Unspoken

Dawn now dwindled. Amber drained away from the desert horizon and azure had long taken its place in the Tapestry.

We passed an hour of quiet travel. There was not a sound but the sifts and blows of sand rending across the protrusion of my woven slab. The winds from the blue sky whispered in our ears whenever we climbed over the dunes, and roared whenever we descended their slopes. We shared no words, Ekko and I. His weight had ceased shifting and he was resigned to facing in a single direction: forward. Maybe to the space before us. Maybe to me. It did not matter, or at least that was what I wanted to tell myself.

We have long left the monolith, but I continued to drive the slab forward, else we lose a sure bearing to the already unsure north or south. I needed a clue, a sign, for much needed direction, and so I did not shift our course or halted to assess it and inevitably hear his thoughts. Besides, I was not ready to speak. I had much to make of what happened on my own as well.

There were instances in our travel that the winds had mellowed just quietly and timely enough for us to hear each other. In spite of that, we remained quiet. He had nothing to say though he had much time to compose a question, but, to be fair, neither did I, so there was a silence deeper than the silence of the dune and wind, and through it, I became certain that our thoughts were much the same. Thoughts about that approaching cloud and my reckless weaving. The weight of the earthen threads were lighter compared to them, and weaving these very threads helped me to forget, and so, as the winds yet again muted, I was content not to say anything, just as he was.

We glided down a slope of sand and landed on a patch of flat earth draped in the shadow of an adjacent dune. As the earthen threads of my slab met the bare stone of the world, I was once again connected to the bedrock.

There was a muffled yet coursing surge beneath. Tears. Water.

The slab stopped, rocking gently left and right, before coming to a rigid halt by the edge of the bare earth. I stepped out. Ekko's steps followed down, but I did not turn to him as I knelt and spread my palm over the rugged stone. Coarse grains of stray sands pressed into the skin of my hand. I reached for the threads beneath. Deep within the bedrock, rushed a vein of water, worming through stones unfamiliar to its moist touch. It was young, not among the seasonal course of underground streams. It was yet another hemorrhage forced out of the temporal flow, like the one which had lead me to the monolith, and to Ekko.

The doings of a greater power, such ruptures all lead south west, to Greater Shurima, to the Mother of Life, beneath the Frayed City. The Capital of Old.

"We are no longer lost." I stood up and looked at Ekko. His eyes wanted to tell much, but his lips remained shut. I felt a slight relief, but that only made me realize, that I truly was not prepared to hear his words, so I turned away. "Stay here."

I climbed up a nearby dune, my boots leaving an upward trail of steps. At its peak, I stood, and before me stretched the Central Wastes, a land of beige, visited mostly by the shadows of cloud and dune, like spots on dusted cheetah fur. The violent trail of sand and earth that once approached us was nowhere to be seen. Its waves of shattering and weaving were finally lost to my senses. We were truly not followed. We were safe.

I sipped a relieved breath and looked up to the sky.

Thank you, Great Weaver.

Assured that we were alone again, I descended back to the bare earth. Ekko was staring at the slab that had carried us out of the monolith.

"It did not follow us." I said. He turned to me. "Water flows beneath the stone and toward our destination. We will be traveling to the south west from now on, and, with the Weaver's blessing, we will find an oasis, town or caravan to rest on our way there."

But he did not say anything back. His mouth opened, seeming to start a word, but remained quiet in its hesitation, as if he had composed a great deal to say but could not find where to begin. His eyes met with mine. He intended to speak to me, of me, but, with the side of my lips tightened, I looked away from him and to the shadowed earth.

The silence persisted. Neither of us could breathe a word of what remained unspoken.

There was no need to bear this, so I walked forward, to the slab, leaving him behind me.

"We should watch the skies for sandstorms and the flight of water mayas. They will lead us to a stream or a watering hole. There, we can rest for a time and drink as much as we like, or perhaps even encounter a resting caravan or a town."

"I..."

When he began, I stopped.

"I didn't know you were a hex-caster."

The slab lay before me, its bottom lodged firmly to the earth. A sigh. It seemed the silence finally broke.

"I would have let you know eventually, but not... in the way that I had."

I turned to him. His eyes were as still as mine, anticipating, and full, so full, of questions that did not feel easy to me, but I expected them, so I wanted this to be over quickly, and say what I needed to say.

"I-I did not mean to—"

"That—"

Mouths closed. Our stumble was like that of two people tripping into each other. The side of my lip creased and my fingers curled inward and rubbed. It was awkward enough that we had to speak about this. Now one of us had to prevail through the awkward fumble. It would be him.

