Sir Tithe had battled a Dragon, solved the riddles of the Bust-Sphinx, and survived Veronique Lacewrath’s wrath. He had faced stitched horrors, fabric fiends, and an endless parade of enchanted undergarments: some bewitched to squeeze the truth out of you, others designed to lift and separate your soul from your body.
He'd survived the War of the Underwires, the Brassiere of Binding, and a brief but emotionally complicated entanglement with a sentient corset named Claspandra. And yet, as he stood in the kitchen of Brassiere Bay’s finest inn, staring at his radiant and very pregnant wife, Lady Lacia Tithe, he knew…
This was his greatest challenge yet.
“I need an omelet,” Lacia declared, cradling her swollen belly on a throne of enchanted pillows that adjusted themselves with dignified fluffing.
Tithe, still dressed in his knightly tunic, smiled. “Of course, my love. The cook will prepare-”
She waved a hand. “Not just any omelette.”
Tithe’s smile wavered.
“The eggs,” she said dreamily, “must be from the rarest creature in all of Cleavendale…”
She looked up with a gleam of absolute certainty.
“…The legendary Silken Phoenix.”
Somewhere in the inn, a spoon clattered to the floor. Even the Fairies, lazily folding napkins into birds, paused to wince in sympathy. Because the Silken Phoenix was not just rare—it was borderline mythical. Said to lay only three eggs in its lifetime, and only when the moon was full, the wind was just right, and the fabric of reality happened to be feeling generous.
And Lady Lacia wanted one.
By breakfast.
Tithe stood tall, sighed, and said what any devoted husband-knight would say.
“Then I shall fetch one.”
The Hunt for Aeriebra
Within the hour, Tithe and his companions—Marlo Quickstitch, Dame Threadbare, and Buttons the Squire—set off toward the floating cliffs of Aeriebra, rumored home of the Silken Phoenix.
Aeriebra, the Floating Island of Cleavendale, answered to no map, no compass, and certainly no sense of urgency.
How Not to Find a Floating Island
First, they tried a telescope.
Buttons squinted through it. “Anything?”
“Just a Button Deer stuck in a tree,” he replied.
Next, they tried sorcery.
Marlo produced a silver-threaded divination cloth. “It should point us toward rare fabrics.”
The cloth spun, twisted… and pointed directly to Boubourg.
“Fabric sales,” Marlo said flatly. “It wants us to shop.”
“We are not stopping to shop,” Tithe growled.
Finally, Dame Threadbare rolled up her sleeves, grabbed a spool of enchanted wind-thread, and flung a needle into the sky.
The thread shot upward, caught something invisible… and pulled taut.
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The clouds parted to reveal a floating island stitched from sunlight and dreams: Aeriebra.
“Well… that was lucky,” Marlo said in disbelief.
Now they just had to climb.
Climbing the Threads of Fate
Hand over hand, the group ascended.
The wind-thread held, a silver lifeline through invisible currents. The climb was grueling. Buttons whimpered halfway.
“You scaled Lacewrath’s tower!” Tithe reminded him.
“That tower wasn’t floating!” Buttons hissed.
Still, they climbed. And at last, they pulled themselves onto the silken grass of Aeriebra, gasping, sweating, and alive.
he wind blew softly through the satin-leaved trees, creating a rustling sound more like whispered gossip than wind in branches. Each embroidered leaf fluttered as if reacting to unseen speech, shimmering in silver and emerald as sunlight played across their surfaces.
Beneath the canopy of stitched boughs, a Trillipatch—a rabbit-sized creature sewn from leftover song-magic and patchwork—twitched its velvet ears. Its body shifted color with its emotions, currently glowing a contented periwinkle as it nibbled on a puffball of enchanted thistle thread.
Up in the branches, a pair of Chorus Loons—long-necked birds with harpstring tails—called out in melodic duets. Their songs caused ripples to appear in the fabric of the nearby air, revealing momentary glimpses of other places: a quiet pond, a field of floating buttons, a child’s dream of flight.
