Brimstone Butterfly

Folded sulphur-yellow paper wings. Wanders leisurely with delicate flutter and resting glides.

Window Firefly

Appears at Midnight. A slow beetle with a pale abdomen that stays visible between glows. Target radius stays the same throughout the glow cycle.

Ordered Trace

Thread a firefly, a lacewing, then a different firefly in one stroke. Release to finish; the line can stay open or close. Numbered badges show the sequence. Repeating an insect does not count again. A wrong order, extra insects, or enclosing another creature cancels the trace. Leaves do not count.

Night Jasmine

Appears at Midnight. Begin a thread inside the flower and the first insect that thread crosses settles on it: the cord ends there and the insect stays put for 24 seconds, which is long enough to draw around it at leisure. It gathers nothing by itself — it thins a crowded field and leaves you a target that holds still. The bloom is spent once its guest arrives, and another opens later.

Paper Lacewing

Appears at Dusk. Mint veined wings fold while it rests on a leaf for 1.5 seconds. Draw a figure-eight with one lacewing and one different insect in separate pockets. Leaves do not count as targets.

Amber Hoverfly

Appears at Noon. Holds still, turns, then shifts a short distance, so it is the easiest insect to draw around.

Azure Damselfly

Slender needle abdomen with 4 gauzy wings. Hovers motionlessly in place, then dashes in sudden straight darts.

Roseate Hawkmoth

Plump velvety body with swept delta wings. Cruises continuously in wide, sweeping arcing loops.

The Cord as a Wall

While drawn, the held cord acts as a wall that fliers and seeds cannot cross. Close the loop before insects escape through the open gap.

Threading & Beads

Drawing your line through an insect threads it onto the cord as a bead. A threaded insect cancels the loop. To enclose insects, draw around them.

Visible Closure & Cord Limit

A loop closes only where the cord crosses itself or lands on the drawn line. When it is closed, the cord glows and the loop fills. If the cord runs past the mark on the cord meter, it snaps.

Kindred Pair

Enclose exactly two insects of the same species (for example, two Brimstones or two Hoverflies). Kindred fliers belong together in a single loop — dividing similar fliers across a figure-eight crossing is invalid.

Trio of Flight

Enclose three fliers representing three different species.

Seed & Wing

Enclose one flier alongside an airborne dandelion seed drifting on the morning breeze.

Flax Flower

Appears throughout Noon and returns in Dusk VIII and Midnight XII. Drawing the cord over a flax flower picks it. Your next cord runs 400 px longer — the mark on the cord meter moves right before you start it — and the length is spent on that one cord. A picked flower wilts after twelve seconds. Another grows eight seconds after picking at Noon, or twenty-four seconds later in Dusk and Midnight. A flower is never part of a combination.

Atrium Hornet

Appears at Noon. Flies like the other insects, wandering and turning on its own. A cord that touches it is cut at once, and a loop that holds one fails.

Web Patch

Appears at Noon. A patch of web strung across the atrium in a fixed place — the one hazard that holds still, because it is a thing rather than a creature. A cord drawn into it sticks and is cut. A loop drawn around one is still valid; the cord simply cannot cross it.

Seed & Trio

Enclose three fliers of three distinct species together with one airborne dandelion seed in a single circular loop.

Counterpart Pair (Two Dissimilar Species)

Enclose two dissimilar fliers across the lobes (e.g. 1 Damselfly in Pocket A, 1 Hawkmoth in Pocket B). While two different species cannot share a single loop, crossing the cord between them balances their contrast into a harmonious bilateral dialogue.

Twin Echo Correspondence (Wave 2 Experiment)

Cross the cord into two lobes: mirror identical species in both pockets (e.g. 1 Damselfly + 1 Hawkmoth in Pocket A and Pocket B). Mixed combinations that fail alone will harmonize through bilateral symmetry!

Cross-Meadow Correspondence

Cross the cord to form two distinct pockets: place a kindred pair in Pocket A, and another kindred pair in Pocket B.

Nursery Polarity

Place exactly one winged traveler in one pocket, and exactly one wild drifting seed in the opposite pocket. More than one of either disturbs the balance.

Ground Crawler (Snail)

At Dawn a snail crawls along the paving seam through the middle of the field; in later hours it keeps to the bottom edge. Your cord can cross a snail safely, but a loop that encloses one gathers nothing. Draw around it.