They're pretty common, yeah.

The island's descent seems to have slowed. Other islands are a lot more common here, as are creatures of the avian and alien types, and floating tangles of plant matter similar to the mangrove-things hanging onto this island's edge.

...Her bowl seems to be drinking the water stored in it. The level has done down much more than evaporation would account for.

How rude. Good thing the tassels work. She empties some into her mouth and soaks up what's in the bowl.

Some larger alien creatures are visible in the distance. Huge greenish jellyfish-things, manta ray-shaped creatures, an alien predator that eats the small rays, bulbous things covered in angry red spikes that the big predator shys away from.

One of the islands comes within half a mile of her. It has old ruins on it, the remains of a wooden hut and what look like overgrown fields. It would tempting to glide to it, if her glider were finished and the winds were predictable.

It isn't, though. She attempts probably vainly to sail to it with her practice weaving.

The island is indeed too large to yield to such a small sail easily. The attempt proves the quality of the weaving, though - while it's heavier and stiffer than a modern fabric sail would be, it catches the wind nicely.

That's something. She yells at the island in case anyone on there has an idea.

Seems deserted except for birds, alien critters, and a small swarm of pigs.

There are pigs and food plants on that island dammit. She watches it pass, wishing it would get close enough to jump to.

It keeps getting closer for a while - but then almost seems to change course away from a potential collision. Not that either of the islands do anything visible.

Nothing of note happens until sunset. It rains again overnight.

Maybe the sky coral has a way to avoid more of itself.

She sleeps under her woven thing.

The woven thing proves reasonably proof against rain!

Her sky coral bowl is obviously growing, the next morning. It's covered in the rough little bumps of newly constructed cells.

Also, one of the big green floating tentacle things comes up to the island and starts scooping armfuls of floating seeds into its mouth with the spoon-like ends of its tentacles. It doesn't seem afraid of her. After a few minutes of this, it finds a little hollow and plops itself down, grabbing on to the soil and rock. On inspection most of the main body is transparent, but it has some kind of matted hair or moss over most of its body. It's fairly good camouflage, seen against a plant-bearing island.

Huh. She goes up to it and has a closer look.

It's sort of like a jellyfish with actual complex organs and so on! It doesn't have a face, but it does have eyes - six of them, in all directions. Two eyes watch her as she approaches. A tentacle shifts languidly towards her. It makes a whistling sound that sounds oddly... Happy?

She touches the tentacle tentatively with her little finger to see if it stings.

No sting. It's soft like cartilage. The tentacle tries to gently wrap around her hand.

Aww, okay.

It makes the happy whistle again and then lets go.

She attempts to pet it.

She can pet it on the green camo covering, which proves to be soft and slightly scratchy, like thin fur! It makes a slightly different happy whistle, almost like a trill.

She can not pet it on the softer underside of the tentacle anywhere past the spoon-shaped tip - it will curl the tentacle defensively with a warning click in that case.

Tarinda can respect its boundaries! Pat pat. It probably eats too much to be worth encouraging to stay but it's nice to have something friendly visit.

The giant jellyfish-thing will enjoy pats placidly, trilling, for a while! It did only eat the non-edible floating seeds so far. It swats at a bird that tries to peck at one the little bumps on its main body, but otherwise appears to be resting.

It's cute.

She scatters more onion seeds and evaluates branches for sail- or glider-worthiness.

Good, solid branches can be easily found. The five trees are a little thin but otherwise healthy. She couldn't make a cabin with just this much, but a glider is doable without even necessarily killing the trees.

(The jellyfish thing gets up, eats some more floatgrass seeds, and floats off after a couple of hours.)

Bye, jellyfish thing.

She makes small model gliders to get an idea of how they might fit together, and then, lacking glue or nails, gets underway with elaborate carving-only joinery and carefully Page-delineated design.

More time passes. Her supply of fully grown onions is getting low. And the mice have decided to nibble on her water-tassels.