Before they started eating Vesta had found a recently fallen tree, so recent it still had green leaves trying vainly to pump life into it just as Aica clung to the hope of resurrecting his kingdom.  It wasn't impossible; in their times in the forest she'd seen a fallen tree that had not one, but four descendants growing from if, branches that had refused to succumb to their fate and had rewritten their destiny.  It was possible, but very unlikely.  From it, using the small knife, Vesta stripped a piece of bark, a little larger than her hand and with a deep curve to it so that it made something of a plate, something of a bowl.<br/><br/>The simple platter wasn't for her, for Aica, but for their benefactress, the beautiful, exquisitely tiny dryad who had saved them, or at least given them more days.  Two raspberries, a dollop of the stew, even one of the leg bones of the rabbit, cracked between her fingers and placed on either side, forming a V.  Sitting beside her, she shared the rest of the meal with Aica, leaving the bulk of it for him but taking more than she would have in the previous weeks.  When she was done, Vesta took the scraped empty by their fingers helmet<i>cum</i>bowl and the tuny platter of food with her back to the stream.  On the highest branch she could reach, in the deep hollow, Vesta placed the platter of food.  "Thank you," she said and kissed her fingers then touched the offering with them.  "If - when," she amended, "he reclaims his lands and throne the boon will be repaid.  I promise."  There was no question that the sprite would hear it, legend said she heard everything, every whisper, every fallen leaf in her forest.<br/><br/>Later, in the comfort of his arms, the only comfort left to her, Aica's compliment made Vesta's heart swell with love for him.  A love that was deep but troubled and ever in danger of being stretched so thin it might as well break entirely for the scant amount of it left.  Tonight, in his arms, her belly full of food and baby, Vesta's love for her tormented husband was as deep as the forest was vast.<br/><br/>"A dryad," Vesta answered, using her lore to make sense of the sprite.  "tree nymphs. There were," she shifted a little on his chest, turning her head up to speak into his chin, "different sorts of them.  When Pater Zeus was but an infant the Meliai, the dryads of the ash trees, nurtured him.  They were around before the gods so their magic is ancient and deep, rooted in nature.  I've never seen one and I've always thought they were more myth and fantasy, perhaps stories rooted in women who had access to magic."  Vesta's hand moved across Aica's chest and he could feel it tugging at the collar on her neck, the collar that had cut her off from her magic.<br/><br/>"She's not going to hurt us."  Vesta's conviction was evident in her words.  "She's our savior, Aica.  We should honor her and her tree.  Her forest.  It may be your land, husband, but it's her home."