600-700 words is when I'm on a roll. 1000 means I was absolutely in the zone. 300-500 is usually what I end up with on a normal day (if I write at all and don't just worldbuild/research/internet rabbithole about my writing instead).

Nila, Vera's co-pilot, is even better but her "sense" is one of her magical powers as a Zephyrax. Nila can see gravitational indicators with her magic that someone who doesn't have it can't see. So she can find the fastest route to a destination, especially when traveling within a star system.

Mabel, my human miner on a version Earth where it's been terraformed for the purpose of mining amethyst for the Combine (Aetheri use it in their psychic magi-tech), collects softened mineral residue from the mines & molds it into little figurines. She uses a repurposed heating plate to heat them.

It is! The Aetheri could be excellent mediators; they could unite distant worlds, etc. But most of them, especially in the Aetherian Combine, choose violence instead. The pets, called Psyphors, are kind of a reflection of the gentle power the Aetheri *could* embrace if they chose to.

It gets interpreted by humanoid brains (and for reader clarity) as "language" but it's probably not. Also, fun fact despite most of them being fascist assholes, some of them have little furry psychic pets that communicate telepathically (with an animal intelligence) with only Aetheri.

So yeah. My dude has mommy issues. 🤷

His mother was the one primarily responsible for indoctrinating him with the Combine's ideology of the Harmonic Directive. It's a system of magical hierarchy, backed by pseudo-science, that positions the Aetheri (and to a lesser extent Luxari) as the "natural" leaders of society.