Elara
The clean leaf came from the wrong side.
Elara held the collection tray steady while the local specialist checked its mark.
"Upper bank," he said.
The worker who had brought it looked toward the grove.
"That's where you pointed."
"Past the standing root. Not before it."
Elara put the tray down.
From the path, the two places looked close enough to belong to the same patch. Beneath the exposed roots, their water and growth ran in different directions.
She had made the same mistake on the sketch.
The collection mark sat on the near side of the standing root. Elara had drawn it while looking down from the protected path, where the canopy hid part of the ground beneath it.
The worker had followed the direction as he understood it.
She moved the sketch closer to the tray rather than asking him to defend why he had gone to the wrong place. The clean leaf showed which side he had reached. They could use that fact to make the next instruction clearer.
