The Loomfires dimmed again, but this time, not in reverence.
In warning.
A single thread dangled before Ashardio, shimmering not with light, but with finality. Unlike the sprawling weaves of creation, this thread pulsed with a cadence of ending. Every flicker was a heartbeat closer to silence.
He did not touch it.
It touched him.
The world folded inward.
Suddenly, Ashardio stood upon a vast expanse of nothing — a horizonless void, yet not empty. Threads wove themselves in intricate patterns beneath his feet, vanishing into a distant, unseen loom.
And at its center stood Vaelith.
She was not grandiose. No towering form, no blinding aura. Draped in robes of unraveling threads, her fingers constantly worked — weaving, snipping, tying off fragments of reality with a grace that made oblivion look merciful.
Her face was veiled, not by cloth, but by memories Ashardio could no longer name.
Yet something within him whispered: "You knew her."
⸻
Vaelith spoke without sound.
"Ashar-d'hio. Once, you walked beside me."
The name struck deeper than expected. His true name. The name from before titles, before duty. A name he had not heard since…
Since the Fracture of Vahl'Dren.
Flashes assaulted him. • A younger Ashardio, not yet the Weaver, learning to tie threads beneath Vaelith's guidance. • His hands trembling as he snipped his first fray—not with fear of failure, but fear of forgetting. • The day he asked Vaelith why endings were necessary.
Her answer had been simple.
"Because without endings, nothing new begins. A story without an end is not eternal — it is stagnant."
He remembered now.
Vaelith was not a harbinger of doom.
She was a midwife of conclusions.
She did not end things out of cruelty.
She gave closure. She ensured no thread lingered in purposeless suffering.
⸻
"You wove beauty, Ashar-d'hio. But you feared endings.""You feared letting go."
Her words were not accusation. They were mourning.
In his desperate bid to preserve stories, to bind chaos, Ashardio had strayed. He had defied the natural fray, sealing cracks with force rather than finesse. And in doing so, he had abandoned her teachings.
The Entity of Fractured Tomorrows was not just born of neglect.
It was born of his neglect.
He had refused to end what should have been allowed to fade.
⸻
Vaelith extended her hand.
Not in judgment.
In offering.
In her palm lay a single silver thread, thin as breath, yet humming with absolute finality.
"This is not your end, Ashar-d'hio. But it is an end you must choose.""For yourself. For the Entity. For every story you refuse to let die."
The implication was clear.
He could no longer weave indiscriminately.
He must learn when to snip.
When to say goodbye.
⸻
As his fingers closed around the silver thread, memories surged.
He remembered kneeling beside Vaelith, learning to unmake with kindness. How she would hum to the threads as she snipped, honoring what was as much as what would be.
He remembered the Promise of the Quiet Loom — an oath to end with dignity, not erasure.
Tears, unbidden, welled in his eyes.
"Forgive me, Weaver of Ends.""Teach me again."
Vaelith's veiled face inclined, not as a goddess, but as a mentor proud of her pupil's return.
The silver thread dissolved into his palm, not as a weapon, but as a lesson.
⸻
When Ashardio awoke from the memory-vision, the Loomfires were watching.
Not flickering wildly, not demanding stories.
But waiting.
And for the first time, Ashardio did not reach to weave immediately.
He sat.
He breathed.
He remembered that every thread, every tale, deserved its rightful ending.
Even his own.
But not today.
Today, he would weave with care.
And when the time came, he would know when to snip.
Because Vaelith had never truly left him.
And neither had the wisdom of the Celestials.