The Taldrai Records | LORE

[elderling]

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Hi! Please do not post, thank you!
This is a functional writing storage to help me format to bbcode.
Most writing will most likely be about my fables.
Ta for now!

[elderling]

prompt: tapestry
fable: Wonder
entry: 4,202

Soundtrack ish

No one knows why the earth turned hollow, why the sky collapsed upon the people of Ilwydar. Some speculated it was us, souring its core and losing sight of our hearts, but any such theories were soon left abandoned as the Duskfall’s effects became louder in the absence of Song.

What is known, for certain, is this: Magic had become painfully finite. Those who used it beyond their means became colloquially known as hollowbody, or unwoven. The pious claim it to be a malignancy of the soul, divine retribution for the light we stole from the sky. Scholars continue to toil on a cure many deem a pointless venture, for how do you return a lost soul without a Song?

These questions are not for us to answer.

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She had given too much.

In a world where the scales tipped malignant, the spend of magic made meals of those who did not meter their hearts. With trembling, bony hands, the lone Fable nestled the ailing sparrow back into its meticulously woven nest, wing mended anew. It was worth it, she reminded herself, to help others where she could as often as possible. If she did not help them, then who would? No one with Song remained in this corner of the world.

“There you are, sweet one,” Wonder murmured, her voice weak and hoarse yet still finding its gentle cadence above the din of rustling leaves. The exhaustion she earlier ignored crept up her spine all too quickly, rooting within her strongly like an unwanted guest refusing to cut the visit short. Her lithe fingers began to grow cold, breath trembling under the weight of the human form ending its process.

She had spent more than she could spare.

Her glamour affixed to her soul with the last expenditure of her Song. If she did not act quickly, this body would be her grave.

She would have to visit him again.

The Immortal. The Accursed. the Necromancer. He Who Stole ﾚの丂ｲ. Raphael.
Raphael, a thrice cursed sorcerer had many titles he went by, most of which were spoken as warning for children and those who passed through what little was left of the town, Venham.

“Stray not to the Ilkwoods, little ones! It’s full of hollowbodies who will use your bones as toothpicks, exiled faeries hungering for flesh, and deeper lies the Necromancer Raphael, who will boil the blood in your very skin!”

Wonder knew him to be wrung thin yet a guide to the lost, firm but kind, cautious from his own mistakes. She knew him as a man as threadbare as she. She knew him as her friend.

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“Raphael”, she rasped in agitation, both arms locked to steady her against the counter. “This time will be different. I promise you, I will not get this close again.” Her words reverberated against the various specimen jars perched delicately on shelves around her, a container of eyes turning collectively towards the Fable at the sound of her conviction.

The thrice-cursed sorcerer hummed with amusement at her statement, a frown sitting firmly on his features.

“And I'm supposed to believe that this time, after the dozens of times I’ve woven you back from the edge of hollowing, mind you, that you won’t go and do it again? My, how confident you are dear.” A finely manicured eyebrow cocked high above his eye socket, tall, curling horns resting in the place where his golden eyes once stared at her with the same look of disbelief. The yellow-eyed raven perched on his shoulder did the expression well enough to make up for Raphael’s curse, Wonder unable to escape from either of their ire.

“I’m so close. I cannot stop now, Raphael you must understand.” A broken plea clothed in fear, exhaustion, a last wish. Raphael exhaled a sigh with her statement, dragging a long hand across his face.
“You’ll die. Again. Again, Wonder. Your threads are already half spent, love. Why can’t you rest? You cannot pour all of yourself into Ilwydar’s heart and expect to survive alone.” The sorcerer maneuvered around the counter to stand by her side, leaning against the wood to face her.

He stood quietly next to the frail Fable, observing her through the raven as pity graced his heart before empathy’s vast shadow. Raphael’s voice became soft with his next words.

“You cannot bring the dragons back. No one can. You must understand that the song within you is finite. To take it to its finale is the death of the soul.” He shifts, before lowering his voice, humility in his tone. “Your presence here is too important to see it thrown away for this cause.”

