Neeran Flint's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Neeran Flint had spent five years planting clover for a house too big for one person. She knelt at the edge of her field now, scattering seed for the sprig mice that trailed her boots like loyal dogs. She wanted the same thing she had wanted since she built her farmhouse alone: someone to stay. Then she heard the crack of splitting wood from the road. A cart sat tilted in the ruts, one wheel snapped clean off its axle. Beside it stood a half-orc woman in a green ranger's cloak, hauling at the broken wheel with both green hands. She had a quiver strapped across her back and mud to her knees. She swore at the wheel, then kicked it. Neeran crossed the field to her. "That won't fix it," she said. The ranger looked up, jaw tight. "I don't have time for this. I'm due in town by tomorrow morning. I've got supplies to buy for a job that won't wait." She dug through a satchel and came up with nothing useful. "And I've got no nails, no glue, no cotter pin. Nothing." Neeran studied the axle. The break was bad. "You’ll need a new axle and wheel," she admitted. "The local carpenter should have what you need." The ranger, Koryn, dropped onto the cart's edge and pressed her palms to her eyes. "Then I walk." Neeran looked at the road, empty in both directions. And at the quickly setting sun. The village carpenter was no more than an hour walk away but it was getting dark and with the dark came a biting cold. But she knew the woman who lived there. Elara mended everything from chairs to fences, and she owed Neeran no favors, only friendship. "You won't walk," Neeran said. "Come inside. The carpenter I know can bring the right tools tomorrow. My house has a fire and a spare bed." Koryn frowned. "I don't take charity from strangers." "It's not charity. You’ll get frostbite walking to the village and back. And the carpenter won’t come after dark." Neeran held out a hand. "One night. Tomorrow the wheel gets fixed." Koryn stared at the offered hand. A sprig mouse crept from Neeran's collar and sat on her shoulder, whiskers twitching. Despite herself, Koryn's mouth twitched too. She took the hand and stood. They hauled the cargo crates one by one into the farmhouse of light brown brick, its white roof bright against the gray sky. Koryn ducked under the low door and stopped. "You built this?" "Every brick," Neeran said. She set a crate down and caught the ranger watching her, not the walls. The cart still lay broken in the road. But it would hold until morning, and its owner sat now at Neeran's fire, unlacing her muddy boots. For the first time in a long while, the spare bed would not stay empty.