"That-that explains so much: you digging me out of stone, those little sculptures in the cave, and that drawing on the wall, you're the one who carved it..."

I figured he should know now.

"And the bands on your collar."

Ekko cocked his head, brows weighed. "What?" A pause. "Wait, you mean-" He reached a hand behind him and I could tell, from the widening of his eyes, that he touched those bands I had woven to repair the damage I had caused on his tunic. He crossed his arms under, took off his shirt, and held it up by both hands. He inspected my repair. An intense tingle struck my face. He glanced at me.

"How did this—"

"I was careless—"

My words were sharp as they were sudden, and there was yet another stumble, so he looked at me and his look stayed. It demanded that I speak first.

"I was weaving you out of the stone where I found you buried and I became too excited, too impatient, and the fabric was stuck but I couldn't wait, so it tore apart! But it was never my intention to tear it; it was all just some... accident. Yes, an accident. Like what had happened earlier, but I did not mean it, I swear! I shouldn't have-have... undressed you and damaged what was yours!"

He was unmoved by my burst of words.

"So you took this off of me and fixed it?"

Something flushed warmly through my cheeks. Was it shame, embarrassment, pride? I did not know.

"I had to. It would be wrong to let it be broken when I can fix it."

He said nothing else, but simply nodded, and his eyes remained drawn to the stonework upon his tunic. His fingers touched each band, curious, intrigued, as he examined my craft, and I did not know if I should be flattered by his fascination or embarrassed that he now knew of what I had done. It was safer to assume the latter. Anyone would be offended by a stranger breaking their things.

"I apologize."

He looked at me.

"In my tribe, we hold clothing to be dear. They are a part of us just as they are a part of our way of life. Though I repaired my damage, it still stands that I tore what was not mine." I looked away. "That is one reason why I did not tell you of my abilities, my stone-weaving, immediately. There would have been better and less sudden ways to reveal it."

"Stone-weaving, huh?" He lowered the tunic."I still don't get it. You didn't want to tell me about your hex-casting, or, er, stone-weaving, because of my shirt?"

"No, it is not only that. I..." My eyes wandered. "I do not know if Zaunites like you fear my abilities, for I have never met one as you know, and there are many in this world who fear what I can do, even when I do not intend harm. They run away." I glanced at him, my eyes darting back as quickly as the momentum of my words. "I did not want you to risk you running out all alone into the dunes merely because of fear. I did not want you to be afraid of me."

His brows knit. I wanted to hide my face or resume our journey, and so I pulled myself away, hoping that we would not speak of this again, but then, I noticed him smile. I looked back, and as I did, that smile hopped up into a chuckle. His eyes shined. He began laughing.

"Afraid?! You think I'm afraid?! Are you kidding?! That... that was amazing! This,"he pulled up the collar bands, "is amazing!" Then, he swiftly fit into his shirt, walked forward, and gestured to the slab with both arms, "That is amazing!"

Words eluded me. I stared like a puzzled sand rabbit.

"I've heard all about hex-casters in Zaun, about all the things they do that defy the conventional sciences, and-and the hex crystals, the synthetic ones, how they help make them! But I never thought I'd meet a hex-caster here!"

Now I was the one who could not understand, but so suddenly through that confusion, I felt lighter. Ekko felt lighter. He began to pace around, as if he followed the fast changing turns of his words

"One second you were laughing, then rocks started coming out of the ground, and that thing was coming to us, and-and we were surfing across this huge place on that hunk of stone— and we were going so, so fast— and I've never seen anything like it in Zaun, or in my whole life, and I just... I just couldn't understand at it first, but it was all so awesome! I still can't believe that happened!"

When he had finished, I had almost rendered a stare.

"You're not afraid?"

He turned to me.

"No! Why would I be? If you showed that power of yours to the snipes and folks back home, they'd be jumping-through-the-grates impressed! You're doing things we can only do through technology, things that we want to have in our technology, and-" His hand strayed to his cylinder, dangling by his hip, but he shook his head. "Point is, hex isn't something we're afraid of. The Pilties may hide lots of the wonders upside, but hex is something both of us cities have known ever since, maybe even before they built Old Hungry, and Old Hungry is older than Zaun."

"But I could have hurt you! I forced stone out of the ground without warning and almost hurled you halfway across the dunes! Did that not scare you?"

His look faded to the shadowed earth and his smile softened.

