text: I am inexplicably powerful. And I am one of so many, there are not stars in the night sky can outnumber us. Sometimes, one of us ends up in your pocket. Other times we get dropped but we move around anyway, cradled by the great forces. And after countless centuries, I have become the most beautiful form of myself I could ever have dreamt of becoming. I'm how I always hoped I would be. I am smooth, polished, sleek, potent. Funny how ageing gives me the properties that the land herd lose with the passage of time. Maybe, if I could condense the process, and sell it to them, I could become very rich indeed. I'm over a hundred thousand years old so I've learned a thing or two about the land herd. They covet money mostly. But I deal in a different currency; I am in the business of luck. Good luck, bad luck, it's a compelling business and I have found my niche in this particular type of commerce. My present familiar, Elliot, is very attentive, very considerate, he's quite a relief. There have been too many landys who had the perplexing preference for keeping me out of sight, hidden, boxed or otherwise wrapped up. In the dark. I hate being on my own. It gives me time to think. And I think about things that make me sad. Like how much I miss my brothers and sisters. We were a big family when we were young, so many of us, and all so different at first. But when you all come from the same volcanic eruption, you're tight with your siblings, you come to understand the commonalities you all have and your differences become less and less important. It's a basalt thing, it's in your formation. Before I was with Elliot, I was kept for a few brief years by his lover Carly, which was pleasant; Carly understands my power and respects it. It’s funny how so many of the land herd have had a similar reaction to me over the past few centuries. Sometimes it begins with a brief tactile pleasure, when they realize that I fit neatly into the palm of their hand. Other times, when they notice the small holes in my underside, I get collected and my value rockets from plain old beach pebble to lucky charm. And that's the sweet spot, the moment I know it's game on, I have the power and the next move is mine. So how does a humble pebble like me make its way in the world? How have I moved through millennia, gone from prized possession to lost at sea and back again? By whatever means necessary and available. I've been hauled onto boats, washed over sea walls and gathered by little hands. I've been swapped for other treasures, sold at markets, bequeathed to grandchildren. I've been dumped like rubbish, buried, forgotten. I've spent many, many centuries amongst others like myself, in the places where we are born, growing and learning, and yet not once come across any of my siblings. It really is a big world after all. It was around a hundred years ago that I finally resolved to find my family, or at least some kind of relation. With several thousand of us out there, and time on my side, this didn't seem like the most unachievable goal to me. I had been caught in a fisherman's net in the early 1920s and he had taken me home and given me as a lucky charm to his wife. They had been trying, unsuccessfully, for children for many years and the wife had all but given up hope for becoming a mother. Then I arrived. Her eyes shone as she rolled me in her hands, her finger following the line of the band of quartz that runs through me. I quivered at her touch. Such was her fascination with me, she kept me in her apron pocket from that moment on. Their first son arrived 9 months later. He was followed by another boy and finally, after a few more years, a girl. She gifted me to her when she was 18, clearly keen to become a grandmother without delay. But I knew the boy she was with was not the match she deserved so I found myself a new home, the daughter not holding the same belief as the previous generation. Well, why should she? There were no children for her! Just a stupid, shiny stone, her mother's superstitions proved to be just that. I was in London by then and the building I lived in was hit by an air raid bombing during the final months of the second world war. Another obsession of the land herd. War. And they are ambitious! For a second time, in not so many years, there were more herds than ever before engaging in battle. After the bomb, I was lost in the rubble for a time until some children came to pick over the remains for whatever treasures they could find. A small boy found the green wooden box I had been kept in - another reason this landy girl did not deserve any good fortune - and to my delight he took me out, rubbed me in the palm of his thin little hand and tucked me into his trouser pocket. He promptly threw the box onto a fire in a dustbin that some men were standing around, much to the men's approval, and mine. I stayed with that thin little landy until he was old, grey and a lot wider in the middle. When we first met, his grandmother had told him of my power and counselled him to keep me safe and warm, which, to his credit and hers, he did. And most wonderfully, once he had me, an obsession was born and he began to take any chance he got to visit the coast where his grandmother lived, spending hours wandering up and down the beach. After a number of visits, his collection had grown to include many of my contemporaries. And one day, a beautiful summers day, my dearest wish came true. One of my sisters was among the gathering from the days hunt. We couldn't believe it at first, what were the chances? Momentarily stunned, we struggled to know what to say. She was beautiful, more beautiful than I had ever thought any of us could ever be. Three snaking white lines of quartz running through her, criss-crossing, curving. So exquisitely polished you could see your reflection in her. And her colours! A blushing pink moved through to mauve and then deepest purple, all with a glistening shimmer that caught the light even on the dullest of days. We were soon exchanging stories, night after night; there was a lot to catch up on and we shared our adventures, reminiscing in memories of our early days and imagining what lay ahead for us. Eventually, we went our separate ways. Half the collection was given to a grandson and my sister was in that set. We bid each other farewell but not with heavy hearts, we knew we were both destined for great things, such was our power and beauty. I was gifted to a granddaughter, a land herdling with a notion for magic and the darker arts. I became her constant companion for many years, one of the few stones to remain in her possession after many were swapped for stickers or necklaces or lipstick. I decided it was time. I ensured that she got what all teenage herdlings want. First love. Then she recognized my power. A picture began to form in her mind, where Carly was calling the shots and making the moves. And so Carly and I set our ambitious course to achieve. Wonderful, powerful things. Everything she would ever want.