~ Gisopi Minari’s, The Cobbler’s Art, Chapter Two - What are Boots?
A boot is a piece of clothing that goes up the leg and covers the foot, the ankle, and occasionally even the calf or the knee. Boots are often made of leather and have a high top. Boots are intended to provide the wearer with both protection and support, more so than normal shoes. They have a wide range of applications and may be worn for things like business, adventuring, or even just fashion.
There is a wide variety of boots available, ranging from ankle boots and knee-high boots all the way up to thigh-high boots and many more varieties. Additional elements, such as laces, zippers, or buckles, may also be included on boots. These features help change the fit of the boot and keep the wearer's foot safely contained within the boot.
While additional support and protection are required, such as when walking over rugged or uneven terrain or when working in potentially dangerous areas, people may frequently wear boots. They are also common as an article of clothing, and there are many distinct types of boots that may be worn to complement a wide range of ensembles and scenarios.
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Her stomach growls.
Mirabelle lays on her back. Her incredible, almost other-worldly desire for revenge has been dampened with ludicrous speed by this new sensation which had crashed into her the exact moment that she had found the exit of the grotto, the moment that a gust of fresh air had touched her skin, touched her face. She simply fell over, back down onto the ground once more, exhausted.
A deep, clawing hunger sits in her troublesomely empty stomach. Its pangs course through her body like the sprouting roots of a flesh-eating seed.
“I’m so huuungry~,” groans Mirabella, laying on the grass and staring up towards the sky, at the stars and the moon that all seem to be somehow… less present than they were before.
They’re still there, but they feel different now. She can’t really explain it. She feels really different now. She feels more like her old self. It feels like that rage and sadness that had overtaken her core being had both simply just… vanished in an instant.
She sits upright, holding her body, glad that it’s warm outside. Is it still summer? It feels like summer. Looking around, she stares at the vast meadow that runs off and away from the grotto on three sides.
It all used to be forest. They must have chopped it down. Mirabelle makes a disgusted noise, and she turns her head forward, looking at the ocean that is as flat and featureless as the grasslands behind her.
She knows that it’s impossible, but somehow, she can’t help but blame them for the flatness of the ocean as well.
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The fairy stalks through the grass-lands, searching for something to eat — nuts, berries, anything. She’s even already nibbled on a few halms of grass to little success. They tasted like… well, like grass.
She needs real food. But without the forest, there’s nothing here.
Thunder cracks in the sky.
“Really?” she asks, receiving only the first droplet of rain against her face in some sort of mocking response from the universe. She falls back down to the ground as the almost gigantic drop of water breaks on her and cascades down her weak, tiny body.
The rain pelts down with surprising force, the summer storm having arrived in an instant. She scampers away. There’s no real shelter out here. She considers going back to the grotto for a moment, but then decides against it. She doesn’t want to go back there.
Pushing through the grass, she finds a tall bushel of it that has grown unusually thick and runs down beneath it to hide from the rain. A surprisingly cool chill comes to wash over herself, erasing the warm summer’s touch from her exposed skin just as quickly as her emotions had shifted, not ten minutes ago. She grabs a halm of grass and wraps it around herself to keep warm, then huddles against the tiny overhang made up of fronds and plant-matter. Her bare, sore feet are stuck out into the rain, despite her best efforts to hunch down into a ball.
Mirabelle glares up at the storm clouds that have come to torment her.
They did this. She’s sure of it. They made it rain. Somehow.
She clenches the piece of grass against her body. It’s cold.
And so, forced by the pouring rains to hide in her meager shelter, Mirabelle, the cruel fairy, sits there, cold, confused, and hungry. She isn’t sure how this all happened. She isn’t sure why she was chosen to return while the others weren’t. Maybe it’s just because she’s…
- Unwanted? Different? …Bad?
The rain pours, and now, for the first time since the cosmic-event, she sits there with nothing to do, apart from huddling herself tighter into the grass. There, she is trapped. There, for the first time since her rebirth, she has no choice but to sit all by herself and be alone with her thoughts.
Unable to escape, the fairy is caught by her grief that she had done a wonderful job of escaping for the last half hour and howls. The thunderous clap of distant lightning comes to hide the ugly noises that she makes.
A small consolation.
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Something wiggles.
She doesn’t know how long it’s been. She’s been sitting there in a half-daze for a while now, nested in the tall grass, not entirely asleep but also not really awake.
But now, something on the edge of her vision has caught her attention. Something that wiggles.
Mirabella stares at the fat, wiggly worm that pushes itself out of the dirt to dance in the rain, celebrating it like her own kind has always done so for the mother-moon.
She tilts her head, watching it. What blessings does the rain bestow upon the worm? Why does the worm worship the rain? Do all worms worship rain? She knows of worms, but, having flown for all of her life, she never really saw many of them, let alone up close.
