Written By: Riaki

Concept Created By: Riaki / Kaisuke

Beta-Reader(s): Shiori / Kijutsu

Author's Notes: If you don't like greater meanings, you might not like this that much… …Then again, though, there's fluff. So! Check it out, and review it if you get the chance.

Disclaimer: Ragnarok Online and all references related to it are the property of Gravity. AA (Anbu's Analogy) claims no ownership of it.

Semi-Copyright: All character personalities (as well as the concept behind this story) have been created by AA and can not be directly used without requesting permission from the original author of this story. So, basically… Don't rip my isht, bish. .

Endless Tapestries.

His first word, legend states, was "why".

They called him dream-weaver. His real name was Takeo. His nickname had been spawned from his never-ending imagination, all of which haunted his sleep.

And every morning he'd wake and ask, "Why?"

The dreams spanned across every landscape of thought and being, every frame of time. He dreamed incessantly of his test within the cathedral; in one dream the truth came true, and he became a monk. In others he was turned away; in another he never tested to begin with.

And the possibilities were endless, endless…

Every morning he'd wake, confused. And every morning his first word would spring to his lips, always the same; it'd be uttered, over and over, and an answer would never come, for no one knew it. Some tried to guess, out of pity.

"You dream of the past" was one response. Another was that he dreamed of the future. One even went so far as to say, "You dream of what will never be". But each "solution" was shown to be false as he dreamed a dream that declared it without truth, and so, with every dawn's rising that cast golden cascades over the plains of Rune-Midgard, he awoke to find that endless question upon his lips.

The monk was tormented, endlessly.

It eventually became a search for truth. People were never surprised; wandering religious fanatics were not so rare across the land, and just as commonly, monks were reported being within the heat of battle, disposing of the undead left and right. It was, overall, something quite common for a lone monk to be wandering about, sometimes prattling off nonsense about God and vanquishing the evils of the earth. A regular savior.

The catch? Takeo was nothing of a savior; he was a man in search of a truth that he began to believe never existed, but he constantly told himself he had to, for in the world, every question must have an answer. And so he searched for days upon days…

The time he spent alone is disputable. One legend says that it was a few short days; another says it was years. Even others go so far as to suggest that it was no time at all, or all time to eternity, babbling some lackluster story about different dimensions and fouled priest warps, all of which result in him being forever restless. An unhappy ending, as he becomes a holy version of the Wanderer.

This legend states otherwise.

This story seeks to speak the truth of the finding of the truth, though perhaps it is only a single truth of many. Within this truth, Takeo found what some would call nonsense; others would hail it as the answer to infinity. Only the reader may decide.

And so the story continues, at the will of the author in hopes of entertaining the reader a bit more.

He had wandered for what had seemed like a lifetime, and every morning, the words pooling from his lips were the same. He began to tire of the word quickly, and began to think of it as a curse; he cursed himself and his vocabulary for being so insistence on repeating such a droll concept, one he could never understand. And his curses and his questions were what besieged his life for a moment, until, in a single moment of conversation, it was whisked away.

Whisked away by his stereotypical hate.

It was a sunny day, a bright one. Takeo loved the day for it. He had wandered through the Pyramids of Morroc already, searched the corners of the Sphinx and had briefly, just briefly, wiped away the cobwebs that covered a tombstone within the graveyards of Niffleheim. His location, then, was a happy one; no longer within the city of the dead nor the heated, he was thankful to be back amidst the Poring-filled plains of Prontera, reveling in the strange moment of solitude he had gained by placing himself within a grove of trees, beside a pond. Oddly content in the sun.

In the back of his mind, the questions raged incessantly. Takeo was becoming good at ignoring them, though…

And that was when he'd met her. His moment of solstice shattered, he had been surprised, then frustrated. She was an assassin, wild-haired and humor-eyed. He had looked at her wearily and had asked her to leave.

She had asked why, and he had said, voice partially one of confusion; "Monks and assassins don't bode well."

