~ Gisopi Minari’s, The Cobbler’s Art, Chapter Six - Boot Anatomy - The Upper
The portion of a boot known as the "upper" wraps around the wearer's foot and ankle. It is often constructed out of leather or other flexible materials, and it may be purchased in a number of different designs, including ankle boots, knee-high boots, and thigh-high boots. The upper may also contain extra elements, such as a zippered closure, laces, or ornamental decorations. Another possibility is that the shoe will have decorative embellishments.
An important number of the boot's vital duties are performed by the upper. It helps to maintain the foot in a stable position inside the boot, offers the foot support and protection, and contributes to the overall design and attractiveness of the boot. Depending on the activities that will be performed while wearing the boots, the upper may also be constructed to be either waterproof or breathable.
----------------------------------------
Mirabelle stares at the ducks, wondering about what would happen if she floated around on the water. Would people throw bread to her?
The fairy frowns, envying them. It looks like a good way to live, but she has her doubts that anyone will give her anything. The ducks are fat and beautiful, with shiny, glossy feathers and strong, proud necks.
*Quack*
Mirabelle lets out a melancholic exhalation, listening to its majestic cry. She’s just a scrawny thing with dirty hair, covered in old rags. How could she hope to compare to something as great as a duck? Not only are they creatures of grace and beauty, which are five times her size, but they’ve got numbers on their side as well. She isn’t just a little fairy, but she’s also all by herself.
*Quack*
The hunting ground that is the pond belongs to the ducks. It’s a good place to live, but she doesn’t think that she’ll find much food here. At least not without getting into a fight with them.
Yesterday, by the fruit vendor, there was a bunch of old produce that he had thrown away. Most of it was kind of… off and it was laying on the ground in an old box. But it might be better than starving.
- Her stomach growls.
Then again, there are hundreds of merchants and hundreds of people selling food. That means there are that many boxes, behind that many vendors, full of old things that have gone bad. Those bad things that are being disposed of are ‘okay’ for her to take, right?
But the alleys belong to the cats. Mirabelle narrows her eyes, staring around from her branch. She hates them.
It’s an option, but a dangerous one. She doesn’t want to eat rotting food, and she doesn’t want to get eaten by a cat. But maybe she’ll try that if she can’t think of anything better today.
Shaking her head, the cruel fairy, Mirabelle, lifts off into the air and flies out into the city. She’ll watch the people some more, she’ll learn their ways of finding food in this confusing place.
“Quack…” says Mirabelle under her breath, as she flies out of the park.
----------------------------------------
The city is as full of life as it was yesterday. People are running around every which way, and the glints in their eyes are as vivid and bright as the rays of the summer sun, which float down towards the world and toward her back.
Mirabelle hangs upside-down outside of the seamstress’ window again, watching the old woman partake in her craft. She’s still sewing the same dress as yesterday, but it seems to be about ready now. It looks like she had worked well through the night.
The seamstress looks it over, nodding to herself in satisfaction as she lowers the bundle down onto her lap, gently folding it together, and setting it to the side.
So… she makes dresses and clothes and gets her food that way. Mirabelle nods. That makes sense. She says a quiet thanks to the old woman beneath her breath. She’s okay, as far as human-people are concerned.
The fairy flies off, and then she hovers above the baker, the man she had stolen from. But he seems unharmed and fine and goes about his business as if nothing had ever happened.
He makes breads and cakes for people. Perhaps also for himself? That’s how he gets his food.
Mirabelle flies off, starting to notice a connection.
The fairy hovers around a corner, staring at a man with arms as wide as some trees that she has seen when the forest was still here. He’s hammering against a piece of metal which is held down against an anvil; a blade for a weapon. She recalls him being asked to fix someone’s armor the other day too. So that’s how he gets his food.
The cruel fairy Mirabelle flies around the city, watching everyone and looking at everything that she sees. Every person that she sees has to earn their food somehow, and so they all do different things.
And now she understands. She needs a thing.
She needs something that she can make. Human-people society isn’t entirely unlike her own. Contribution. Contribution to the other is unavoidable, even if the act is done for the ends of receiving, one must contribute to the greater work of the conjoined life of the city in some fashion.
