Woman with mechanical arm teaches child to play instrument in ancient setting

A Song for Sunlight Sing, Euterpe, sing of the god of your craft! Use your pleasant genius to bring light to the warmth of the Sun-god’s favor! I had been brought up with rough hands and a gentle heart. My childhood was calloused hands on the wounds I got from being an inelegant child. Ashen arms around mine to say goodnight. I had been brought up with pure genius and mechanical parts. None of it had ever made any sense to me. Father built intricacies, statues so complicated you could almost see them breathe. Moving toys like partridges and serpents. He often let me look inside these works of craft. All I saw were gears, whirring things, and moving parts, the use of which could never be guessed. And yet, through the mess of movement, the statues moved like a human. The toys moved like animals. He was praised for his craftsmanship, even living in the palace of Knossos for my whole life as a court architect. Father tried to teach me. He pointed out exactly the purpose of each tiny portion of metal. I knew, in my head, what they did. And yet, I never discovered how it all came together in the way it did. I had the entire world of machinery in my hand, with a map for study, and yet I was lost. The thing I had always understood was music. Lyres. Flutes, and lyricism. Father said I took after my mother. He told me stories about her. Every poem she wrote, he had memorized. Her name was Naucrate. She believed that I would become famous in some way, and bring honor to the island of See more