Strand 2

I don't know how long I had been asleep when I awoke to find myself in a dark room lit by a single lamp that hung in the air over a loom where a silent robed figure sat, a hood covering her face as she worked.

On the far side of her, I saw my brother scowling at me.

Looking away from each other, both our eyes turned to the wordless woman at the loom. The only motion in the room beneath the flicker of the lamp was the weaver pushing her shuttle through the threads and pumping the pedals.

Thwock! Thwock! Thwock!

She never looked up at us, but kept weaving.

Thwock! Thwock!

The hollow sound carried on forever into the endless shadows of the wall-less, roofless, endless room. We were in a place seemingly outside of time, and we might have stood motionless for an eternity- perhaps we did- but at last, curiosity dragged our feet forward across the cold stone floor until we stood at either shoulder and stared as she worked.

My brother spoke- a raw, fresh sound in the empty-noised air. "What is this you're makin'?"

Finally the weaver's lips parted, and words slipped softly from between them in a voice that I felt I had known all my life, and yet was hearing for the first time.

Even in the stillness of the barren room, we had to still our breathing to hear what she said. "The thread cannot see the patterns it creates, yet one who is not part of what he sees cannot understand."

"What..." I managed, then cleared my throat with an over-loud cough. "I don't understand."

"You will."

Suddenly we were thread in the weaver's hands, and as the shuttle flew, the pictures formed...

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