woven between times and tellings

{=(set:$travel to 1)(t8n:"dissolve")[The words, tucked in the back of your mind(t8n:"dissolve")+(link-reveal:" like an old song. ")[ //(t8n: "dissolve")[At the end of all things there will be(link-reveal:" stories, ")+(t8n:"dissolve")[ and(link-reveal:" strangeness, ")+(t8n:"dissolve")[ and light, still, on the (link-reveal:"far horizon. ")+(t8n:"dissolve")[ And all this, [[at the beginning too.->begin]]]]]]//]]

The raft rocks back and forth in the (display:"river quality") of the stream. Above, the sky is (display:"weather"). The tapestry weighs on the other end of the raft, balancing it. Its presence is oppressive when you are alone. {=(if: $travel is 1)[[Keep moving.->entrance1]] (if: $travel is 2)[[Keep moving.->entrance2]] (if: $travel is 3)[[Keep moving.->entrance3]] (if: $travel is 4)[[Keep moving.->ending]]

(either:"slow burble", "low grumble", "strangled hiss", "raucous bubbling", "thunderous crash", "playful darting")

(either:"muted and dour, poor omens for the days ahead", "open and bright, reeking of wetness and warm sunlight at once", "exactly as it should be, just this once", "choked with distant smoke, from ceremony or disaster", "crackling with bolts of lightning trapped within greying clouds", "so crisp and cold that the breath frosts and air bites", "shrouded in fog so oppressive that when you hold out your hand, it disappears behind layers of grey","clear but marred by wind buffeting distant treetops back and forth")

The town is named Merecreek. The buildings sit short and squat along the shore, dour and worn by rain and waves that crash up against their supports. Eventually, they will be swept away by rainstorm or by an errant tide and there will be nothing but poles left, protruding upwards from the water. It will all be (link-reveal:"meaningless refuse.")[ Today, though, you watch a child dart among reeds, peering through them and grinning with watery eyes and an unashamed smile. [[Young and unafraid.->town1]]]

Were it that you were that young still. Instead, you are old and creaking and tired, much like the raft. It makes you two good companions for each other, ornery and kept together with wishful thinking, experience, and sturdy rope. Water sloshes up onto the raft. You pull the edge of the tapestry close, and watch as a few people gather on the dock at your approach. Sometimes you miss the anonymity. Other times it gets you a free room at the inn. Today, it gets you lodgings with [[a family of wealth and renown.->story1]]

How you carry the tapestry has changed. It always changes. Everyone finds what works for them. You lash it to your back through rope, since you already have so much of it after sailing the endless winding waterways, secured with some wooden supports and folded neatly. Netting keeps rain away and keeps the work itself from sliding out to splay, limp and lifeless, upon the dirt. Back when you were young, you used to be charged with carrying your mentor's work, layers of colored fabric. Eventually it got too heavy. Eventually it rested in a cart, pulled by one beleaguered goat. Some people watch. Some don't. Either way, you find an inn, run by an elderly couple who wince in understanding of your [[slow shuffling pace->story2]].

Instead of staying in town, you walk towards the farmlands. Grass crunches underfoot, growing here and there among the dirt road. You adjust the load of the tapestry on your back, feeling it sway with you as you walk. There's no aim in particular. Instead, you just watch rows of fruits -- gourds and berries and root vegetables and everything else you can imagine -- growing in splendour. You could settle down here eventually, with someone who is willing to work the land while you sit on the porch and work on things that aren't this long work. It isn't likely to happen. (link-reveal:"But it's nice to think about.")[ So to think about it some more, you settle under the shade of a tree, (link-reveal:"stretching your legs out with a sigh.")[ A girl bounds up the lane, a middling-sized dog darting around her heels, its fur tangled and matted with recent dirt. She [[asks if you're alright.->story3]]]]

The town is named Morthyn. Untamed river leads into well-built canals, reinforced by stone. Above, you can hear footsteps and the rattling of carts. As you pass under the broad shadows of bridges, there is some comfort in the fact that you are invisible. You will have to stop soon here. To eat. To buy supplies. To check a corner of the raft where some of the rope that lashes it together may be fraying. And of course, ask for a tale or two. [[Just in case.->town2]]

