In a valley where rivers braided the land and mountains kissed the sky, there lived a young prince, restless as the seasons. He had once been full of laughter and curiosity, but ever since his parents had been lost at sea nearly four years ago, he had become much more temperamental, at the mercy of his emotions.
When fortune favored him, he ordered grand banners to be woven in the richest silks—reds bold as fire, blues deep as the ocean’s floor. He paraded them through the streets, basking in the roar of the crowd.
When sorrow found him, as it often did, he commanded the banners torn down and burned in the village square. No color, he declared, should mock his grief. He embodied whatever he felt, manifesting it into reality, no matter the consequence.
The villagers grew weary of the endless cycle—festivals built and destroyed on the turn of the prince’s moods. Yet none dared speak against him, to question him, to try and understand him.
None, save for an old weaver.
She was small and weathered, her face a map of lines etched by both sorrow and laughter. Her hair was as grey as the clouds that brooded over the valley each spring, but it was her eyes that truly told her story: a deep, dusky violet, as if twilight itself had been spun into her gaze. Eyes that seemed to see not just the surface of things, but their very soul.
She lived at the village’s edge, in a crooked house half-swallowed by ancient trees and tangled roots that had stood for hundreds of years. Within sat her loom, humming quietly, tirelessly, as it had through storms and seasons alike.
When the prince, in another fit of despair, demanded a new banner—one unlike any before—the old weaver answered.
She arrived at the palace carrying only a bundle wrapped in faded cloth.
“I have brought what you asked for,” she said, her voice steady, her gaze unflinching.
The prince sneered. “Where are the colors? The gold thread? The silver embroidery? What sort of banner is this?”
The weaver smiled faintly and unwrapped the bundle to reveal a tapestry woven from a single, unbroken thread. At first glance, it seemed almost plain. But as the prince looked closer, he saw the thread was not one color, but many—shifting gently from warm amber to stormy blue, from the green of spring to the brittle brown of winter.
“It changes,” he said, marveling despite himself.
“It lives,” the weaver corrected softly. “As do all things.”
For a moment, the prince was silent, lost in the quiet wonder of it. Then, stiffly, he thanked the old weaver and sent her away. The next day, the tapestry was hung above his throne.
Days passed. Victories came, and he would glance up to find the tapestry glowing golden, vibrant and full. Losses followed, and the thread dimmed to a smoky hue. At first, he thought it some magic, a trick of the old woman. But over time, he realized it was simply the way of things. His triumphs, his failures—they rose and fell like tides. Ever moving. Ever changing.
Seasons turned. The prince grew older. The old weaver, they said, had long since passed away, her loom falling silent. And with her passing, so too went his hunger for new banners, new declarations of feeling. He no longer celebrated so loudly nor mourned so bitterly.
He learned to sit with both—the sun and the storm.
One evening, after a heavy loss, he sat alone beneath the shifting thread. It shimmered in the dying light—neither bright nor dark, but something in between. A living memory. A living promise.
He traced its winding path with his eyes, and a small, almost inaudible smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He whispered to the empty hall, as if repeating an old truth he had always known but only now understood:
“And this too shall pass.”
And for the first time in many years, he felt at peace.