By their farm, a well-hidden place where the veil between Nanogh and their world had always been thin. The family, by tradition, not knowing who it was that aided them, at harvest season, always left out three jars of honey, and a large basket of freshly picked fruit. None have ever been stung by the hives, and when ill, despite being poor, none has ever been without medicine. -- The New Guy
The woods were sacred. Horrible things happened to anyone wandering into them with an axe. Any woodsmen attempting to ply their craft walk in... and are lucky to be found long after they perished. Yet, there was a little farm on the border. A little hut with just enough farmland to keep the little farm running.
Rin loved it, because it was home. Ze spent hir days caring for it, the creatures living on it, and the crops hir family grew. Ze spent hir nights being cared for by it. Eating the food that came from the land, being warmed by the fire from the wood ze gathered from the forest floor. Rin and hir family had done such since time immemorial. Including the little song or chant they recited while gathering wood.
"By thy leave, gather what we need... gift what we can, like ev'ry mortal man," Rin recited, collecting sticks into bundles. Tying them up with a simple cord. There was a basket hooked onto hir waist for forage. Another loop for any animals that found hir traps, not that those traps had anything in them this day. But there was a small bird in a large spider's web.
There was no need to think about it. Rin reached up and pulled the bird down. Cooing nonsense as he freed the spider silk from the bird. Ze didn't care if the bird drew blood. It was a small wound and easily mended.
The bird flew free and Rin walked on. The afternoon was for checking the hive. The honey harvest would be diligently halved, and half left by the largest tree Rin could see from hir house. The woods got half the house's bread and cheese, and half the fruit before Rin made preserves or cider. It was the way it had always been.
There was a strange being by hir fenceline when ze returned. A little too tall. Eyes a little too large. Clothes a little too clean and neat. A way of looking at hir that was a little too strange.
"I owe you a boon," said the stranger with a voice like birds in the trees. "You have done a kindness, and kindness must be paid in return."
Rin considered. "I have no need for power nor wealth. I am already happy where I am. But I am... lonely. For years, I have been all that's cared for my home. Would that I had company... perhaps to make a family to keep the farm in the way things have always been."
"I would be your company, if I may," said the stranger. "You may know me as...Taev."
"Then I would bid you welcome, Taev. You may share my fire and share my food, and we will get to know each other anon."
They went inside the house, and kept each other well. The farm still stands, and lives. The people there are a little too tall. Eyes a little too large. Clothes a little too pretty. And a way of looking at folks that is a little too strange.
It is the way they are. And the way they have always been.
[Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash]
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