The town is named Hull. It is built around the edges of a lake. Part of it is ships lashed together who have not moved in perhaps a hundred years. In the valley it sits in, it extends into farmland, using water from the lake to help supplement acres of farmland. You were here once before, but it was easily several years ago. Little has changed. It lives as a stronghold overlooking your approach, some buildings squat, others tall and grand. You have no interest in the grandiosity today. As they say: you have [[been there and heard that.->town3]]

It has been good weeks of work. Stories collected and held there close to you. Warring houses, and love, and imaginings, and faith. These are all (link-reveal:"the good old stories.")[ Sometimes you worry there are no good ones left. But as long as there are people, there will be more. The world changes but this does not. You found yourself [[a lucky profession.->ending1]]]

The hearth crackles warmly. The family, doused in clothing soaked through with rich red-purple-blue dyes, offer you a grand chair, and you shake your head and wave it away, settling close to the fire with your layers gathered around you. They ask if you are going to weave right away. You (link-reveal:"shake your head.")[ "The story first," you tell them. "Then I choose the way it will be recorded." This is how it has always been. This is how it will always be, when you pass on your art to whoever follows you, because there are always more towns, more people, [[more stories.->story1b]]]

They stick a pillow in the back of the wooden chair for you. The black-haired woman, hands pockmarked by old scars, pats your shoulder reassuringly and says, "We'll get you food and drink, dear." "Oh," you say with a wince, "I don't think I'm anyone's dear." The red-haired woman, freckled and taller than her wife, guffaws from the kitchen. You listen to the clink of (link-reveal:"pots and pans.")[ It takes a few moments, enough time for you to feel your body relax into the chair, but eventually soup and good bread emerges. The inn besides you three is (link-reveal:"entirely empty.")[ "Lack of business?" The red-haired woman shakes her head and reaches over to wrap some furs around the other woman's shoulders. "Just a quiet night, that's all." [[Fair enough.->story2b]]]]

Once she's convinced you're fine, the girl settles there, and the dog flops onto her lap with a low huff. "What're you two up to?" you ask. The girl narrows her eyes, almost suspicious. She aims one finger soundly at the tapestry. "Why do you have that?" "Answer my question and I'll answer yours." It's easy to coax (link-reveal:"a child's curiosity.")[ For a moment, the girl just scratches behind the dog's ears. "Adventures," she says, almost halfway defensive. You can imagine the way her parents or relatives might make fun of her for this. (link-reveal:"But not you.")[ "What kind of adventures?" you ask, and the girl perks up almost instantly. When she starts talking you settle back against the tree. You know when [[someone isn't going to stop.->story3b]]]]

The first recording and the final conclusion. You observe the work woven (print: $storyone's stitchwork): (print: $storyone's emotion1) preserved in (print: $storyone's color1), combined with (print: $storyone's color2), bringing in memories of (print: $storyone's emotion2). Then, last but not least, (print: $storyone's color3), concurrent with (print: $storyone's emotion3). Is this enough? No. [[It isn't.->work1]] Or -- perhaps it is, [[in the morning light.->leave1]]

Nothing behind glass, because it will not yet be finished. Your eyes and hands ache, but you can still see (print: $storytwo's stitchwork). Put together in methodical rows of (print: $storytwo's color1), a colored label for (print: $storytwo's emotion1), and (print: $storytwo's color2) bringing forth (print: $storytwo's emotion2). Closest to the end of the rows sits (print: $storytwo's emotion3), built through stitches of (print: $storytwo's color3). [[Go back. Revise.->work2]] [[The result is enough.->leave2]]

A map of a story. A piece of a work. All of it, (print: $storythree's stitchwork). Rows of (print: $storythree's color1) that recall the girl's voice describing (print: $storythree's emotion1). There is (print: $storythree's color2) summoning thoughts of (print: $storythree's emotion2). Finally, newly finished, sits (print: $storythree's emotion3) rendered in (print: $storythree's color3). [[Something is missing.->work3]] [[A story told well.->leave3]]

The story they tell you is one as old as families. That is to say: two warring families, squabbling over land and marriage. It is something your old mentor, long since yellowing bones under a neat plot of dirt, would have called //the works// with a twinkle in her eye. She had better humor about (link-reveal:"these things.")[ You were always a little more sour, but you were a good weaver and (link-reveal:"a better listener.")[ The eldest surviving son stumbles through his details, soothed by his wife. She holds his hand and squeezes it when the details turn to [[the gore and the deaths.->story1c]]]]

