Kaine spent the first month creating art with Tessern.
Not weapon-art. Not combat simulations or tactical diagrams. Real art. Consciousness-sculptures that existed purely for beauty. Patterns of awareness shaped into forms that served no function except aesthetic experience.
"You're terrible at this," Tessern observed on the fifth day.
Kaine's sculpture collapsed into formless awareness. Again. She'd been trying to capture what stellar formation felt like—the collapse of nebula into fusion, the moment potential became actual. But consciousness-medium wasn't cooperating. Kept dissolving into chaos.
"Weapon-thinking interferes with art-creation," Tessern explained. "Weapon-mind analyzes, categorizes, optimizes. Art-mind experiences, feels, expresses. You're trying to make art with weapon-aspect active. Won't work. You need to fully activate person-aspect. Let weapon-self go dormant completely."
