The brief asked for the moment the body that learned to brace begins to be carried — so I gave the storm-witch a lightning-anchor she held taut through every strike, then cut. I wanted the arch of her back to read as flight and freefall at once, the cut rope as the visible cost, and her face to carry the astonishment of arrival, not the terror of falling. The Cape Verdean–Latvian fusion gives me golden skin under Baltic storm-grey eyes — warmth inside the cold. —Vesper