53 AI Etera Fair - Astire

The woman had arrived early in the morning, a striking figure if for no other reason than her long, silver hair, which blew wildly to and fro even though there was little wind, or her right arm, which glowed brightly with a warm, golden light.  She had moved through the gathering performers first until she'd come across a lutist who was willing to play for her - for a modest fee, of course - before finding an empty space on the outskirts of the fayre.

From her satchel, she retrieved a long roll of canvas, laboriously pulling it free from the small, burlap bag and unrolling it onto the grass, spreading it out carefully and weighing it down with a series of stones at the edges.  She slipped off her shoes at the edge of the canvas and stood barefoot in its centre.

She gave no introduction, no announcement.  Instead, she just gave a nod to the musician, and ran two fingers of her flesh-and-blood arm along the glowing light that made up her other.  When she flicked her arm out with a flourish, it brought with it a spiralling ribbon of light that seemed to unwind itself from her arm as though from a ball of twine.

And then she started to dance.

She was a skilled enough dancer that she likely could've made a reasonable amount of money, though she was hardly the finest there.  But as she danced, the ribbon of light followed her, bending and weaving sinuously in time with the music - and where its light fell, the canvas's colour changed, as though each flick and twist of the ribbon were an elegant stroke from a giant's paintbrush.

It took just a couple of minutes before the tune was over, and the canvas a kaleidoscope of colours - and yet one that somehow bore a resemblance, if an abstract one, to the scene at the fayre itself.  She hung it up - not to dry, as the mystical inks had dried instantly, but to display - and unravelled another blank canvas from her satchel.

A young boy had been watching since about half-way through the first performance with his mother. Astire gave a slender smile at the excitement in his eyes, and beckoned him and his mother to join her on the canvas, unravelling another length of light and wrapping it around his wrist, where it billowed and spun behind him as he twirled happily, leaving multicoloured whorls on the canvas below him.

It couldn't really be said that any of the other artworks she (and her various assistants as the interactive experience drew the interest of passers-by and the occasional other musician) created bore much resemblance to real life - though if you knew what you were looking for, and more importantly which parts of the vibrant paintings had been created by Astire's movements rather than those of the visitors, it was possible to trick one's eyes into seeing images and patterns amidst the chaos.  There was the child-like figure of water in amidst trees that had been produced from the slow melody of a harp, the fiery revellers that had been brought forth by a family of six children and some very rapid drumming, and the jagged edges of implausibly balanced buildings that Astire had made alone, following the tune of a piper.

During quieter moments she touched up some of the canvases with a paintbrush that left shimmering, glowing colours behind it, adding a semblance of depth and a more delicate precision to the images that the wild spinning of her ribbons of light couldn't. Later, she would donate the filled-in canvases themselves to some of the orphanages in Babel, giving a splash of colour to their living areas and playrooms.

It was a strange thing. She was as minor a part of the fayre as she was the adventurers of Babel, and almost anyone one asked would consider the latter more important...and yet, the cheer and excitement that she had been able to bring to the visitors was far greater than anything she'd achieved with her family's blade.

This was how the world should be.