Threadless : A growing novel

The field stilled.

The grasses no longer shimmered with potential or memory.

They just… swayed.

The loom had stopped humming.

Not broken — just resting.

Like it had offered all it could for now.

Rin sat back, exhaling.

Not from exhaustion.

From something softer. Something she didn't know she'd been holding for years.

Aro sat beside her.

No words.

He didn't need to explain what they'd done — because it wasn't complete, and maybe it never would be.

But they had made a shape.

A space.

A beginning.

The child knelt across from them, small hands still holding the leftover thread.

He wasn't glowing now.

He wasn't guiding.

He was simply there.

"You didn't fix the weave," the child said.

Rin looked up, startled. "Was I supposed to?"

The child blinked.

Then smiled.

"No."

"But some of them thought you would."

Aro laughed once — quiet, low.

"Guess they'll have to settle for 'unfinished and kind.'"

Rin reached over and brushed a single blade of gold-threaded grass.

It bent toward her.

"What happens now?" she asked.

The child shrugged.

"Maybe nothing."

"Maybe someone finds this place and remembers they're allowed to make something without being told how."

A breeze passed.

Not from any direction — just movement through the stillness.

The grasses responded.

So did the threads.

Softly.

The loom hadn't ended.

It had simply paused.

Like breath between words.

Rin leaned her head on Aro's shoulder.

He didn't move.

He just stayed.

And somewhere very far from threat, from expectation, from pattern—

They were safe.

Not because they were meant to be.

But because they chose it anyway.