Laughter rung through the air, as true as silver; she had countered, quite quickly, with one phrase.

"Why not?"

Takeo found himself drawn into frustration again, for he could no much more answer that question than he could answer his own. And so, with a moment of loss, he found himself getting to know her, and her, him. Her name was Sanae; she had been traveling, just as he was. Her reasoning was different than his. He sought an answer; she sought nothing. She merely traveled for the joy of it, while he remained fogged down in purpose. Later, he spoke his mind to her, telling her he disproved of the fact that she seemed to have no purpose in life.

A grin as innocent as a summer's sky was shot at him. "Do we need a purpose to be happy?"

It had taken him a few days to tangle out his confusion of that one, and he still didn't completely understand. At the time, just after she had answered, she had laughed again and left him, only returning several hours later for dinner. When he asked why, she eventually told him that there was a lot left for him to figure out, and she had decided that he could've used a few hours alone to try and sort out at least one problem for that day.

Weeks later, they were still together. They had passed through Payon, and a traveling bard had been within. He had motioned to the pair with a grinning face, and had sung them a ballad that was horribly familiar to Takeo.

...And our sad story ends, forever asking, Dream-Weaver;

Are the answers beyond you, perhaps lost in Rune's theatre?

And regrets shower on us, for time is always lost;

For the time you've spent asking, you never once asked the cost.

A blush had stained his cheeks at the obvious recognition of a childhood nickname, having realized, with a start, just how many had spoken (and ignited) his tale.

Sanae had asked him about it when they'd left the tavern.

Takeo told her, quickly and briefly, of how his imagination had (in his childhood) grown beyond his grasp of reality. He added, with some loss of breath, how he believed his story had been magnified and exaggerated.

She had looked at him with a wink. "You really think so?"

It was a moment of stuttered disagreements before Takeo sought to drag the conversation away from him, suddenly and randomly questioning Sanae about if she had any nicknames he ought to know before they ran into someone singing a tale of her deeds. She had shrugged, humor pulling away as seriousness exchanged itself for it. A brief moment in which she spoke her words without a touch of laughter behind it.

"My name's Sanae because I am Sanae," she'd said, shoulders pulling upwards. "That's my name, and that's all I'm called – because Sanae is Sanae," she'd finished.

It was enough to make him mad the rest of the night, silently cursing everyone who had bestowed him with his now embarrassing nickname during his childhood.

There were many other instances in which the laughing and playful assassin had made him feel just as foolish. One time was when he was still asking his never-ending questions, one of which referred to a lone Poring that had made off with one of his card. While running at a full sprint behind it, he yelled over his shoulder; "Why do they do that!"

She suddenly appeared before both the Poring and the monk, a burst and flash of movement touching as Sanae stole the card back from the Poring, bolting away once more as she replied with a yell. "Because!" She then grinned; "Why not!"

That night, he had dreamed fitfully of spirits that both laughed and mocked him for never understanding, always questioning that which they claimed to be unquestionable. One took pity, though; with darkened arms of purple and gray, it had beckoned to him briefly, and as he stepped into the light that it offered, a voice sought to whisper in his ear…

And he awoke, never to hear the answer, with the same question on his lip that he felt so close to knowing.

Life continued with Sanae regardless of the disturbed sleep and broken slumbers. Takeo sought to keep his ridiculous dreams and questions away from her, figuring that she would simply step back, confused as his incessant questioning, just like the rest. And then, perhaps, like all the others, she would claim to have an answer, one of which was always one dimensional and always proved wrong.

An endless cycle; he wished it to end.

It couldn't go on for long, though. The days were lengthening, and life's simplicities seemed to reveal themselves gradually though a rush of confusion still brushing constantly over his mind. The more Sanae spoke and the more he listened, the more clarity he felt. But then, a thundering reminder of his original quest would strike upon him, and he would become just as listless and questioning as before, but this time, containing himself to privacy. He didn't wish to drop upon Sanae the questions he thought he was condemned to ask for forever.