Silence held the Fable’s form still, her thick hair shielding her face as her head hung heavy over the lacquered wood. Wonder had become unwoven, met her death several times before, but Raphael had stolen a little starlight to bring her back, always with its cost.

But she could not stop.

Not now.

As the air grew still, she debated telling him a secret. A secret so close, betrayal could mean certain death. Gnawing on her lip as the last vestiges of the sun poured through his caravan window, Raphael allowed her this one grace of silence. Other secrets of hers she gave more easily, the truth of her unraveling given with more ease than this.
But this secret wasn’t hers to give.

She took the risk.

Hushed, with gravity heavy enough to rend the very earth, she spoke. “You mustn’t speak of what I say next. Do I have your word?”

Raphael, for all his tricks and thievery across the weave, never stole a secret.

The man reached gently to lay his hand upon hers, his dark, clawed fingertips resting softly upon thin skin, her glamour betraying her. His face became soft with the action, knowing too well the desperation of her heart, having flung his own to the indifferent force of chance once before.

A spell wove upon his forked tongue with his next words, sealing a promise between them with a sad smile.

“You have my word, little Wonder.”

The Weave had closed off its doors to the world following the Duskfall. Once there had been hundreds of Weavers occupying its gilded halls, the reverent hush of their speech sometimes finding its way through the world to call upon a new Weaver to take their place among their ranks. Many worshipped them as fatebinders, instruments of Song that spun magic into silken tapestries. To be a Weaver was a great honor. To be a Weaver was to become holy.

With the death of Song, Woe swallowed its hallowed halls and sunk it into despair. No Weaver survived the cataclysm.

This event is recorded as the Third of the Seven Losses.

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“I have heard of what you seek. Few have tried to pry open its doors, but none returned whole. If you are certain of his heart being hidden there, if you are certain… it could change everything. I have an incomplete copy of the map, but it will only get you to its front steps. You must find your way in alone. Songstress save me, Wonder, you better be sure about this.”

Raphael had guided her to the now sunken clearing, leaving the unglamoured Fable at the edge where wood met water with a solemn wish of luck on her journey. Where Wonder was going, no soul could follow the Fable on her pilgrimage to The Weave.
Letting her eyes get heavy with preparation, she inhaled the desiccated scent of grass before steeling her heart a sharp exhale, raising her head to the sky to begin. Moonglazed eyes blinked open to seek the last remaining star of Orion, finding it with a flutter in her heart.

“You must separate mind from body on your journey. Do not let the sensations of the flesh pull your gaze from the waystar, even if the pain feels real.” - A Guide to Waystars, 3rd Clerical Order.

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She took the first step into frigid water, reciting the path to the Weave in her mind. “Find the remnants of the belt, affix your gaze and move forward. Do not fear as the sky shifts to stars you will not ever know, for you will be lost to time forever if you let yourself do so. The waystar will remain if you do not stray.”

Raphael’s cadence echoed within the recitation as she walked, as did his many warnings. She felt comforted by his concern, knowing it came from his heart for the safety of her own, as creatures of magic in an era marred by Woe must look out for one another lest they lose themselves.

But some things must be done for the greater good, even at the risk of losing oneself.

After following the star for a short time, the distant, dissonant call of a creature rang out from her left, pure agony in its voice. She froze at the sound, the urge to tear her gaze from the sky just as painful as the wailing she heard, but she could not end her journey here. She choked out a quiet sob over its pain, praying to a long quiet divinity to carry its wretched torment as she could not.

Whispering an apology to the cold night air, she was about to start moving once more before the creature cried out one last time, freezing her blood with fear.

The creature, far from sight, writhed its voice into her own, howling with two tormented echoes of a soul. No one had warned her of the Mimicries.

She hurried her steps, focused still on the remnants of Orion, and pushed the peril from her mind as she walked closer to her goal, the Mimicries wail soon fading from her vicinity. The Fable prayed to anyone that was listening that it would not devour another, that these parts of the woods truly were as vacant as others reported.

She walked, even as the stars shifted around her, as treetops morphed from death to life and death again. She walked, even as the water seeped into her bones and frostbit her soul, shedding tears from the serrating pain.

