Shadow Slave

While Nephis was pretending to sleep, Sunny moved to the stern of the ketch and looked at Ananke, who seemed to have paid no attention to their conversation. Sensing his attention, however, he turned slightly and asked:

"Yes, my Lord?"

He hesitated for a few moments.

"I... wanted to ask you about Weaver."

The old woman smiled slightly, as if uplifted by his question.

"What would you like to know?"

Sunny remained silent for a moment. What didn't he want to know? Daemons were surrounded by mystery, and while he slowly accumulated a lot of knowledge about them - much more knowledge than an average human in the ancient times of the Dream Realm had, most likely - there were still wide gaps in it.

The problem was that Ananke was not really a person from the Dream Realm. She had been born in the Tomb of Ariel and spent her life in isolation from the outside world. Still... she was a priestess of the Nightmare Spell. She had to know many things, even if some of that knowledge had undoubtedly been twisted as a result of becoming religious doctrine.

So, he was unsure how much he would be able to learn from the old woman.

Sunny scratched the back of his head.

"Well... for starters, was Weaver a man or a woman?"

He was really tired of stumbling over his words every time he tried to say something about... them.

Ananke chuckled.

"No one knows. Weaver was a master of lies, after all - so, you should take anything that is known about the Demon of Fate with a grain of salt. Weaver was the firstborn of the Unknown. His - or hers - domain was fate. And just like fate, Weaver was fickle, inevitable, and terrifying. Despite not possessing dreadful battle power, unlike some other daemons, the Demon of Fate was feared the most."

Sunny was not surprised. He couldn't imagine a more frightening enemy than someone whose weapon was fate itself. That said... he wasn't sure whether Weaver had been able to control fate, or simply perceive it. The latter seemed more probable, even if everyone had been convinced otherwise.

that one of

He inhaled deeply.

was the Unknown,

The old woman smiled.

"...I don't know."

a

for the runes it refuses to translate. So, the progenitor of the daemons is called something else. The

his

chosen to dedicate their lives to serving Weaver, suffering all kinds of mistreatment and persecution, you and your people

Ananke would be offended by his remark, but she simply shook

need. We know that when the gods and the daemons started their cursed war, Weaver was the only

weathered face turned

of that war spread, bringing doom and destruction to all, Weaver was the only one

who could certainly hear what they were talking about. Wondering what she thought about all that,

path to salvation... is the

Ananke nodded.

created by Weaver and entrusted to us in order to

of a hidden truth that Sunny had tentatively considered before, but was never really sure of. That the purpose of the

However...

people like Ananke... could that truth really

Fate as a master of lies, after all, and said

the benevolence of the Nightmare Spell

should I put

naive. Sunny and Nephis were not the worst people from the waking world by far, but even they had briefly contemplated attacking and killing her after discovering the ketch. Yet she had never been on guard

in Weaver

long time before speaking

you, but hasn't that doom come already? Where is the salvation you were