The start of the journey had passed in a blur. After finishing every story he could and then taking archery lessons from Emre, Mono had ended up going to bed far later in the night than he had planned.
Mono was never a morning person, and waking early after staying up late had been miserable. Paired with the fact that there was no coffee or an equivalent around, it took the first few hours of the trip before he felt like a functional person again.
"So, why do you guys think he destroyed his sculptures, which were perfect?"
Once over his morning slump, Mono had taken the first opportunity he had to tell a story based on his last conversation with Celia at the outpost. Instead of a merchant, though, he had changed the character to a male statue sculptor who built living statues before defacing them.
Adamas, who was also sitting in the back of the wagon, crossed his arms in thought. "The way I see it, the reason why perfection was the sculptor's motivation to destroy his works was because he didn't want to see them ruined."
"What do you mean by that?" Mono asked.
"Well," Adamas elaborated, "the statues wouldn't be perfect forever, right? Even if they were as well kept as possible, time would eventually ruin them. I think the sculptor wanted to make sure that they were always perfect and could never be seen imperfect."
"That's a bit confusing, Ad." Vivian spoke from the front of the cart. "It wouldn't matter if they were destroyed instantly after being perfect, they still got ruined."
"Why do you think he did it then?"
Vivian quickly responded. "That's easy. The sculptor said that the statue was perfect. Was. Whenever someone makes something, they're always growing and improving. Once he had finished the statue, which was perfect during and slightly after its creation, he realized that he could produce a better one. And since the old statue was no longer the best he could do, the perfect one, he got rid of it to make room for a better one."
"That makes sense, but it feels wrong to me." Adamas turned to look at Mono.
"Do you have another guess?" Vivian asked.
"No, but yours feels off." Adamas turned to Mono. "So, what was the reason?"
"I don't know." Mono replied. "I wrote the story hoping to see what you guys thought the reason was."
Mono actually did have a guess, but wasn't comfortable sharing it. When someone made something, truly spent time pouring over it and trying to perfect it, they put a part of themselves inside of it. When Mono saw the sculptor, or rather Celia, destroy her creations, he thought that she was targeting the part of herself that she had put into the constructs in self-contempt.
Maybe he was projecting. He had torn his own fair share of personal stories scrawled on paper.
Regardless of the actual reason, learning about other people's interpretations had been interesting. Mono made a mental note to write it down at some point in order to avoid forgetting, as well as the guesses his listeners made so that he could reflect on them. A good story was one that immersed the audience while making them think about its implications.
"Maybe he was just crazy," Adamas suggested. "Sometimes people get too wrapped up in their talents and their mind becomes twisted."
"Could you explain talents, please?" Mono asked without thinking.
In the brief silence that followed, Mono mentally kicked himself. The word "talent" was such a common word that asking about it directly would make him look strange. It couldn't be helped, though. After more than a week in a fantasy world, Mono was no closer to learning magic than when he had first arrived. It had literally been the hook which caused him to agree to leaving Earth, and the frustration had finally caused him to slip up and ask such an obviously weird question.
Adamas was the first to break the silence. "Do they not have talents where you're from?"
Technically, Mono thought, people had talents, just not magic. "Not in the way that the word is used here."
"What's the definition of talent in your language?" Vivian asked.
"A natural aptitude or skill."
"That's about what it means here, too," Adamas said. "What's confusing you?"
"I'm —" Mono stopped to try to put his thoughts into words. "The fact that people can do different things like animate paper or control the shape of bubbles that they create."
"It's their talent, it's simply what they can naturally do."
"I understand that, but why can they do it? Why is their talent that specific thing? Why can they do one thing but not another?"
"It seems to me," Vivian replied, "that you're not asking what talents are, but rather how they work."
Mono blinked. "That's exactly it."
"Explaining is a bit complicated. Ad, can you switch spots with me?" Vivian asked.
"Sure."
The siblings always had one of them sit in the front to oversee the wagon's movement. While it was self-driving through unknown means, Mono hadn't really taken the time to question how it worked, chalking it up to magic. Now that a ton of his assumptions had been subverted during his time here, he would totally need to ask later. It wouldn't have been surprising if there was secretly a tiny engine somewhere.