She made this journey to retrieve what was stolen.
She made this journey for the Nighthound, for the Dawn and Dusk she devoted herself to.

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Wonder couldn’t tell you for how long she walked. Time had no meaning in this space, stars from before her time shot across the sky and collided with ones newly born above. Her only focus remained on Orion, and the soul she desperately wished to save. Minutes, hours, months or days, she only recalls the moment she touched ground and bumped into a stone statue, her head knocked down from the path she followed above.

Fear of failing her quest quickly clouded her mind, raising her head to see the obstacle before her, and what surrounded it.

The obstacle... No… Oh Songstress… It was a Fable. Once. Posed in a frightened rear with two sets of wings flared wide, what appeared as a delicately crafted marble statue was a horror to Wonder. She could sense it with fervor, the trapped Fable’s heart beating slowly against the walls of its prison.

Pockmarked across the glade were broken statues, bits of a stone wing here, a carved hoof there, empty vessels of what once was. A mausoleum sat quietly in the midst of the carnage, its door covered with the writhing dark tangle of malice. The only remaining thread of Song in this space was trapped within the lone, unmarred statue. Wonder did not have time to let the cries of anguish escape from her body at the horror of it all, as a Mimicry glided out from behind the marbled Fable.

Cloaked entirely in a robe as black as voidmatter, the Mimicry was impossibly tall, a faded porcelain mask sat crooked upon its face to show an owl-like visage in rest. The Mimicry was all wrong.

To Wonder’s horror, in several broken voices, it spoke.

“Who (who) are you(u)? Pretty threaded one, you (you) would do well in my garden(den!).” The shade shifted around her with no body in sight, yet the sound of many legs upon the ground trailed the shade, clicking together horrifically.

Alone, under a different sky, Wonder met the gatekeeper of the Weave.

Woe clings to the form of those who steal threads, consuming its host. These beasts are dangerous, unravelling anything that breathes to weave into themselves.

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Heart pounding loudly against her chest, Wonder could do nothing but stare at the Mimicry, its expressionless face rising in the place of the Waystar she followed. The shade’s hand split from the shadow of its body and twirled the Fable’s Cobalt mane between dark fingers, chittering contentedly beneath the cold moon. Wonder froze with the act, feeling appraised like a fine jewel underneath the revenant’s hands.

“Your threads will do nicely, nicely indeed, threads nice to weave.” It circled her hawkishly as it studied her form, the Fable growing more frightened with each passing second. She would have to act before she lost the chance to return home underneath a familiar sky. Her eyes darted around the clearing, landing back on the ruined mausoleum, stone crumbling under the woe-rot. It had to be the gateway to the Weave.

Thinking quickly despite her fatigue, she turned her focus back to the Mimicry and bowed before it in reverence, laying her cards out gently.

“Oh old one, I’m grateful you deem my threads worthy,” she spoke, quieting the tremor in her words. “To be woven anew by one such as yourself is a great honor.”

To her relief, the Mimicry spun and chittered happily, clasping its wiry hands together in joy. “Oh yes, yes! A grateful tapestry such as you has not graced my glade in quite some time. What shall we make of you, hm? A poem, a prophecy, or will you perish? For your kindness, you shall choose.” Several more arms split from the shade and reached within itself to pull out sharp scissors, a loom and a shimmering red blanket.

Wonder had to tread delicately despite her panicked heart. The marrow in her bones told her to run, run, escape, hide, the hope eater will devour you alive, but courage bayed above the din of fear. She rose from her supplication, wings tucked closely to her sides, and regarded the Mimicry once more.

“Dear one, I must request something from you before we begin, oh master weaver.” Glancing to the unspun mausoleum in front of her, she took the gamble. “Would you please weave me a sunbloom garden, so I may live out marbled days amongst the blossoms? If I may gather some threads from this building, I will bless your glade with Song.”

The Mimicry paused, fingers crawling over their tools as it considered her request.