"Well, maybe it did, but I get that you didn't mean to do it, and I believe you. I'm from a place where the uncontrollable meets the insane. Stuff like that happens all the time in Zaun." He looked back to me, then his smile lifted again. "What's one more in Shurima?"

It was as if some boulder fell upon me, only to explode and dissipate into cool winds.

"But that, that stone-weaving hex thing, you do? That's definitely a first, a wonderful first for someone like me. What else can you do with it?"

My eyes could tell no emotion, save for some growing surprise.

"I mean, would that be okay? I won't be scared, but it's your call."

I stood there, mouth gaped and morphing slowly into a wicker smile as I shook my head, almost unable to understand why he could call it 'wonderful' when it had almost struck him and threatened his life. There was that curious gleam in his eyes, not something that concealed intent like with the mages of Noxus or that held tired interest like those of the Ionians and Piltovians, but a kind of child's look that genuinely wondered what happens next.

"I, uh, I can..." I began weaving, but without much thought of what I wanted to make, and so my fingers crafted a pattern I had practiced time and again. "Here."

The first threads to come out was a hank of stone, made out of two thick threads in a formation that made them appear like two strings coiling into one another, like two serpents curling upwards, their bodies not touching. It was a form Master Yasuo taught me long ago.

Ekko was breath-taken, for he approached it, looking over the symmetry and shape of what I brought of the ground with wide eyes. He would squat, tilt his head, or run a hand through the stone. Like with his weight upon my slab earlier, the touch of his palm over the threads communicated through my weaving, and I felt it through my fingers in a speck of blurred sensation, like a pellet of wood gliding through thin silk.

"No way..."

I lifted my arms up, to the second part of the exercise. The two threads twisted even closer until their stones molded into one pure, solid shape, and floated above the ground. Ekko stood back, and watched in awe, his eyes turned up as if he were again looking at the sun for the first time. The stone now bent inward, curling into itself, until it had become a smooth ball of granite.

"You can combine stones, change their shape, and suspend them in air using only your fingers..." He said, his look unmoved.

"It takes a great deal of focus to weave stone this precisely..."

Then, to the final part of the exercise, the ball fell to the ground, and spun like a vase on a potter's wheel, sending powders of stony dust. Slowly, the sphere of stone stretched upward, into an oblong, and then molded into a cylinder. It stopped spinning, but I was not finished, for I pinched the center of this cylinder, until it seemed two opposing cones, one above and one below, balancing on their tips. This took Ekko's attention even more. He focused on the impossible center, balanced by the craft of my hands, the final result of this pattern. Though I was finished weaving the shape, I remained silent. Maintaining its balance still required some effort. That too, was part of the exercise.

"And it's not falling... You're keeping it upright all on your own. How come you can control it so well now when just a while ago... you know?"

I sighed.

"Whenever my feelings are too much to bear, the earthen threads weave on their own."

Ekko turned to me. There was no smile on his face. I realized that he was reflecting my expression.

"Why is that?"

I have journeyed far to answer that question which I myself held long ago, and the answers I had found were many and correct in their own ways, like the cultures I have met, but I have always kept to what I learned from Master Yasuo when he taught me this pattern, for it was a pattern to exercise control, balance, and what he lectured me, I told Ekko.

"It is a piece of me, an expression of who I am, much like the tongue I speak. My stone-weaving is closely intertwined with my emotions just as my words and actions are. The same way one cannot control what he says or does in intense joy, anger, or sorrow, I cannot control the pattern of the stones when I have such feelings, and so I must be careful, even when I am not weaving the earth. I must be careful with myself."

As I explained, Ekko's look returned to the figure I had woven.

"I've never thought of hex that way... A part of you, huh?" I felt him turn to me. "So that's why you pulled the stones out while you were laughing? You just couldn't help it."

I nodded without looking. A portion of my focus had to remain, keeping the stone balanced, yet I went back to that memory, of laughing so much because of some awkward introduction. It was less heavy to remember now. Ekko continued,

"Well, I didn't think it would be that funny. How was that too much of an emotion?"

I smiled.

"It has been long since I laughed because of someone else, and you were being... silly. Is that the right word?"

"Huh, silly. I guess it is." He said, a smirk shifting his words, "but I sure as Gray wasn't the only one being silly."

I turned to Ekko, wondering what he meant, but he went on,

"I just realized. This thing looks like that drawing I saw, the one you did in that cave?"

I returned to looking at the slab, and tilted my head. Like two triangles meeting at their tips, the two cones met much the same way.

"Hm. You are right. Perhaps it—"

"HWAH!"