Lurid color. The way the blade caught the firelight as the eldest walked in on his father's assassination, the blade left piercing into (link-reveal:"off-white bone.")[ The gurgle as he choked. Red spilling onto dark blue bedsheets, collecting and coagulating into furs meant to block out the cold, drying down (link-reveal:"sticky and black.")[ "And what did you do then?" you ask. You know (link-reveal:"the answer already.")[ The man who is barely past being a boy has freckles, his hair tied back. "I climbed through the window of their manor in the dead of night, the very day after my father's funeral," he (link-reveal:"says,")[ "and I killed each of them, faster [[than they killed him."->story1d]]]]]]

You watch [[his hands.->hands]] The choice, here, as always. Your mentor always said that any more than three colors clogged up the works of the story, like (link-reveal:"too much food resting in the gut.")[ So. [[To work.->work1]]]

//Every weaver's hands end up cramped and warped with use. Your mentor used to spend so much time searching out new remedies, being caught in cons and letting coin slip away. Most weavers make coin by retelling the stories they hear. It is a form of stealing, but it is often necessary. The tapestry is not done until they are too old to work on it, whether blind or senile or physically incapable. You can tell everything about someone by their hands. Soft or lined, rough or tender, swollen with injury or pockmarked by age. Yours, too, tell stories. It is one of the few stories you have the luxury to not pursue. [[At least not yet.->story1d]]//

{(set: $storyone to (datamap: "color1", "red", "emotion1", "blood pooling and beginning to darken", "color2", "gray", "emotion2", "the snick-snack of the blade", "color3", "black", "emotion3", "the drowning dark of the night", "stitchwork", "close and stiff" ))}First: (cycling-link: bind $storyone's color1, $storyone's color1, "white", "black", "brown", "gray", "navy") to remind you of (cycling-link: bind $storyone's emotion1, $storyone's emotion1, "the snick-snack of the blade", "the feeling of fur rubbing on the skin", "the drowning dark of the night", "the leather of the son's boot on the sill", "the moon hanging overhead at each death, cold and uncaring"). Then: (cycling-link: bind $storyone's color2, $storyone's color2, "red", "black", "brown", "navy") to remind you of (cycling-link: bind $storyone's emotion2, $storyone's emotion2, "the feeling of fur rubbing on the skin", "the drowning dark of the night", "the leather of the son's boot on the sill", "blood pooling and beginning to darken", "the moon hanging overhead at each death, cold and uncaring"). Third: (cycling-link: bind $storyone's color3, $storyone's color3, "white", "brown", "gray", "navy", "red") to remind you of (cycling-link: bind $storyone's emotion1, $storyone's emotion1, "the snick-snack of the blade", "the feeling of fur rubbing on the skin", "the leather of the son's boot on the sill", "the moon hanging overhead at each death, cold and uncaring"). You work it (cycling-link: bind $storyone's stitchwork, $storyone's stitchwork, "open to let the air through", "with variety, complexity spiraling through rows", "neat and simple, straightforward to the eye", "simple to the layman but intricate to the expert", "at what only appears to be random, chaotic and almost incoherent"). Yes. (link-reveal:"Just so.")[ [[The sun rises over your work.->result1]]]

{(set: $travel to it + 1)}You bundle yourself back onto the raft. Nowhere else to go but forward, back on the waterways that carry you from place to place. [[Onwards, then, as always.->begin]]

