Inktober 2025 - 2 - Weave

Over, under, over, under, …

"How much longer do we have to do this for?" whispered Thena to the woman sitting next to her.

"For as long as it takes."

The woman did not even look up from her loom to answer. She just kept on with her meticulous work, relentlessly guiding thread over thread with a wooden tool, then under, then over, then under, … It was quite the hypnotic dance her hands were dancing. She seemed very used to this activity, unlike Thena, who had just started. And she did not feel like time would ever make her any better at it than she was right now, which was very bad indeed.

As she looked around, she realized there must have been over a hundred women with her in this great hall. Most were of the older persuasion, between mature and elderly, but there were also little girls and young women among them. Each of them was sitting in front of a distinct loom, not only adapted to their size but also to the greatly varying complexity of their work. Some were weaving intricate tapestries with many threads of different types and colours, whereas others - such as Thena - were only weaving plain fabric with a single type of thread of a single colour. How bland. But then again, she had made so little progress since she had started that she did not mind having the easiest task of the lot.

She did not really remember how she had gotten here. She did not even remember anyone telling her what to do in the first place. She had opened her eyes on her own fingers struggling with the repetitive albeit mesmerizing task of switching this blue thread over itself then under itself, then over, then under, … And no matter how much she wanted to stop, she really couldn't bring herself to.

"Am I being punished for something?" she asked, to no one in particular this time, just hoping for a receptive ear in the vicinity.

A juvenile laugh was her first response.

"The exact opposite. You have just started your training as a fateweaver."

"A what, now?"

Thena stared at the barely pubescent girl on her right. She seemed friendlier than her neighbour to the left.

"A fateweaver. Everything woven in this room is to be someone's destiny, one day."

"There is no such thing as destiny," declared Thena immediately.

"Not with that attitude, there ain't…" grumbled a woman behind her.

"Like all of us, your life ended before you reached your full potential, so now, in death, you get the chance to prepare a path for someone else, if they choose to follow it," the preteen continued.

The weigh of her actions hit Thena like a brick. On the off chance that this was not a dream, she did not want this responsibility!

"What kind of fate am I creating with this monstrosity?!" she whimpered.

Whatever she was making, by the time she was done with it, it would barely be worthy of the name fabric. The girl laughed again.

"A quirky one, I'm sure."