That is how you eat.
But what…? What can someone like her contribute? She doesn’t have the regal beauty of the ducks, the dexterous skills of the seamstress, the diligence of the baker, or the strength and size of the smith. She’s just…herself, and what good is that? Besides. There are already hundreds of people here doing hundreds of things, and they are all likely far more talented and experienced.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Mirabelle lands on the roof of a small house, staring down at what looks to be the main street here in this city. It’s full of life, laughter, and mercantilism. On every corner there are butchers and bakers, and there, down to the left, is even a candle-stick maker. Mirabelle gasps, leaning in off of the roof, as she stares at the thing on their table — it’s a candle that looks like a duck. She wants it.
The fairy’s stomach growls, and she shakes her head, getting her focus back on track. Think. Think…
The cruel fairy’s eyes scan the street, looking at everything and everyone. What can she make? What can she offer? Food is abundant. People are offering food already, too many people even. Weapons? No, she doesn’t want to make weapons. The human-people need little extra motivation to become horrible things. These ones here, in this city, might be okay for now, but who knows what would happen if their city became flooded with more weapons? Like lycanthropes, they might turn in the blink of an eye.
Clothes?
No… After having her dress called ‘ugly’ by the universe, she doesn’t really feel motivated to do that again. Mirabelle looks down at her dress. “It’s not that bad…” she mumbles.
The fairy flies down to a familiar window, staring inside the glass into the home of an old man, whom she had seen on her first night here. The one who was sitting on his chair next to a lonely memento of a person who has now gone to the sleeping-place.
How does he earn his food?
She doesn’t see him, his chair is as empty as the other one. But a light shines from the back room, through another door. Mirabelle flies up over the roof, flying to the back window that isn’t visible from the street because of the small, fenced-in garden that is here.
The fairy presses her face against the glass of the window.
- Something cracks.
Mirabelle ducks, pressing herself back under the rim of the overhanging ceiling as her paranoid eyes scan the area, seeing nothing.
The sound comes again, from inside the room.
Carefully, slowly, she lowers herself down again, staring through the dusty, old glass of the house, staring at the old man who sits on a stool in front of a full table against the wall. A shoe is held between his legs with the unfinished sole facing up towards himself, and he’s hammering against its edge, striking something into place.
With fascination, she observes him at work. Occasionally, her eyes will dart around the workshop, glancing at the many different things that lie scattered all around the room. The space itself is… messy. But it’s messy in a fairy way. There are things laying around everywhere, hanging from the warm wooden walls, reflecting the soft light of the man’s lantern as he works. But all of these things seem to be where they are meant to be. There are many things, many tools, and many objects, but they all seem to belong to the spaces they find themselves in. A human-person might call it a mess, but she sees it for what it is; it is organized in its own way.
She hangs there for minutes, her wings buzzing in occasional excitement as she stares at the man, the sad man, who yet somehow seems to be aglow.
It isn’t the light of the sun, creeping in through the window behind herself. It isn’t the light of the lantern set atop the man’s desk, reflecting its shine off of the undusted, small portrait set into the corner of the work area, facing his way. No…
The man sets his hammer down and lifts up the single boot that he’s been working on. He lifts it up into the air, toward his face, inspecting it closely.
Mirabelle gasps, seeing now that the source of the odd color of his skin that she sees is coming from his face, from his eyes. The man himself is aglow.
Her wings buzz in excitement again, accidentally tapping against the wall.
The man turns his head her way, and she yelps, quietly ducking back up towards the ceiling, feeling her heart start to beat in her chest. Mirabelle flies off, vanishing onto the roof.
----------------------------------------
She took some old fruit from the garbage.
Mirabelle sits in her tree, cutting away the bad parts of the berry-fruit with her piece of glass and throwing it outside. She got a couple of them, taking a few trips. But by the time she’s done salvaging the good pieces, there are significantly fewer pieces remaining than when she arrived.
And honestly, the ‘good’ pieces don’t taste that great either.