Once the two had swapped spots, Adamas in the front and Vivian now in the back with Mono, she continued her explanation. "The first thing you need to understand is that there is no definite explanation, only a bunch of theories. I'm going to tell you the one that we were taught at Atlatl."
"Alright."
"The first part of the theory is that talents are firmly rooted in the mind. This explains why each person has distinctive talents: because people see the world differently, their talents are also different."
That made sense to Mono. "What about people from the same family or culture? Are their talents similar?"
"Most of the time, yes. Families tend to have comparable talents. Sometimes, however, they can be quite different. I know a pair of twins whose abilities are completely unrelated. One could speak without opening their mouth while the other could freeze water just by touching it."
"What about your family?"
Vivian hesitated for a second before continuing. "Our family is very enthusiastic about the written word. It's why we're known by our talent."
Mono furrowed his brow. "Weavers?"
"Yes! We're actually known as word-weavers, but the name was cut down in translation."
That explained why Vivian always asked about Mono's word choice in stories. "Okay, so how do you write like that?" Mono made a gesture in the air imitating the times he had seen Vivian write in the air.
Vivian chuckled. "With words."
"No, I mean write with those glowing lines."
"Ah, that brings us to the second part of the theory. Across cultures, even the jarringly different ones, there's a common belief in an energy, force, or feeling that one invokes in order to utilize their talent. The researchers at Atlatl believe that all of the cultures are referencing the exact same thing. While they termed it aether based on their own history, it goes by many names depending on the language and region: asc, nothi, mana, estel, chakra, vital, qi, and ardor, to name a few."
"The Dancers call it flow," Adamas added.
"Dancers?" Mono asked. While Sojourn's stone gave him a faint connotation of the word, he figured it was better to ask for an elaboration.
Vivian happily obliged. "A group of people not far from our home. Ad visits them whenever he can because there's a girl there he fancies."
"That's completely untrue!" Her brother protested.
"Then what's with the pair of bells you bought? I can't think of any reason you got them except to give them as a gift — and the only people who really use them are the Dancers."
Adamas' ears were red. "I already told you this. When I left home for the first time, they helped me out a lot. Now that I can afford it, I wanted to get them something to show my appreciation."
"But you only bought a single pair," Vivian pointed out. "Didn't you say that Nia's father and brother also helped you? Where are their gifts?"
While he opened his mouth to reply, no answer came from Adamas. Vivian gave a smug grin as she waited for his response.
As much as Mono enjoyed the banter between the two siblings, he wanted to go back to the explanation about talents. Everything was finally starting to make a small amount of sense. "Is that it? Talents rely on aether to work?"
At the change of subject, Adamas shot Mono a look of gratitude while Vivian turned around to respond.
"Remember, Mono, it's just a theory. While it explains some talents, the theory doesn't support all of them."
"Could you give me some examples?"
"Some people can learn a lot faster than others, replicate any song they hear after only one listen, or cook the perfect meal every time."
"But those aren't—"
Mono was about to say that those things weren't talents, but stopped himself. They were talents, just not the magical kind. Suddenly, the concept of talents started clicking. To the people here, there was no magic. There were only talents, things people could do naturally because of their culture, past experiences, and identity.
As an outsider, Mono had tried to separate the magic from the person, but that was clearly incorrect. He had to look at the person as a whole to understand the magic, to see their cultures and their identities, to see their perception of the world.
"Could you teach me more about word-weaving?" He asked.
Since talents were based on one's mindset, then all he would have to do is learn a person's perspective, right? Mono didn't think that he could learn just anything, but he felt that word-weaving was something he could get behind; he was a writer, after all.
"If you want me to," Vivian replied. "But I have to warn you, learning another talent isn't very easy. It's not like someone can just see a talent and then copy it, there's a lot of mental aspects involved that take years to internalize. In fact, trying to learn about other talents could mess with your own."
"Really?"
She nodded. "Atlatl actively warns its attendants to avoid copying others and instead focus on using its diversity to expand upon one's own talents. Some people who ignore the warning lose the ability to properly use their original talents, and they often get removed from the institution's official register."
