“Well, we have all the time in the world,” he said standing up. “I would hate to think that you wasted it.”
He frowned, staring into the flames. His fingers rubbed a spot in the dirt and he pressed his lips together, thinking for a moment. "Did you ever read that story 'The Shoemaker and the Elves'?"
“It was about this poor cobbler,” he said, sitting down again. “He only had enough leather to make one more pair of shoes. The night that the story takes place, he laid out the pieces before going to bed, getting ready to create the shoes in the next morning.” Jude frowned as he spoke, looking down at his hands. “When he wakes up the next morning, he sees a beautiful pair of shoes in place with the leather he left behind. They were expertly crafted, with detail so small, he didn’t understand how anybody could’ve made them. The Shoemaker sells them for a gold coin and he and his wife are able to have dinner that night. He is also able to buy leather for two more shoes, and he repeats the process, laying out the leather the night before.“ He looked over at her, folding his hands. “This process happens for weeks, and finally, the Shoemaker is determined to figure out who is leaving behind these beautiful shoes. He has grown quite rich in this time, becoming well known throughout the village. One night, he and his wife stay up, no longer so exhausted that sleep was a commodity they could not afford to let go of. As they watch, three elves scurried up to the workbench and begin to create these shoes, their tiny fingers making intricate stitches along the leather.” He glanced at her. “This was back when elves were thought to be tiny, not normal sized.”
He laughed slightly, shaking his head. “The shoemaker notices that the elves have no shoes of their own, so he and his wife make them each a pair. When they find the tiny shoes the next night, they cheer and dance and sing, and then never come back again. My point is that although the size of the elves was greatly misreported, the tenacity and intricacy possessed by those elves was not. Part of our survival as a species is built on this. Elves are great to enslave for that reason; we can handle details better than any other race.”
She looked thoughtful. "From a young age I had been guiding those who didn't know what they were doing. Being a caretaker was a section I was born into."
"The standard story," Jude said with a nod. "It's weird, right? Everyone there will never know their parents."
