Mirabelle's Boots - Chapter 21 (Patreon)

- Something cracks.

The sunset is orange.

Mirabelle sits on her branch, looking down into the park at the man who breaks sticks. He stands at the edge of the water, his stick in hand, like he so often has. Every so often, he’ll break off a piece of it — an end or a twig — and cast it out into the water, watching it sink away into nothingness. Then, after another minute, he’ll do it again. All the while, she never says anything, talks to anyone, or undertakes any other grand undertaking in life.

Why does he throw the stick?

Mirabelle tilts her head, watching him as she gnaws on the big piece of dried apple she has. Grace had given it to her as a gift last night. She likes Grace. The fact that she has a friend is still very confusing and overwhelming to her. Life is on the up and up. She’s working. She’s found a purpose and an aim, and she’s found a way to reach them. She’s making milestones of improvement in the fields of happiness and life success. As far as she’s concerned, this could keep going forever this way. If it did, considering her current progress, in a few months she’ll have gotten better in so many avenues, assuming her current pace is maintained.

Of course, that’s not really based on any realistic prognosis. It’s just what she’s hoping for.

— Water splashes as another stick lands in the pond. Ducks quack in offense, swimming away and making their displeasure known to the world.

There was a time when she had assumed the man was simply angry at the pond, at whatever spirit of water inhabited it. This wouldn’t be too strange. Humans and the spirits of nature have always collided in some manner. Sometimes, humans take the children of the water — their streams, lakes, and ponds — and drain them dry. In turn, sometimes the water takes the humans’ children as an equalization.

It is a contentious relationship.

However, this does not seem to be the case with the stick-throwing-man. His face doesn’t signal anger or resentment, but rather just an ever-distant blankness.

Eventually his stick runs out and so does his time, and he leaves.

______________________________

“So, what do you think?” asks Mirabelle.

— The rain does not respond.

She sits down on a rock by the pond, looking down at her reflection for a moment, disturbed by the many droplets of water that strike down against its surface. The ripples wobble and shake the reflection of her body.

“Yeah, I thought so,” replies the fairy, crossing her legs as she sits on the rock.

Rain is very uncomfortable for fairies. Given their small size, the impact of the droplets can be devastating for them, especially for their fragile wings. However, the rain tonight is a calm rain with a gentle voice, and it strikes against the soft waters of the pond, creating a rhapsody of sorts.

She lifts her gaze, staring up to the sky as she thinks.

— A large droplet of water lands on her face, soaking her through. But that’s okay. She’s accepted getting wet tonight. It’s the price one has to pay if trying to learn some things from the water.

If the stick-man isn’t angry at the water, then maybe he’s angry at the sticks?

Mirabelle turns her head, looking at her tree.

…No… that seems improbable too. Maybe the far more likely reason is that the water and the sticks are just things that are there. They’re in the way. For the stick-man, the sticks are like the beatles were for her. They’re just things in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The soaked fairy rises to her feet, her wings buzzing and shaking off a spray of water as she tediously rises into the air, weighed down by her soaked clothes.

She looks over across the park, toward the bench. However, Grace isn’t there. She can only assume that he would never choose to sleep outside on a rainy night. It would be devastating for his hair.

The wicked fairy smiles.

Now that she thinks about it, she recalls seeing him on her first night in the city. He had been thrown out of a house and onto the street. She should ask him about that next time. The stick man too. She saw him once before, sitting in his home.

Curiously, she turns her head toward the city, wondering if she should…?

Curiosity gets the best of the monstrous devil, and she rises into the air, flying toward the home she remembers.

_____________________________

Minutes later, her tiny face is smushed against glass. Mirabelle peers into the dark, small room that is the home of the stick-man and his family.

It’s the same as she remembers it being before. It’s dark. There is sparse furnishing. The man sits at a table, despite it being late at night. His partner, the woman whom Mirabelle assumes is his wife, lies in a bed within the same room. Next to her is a child, asleep. Mirabelle recognizes them from the park. They’ve come to find the stick-man a few times there.

— Why does he not sleep when he should be sleeping?

