In the First Age, before distinctions had settled, there was only the Sea of Open Possibility.
Nothing yet had shape.
Everything shimmered as potential, but nothing endured long enough to become a world.
The ancients said:
"All things moved, but nothing arrived."
So from the Sea arose the Weavers.
Not gods in the ordinary sense, for they did not create things.
Rather, they drew threads across possibility itself.
Where many threads crossed, worlds began to appear.
And so the worlds were woven.
But as ages passed, a strange belief emerged among the peoples.
Kings looked upon their kingdoms and said:
"I possess power."
Priests stood beneath great temples and said:
"Power resides in sacred authority."
Generals surveyed armies and said:
"Power belongs to those who command force."
Empires rose and proclaimed:
"Power sits upon thrones."
And because the worlds had become stable, the people believed them.
For the roads seemed natural.
The laws seemed obvious.
The boundaries seemed eternal.
Even the kings believed themselves.
Only the Wanderers remembered the older stories.
They laughed quietly.
For they knew the secret beneath the thrones.
The king did not hold power.
The throne did not hold power.
The empire did not hold power.
Rather:
these were threads in the Loom beneath the world.
And whoever altered the Loom altered the world itself.
For power was never the Crown.
Power was the changing of the threads.
To create a new distinction where none existed:
that was power.
To make a category endure across generations:
that was power.
To cause strangers to become enemies:
that was power.
To make impossible things become imaginable:
that was power.
To loosen an ancient thread and bind another in its place:
that was power.
Power belonged nowhere because it moved everywhere.
It flowed through the weaving itself.
Many rulers eventually learned this, though often too late.
Some sought to preserve their worlds by tightening every thread.
But woven too tightly, worlds became brittle.
When change finally came, whole kingdoms shattered.
Others cut threads recklessly, believing freedom meant removing all constraints.
Yet their worlds dissolved into the Sea from which they had first emerged.
For without threads there could be no paths.
Without paths there could be no selves.
Without selves there could be no world at all.
The greatest of the Wanderers taught:
"The deepest power is invisible."
And the people asked:
"How can power be invisible?"
The Wanderer replied:
"Because when the weaving succeeds, no one sees the threads."
The fish does not see water.
The traveller does not see the road.
The child does not see the language into which they are born.
Things simply appear:
Only when the threads shift does the weaving become visible.
Only when worlds tremble do people notice the Loom beneath them.
And so the oldest saying of the Wanderers became:
"Beware those who claim to possess power."
For power was never a jewel to hold in the hand.
It was never a fire stored in kings.
It was never a treasure hidden in palaces.
Power was the movement of the Loom itself—
the endless weaving and unweaving through which worlds learned how to become.
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