The needle slipped.
Leia hissed as a sharp sting pricked her finger — again. A bead of blood bloomed along her skin.
She wiped it instinctively against the lining of the cloak.
Then stopped.
Because the blood didn't just smear.
It sank in.
The bone-silk shimmered faintly under her touch, and the stitch holding it pulsed — once, like a heartbeat.
Leia blinked.
It wasn't the first time it had happened. She'd seen it before, faintly, during her first few attempts. But she'd assumed it was imagination — fatigue. Now it was clearer.
Intent wasn't enough.
The thread responded to her blood.
She sat back, eyes fixed on the glowing seam. "What are you…?"
She touched another seam — one from before, where her finger had bled days ago.
It pulsed too, faintly.
Her breath caught.
It wasn't just sewing. She wasn't just making clothes.
She was binding part of herself into the fabric.
---
Selene knocked gently on the shed's old door.
Leia opened it, and her mother frowned at the dark circles under her eyes.
"You've been in here since morning."
Leia hesitated. "I think… I think I found something important."
Selene stepped in, glancing at the table. The cloak, now half-lined with rare fabric, seemed to shimmer in low light. Its shape was sharper, its layers more deliberate.
Leia explained in short bursts: the blood, the response, the glow.
Selene didn't interrupt.
When she finished, her mother only said, "Your ability is listening."
Leia looked down at her wrist — the needle-and-thread symbol burned softly like a brand under her skin. She clenched her fingers.
"So it needs blood?"
"Maybe not blood alone," Selene said. "Maybe it's... belief. Emotion. You gave more than a stitch. You gave meaning."
Leia nodded slowly.
But deep inside, a whisper stirred:
> If my power responds to blood... how far can it go?
---
Later that evening, as the sky bled into orange, Leia stitched again.
This time, she didn't flinch when the needle pricked her. She let it.
Not deep.
Just enough.
Just a drop.
It flowed into the seam of the cloak's collar, where she had woven a dense pattern — a curve of protection, reinforced with metal thread.
The moment the blood touched the thread, the cloak shimmered.
It wrapped tighter for a second, folding inward before relaxing.
A line of rune-thread glowed along the edge — symbols she hadn't stitched.
She gasped. "That's not mine…"
But it was.
Somehow, it was.
The thread had answered her intent.
And added its own.
Leia stared in silence for minutes, then whispered, "You're evolving."
The cloak was no longer a thing she made.
It was something she guided.
---
Outside the shed, a figure watched from the shadows.
Cloaked in gray. Quiet.
His eyes narrowed as the glow faded inside.
He whispered to himself:
> "She's not just crafting… she's awakening."
Then he vanished into the dark.
---
That night, as Leia laid the cloak over her lap and watched its faint pulse, she felt a shift inside her chest. Not fear.
Something else.
Belonging.
The cloak was no longer a project.
It was hers.
And she was its.