"I'm fine with the risk," Mono said. He really didn't have anything to risk, anyways. While the siblings thought that his ability to speak across languages was his own talent, it was actually just the stone. Can't lose what you don't have.
"Alright then." Vivian began to rummage through one of the nearby bags until she found what she was looking for. Pulling out several sheets of paper, a quill, and a small glass bottle of ink, she began to write.
After a few minutes, she handed a sheet of paper to Mono. He took a look. There were random words written on the sheet in columns.
"What is this?" He asked.
"While Weaving technically works in common, it's meant to be done in the original language. I wrote you a list of all of the basic symbols and their definition on the opposite column."
Symbols? Mono looked at the words again. They weren— The stone, he realized. Sojourn's stone was translating the symbols into English words.
Well now, this was an issue. In order to see the symbols, Mono had to stop using the stone. But, in order to read what each symbol meant, he had to be able to understand the common language without the stone. That was something he still didn't know how to do.
"Is there a problem?" Vivian noticed Mono's perplexed face.
"I can't read what you wrote," He replied.
"But I saw you read yesterday. What do you mean?"
"It's complicated." Mono struggled to find a way to tell Vivian about the nature of the stone without actually telling her what the stone actually was.
Fortunately, Adamas gave him a way out. "Does it have something to do with your talent?"
"Yeah, I can either see the words in my language or see them in their original. I can't select a single language to not translate."
Vivian scrunched her brow in thought. "Can you use your talent to speak but not translate written words? If you can, I can try to verbally teach you."
"I've never tried."
"So?" Vivian gestured at the page.
Mono got the message and concentrated on the paper in his hands.
Translate only spoken words. How was he supposed to do that? As far as he knew, he could either hold the stone or not hold it. He thought back to the first time he had first seen Vivian write in the air. Even though he had been able to talk to them, the words hadn't been translated then.
Vivian had said that talents were based on perception, so Mono tried to recall what he had felt at the time. Think. What was his mindset back then? His priorities and worries? As he continued to focus, he felt an indescribable shift in his brain. Grasping onto the feeling, Mono watched as the words shifted back into two distinct types of things; a column with almost-normal letters and another with structured symbols each written with several strokes.
"Can you still understand me?" Mono asked. It was difficult to both speak and hold onto the feeling.
"I can," Vivian confirmed. "Did it work?"
"Yes!" The words quickly shifted back into English as Mono's excitement caused him to lose the feeling. "For a bit, anyway," he amended. "It's hard."
"The first time doing anything is always difficult," Adamas assured him. "You just have to practice consistently."
"How would I practice something like this?"
"You could tell us more stories while looking at the paper," Vivian suggested. "If you feel comfortable by the time we have to stop for tonight, I can start teaching you after camp is set up."
"Okay." In the brief time that Mono had split the stone's ability, he had gotten the beginnings of a headache. It wasn't going to stop him, however. Now that he was actually making progress with magic, he really wanted to push forward.
In the following hours, the siblings listened to Mono's tales, often stopping in between to just discuss certain plots or scenes in a story. As he continued to talk, Mono began to have a better grasp of manipulating the stone's abilities. By the time the sun had crested over the closest mountains to become a sunset, he was able to hold a solid conversation without getting a headache.
"I think we should stop here for the night," Adamas said after they had finished having a lively debate about sandwiches. Once Mono had explained the concept to them, the siblings had ended up arguing over what qualified.
"Good idea. You go ahead and secure the cart while me and Mono make a fireplace to prepare the sandwiches." Vivian replied.
"Multiple pieces of bread on top of each other isn't a sandwich," Adamas insisted.
"How do you know that?" Vivian asked. "It fits what Mono told us."
"It's just not; otherwise, a loaf of bread would just be one gigantic sandwich."
There was a brief pause.
"I guess you're right." Vivian agreed.
"Thank you."
"A sliced loaf of bread is a sandwich"
"No, that's not what I —"
"Anyways," Vivian interrupted her brother as she turned towards Mono, "are you comfortable enough with your talent now to learn about Weaving?"
Mono looked at Adamas silently fuming in the background. "I think so."