A Spindlefox, sleek and long with a tail that unraveled into shimmering ribbon when it ran, darted through the bushes. It chased invisible thread-spirits—playful little sprites made of loose ends and laughter, giggling as they re-tied themselves into bow-knots on the tree roots.
Near a glowing stream that sparkled with silver stitch-water, a Glimmerstag—antlers woven from celestial thread—grazed gently, watched over by a Thimblewisp, a tiny floating creature with a spool for a body and thread-like wings that shimmered with enchantments of calm.
The entire grove pulsed with quiet magic—an ecosystem of living craft and color, where enchantment didn’t just exist… it played.
And high above it all, unseen save for a shimmer of golden feathers, the Silken Phoenix passed overhead—its wings casting faint shadows stitched with sunlight.
And then the ground moved.
The Snare of the Seamvines
At first, it was subtle. A slight tug on their boots. The sensation of walking through molasses.
Then came the curling threads—lacey tendrils rising from the earth, looping around ankles, knees, and thighs.
“Seamvines,” Dame Threadbare muttered. “Living fabric. Carnivorous. Likes its prey gift-wrapped.”
They tried to run—too late. Buttons was nearly rolled into a decorative bow. And then… something worse stirred. A Threadmaw. Massive. Loom-like. Circular teeth of bone-needle and a long tongue of unraveling warp-yarn. It surged from beneath the ground with a low, creaking hemmmmm.
Marlo shrieked. Buttons screamed. Dame Threadbare swore. Tithe did what he always did: charged. With teamwork and panic, they escaped.
- Dame Threadbare sliced a path through the vines.
- Marlo cast Snaglight, tangling the trap in its own panic.
- Buttons, bless him, flung a jam scone directly into the Threadmaw’s “eye,” blinding it with stickiness and social embarrassment.
The party burst through the last of the Seamvines, panting and frayed, and there, at last, in a clearing stitched from silk and sunlight-
Was the Phoenix.
The Bargain of the Phoenix
It was glorious; its feathers woven from strands of gold, its eyes twin orbs of dawn. And before it… a single, glowing egg.
Tithe stepped forward reverently. “O great Phoenix, I—”
The Phoenix raised one silky wing. “Oh no. Not this again.”
“…What?”
The bird sighed. “Every few centuries, some glowing noblewoman gets hungry and sends her knight after my eggs. ‘Oh, darling, fetch me breakfast from a cosmic miracle!’”
Tithe blinked. “We didn’t mean offense.”
“Offense? At you wanting to eat my offspring? No, no. I’m just tired.”
It gestured to the egg. “You realize these hatchlings don’t grow, they just arrive. Magic compressed. You try to cook that, you will get a nearly adult sized flaming bird flying out of your frying pan.”
Dame Threadbare raised a hand. “Would that be… fatal?”
The Phoenix shrugged. “Fatal to your appetite.”
Tithe groaned and put his head into his hands.
“There, there,” said the Phoenix, fluffing its radiant plumage. “Tell you what. Take one of my feathers as a souvenir for your lady, and in exchange, spread the word so people stop trying this. Phoenix eggs could warp your frying pan, hatch mid-bite, or explode into literal and or existential firestorms. They’re not breakfast food.”
It plucked a single glowing feather and passed it to Tithe, who held it with reverence (and just a little fear).
“And tell your cook,” the Phoenix added dryly, “next time someone’s pregnant and craving magic, stick to salted butter and some emotional support pancakes.”
Back at the Inn
Lady Lacia examined the glowing feather.
“…So the omelet might have hatched mid-meal?”
Tithe nodded solemnly.
She tilted her head. “Hmm.”
He braced.
“I think…” she paused.
“I’d rather have pancakes.”
Tithe collapsed.
Buttons patted his back. “It’s okay, sir. It’s okay.”
Epilogue
Sir Tithe, hero of Cleavendale, conqueror of lace beasts and bearer of Silken Trials, stood over a griddle, and made pancakes, because sometimes, love is a journey.
And sometimes, it’s breakfast.