I just realized I still had this sitting as a draft. Bother.

Chores finished, he sat in the edges of the shade and watched his sister work. She dipped her curved needle in and out like a streamer-fish weaving in and out of the clouds, and he wondered if that elegant creature was the first inspiration for sewing. Beneath her fingers, a kite was slowly taking shape, patched in the motley of the scraps she'd saved that year.

It took most of his concentration to avoid squirming and distracting his sister. Each stitch was critical, he knew, a difference between catching the air firmly or tearing in the wind. He scowled in what he thought must be a very manly way as he fought with his infuriatingly child-like body. It still thought he should be running about, chasing his friends, but he knew better. He was nearly ten, and too old for kid games.

What attention remained was dedicated wholly to the kite. It was his, he knew, his very own, his first lure. He was determined to know every stitch. It was a basic beginner's lure, brightly colored to entice the smaller fish, but too unformed to attract too large a flier. Tomorrow Grandfather would teach him the double-string controls and Mother would cut his hair and he would earn the clothing of an apprentice windfisher.

His eyes followed her fingers as each tiny stitch appeared, critically observing their shape and placement. That one was a little too big, he thought. That one too small. It'll give too much, it'll tear too easily. The spine made it inflexible, easy to break in the grasp of a fish. The brindle was too high; it'd dive in a hard wind. It wasn't perfect. But winds, it was his!

His sister glanced up, noting his scrutiny with a skewed smile. "It's almost done," she said. "Do you want to do the last few stitches?"

He shifted his weight from side to side and sat on his hands. "No," he said. She shrugged with her eyebrows, and he watched all the more intently as her needle dipped for the final times.