Eventually, though, she was bound to know…

Another sunny day. They were back in the fields of Prontera; where the inclusion of "they" had began, and where his title of "he" had ended. Takeo had been again haunted in his sleep as he was every night, continuously, and had awoke presumably before Sanae, as he usually did.

The question forced himself from his lips at a whisper, and was suddenly met by an interruption.

"You have yourself a problem there, Take-boy."

The affectionate title was spoken to him from within the tree beneath which he had been slumbering, and his head jerked up with a start. Eyes narrowed as he caught the figure in the shadows as a familiar laugh pulled out to meet his ears.

"Rude, much?"

Sanae dropped from the canopied branches, landing beside her companion with a soft thump on the grass. She remained in the crouched position in which she landed, tilting her head to look at him as she rested her elbows on her knees.

"You ask that question every morning, you know," she stated, oddly calm. There was an intrigued look in her eyes. "And it seems like you've never found the answer. Why haven't you?"

A brief spark of anger rolled over his look, and suddenly Takeo was speaking, much faster than he had in quite some time. "Can you really expect me to answer so much? You've heard the tales – you've heard the legends – I'm the dream-weaver. I'm meant to weave dreams; I'm meant to wander endlessly asking the world why they're showing me these dreams that have no sense no meaning, no truth yet no lies. You ask me why I have no answer? Why, maybe it's because no answer is possible!"

Sanae's smooth voice cut in then, her phrase being short. "Everything has an answer."

His anger was darkened then. "There cannot be an answer for every truth and every lie, every time and every place yet nothing at all; everything and anything and nothing simultaneously, every possibility and every moment that has happened!" He was yelling now, shouting out years of frustration and years and never knowing, demanding that she do something about it. "Every person on this earth has, at one point or another, had some question that could never be answered. Some are as simple as 'why did she leave me for him', some as complex as 'how did we get here'. I see them all, and dream them all, and every morning I find myself asking for every person on every crevice of Rune-Midgard 'why', and every morning the pain of never knowing has raged over me while each person that I dream for merely thinks for a second before that one single question for him, thousands for me, is swept from his mind!"

It was a dull roar in his ears now, and it felt like it was forever.

"Can you tell me if there is a point to our parish? Why do we fight over the Emperium daily! Is Baphomet a reality or a legend; where has the father of the boy within the Inn of Prontera gone to? Will the undead in Payon Cave ever be saved by the God-fearing, or will the Godless reign for hundreds upon thousands of years as they do in Niffleheim, to the point at which every damned city on this land becomes just as that place has: a walking graveyard? And why will these things happen, and why must they happen, and why must I be the one to see all and yet none of the possibilities?"

Takeo finally stopped, suddenly drained and helpless. He stared bleakly at the frankly beautiful sight before him, eyes blindly seeing nothing other than his own despair lost within his own confusion. It was her voice that eventually shook him from his frozen state.

Dark eyes had stared at him, unblinking, and a smile eventually had unfolded. It was a small one, and soft as well; a laugh eventually followed. It was the same one that he had heard when he had first met her, and now he didn't even know whether he loved it or hated it, hating it for the way it made him feel or loving it for the same. Inwardly, he asked himself why he should care, and she continued.

"You ask for so much, yet you need so little." Sanae was flashing him a white-toothed grin now, contentedly; he felt himself falling into the smile. "A life is a life, an end, an end… Whether you question it or not, it will happen. Times change and stay the same, and there are so many possibilities, yet we only see one simply because that's all we may see. The sun rises over Morroc, and sets there as well; the greenery seems never-ending and infinite around Payon, and Comodo's falling lights as always falling. You ask why, and there's only one answer which spans over every question and every consideration, every thing left unanswered by science and politics and alchemy and magic and painted pictures."

Another intake of breath, and, smile renewed, she spoke. "Why not?"