"Great! Then let's start the fire."
As Vivian and Mono exited the cart, Adamas called out behind them. "Sandwiches are more than just bread!"
"Whatever you say!" Vivian yelled back.
The trail the trio had been travelling on now divided two different areas. On one side was the forest they had exited while the other a grassy prairie. Under Vivian's instruction, the two began to gather wood from the forest and then cleared a space on the opposite side to start a fire.
"Watch carefully," Vivian said as she began to write in the air with a glowing fingertip close to the stack of logs.
Using the stone to its fullest, Mono read the translated version of the words.
Flames flare from nothing
After she finished, there was a brief flash of green light and the words disappeared. In its place, a small flame began to form from the base of the logs.
Mono looked at the flame. "That was Weaving?"
"An advanced application, yes. Not many Weavers could write imagery vivid enough to do this." Vivian said proudly.
"Imagery? But I didn't see any adjectives in what you wrote." Mono commented.
"That's lesson one, my observant student." Vivian used a nearby stick to write the same phrase in the dirt. "Take a look here."
Concentrating once more, Mono forced the written words back into symbols. "What am I looking for?"
"In our language, we don't use adjectives to describe things. Instead, we modulate the characters themselves. Notice how this line," she pointed with the stick, "is wider and deeper than the one next to it."
Now that she had mentioned it, Mono noticed that there was an observable difference — though only a tiny one. "Isn't that confusing? What happens if someone has bad handwriting?"
"That's the beauty of Weaving. When someone fluent reads what I wrote, they'll be able to sense the aether, or ardor as the Weavers call it, behind the change in lines and understand."
They just looked like lines to Mono. "Learning Weaving is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be."
Vivian laughed. "It takes a long time to get a feel for it. Not only do you have to know the general implications of stroke changes, but Weavers need to also pay attention to word choice."
"What do you mean?"
She pointed at the last symbol. "The symbol for 'nothing' here is a play on words. In our language, it can either literally represent nothing or metaphorically allude to aether. By choosing this word, I'm able to make fires easier than if I had simply written 'log' or 'fireplace' since now the imagery draws from two sources instead of just one."
"Then wouldn't the word 'unseen' work better?" Mono asked.
"Why do you think that?"
The sight of fires had reminded Mono about the higher concentration of oxygen here. "You know how fire needs air?"
"Right, that's why you smother them to put them out."
"Well, since air, aether, and nothing are all unseeable, I figured that using the word 'unseen' would cause the phrase to draw from three sources."
Vivian stared at Mono for a few moments. In an instant, she began to put out the fire with dirt.
Mono looked at her work. "Did I understand it wrong?"
"Not at all," she said in an excited tone. Once the final ember had died, Vivian rebuilt the base and wrote a new phrase.
Flames flare from the unseen
Unlike the time before, where the fire gently flickered into life, this time the flames exploded into reality with a loud whoosh.
"It worked!" Vivian smiled. "How did you come up with that?"
He shrugged, "I just had a different perspective than you, I guess."
"Could you look at my other phrases?" Vivian asked. "I have a few common ones that I use frequently."
"And mine as well," Adamas requested from behind.
Mono turned to look at the elder sibling. "You can weave too?"
Adamas nodded. "I can't write things into creation like Vivian, but I'm able to inspire myself and become physically stronger temporarily." He tapped the handle of the sword slung over his shoulder.
When Adamas was carrying the tavryr, the sword's handle had been glowing, Mono recalled. That had been an application of Weaving too? There was so much to understand, and this was only a single talent.
"I'll look, but I can't really promise anything," Mono replied. "Do you want to start now?"
"Let's do it over dinner," Adamas said. "I don't know about you two, but I'm starving."
"Ad's right, we should eat first. I'll go get the sandwiches." Vivian began to run back to the cart.
"For the last time," Adamas exclaimed, "they're not sandwiches!"
That night, the trio looked at the stars overhead while talking about stories, Weaving, and sandwiches. Spending time with the Weavers reminded Mono of happier times, when he used to hang out with friends and laughter was the norm instead of the exception, before he had made the dumbest mistake of his life.
It was nice to be with friends.