Legend V – The Weaver of Shadow Threads

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This is the chronicler speaking. There are those who believe the story of a life consists solely of deeds, decisions, and paths taken. They call this truth and declare everything else to be shadows. But there is an older school of thought, taught not in halls of stone, but in the flickering between candle and wall. According to this teaching, the true fabric of a life is not what has happened, but what has not happened. Not the screams that were heard, but those that were never uttered. Not the kiss that was given, but the one that died unthought in the heart. And somewhere beyond the edge of comprehensible space sits the one who gathers these invisibilities: the Weaver of Shadow Threads. Do not imagine her as a woman, for nothing about her has a solid edge. Some claim she is a cloak of darkness, within whose interior work hands of light. Others swear she is nothing but a sound—the faint rubbing of two threads in the wind, just before a thought is born and yet never spoken. I, who have spent many nights questioning those who went too far in dreams, always heard the same description: The weaver cannot be seen, but you can feel her tearing a thread from you—for it is as if you were someone else for the split of a heartbeat. A child who almost laughed. A king who almost cried. A soldier who almost stopped. They say she sits at a loom such as no artisan guild knows. Her warp is not of wool or silk, but of possibilities that never happened, of hours left hanging on the brink of decision. When two lovers passed and could not find the courage to look at each other, a thread would fall to her. When a murderer raised his hand and yet let it fall, another. If a poet formed a verse in his head and forgot it before he could write it down, he would give her a whole ball of yarn. From it she weaves carpets, so it is said, but not for halls or tents. No – she weaves for time itself. For what has not been is not lost. It is simply used differently. Many a delirium tremor claimed to have seen one of her carpets. They were not flat and not still, but moved beneath the surface like water. They showed worlds that were never born, faces of people one might have been, cities of unbuilt stone. If you looked too long, you would recognize not only yourself in them – but also the gaze of someone you will never meet and yet miss. Whether the weaver exercises mercy or judgment, schools of philosophy have debated for centuries. Some say she keeps the world from collapsing under the weight of all possibilities. Others fear she feeds on missed courage like a spider on the trembling of its web.