“... Song? … Song… now that would suit my garden quite well. Very well, little flower, gather these threads so I may weave you anew! Sunblooms here and there, and shift this hoof over here, and this patch of grass must grow west for your resting place, and…”

Wonder stepped gently to the mausoleum’s doors in this mournful graveyard, frozen grass and degrading marble crunching beneath her feet as the Mimicry fluttered around the clearing to sort out the Fable’s new place in her garden. The realization that Song left this place long ago weighed her heart down with grief. Misery had hollowed the Mimicry beyond mortal ken, the echoes of its woe-rotted heart singing from the threads of another they had unwoven long ago.

The threads of a true Weaver whispered from the shade it was affixed to.

Arriving at the thread-covered doors, Wonder glanced back at the jovial Mimicry, eyes catching on the trail of shadowed woe that tethered on the mausoleum, flowing from its cloak and affixing itself to every thing that resided in the glade. Her earlier fear was replaced with a deep, heavy mourning as the Fable’s eyes filled with tears. She could not save one so lost.

But she could give them a warm peace.

She let herself give a little Song to the glade, easy warmth wrapping around the Mimicry as it danced within its garden, the red blanket clutched gently and waving in the air alongside the creature. Drifting from two and fro, she captured the shade within one of its stolen memories, the Fable unable to give the creature back its true name in this state.

This gentle death would have to do.

Wonder glanced her golden horn upon the tangle of rot upon the Weave’s doors, alighting it in a warm flame that slowly traced the tangle before engulfing it in full. The blaze raced down the tether, embracing the oblivious Mimicry with its soft, scorching arms as it continued to dance to its last thread, Wonder unable to bring herself to witness another grief in this space. She did not witness the blanket falling upon the marbled Fable, returning to its rightful owner.

With a whispered prayer to the lost souls and their warden, Wonder entered the Weave.

The select few who were granted visitation to the Weave in centuries past could not recall their experience. The only public record of the Weave was written by the Second’s apprentice, Fýla.

“The Weave is a realm of between, home to the Songweavers. The infinite hall is full of laughter, sorrow and joy. Anger and curiosity, love and pain. Here these emotions are tucked into tapestries of grand size, woven into stories of great magic and fearless hearts, telling of adventures to come.
These halls were brought into being by Soltera to ensure the Song lives here recorded throughout time.”

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The Weave had been abandoned, but this was not news to the remnants of Ilwydar’s Songblessed. The halls were swathed in an old darkness that misted around Wonder’s feet, thin light drifting through arching windows that only existed within the building. Scattered stools and workbenches had been knocked askew, rotten joinery threatening to crumple the old wood beneath the haze.

All of the history within the chaotic wreckage was missed as the Fable made her way inward, attention rapt on the lifeless tapestries that decorated the halls.

The tapestries… They were empty.

The figures that once lived within the various pieces had seemingly been torn from the fabric, turning the grand works of thread dull and gray. Several of the tapestries had fallen to tatters completely, nothing more than a mere scattering of brittle threads from the oaken rods affixed to the wall. Wonder could not help the tears that continued to fall from her eyes as she walked, the despair of these losses suffusing her soul.

Time held still as she made her way further inward, Wonder near certain she had lost her chance as she continued down the Weave, the countless unwoven tapestries beginning to blur together as the Fable sought out the sole tapestry she had come here for. She cannot tell you how many tapestries she passed in her search, or how long she spent in this realm.

As her legs began to tire, Wonder nearly grew afraid it was all for naught. But In the distant, silken darkness, the flicker of songlight emerged from the depths of the hall. Stopping the Fable in her tracks, the sway of the lantern calmed her racing mind and trembling breath, putting her soul back at something close to ease in a liminality that had not recalled the word just yet.

She met its bearer halfway, a figure cloaked in countless illustrated fabrics pinned beneath a tarnished gold mask of a fox in rest. A Weaver still kept watch over the Weave.

The wordless Weaver stood silently before Wonder, the feeling of her thread being measured once more for its quality returned to her, but this appraisal was untouched by woe. The lantern light danced softly against them both in this space, the sense that their meeting had been woven in time was a soft realization.

