Mirabelle's Boots - Chapter 13 (Patreon)

I only managed to finish half of today's Weaponsmith chapter, so here's a Mirabelle to tide you over until tomorrow morning!

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Mirabelle holds onto the edge of the hole of the tree, staring out at the young man with the nice hair as he gets up, stretching and yawning.

It’s early in the morning. Sister-sun is just starting to rise up into the sky and to set the world alight once more. But not early enough that people have begun to walk through the park again and so, having successfully slept here in secret like herself, the young man with the nice hair gets up and shakes himself out, rising to the tips of his toes as he reaches for the sky a moment later, before then bending down in a stretch to touch the ground.

Mirabelle blinks and then, climbing out onto the branch, copies his movements. Her hands reach up, rising towards the sky and then she bends down, feeling a pull run through her back as she reaches the ground with her palms. It feels nice.

She straightens herself up, watching him as he dusts himself off and then grabs his coat, opting not to wear it, but to rather grab it by the little loop of fabric at the back of the neck area and then swings it over his shoulder, holding it there with one finger. Something flies out, catching the light of the morning sun and falling to the ground.

Mirabelle yelps, clambering forward along the branch in a quick scurry. The comb! She’d worked on it for days.

Thankfully, Seeing that something had fallen from his coat, the man with the nice hair blinks and then bends down, grabbing the thing in confusion. Mirabelle sighs in relief as he holds it in his hands. She had been waiting for this moment.

It sounds stupid, even in her own head, she knows. But she was hoping that maybe… maybe by making something like this, maybe this could serve as a proof of concept? That feeling she had once witnessed the old shoemaker expressing, she had felt that herself after making her own shoes. Now, she wants to feel it again. She wants to know. Where does the feeling come from? Is it the shoes? Or is it from something else?

The man with the nice hair opens the status window for the comb and then reads the item’s description, quickly looking around the park in confusion. Mirabelle ducks back down before his head turns her way and she waits a moment, hiding behind some leaves, until she carefully peaks out again a moment later, something moving inside of her chest, causing her fingers to grip the edges of the leaves a little too tightly, as she sees the man smiling, the comb running through his hair once together with his hand. For someone who had slept out in the park in secret all night, he smiles a disgustingly confident smile and then winks at his reflection in the water.

Mirabelle winces as the man tucks the comb away into his pocket and pats it a moment later.

But despite the pain of having witnessed that horrible, smug moment, she feels… good.

The fairy lifts her eyes towards the blue sky, which seems so much brighter than it had been just the day before and she flies off into the world. It’s time to start her day.

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“I’m telling you!” says a frantic man, running through the park in an awkward half-walk, half-jog. He stumbles, a bunch of scrolls falling down from beneath his arms. He stops, crouching down and collecting them, his long sleeves billowing around. The man has a pointed wizard’s hat on and peers around the park. “It’s here! I’m sure!”

Another man walks after him. He’s tall and lanky with soft, white hair; an older elven man. He’s far more blasé and slow paced, simply strolling after the frantic human and shaking his head. “That’s what you said a week ago about the kobolds in that old woman’s basement,” he says, slowly rolling his eyes. There’s a sort of creepy elegance about him that makes Mirabelle a little nervous.

“They were there! I know it!” argues the other man. “Anyways, I’m sure this time too!” says the scurrying person, picking up his bundles of scrolls, adjusting his hat as he gets up and looks around the park.

“That’s what you said about the baby drake in the forgemaster’s chimney.”

“That was different!” argues the man, looking around the park. “Come on! This way!” he says, running off down the path. The taller man sighs, shaking his head and leisurely strolls through the park, vaguely meandering in the direction his more frantic colleague has already vanished down into.

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A week comes to pass.

She still hasn’t had the bravery to introduce herself to anyone.

Not to the shoemaker, who always leaves a wordless critique of her work every day, before turning to his own tasks. Not to the man with the nice hair, who has returned to his usual routine of parading around the city and her park with some girl. She has no idea where he always finds them and why they always seem to fawn over him. It must be the hair. She can’t explain it any other way. It can’t just be a human thing, because sometimes the girl is an orc, sometimes an elf, sometimes a dwarf and sometimes even just a human. No matter which bloodline they stem from though, the man seems to have some ability to pull them towards himself, at least all the way to the park.

From there, he seems to have a coin flip’s chance of success afterwards.

But, given that this is a nigh daily occurrence, those numbers are still pretty good.

Mirabelle sighs, shaking her head, but then laughs as she watches the man sit there, nursing a red slap mark on his cheek as the lady of the day walks off in a, presumably justifiable, fit. The ‘sad, but beautiful’ line didn’t work today. She thinks that the women of the city are slowly starting to catch on to his games.

He waits for her to go and then he gets up, staring down at his reflection. Apparently not too bothered by a single day of failure, the man pulls out the comb and fixes his hair. It seems that he has not given up his fighting spirit. The fairy rolls her eyes. What a hero.