{(set: $storytwo to (datamap: "color1", "brown", "emotion1", "soil packed down with boots passing over it", "color2", "deep blue", "emotion2", "how you might imagine the edge of the world, where light blue river turns to deep", "color3", "yellow", "emotion3", "the gold ink glittering under glass", "stitchwork", "intricate and small" ))}First, this time, comes the style. This story deserves a rendition in fiber that is (cycling-link: bind $storytwo's stitchwork, $storytwo's stitchwork, "like lace, creating shapes and images with in itself", "geometric in contrasting colors", "simple rows that grow brighter and lighter as they go", "spanning every style you can think of, roaming within itself", "full of holes like incomplete maps of the world"). Then the palette. Beginning with (cycling-link: bind $storytwo's color1, $storytwo's color1, "green", "deep blue", "yellow", "black", "teal", "beige", "orange", "taupe", "purple"), wound tightly in your mind with (cycling-link: bind $storytwo's emotion1, $storytwo's emotion1, "how you might imagine the edge of the world, where light blue river turns to deep", "the lines of the map, the places that they trace", "the gold ink glittering under glass", "the setting sun hanging in the sky", "endless sea, rocking back and forth, stranger than any river", "the look of paper, aged, and worn but still criss-crossed with lines", "the promise of something strange and unusual past the horizon"). Next to it comes (cycling-link: bind $storytwo's color2, $storytwo's color2, "brown", "yellow", "black", "teal", "purple", "beige", "orange", "taupe", "green") for (cycling-link: bind $storytwo's emotion2, $storytwo's emotion2, "the lines of the map, the places that they trace", "the gold ink glittering under glass", "the setting sun hanging in the sky", "endless sea, rocking back and forth, stranger than any river", "the look of paper, aged, and worn but still criss-crossed with lines", "the promise of something strange and unusual past the horizon", "soil packed down with boots passing over it"). Finally, you pluck (cycling-link: bind $storytwo's color3, $storytwo's color3, "green", "deep blue", "purple", "black", "teal", "beige", "orange", "taupe", "brown") fibers, as in (cycling-link: bind $storytwo's emotion3, $storytwo's emotion3, "soil packed down with boots passing over it", "the lines of the map, the places that they trace", "what else but the gold ink glittering under glass", "the setting sun hanging in the sky", "endless sea, rocking back and forth, stranger than any river", "the look of paper, aged, and worn but still criss-crossed with lines", "the promise of something strange and unusual past the horizon"). You work until (link-reveal:"your hands ache.")[ [[And then you rest.->result2]]]

{(set: $travel to it + 1)}Carefully you step from the dock onto your raft and let yourself settle as the raft rocks back and forth. The motion is soothing, in its way. Never can stay in a place for too long. It's against the work. [[The next town waits somewhere further down the rivers.->begin]]

{(set: $travel to it + 1)}The girl watches from the dock, Pidge darting around her feet excitedly. Soon tragedy will mar her life in some way, cracking the glow of her open and letting the world seep in like fetid water. But not yet. You wave to her as you go, a quick move of your wrist that makes her smile split open even wider. [[You hold that as the town fades away into dots.->begin]]

The light, growing more and more pink-orange as the morning goes on. There's something you add now, (link-reveal:"on your own.")[ Every weaver has their mark. Yours is a line between every few stories, when the rivers seem long and (link-reveal:"time stretches onwards.")[ A single simple line of that same color, like a division between times and tellings. A dawn on a world that is neither better nor worse, but just the same as it was with (link-reveal:"every weaver before you.")[ Dawn, spilling over everything. Your fingers are worn now, and wrinkled, and yet this always comes back, the old reliable story. Each day, [[a promise in light.->credits]]]]]

#woven between times and tellings designed by @skelejam for the 2021 text-based adventure game jam. thanks to @geojax and @sualexander for the jam!

You don't ask for the tale this time. Both of them launch into it, as if one unit, sharing the story between them. Where one trails off, distracted by the shape of someone pausing near the windows or losing the path of the sentence, the other joins in to finish it, almost inadvertent. //... and we met under a fruit tree...// There are pauses here and there, the two of them watching each other. Your spoon clinks against the bottom of the bowl in some of the more pensive silences, a symptom of the stiffness that so often afflicts your wrists by now. Part of what you do is detect honesty. It's everywhere here, resplendent in the decor and caulking up the walls. A house made by two people out of truth. [[Rarer than any treasure.->story2c]] {(click-replace: "... and we met under a fruit tree...")[... it was so hot that the sweat clung to my neck...] (click-replace: "... it was so hot that the sweat clung to my neck...")[... we talked all night over drinks so sweet they might as well have been honey...] (click-replace: "... we talked all night over drinks so sweet they might as well have been honey...")[... I said she was sweeter than all the drinks in the world...] (click-replace: "... I said she was sweeter than all the drinks in the world...")[... of course things got difficult here and there but...] (click-replace: "... of course things got difficult here and there but...")[... brought ourselves and our sweetness and our difficulty on an expedition up to the far, far north...] (click-replace: "... brought ourselves and our sweetness and our difficulty on an expedition up to the far, far north...")[... no fabled gold and riches, but we came back and sold maps...] (click-replace: "... no fabled gold and riches, but we came back and sold maps...")[... bound our ink-stained wrists together under the eyes of twelve gods...] (click-replace: "... bound our ink-stained wrists together under the eyes of twelve gods...")[... things were almost simple but never simple enough...] (click-replace: "... things were almost simple but never simple enough...")[... and then we settled, like people eventually do...] }

