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<From a little spark, comes a great flame.>
“Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda.”
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy (Canto I, line 34)
𝄃
Your earliest memory is of rough fabrics lining a shallow basin. Polished stones frame the pit; your tiny limbs cannot climb the slippery edges. Instead, you and your clutch-mates scurry about the nest, tiny voices still warbling like the wild creatures that call from outside.
Outside. There is a world outside the nest.
<𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥?>
Worker cells have started the arduous task of making the most important changes they will ever make to your mind. Before, you had no need for awareness. Only growth, protected and cared for as you were by your song-kin, their voices enveloping your carapace in a steady, comforting thrum.
<𝅘𝅥♫♪!>
But now, you are strong and confident. Though you cannot escape the nest, something pulls you to try.
<𝅝! 𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥♫♪ 𝄽 ♫?>
The song calls. Its notes reverberate in your lattice, building into a five-part harmony that resonates through silicate angles and hematite scaffolding, deep to your colony.
<We ♪ you! You are ♫♪ and precious. You are 𝅘𝅥𝅯 and fragile. You are protected. Can you hear us?>
<Yes!>
You know the word. The harmony has been singing to you since before you remember, its chords whispering language for your worker cells to transcribe within your developing mind.
Your consciousness was carved by your kin, sculpted carefully by the worker cells they gave you and the instructions their song imbued after. Years of careful work come to fruition as you suddenly, terrifyingly, become aware of yourself. Your existence unfolds into prediction and ideas and curiosity, and an entire universe of potential.
<Yes!> the thrum replies, gently whispering across your carapace. <Yes! Welcome, little melody. Our joy song. You are here. You are beloved. You are ready.>
A trill rises from you. You stomp your limbs, the impacts resolving the nest and spaces beyond. You are surrounded by so many, all calling for you and your clutch mates.
You are the first, you realize. The rest are still stumbling in the haze of song-birth. But you were quick, because there is a world outside the nest, and your claws click in anticipation of everything you might learn and do once you have the chance.
You chime wordlessly and begin the arduous climb towards the rest of your life.
♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜 𝄽𝄻 𝄐 ♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜
You learn the rules of the universe quickly. You learn to hate some of them even faster. Contempt isn’t an emotion you intentionally cultivate, but it is, instead, a natural reaction to discovering inconsistencies in an otherwise orderly creation.
And for every action, there is a reaction. Example—
The action: Your worker cells built an incorrect structure for one of your limbs. They modified critical components, including the length of the fingers and the base structure of the limb itself.
The reaction: Your clutch-mates, song-kin, and everyone else in the cluster chirp whenever you stumble or struggle to use that hand. They tut and thank the Deep you were hatched in a cluster with good relations with other clusters, if it comes to that. What success could you possibly have as a practical engineer?
It would be better, perhaps, for you to study science and put your sharp mind to use.
Your sharp mind loathes the idea. Though it’s custom for professions to be passed from generation to generation within a cluster, it’s never a requirement. The world is efficient, and everyone finds their thrum within the greater Song eventually. It would be unusual, but not unheard of, for you to join a neighboring cluster if their accredited trades suit you better.
But why should you be denied something because you’re different? Why should you have to leave your cluster, your home, to best serve your people? Why should you give up learning the only skill you have ever been interested in, since the day you watched an elder flick their tool-laden claws and weave a tiny replica of your nest from barely perceptible threads?
Another example—
The action: Everyone assumes you will fail your accreditation because your body was not built for engineering.
The reaction: You resolve to become the greatest engineer in the history of your cluster, if not the entire northern continent.
This intense single-mindedness is unusual. Your clutch mates easily bore with repetitive tasks, often working on several unrelated projects as they grow their knowledge in their chosen professions and hobbies. They flit about like sky-dwellers, always moving, always singing. Never still.
You have your projects, certainly. Your space in your clutch-home is full of sculptures, models, and small whirring devices, organized precisely by purpose and size, and proudly displayed on shelves.
But humming deep within you is a dissonant susurration that sets your vents whirring if you consider it too intently. It murmurs out from You in thrums, threatening to overcome consensus, to fixate on the nearly imperceptible fractures You see in the greater social pact. What if, what could, what would be, if They considered the needs of the part as much as those of the whole.
They don’t. And you, as a single component in the Song’s vast chorus, cannot sing loud enough to change the melody.
You stop trying. Instead, you hone your frustration into a focus that is near unheard of. You channel physical difficulty into physical prowess so resolute even your mediocre worker cells must listen. You practice, and you perfect, repeatedly, until your stubborn fixation becomes intuitively brilliant craftsmanship.
You’re already strange in one way. What does one more matter?
One last rule of the universe you’ve learned: The growth and eventual erosion of the world is carried out by an indifferent force. It crumbles mountains and forces the Long Sleep in equal measure. The Deep, if such a thing even exists, isn’t biased. All things live, and all things die, and what separates the sapient from the inanimate is its ability to fight against that indifference until the very end.
