Gift for the Forest

On their second morning south of Trademeet, Mosstone remained roughly two days away. Beyond it waited the edge of the Wealdath.

Their first day back on the road had measured what two days of rest restored. Rishi’s ribs still objected to a deep breath. His shoulder resented the pack, and the bruise beside his eye had darkened before it began to fade.

That morning, his staff rested loosely in one hand. His pace remained even.

Maeril had already disagreed with both maps about the distance. The official one gave its answer with offensive confidence. The second showed a crooked road, two scratched corrections, and a stain beside Mosstone that might once have been rain, wine, or someone’s dinner.

She trusted the stain.

“This road is beginning to show manners,” she said.

Fields still spread beyond the ditches, but the hedges had grown thick. Small woods gathered in every low place. Moss climbed the stones beside the road.

Green had begun to walk with them.

The tools from Trademeet lay wrapped against weather in Rishi’s pack. Beside them rested the cleaned elven boots, their split stitching and scarred leather waiting beneath soft cloth.

By late afternoon, Maeril’s attention kept straying toward a low stand of trees across the ditch.

“We need a camp screened from the road.”

“For sleep?” Rishi asked.

“For work.” She studied the damp ground beneath the trees. “If I am putting something green into that oil, the green thing deserves to be present.”

Rishi nodded.

They continued south and watched for a place that would serve.

Maeril found the first useful thing beside a wagon rut that had almost, but not quite, become a puddle.

Moss crowded the shaded base of a stone where a hedge root had split against it. Above the moss, a bead of amber resin had dried over the wound.

She crouched. “Oh.”

Rishi stopped beside her. “Useful?”

“For the oil, the leather, and the preservation of my professional dignity.”

Maeril examined the moss before touching it. She turned one small leaf and studied the underside.

“This patch stays. Too young. It would smell right and behave badly.”

“Like several men you have known?”

She looked up at him. “You are learning.”

Maeril pointed to the darker growth on the sheltered side of the stone. “That part is older.”

Then she touched one finger near the hardened resin without disturbing it.

“Only what has dried. The fresh wound belongs to the hedge.”

She took the flat knife from the repair kit and offered it to Rishi handle-first.

“Work beneath the edge, not through the root. If it fights you, it wins.”

Rishi knelt. He eased the blade beneath the darker moss and lifted slowly, leaving every strand that held fast. What came free remained damp and whole. He laid it loosely in a fold of soft cloth.

“Good,” Maeril said. “Suspiciously good.”

They followed the hedge for another quarter hour. Maeril chose, and Rishi gathered. They took hardened resin from wounds that had already closed, several outer leaves from healthy growth, and dark moss from stones that held the day’s moisture.

They stripped nothing. They took only once from any living place.

When Maeril judged they had enough, Rishi wrapped the last packet and secured it in his pack.

“Keep handling forest things like that,” she said, “and the wood elves may begin to feel professionally threatened.”

“That seems unlikely.”

“Do not be modest. It makes my exaggerations look unsupported.”

Maeril rose and brushed grit from her palms.

“Enough for tonight. Not enough to be greedy.”

They turned from the hedge toward the trees.

Dry ground waited beneath the stand, screened from the road by trunks and undergrowth. Roots pressed through the leaf mold, and Maeril relocated one indignant beetle before declaring the place acceptable.

Ditch water ran close enough for their work. A flat stone nested between two roots and offered them a table.

Maeril arranged dry twigs between stones, murmured one green word, and touched two fingers to the air. Flame caught among the kindling.

Rishi had watched her light fires that way before. The ease no longer surprised him. The care still did.

“I have known worse laboratories,” Maeril said.

He lowered his pack. “Is that praise?”

“Practical optimism.”

They covered the flat stone with clean cloth. Thread, wax, awl, oil, moss, resin, and a scrap of leather for testing found their places upon it.

Maeril opened each packet and sorted what they had gathered. Rishi cleaned the knife, laid every tool within reach, and turned the blade away from her working hand.

At last, there was nothing left to prepare.

He unwrapped the boots.

Their leather was pale brown, darkened at the seams by old weather. Fine stitches traced leaflike lines around ankle and heel. One side seam had opened, and a deep scuff scarred the toe.

They were beautiful.

They were damaged.

They had learned the shape of someone else’s feet.

Rishi rested his hand beside them.

He did not touch.

Across the stone, Maeril stilled with the bottle of oil between her palms.

Clean the seam, Rishi told himself. Test the oil. Follow the sound stitches. Only replace what has failed.

His hands did not move.

He had found the boots among ash and shattered crates in the giant camp. Small belongings had lain near them, the remains of people who had expected another day: folded letters, a wooden horse, a holy symbol bent almost flat.

His mind made a wearer for the boots. An elf ranging ahead of a caravan, listening for danger. A toe striking stone. The seam tearing during a hurried step.

None of it might be true.

The boots had still been left among the dead.

Maeril watched his face. “It is not the stitching.”

“No.”

“The one who wore them.”

“Yes.”

Rishi looked at the scuffed toe. “They might have died wearing them.”

She did not offer him a kinder possibility.

His fingers found the red cord around his wrist.

“They should not enter the Wealdath torn. Not as salvage. If we find the people they belonged to, I would rather return them whole.”

He swallowed.

“As whole as my hands can make them.”

Maeril turned the bottle toward him.

“Then we do not make the boots yours. We make them whole enough to give back.”

“Yes.”

“The treatment will be gentle. No stiffness. No shine. Nothing pretending old work is new. And you will not let respect hold your hands too far away to help.”

The edge of a smile touched his mouth.

“Good,” Maeril said. “I respect grief, but I will not spend the evening watching you be courteous to a boot.”

“Understood.”

Rishi set his fingertips lightly against the leather. He bowed his head for a moment. Then he reached for the cloth, awl, and thread.

Maeril prepared the treatment while he threaded the needle.

There was no ceremony in the work and no spell. She pressed moss into the oil and warmed resin near the fire. Rishi drew beeswax along the thread. Her hands judged what would keep the leather supple. His found where the old stitching remained strong enough to trust.

They worked in quiet.

Maeril touched the leather, smelled the oil, and said, “Less there.”

Rishi eased the pressure without argument. Each stitch waited until he knew what the leather would bear. Then he drew the thread through.

The open seam closed slowly, imperfectly.

“If the wood elves object,” Maeril said, “it will not be because you were careless.”

Rishi settled the last tension beneath his thumb.

“That is enough.”

“For tonight,” she said.