A loud scream cracked from his side. Something quickly approached me. I twisted, shocked, and found Ekko thrusting forward his arms with his foot stomping forward. I stumbled away from him, yelping.

"AH!"

The two balancing stone cones tumbled as I jumped back. Eyes wide, I looked at him, unable to understand. He surprised me. Then, again, he began laughing.

"Why—"

But I stopped, already realizing what this meant from his laughter. My lips and brows crumpled, unimpressed but confused all the same. A moment ago, he was grieving. Now he was laughing.

His brief mirth died down, for he noticed my wordless glare.

"What? Was just curious. Seems 'surprise' isn't a strong feeling then. Well, I knew it wasn't."

The threads, when lost from control, were nothing to make fun of, and to test them was an act as foolish as it was dangerous. Though I knew his name, he was a stranger still, and I wanted to warn him not to do that again for our sake, but I stayed my lips. He still stood there, having witnessed what I could do, yet he dared to once again unleash the same force that had almost struck him.

He truly was not afraid. Maybe this was his kindness to me.

"I see how it is." I said.

"In Zaun, we call it 'standing even'. You surprised me so now I surprise you. Simple as gears. So I guess we're even no— woah!"

Catching a tile of stone, he fell to the ground and on his rear.

"Oof!"

For I was prepared to retaliate, I stilled my laughter, and gave only a light smile.

"Now that is a strong feeling, is it not?"

"Yeah." He set the stone away, pulled himself up, and brought himself to smirk almost forcibly as he did so."Sure is. It's better than what you did a while ago though." Then, he looked at me and noticed something before speaking, "Don't worry about it, I can take a hit."

But he misunderstood my expression. A bright gleam dispelled the shadows upon the earth.

"Your crystal."

It had rolled out of his cylinder when Ekko fell. When I mentioned this, Ekko's face suddenly grew wide and frantic. It took only a moment for him to find the radiant crystal he kept. Once he did, he grasped it quickly and held it close in his hands.

"Fell out." He murmured and began to stare at it as he did in the cave. No shadows formed where the amber crystal shined. It was truly like a piece of the sun; a fragment, a tear, resting warmly in his palms. Gems of great power were not untold in the tales and legends of the lands. I wondered if it were the same in Zaun, but I did not ask him. It was, after all, sacred. He chose not to say much about it.

After a while, he returned the crystal to the inside of his cylinder, trying to position it in such a way that it would not fall, but he fumbled as he did so. I began to notice how the light of the crystal gleamed at his side despite being kept inside the husk that was his cylinder. I remembered the Nivim and their eyes like starved men before the crystal's light. It needed to be safe, for his sake, and hidden, for ours. I stepped forward.

"I can help."

In a pure second, I felt that I knew nothing about him at all. A single glance told uncertainty, distrust. The eyes of a stranger.

"How?"

"Place the crystal inside."

There was a pause, as if my instruction needed thought, but then his hands moved. He unclipped the cylinder and stowed the crystal inside it.

"Hold the cylinder out, that I can see the gash."

He did as I said. The crystal rested inside and beneath the broken glass, like a perpetual flame concealed in a dark confine behind a torn clear sheet. His eyes did not leave it.

With the tugs and pulls of my hands, I took a strip of stone from the sculpture that had tumbled from when Ekko shocked me, and suspended it above the cylinder. He watched in quiet amazement, his look now tied to the stone floating in front of him. I shut my eyes and felt only the threads of stone coming down upon the metal cylinder. It touched the cold glass, and then, with outstretched fingers, I pulled the threads, thinning the stone as I did so.

"How in the world..." Ekko said. He mumbled more words, but I ignored them. I needed to concentrate.

I imagined a spindle, one like Babajan's, collecting the loose wool of sheep into fine threads, and thought of the stone that way. I spread them over the center of the cylinder, looping them around the device, until they had encased it completely. I was about to tell Ekko to begin rotating the cylinder so that his palm would not have to get in the way of the encasing stone, but he did this without my advice, and the work was done much faster.

I opened my eyes. There was Ekko's face, eyes wide, amazed at the woven stone. The cylinder was now banded by a single piece of dark granite. It covered the gash and obscured the crystal's light.

"You made the rock move so impossibly fluid... So this how you fixed my shirt..."

"Is the cylinder any heavier for you to carry?"

"No! The stone's so thin I could barely feel a difference." He clipped the cylinder back to the side of his thick leggings. The stone did its work, for the noticeable amber gleam was now gone, and the crystal was safe inside. Ekko looked at me. "Thanks. This'll work for now. Won't have to worry about it falling off any more."

