Ember Woods knelt in the empty village square and pushed her fingers into the bare soil. It was good dirt, dark and soft, the kind that once fed every family here. Now the houses stood silent and the fields grew nothing. She wanted to bring the village back to life, one plant at a time. But she had no seeds. She had searched the tree line, the old storehouses, the cracked pots behind ruined walls. She found nothing that would grow. She sat back and looked at her hands, empty and stained with dirt. Gathering was her whole skill. She could find mushrooms in shadow and berries in bramble. Yet a garden needed a start, and she had none. A cart wheel creaked behind her. She turned. A small man rolled a painted wagon over the broken road, humming as he came. He wore a purple coat sewn with gold swirls, and a peacock feather bobbed from his tall hat. His white beard reached his belt. He stopped the wagon and swept off his hat. "A digger in the dirt with nothing to sow," he sang. "What a sad little garden with nowhere to grow!" Ember stood and brushed off her knees. Strangers rarely came this far. "Who are you?" "Finnigan, friend, with wares to trade. Rare seeds and roots, the finest made." He patted a wooden chest bolted to the wagon. He lifted the lid. Inside sat small pouches, each tied with string and labeled in careful ink. Ember's heart jumped. She reached toward the chest, then stopped. "I have no coin." Finnigan wagged a finger and grinned. "No coin, no matter, that's plain to see. But talent, dear digger, means plenty to me." He pointed to the forest edge. "I need what grows wild where I cannot roam. A gatherer's hands can fetch what I'm owed." He wanted her skill. He named the things he sought: mushrooms, wild garlic, and berries thick with juice. Ember knew a bramble heavy with dark fruit near the water. She had passed it that morning. "Fill my basket," he said, dropping the rhyme for a moment, "and the seeds are yours." She took his empty basket and ran to the bramble. Thorns caught her sleeves as she picked the ripe berries fast, filling the basket to the brim. She carried it back with purple hands. Finnigan peered inside and clapped. "A bargain well kept! A trade well done!" He pressed three pouches into her palms. She opened one. Tiny seeds spilled across her skin, more than she had hoped for. The wagon rolled away, his song fading down the road. Ember knelt again at the bare soil, seeds cupped in both hands. She could plant now. But the ground was hard-packed and wide, far more than her fingers could ever break alone. She pressed a single seed into the dirt and stared at the vast, unbroken field before her.

Ember worked the field until her palms cracked. She had broken one small square of dirt by dusk. The rest lay hard and wide, stretching past the empty houses. Three pouches of seeds sat by her knee. She knew the truth now. The seeds would spoil before she cleared enough ground alone. She needed hands stronger than her own, and she had none. She walked back toward the forest to think. Her home waited under the trees, a snug shelter wrapped in bark and moss. Near the door, a white fox with black-tipped ears watched her. It had followed her for days, taking scraps, keeping close. Ember tossed it a berry. "You can't dig either," she said. The fox trotted off between the pines, then stopped and looked back. She followed it. The fox led her along a stream to a field she had never seen. Rows of turned earth ran straight and clean. A man knelt among them, pressing soil around young plants. He wore an open vest and worn boots caked with dirt. He heard her step and looked up, then smiled like he had been expecting her. "Lost, or just admiring the view?" he said. "Rallo Moore. I farm this stretch." His eyes moved over her stained hands and tired face. "You've been fighting dirt. And losing." "The village fields," Ember said. "I have seeds. Good ones. But the ground is packed hard, and it's too much for me." She hated asking. The words came out flat. "I can't do it alone." Rallo stood and brushed his knees. He studied her a long moment. "Those old fields haven't been worked in years," he said. "You'd need a plow. A strong back. Someone who knows the soil." He tilted his head. "Lucky for you, I'm all three." "I have no coin," Ember said. "Didn't ask for coin." He grinned. "I asked for nothing yet. But I'll want something." He nodded at the pouches in her hand. "Half of what your garden grows. And your company while we break that ground." Ember frowned. "Half is steep." "Then a third," he said, quick and easy. "And the pleasure of your frown while I work." He held out a rough, dirt-lined hand. She weighed it. A third of a garden was better than a field of spoiled seed. She gripped his hand and shook it once. "A third. And you start tomorrow." "Sunup," Rallo said. He held her hand a beat too long. She pulled it back. The next morning he came with a plow and a tall brown cow. The blade bit into the hard earth and turned it dark and loose. Ember followed behind, pressing seeds into each open row. By noon they had broken more ground than she could in a week. The field was no longer too vast. But Rallo laughed too easily at her, and she caught herself watching him too often, and that was a new trouble she had not planned for.