It was the way she set her hands on his shoulders that got him – all care and gentleness, as though to say, it's alright, we'll look after you now, you're home. Six years old, and she was taking care of him.
"I did," he laughed through the sudden sting of tears, hurriedly blinked away unshed. "It's true, I did. You and Mum'll have to fatten me up again. Cookies are my favourite, I can't wait. Thank you, duck." He pressed a light kiss to Ella's forehead.
Then he lifted the box that he'd carried in from the car. "I made you summat, too," he said, with a conspiratorial grin. "I was gonna give it to Santa to deliver it, but I clean missed the sleigh. But that means just means I get to deliver it myself. Happy Christmas, Ella."
Will felt a tiny twinge of self-consciousness, passing it to her. He'd not even had the chance to wrap it, and the shoebox he'd been using to store each of the pieces as he finished them looked sort of shabby. Hopefully the contents would make up for it.
He had started with the intention of making Ella some knights to go along with her castle. He'd gotten good at whittling during the Sherwood days, a way of keeping his hands busy and his mind occupied on long, dull nights. He'd been a bit rusty, but after a few botched attempts the knack had started to come back to him.
But a funny thing had happened, partway through. He'd been chipping away at a sixth figurine when, seized by an impulse he couldn't quite place, he'd changed the angle of his knife. Maybe he was feeling wearied by old memories of wars and armies and soldiers treated as cannon fodder. Maybe he'd just been spending too long staring at Elaine's tapestry. He'd found that when he looked at it too hard, it left him with the most peculiar tingling sensation at the base of his skull, and he wasn't sure whether that was the magic or just his own fool mind playing tricks on him.
Whatever had moved his hand, as the sixth knight had taken shape, it had become clear that he wasn't a knight at all. He was leaner, less stone-faced, with a pointed bycocket hat and a jerkin that Will's imagination painted Lincoln green. Before long, the collection of Merry Men and women had grown to outnumber the knights. They filled the box, each one wrapped in tissue paper, the wood left unsealed and ready to be decorated by a pair of small, artistic hands.