Mirabelle's Boots - Chapter 11 (Patreon)

~ Gisopi Minari’s, The Cobbler’s Art, Chapter Eleven - Boot Anatomy - The Shaft

The portion of a boot that extends from the upper all the way down to the heel and wraps around the leg is called the shaft. It is situated in the space between the boot's top and its outsole, and, depending on the design of the boot, it can range in both height and breadth.

Within a boot, the shaft is responsible for a variety of critical functions. Additionally, it offers extra support and defense for the leg, helping to ensure that the foot remains safely ensconced within the boot. Because the height and breadth of the shaft may alter the look of the boot, it also adds to the overall style and beauty of the boot. This is because the height of the shaft can determine how high the boot comes up on the foot.

A layer of material that is sewed onto the interior of the shaft of the boot to give additional warmth or comfort may be called a lined shaft. Some boots may have a lined shaft that is either partly or fully lined. The shaft of the boot may also contain extra elements, such as a zipper closure or laces, to assist with adjusting the size of the boot for a more comfortable fit.

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Mirabelle works late into the night. This is a project unlike any other that she has undertaken, but she has no choice. In a sense, she feels like she’s ready to get started with her business somehow. Though, she still hasn’t ever spoken to a single person, let alone tried to sell anyone anything. But she’s in a city full of human-people, it won’t do her any good to make fairy-sized shoes. She needs to make human-people sized shoes if she wants to sell them.

This is, of course, a challenge, given her stature and given the relative thickness and heaviness of the materials she needs to work with on that larger scale. In a way, making a sandal in a human-size is the exact same as making one that is fairy-sized, except that it’s also entirely different. It’s just all… different, but Mirabelle doesn’t let that stop her. She has taken down one of the order-notes from the shoemaker’s board, one that he wasn’t going to start on for a long time, and she works into the night, making the sandal. It’s the easiest kind to start with. She had made the mistake of starting with a boot first before, but now she’s learned.

Mirabelle grits her teeth, pushing with both of her arms as she places the slices of leather together for the sole.

______________________________________________________________

It is the next day.

Mirabelle had hidden her work below the table, determined to return to it tonight. But for now, she spends her day in the park.

The sister-sun shines brightly, covering the verdant greenery in the warm, crimson hue of midsummer.

Today, the man is here — the one who breaks the sticks. Usually he comes at night, but now he stands there, breaking the sticks in the light of the early morning, which is unusual. But the cruel fairy has found that, amongst the human-people, many things are unusual.

“Papa! Papa!” says an excited child, running ahead of her mother towards the man. He turns around and greets her, his face showing somewhat less enthusiasm than hers. The man just seems tired, despite it being the first thing in the morning and despite his family being there. The mother, whom Mirabelle also assumes is his partner, walks up and places a kiss on his cheek. The three of them hold hands and walk off into the park, but as they go, Mirabelle can’t help but notice that, despite the company of his family, the man seems just as lonely as he was before their arrival.

Her eyes wander down to the unbroken stick, that he hadn’t managed to work his way through today.

Human-people sure are an odd bunch.

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She sits in the bush, waiting for the old woman to arrive so she can tell her story to the ducks again, like she does every morning. Sure, after days of listening to it over and over, she’s memorized the woman’s story by now, but she still likes to listen to it. It feels nice to close her eyes and pretend that someone is talking to her. She’s thought about approaching the old woman a few times. She seems kind and safe to talk to. If Mirabelle is going to make herself known to the human-people eventually, it seems best to start with someone like her, right?

But the old woman is late today.

Mirabelle stares out toward the light of the morning sun and the ducks that are floating around the water, indifferent to the missing presence of the kind person who has regularly fed them every day until now.

She never shows up.

______________________________________________________________

Mirabelle works late into the night. The sandal isn’t right. She didn’t cut the material for the sole right, so now she has to fix it, despite the fact that it’s already glued together. The fairy mutters beneath her breath, letting out the most terrible swears a fairy knows.

