Evening. Your plot is a dark rectangle of hope.

The Pale One passes the edge as if it had been practicing all its life, which it has. White coat, one antler, no vine now, or a new wisp—doesn’t matter. It does not fear you. It steps through the mill-string without snagging the century you just planted.

In the morning there are droppings among the acorns.

Thorn thinks that is funny, in the elf way: a breath out, eyes kind. “Nutrients,” Thorn says. “The hart feeds the plot that will feed the wood that will feed the hart. A circle even a miller can like. Do not make a relic of the droppings. Make soil.”

You laugh, because you are tired and because the joke is science wearing muddy boots.

Mira fetches water for the ditch. Cole, seeing you both filthy and unpaid in silver, still brings bread, which is a vote.

Mutualism starts tiny. Threads will find the roots if the shade holds. You put your palm on the dirt and imagine the under-song learning a new verse that includes a village kid.

THE END

What you learned: mutualism is a trade—trees, fungi, even the nutrients an animal leaves behind. Restoration begins as a small plot, not a speech. When a wild hart does not fear you, you have finally behaved like part of the picture.