Mono opened his eyes and saw nothing but black. It was a familiar black, a dark grey he had seen before.
What?
In a rush, he sat up. Looking around, he noticed the grassy scenery, the Weaver's cart, and the trees nearby. He was still in the field he had fallen asleep in. The grey was from the stormy morning sky above.
At the realization, he began to laugh.
"Are you okay?"
Mono froze. Adamas had been sitting several meters away near the front of the wagon.
"I'm fine," Mono replied. The elder weaver had been right there to witness the random outburst of laughter; that was embarrassing. After the initial mortification, Mono did a double-take. "Wait, have you been awake this whole time?"
"Keeping watch like I said," Adamas confirmed.
Last night, Adamas had said that someone needed to stay awake at all times to make sure that nothing bad happened. Apparently, he meant that he would stay awake while Vivian and Mono could sleep.
Mono felt a little guilty. "You should have woken me up for a shift."
"It's fine."
"It's not. Aren't you tired?"
"Not at all. I'm used to this."
Mono looked closely at Adamas. The Weaver really didn't look sleepy. He actually seemed energetic, a little restless even. What kind of lifestyle did Adamas live that made losing a night of sleep normal?
Adamas noticed Mono staring at him. "I'm fine, really. I'll take a nap while we are on the move if I'm tired."
"Okay." Getting out of the blankets the Weavers had provided him, Mono stood up and moved to the cart. He gently pushed open one side of the covers and deposited the blankets inside without letting in too much sunlight. Vivian was still sleeping inside.
As Mono reached in to grab the papers Vivian had made for him last night, he felt several taps on his right shoulder. "Did you need something, Adam?"
There was no response.
Mono turned to look at Adamas, but he wasn't there. Peeking his head to the right side a bit, he noticed that the Weaver was still sitting in the exact same spot near the front of the cart.
"Adam, did you tap me for something?"
"No, I haven't even moved from this spot."
That was odd, maybe he was imagining things. That, or Adamas was playing a prank on him. Turning back to the wagon, Mono felt several more taps and turned as fast as he could. There was still no one there.
Mono peeked his head back around the cart. "Adam, could you please stop that? It's not funny."
The Weaver held up both of his hands in a gesture of confusion. "I'm not doing anything."
"So you're not pranking me?"
"You know I don't do pranks. And how would I tap you while I'm over here?"
"There's other talents besides Weaving, right? You said that you als—" Mono stopped short as he felt a hard grip on his left shoulder. With a violent reaction that was definitely not-a-yelp, he turned. There was no one there.
Adamas rushed over. "What's wrong?"
"Someone just grabbed my left shoulder."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, and if it's not you, then that means someone else did it."
Vivian's head popped out from behind the wagon. "Did what?"
Her sudden appearance startled Mono and he visibly recoiled. He wasn't normally this jumpy, but the stormy sky above was putting him on edge. "You're awake?"
"I heard a noise and woke up," she replied. "It sounded like a dying bird."
"That would have been Mono, here," Adamas said. "He said someone has been messing with him but there's no one else here."
"I'm not imagining this," Mono insisted.
Vivian climbed out of the wagon. "Tell me what happened, specifically."
"I was tapped on my right shoulder twice and then grabbed on my left. When I turned to look I —" Something brushed along his right leg which caused him to stop and check.
Nothing.
"Did something just touch your leg?" Vivian asked.
"Yes."
Adamas frowned. "And you're not the one playing a prank here?"
"Of course not, this isn't funny."
Vivian turned to Adamas. "Vakkar."
There was a brief pause as Adamas thought about what Vivian said before nodding.
After so much practice with the stone, Mono could tell when she switched from common to her native language. The meaning behind the word, "walker" didn't make any sense to him though. "What?" He asked.
"I think you're just imagining things, Mono." Vivian said in a bored tone.
"What?" Mono repeated. He had never heard Vivian use this tone before.
"I mean, just look around, there's no one else here but us." She gave an exaggerated movement with her arms.
