Armored Bird

393 AC - At first, I thought of Alteration like a necklace with pearls threaded onto it one by one – amber, jade, and so on. Each of them is an idea. And when the necklace is finished, all the pearls form a whole. But Eru told me that was just one of a thousand ways of thinking about it, and so there were many more. The way I was taught, in the traditional Muna fashion, was more like a tapestry, in which the threads create shapes, and those shapes represent things. We weave and we unravel. It's like a patchwork. But that's not totally accurate, because the Skein is a mesh. When I embroider, the Skein brings me ideas from everything around me.

That's why the "jade" comes from a hunter, who used to watch his grandfather make jewelry in the back room of his shop; and the stylized bird comes from the logo of an Axiom airship, which a young pilot took the time to paint with love and care just under the cockpit, as a lucky charm… All of that filters through the Skein to the tapestry I'm stitching, the entity I'm in the middle of manifesting. Something strong enough to withstand the hunters' explosive spears – gulp! – but quick enough to catch up to Soledad and avoid Halua's fins. One last cross stitch and… there, just in time. I turn towards the hunters, who swoop down from the sky like birds of prey.

KAURI