Soundlessly, even without the whisper of fabric shifting upon itself, the Weaver turned and began to walk the hall in which it came from, turning its head back to Wonder, an invitation to follow implied in its pause.

The Fable fell in line behind their guide, songlight granting more visibility to the dilapidated hall as they made their way deeper in. Within the shadows, the familiar decayed furnishings and paint chipped walls sat crumbling, but underneath the songlight they retained their former glory. Vibrant frescoes adorned the halls under the light of flickering flame, depictions of the great creation myth and accords of the Seven wrapped over the walls and across the ceiling. Gilded looms and plush cushions were stationed every few feet upon marble floors and royal rugs, the whisper of a Weaver’s memory every so often shadowed from the corner of her eye.

Her guide did not pause on these shadowed memories, already having long committed them to their being decades before this meeting. Wonder could sense only a distant longing from the Weaver, greater yet was their duty of remaining as Witness to the Weave. She understood the weight they bore.

As they progressed, the malefic threads that covered the exterior of the Weave met them along the floor, sourced from further inward. They had grown into the walls, thin lines of golden paint peering out from a sea of rotten braids weaving in and out of the plaster they burrowed into. Soon, they arrived at the rot’s nexus point, Weaver raising their lantern to illuminate the tangle that grew out and into the hall.

It was his. Elphael’s tapestry.

Wonder stepped up to the tapestry with a jolt, panic and anguish finding a place within her mind once more as the last tapestry that still held a subject within itself hung before them both was threatened by the woe-rot. The woven work sagged with the weight of its misery, the rotten threads seemingly growing from the work, threatening to consume him entirely.

Oh Elphael, she thought, her expression crumpling with sorrow. Oh, Elphael.

He was depicted within the woven work with his head raised to the sky in his eternal watch, a tarnished aureole behind his head penetrated by the woe that emerged from the sewn forest, his sword fallen to the earth. The Weaver only watched the grieving Fable as she examined his tapestry, songlight held high in front of the large piece. Wonder turned to her guide, almost pleading for permission to interfere with the decay before the songlight flickered once more over her heart, clearing her storm.

She had been invited here for this task, to fulfill her part of this Weave’s divination. As she had done to the malice covering the mausoleum outside, Wonder let her eyes fall heavy as she glanced her golden horn against the worst of the knot. The Fable’s flame alighted on the malignant threads like they were born to burn.

Wonder and the Weaver watched as the rotten threads burnt away with a hush, dissolving every last root that fed into the hall. Elphael’s tapestry did not change at first, puncture holes within the warp and weft remained open and gaping. Wonder tried not to let herself feel further horror as Elphael’s dull threads did not shift before the two witnesses, damage still present. She could not return him alone.

But she was guided by a Songweaver, one whose turn to meet their part of the divination was next.

The Weaver stepped lightly to the tapestry, its golden mask brought close to the weave, scrutinizing each bit of damage and imperfection, committing it to memory. Splitting a hand from its form that shone skeletal in the shadows, the Weaver roved its practiced fingers over the wounds as one would dust dirt from a child’s cheek. To the Fable’s shock, each spot they passed over mended itself anew before them both, restored to its original make.

With the final mending, the Weaver stepped back to observe it in full. Then quickly, with a flutter, the tapestry blew towards them as if passed by a gust of wind, a shining glimmer of gold racing across the fabric as the Song it was woven with reawakened. The Weaver turned to the Fable, gratitude filling Wonder’s expression as she bowed deeply to her guide. She missed how the songlight the Weaver carried grew brighter, its radius within the halls expanding just slightly in her thankfulness.

The Weaver gave her a deep, slow nod, and held its lantern bearing arm out towards the tapestry, motioning for her to step into the work, for Wonder’s real mission was about to begin. Quickly, with no time to waste, Wonder sheared a braid from her mane to gift her guide, and faced the tapestry for the last time.

With a mutual nod farewell, the Weaver took her gift and began to make its way back into the neverending halls of the Weave.

Wonder stepped through the tapestry and into what was left of Venhaven’s Kingdom to return her beloved knight's lost soul.