"Yeah, no one is around," Adamas agreed in the same uncharacteristic tone.
Mono eventually caught on and began to play along. "But I'm telling you: something's here."
"Where?" Vivian repeated her gesture.
Making his own movements to look around, Mono made sure they were obvious. He scratched his head in imitation of confusion. "Well, if there's only us and you two didn't do it, I guess I was imagining it."
As Mono was talking, Adamas lunged to the side without warning, his right hand outstretched. "Got you!"
There was something that was a yelp as a person appeared at the end of Adamas' gripped hand.
"Hello, R'han." Vivian said.
"How'd you know it was me?"
"This is something only you would do," Adamas replied.
The stranger was remarkably lanky with long, black hair. He was a head taller than Adamas. Unlike most other people Mono had seen, the prankster wore something similar to shorts and had leather shoes on instead of boots.
Where had he come from? Had he been invisible?
Vivian introduced the stranger. "Mono, this is R'han. He's a friend of ours who loves pranking us whenever he gets the chance. It looks like he decided to mess with you this time."
"I see," Mono said. "Nice to meet you."
While R'han was technically facing Mono and the Weavers, he didn't turn to directly address Mono. Instead, he continued to look at a space between the Weavers while giving a wide smile. "You give some good reactions."
Taking a closer look at his face, Mono saw that R'han's eyes were bizarre. His eyes' irises were a mixture of orange and light-sky blue that seemed to — but didn't — swirl. They were also slightly unfocused, like those images of people with a thousand-yard stare.
Mono was weirded out by this person. "Thanks?"
"Sorry, if he comes off as a bit rude," Adamas said. "He's a Walker from the Western-Plains. They have a culture with different social norms."
"That's fine," Mono replied. He thought about how R'han had suddenly appeared. "Is his talent invisibility?"
R'han laughed. "Invisibility?" The Walker didn't bother elaborating.
"It's actually a very interesting talent," Vivian cut in. "Atlatl has conducted several studies to figure it out."
That piqued Mono's curiosity. "What is it?"
Vivian opened her mouth to answer, but frowned and paused. "It's a bit hard to explain. Probably better to show you. R'han, if you'd please?"
"Don't I get a say in this? It's me who has to show." R'han turned to address Vivian but, instead of looking directly at her, looked in another oblique direction.
"You were the one who thought messing with Mono would be funny," she pointed out.
"We had this talk before, R'han: sometimes pranks aren't humorous to the victim." Adamas said. "It's normal to try to do a gesture of goodwill afterwards to smooth over anything. Your talent is pretty obvious anyways, so it's not even that big of a deal."
The Walker titled his head in thought. "Alright. What do you want me to do?"
"Just something simple." Vivian pointed. "See that tree over there? Walk to it, R'han."
The group turned to see a lone tree across the prairie. It was at least several hundred feet away.
The Walker shrugged. "Sure." He took off with an irregular stride.
"Mono, look at the tree," Vivian directed.
"Okay." Mono stared at the tree for several seconds. "What am I looking f—" R'han was already next to the tree. "What?"
Both of the Weavers laughed at his reaction.
"Okay, now look at R'han when he returns." Vivian cupped her hands and called out to the Walker. "R'han, you can come back now!"
Unblinking, Mono scrutinized the Walker. As R'han returned, he walked in the same irregular gait, often swaying side to side. While he seemed to be ambling along slowly, he was getting closer a lot faster than the distance warranted. It was like watching an optical illusion. In less than a few moments, R'han was standing in front of Mono and the Weavers once more.
"Satisfied?" The Walker asked.
Mono finally blinked. "How'd you do that?"
"I walked." Like before, R'han didn't bother elaborating.
"Like all talents, the Walkers' is rooted in perception," Vivian explained. "The theory is that they see the world abnormally."
"What do you mean?"
Vivian turned to R'han. "How far away was that tree?"
"Only several steps from here."
"But it's at least two hundred feet away," Mono pointed out.
The Walker shrugged. "I don't know what you guys see, but that tree is at most thirteen steps from where we are to me."
