On swift feet, I slip silently to the replacement blade. My team holds it steady as I work, and I breathe upon the edge of it where it will attach to the central turbine shaft. The rope of fear I have woven sticks to it like putty. I lay the length of it along that edge, feeling it try and recoil from the anger laid into the blade itself, priming the weld site. When I step away and gesture, my team begins the process to maneuver the immense piece into place.

In a single motion, I spin and rush the safety cage. Kellen hears the snarl of song that rips from my chest, and I see the moment he falls outside the green coffin smothering him. My fingers lock upon the metal bars as I open myself to his emotional effluvia. He cannot discern what I am doing, and confusion seats itself firmly as the fear is drawn off him en masse. 

But I have no time to explain or delay. I take up the burden of his terror in my hands and sing to it, drawing it away from him, extracting every shred that I am able. With delicate motions of another tool, I extrude it into twin ropes. They writhe in my grip, trying to find purchase, almost fragile now that they are outside a body. I hold the pair of ropes in one hand while raising my goggles into place with the other. Around me, I distantly note that my team is dropping their welding masks into place.

“Kellen!” I bellow. “Mask on now!” It is all the attention I can spare from the serpentine ropes squirming in my hand.

I hear the cough of the welding torch igniting and I have no more time to consider anything else. Twisting, contorting, I insert myself straight into the work area. My crews make room as best they are able while still securing the blade firmly in place, while the welding occurs just inches away from me. 

I sing once more, softly, feeding the ropes in my hands into the weld, manipulating them in a counterclockwise twist about themselves as the metal screams protest beneath the heat of the torch. Sparks leap out to try and leave kisses upon my hands and arms, but I barely notice, and my scales slide into place to protect me once my subconscious recognizes the danger. Lukasi is the best welder in the entirety of the sub-city as far as I am concerned, focusing entirely upon his work, and his emotions are tightly controlled within himself. No spillover does he allow as he slowly, methodically mates the blade to the central shaft. 

The liquid words of my song flow uninterrupted, rising and falling like the tides, guiding the cords of terror into shape with my hands and strengthening the welding. This is the song of shaping, now. It is one of the first I learned, and it is known to every Denzai. The notes flow in primal strains, touching the very building blocks of existence. No two individuals can describe it or perform it the same way, but every Denzai knows it when they hear it. 

The song ends when the weld is finished. 

“Do not get comfortable,” I remind everyone, putting steel in my voice. “We still have to reinforce the other side. If you are not in the walks, get here. All hands to the ready!”

Now, I take up the other two tuning forks I previously selected out. They are of wildly mismatched sizes, and hum discordantly as I strike them in unison upon the nearby turbine blade. The sounds are unsettling at best. I strike these a second time, setting the tones in my mind firmly before stowing the devices back in my tool belt.

Again, I sing. But this time, I have to ratchet the manipulation up several notches. The first weld is always the easiest; emotion is simpler to elicit the first time. 

I slither back out of the shaft, pull my goggles down about my neck, and open up with the song of the Dark. 

It is not often I resort to this refrain. Not only is it technically difficult, but it can evoke some of the most potent emotions possible depending upon how I modulate the harmonies. In this case, unimaginable terror. I let the song take me and watch the results.

Green tendrils creep forth again, but this time they sway in rhythm to the strains of the eerie song. A secondary melody dances above the range of what can be heard by anyone else in the room, though I can see the reaction of it in those I pass as I move about the walkways. They do not know why they shiver and cringe, but their subconscious minds react on instinct to the strains that they can only feel in their primitive hindbrain. 

I move erratically now, sometimes quickly, other times stalking, dancing, crouching, spinning, leaping. There is no pattern, and I simply flow with the madness of the song. I climb a railing and leap across open space to another walkway, swinging upon one of the supporting cables like a street post. Someone shudders, and I thrust my face into theirs suddenly. From each person I pass, I draw off the emotions in trailing streamers. Green tinsel shimmers from my fingers and I weave it into a braid that melds together into a single thick cord that wants to wind about my leg. 

Perspiration begins to drip when I am only halfway through. It stings my eyes, but I cannot let it distract me. My breath is coming harder as well. But the song must not falter.

Finally, I circle back around to Kellen in his cage. He sees me approach this time, though I cannot see his expression behind the welding mask. I suspect he has forgotten he is wearing it. 

But I hear his screams. 

In perfect counterpoint to the song, his terror fills the air. I can practically smell the stark fear naked upon him. My eyes narrow and I focus upon him, upon the wildly flailing ropes as thick as my arm that seek purchase upon anyone nearby. 

I run at him, bounce between the railings with two leaping steps, and land atop his prison of safety. The seeking tendrils snake out, lashing up toward my feet, and I pluck them like flowers to quickly weave them about the rest of what I have gathered. There is almost a palpable sense of mucous to Kellen’s terror. I take up another tool and quickly sluice the sensation away, then part the rope into two once more before deftly returning my goggles to cover my eyes.

The welding torch coughs once more. I leap down from atop the safety cage, tucking into a roll that brings me directly to the maw of the turbine, and wriggle into place. As Lukasi touches the torch to metal, I modulate my song back to the soothing strains of shaping and interject the ropes of emotion. Again do I add the precise counterclockwise twist that sets the helix. Slowly, precisely, Lukasi mates the metal together as I guide the emotions into place. 

When the torch winks out, silence descends upon the chamber. It is not a comfortable silence. Instead, I feel the tension in it, crackling like lightning. Small noises try to disrupt it, a faint cough, a sniffle, the ping of sweat hitting metal, the clicking of the weld as it cools and solidifies. I am gasping for air in that stifling silence, sweat pouring from my skin beneath my exposed scales. With a whisper of cloth, I wriggle free from the confines of the turbine, tug my goggles down to hang about my neck, and lay my hand upon the replaced blade.

It pulses beneath my touch, enraged at such treatment, but it has turned its attention to the fear it senses from the weld. I see the matrix of cross laid fury reach out for the terror held in the welds, surging to embrace it. The obsession coiled within the shaft has already enveloped the welds, clinging to them, well, obsessively. The result is that the blade is being pulled centrally, which will counteract the strain placed upon it by the centripetal forces as it spins during power generation.

“Yes!” I hiss the word victoriously, then follow it with a bellow. “YES!” Before I can think to do anything else, I realize I am laughing like a madman. I stagger away from the turbine, helpless to do anything but giggle in relief and exhaustion. Before long, I am clutching at my sides as waves of emotion surge through me. Giddy exultation is foremost among them, but I also recognize an array of minor varieties of happiness. I am cognizant of sound around me, as my teams finish up the repair and begin to clean up, and I try to stay out of their way. 

Everything comes to a head within me in a rush, and I whip a wrench from my belt to fling it with a scream of exultation at the wall. There is a crack, like the booming of thunder up on the surface, and a chime of metal as the wrench imbeds itself into the wall. My legs give out next and I slump down onto the walkway dizzily. Giggles still escape every few minutes. I know I must seem like an utter madman to anyone who does not know me, and I do not even care. Instead, I flop back to lie flat with outstretched arms and try to catch my breath. It barely registers when my scales recede back beneath my skin, though the air upon my bare flesh brings immediate relief as the sweat begins to evaporate finally.