“BLUEBERRIES!” squawks the cruel, horrible fairy in annoyance. If anyone could hear her, she’s sure that she would be most deserving of that title.

It’s going to be a long night.

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The fairy hovers in her home, working on something that isn’t related to shoes.

It’s kind of dumb, sure, but she’s having fun with it, and it seems like a nice gesture, right? She feels bad; she wants there to be fewer sad faces like her own in the world. So maybe this is something she can do to help alleviate that issue?

The fairy runs the metal file she had borrowed from the shoemaker’s workshop, along with the small piece of wood, from an old drawer that he never opens. It’s going to be a tricky process.

But that’s fine; it’s not like she can sleep, right?

______________________________________________________________

The sandals are almost done.

Three days after starting, Mirabelle stands on the shoemaker’s workbench, polishing the metal fastening that holds the strap in place. It took hours and hours of work. She pinched herself with the tools by mistake a few times and got smears of leather-stain on her burlap dress and face. One time, she even got stuck with the glue against the leather. That was really scary.

But she uses some of her magic, and the goopy, inky water dissolved the glue right away.

Then, of course, she had to spend a lot of her working hours cleaning up instead of working, so that she doesn’t inconvenience the shoemaker and also, of course, so that he doesn’t notice.

Mirabelle wipes her forehead, staring at her work.

- (Low)[Leather Sandals]{Size: (Medium)} -

- Quality Effects -

-25% Durability

- Components -

(Low)[Leather Sole]

(Low)[Leather Midsole]

(Low)[Leather Insole]

(Low)[Fabric Strap]

- Blackwater Varnish -

+5% SOUL

+5% SPELL-DMG

A pair of leather sandals, made with great effort.

 ‘Made by Mirabelle, the cruel fairy’

+1 DEX

Weight: 0.224kg

Durability: 14/14

Value: 000 Obols

Shoemaking Level: 02 ↗

“Huh…?” She stares at the item’s window for a minute, trying to decipher this latest oddity. Black-water varnish? What’s black-water? Her ink? At first, she’s distraught about having somehow gotten her goo mixed in with the shoe; it must have dripped into the leather-stain while she was freeing herself from the glue. But after looking at them for a moment, she decides that it might actually be good. This is a good bonus, and it doesn’t look like it’s dangerous.

Her eyes wander down to the sandals. The leather does have a very pleasing color, the brown leather having turned into a darker, more reddish tone. Maybe this isn’t so bad, actually?

The question is, what does she do now? Does she leave these out here for the shoemaker to see?

Mirabelle cleans up the workshop and then places the two sandals on the workbench, placing the order-note on top of them.

It’s kind of scary, to be honest, leaving a sign of her presence like this. But this is what she wants to do anyway, right? She wants to stop hiding. She wants to be seen.

The cruel fairy nods, staring at the note and the finished sandals she has left out in the open, before flying off to return to the park. She hopes the shoemaker won’t get scared by her having been there. He’s a nice person.

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There is a scratching sound as Mirabelle works inside her home in the tree, scraping off more of the wood. The little thing she’s crafting is turning out great. She isn’t a practiced woodworker, of course. But it’s a simple item and all of her efforts into shoe-making do carry over a tiny bit in this direction as well.

After two nights of filing, the teeth are done. Now, all she has to do is smooth it out, and then she wants to try staining the wood with her magic too. Maybe it works like it did with the leather? It’s a light, porous wood, so it will absorb the color nicely.

She hopes that he, the man with the nice hair, is going to like it. Mirabelle smiles as she continues her work. After all, anyone with such nice hair needs a comb, right?

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It is the next day, and Mirabelle sits in her nest, a little afraid of the outside world, to be honest. By this time of day, the shoemaker should already be awake. He will already have been downstairs, and, in all likelihood, he will already have seen the sandals she made in secret.