The action: All of reality claims you’re inconsequential in the vast tapestry of existence.
The reaction: You don’t care.
You own your fate. You fight against entropy with every frustrated angle and auricle of your being. You build. You create.
You are 𝄞𝄪𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥♫𝅘𝅥 𝄀 ♮𝅝 Weaver of a Melodic Discord, and in this inadequate, imperfect world, you will fix what you can.
♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜 𝄽𝄻 𝄐 ♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜
You understand customs perfectly. Your mind is not entirely dysfunctional, despite what some in your cluster claim. Most social practices are born from necessity, and the one in question has not changed in tens of thousands of years.
Hatchlings eventually outgrow their nest and are moved into larger spaces within their clutch-home, where they continue to grow. Eventually, even those areas become too small, as soon-to-be adults acquire personal possessions, tools, and bigger carapaces. It is traditional for newly accredited adults to build or commission their own homes, so they have room to flourish in their professions.
Depending on the region, it is also traditional for them to take a mate during that time. Predators are no longer a threat to your species during sleep, but few individuals choose to sleep alone if given the option; instinct remains, profoundly. And while professional thrums will watch an individual if they accidentally fall asleep while working, cluster groups are too busy with children or the elderly to care for adult offspring.
In other regions, clutch-mates or song-kin sometimes build and share homes into adulthood until they find mates. Not here, in your cluster. They are traditional. The task of mate-arrangement is considered an art, particularly among your song-kin, and they pride themselves on identifying strong matches.
In other situations, you would rebel against that type of externally mediated, contractual obligation. You refused to be assigned a profession. You still refuse to be judged when you know your own capabilities better than anyone else.
But you’re also acutely aware of your fear of sleeping alone. No matter how solitary you are in your waking and working time, you always seek out a sleep watcher. You’re eccentric, not isolationist, and your impending departure from your clutch-home inspires a vibrating dread deep in your gullet.
You prefer everything in its place, including dependable sleeping arrangements. You’d rather not have to ask for help each time.
There is no obligation for mates beyond keeping a home and watching each other sleep. At minimum, it’s a civil partnership that ensures adult responsibilities are shared between at least two individuals. At best, mates develop emotional harmony that sometimes leads to clutch rearing. A healthy cluster thrives from a diversity of bonds and relationships, like a body’s worker cells.
Thus, you accept your cluster’s offer to find you a mate. And you wait.
Impatiently.
♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜 𝄽𝄻 𝄐 ♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜
Your cluster knows you well at this point. Your accreditation mentor, also your first inspiration, is song-kin, and has sung to you since before your hatching. They understand you particularly well.
𝄢 𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥𝅘𝅥♫𝅘𝅥 𝄀 𝅝 Forger of Impregnable Foundations does not need to thrum to know you value directness. They know you would rather toss yourself in the nearest canyon than work with someone who is incompetent.
Forger of Impregnable Foundations is also very old and has many connections outside the local engineering thrum. They are, like you, a problem-solver at hearts, and they’re not one to declare an issue resolved unless it is well and truly fixed.
And by the unknowable and profane Deep, did you hand them a challenge.
You spend weeks trying to fetter out hints about your match. You fail each time.
Eventually, you ask outright: “Can you tell me anything about them?”
“Hah! And ruin the surprise?”
Your mentor scurries about their workshop on three limbs, using the remaining to skillfully weave miniscule threads of xenonite across a sprawling layered tapestry. It depicts your song-kin’s various clutches, including your egg-bearers’. The intricacies of your malformed limb are captured in exquisite detail, along with your clutch-mate’s more common features. The space beside you is yet unwoven.
You once asked Forger of Impregnable Foundations why they made art, instead of only spending time solving mechanical problems that would help the cluster.
Their reply was immediate:
“From art, we learn. From learning, we grow. From growth, we become capable of love. Solutions made from love are always sturdier.”
You think about those words a lot.
It doesn’t fully make sense to you, but you respect your mentor too much to disregard the odd logic entirely.
Feeling the pull of distraction, you refocus and try and analyze the empty space in the weaving, that absence of something anticipated. Your song-kin is skilled, however, and the only thing you can guess is your future-mate is taller than they are wide. Even that is no guarantee.
“I would like to know,” you grumble, and tap a claw twice in emphatic vexation. “How can I prepare if I know nothing?”
“Why should you prepare? They’ll be in the same position as you.” Forger of Impregnable Foundations takes a break from their work to adjust their weavers and stomp a limb. “From learning, we grow!”
“And from growth, we become capable of love,” you finish, the chords spilling out softer than intended. “I didn’t forget.”
“Never for a moment did I think you had. The oceans will freeze before Weaver of a Melodic Discord misses an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge.”
