Sunrise was her favorite time to weave.
There were the obvious reasons of course. There was a higher chance of others being asleep at dawn than dusk, and the increasing light meant there was a lower chance of her drawing attention to herself with her weaving. But then there were the reasons close to her heart. Like how it felt like she was weaving into the light, joining with its vibrant hues, or how she felt closest to the Great Mother in those moments, at her most serene. In the strangest way, weaving with the sunset felt like survival while weaving with the sunrise felt like living.
And so Emerald eagerly awaited the arrival of every sunrise, retreating to her remote corner where only La’syrus bore witness to her weaving.
The first slant of sunshine across the land brought with it an all-consuming fire that burned from the tips of her ears to the last hair on her tail, filling her with warmth and purpose and pride. And using that fire to shape the images dancing in her imagination—she had no other feeling to compare it to, but by her best guess, that feeling was pure, simple joy.
It was the only time her light didn’t make her balk. It unfurled from within her, an emerald glow that stretched to whatever dimensions she commanded. And the way it shone and moved as she wove it to shape… she was sure she would never have words enough to properly describe it. It was like a swarm of butterflies, like an aurora, a glittering firmament haze, a thousand-thousand fireflies at their brightest, at once formless and yet containing incandescent sparks and fine strands if you were to look close enough. Those strands and sparks were what she manipulated and wove, guided into whatever shape she desired.
With the rising sun in the background, with the pinks and oranges and yellows and blues brightening the sky, the whole world seemed to align for just a few moments, a perfect snapshot of beauty and miracles.
In those moments, it didn’t matter what she created—only that she did so. And she did, every dawn and every dusk, weaving the illusions she dreamt of in the dark in between.
