One Craft

Days passed in a silence that was not empty, but full.

Jorun did not work, not in the way he had for a century.

He listened.

He brought the small, shaped piece of wood to Kesh not with the pride of a master, but with the quiet hope of a student.

It was not perfect. A line wavered, a curve was not as true as his hands could have made it.

But it was alive.

Kesh took it, her calloused fingers tracing the grain.

She did not speak, but her eyes, when they met his, were full of a shared understanding.

Together, they walked to the boundary stone at the edge of the workshop.

They set it beside Kesh’s own work, a silent testament that the two crafts had become one.