Clover willow's Arc

Chapter 7 of 20

Morning came, and the fox-house held its warmth. Clover watched the guardian move through the grove, healing a wren's wing, mending a rabbit's cut paw. He gave and gave. She had only ever taken. His hands had fixed her fear, her doubt, her cold nights. She wanted to give him one thing that was hers. But she knew no magic. She had no wings, no glow, no gift to match his own. She walked the grove looking for something to give. A snow leopard man crouched by the stream, his white fur touched with blue, washing a wound on his own arm. This was Frost Whitepaw. He hunted the far edges of the grove and rarely spoke. He glanced up with sharp green eyes. "You want to give the guardian something," Frost said. Not a question. "Everyone tries. They bring flowers. He has flowers." He tied a strip of cloth over his cut with his teeth. "Bring him something he can't heal into being." Clover frowned. "I don't understand." "He fixes broken things," Frost said. "He can't make a broken thing choose to trust him." He stood and walked off into the ferns. Clover sat by the stream and thought. Then she heard a small sound. A tiny creature huddled under a root, lavender-gray fur speckled like stars, ears too big for its round body. Its leg was fine. Nothing was hurt. It only shook, alone and afraid. The guardian could heal a wound. He could not heal loneliness. Clover held out her hand. The creature shrank back. She waited. She did not grab. She sat still until it crept closer and sniffed her fingers. It took an hour. She let it take the hour. At last it climbed into her palm and stopped shaking. She carried it to the guardian's tree. He turned, expecting a hurt animal. "Its leg?" he asked. "Nothing's broken," Clover said. "It was only scared. So I stayed with it until it wasn't." She held the small glowing thing out to him. "I can't heal like you. But I can do this. And I wanted to give you something that came from me." The guardian went still. He looked at the creature, then at her. He did not take it. "You gave it what I can't," he said quietly. "Patience. Time. That's a thing I never learned." He closed her fingers gently around the creature, leaving it in her hands. "Keep it. You're the one it trusts." Something shifted between them. She had given him proof that she brought her own gift to the grove. Then a huge winged shape landed at the tree line. A white buck, six wings, glowing antlers. The guardian's face tightened. "He only comes when something below the grove has gone wrong," he said. "Your empty cottage. Someone has come asking for you."