Kolindo's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Prism sat on a flat rock by the creek with their broken wings spread on the moss. Kolindo crouched behind them and touched a bent strut. Metal flaked under her thumb. Pink hair frayed from a torn seam. She had mended arrowheads and vole traps. She had never mended anything that had to fly. If she guessed wrong, Prism would walk forever. She stood up and whistled for her owl. "I don't know how to fix these. But I know who might." The silver hut sat between two roots in the glade, its filigree still bright in the shade. Kolindo knocked. Sylvara opened the door with a file in her teeth and a small green dragon curled around her wrist. She took the file out. "You paid me last week." "I need more," Kolindo said. "Sky tribe wings. Robot bones and hair for feathers. Can you mend them?" Sylvara looked past her at Prism on the path. Her ears flicked back. "Not with what I have." She held up the dragon's tail. Silver thread wound through the scales. "I can bind metal. I can't spin the soft part. That comes from one place. The kitten folk east of here grow it in their fields." "Then I'll trade for some." "They don't trade with fae who bring machines onto their grass. And you have a bird. They hate birds." "I'll leave the owl." Sylvara shrugged and shut the door. Kolindo walked east through grass that turned rainbow under her boots. The bales rose ahead of her, big glittering balls stacked in rows. Kittens tumbled between them. At the center of the field, a tower leaned sideways under a rope-wrapped trunk, cats stitched into every stone. On a cushion above the door floated a very fat kitten with dragonfly wings and a crown. Diamond whiskers caught the sun. Kolindo bowed low. "King Rainbowhisker. I need yarn. Enough to reweave a sky flyer's wings." The king studied her. "Sky flyer. Metal wings." "Yes." "We don't feed metal." "They can't walk home. They can't fly. Without the soft weave, the wings stay dead." A kitten batted at her cape. She held still. The king lifted his scepter and pointed east, past the bales, to a hill where more kittens rolled. "Our purls are missing from the far field. Three of them. Something took them last night. Bring them back. You get yarn." "How long do I have?" "Sundown tomorrow. After that the mothers hunt, and they don't come back until the ground is red." Kolindo nodded. She turned to go. "Fairy." She looked back. "No bird in the field. No stopped time near the bale-purls. It tangles the weave." Her stomach dropped. She had counted on both. She bowed again and walked out through the rainbow grass with her two best tools taken from her before the hunt began.