"Do you have any of the maps?" you ask after setting the bowl aside. The red-haired woman's smile sneaks in at the corner of her mouth, lopsided and almost approving. "We were dedicated to selling them all," she says. "Needed the money we could get to pour it into all this. But there's just one left for us now." "If the place burnt down," comments the other woman just as she begins gathering up your bowls, "I think we'd snag it and nothing else." Instead of heading upstairs, they lead you into a room (link-reveal:"separate from the kitchen.")[ It makes sense to have a downstairs room as you age. On the wall is a map in a sturdy wooden frame, protected by a thick pane of glass. [[Not a speck of dust to be seen.->story2d]]]

You know [[craftsmanship->craftsmanship]] when you see it. Rich inks in purple and green and brown and blue, outlining an area that you cannot recognize, at least not rendered like this. The thickness of the lines vary. The handwritten labels are neatly rendered. At the bottom right corner, the map announces itself as //The Far Reaches//. "The first map we did together," one of them says from behind you. "Our first collaboration." "We got married there," adds the other. She points with one finger over your shoulder at a point right in the top center of the map. //The Edge of All Things//, says the grand label. Above it is drawn (link-reveal:"an arrangement of twelve eyes in gold.")[ [[You know enough.->work2]]]

You can tell when someone makes a thing with intent, //says your mentor, hands bent over her work. Every so often she cleans it carefully. With each season, this takes longer and longer, more and more time and love poured into not the act of making, but of preservation. You can add more and more but you cannot outrace time. She straightens, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the tiny cabin that she has begun to perhaps call home. The fire crackers. You wind the yarn around your fingers, blue and yellow and brown and green, the colors around you.// You can tell when it means everything to them, //she adds. Truer than she knows. You can see it then, [[and even now --->story2d]]//

What you have gained, all at once, over the past few weeks: And there will be more. (link-reveal:"More of what?")[ All of these: From a story of revenge comes (print: $storyone's color1), (print: $storyone's color2), and (print: $storyone's color3) preserved as work made (print: $storyone's stitchwork). Reminders of (print: $storyone's emotion1), (print: $storyone's emotion2), and (print: $storyone's emotion3). To tell a love story across the ages, with thoughts of (print: $storytwo's emotion1), (print: $storytwo's emotion2), and (print: $storytwo's emotion3), you used (print: $storytwo's color1). (print: $storyone's color2), (print: $storyone's color3) in work that was (print: $storyone's stitchwork). And to tell a girl's stories all over again, preserved in (print: $storythree's stitchwork)regaled in (print: $storythree's color1), (print: $storythree's color2), and (print: $storythree's color3), you wanted to preserve (print: $storythree's emotion1). (print: $storythree's emotion2), and (print: $storythree's emotion3). [[More of everything.->ending2]]]

Talking makes her open up in the same way that snow melts. Bits of clear ground peeking through. She arranges casts of characters marked by landmarks that only make sense to her. A sense of place and newness marked by things that are important to her but would never be worth more than a passing glance to anyone else walking through. It is [[a matter of perspective.->story3c]]

