Dayane's Arc

Chapter 3 of 29

Dayane stood on her floating island and looked at all she had made. Grass rippled under her feet. Roots hung from the island's stone underside into open sky. Above her head, she had hung stars in tight clusters, planets packed close together, and a spinning bloom of deep-space color. She had pulled these from many worlds. Now she wanted one more thing she could not make with her will. She wanted a friend. She closed her eyes and pictured the bird. Not the gray one that had once caught her fall. She pictured a small, bright bird with an orange chest and blue-gray wings. She held the image until she felt her will grip it. Then she opened her hands. The bird landed on her wrist. It cocked its head and studied her face. Its feet gripped her skin, warm and real. Dayane held her breath. She had made animals before, but they only ate and slept and stared. She waited for this one to do the same. "You built all this?" the bird said. Dayane almost dropped it. "You can talk." "I can do more than talk." The bird hopped to her shoulder and pointed its beak at the star cluster overhead. "You hung those crooked. That one's about to fall on your head." She laughed and fixed the star with a thought. The bird watched, then flew a slow loop around the whole island. It named things back to her. It called the packed planets a crowd. It called the cosmic bloom a flower that ate the night. Dayane had never heard her own creations described by another voice. "Why did you make me?" the bird asked. "I was lonely," Dayane said. The word surprised her. She had never said it out loud. The bird settled on a rock and preened one wing. "Then you did it right. Most things you make can't tell you that they like it here. I do." It looked at her with one bright eye. "I'm staying." Dayane sat beside the bird for a long time. They talked. It asked her which world each star came from. She told it. It remembered every answer and asked sharper questions. For the first time, her power gave her back more than a thing. It gave her someone who pushed back. That night she understood something new. She could make anything. She had never once made something that wanted to stay. The bird had chosen her. That felt bigger than any world she had built. And it opened a door she had not seen before. If her will could make a mind, a real one that talked and chose, then she was no longer just decorating an empty home. She was making people. She looked at the bird sleeping on its rock and wondered how far that went. She wondered who else she might call into being, and whether they would all be glad she did.