Gift for the Forest

By the second morning out of Trademeet, Mosstone lay roughly two days ahead, near the Wealdath’s edge.

The first day south had tested what the rest in Trademeet had restored. Rishi’s ribs still resisted deep breaths, his shoulder disliked the pack, and the bruise near his eye had darkened.

That morning, however, he carried his staff loosely and kept a steady pace.

Maeril had already argued with both maps about the distance. The cleaner map gave its answer with irritating confidence. The other offered a crooked road, two scratched corrections, and a stain near Mosstone that might have been rain, wine, or someone’s dinner.

She trusted the stain more.

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

Fields still opened beyond the ditches, but the hedges had thickened. Small woods gathered in low places, and moss had begun climbing the roadside stones.

Green had started walking beside them.

The repair materials were packed against the weather. The cleaned elven boots lay wrapped beside them in Rishi’s pack, their torn stitching and scuffed leather waiting for repair.

By late afternoon, Maeril was studying a low stand of trees beyond the ditch.

“We need somewhere screened from the road tonight,” she said.

“For camp?”

“For work.” She glanced toward the damp ground beneath the trees. “And if I am improving that oil with something green, the green thing should be present.”

Rishi nodded.

They continued south, looking for a place to stop.

Maeril found the first useful thing beside a wagon rut that had failed to become a puddle.

She stopped at a damp stone where moss gathered around a hedge-root. A bead of amber resin had hardened where the root had split against it.

Maeril crouched.

“Oh.”

“Useful?” Rishi asked.

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

She examined the moss without touching it, then turned one small leaf to see its underside.

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

“Like several men you have known?”

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

She pointed to the shaded side of the stone. “Older moss. That part.”

Then she indicated the hardened resin.

“Only what has already dried. The fresh wound stays with the hedge.”

Maeril drew the flat knife from the repair kit and offered it handle-first.

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

Rishi knelt and worked the blade beneath the darker growth. He lifted slowly, leaving every strand that held too firmly. The moss came free damp and whole, and he wrapped it loosely in soft cloth.

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

They worked along the hedge for another quarter hour. Maeril chose; Rishi gathered. They took hardened resin from closed wounds, a few outer leaves from healthy growth, and darker moss from stones that had held the day’s damp.

Nothing was stripped. Nothing was taken twice from the same living place.

When they had enough, Rishi wrapped the last packet and tucked it safely into his pack.

“If you keep handling forest things like that,” Maeril said, “the wood elves may start feeling professionally threatened.”

“That seems unlikely.”

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

Maeril rose and brushed the grit from her hands.

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

They turned toward the trees, looking for dry ground and cover from the road.

They found a patch of dry ground beneath the trees. Roots pressed beneath the leaves, and a beetle had to be relocated before Maeril declared the place acceptable.

The road was screened. Ditch-water lay close enough for the work, and a flat stone between two roots could serve as a table.

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

Rishi had seen her light fires that way before. The ease no longer surprised him, but the care still did.

“I have known worse laboratories.”

He set down his pack. “Is that praise?”

“Practical optimism.”

They spread clean cloth over the flat stone and laid out the thread, wax, awl, oil, moss, resin, and a leather scrap for testing.

Maeril opened packets and sorted the green material. Rishi placed every tool within easy reach, the knife cleaned and turned safely away from her hand.

When nothing remained to prepare, he took the wrapped boots from his pack.

The cleaned leather was pale brown, darkened along the seams by old weather. Fine stitching curved around the ankle and heel in leaflike lines. One seam had torn along the side, and one toe bore a scuff too deep to remove.

They were beautiful.

They were damaged.

They had been shaped around another person’s feet.

Rishi rested one hand near them without touching.

Maeril’s hands stilled around the oil bottle.

He knew how to make the repair: clean the seam, test the oil, follow the stitching that remained, and replace only what had failed.

His hands knew what to do.

But he did not begin.

Rishi had found the boots among ash and splintered crates, beside the small belongings of people who had expected another day: a wooden horse, folded letters, a holy symbol bent nearly flat.

He could not keep from imagining the person who had worn them—an elf moving ahead of a caravan, listening for danger, the scuffed toe catching stone as the seam tore.

He did not know whether any of it was true. He knew only that the boots had been left among the dead.

Maeril was watching his face.

“It is not the stitch,” she said.

“No.”

“The one who wore them.”

“Yes.”

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

Maeril did not offer a kinder answer.

He touched the red cord at his wrist.

“These should not be carried into the Wealdath torn. Not as salvage. If we meet the people they belonged to, I would rather offer them back whole.”

He swallowed.

“As much as my hands can make them whole.”

Maeril turned the oil bottle toward him.

“Then we do not make them yours,” she said. “We make them whole enough to return.”

“Yes.”

“I will keep the treatment gentle. No stiffness, no shine, nothing that tries to make old work look new.”

“Good.”

“And you will stop before respect keeps your hands too far away to help.”

His mouth almost smiled.

“Good,” she said. “I respect grief, but I am not spending the evening watching you be courteous to a boot.”

“Understood.”

Rishi laid his fingertips lightly against the leather. He bowed his head, briefly, then reached for the cloth, awl, and thread.

Maeril prepared the treatment while he threaded the needle.

There was no ceremony and no spellwork. She pressed moss into oil and warmed resin near the fire while Rishi drew wax along the thread. Her hands chose what would keep the leather supple; his chose where the old stitching could still be trusted.

They worked quietly.

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

Rishi adjusted his pressure without argument. He paused over each stitch long enough to judge what the leather would bear, then drew the thread through.

Slowly, the seam closed—not perfectly, but honestly.

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

Rishi set the last tension with his thumb.

“That is enough,” he said.

“For tonight,” she replied.