A wooden pole left at the edge of a field, and a small lake tucked away among trees. The mountains in the distance. A grove of trees that grows sweet fruit. A rickety old boat someone left on a shoreline and never came back for. A particular part of the path where it turns to stone. An unkempt field where the plants rise above the top of the girl's head. A series of graves, for rich and poor alike, near the edge of where Hull becomes a thriving city. Everything, [[its own name and place.->story3d]]{(click-replace: "A wooden pole left at the edge of a field,")[A strange marker of a long-dead civilization,] (click-replace:"A strange marker of a long-dead civilization,")[The Flag of the Wilds,] (click-replace:"a small lake tucked away among trees.")[depths full of hidden treasures and vile creatures.] (click-replace: "depths full of hidden treasures and vile creatures.")[the Unknown Rapids.] (click-replace: "The mountains in the distance.")[The homes of legions of ghosts and spirits, gnawing at the edges of civilization.] (click-replace:"The homes of legions of ghosts and spirits, gnawing at the edges of civilization.")[The Hauntings Far West.] (click-replace: "A grove of trees that grows sweet fruit.")[A temptation stalked by an old warlock who threatens to eat children.] (click-replace: "A temptation stalked by an old warlock who threatens to eat children.")[The Grove, singular and separate from the rest.] (click-replace: "A rickety old boat someone left on a shoreline and never came back for.")[Where the boatkeeper lives, a woman with long and unkempt hair who rolls bones and squats in the ruins of the boat.] (click-replace: "Where the boatkeeper lives, a woman with long and unkempt hair who rolls bones and squats in the ruins of the boat.")[The Boatkeeper's Hovel.] (click-replace: "A particular part of the path where it turns to stone.")[A crack in the world, where things begin to fall apart, and to step on it is to welcome death.] (click-replace: "A crack in the world, where things begin to fall apart, and to step on it is to welcome death.")[The Broken Piece of the World.] (click-replace: "An unkempt field where the plants rise above the top of the girl's head.")[Tangling vines and branches all leading into each other, so dense that you can barely see through it.] (click-replace: "Tangling vines and branches all leading into each other, so dense that you can barely see through it.")[The Knotted Fields.] (click-replace: "A series of graves, for rich and poor alike, near the edge of where Hull becomes a thriving city.")[Just an ending. Even a child knows that.]}

{(set: $storythree to (datamap: "color1", "peach", "emotion1", "fruit growing heavy and ripe on the trees", "color2", "sky blue", "emotion2", "endless possibility, whether sea or sky", "color3", "white", "emotion3", "clouds drifting overhead", "stitchwork", "whimsical and unique" ))}The beginning: (cycling-link: bind $storythree's color1, $storythree's color1, "moss green", "brown", "orange", "red", "purple", "light brown", "sky blue", "white", "gray") to remind you of (cycling-link: bind $storythree's emotion1, $storythree's emotion1, "still lake water at sundown", "fabric wrapped around a pole, a flag of sorts", "clouds drifting overhead", "endless possibility, whether sea or sky", "bramble and vine and growth, forever"). Then: (cycling-link: bind $storythree's color2, $storythree's color2, "moss green", "brown", "orange", "red", "purple", "light brown", "white", "gray", "peach") to remind you of (cycling-link: bind $storythree's emotion2, $storythree's emotion2, "still lake water at sundown", "fabric wrapped around a pole, a flag of sorts", "clouds drifting overhead", "bramble and vine and growth, forever", "fruit growing heavy and ripe on the trees"). At last: (cycling-link: bind $storythree's color3, $storythree's color3, "moss green", "brown", "orange", "red", "purple", "peach", "light brown", "sky blue", "gray") to remind you of (cycling-link: bind $storythree's emotion3, $storythree's emotion3, "still lake water at sundown", "fabric wrapped around a pole, a flag of sorts", "bramble and vine and growth, forever", "endless possibility, whether sea or sky", "fruit growing heavy and ripe on the trees"). All of this rendered in work that is (cycling-link: bind $storythree's stitchwork, $storythree's stitchwork, "simple in the way youth often is", "open and breathable, allowing for all kinds of improvisation", "complex and as intertwined as each landmark", "forming images of landmarks within stitches"). You work in the spare room of her mother's home, (link-reveal:"until light creeps in between curtains.")[ [[A pause to consider.->result3]]]

It feels like this girl has traveled farther than you have within the confines of her own home. Maybe one day she'll leave this place and find a wider world beyond it, but for now, she has made something out of nothing. It is almost unimaginable to consider what she could do with [[a little more.->more]] "And what about your friend?" you ask. "What's her name?" The dog in question lolls over in the girl's lap, tongue dangling out of her mouth, brown fur a mess and sticking up in several directions. The girl rubs the side of his neck and (link-reveal:"laughs.")[ "Her name's Pidge," she says. "and she's my best friend." A girl and her dog named Pidge. It's nice, sometimes, to [[have a simple story.->work3]]]

//A little more time. A little more story. There will never be enough, and that is not just talking out of some kind of personal greed. It's hard to say how each weaver picks the next to follow them. By the time they make their choice, there is almost never another weaver older than them to confirm the choice. Maybe it's impulse. Maybe it's feeling pushed to the forefront by age. Maybe it's just entirely dependent on who's the weaver at the time. It's nice to think that there's a pattern, but that requires too much faith in something like fate. No fate. Just what people choose, always, [[because that's what the stories are.->story3d]]//