sail into the mists…and survive. The Lorewalker placed the painting and the frame onto the shelf she had emptied, and surveyed the shelf above it to see if there was anything written about this Kaara Sunstriker.
In a few moments (and a few coughs from the dust), Shuchun had found three books about the Captain of the Quaking Coast – a title that didn't indicate Kaara's ship, but rather, the region that she had been renowned over. When her eyes found the thickest of the books was a Lorewalker who had learned the stories of Captain Sunstriker, Shuchun smiled at once. She'd make certain to read this story as soon as the task of clearing out Towasuu's office was complete.