Will he be afraid because someone was in his home? This is a reasonable assumption. It’s a cruel thing to do, after all, sneaking into someone’s house at night. Or will he be happy about her efforts? Mirabelle is frightened, honestly. She doesn’t want the shoemaker to be scared. She really likes him, and he seems like a great person. She’s learned so much from him, and she just wants to not only introduce herself to him but also make a good first impression too. There’s so much more she can learn from him.

She gulps, staring out of her nest, into the sunlight park.

There don’t seem to be any bells ringing, and people aren’t running around in a panic, having heard that some terrible creature was stealing her way into people’s homes in secret. Honestly, she was half-expecting this to be the case. But, so far, the day seems to be just like any other.

So, just like on any other day, she zooms out into the city to find her breakfast, doing her best to avoid the shoemaker’s house for now, though perhaps not consciously.

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Breakfast today is a big piece of yellow fruit that is mushy and soft, but in a good way, as well as a slice of bread. There had been meat on it, but she took that off, not wanting to eat it. Mirabelle sits in the bush, eating her food and waiting for the old woman to show up.

But, with every minute longer she waits, with every day that comes to pass, Mirabelle can’t help but think that the old woman isn’t going to return anymore.

The cruel fairy stares down at the fruit she’s eating, feeling kind of sad. She really wanted to talk to the old woman. But what if she’s sick now? What if she doesn’t want to tell her story to the ducks anymore? Or worse, what if she has gone to the sleeping-place too?

*Quack*

Mirabelle stares out sadly towards the ducks. For all of their grace and beauty, they seem incapable of feeling what she’s feeling for the old woman. Despite the sad truths of this new day, they float on the water as indifferently as if it were a morning like any other. Their songs fill the air as if it were a day like any other.

There isn’t a hint of sadness or mourning in anything that they do, and, despite all of their regal majesty, Mirabelle can’t help but feel like she’s disappointed in them. She expected better from the ducks.

She doesn’t know if the old woman has really gone to the sleeping place, but, as a gesture of mourning, Mirabelle finishes her fruit and then flies out to the bench, sitting down on it herself. It’s far too big, of course. The cruel fairy looks over towards the ducks, tearing off a crumb of bread and throwing it out to them as she begins to recite the old woman’s story herself.

“I wanted to be an adventurer once, you know? So, it all started, back when I was a girl -”

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Mirabelle cautiously scans the shoemaker’s house, looking into every window.

It is late at night, time for her to go to work. But she still hasn’t seen how the shoemaker has responded. She wasn’t brave enough to watch him at work this afternoon. Will he have taken offense at her intrusion, to her using his tools and materials in secret?

She flies to the upstairs window, spotting him there in bed. The old man is asleep.

So far, so good.

The cruel fairy flies down the chimney, flying to the workshop. There, set out on the workbench and moved to the side, are her sandals. Next to them is another pair of sandals, one that the shoemaker himself has made, and attached to different parts of them are small tufts of red string, that Mirabelle notices are placed at all the spots where things are different, or, after comparison with the man’s fantastic sandals, wrong.

In a way, it feels bad to see that she made so many mistakes, big ones too. But on the other hand, she hadn’t expected this. She feels…

— Something moves in her chest.

Mirabelle smiles a bright smile and then darts to get the tools, determined to fix up her sandals as best she can. She won’t take a break tonight.

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The fairy works, having finished modifying her sandals after hours of work.

Now, she is back at her home, finishing the comb for the man with the nice hair.

She holds her hands out over an oily rag, using her magic to stain it with her ink, and then begins polishing the comb with it.

- (Low)[Wooden Comb]{Size: (Medium)} -

- Quality Effects -

-25% Durability

- Components -

(Low)[Wooden Body]

- Blackwater Varnish -

+5% LOV for 24H

A very light, wooden comb that is polished to a dark sheen.

 ‘Made by Mirabelle, the cruel fairy,

for the man with the very nice hair’

Weight: 0.24kg

Durability: 14/14

Value: 000 Obols

Mirabelle beams, looking at the thing, feeling excited about making this new thing to give to someone else.