"Or having it be seen by the wrong person. We will be traveling far. It is best not to carry anything that attracts attention."

"Yeah, you're right. Same advice you'd hear in Zaun. I guess this place isn't too different."

Despite him speaking of Zaun, I felt the need to question the crystal and the cylinder he carried. It was obviously precious and sacred, and I suspected that it had something to do with his appearing in Shurima. However, it was just as obvious that he did not want to speak of it and that only stretched my curiosity. He had made it clear to me, though, that he intended it to be a secret to remain, not like my stone-weaving. It was his secret, one that will remain unknown to me until we inevitably separate.

He was no weaver but there seemed to be no other explanation for him coming to this land. He understood that I did not mean to hurt him. I dared to think that he had done something similar, and so I still wondered. Maybe he was weaver too. I felt myself preparing to ask, but stopped. Maybe that was part of his secret. If he was anything like me, then perhaps I understood now.

He would not want me to be afraid. So there was no need to let me know.

"The shade we have now wanes to the rise of the sun. We must be going."

Ekko nodded. Before we went, we drank a portion from our waterskins and readied ourselves on the slab. The waters rushed beneath. They traced our direction, and as the slab moved forward, to the south west, where Greater Shurima lies, Ekko remarked on how this reminded him of speed-boards in Zaun before the winds yet again silenced any possibility of exchanging and left us to our own thoughts.

The crystal, the cylinder, and the orb of light... Tales were sewn underneath them, underneath his words, but he kept those hidden, for reasons I will probably never know. My curiosity remained frustrated but I knew better not to let it come between us, yet the idea of knowing, by accident or by decision, wandered in my thoughts, and I remembered when I had learned of Yasuo's name and of the meaning of Sivir's blood. Those were secrets to me at first. I did not know why, but I took comfort in that fact, and thought nothing more of Ekko, as I wove the slab to the course of the waters below.


AN: More and more development. This was a fun chapter to write; a little comedic break here, a hint of fluff there, then a reminder of more serious and pressing things, and, finally, movement. It was lovely. Again with the dumb smiles as I was writing. I can't seem to run out of steam for this story. Oh well, I hope this one flow is natural and that I got their interaction and all its awkwardness, right. They are, after all, teenagers. I had some doubts that I may be rushing a few developments in my intent to have more brevity, but I felt comfortable enough reading this again and again. I can only hope that it is the same for you readers.

Thank you to those who continue to follow and offer feedback. I am grateful you readers appreciate this story and I still have so much planned for you guys to see, but of course, that does not mean my story is free from any criticism, so if you have anything to point out, by all means tell me so that I can improve.

Thank you guys again. See you on the next one!

Important Update: I have decided to stop publishing this story chapter by chapter and instead focus on completing the entire story first. My reason for this is simple: I've noticed that I get hooked up on waiting for feedback, to the point that I don't feel as motivated to write unless I see a review pop up. The influence on waiting on feedback per chapter is too much, and what happens is that I get large periods of not writing which affects the momentum and continuity of the story's contents (I've noticed this most particularly with this chapter). This is not a problem with just this story, but most of my other stories as well, and so it stems from a flaw in my writing attitude.

This will basically come down to me publishing the complete story in an undetermined date while I work to complete in total silence from any feedback. This is a major step to my improvement as a writer, and indeed, a very difficult one, but I hope to have you guys read a consistent and high-quality story, uninterrupted by super long waits per chapter. I'd very much rather have the entire story prepared and published at once or in weekly intervals.

So I'll be honest and say that you guys will be waiting for a long, long time, possibly months, before seeing anything from this story again and I can only hope that you can bear with me on this. The fact that I am making such a paramount decision on this story means that I intend to complete it, and I would like to do so without long personal hiatuses that ultimately frustrate both the reader and the writer.

Overall, I expect that I will be writing faster, more cohesively, and more closer to the way that original/traditional writing is done (that is, without any feedback from a reader base at all), and this is particularly useful since I'm transitioning to writing original works. I have made significant progress since this decision and I've noticed that my writing quality has improved since I'm writing more consistently and without time and reader pressure.

If you have any questions or would like to hear an update on the progress of this story, feel free to PM me. Reviews are still welcome but of course I won't be checking them as often now that I have decided to complete this first. I sincerely hope to finish this story, as I am still in love with its concept, and I hope that in time, you guys will enjoy the full and unfettered results of my work.