It has taken two days to make a window for Tony. Husband will be installing it tomorrow, as it seems I should not be seen at Flying Tigers again. If we continue training we will need to find a new place.

I read that more and longer strings make for stronger plastic, so I started with the protoplastic recipes that were the stringiest. I worked to make plastic that was clear and hard, and made small pieces that I then tried to break. I was not sure how my strength compared to a bullet, but a bullet cannot lift a truck and I can, so I assumed a plastic I have trouble breaking would be strong enough.

I needed to make more protoplastic recipes that were stringier still before I came up with a plexiglass that resisted my strength. I made three larger sheets of this in different thicknesses: one a quarter-ilm thick, one a half-ilm thick, and one a full-ilm thick. The full-ilm thickness seemed a bit much, but I did not know how a bullet would work against it.

Testing the sheets was more difficult. I needed an Earth gun, and there were not too many people I knew who had one that I wanted to ask.

"Hello, Sam. May I borrow your gun?"

"My shotgun? Why?"

"I am making plexiglass that bullets cannot break. I wish to test it."

"...Okay, first off, no, you can't borrow my shotgun same as I can't borrow yer rings. I don't just loan out my gun."

"I understand."

"Second, you don't just go shootin' off a gun just anywhere. Sure, everyone's got one, but they don't go usin' it all over. Makes people nervous, brings out the deputies an' all."

"I see. Then how and where can I test my plexiglass?"

It was early in the day, so Sam closed up the bar and went out to his truck. I brought my sheets of plexiglass out from the workshop and placed them in the back. Then we rode out into an emptier area outside of town and stopped at a small building with a large fence behind it and a sign that read, "Liberty Shooting Range".

Inside the building a man behind a counter greeted us. "Mornin', folks. How can I help you today?"

Sam gestured for me to speak. I told the man, "I have some plexiglass I would like to test against bullets. Can I do that here?"

The man blinked at me, then grinned. "Why, sure! We got folks here who'd be happy to shoot at anything you want! Bring it on in and I'll let people know."

I got my sheets out of the truck. When I came back in the building Sam held a door open for me in the back. Beyond the door was a large yard with what looked like a command pavilion tent close to the building and large mounds of dirt farther away.

At the pavilion were people dressed in baggy clothes that reminded me of Filibuster armor, colored green, brown and black, sometimes in uneven patches. Most were men, though there was a woman too. All had guns, of different sizes. They were gathered to watch me come in with my plexiglass.

The shopkeeper smiled and gestured to me. "So...this little lady here...Sorry, I didn't catch your name...?"

I simply smiled.

"...Right, uh, this little lady here has some windows she'd like y'all to shoot at and test out for her. Who's up for that?"

Most of the people chuckled and raised their hands.

"Okay, then! Miss, how 'bout you set up your windows against the dirt mounds back there?"

I carried the sheets across the yard and set them upright side by side, about five fulms apart. I tried to remember how far the car with the guns had been from the Flying Tigers window, and walked about six yalms out from the sheets. "From here should be good."

The gun people approached. Two of them aimed their small guns at the thinnest sheet and shot. It broke after five shots. The half-ilm sheet was stronger against the small guns, but broke after two shots from a larger gun like Sam's, which he called a shotgun. A shotgun seems to shoot more than a bullet, or perhaps many small bullets.

The ilm-thick sheet was sturdier. The small guns could not break it. The shotguns could make it bounce but not crack. One person tried a longer gun that looked something like a Garlean weapon; he stood farther back and tried three shots. The sheet's surface was damaged from all the bullets, but it did not break.

The gun people were impressed with the thickest sheet. They were starting to congratulate me for it, but there was a man who had not shot. He stood staring at the unbroken sheet after everyone else was done. People got quiet when he said, "Let me get Natasha."

He left through the main building. The other people talked quietly with each other. From what I could hear, they had not seen Natasha for a long time. I wondered who Natasha was.

The man came back carrying a long case, from which he took a long gun. I guessed this was Natasha. He made the gun longer by attaching a piece to the end of the barrel, and added another piece to the top. It reminded me a little of the weapon used by Mustadio in the Orbonne Monastery. It hurt a lot to be shot by that.

The man set up a small stand on the ground for the gun and laid down behind it. Everyone was silent as he inserted a bullet into the gun, aimed at my sheet, and fired.

The sheet did not break, but the bullet entered the sheet and lodged within it. A crack appeared above and below the bullet.

The man loaded another bullet into the gun and fired again. It looked as if the bullet hit the same spot as the first bullet. The sheet split from top to bottom and nearly fell apart, with a hole in the middle where the bullets had been.

The man seemed satisfied with the result. The other people chuckled some and said sympathetic things to me; I smiled and thanked them for their help.

I collected the pieces of my plastic. The man who ran the shooting range gave me a plastic bag to carry them in. I thanked him and said I might be back with better plexiglass. He said I was welcome any time.

As Sam drove us back to Wyatt, he asked, "So why're you tryin' to make bulletproof glass anyway?"

"Someone we know had his front window broken from a drive-by shooting. I am trying to replace it."

"Huh. They weren't shootin' at you, right?"

"We think they were, yes."

Sam got more serious. "Why'd someone be shootin' at you?"

"There are people who lost money betting against me at the fight club. They seem to still be unhappy about that."

Sam did not say anything for a while. He simply watched the road and drove. Then he said, "Ya know, I think it's been ages since the diner had any remodelin' done. Might wanna see if Joel wants an upgrade for his windows."

