#anywyad

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MAKE SURE TO DRINK PLETNY OF WATER AND GET ENOUGH SLEEP!!!!!

The last time he can bear to focus on his threads is months before he meets the Hero. Broken, crumbling strings, all balled up close to his chest.

When he meets the Hero, he's never intending on being their friend. Acquaintance, coworker, partner, maybe. The Hero tells him they want to learn and he's caught off guard. Time and again the Hero has come back with their stupidly big heart and their reckless bravery and their questions, inserting themselves into his life and problems and never asking for a thing in return. Until this, he supposed. Until he's asked to teach them what he knows.

Ravenloss is still overrun and in danger. If the Hero wants to learn, they'll have to learn the bastardization that Tomix has grown so comfortable with. The art of soulweaving can wait, has to wait.

They pick it up quick, Tomix is a good coach and the Hero feels the pressure to get good fast. Tomix tries to tell them the history, the purpose, the meaning behind it too, and the Hero retains what they can, but saving their hide is most important.

It's a quiet night, long after the Ravenloss war but long before the ice. The Hero doesn't get many nights like this, and Tomix offers to show them one of the most beautiful parts of soulweaving. They've set up in a little house in Ravenloss, it was empty and Tomix unceremoniously claimed it. The Hero has a hard time calming enough to focus on their threads, but eventually they start to see the threads. Tomix's first, he's sat in front of them. Purple and grey and shining black threads that twist and thrash in a tight ball. but there's more than Tomix remembers. And there are splashes of color he doesn't remember, threads that curl gently around his fingertips. A few of them stretch out and fade into the distance, ties to people farther away. Friends. One, a perfectly white thread, that ties two of them together.

When Tomix looks at the Hero's threads for the first time, he's stunned into silence. There's more than he could ever hope to count, dancing in patterns and stretching in every direction. The Hero shines like the sun, illuminated by colors he can't even describe. It's more beautiful than anything he's seen before, their soul is more broad and colorful than anyone at Edelia's, and they're connected to hundreds of other souls. Bitter hatred, familial love, rivalries, and more friends than he thought was possible.

The Hero immediately launches into their questions. He should have realized that he'd be bombarded by their questions before, but he didn't think about the scope. And he didn't think about the single strong white thread strung tightly between them. He didn't think that it would be there, with them. Of all the people, the Hero. The Hero that followed his lead to stop Greed, who jumped to his defense in combat, who humbled themselves enough to be taught. The same Hero that ran headfirst into conflict and laughed when they stitched themself up afterwards. The Hero that would give their life for a stranger, and more for a friend.

They ask what every string means. Tomix generalizes. Color has meaning, so does movement. And when they ask about the stiff white string between the two of them, he tells them it's a meaningful friendship, a partnership, on the battlefield. That it's steady and strong and bright because they're sitting so close, is all.

Tomix tries to convince himself it's wrong, but he knows that soul threads don't make mistakes. They're only a reflection of truth. He elects instead to pretend he didn't see. It doesn't work. Tomix is thankful for how busy the Hero is, but even when he isn't setting their fractured bones and carefully avoiding eye contact, he sees their look of wonder being cloaked in all the colors in the world.

Tomix doesn't know what to do when the Hero is frozen. Every now and then, he'll sneak to the block and meditate. Their strings still change. Some strings fray and fall apart, loose ends waving helplessly around. Connections that fade with time, feelings that change. And over time, their soul changes. Wild and free and waving threads contract closer to their heart, a tighter ball. If Tomix looked at his own threads, he'd see how much the Hero rubbed off on them. His soul moved in the opposite direction. Unwinding, stretching out, comfortable.