GlossaryWind Words

Creative interpretation — the vocabulary of the fan lore.

Term	Meaning (in-universe)
Balance is a verb	Nico’s motto. Balance isn’t a state you reach; it’s an action you keep doing.
Gust sketch	A thirty-second thumbnail drawn during a gust. If it takes longer than the wind, it wasn’t the wind’s idea.
Maquette	A small paper-and-thread model. About half of all ideas die at this stage; survivors get names.
Mobile	A hanging sculpture of balanced shapes set in motion by air. Nico’s entire medium and most of his personality.
Night of Still Air	The annual August festival: mobiles lowered and exhibited motionless, then released at midnight.
Stabile	What Petra Voss makes. What Nico teases her about. (A sculpture that stands still on the ground. Nico finds the concept “brave.”)
Surrender	What Nico does instead of finishing. A mobile is surrendered to the truck, never completed.
The good pliers	Never lent, never lost. Knock on the bench.
Usable gust	A gust strong enough to test a mobile but gentle enough not to end it. Logged in the gust notebook by date.
Wall of Almost	The studio wall of collapsed and retired mobiles, each with its failure note. Inventory, not shame.
Windshop	Nico’s studio: a converted sailmaker’s loft with twelve-foot ceilings and windows that never quite close.
Windward	The fictional five-year retrospective. Also what Nico calls any good idea: “that’s windward.”