Read Episode 1 if you missed it.
Ari shook her head and looked around the shrine. She didn't remember coming in here, or even preparing the food that was now sitting on the altar, but that didn't surprise her. The offerings were such a habit now it was just automatic. Life of a novice of The Winter Abbey.
She walked out of the shrine, just a small stone building, and she bumped into the most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her entire life.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," a sweet and lilting voice said. "I am so, so sorry. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I'm sorry!"
"It's okay," Ari said, "I wasn't exactly paying attention myself."
"Hi, I'm Sabine," the woman said, sticking her hand out for a shake. "I'm new here, and I'm kind of lost."
Ari took the hand, and felt a shock of energy flow up her arm and flood her body. "I... I'm Ari," she said, "And, uh, I guess I could show you around. What Abbey do you belong to?"
"I'm springborn," Sabine said. "And I'm trying to find the Gathering Chapel."
Ari laughed. "Well, this is definitely not the Gathering Chapel. This is the Chapel of the Winter Crone." She watched Sabine's eyes go wide.
"Oh, you're a winterborn!" Sabine said, excitement bubbling in her voice. "There aren't many winterborn here!"
It was true. Winterborn tended towards the more academic and analytical magical areas of study, not the mystical ones that were taught at the abbeys and monasteries scattered around the world. But Ari had always felt the pull, and also knew that she needed more control of her emotions, something she hadn't been able to find anywhere else so far.
Ari pointed down the walkway, away from the far edge of The Winter Abbey where they were currently standing, towards the central Gathering Chapel. The complex was huge - Abbeys for each season were arranged in a wheel with buildings for study and practice as well as residential quarters for the novices and the visiting monks and nuns who came from the other abbeys and monasteries to teach the novices until they were ready to choose their specialty - or return to the world as was sometimes the case.
The season that one was born in has great influence on one's magical abilities, so part of the novice year was honing the particular talents that one was born with, while also learning to access and balance the magic of the other seasons. By the end of one's novice period, a specialty would be chosen, and a transfer to a monastery or abbey of that specialty would be arranged.
The novitiate lasted from three to five years, and Ari had only just finished her first year of studies. It was spring now, so not surprising to see a brand new springborn. Just surprising she'd gotten so far lost.
Ari pulled her awareness back to the War Abbey. Brother Stavius was droning on and on about the Chaos Accords again, and the importance of not meddling with the threads, but instead observing them and determining what threads would lead to optimal outcomes. A basic ethics lecture she could repeat by heart at this point.
She shook her head, letting go of the thread of memory where she'd first met Sabine. That was a thread she was terrified of ruining and so was one she never visited. She wasn't sure how she'd found herself there - she'd never accidentally drifted into a thread like that before. It shouldn't even be possible. Threadwalking was conscious, by necessity. It's not something that could just accidentally happen. She had to stop. She couldn't keep doing this. She'd talk to Brother Stavius after Sermon. He could help. He'd be angry she'd been doing it, but he'd help her stop.
Ari sat at her loom and snipped a thread. That knot there just would not do.