The fairy closes her eyes, biting into the oddly sour berry flesh a second time.
These berries aren’t supposed to be sour; they’re supposed to be sweet. But she doesn’t want to steal again. She already owes a debt to the baker-man. So she’s going to have to get by like this until she can provide for herself.
- {Expired} (Normal Quality) [Berry-Fruit] -
A piece of flesh from a pink, hard-shelled Berry-Fruit. It is past its point of ripeness and has started to go bad. IF CONSUMED: +15 STAMINA
{Expired}: 15% chance of [Nausea]
Weight: 1.6g Value: 000 Obols
Status Applied: [Nausea]{Food poisoning} -20% STAMINA All STATS -1 for 24H
She covers her mouth.
----------------------------------------
It is the next day.
Mirabelle is outside of the shoemaker’s window again, but she can’t hang upside down today because the berries made her sick. She had managed to keep it all down for fear of offending the ducks if she had vomited in their pond. But it’s taking its toll on her body, and she is unwell today.
On the plus side, she harvested some old scraps of colorful fabric from the seamstress’ trash. This is a much nicer fabric than burlap. It was really only a few slivers, so it isn’t enough for a new dress to replace her own. But the soft material makes for a nice wrap that she has covered her shoulders and neck with, after tying them together into one, singular piece.
She is small, so even in summer, she gets cold very easily, especially when she’s hungry and especially when she’s sick. Her body heats itself up very rapidly too, so she has to eat a lot. Being a starving fairy in a human-people city is a bad place to be in life.
Pulling the thin wrap up around her neck a little more, Mirabelle sits down on the ledge of the back windowsill and watches the shoemaker at work. Today, he has the boot in his lap again, but he seems to be using a small tool with a blade shaped like a ‘U’ to carve a channel along the soles of the boot.
Mirabelle turns her head, watching him closely. She looks down at her own feet. They’re bare and dirty and a little cold, despite the rays of the sun reaching them. She pulls her legs in and sits criss-cross, staring back into the window as she tries to learn the shoe-man’s secrets.
Boots…
Every human-person has to eat, has to drink, and has to sustain themselves through some form of occupation. There are many things that all of them have in common, be they humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, or whatever. They wear clothes, and they tend to stay in groups, apart from a few individuals who seem to prefer to be alone or those who have simply been made so by happenstance. She has the most sympathy for these particular sorts; they are like herself. But one thing that every human-person has in common, no matter if they’re a seamstress or a guard or a baker or a mother or a father or a brother of the candlestick maker’s sister, is that they all, without fail, wear shoes, at least outside.
There are some differences. Some wear sleek shoes, light, ornate. Others wear tall, stiff boots that look like they keep their owners dry, warm, and safe. Others wear pretty, decorative things that accentuate their own looks, as if the shoes themselves were tools of beauty rather than just simple clothes. Some people wear fabric shoes with wooden soles, and others wear fully leather constructs. Some people have armored boots on, strapped or made entirely out of leather, metal, and chains. Some people just wear simple sandal constructions of a few strings and a sole.
But all of them, all of them wear something. Boots, shoes… Mirabelle thinks.
A boot is what killed her. A boot is what stole her old life. She wonders if that’s what could explain this odd… excited, morbid curiosity of hers as she watches the shoemaker work. Human-people had stolen her old life, but here she is amongst them now only ‘days’ later, though it is perhaps much longer than that. She thinks that since her death, years must have passed in the time while she slept in the sleeping-place.
The fairy runs a hand over her heart, noticing that it still hurts. It still hurts like it did back then. Despite the warmth of the sun, despite the heat of her body trapped beneath the soft fabric around her neck, despite the kind glow of the shoemaker’s face as she watches him get lost in his profession, she feels something cold inside of herself and notices that… that it hurts.
- If she can learn to stay among the human-people, she can learn to forgive the boots. Like the human-people here, it isn’t their fault what others have done with them.
Mirabelle turns her gaze back to the window, ignoring the growling of her stomach as she watches the shoemaker in continued fascination.
GROWTH
[+1 WIS] [+1 INT]