Creature of Compassion
Gravelboot stands twelve inches tall, dressed in a mossy green waistcoat, burgundy trousers, and a mustard linen shirt with the sleeves rolled and buttoned. His face is lined but not old. His boots are heavy, and after witnessing suffering, he often stops to shake one out, grimacing. This is where he gets his name.
He doesn’t speak. But many claim he has appeared to them at just the right moment—seated on a verge, hunched in a doorway, trudging a muddy track. He comes to those in pain, or to those who might ease it. Some say he led them, without a word, to the very person who could help. Others followed him unknowingly and found someone in need. He has nothing to offer but presence—and presence is often the thing.
Gravelboot sits beside closed doors when someone is hurting within. He stands quietly where cruelty repeats. If no one else sees it, Gravelboot will.
Children are chided if they say they’ve seen him but didn’t answer the call. “May Gravelboot fin’ ’em,” people still say, when they don’t know how else to reach someone they love. Some feel they owe him their lives. Many friendships have formed through shared concern—or through the quiet pairing of healer and hurt.
Sometimes, he will place a stone in your shoe. A joke, maybe—but also a nudge. A reminder that you could be kinder.
He is especially fond of children—not for their innocence, but because they reflect compassion without effort. He sometimes joins in their games; hopscotch, marbles, hide and seek. Climbing a sunflower instead of their tree. Now and then, he teaches one of his own: small games with odd rules and soft magic. Then he vanishes. He doesn’t explain. He’s investing, after all—in their growing sense of compassion.