Location: Dathomir - Weavewood
Ace frowned at the witch sitting opposite him.
"Show you what?"
"What you see."
That wasn't particularly helpful. They were sat beneath the enormous tree from the night before, surrounded by the quiet movement of the forest. Ace looked at her for another moment before reaching into the Force.
A Thread appeared, followed by another. They stretched outward from the woman in ways Ace recognized. Some burned more clearly than others, while several disappeared beyond his ability to follow them.
"There."
The witch raised an eyebrow. "There what?"
"Threads."
"Only around me?"
Ace glanced elsewhere. He could perceive others if he searched for them. Tic had his own connections, so did the witches moving around the settlement.
"Mostly people."
"Then you have learned to look at pieces."
Ace's brow furrowed.
"Stop looking at me."
He let his attention drift away from her.
"Now look at everything."
Ace hesitated. The last time he'd done anything remotely similar, the Mother of Teeth had been trying to kill him and Lorn Reingard . Still, he closed his eyes, perceiving the forest as he usually did. Life surrounded him in every direction, each presence distinct enough that Ace could separate one from another. He pushed farther, only nothing happened.
Ace remembered Dathomir beneath his feet, the Mother rising, and the realization that the Threads weren't just surrounded him. They'd been everywhere. So Ace stopped searching for them individually.
His perception opened and the world slowly changed. Threads flooded across his senses, stretching through roots and soil, crossing between living creatures and wound through objects Ace couldn't immediately identify. Some seemed old enough to have been embedded within the land itself. Others appeared and vanished with every movement around him.
Ace's eyes snapped open. Even now, he could still see them.
"Shit."
The forest had become almost impossible to distinguish beneath them. Ace followed one Thread into the trees and immediately noticed three more intersecting it. His attention jumped to another, then another, each revealing further connections until the entire thing became an incomprehensible web. He shut his eyes tight and growled in frustration.
"Enough."
"Can't--"
"You can. Stop trying to understand all of it."
Ace forced himself to focus on her voice.
"Choose what deserves your attention."
Easier said than done, but he'd try. Slowly, Ace stopped following every connection that appeared. The Threads remained, but he allowed most to fade into the background. The forest returned around them and he exhaled. Opening his eyes, he saw the witch was smiling.
"You have spent years learning how to notice."
"I know."
"Now learn how to ignore."
Their next lesson took them deeper into the forest, where an old tree had fallen across a narrow ravine. Its trunk stretched between the two sides several meters above the rocks below. The witch gestured toward it.
"Cross."
Ace looked between her and the trunk.
"Okay?"
She remarked he was unimpressed "Oh? Then it should be easy."
He didn't answer as he stepped onto the tree. This time, he opened his perception carefully and Threads emerged around him. He resisted the temptation to follow them all, instead concentrating on the fallen tree and its immediate surroundings.
Most of what he saw meant nothing to him. Then one Thread pulled at his attention, making him stop. It wasn't brighter, exactly. There was simply something about it that made everything else feel... less important.
The Thread ran through the trunk toward a mass of exposed roots on the opposite bank. Something was wrong. So he jumped, the Force carrying him across the remaining distance. He landed beside the witch and behind him, the trunk cracked. A section collapsed into the ravine.
He turned toward it.
"...I saw that."
"You saw something."
His brow narrowed.
"The tree was gonna break."
"Yes."
"So I was right."
"About what?"
Ace stared at her, then she walked toward the exposed roots. Much of the wood beneath them had rotted away, leaving only a thin structure supporting what remained.
"You noticed something important." She said. "Then you decided why it was important."
"...The tree broke."
"Indeed." She pointed toward the ruined roots. "Did you perceive the decay? Your weight upon the trunk? The place where it would fracture? Or the relationship between all three?"
His lips parted, only nothing came out. Then he looked back toward the ravine. The Thread had mattered, sure. But everything after that had been his interpretation? The witch stepped past him.
"The Weave may show you where consequence gathers. It does not promise to explain itself."
Ace remained beside the ravine for another moment. Then he turned after her.