“That’s a terrifying and impossible idea.”
“Indeed. And such is my belief in your stubbornness that it will never happen. Now, run along and pack the rest of your things, before you weaken my resolve and I spill my secrets.”
You sway limb to limb with satisfaction. “You let one slip. You’re excited. You think you’ve picked well.”
“Bah! Go, before I decide to weave a burrow-weevil in place of your mate.”
Amusement gets the better of you, and you chortle on the way out, knowing Forger of Impregnable Foundations is doing the same. Though there is an unsettling rumble to their words, it is a well-practiced disguise to cover their true intentions. A habit you understand deeply.
They care about you, likely more than anyone else in the cluster does, including your egg-bearers. They are invested in your future, driven by a familiarly unshakeable belief in your capabilities. And their plans, much like yours, are fully in motion.
Perhaps you will be lucky. Perhaps your mate will be interesting, like your mentor.
Perhaps, if you are even luckier, you will be interesting to them.
♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜 𝄽𝄻 𝄐 ♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜
Your new home is on the edge of the cluster, though still close to those of your clutch-mates. There is never much space between homes anyway. Settlements spread like the hives of cliff dwelling species, an external manifestation of the order within your kin’s internal colonies. Each structure has its place in the settlement’s sound, walls rising and swooping to direct auditory channels just so. Every building is a chord, and each path curving between them a melody in the cluster’s song.
Yours is the most recent addition, one you are proud to have helped build. Your mate’s song-kin were delighted to connect with a cluster so proficient in physical craftwork; it made sense for your mate to come to you and enjoy the settlement’s beauty. And there were other reasons.
These facts, you know about your mate:
They are from a settlement far inland, and your cluster’s closer proximity to the ocean is a boon to them. They are a biologist with an interest in the planet’s ocean biomes, which isn’t a common choice in a cluster so far from water. You don’t share this interest, as you find the very idea of the deep ocean, and the death it almost certainly promises, terrifying, but you’re happy to oblige their request for a laboratory space, knowing they’ve done the same for your personal workshop.
You followed all your mate’s requests for the home with the same care you bring to your personal projects. Space for their lab and place to think. A sizable aural chamber for entertainment. A simple, smaller room for company and a place to display personal possessions.
They also have at least a passing interest in audio drama, or they wouldn’t have requested the type of aural chamber they did. You are grateful for this. It implies they would rather enjoy art in the comfort of their home than attend a performance in person. Your egg-bearers dragged your clutch to enough live shows when you were young that you grew to dread the pitiful looks others gave your limb.
It’s a shame, because you genuinely loved the puppetry the performances utilized.
Does your mate also enjoy puppetry? You have no idea. You don’t even know what they look like. They arrived at your cluster the day prior, and you let your song-kin take them to their — your — home to unpack. This is as big a change for them as it is for you, and you want them to have the opportunity to settle in physically before you meet.
You instinctively tuck your unique limb tighter under your carapace, then chide yourself for doing so when you realize what you’ve done. It’s a childish habit; one you still succumb to when you overthink.
However, defects can carry forward in offspring, even if they occur randomly the first time. You learned this young, as part of the condolences others gave your egg-bearers after seeing you. You don’t genuinely consider your limb or any part of you defective, but that doesn’t mean your mate will feel the same.
Will this be a point of contention in your relationship? Is it something Forger of Impregnable Foundations considered when they led the match?
You cycle your vents a few times, allowing your emotions to regulate. Mating is a partnership with minimal expectations. You didn’t agree to it with the hope of anything more. You shouldn’t be this worried about what anyone else thinks.
Your limbs vibrate with months of barely contained curiosity.
You’re tired of being afraid. You tap your claws to build your resolve, then hurry across the physical threshold of your future before you can change your mind.
♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜 𝄽𝄻 𝄐 ♫♪𝅝𝅘𝅥𝅗𝅥 𝄐𝄽𝄻♯♮♭𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅜
Your mate’s name is 𝄡𝄫 𝅗𝅥 𝄽 𝆱𝅗𝅥 𝄐 Keeper of the Silent Depths.
They’re nearly twice your height, their shape reminiscent of ancient volcanic mounts: angular, tapering to several peaks, and with lengthy limbs and wide claws that provide them with stability for their imposing size. Their carapace is elegantly reverberant, a materials composition you’ve never observed directly.
They don’t behave elegantly. Nor are they still, or silent, as their name suggests. They flit about the home with barely concealed delight, darting between shelves to point enthusiastically at the items you’d already placed there.
Your creations. A mixture of engineering mock-ups and artistic designs, all crafted from the finest materials. You’d initially hesitated to display them in the common room and kept them hidden away in the workshop, before changing your mind.
They’re your best work, and you’re proud.
