Tapestries

Apart from studying Jess Queen's Tapestry, Angel also looked at the walls of the Temple of Sky. 

After a while, he figured out that the ever-changing figure on Destruction and Creation was Greed as he had initially thought. The great immortal Tiger Shark was depicted in a swirl of ever-changing lines, with only the ever round eyes linking it back to the ancient Being.

Angel still wasn't completely sure what the Unnamed Wall depicted, but his senses were telling him that it showed him, in some way. Two combined circles with hundreds of tiny hands reaching out.

He wasn't particularly interested in the last two walls, and he considered the third wall completely figured out, since there wasn't anything to tell.

Angel then continued to focus most of his attention onto the Tapestry of Jess Queen. It was like an actual tapestry, all of the threads connecting to different parts but in the end came together. When Angel made the picture spread further inside, he could see that he was right in his guess: all of the interlocking threads connected to each other, and at the centre of all the connections was a core.

Because the all threads were woven together and covered most of the core, Angel could see that it was like a shimmering opal, smooth and circular in shape, and glistening all colours and shades from red to blue to white.

At first Angel was confused, and for several days he put off everything apart from the necessaries to just study about the strange Tapestry of Jess Owens.

It was almost like his Tapestry spread out instead of spreading in. It was a curious thought, ingenious almost in its thinking, since it had never been suggested before, but also incredibly foolish. It was impossible, after all, numerous spellweavers had confirmed and written it themselves, Tapestries were woven out, never in. If you wove your tapestries outwards, where would you have the perimeter? The anchor that kept the spellweaver from heading too deep into the depths of the mind and collapsing? It was an idiotic thought: with no perimeter, there would be nothing to connect and line all of the Tapestry together.

Everyone knew that you didn't build your Tapestry from the middle—you build it outwards then inwards, connecting the exterior then weaving the interior into the exterior. This was what Stone-Dwellers had been doing for centuries. Everyone knew that if your design failed, you could simply tear it down weave a new one again, since your wall, your perimeter, was safe and sturdy.

What would you do if you wove your foundation the other way around? There would be nowhere to build more threads onto, since everything connected to nothing and nothing connected to everything. If you failed it was akin to having to weave everything all over again.

However, this was the only plausible reason for why Jess Queen's Tapestry was so strange.

With this revelation, Angel felt his view completely change. This was exactly what he wanted, and yet at the same time not. He wanted something perfect for his precious threads, and the method of weaving was perfect for him and his threads. However, Angel also wasn't comfortable with losing everything because of a mistake.

So he continued to search for something in Queen's Tapestry, and finally one day he found it. The core, the shimmering opal that wasn't made of weavings acted as a heart for the rest of the threads. The constant shifting in colour was because of the unseen thread—which wasn't a thread at all but actually the pulsing of the core spreading life or whatever else that fed threads throughout the whole Tapestry, if it could still be called that.

If Angel was right in his guesses, then this life-energy fed the threads and replenished them, meaning that it could potentially mend itself over time, which also explained why all of the threads were so interlocked around the core. Naturally, if this was true, then any threads that didn't reach the core would die off.

With this in mind, Angel had no problem adapting his Tapestry to one that was similar to Jess Queen's. However, he had no core and also no idea how he was supposed to create a core from, as the book only depicted a singular picture that showed Jess Queen's Tapestry.

So then his plans were put on hold, and with nothing better to do Angel tore out the page with the drawing on it, returned the book and borrowed another that explained mainly the twenty-eight senses of the body, from the basic five to the last three.

After all, learning more of the body meant that you understood yourself more, and by understanding yourself more you were able to further improve how you would treat your mind, and learn its likes, dislikes and how to treat and tend to it properly.

—————

'It's not here,'murmured a boy in silver armour. His hands, looking delicate and fragile, brushed over the books on the shelf, the movements too delicate. However, his inky black eyes seemed to hold no emotion at all and was more like a pool of inky water that stared right back at you.

For a brief moment he continued to keep staring at the shelf, then he turned and left the library.

—————

'Chosen of Death Night, Chosen of Life Day, there was no book with a picture of a special Tapestry inside the Library of Sanctum.'

For once, the female of the two that sat at the great silver table lifted her head, showing a beautiful, emotionless face that was like the day itself in its beauty. 'No?'

'No, Chosen of Life Day.'

'I suspect that it is the mentor whom you are going to sacrifice, sister,'said the male of the two, his head still staring at the board that was placed between them. 'This will surely tip the game in your favour.'

Seeing this as an act of leave, the priest bowed and left as quickly as he had came.

'The mentor, you say,'murmured the female, bright blue eyes now turning as quickly back to the board. 'Indeed, you are right, brother. Will you take my bait?'

'I think I shall; there are no other moves left, the least I can do is make an attempt.'

—————

Angel learned that the sixth sense, the sense known as intuition or instinct, wasn't simply opinionated and biased about any matter when it showed, as many had thought, nor did it connect as deeply to feel.

In fact, according to the book Angel borrowed, intuition was actually based on clues and pieces the brain pieced together before the Stone-Dweller has to chance to realise what that feeling was. In this matter, intuition showed it most helpful in getting many out of difficult situations, although it could also be trained and guided.

It was a known fact that the brain could slightly change how the mind views things or situations depending on the wishes of the person. If one wished to be able to be more intuitive or instinctive in their feelings, they would become better at it, and if it was mental, it worked even better as first you had to trick the mind to trick the body.

Therefore, Angel decided to trust in his instinct and he stopped every other exercise he was doing and spent all of his time and attention on Destruction and Creation, observing the tapestries on the wall and drawing down memorable backgrounds and what he thought they signified.