"Talitha is smiling at her, tentative, luminous."

September 5, 2020 3:26 PM

"'It's like mathematics,' Cat says. 'Once it’s written, it can't not be true. See?' She takes the swan back and adds a descending stroke to the character on the neck. It takes flight and flutters around Toby’s head." "Flightcraft" is a short fantasy story which author Iona Datt Sharma describes: "A romance in its beginning, an ancient craft, and an aeroplane named for a traitor."
posted by brainwane (3 comments total)

By the way - since you can't tell just from the visible webpage, just the source code -- Luna Station Quarterly published "Flightcraft" in 2016.
posted by brainwane at 3:33 PM on September 5, 2020

Another lovely story! The "lexical" magic reminds me of Unsong or Spellwright. I also liked the Talitha /Cat developments, and the author had a deft hand at dropping hints re: Talitha's occupation early on in the story.

(Alternate airplanes also reminds me of Celestial Matters, but that is a wildly different story.)
posted by Anonymous Function at 4:33 PM on September 5, 2020

Words and magic. Grammar and Grimoire.
posted by otherchaz at 8:51 AM on September 6, 2020