Nicolai sat at a table in his treehouse, his third-eye half open as he worked on his current project. He found that watching the spectral spirits dance helped him concentrate. He pulled gently at the liquid, working fast enough so that it did not cool and solidify prematurely, but slowly enough so that it turned solid just as he wanted it. He found that his hands worked well with the silina, tiny as they were. He drew each thread up slowly, and finally, he lowered his third eyelid and smiled gently. Perfection. He stood to let it cool fully before he moved it to the shelf he kept his other pieces on. Four so far. He thought back on when he first found the Silina, when he was visiting the house of another Bi-Yau. It was a wonderful material. Heated up for the first time, it would become a half-liquid material, almost similar to clay except thinner. Once it cooled and solidified after that first time it would remain hard no mater what you subjected it to. And Nicolai found that he loved creating spinning dancing sculptures out of it. It became his new fascination. He limited himself to creating one a week, so that he had time for other things. Sometimes the sculptures took hours to complete. He swished his tail up in front of him and gently ran his hands over his gem, admiring the shine as the light sparkled off of it. Finally, it had been long enough, and he turned and grasped the base, carefully moving across the room with a studied grace, and placed this one next to the other three. He stepped back and admired them all, the way they curved and danced, and the way the afternoon sunlight caught and reflected off their silvery surfaces. His hand unconsciously touches the rope collar about his neck, playing idly withthe dangling strings. The texture of the rope always felt so right in his hands, so nice. Today he wore a simple rope, but he had made it a point to collect ropes dyed in many different colors. They all hung in their own display on his bedroom wall. No others of his race really seemed to understand his fascination with the rope...and to be quite honest he wasn't sure himself why. Something about the texture, the way it looked, even the way it felt in his hands. It just felt right. As the afternoon light darkened a bit, he shook himself and moved towards the kitchen to cook himself some dinner, pausing only once in the doorway to look back with a small smile at his sculptures and then walked into the kitchen.

Art & Nicaolai (c) XiaoMao/Mao's Menagerie
Bi-Yau (c) Shikoku-Una