IFoundSquirrels/RaptureChelines
The rapture cheline (Hirundo rustica desidero) is a scrap of animated desire in the form of a swallow. When it first hatches, it's nothing more than a bottomless hole in the air lined with pure want. It knows instinctively where the "ideal" location is for the material it wants, and flies there with the tireless speed of an average swallow. Once it arrives, it settles onto the surface of the material and ruffles its "feathers" as though taking a dust bath, gradually drawing the material into itself. Eventually its skeleton of desire is submerged in the material it wants, and what flies away is a bird made of that material.
The newly substantial cheline flies back to its birthplace, there to carry on the rest of its life. Left to its own devices, it will find a substantial mate, build a nest from threads of its material, and lay three eggs with gossamer-fine porcelain shells flecked with the parents' material and exuding vague hunger. The eggs whet a single appetite in whoever consumes one, and as such will soon come to be prized by gourmands and concubines. After the eggs hatch, the parents curl up together and die, leaving an exquisitely detailed sculpture of a loving pair of swallows.
However, the rapture cheline was not designed solely to reproduce and die. Each bird, when it hears a specific sound, will shake off its substance and go straight back to pure-desire form. This process leaves behind anything from a pile of dust to a perfect bird statue, depending on how fast it happens. A rapture cheline will only take substance from its instinctive ideal source, so a large flight of them can very rapidly transfer a large material deposit from its source to their birthplace. Adamant Fern created the species for exactly this purpose: the first flight was made to move the orichalcum produce of Cragsoth's Hearth to Luthe.
Rapture chelines can only absorb raw materials that are not actively owned. Sword chelines cannot exist, since swords are not raw materials; nor could orichalcum chelines take form out of a Solar's daiklaive, or even from an ingot he's working to forge.
