warm front

[cumulonimbus]

After Mathilde has left (and Stormy has her schedule for the next few days all written down), Stormy goes aprowl through the house again to make sure she's clear on the layout and see if anybody else wants to talk to her while she is still novel.

Comments

[whipstitch]

The first person she will encounter is Mercy, who is sitting in the main area with a spinning wheel, spinning thread from a bundle of soft-looking fluff.

He doesn't look up when she comes in, but after a moment he says, "Hi!"

[cumulonimbus]

"Hi!" says Stormy, bending to get a better look at the mechanism of spinning. "That looks complicated."

[whipstitch]

"Yep. Fun, though," he says. "Careful of the spinny parts, they're going pretty fast."

[cumulonimbus]

"I won't touch." She lifts a hand to her hair to make sure none of it is straying in a way that could insinuate it into the fibers. "Is all thread made like this?"

[whipstitch]

"Mostly! Some of it's made with a smaller and more portable spinny thing called a drop spindle. But I like the wheels better. And it's all spinning, any which way."

[cumulonimbus]

"Why does spinning it work, do you know? Why doesn't it unspin or just pull apart anyway?"

[whipstitch]

"Mmm... I can feel why, I'm not sure I can explain why," he says. "There's times when it unspins, and you can unspin some thread yourself just by taking a little bit and rolling it the wrong way until it gives up. But once it's spun, all the little bits of fluff grab onto each other that way, so unless they're the ones right on the end, they can't come apart because their neighbour fluffs are holding onto them in the twirled-up shape. And even the ones right on the ends get used to it. But that's why thread frays at the ends and not in the middle unless something catches on them and breaks some. Does that make sense?"

[cumulonimbus]

"Kind of. They'd have to - cooperate to unspin all at once, they can't do it by themselves, and they aren't cooperating things, so they don't. Are you doing magic or just regular spinning right now?"

[whipstitch]

"I'm not especially doing magic. I still don't know if it's magic when I just spin or cook and don't do anything special with it."

[cumulonimbus]

"I guess I don't necessarily know if I'm technically doing magic when I - I don't know, breathe."

[whipstitch]

"Maybe you are," he says. "That would be weird."

[cumulonimbus]

"It would be really weird! They'd probably want me to spend literally all of my time in a magic circle thing, or something."

[whipstitch]

"I don't think so. I don't need a magic circle when I spin."

[cumulonimbus]

"Okay, maybe not. Which is good. I am supposed to have one every time I go up to be the sky for a while and that's going to be kind of annoying all by itself."

[whipstitch]

"What's it like being the sky?"

[cumulonimbus]

"It's... big. And all warm and cold at the same time and it's like I imagine it would be like if I could dance."

[whipstitch]

"You can't dance?"

[cumulonimbus]

"Nah, I fall over. I can't run or climb things either. Sometimes I don't even do great with walking, but most of the time I can manage that."

[whipstitch]

"That sounds hard. But you get to be the sky, that's nice."

[cumulonimbus]

"It is nice! Do you have anything like that, do you get to be thread or anything?"

[whipstitch]

"Not exactly. Sort of, I guess. I like making things. It feels nice. I think that might be sort of the same kind of thing."

[cumulonimbus]

"Maybe. I don't necessarily have to do anything to the sky to go up to it, though."

[whipstitch]

"I think that part's different because both of mine are craft magics. Almost all my magic is doing things to things somehow or other."

[cumulonimbus]

"That makes sense. What do you make with the thread magic besides... thread?"

[whipstitch]

"Thread's kind of the first piece, but anything else you can spin or weave or braid or things like that is all part of the same magic too. Dedicate Finch is teaching me how to knit, that's fun."