A kind human teaches Wraithvine and friends how to properly use spinning wheels. Then gifts them enchanted ones that can become pocket sized, or full sized, as needed. -- Lessons
The denizens of Nanogh had never had to make things by hand. They could weave anything they liked out of raw magic. So when the Faekindred invaded the Mortal Plane, they had some difficulty. Setting up magefonts, manafonts, moon pools, and the like had been their priority. They opened doors they should not have opened. Changed the world forever.
It was quite the adjustment phase, to say the very least of it.
Wraithbind was born into the Mortal Plane, and never held with the rights of the strong to punish the weak. Ze was therefore a wandering outcast, seeking to maintain hir oath with what little ze could do.
Ze had had to disguise hirself to wander into other species' settlements. Being an Elf anywhere other than Elven realms lead to unwanted trouble. So Wraithbind often disguised hirself as a wanderer, and let others dub hir a dullard.
This current fascination was a wheel. There was a treadle, and a crank, and a smaller wheel that moved faster than the eye could follow.
The one operating it -later introduced as Goodwife Melo- shouted, "Ut!" when Wraithbind got too close. "Mind your fingers, halfbred." A tolerable form of address. Wraithbind did look like a weedy being of mostly Harukh heritage.
The blur, now still, was an arrangement of arms and hooks. If Wraithbind put hir fingers too close to that, then ze wouldn't have fingers any more. Wraithbind reflexively clenched hir fingers and put them close to hir chest.
"Oh. I've never seen one before. What is it?"
Melo made sure the device was still. "Gobelliin tinkering. A way to spin when you can't walk. Only one good leg, see?" She hiked up her skirts to show the peg and the one working foot. "My youngins need socks and I can't work while I get from one place to another. It's enough for warm clothing. Want to learn how it works?"
Wraithbind was instantly fascinated. This was a long way from the weights and sticks that made spindles. "Yes please."
The theory was easy to grasp. Twist fibres to make thread. Doing it well was the work of years.
Her neighbour, the Gobelliin tinkerer, saw Wraithbind's delight at the device and preened. "You like my work," they said, introducing themself as Taaka. "Would you like to see the latest?"
There were other folding things in the world. Folding boats. Folding huts. Dimensionally transcendent storage objects with various powers. Before now, Wraithbind believed they could only be made by Elves.
Others had found the secret. Others had found other ways.
Wraithbind was eager to help with any task necessary to help make it... or make a replacement. But Taaka already had a prototype. Speak a word, and it would become the size of a toy. Speak a different word, and it would become a full sized sitting wheel. Thread in progress and all.
When Wraithbind learned to make a wizarding tower, the first thing ze installed there was Taaka's wheel.
[Photo by Aditya Gupta on Unsplash]
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