# "Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 109"
The mist hung thick over the fjords of Norway, where wooden stave churches with dragon-headed roofs clung to rocky cliffs and fishing boats bobbed in sheltered coves. Su Yao's car wound along coastal roads, passing women in woolen *bunad* dresses hanging fish to dry and elders carving runes into driftwood, until it reached a village nestled between a glacier and the sea. In a sod-roofed cottage with a hearth crackling with pine logs, a group of Sámi weavers sat on reindeer hides, their fingers working reindeer wool into intricate patterns that mirrored the northern lights.
Their leader, 60-year-old Ingrid, looked up from her loom, her silver braids coiled like serpents around her head. She wore a *gákti*—a traditional tunic embroidered with red and blue geometric patterns—and held up a finished *lávvu* cover, the tent fabric decorated with reindeer antlers, stars, and the winding paths of migrating birds. "This is our *duodji* (craft)," she said in Northern Sámi, her voice like ice cracking on a frozen lake. "It carries the memory of the tundra, the rhythm of the reindeer, the silence of the polar night."
Sámi weaving, honed over 2,000 years of nomadic life, is a living map of the Arctic. Reindeer wool—harvested in spring when the undercoat is softest—is sorted by hand, with each fiber graded for warmth and durability. The *rya* rug technique, where long loops of wool create a shaggy surface, evolved to insulate tents against -40°C winters, while patterns encode practical knowledge: zigzags mark safe river crossings, circles indicate good grazing grounds, and diagonal lines warn of avalanche zones. "We weave while following the reindeer herds," Ingrid's granddaughter, 25-year-old Astrid, explained, showing a *gákti* with a hidden pattern of reindeer tracks. "My grandmother can read a storm coming in the way the wool absorbs dye—too much blue, and the snow will fall for days; too much red, and the sun will bake the tundra dry."
Dyes come from the sparse Arctic flora: *lingonberry* leaves for red, *juniper* berries for purple, and *moss* scraped from rocks for green. The process is tied to the *siida* (community) calendar—berries are picked during the midnight sun, when their pigments are strongest, and boiled in iron pots over fires of driftwood, with women singing *joik* (traditional chants) to "wake the color." "Each batch of dye is unique, like a fingerprint," Astrid said, dipping a thread into a pot of indigo imported from Denmark. "The sea carries it here, just as it carries our stories to distant shores."
Su Yao's team arrived after their Andean project, drawn to the Sámi's fusion of survival and artistry. They brought samples of seaweed-metal threads blended with reindeer wool, hoping to create a fabric that retained the wool's insulation while adding resistance to ice and salt spray. But when Lin displayed a machine-woven prototype with printed patterns, Ingrid's brother, 65-year-old Olav—a *noaidi* (shaman) with a drum painted with reindeer spirits—slammed his fist on the table. "Your machine weaves without *láil* (soul)," he said, flinging the fabric into the hearth. "Our wool remembers the teeth of the reindeer that grew it, the hands that carded it, the songs that dyed it. This thing is a ghost—it knows nothing of the cold."
Tensions flared when an early blizzard swept across the tundra, stranding the reindeer herds miles from the village and burying the team's stored wool under six feet of snow. The dye pots, left outside to collect rainwater, froze solid, cracking the clay and spilling their contents into the snow, which turned a toxic purple. "The spirits of the ice reject your metal," Olav muttered as men dug through drifts with shovels, their breath fogging in the -20°C air. With the *Jol* (winter solstice) festival approaching, when new *lávvu* covers are blessed to ensure the herd's survival, the community faced disaster. "Without offerings for the reindeer spirits, the herd will starve," Ingrid said, staring at the empty wool baskets. "And without the herd, we starve."
That night, Su Yao sat with Ingrid by the hearth, where a pot of *fårikål* (mutton stew) simmered and dried reindeer meat hung from the rafters. The walls were lined with *rya* rugs passed down through five generations, each labeled with the name of the herd it had sheltered. A small shrine held a antler carved with runes and a bowl of *aquavit* (spiced liquor) for the spirits. "I know your textiles are more than fabric," Su Yao said, sipping hot lingonberry juice. "They're a survival guide, a prayer, a promise to the land. We want to learn from them, not replace them."
Ingrid smiled, passing her a piece of *krumkake* (crisp waffle). "My *mormor* (grandmother) used to say that even frozen wool can be thawed and woven, if you warm it with your breath," she said. "But your metal—maybe it's a sign. Young Sámi move to cities now, trade reindeer for computers. They don't know how to read the wool's voice. We need to show them the tundra still speaks through *duodji*."
Over the next three weeks, the team worked alongside the Sámi. They helped dig snow tunnels to reach the trapped reindeer, their boots crunching over ice as Olav chanted to the wind spirits, and traveled by dogsled to a hidden hot spring to collect mineral-rich water for new dye pots. "*Báiki* (land), *beaivi* (sun), *báiki* (land)," they sang, their voices blending with the *joik* until the dogs pricked up their ears, recognizing the rhythm. They carded reindeer wool by the hearth, their fingers numb despite woolen gloves, while Ingrid taught them the *rya* technique—pulling loops of wool to exactly three fingers' length. "Too long, and the frost will cling; too short, and the cold will bite," she said, her calloused hands guiding Su Yao's.
Lin experimented with coating the seaweed-metal threads in *reindeer fat* and *pine resin*, a mixture Sámi use to waterproof boots and sleighs. "It needs to flex like reindeer sinew," she said, showing Ingrid a swatch where the metal threads had merged with the wool, adding strength without stiffening the fabric. Ingrid pressed it to her cheek, then stepped outside to let snow fall on it. When she brushed it off, the wool stayed dry, the metal glinting like frost. "The ice spirits accept this," she said.
Fiona collaborated with Astrid to design a new pattern: reindeer herds migrating across a tundra that melts into ocean waves, with metal threads outlining the northern lights arching above. "It honors your frozen north and our saltwater south," Fiona said, and Olav traced the pattern with a rune-carved knife. "The Sámi have always known the ice and sea are brothers," he said. "This cloth remembers their bond."
On the longest night of the year, the Sámi gathered in a *lávvu* lit by auroras that danced green and purple overhead. Their collaborative *lávvu* cover, stretched over the tent frame, glowed in the firelight: reindeer with antlers of golden wool, their paths merging into waves stitched with metal that shimmered like starlight on water. Ingrid draped a corner over Su Yao's shoulders—a reindeer and a wave, bound together by thread. "Now you're *leat goassageahtti* (one of the people who know the land)," she said.
As the team's car drove away, they could hear the *joik* singing rise into the night, and through the window, they saw Astrid teaching children to spin reindeer wool, the seaweed-metal thread spooled beside her. Su Yao thought of the reindeer, now safely corralled, and the way the metal threads had learned to mimic the wool's resilience—how innovation, when rooted in respect for a people's struggle to survive, becomes part of their strength.
Her phone buzzed with a message from Norway's Sámi Parliament: they wanted to display the collaborative *lávvu* at a cultural festival. Su Yao smiled, typing back: "The tundra and sea speak the same language—we just needed to listen."
Somewhere in the distance, a *joik* for the ocean mingled with the crash of fjord waves, a harmony as old as the ice and as endless as the horizon.