I thought about the large windows at the front of the diner.

I thought about how visible we must be through those windows as we worked.

I thought about the children that often came to the diner when we worked there.

"That is a good idea, Sam. Thank you."

I will need a lot more corn.

Husband met me at the workshop when he came back from Flying Tigers. I told him about the shooting range. He told me about his hostile encounter at the school.

"What is a peking duck?"

"That'll be what we have for dinner once we're through with this mess." He picked up my broken thick sheet and peered through the hole in the middle. "So what happened here?"

"Natasha."

"Hah! Who touched my gun?"

It was one of his jokes, perhaps from a video. I simply looked at him.

"...Yeah, so, how many shots did this take?"

"Two, though there were many before it that did not make a hole. I do not know what the difference was."

"Eh, just force, maybe the jacket. Average handgun bullet isn't really made to penetrate. Looks like Natasha found your grain."

"Grain?"

"Yeah, like wood. You've talked about your plastic being stringy?"

"Yes. My reading said long molecules are stronger, so I tried to make plastic with long strings."

"Sure, but if you make all your strings go the same way it's like wood. Wood's sort of made of strings too, and they all go in the same direction. That's the grain. Try to cut across the grain and the wood's strong. Try to cut with the grain and the wood can split, just like this."

"Even though the strings are strong?"

"Yeah, because the force is going between them. Maybe you can make layers of strings going in different directions? Or, even better, weave them like cloth?"

"Weave them like cloth? I cannot see the strings, Husband! How can I weave them?"

"I dunno. How do we weave cloth?"

"...I..."

"I mean, it's not like we're moving the yarn around on a loom, right? We just have a supply of yarn and we transform it into the cloth. Your plastic is a supply of strings, so maybe you can do the same thing?"

"...I...need to think about this."

"Of course, my love. I'll take the diner tonight."

"Thank you."

I think this was part of what Husband calls "paradigm"...that we do not think as much about how we do things as we do about simply doing them. I had learned creating cloth using my tools and my aether shards and my yarn, and I had not thought much about the actual process. It is how we crafted anything, from butter to barbuts.

There are some things, though, that Husband does without aether first before writing a recipe for them, particularly things like food. I think it helps him hold the idea in his mind while he tries to create the thing. Yet he is then able to create the thing with aether.

I researched looms and watched videos of how they worked. I understand now how cloth is made without aether shards. No, we do not move yarn around to make the cloth; we simply transform yarn into cloth.

Which made me doubt. Husband had worried about us trying to hold two ideas about how to do a thing in our minds. I began to understand why. I suddenly started to worry that our way of making cloth could not work because we were not using a loom. I had to use a lot of cotton to make a lot of cotton cloth to reaffirm I could do it the way I had always known. I will need to think about this doubt later.

I thought about my plastic. Yes, it is a mass of strings; I had made it to be a mass of strings. Each time I made plastic I did it with the idea of the strings in mind. But I had only thought about more strings or longer strings. I had not thought about how those strings laid.

Which meant what I needed to do was no longer alchemy. It was weaving. I set aside my alembic and drew my needle. I put away my water shards and selected wind shards.

It was not easy to think about weaving strings I could not see. When the recipe worked at all I had gone from having a mass of plastic to having a sheet of plastic with no true way of knowing if my strings had arranged themselves.

Sam had said I should not use a gun "just anywhere", so I tried testing the sheets with the level 30 bow we used for gator hunting. One sheet shattered into many pieces. One allowed an arrow to go through and then trapped it. I needed to use camp lanterns to light my target by the time I made a sheet the arrow did not break but also did not enter. I had apparently woven strings the right way.

It was ready to meet Natasha.

"natasha who touched my gun": "video: team fortress meet the heavy"

Today Husband went off in the morning to once again protect Flying Tigers, and I asked Sam to drive me out again to the shooting range.

There were different people at the range today, but the man who owned Natasha was there again. I told him I had a new sheet for him to try. We spoke to the range manager, and he cleared away the gun people who had been practicing with targets. I set my sheet against a dirt mound.

The man fetched Natasha once more and set up. Everyone was quiet as he took his first shot.

The bullet hit the plastic and fell to the ground. It did not bounce as bullets did when they hit my armor. It simply stopped moving and dropped.

The man looked up from his gun, then loaded another bullet and fired again. That bullet was stopped as well.

The man considered for a moment, then got a bullet out of a different box in Natasha's case and loaded it. He took a bit more time making that shot.

The noise from the gun was slightly louder than before. That time the bullet hit the plastic and stuck.

We walked out to see. The bullet had changed shape after hitting the plastic, looking slightly thicker, but had not gone very deep into the sheet. I was able to pull it out very easily.

Everyone cheered for me. Natasha's owner was respectful and offered me his hand. Shaking hands is not something we commonly do in Eorzea, but I had seen Husband do it and so I shook his hand. Remembering arm-wrestling with Sam, I tried to not squeeze too hard.

The man asked, "So, where can I find some of that plexiglass?"

"I am sorry, I am not selling it right now. But I think I will call it Natasha glass."

"Heh. Thanks."

"So why do you call your gun Natasha? Is it from Team Fortress?"

He looked less happy with me. "No, that's a chain gun. This is a sniper rifle."

"Oh. Then why do you call it Natasha?"

"Because sometimes I hunt moose and squirrel."

"natasha hunt moose and squirrel": "Rocky and Bullwinkle is an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964. The main antagonists in most of their adventures are the two Russian-like spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale."

It seems making jokes like Husband is an Earth people thing.