Squidgie bobbed her head and displayed the custom pictogram to the Least-Masters before her.

It was all somewhat exhausting to have to try and process so many new cultural digests after having trained in Terran protocols for most of her life.

But such would be her lot in the future as well. Although it would be nice if she did not have to mediate an argument for her first major task.

“I’m telling you we can’t just scrape out the fabric and graft the results together! It would be an abomination to the eyes! Distorted mockery of each of the materials available! A blasphemy and dishonor to all our trades!”

Squidgie sighed in the terran way as the Least Master of the Weaver’s guild in Graceful Interior Honors spoke tersely to his counterpart.

As was protocol Squidgie was not sufficiently familiar with them to have actually memorized the entire tonalform of their naming song. So she made sure to not act or think on the nicely indicated and properly tabulated memorized log in her census of them.

It would be rude to simply perfectly memorize the proper name of any of them like that.

So she bowed to the ways of The People.

“And we do not have time to do proper working of all of the fabrics needed! It is the work of three generations of novices to hone my crafts! The guests of the Great Wrothbeast’s Guiding Maiden need accommodations immediately! WE DO NOT HAVE TIME.”

So spoke, and gesticulated, and hissed viciously the Least Master of the Thread Spinners of Denuement’s Flower.

The apprentices, novices and other such clouds of workers were frozen around the two.

The tools of a thousand unique crafts were readied and yet stilled.

Materials and frameworks and so many other structures had been gathered together for construction of Miss Aleph and the other Terran’s guest quarters, but construction had been almost immediately halted as the two Masters found one another to both be immovable and irresistible forces on the matter of how to arrange those materials.

The Weaver held their mouth tightly closed and their eyes all focused aggressively upon their partner.

Speaking with a pulsing growling buzz of each of their throats. It might very well come to blows.

Again.

“We cannot simply throw them into a Creche! Or the bare shaded walls of a healers hut! It’s all the wrong forms! None of the accommodation as befits their station and honor! This shall be a work for generations to look back upon! If we don’t adhere to these duties we cannot call ourselves Least Masters! A dishonor on both our Guilds! A plague on all our novices!”

Squidgie was pained to hear this but at the same time she had not found an opportunity to actually contribute. She knew there was a way to resolve the problem, if she could just think of what to say.

“Order! My Mastery is to the Proud ORDER of the Thread Spinners of Denuement’s Flower! And Of course we must make sure that the works we set forth will stand to inspire novices and even masters alike onward into time! The first guests of the Guiding Maiden and her Wrothbeast! We cannot afford to fail to deliver the height of our skill and craft! If you would just listen to me we could make something entirely new! It’s a similar concept as a laminating counter weave! Surely that should be known to you! We have used such common methods among the spinners since our founding!”

That rankled the Lesser Master of Weavers.

“You’d BUTCHER the fabrics! Wreck Their weft! Destroy and befoul their legacies! These fabrics are the master works of Tiladodolota! The Middle Master of our Guild! You’d sully their perfection with your barbaric hewing!”

Squidgie was straining to try and come to a conclusion that could bring these two towards a peaceful resolution. But how? What even was the problem? Honestly Squidgie felt woefully unprepared for dealing with a situation of this magnitude. What even was the magnitude? There was some kind of transactional occurrence here, something status heavy and signifying? It was so different from what she had learned of the terrans or the records from Petalweft Salts.

It seemed like a technical problem of some sort but one steeped in reasons and evidence Squidgie could not manage to grasp.

Although...

She remembered when she had first been working to try and capture the art of her own body, the work that had been needed to match it one way or another. Testing out Aleph’s own appreciation and appeal.

Matching that to the mechanical limits and requirements of her frame. And then all the other sorts?

Oh where was ▙◀ ?! This was far more in the micro-polity’s niche than Squidgie.

But then again maybe... maybe she could do something almost like that? The issue was a kind of structural and presentation situation regarding aesthetics right?

The people had requirements for their aesthetics but also requirements that it appease Miss Aleph and the other terrans.

Hum.

“Excuse me, Least Master?”

She spoke using the lexical map that Ship Mistress Pylo had provided her. The matrix of translational cues and grammatically self referential rulings and intuitions still somewhat heavy and mildly painful where it had been inserted into her own linguistic system.

That drew them to silence, although numerous nonverbal and gestural lashing slights were still being directed between them it was no longer verbal or overt.

It was the most that she could hope for given the context.

Squidgie had been given adjacent status and recognition to the least masters here as something comparable to them, a servant and representative of the Terran’s needs.

“But the conundrum is that it is required to both make use of the fine materials as presented, but also that they must be structurally sound to the required specifications of Miss Aleph and the other terran’s habitation?”

The weaver gaped in assent.

“Yes, as a gift and showing of our works it must be a palatial caravan tent in the least. Comforting and familiar and suited to express the height of our skill and mastery. It cannot be a... a... slap dash atrocity as this-”

Squidgie interrupted with a verbal chirp that was at once polite but also firm.