Mirabelle lifts her gaze to the sky, watching the rain fall from the safety of her meager shelter. It doesn’t seem to want to stop anytime soon. Her gaze falls back down towards the worm and then back towards the sky again.
She wiggles too.
Maybe, if she does what the worm does, the rain-god will be as kind to her as it is to the worms? She’s not unlike them, after all. Maybe she can be a worm too?
Mirabelle wiggles.
The rain offers no response to her wiggling except to keep falling. The worm wiggles, but Mirabelle runs out of energy to do so anymore. She stops, sighing, before simply opting to lean against the grass so that she can watch the worm continue its wiggly dance.
Her stomach growls.
Of course, she could eat the worm. A single spell will do it. How many health-points can a worm even have? One? Two? She needs to eat. Even raw worm is better than starving.
Instead, she stays there, huddling herself as far into the grass as she can manage. The worm has done her no harm. It has brought her a little joy. It would be very… human of her to kill it and eat it. The desire to survive and prosper at any cost whatsoever is what makes them who they are. Sometimes, a living thing just needs to stop. It just needs to know when to die.
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That’s what it is and to deny it, to fight against that forever and ever, to take more and more and more to gorge and sustain one’s self beyond a limit that is reasonable, it’s disgusting in her eyes.
She won’t be like them.
The worm wiggles away, sinking back down into the dirt, and she smiles, already replaying the freshly carved memory of its wiggling, jiggling, dancing body as she closes her eyes once more.
Mirabelle wishes that she could sleep.
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The reborn fairy eats more grass.
It isn’t nourishing in the least. But at least it’s making her feel full.
The summer downpour has turned into a small, light drizzle. This is manageable for her to navigate. The water is only annoying, not forceful and painful like before. It is cold, however. She walks, having wrapped a large piece of grass around herself to stay warm. But it does little to help. Staying dry isn’t really an option, like it might have once been when there was a forest here full of thick, lush trees.
Mirabella climbs up onto a rock, looking around herself. It’s so hard to get her bearings out here. Everything looks so different now. There used to be a big pond with clean-water and berries not far from here. But that was when she could fly. It might take a lot longer on foot. But if she gets there, she can maybe eat something?
There used to be berries there. There were tall trees. She could find shelter there. When the miners came, others were outside, having gone to the pond. …Maybe they’re still there?
A hopeful light shines in her eyes. The thought of seeing others of her kind brings a lightening of her spirits.
Mirabella jumps off of the rock, mud splashing around her feet as she starts running in excitement towards where she recalls the pond being. Suddenly, her body, oddly enough, moves in a different direction from where she was going. It hurts.
Something rams her from the side.
(CANOPY-BEETLE) has charged (MIRABELLE) for {03} DMG ! HP: {05/08}
Mirabelle flies across the muddy ground, tumbling over herself several times from the force of the impact. Her hands sink down as she presses herself up, mud dripping down her face, her fingers clawing into the dirt as she gazes at the large beetle, at the insect that has charged at her, striking out of the tall grass.
The giant, twice her height and five times her width, clicks with its mandibles, its carapace shimmering in the rain as it spreads its six legs out wide in the mud to gain traction, getting ready for another charge her way.
Canopy beetles aren’t really a problem for fairies, usually. Sometimes they get annoying if you want to pick up something from the ground like an acorn or a fallen nut. But they’re stuck with just their six legs, so they aren’t really a problem for her kind. Usually, you’d just fly away.
…Usually.
It charges at her again. Mirabelle dives to the side, feeling one of its chitinous legs brush her thigh, as she just barely manages to avoid it. The wingless fairy slides through the mud, spinning around and lifting a hand. Magic condenses around her fingers.
(MIRABELLE) has started channeling: [Fairy’s Chime] (Time: 3 Seconds) SOUL: 53/62
The beetle turns her way, spreading its legs wide as it gets ready for another charge. The rock she had just jumped down is behind herself now again. The beetle lowers itself down. The glow around her hand grows tighter, pressing together into a condensed point around the tip of her finger.
The beetle charges towards her, its head held low and forward.
A piercing stream of black ink shoots out of her hand. The beetle stops.
(MIRABELLE) has blasted (CANOPY-BEETLE) for {09} DMG with her [Fairy’s Chime] ! (CANOPY-BEETLE) HP: {00/04} (MIRABELLE) has killed (CANOPY-BEETLE) !
[THE BATTLE IS OVER]! You got {03/10} EXPERIENCE POINTS!
Mirabelle sits there, panting, her heart thrashing wildly in her chest as her back rests against the cold rock. The fairy stares at the large insect, at the black stain running along the ground. It leads straight from her arm, all the way to its body as the rest of the spell falls out of the air and drips down to the ground, like water from a hose that is losing pressure.