And with so simple a phrase, spoken so innocently by someone so oddly important to him, he felt himself falling into the throes of a feeling of ridiculousness and stupidity that he nearly drowned, but was suddenly caught up in understanding. Now worded differently, he suddenly saw what it was she had meant all along, not quite being what he had perceived it to originally be.

He had always thought that, to answer a question with a question, it was simply a display of never knowing. But in reality, it was the question to end all questions, something to unveil every truth for what it was and what it wasn't all in the same…

The world is the way it is because it can be. Things that happen are done because they can; a sense of reason is thought to be needed for one to do something; in reality its use is to merely rationalize it within the minds of those that need reasons and complex gimmicks to explain each and every movement. But if the movement is possible, it can be done, and if it is done, it ought not to be questioned; if it is, one may merely say "why not?" and find themselves holding actuality and reality by a finger.

It may be countered with logic and ethics, morality and economics and politics and reasoning. It may be shot down by those in higher positions of education, law-enforcers and law-makers and court judges and juries. An overwhelming majority may tell you thousands upon millions of reasons for "why not".

But, in the end, it is simply a matter of this; if reality allows it to be so, why not?

Reality holds no prejudices over race, gender, personality, money… It cannot distinguish between the sophisticated and poverty-stricken, cannot hope to identify the difference between the young and the old. It merely realizes what can be done and what cannot, and the fact that the possibility exists, and that one may take it if they so chose to.

And if it doesn't exist, it doesn't exist, and why ought it to exist? If you ask why it isn't possible, reality may answer, just as candidly; "Why not?"

It took several long moments before Takeo could even allow the possibility of the truth being so simple to dawn upon him. And suddenly, everything made sense, in a wildly disorganized way, and he found himself overflowing with truths so simplistic and miniscule in their answers that he was speaking again, rapidly, suddenly finding himself challenging the one answer to every question.

"It doesn't stand as the complete answer for everything," he spoke, voice light and rapid. "There's one thing you missed… For why I still travel with you."

Her tone was one of intrigue as her smile widened, eyes looking to latch onto his, bright with curiosity. "And what would that be, oh esteemed Dream-Weaver?"

Takeo raised his head, catching her gaze directly with his own. "Because I love you."

-----

He had taken to traveling the skies themselves, it seemed like. Prontera, Morroc, Geffen, Alberta… Nothing left untouched. But he always saw himself returning to Payon, his birthright, and always found himself singing of the same tale, over, and over…

But one day, the notion came upon him that perhaps something had changed. The air seemed different; sweeter, almost, and it inspired a new composition. He wrote it, believing it to even be too beautiful for a set melody, and allowed it rather to exist pure of sound yet free to do as it would.

Simplicity and freedom of words.

"Why do you love me?" she asked. He had laughed, the same laugh that she had laughed all along.

"Why not?"

Yes, 'why not', and so much more…

For love is endless because it can be, and forever ends never because it needs not. To this date we have yet to see their love perish, and to this hour I have yet to hear a melody so melodically infinite as that of his past, the endless questioning of 'why'…

The dream-weaver had realized that within himself, he only had half of the answer to the equation of the universe. "Why" could never stand alone and hope to repair the ceaseless tears in his heart and soul, but upon the discovery of its companion, his repairs were suddenly forever lasting, forever pressing beyond the fog that had blurred his visions and hastened his hated of self. And suddenly, he could break free of the void that had contaminated him since birth.

I end on this note; the dream-weaver had never existed in full. Rather, it was only half of a possibility that was woven into physical existence; and now, as we can see, he has found his other half.

Fate laughs with them as we look on, our small problems being the pride of their wonders. They're still there, somewhere, I've seen them – still wandering, still holding the thousands of questions that were bestowed upon him in his sleep for years and years…

And still, with every rising morning, a sound pulls itself from his lips. But now another voice joins it, and it sounds almost musical to the ears. Every morning, they wake, and the phrase is uttered, a grin playing across two pairs of lips.

"Why not?"

And so ends the dream-weaver's tapestry.

-----

"You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'"

George Bernard Shaw.