“Look! Look,” your mate chimes. They warble a high-pitched, wordless melody for a moment, as they begin to reach for a tiny sculpture, before abruptly withdrawing and moving to another. “Did you see this one? It’s so pleasing! And this one!”
“Yes. I put it there.” You silently chastise yourself for the sarcasm in your tone.
“Oh, astounding! Did you make it? You must have. This is far more exquisite than anything I could create. It must have taken you months.”
“It was simple. Two days I think.” At this point, you may as well be lying prone with your ventral seam to the ceiling. That couldn’t be more embarrassing than your first attempt at a casual conversation with your mate.
“Two days?” Keeper of the Silent Depths goes completely still, before hesitantly tapping in question. “You made this in two days?”
Your mind immediately jumps to conclusions. There are years of precedent to suggest what they’re thinking.
Oh, you managed to do that so quickly even with a useless limb? How charming! You must have struggled greatly. What a tale of adversity.
Oh, you think you are alone in your speed and proficiency? How presumptuous. There are thousands of other engineers of your caliber. What boastful pride.
You straighten your carapace and stretch to your limbs’ limits, letting the passion show in your posture and the whirring of your vents.
“Yes,” you state, lower in pitch than you would like.
Keeper of the Silent Depths remains still and considers you with a lengthy sequence of aural clicks.
You consider them with markedly less composure, your claws clacking nervously against the floor despite your simulated confidence. You are certain they notice. It’s a struggle to keep your limbs on the ground.
Then, the unexpected happens. Your mate tilts their carapace towards you, their own limbs pulling inward. They drone a couple deep, discordant notes. It’s unsettling coming from such a large individual.
They must be irritated. What could they possibly be unsure about? You’ve done nothing to disguise your brusque directness. They would have every right to tell you to leave, or to at least be polite, or—
“Could you make me some?”
Something shatters in your matrix. All possible responses are tossed into your mental slag pile by your colony workers.
You tilt so far sideways you nearly tip. You return the confused droning and claw snapping with paralleled intensity.
What. What?
You honk in five simultaneous registers and slam a limb into the floor: “What?!”
“Ah!” Your mate breaks their poise, skittering back and forth before accidentally slipping and nearly careening onto the display shelf. They hold up two hands and clack their claws frantically. “For my lab! I’ve always admired my mentor’s. Their models, I mean. Species models. I think they commissioned them from someone in your cluster. Our cluster. They’re so beautiful. Yours are the same, maybe even more, and I just think…” Their vents all release simultaneously with a resounding puff. The brief pause afterwards is stifling. “I’m sorry, I’m asking a great deal and assuming even more, and we just met—”
“Yes.”
“…Pardon?”
You take the silence this time as a gift; the briefest moment for you to subdue your surprise and, briskly, assess.
Never in your wildest imaginings could you have anticipated this kind of luck. You’re not lucky. You’re stubborn and strong, and persistent, and the universe is often ambivalent to you regardless of your effort. And yet, here you’re presented with a mate who is not only enthralled with your work, but adores it so much, the first thing they’ve done is ask you to make more of it.
“Take that one to start.” You point to the model they had nearly grabbed earlier: a hand-sized, intricate replica of a soft-shelled, many limbed ocean species. “I’ll make you more, once you explain what you would like. And I’ll need you to advise me on some anatomy.”
From art, we learn.
Ah.
“Oh. Oh!” Keeper of the Silent Depths freezes, then sags with a relieved chime. “Yes. Thank you. Thank you! I can do that.”
Your worker cells are quick, restructuring crystalline panels and rewriting expectations at an alarming rate. You can’t vent fast enough. You’re sure your mate has noticed, except they also seem distracted from doing the same thing.
From learning, we grow.
It’s good Forger of Impregnable Foundations isn’t here to see you completely unravel. Their smug satisfaction is mortifying to even imagine. Not that you hadn’t hoped this would be the case. But oh, would they be insufferable right now at just how correct they were.
“Here,” you say, lifting the model and holding it out to your mate. A gift for a gift. A kindness for a kindness. “I can build you a place to keep it.”
A claw tip brushes yours, and you feel a shared shudder, as they take the miniature and tuck it against their carapace. “I promise, I won’t ask for too many.”
“I’ll build you as many you need.”
From growth, we become capable of love.
Mating is a partnership. It is a contract with minimal expectations, and you’d only expected respect and consistency from yours. How marvelous is this, to be understood so clearly and perfectly by one you’ve just met?
“I think I would like that very much,” they trill.
This is the promise of potential. Of something greater than the sum of its parts.
You wiggle your claws and sing joyfully, delight flooding you as Keeper of the Silent Depths returns the gesture. One of their hands still clutches your model protectively. They are so gentle with it, this tiny piece of your hearts you carved off and gave physical form.
Solutions made from love are always sturdier.
𝄂