The beetle falls over. Its legs twitch and spasm for a while and then, it is still.
She’s never really killed anything before. It attacked her though. It’s okay, right? She didn’t even think about doing it when it was happening. That’s normal, right?
Mirabelle stares at it for a moment and then gets up, placing a hand on its forehead as she rubs its sleek carapace, feeling its surface beneath the palm of her dirty hand. She places her forehead against its. Dark, sticky goo binds them together.
Letting out another ugly sound, she lifts her hand and uses her spell again a second time, to blast off a chunk of its hard, armored side so that she can eat the raw meat of its belly.
(MIRABELLE) has started channeling: [Fairy’s Chime] (Time: 3 Seconds) SOUL: 44/62
(MIRABELLE) got {Raw}(Normal)[Canopy-Beetle Meat] !
- {Raw} (Normal Quality) [Canopy-Beetle Meat] -
A chunk of raw, white meat from a canopy-beetle. It’s dense in protein, and given the beetle’s environment and diet, carries only a low chance of contamination.
IF CONSUMED: +15 STAMINA
{Raw}: 5% chance of applying a negative STATUS-EFFECT
Weight: 3.0g Value: 000 Obols
It’s disgusting.
She cries as she eats the raw meat, which is oddly stiff and dry. But it’s still warm. She pushes her hands into its carcass and then shoves her face into it, tearing out another bite that mixes in together with her own snot and tears. It’s already dead. It attacked her. If she didn’t eat it, it would be a waste. It would be something they would do.
(MIRABELLE) has consumed: {Raw}(Normal)[Canopy-Beetle Meat] ! (MIRABELLE) +15 STAMINA
Something wet touches her feet. Something with a different consistency than the rain and the mud. Something warm.
She looks down at it and at the goo.
Mirabella lifts her foot, strands of black tar binding her to the soggy ground. The carcass of the beetle sinks into itself, deflating almost a little as its insides begin to completely liquefy, melting as if affected by a spider’s venom. They spill out of its hollowing carapace, staining the world around them both.
Mirabelle looks at the flesh in her hands, still connected to the body. It melts, leaking through her fingers.
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The rain has stopped.
Mirabelle walks over the grass-land, on her way to where she recalls the pond being, pondering as she goes. She doesn’t really know what to make of this continuation of her life.
The cruel fairy stops, staring down at her reflection in a puddle.
She was alive. Then she died. But then she un-died and was returned to the world with… this. This… stain, this odd power, this feeling — there’s something wrong with her. She’s clearly vulnerable and weak. She could perhaps die again if she isn’t careful.
What would happen then?
The rays of the bright sun shine down over the world, bathing her body in their warmth.
Mirabelle climbs up onto another rock and sits down on top of it, leaning back against the body of the sun-kissed stone as she feels its kind warmth enter herself. The glow of the sun pushes down over the world and pushes down through the frond of grass that she covers herself with, as it sets her alight with a feeling that she, having been lost in confusion and melancholy, had almost forgotten again.
It’s the same feeling that the worm had generously given her.
Mirabelle wiggles, feeling the warmth flow through herself. It’s a good feeling. It brings her… peace.
She closes her eyes and exhales, feeling the weight, the tension leave her body, leave her shoulders.
- Something cracks.
Her eyes shoot open, and she jumps up to her feet, her chest heaving, her heart thrashing, and her adrenaline spiking as she looks around the area from her vantage point. A cool dew, or sweat, begins to pearl on her skin.
But there is nothing there to see.
There was never a sound to begin with. It was just a memory. Whether it was a recent memory or a distant one, it is impossible for her to say.
Shaking her head, Mirabelle jumps off of the rock and keeps walking.
The sun can follow her, if it wants to. But she doesn’t want to just sit here anymore. It’s too warm.
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Another beetle found her. This time, she avoided the initial charge and blasted it right away.
[THE BATTLE IS OVER] ! You got {06/10} EXPERIENCE POINTS!
Mirabelle stares at the freshly twitching carcass.
She doesn’t like hurting or killing things — things that are innocent. But this is still a matter of survival. It attacked her too, so it came down to eat or be eaten. It’s not like she can fly away. She has nothing against the beetles; in fact, she’s grateful for the nourishment they bring her, as gross as it is.
She’s just sad that they have to die for it to happen.
Quickly, before the odd, corrupting effect of her new magic can rot away the meat, she tears off a big chunk of it from its flank and wraps it in a blade of grass, carrying it away in a small bundle.
Before she goes, she holds her hand against the dead creature’s forehead in a moment of solidarity, before she continues on with her trek, doing her best not to listen to the sound of something horrifically melting behind her.