R'han's eyes were still distantly unfocused as he stared off in a direction not quite in line with the people he was addressing. Looking at those orange-blue eyes, Mono began to understand a bit more. Talents were rooted in perception, and this person saw the world so differently that he moved in space accordingly.
Vivian had said that people who tried to copy other talents often lost their own, and now it made sense. Copying something like this would twist a person's mind. He would never see the world the same again.
The Walker's eyes suddenly shot up to the sky. The orange parts of the irises began to grow brighter as R'han spoke. "I need to get going now."
"So soon?" Adamas asked. "You just got here."
"I still have some messages to deliver today. We can talk when I get back."
"Maybe we'll beat you home," Vivian said.
R'han laughed again. "Sure, if I had to crawl on my knees." He bowed to the Weavers before turning to Mono. "It was fun to meet you, I suppose I'll be seeing you as well?"
For the first time, the Walker was staring directly at Mono. The intense stare was almost as disconcerting as the unfocused gaze from before.
"Yeah, I guess so," Mono replied.
"Fantastic." With another bow, R'han began to walk down the trail. The trio watched as he quickly vanished off into the distance while still moving with that strange gait.
"How fast can he travel?" Mono asked once he could no longer see the Walker.
"It's not consistent," Adamas replied. "He once bragged that he managed to walk two whole days without seeing nighttime."
"Is that even possible?"
"If anyone could do it, it would be him. Atlatl hires the Walkers to deliver messages all the time because of how fast they can travel, and R'han is the fastest Walker I know."
"Aw man," Vivian complained, "I should have asked him to take a message home. We're going to be running a bit late."
"It doesn't matter, we'll get there when we get there," Adamas said. He sounded surprisingly indifferent.
"But Mom will worry and Dad—"
"Doesn't care."
There was a tense pause. Mono looked between the siblings; he had never seen Adamas like this.
"Of course he cares," Vivian asserted.
Adamas didn't argue. "Whatever." He walked towards the end of the cart. "If you're worried about being late, let's get going. I've decided that I want to take a nap, so you should direct the cart."
Mono and Vivian watched as Adamas climbed inside without another word.
"Sorry that you had to see that," Vivian said. "Adamas doesn't have a good relationship with our father."
"It's fine," Mono replied. Noticing Vivian's saddened face, he decided to change the subject. "Can I sit in the front with you? There's some stuff I'm still confused about with word-weaving."
At the mention of words, she brightened up immediately. "Of course! Let me make sure that we won't be leaving anything important behind and then we can go."
Once they were on the move, Mono began to ask her questions about weaving. While he had used his ignorance as a distraction, he had been meaning to ask her these questions anyways. "I'm still not able to do anything with weaving. Even though I copied your phrase exactly, nothing is happening. What's wrong with it?"
Vivian looked at the symbols Mono had written. "Nothing."
"Then why isn't anything happening?"
"Mono, what do you think word-weaving is?"
"Writing phrases which create whatever is described."
She shook her head. "Weaving is an art which revolves around imagery. In order to Weave, one has to write in a way that conveys the subject so vividly that the reader is compelled to imagine it. If done correctly, this can result in the subject manifesting. What you're doing is copying the phrase and not the image behind it. When I read what you wrote, there is no imagery, just words."
Mono looked at the words he wrote. "I'm not sure I understand."
"It's a difficult concept, so don't worry," she assured him. "For now, just keep practicing the symbols and internalizing them. Try not to think of Weaving as a bunch of phrases which dispense whatever you want with the right words."
"Alright."
There was companionable silence as Mono went back to tracing the symbols. There was supposed to be meaning in the stroke length and depth, but they just looked like lines to him. Maybe he just wasn—"
"Mono."
"Yes?"
"I just realized this, but you only brought a single coat."
"Right, Adam said that I needed something to keep me warm for a part of the trip."
Vivian turned to look at him. "You know we have to cross the Vatam mountain range, right?"
"The what?"
She pointed forward. "Those. They're the most dangerous part of the journey."