Vigil - endlessm/threadbare GitHub Wiki

Name: Vigil Title / Role: LoomWarden of Spirit, Keeper of the Eternal Loom Order: The Elders of the Eternal Loom Parent: Ever Core Thread: Spirit Home: The Eternal Loom, Frays End Status: Active Themes: Endurance, Devotion, Watchfulness, Hope, Constancy

"Somebody has to stay awake. It may as well be someone who does not mind the dark." -- Vigil

Identity

Vigil is a child of Ever, and one of the three LoomWardens: the Elders set apart to keep the Eternal Loom at Frays End. They keep the Loom's spirit: its will to go on turning, night after night, whatever the Void takes. Where Whim keeps its wonder and Echo its memory, Vigil keeps its hope.

Vigil is steady, dry-humoured and immovable, a presence other Elders lean on without noticing. They speak little and listen much, and in Frays End it is said that as long as there is a light burning at the Loom, Vigil is the one who lit it.

The Longest Watch

Vigil has kept the longest watch in Threadbare. In all the ages since the LoomWardens were first set apart, Vigil has never once left the Eternal Loom untended. They do not seem to sleep, and when the younger Elders ask how, they tell them that watching is its own kind of rest, if you are watching over something you love.

The Loss of the Shuttle

Vigil's particular charge is the empty socket where Ever's Shuttle once sat: the shuttle that first carried the weft across Once's warp. That Null took the elements from under the LoomWardens' hands, from the Loom Vigil never once left, is a wound Vigil does not speak of. In the StoryWeaver's journey, Vigil guides the StoryWeaver from HemsHollow across the SunSpun Sands to the Never Loom in the Lost Library, the return of the Shuttle, and the confrontation with Null's third denial: Never.

Depictions

Vigil is bowed like all Elders, and is almost always pictured beside a lamp. They wear the colours of the order under a heavy night-watchman's coat. Their book is the most worn of the LoomWardens', its spine cracked and mended many times over, because they read it aloud to the Loom each night.

Narrative Function

Vigil is one of the StoryWeaver's three guides from Frays End, and the ally of Spirit. They embody endurance and constancy, and they are the LoomWarden most likely to remind the StoryWeaver that a StoryWeaver never has to carry anything alone. Their arc in the main story is the recovery of Ever's Shuttle.

For contributors, Vigil is the right voice for perseverance, courage in the dark, and keeping faith with others.

Connections

  • Ever - their parent, the Binder
  • The Elders - their order
  • The Eternal Loom - which they keep as a LoomWarden
  • Whim and Echo - their fellow LoomWardens
  • Threadbare Plot - and the recovery of Ever's Shuttle
  • Null - who stole the Shuttle from the Eternal Loom, and whose third denial is Never