Start small. They hadn’t settled on a course of action for the crafters yet, and with Tallsun coming to a close, she needed to do something. Can’t let a season waste, and really, she couldn’t go just start building entire structures anyway. She’s never crafted. Though she had the magic in the Falls, nothing ever happened there, and then all too soon the place was just gone anyway. She’d watched Brisa though, had spent plenty of time with Dragomir talking about the art, so how hard could it be? Just exhausting, sweaty, disgusting work.

She sighs, though Thea is a bundle of excitement. The little creature sets out in hydra form, slithering around the sand and collecting bits of metal as she goes. At least she has help, Syrena thinks, grateful to her overzealous companion. Syrena rarely even asks for things. Thea just bounds off, doing her own thing, dragging Syrean along. Or in cases like this, helping her companion with whatever task Syrena has been set to do. Why? Syrena doesn’t know, but she’s pretty sure the little girl was sent to torture her and make her life a million times brighter all at once.

Syrena collects the larger piece, doing her best to carry them in her mouth or resting on her back. Thea has a piece in each of her five heads, some bits and pieces of her curled around others. When they can’t possibly carry any more, they set off to the Diviner’s fire together, two mythical creatures without any real powers at all. Except this borrowed skill to mold metal.

They reach the fire and unceremoniously dump the ore into a pile. For a moment, Syrena just stares at Thea, all ten purple eyes staring back. “Um,” she says to the hydra, uncertain how to do this. One of the five heads reaches out, giving Syrena a light bump of encouragement on the chest. Thea is possibly the only creature Syrena doesn’t flinch from. Instead, she finds the touch almost reassuring. It can’t be that much different than other magic, right?

The same way she’d make water plants grow, she simply searches for the tether of magic, pulling on it. As she does, the little bits of ore move into the fire, and she focuses, closing her eyes, imagining the knife she’s trying to create. Start small. One knife. She imagines the blade first, sharp on both sides, not overly long but a good fighting length. For the handle she makes the metal thicker, rounder, something that could be gripped a bit more easily. Maybe they could trade with the basin for some leather to make the handle easier to hold, but for now, she works with what she has. The handle is not perfectly smooth, but ridged with dips for a horse’s teeth.

When she’s done, she opens her eyes, pulling the knife from the fire and letting it come to rest on a nearby stone for it to cool. It’s not half bad, she thinks, though she knows very little about knives, so maybe it’s terrible. She looks at the pile of ore, which is almost gone, sighing slightly. “Let’s get more?” she says to Thea, who doesn’t understand a word, but knows her bonded’s heart well enough and also the task at hand. She begins to slither around the area, looking for more ore. Syrena does the same. Two more to go. It could be worse.


les words "chat chat"

Syrena

let the water take me