Mirabelle observes him as he sits there at the table, looking down at a book with a pen in his hand. Tilting her head, she watches him scribble in it, writing down a series of numbers. It looks like very serious work.

At least until she watches him for a few minutes longer and realizes that he’s just scribbling the same numbers over the old ones before turning the page once to another page just like that one and repeating the process. It’s like he’s using the pen and the book to make noise, to make it sound like he’s working rather than actually working.

For what purpose?

The fairy watches, trying to understand.

If the man has no actual work, then why would he actively choose to sit at the table and pretend to be busy instead of falling asleep in his nest with his family? It doesn’t make any sense. Mirabelle loves her shoemaking, but if she could choose to also fall asleep in a big, warm, soft cuddle-puddle instead — well, it’s not a hard choice, to say the least. Sadly, she only has her work to live for at the moment.

In the fairy world, she could have just asked Grace. That’s pretty normal for friends to do in the context of their way of life. However, for humans, this would be quite an oddity. She wouldn’t want him to think that she’s weird.

Then again, humans really are strange creatures themselves, aren’t they?

Her eyes wander around the rest of the house. It’s clean. It’s furnished with the necessities but not with a single thing more. She’d expect a little chaos, given that they have a child. However, there isn’t anything for chaos to be constructed out of. There are no toys or playthings of any kind, not on the floor, not in a chest anywhere, not on a shelf, and not under the bed. There’s nothing.

If she pieces it together, maybe they’re a poor family? Maybe they can’t afford toys?

— Maybe that is why the man throws sticks?

To be able to survive but not thrive is exhausting, and it is especially so when this is one’s lifestyle for an extended period of time, even more so when others are involved.

How do you go to bed happy if you can’t give your family the things you want them to have?

Of course.

This theory all adds up in Mirabelle’s head. Even if it is a bit of conjecture, she feels like she’s figured it out.

Smiling with a bright idea, she pulls away from the window, and, an instant later, Mirabelle shoots off into the night, toward the shoemaker’s workshop.

_________________________________

Sure, it’s not exactly shoemaking, but she thinks she has a general idea of what to do. The work is similar enough in a way at this low-level scale.

Pulling a small slab of wood across the table, which is actually used for things like inner heels and cork-soling, Mirabelle draws out a silhouette on the wood with her ink. It has a round body and a round head. From the round head protrudes a sharp little protrusion.

“Quack,” says the monstrous fairy, splashing an eye onto the head of the duck’s silhouette.

Flying across the table to the tools, she grabs a tiny little hand saw that is usually used for detail work. However, it should be just enough for her to use to cut through this material. If she saws through it a few times and then glues the pieces together over one another, they’ll be thick enough to feel as if they came from one single board of wood!

Human children are violent things. It needs to be durable.

_______________________________________

Five ducks are neatly stacked on top of each other like a heap of pancakes. Mirabelle pushes them into place before the glue dries.

Then, she grabs a file and begins sanding the edges down.

For the eyes, she glues on some round, glassy buttons.

For the wings, she also cuts out some thinner wood into the right shape, gluing together two sheets for each wing. Then, she attaches them to the body by making a hole, putting a small rod through it and then placing the wings onto the rod on either side of the duck. They’re secured with a secondary rod.

There!

Mirabelle smiles. There’s only a little work left.

Next, she adds some small wheels to the bottom, where the legs should be. Easy enough.

Then, finally, she begins to paint it using a mixture of ink and paint from the shoemaker’s collection. They’re not meant for woodwork, exactly. But it works decently enough.

Beaming, Mirabelle the horrendous fairy plants her hands on her hips, standing there covered in glue and paint and wood dust as she smiles with pride, looking upon her creation.

“Quack.”

- (Normal)[Wooden Toy Duck] -

- Components -

• (Normal)[Wooden Body]
• (Normal)[Wooden Wings]
• (Normal)[Wooden Wheels]

- Blackwater Varnish -

• +10 DURABILITY

A very light, wooden toy duck that is polished to a dark sheen. It is very colorful and attracts the eyes of children with its strange beauty.

‘Made by Mirabelle, the cruel fairy,

for the man who breaks sticks’

Weight: 1.06kg

Durability: 30/30

Value: 50 Obols