I remember the exact moment I realized my strings could exist permanently.
It was the middle of the second year, and I'd just finished sewing a long t-shirt for Thea, soft and baggy with little looped hems that hugged her knees.
I was trying to use ordinary cotton when a spark hit me. I reached inward, deep into that part of me that hummed like woven thunder, and pulled out a thin stream of pale blue string. It slid between my fingers like silk, but warmer. I threaded it through the fabric, stitch after stitch, expecting it to unravel after an hour like it always did. But this one didn't. It held.
It held for days. Then a week. Then two.
I told my mother, and she paused while slicing papaya, blade hovering midair.
"You mean… they're permanent now?"
I nodded, and she laughed like she hadn't since I was little, pulling me into a hug so tight I nearly dropped my needle. From then on, we wove everything with my Flux. Clothes, blankets, bags, even the hanging ribbons on the village were mine.
I tested them. They were fireproof and weather-resistant. I dragged them through rivers and tossed them into campfires. Nothing. Not a single burn emerged. Not even a wrinkle.
Now, my strings make up nearly half the trade on the island. Since we don't use money, people bring baskets of fruit, smoked fish, carved ornaments, and rare dyes just to barter for a few spools of my thread. My mother's store is full of them, worth ten to twenty years' worth of my yarn, carefully stacked in wide wooden chests.
And I'm not just sewing anymore.
The old women in town took me in like a granddaughter. They showed me how to weave baskets and fishnets, how to twist fiber tight so it never breaks, how to create pattern from chaos. My fingers got faster. My Flux followed every thought, every instinct. I started making nets for dad's fishing crew. I didn't even need wood frames anymore. I made the whole thing from my own Flux.
The first day Dad used one, he came back with double the usual catch. I still remember it clear as day. Thea and I were racing down the sand path from the house to the docks, the smell of saltwater thick in the air and our bare feet thudding against the dirt. The sun was dropping, glowing like a molten coin through the canopy above.
Then I saw him, tall and strong and still smiling like he used to when I was five. His hair had flecks of seafoam in it. His arms were roped with fish-filled sacks and he waved when he saw us, eyes crinkling with pride.
"Verdamona darling! Your net held like the arms of the sea gods!"
The other men with him clapped me on the back, one even hoisting me onto his shoulder in a whoop.
"Your daughter's a blessing!" One of them told the rest, laughing. "We haven't pulled in this much since the whale run last spring!"
I don't know why I almost cried.
But things weren't all perfect. Four years into training and I still couldn't push that damned boulder back uphill.
None of us could.
Not me, not the jungle chief's daughter with her brilliant emerald-and-gray eyes and Elemental Flux that spat wind when she was angry. Not the mountain chief's son either, with his sharp mind, psychic control, and that constant frown like we were wasting his time.
We were all struggling because those boulders wasn't just heavy. The point of it was pure madness. Push it down the hill once? Sure, easy. Getting it back up?
Impossible.
And for the past four years, I've been clawing at that truth with bloodied fingers and sore muscles, dragging myself closer to what it meant to earn power. If I couldn't lift this, I wouldn't be strong enough.
Still, I had more to deal with than boulders.
Leuven's situation was getting out of hand.
Mothers and daughters kept "accidentally" dropping by, bearing fruit baskets, smoked meats, even handmade necklaces. They weren't gifts. They were bids. Proposals, really. One even pretended to twist her ankle so he'd help her walk.
The chaos spilled into my life too. Every day I was approached by a new girl or two. Pretty ones, confident ones, some even pretending they wanted to braid my hair or teach me new weaving techniques. One brought me sugarberries. Another offered to clean my clothes. They weren't slick.
They all wanted the same thing.
"My parents said they want a daughter-in-law who cares for her husband's siblings," one said, all sweet and sly.
"I think Leuven's so kind," said another. "I'd be so good to his little sisters…"
I just smiled politely. Pretended I didn't notice. But I did. And it was funny in a way because they might've been after Leuven, but they were all talking about me. Me, the string girl. Me, the daughter of the fisherman and seamstress. Me, the girl who could make thread stronger than steel and pull a boat by herself.
Somehow, I'd become a hot topic.
And while everyone else saw the girl getting prettier by the year, I only saw someone desperately trying to push a boulder uphill.
And this time, I decided to test out the durability of my strings in a forest.