“Truly, and the issue is that the two fabrics must be made one? There is no alternative?”

The Spinner gaped and began to speak.

“The weaves are the height of our crafts, the work of the esteemed masters. They MUST be used in a form to present the honor of the ORDERS and GUILDS contributing. To fail to utilize them at all would be to declare the contributions unfit. To abandon them! It would never stand amongst the thread spinners! We must make a showing of our craft lest what is the point of our contributions.”

Squidgie nodded in the Terran way as well as providing a proper gape assent ideograph upon her display. The two of them were not yet calmer. The nonverbal aggression posturing was rampant with every motion when either of them spoke.

“And is it also unfeasible to manufacture fresh materials that exhibit your skills properly? There is nothing in the haste of its manufacture that could... suffice?”

The Weaver scowled and pulled back, mouth closed, eyes wide in negation and hostility.

“There is no way for it to be done. To weave both what will hold the air for the guests and also obscure or reveal the world as she wants is not a work that can be done. Not in the time we have. There is not a way.”

The spinner huffed.

“Which is why I propose a synthesis, a blending of ways. We laminate threads in this manner all the time to combine the honed work of many masters into a greater whole!”

The scowling weaver gestured at one of the lattices of cloth in the cloud of materials.

“We cannot do as such, the wefts do not simply stick together, they must be open and free upon both sides. The shading sheets cannot hold air. The forbiddance of the healer’s sheets for the creche air does not hold the same pattern to flex as the shading sheets spin! To do this even vaguely correctly is the work of reweaving every span of the fabric! A work as insurmountable in our time as to make it whole cloth! To do it any other way is butchery! This Must be a work for all our ages to come!”

Squidgie tried to grasp the specifics of it. The textiles of The people were a high arcana and technical craft far beyond her own means to measure. There were sparse and few digests available by explanation and what ones there were were opaque in any kind of theory or function.

But already she had heard and witnessed the properties they could forge together when given proper time. Works every bit as capable of providing for the needs of the Terrans as Ship Mistress Pylo’s own devices. Probably even better.

Squidgie would have no hope to do a proper analysis as ▙◀ could. But maybe?

“Can the shading cloth function within air?”

That drew the two least masters to still their silent antagonisation of one another to ponder the question.

Finally the Spinner was first to speak.

“There are workings which could assure it. Not all cloth would fully allow though. We already were going to need to devise methods for a proper form on the inner surface. But to do both would be possible given the time.”

The Weaver made a face of displeasure but rumbled in aggressive assent.

“It can be done, but to ensure the proper opacity and light will require the sheets are held smaller than is tradition, It would suggest we are smothering them like spawn.”

The Spinner barked in a sharp chirping amusement.

“We already have to fill them up in smothering air like invalids or infants! It is no greater insult to accommodate them with a little less space. Is it not so oh Dame of Land’s Cleansing Embrace?”

Von Squidgie preened under how her name and title translated so beautifully in the sing song chords of the People’s ‘air-language’. Which was distinct from that used for the (forbidden to outsiders) touch language and slightly a permutation of their ‘cast’ language.

“In truth even a room considered quite tight for an adolescent of The People could feel a bit over-large for a Terran, they do appreciate open spaces and wide views but given what you have planned for the shade-cloths I think that it would be quite difficult for you make any of them feel overly cramped. So Interior space is not an issue at all.”

The Least Master Weaver hummed and then gestured to the cloud of materials where bolts of cloth had been assembled in a vast swirling array of variety.

“Very well, this bolt is esteemed in its material, rare threads and chips carved from far afield. It is overly rich and faintly disgusting as it currently rests. But will bring no dishonor. You may apply any sacrileges you need to give proof against creche air.”

It took four novices with their song-casters to maneuver the heap towards the three of them.

The Spinner considered the bolt as it came close, eyes running in straight patterns, following the threads. The material was inert, opaque and faintly shimmering in and out of translucency bundled up for transport.

But Squidgie had already been given a demonstration of how it would work when properly implaced and held taut.

“I see many mechanisms which will need treatment and reinforcement, but with work I believe I and my novices can manage to empower it into something that will not insult my own hands for your failures. This will be acceptable, if the Least Master can manage the mountings correctly.”

The vitriol in what would normally be a friendly gape of assent from the Weaver honestly made Squidgie uncomfortable.

“I assure that this near blasphemy will be ascendant into a holy expression that regrettably will bring honor to your guild as well as mine in its mastery.”

With that they both gaped again precisely only as much as strictly necessary and then each least master turned to their collection of apprentices, novices and other manual labor and began shouting orders and direction.

Squidgie let out a ‘breath’ heavily into the vacuum outside of the ‘festival tent’.

Her first official mission after her transformation might actually not be a total disaster.

As she watched goods being selected and others dismissed to be carried away she truly hoped that pattern would continue.