Mirabelle nibbles on the last of the cookie she managed to salvage, deciding to just let his disgusting determination infect her. There’s a lot to do today, after all.

Finishing, the fairy dusts her hands and flies away, noticing that she feels heavier as she lifts into the air.

Essentially, she’s eaten nothing but garbage since moving into the city of the human-people. But, given the state of starvation she had awoken in, on the first day of her new life, she’s starting to fill out again and it’s getting harder and harder to see her ribs with every passing day.

Not only is her body developing, but so are her skills. She hasn’t leveled up anymore, having had nothing to fight and thankfully nothing to kill, but her ‘shoemaking’ ability had risen from level one to level two and she finds herself quickly catching up on the tricks of the trade.

Shoemaking Level: 02

• [Polish]{8 SOUL-POINTS}{Active}
• [Sand]{9 SOUL-POINTS}{Active}

Sure, it’s not easy for her to understand everything, just yet and she’s nowhere near to the old shoemaker’s level of proficiency, but she’s getting better and better and every day she looks forward in excitement for the night to come. Despite that, it’s full leagues above her first attempts.

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*Mrow…*

Mirabelle hovers in the air, staring at the cat.

The horrible monstrosity sits down below, staring up towards her.

“Go on! Scoot!” she scolds, making a shooing motion with her hands. The cat however, seems unimpressed, and just sits there, staring up her way. Its only movement is its tail, lazily swiping left and right along the top of the wooden crate. “Get lost!”

The cat does not get lost.

Mirabelle groans.

She’s trying to find some food for her stores and this spot here, behind this baker, is the very best one she’s found so far. She’s just outside of the dungeon, on the plaza with the many stores that are in actual buildings, rather than just wooden stalls on the street. The bakery here is a large, significant operation on the market and they produce exactly that substantial amount of waste. Every day they’re throwing out something or other, a loaf of seed bread that somebody barely nibbled on, a squished muffin. This is where real, good food can be found.

But…

Mirabelle plants her hands on her hips, hovering in the air as she stares at the cat, sitting on top of the crate that is full of what she hopes is her lunch.

Should she blast it?

No. Mirabelle doesn’t want to hurt the cat, even if she’s sure that it deserves it. She’s still sad about the hawk… and the squirrel…

Maybe she could just… destroy the crate with a spell to scare it off?

No… The crate isn’t hers to break. That would be wrong too.

The fairy sighs.

“This isn’t over,” she warns the cat, before flying off to find somewhere else to find less extravagant food.

*Mrow…*

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Mirabelle really wishes that she had some money.

It’s a little silly, sure, since she’s never talked to a single person here in all of her days in this city, let alone let anybody see her. But Mirabelle can’t help, now that she has been immersed in the ways of the human-people for so long, to want some real clothes too.

Nobody here is dressed like she is, covered in a sack and some ratty, if not colorful, fabric. Even the poorest people she sees seem to have at least vaguely coherent clothes on.

Mirabelle turns away from the window of a tailor’s shop that her face was pressed against and looks out behind herself at the street.

Pants and shirts and dresses and skirts and armor and light regalia and robes and all manner of everything wanders through the city, attached to human-people in various ways. Barring one or two similar people in armor, who she has identified as the guards of the city, everyone mostly dresses their own way. Their choice of clothing is as representative of themselves as people as their choice of work, their choice of shoes.

The fairy looks down at herself, at her sack.

She was really proud of it too, she still remembers feeling proud of it. So why… why isn’t she happy with it anymore now? Now that she has noticed that the other people have nicer clothes than her? Why does that bother her? She doesn’t understand, but she knows that it is that way.

She wants some clothes. Some pretty, soft, light clothes.

Maybe then…

Maybe then, she’ll have the courage to introduce herself to someone? Maybe the reason that she’s still in hiding is because her clothes are bad? Does that make sense?

She isn’t sure.

Mirabelle frowns, tugging on the scratchy fabric of her sack-robe, before flying off. It’s about time for her lessons to start.

The fairy, feeling a little better at least at this prospect, flies away.

She’s getting good at this shoemaking stuff. Maybe she’ll get the shoemaker’s approval soon? Maybe he’ll like one of her shoes and leave her a note, asking her to reveal herself? Maybe she’ll get to become his apprentice for real, a system she has only learned of a few days ago? Maybe he’ll even allow her to sell one of her pairs of shoes?

Then, with that money, she could buy some real clothes!

— The catch is that of course, she needs nicer clothes before she can reveal herself to him to begin with.

But then, with some real clothes, she can finally go and introduce herself to some other people too. She’d like to speak to the people who she ‘knows’ already. That would be really nice!

Excitedly, the fairy’s wings buzz faster as she flies, heading towards the window of the shoemaker’s house.