Work Text:
Somebody must’ve caught sight of her, because once again Alinua found a basket of offerings left by the people from the nearby town.
It must’ve been several years by now, but Alinua still felt mild embarrassment at the idea of being gifted such nice things by people who usually thought she was some manner of nature spirit. This time, though, her embarrassment was dashed faster than usual, the second she found the bundle of fabric folded at the bottom of the basket.
It was a cloak, soft and thick, generously sized so it still touched the ground even when Alinua stood on her tippy-toes, and the hood more than covered her thick hair and long ears. Alinua couldn’t stop smiling as she put it on, jumping in place in delight. It was perfect!
She’d lost the blanket she’d been using as a covering against the cold a while ago, and she was almost certain that Long Spring was close to its end. The nights were getting colder and colder and it got harder to sleep with just her dress that was worn thin and basically in tatters at this point. This cloak was going to make her life so, so much better!
Still glowing from gratitude at the gift, Alinua examined the rest of the basket’s contents. A loaf of bread was the most obvious one, and it still held some heat from the oven it was baked from. Alinua took a bite, and her eyes nearly welled with tears at the taste. It was probably the most delicious thing she’d had in so long; not that it was a particularly high bar, though she’d learned to create some truly impressive combinations of what she could forage and grow. She had to stop herself from scarfing down the whole thing too quickly, and made sure she could actually enjoy every bite.
The next thing she saw was a sturdy wooden comb, its shaft carved with the beautiful imagery of large-petaled flowers and delicate-looking leaves, connected by sprawling vines that looked almost like they were from the base of the comb instead of just carved into it. It was so intricately detailed... gods, how long did it take to create such a thing? Alinua almost felt bad, like she was depriving her benefactors of such a precious item... but admittedly, her hair was a nightmare of tangles at this point. Combing it would be a pain, but she’d certainly feel better once her curls were free again.
Made from what looked like the same wood as the comb and with a similar floral pattern carved into its lid, was a small box about the size of Alinua’s hand. She opened it to reveal four things: a spool of thread, a tiny pair of scissors, and two sewing needles, one smaller and one larger than the other.
Alinua blinked in surprise. She’d never before gotten a sewing kit with any of the offerings left for her. She hadn’t sewn in... a long time. She supposed she could try, right? Gods knew her sorry excuse for clothing could use it.
Alinua tucked the offerings into her bag (a gift from the last place she’d stayed), still wearing the cloak, and left the basket for whoever put it there in the first place. She gently set a flower in the center of the basket before standing up to leave. She’d gotten into the habit of leaving something, usually whatever kind of flower she had the seeds for, as what she hoped would be understood as a sign of appreciation. And she really, really appreciated it.
As Alinua made her way back to the tree she’d shaped into her current shelter, she couldn’t get her mind off of the relative strangeness of the gifts.
Baked goods like bread were probably the most common of the things she was given. Once, she’d received a bun full of the most delicious raspberry filling she’d never known was possible, not once but thrice in her time spent in the area.
The comb and the cloak were less common, but she’d still received clothing a couple of times before. The once-beautiful sundress she wore now was a gift that had spared her from naked shivering for the past several seasons. The comb was certainly practical, but decorative enough to be understood as a gift.
The sewing kit though... that one perplexed her quite a bit. It was certainly a welcome addition to her small inventory, but not something she could wrap her mind around as an offering to a nature spirit.
Alinua stopped walking as an idea surfaced. The offerings always came at some point after somebody caught a glimpse of her. She’d gotten good at keeping hidden, but with her habit of staying relatively close to settlements came a higher risk of being spotted.
Alinua looked back down at her thin, tattered dress. Had someone come close enough to see her in such a sorry state? And been kind enough to leave her something that could maybe be of use, even if they’d have no idea how helpful it would actually be?
More than once she’d been found in the woods by people who saw her close up, and tried to convince her to come with them, seeing a young homeless girl in need of help. Every other time she’d been spotted, it was brief enough to be connected with the newly flourishing life and assumed she was some kind of nature spirit. She’d gotten good at hiding well enough to stay out of sight enough for people not to follow her.
So if whoever left her these gifts knew she was in need of something practical like this, why leave it in the same way offerings usually were?
Alinua sighed deeply and shook her head, and continued walking. She didn’t know of any way to get answers without endangering anyone else by coming too close. For now, she was just grateful for the kindness.
Alinua reached the tree where she was staying in at the time, and gently placed the sewing kit down on the ground next to where she’d found was the most comfortable patch of ground to sleep on. In the relative safety of her tree, Alinua took off her dress, grateful for the new cloak that protected most of her skin from the bite of crisp air. Then she took out of her bag a shirt that had gotten caught on a patch of thorns and torn apart so badly it wasn’t much more than a pile of rags. Maybe she could use it to patch the holes in her dress.
Alinua took up a tear in the bottom hem, and spread the fabric out on the ground to minimize wrinkles. It wasn’t even close to the worst of the tears, but she figured it was a good starting point to try and get re-used to the practice of stitching it back together.
Alinua’s breath caught as she cast her mind to the memory of the first time she learned how to sew.
She remembered sitting on her mother’s lap, watching as her father mended a tear in her skirt from when she’d tripped and fell. Afterwards, she’d asked her parents to teach her how to do that. They were cautious about letting her handle the sewing needle, even if any pricks in her skin were immediately healed over before it had any chance to bleed. She remembered her joy at the first thing she’d sewn for herself, adding a leftover strip of cloth to one of her sleeves. It was messy and served no purpose, but she wore it with pride as the first thing she’d sewn for herself. Later, she could mend her own clothes when they fell victim to her childhood antics. It never got as neat and clean-looking as either of her parents made it look, but it still made her happy every time, especially when her parents told her she’d done such a good job and they were so proud of her.
Alinua took a shaky breath, pulling herself back into the present. She picked up the larger of the two needles in the kit, figuring it would be easier to start with since she hadn’t sewn in such a long time. After several attempts to thread the needle and knotting the end at what she thought was probably a decent length, Alinua took to the tear. Her hands were more dexterous than when she was ten, but unpracticed as she pinched the two sides of fabric together and tried to weave the thread past the fraying edges. She pricked her finger at least three times, each one met with a small glow of green, and the surface of her skin showed no sign of impalement. The thread got tangled halfway through, and Alinua cursed after several minutes of trying to un-tangle it revealed a knot that she couldn’t get rid of without cutting the thread and trying anew. In the end, she left the knot there, since that seemed like the way to waste as little of the resource as she could.
Alinua finally finished the makeshift seam, breathing a sigh of relief at having just barely enough thread left in the needle to make a knot at the end. The seam was somewhat haphazard and clearly made by someone inexperienced, but looking at it still made Alinua smile softly. It proved she could, in fact, still do it.
She decided to try one more mend before putting the sewing down to attempt combing her hair for the first time in ages. Alinua held up a piece of the old shirt to a gaping hole in the side of her dress, threaded the needle again, and began stitching.