Chapter 2

Knotai floated, without weight, without temperature, in a sea of shadows. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself. It was just void, darkness. He wills himself to see something, anything, and an instant later, he could see faint light piercing through the shadows. And if he could see, then he had other senses too. It came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought. Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, Knotai became conscious that he was naked. Convinced as he was of his total solitude, this did not concern him, but it did intrigue him slightly. He floated in a dark mist, though it was not like any mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by the cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet been formed into anything tangible.

He sat up, or as much as he could while floating. His body appeared unscathed. He touched his face. His wounds were no longer there. Then a noise reached him through the unformed nothingness that surrounded him: the small soft whispers of threads rubbing against more threads. It was a soothing noise, yet also slightly jarring. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was eavesdropping on something secret. For the first time, he wished he were clothed.

Barely had the wish formed in his head than robes appeared a short distance away. He took them and pulled them on. They were soft, clean, and warm. It was extraordinary how they had appeared just like that, the moment he had wanted them. He stood up, looking around. Was he in some great Illusion? The longer he looked, the more there was to see. An extravagant tapestry unrolled before him, made of vibrant greens and yellows and dulled, pulsing reds and purple. Scenes of great wonder and noble deeds played out before his eyes before being overburdened by the weights of great tragedy only for acts of wonder and nobility to rise again to the challenge.

He started walking along the tapestry seeing the same patterns being played over again and again with small changes but always ending the same way. As his footsteps fell upon the expertly woven threads, his eyes lost themselves in the wonder of the skill represented in the unique ways that the threads managed to twist and turn into such a story.

With a moment of clarity he realized, this was the tapestry of fate. Woven since before time began and prophesied to be unbroken until time ends. With that realization, the tapestry comes to an ends where it seems the dark mist is condensing down into threads of multiple hues of color before trying to weave into the next part of the tale. However, a tangle in skein seems to be building causing the threads to pull against each other, tightening and strangling the design before it starts pulling upon previous threads. He reaches forward to try and halt the threads and unravel them.

The moment his fingers brush against the first thread, the weave beneath his feet tears itself apart. He tries to quickly snatch at the threads to stop this destruction that in his mind, must not happen. And suddenly, it stops. The threads quickly weave back together as the massive knot releases its grip. The ends of the threads turn back into mist as the tapestry seems to be reversing itself back to a point before the snare had a strangling hold.

Everything stops. The stories told freeze into place. The threads hang motionless in the air. Even the very mist seems to be holding its breath, waiting for either salvation or damnation.

Under his right foot, something moves. He looks down and sees a royal purple thread pulse with life as it seems to form out of his very skin before stretching out before him. The thread swells until he can see individual scenes inside of it.

A small frail child punching a tree with small bands of rusted metal wrapped around his hands. The first meeting between that same child and a small injured raven. Whispers and looks of disgust following him home as he walks among the streets of his own kind.

With a gasp he follows the trail of the thread as it entwines itself into a small collection of threads; soft blue, dazzling yellow, festive green, burning red, steady brown, and mesmerizing aqua. These threads wrap themselves around his own thread before piercing straight into the heart of the tangle. And for a brief moment, it seems as if the threads might drown under the weight of the strangling mass before slowly the tangle unravels and the tales of time once again start to weave into a new tale.

A small itch develops between his shoulder blades and a feeling of being watched develops. He looks up and the shadows now curl back to reveal the familiar sight of a massive white porcelain woman's face. Eyeless, yet staring straight at, if not through him. Her presence, imposing as it may be, soothes him as her giant hand, larger than a house, a palace, it seems, almost emerges from below and scoops him off of the tapestry. As his feet touch her palm, that single purple thread wraps itself around his leg and gently starts tugging him forward.

As his foot lifts to make that first step, he hears above him in a soft, yet distant, feminine voice, "Awake my champion. The world needs you sooner then I believed."

With a loud gasp shattering the stillness of the night, a hauntingly white skinned elf opens his eyes to a sky of star. As he lays there, decades before his time should have come, his past memories already fading back into his subconscious, he wonders aloud to himself, "Why choose me? Am I even worthy?"

The only answer he receives is the soft caw of a raven nearby as the wind gently plays with the soft strands of his long, black hair on its way past.