Grandmother's Kindness

In the Shardscape realm of Ztavsk, the year begins on the day of the fall harvest, and 13 days later, one of the most culturally significant holidays for the Ztavayë, Bazhymilna, or "Grandmother's Day" in Dryzhky takes place. It is on this sole day of the Ztavayë year that the taboo on climbing the slopes of the Bazhivy Troka, the Crone's Mountain, is eased—but only for adults. The custom is explained by one of the oldest stories in the oral tradition of Ztavsk: the story of the Grandmother's Kindness.

Summary

The Ouzhi Bazha, "Great Grandmother" in Dryzhky, is said to be one of the most powerful beings in Ztavsk. Despite her title, the Ouzhi Bazha is described as a cold, capricious, and at times downright cruel entity. Indeed, the name she is given is euphemistic as in Ztavayë superstition, to use the name of a mabnye—a witch—is tantamount to calling forth their baleful gaze.
The story of the Grandmother's Kindness is a rare kind of story in the corpus of tales related to the Ouzhi Bazha as it speaks to the warmer aspects of her purported personality rather than serving as a moral fable or cautionary tale. It begins with the storyteller recounting a time of severe hardship. "The nights were dark and the winter was long. For moons their cellars had been filled with only crumbs. Hunger gripped them where warmth could not. To sup on the boiled leather of a shoe would have been a sumptuous feast."
It is in the context of these lean times that the story of a little girl is told. Her family, having fallen on harder times than most, is starving. The father, being a cobbler, fed them boiled leather but even that has run out. Times were more prosperous, once, but the fury of the Ouzhi Bazha has not relented and the brutal winter seems unlikely to abate. Left with no hope and fewer options, the girl's mother uses a blackened old velge that had fallen behind the fireplace and stuffed it with hemlock. This is meant to be a final meal and a cruel mercy, a bitter but welcomed end to their suffering.
The little girl does not know the truth about the meal but is grateful to have something to eat. However, just as the family is about to partake, the shadow of the Ouzhi Bazha passes by their home. The little girl sees not a monster outside, but an old woman who must be as hungry as her. She snatches the velge away and runs out of her home to meet the Ouzhi Bazha, offering her the poisoned velge.
Too weak and, in truth, too afraid to retrieve their daughter, the parents are only able to watch on in terror from their window as the Ouzhi Bazha turns to face the little girl. The Ouzhi Bazha's eyes glint and her knobbly fingers twitch, poised to snatch teeth and bone for the child's temerity, but her expression softens at the sight of the offering. She understands at once that the food is poisoned, but it is the child's innocence and earnestness that touches her heart.
Surprised by the little girl's generosity and self-sacrifice, the Ouzhi Bazha is momentarily broken from her spell of fury. She returns the child to its parents and, in gratitude, gives the family a basket filled with fresh fruit that would never empty. Before departing, she explains clearly to the little girl that only a pure-hearted child's hand must take fruit from the basket. A fruit picked from the basket by any other hand would be poison, and those who ate of such a fruit would molder alive where they stand.
Though the night is calm for the first time in a long while, the Ouzhi Bazha's fury does not subside. The winter lasts for many long moons yet, but fruit from the basket sustains the little girl's family and all the other families in their village, until at last Ouzhi Bazha's anger fades and spring returns to Ztavsk.