It’s raining tonight.
It’s raining quite a lot, in fact. Raindrops hit the ground hard. Some may call it pouring.
Crew really isn’t concerned with what to call it, he just wants to be out of it. His umbrella is old and torn, providing paltry cover from the weather.
It’s been raining often as of late, but this is the heaviest it’s been in a while. Night is already dangerous enough without the downpour, and he has things in his bag that he’d prefer to keep dry, so he searches for shelter before his umbrella gives way further.
He walks, and walks, stopping occasionally to look around or to futilely shake mud off of his boots. There’s not much noteworthy along the trail he’s following. It’s a rough trail, one that looks less like something that was deliberately created and more like something that formed over time as wanderers followed each other’s footsteps. He’s only following it so he doesn’t get lost.
Eventually, he sees something through the trees—a house, not too far away from the trail. He approaches.
It’s a large wooden house, and an old one by the looks of it. It’s also a little-bit-utterly-dilapidated, but his standards really aren’t that high. It should be good enough to rest for a night.
After quietly walking up the steps, he puts one hand on the doorknob, one hand on the knife in his pocket, and opens the door.
Instantly, the smell of dust hits him, which is his first impression. His second impression is that no stray animals (or people) jumped out in an attempt to maim him, which is a rather good start. He takes a step in and looks around.
The furniture is old, and if he peers up at the corners of the ceiling he can see some mold growing. It doesn’t look like this place has been lived in for a very long time, which is ideal. This is most likely the best he’ll get, unless he’s willing to scout out in the rain for another couple of hours.
(He’s not.)
He takes a blanket out of his bag, lays it out to sleep on, and falls asleep fast.
***
Crew stirs quite a lot throughout the night, perhaps because of the cold, or perhaps because he’s become an extremely light sleeper over the years. Either way, the sun wakes a few hours later, and he wakes with it.
The dim glow of the cloudy morning sky shines through the glass windows, brightening the interior of the house with the type of soft light that only happens after rain. There’s no longer a barrage of sound on the roof, the downpour having lightened to a negligible drizzle overnight.
Crew, decently rested, rubs his eyes and sits up.
This place actually looks a lot more pleasant when it isn’t shrouded in darkness, he thinks.
He moves off of his blanket, grabbing its corners and starting to fold it up to put back in his bag. He’s interrupted, however, by a voice.
“Hey.”
He whips around, knife at the ready, to see a man standing in the doorway of a room behind him. They stare at each other in a standstill.
The man, noticing Crew is armed, puts his hands up non threateningly. Otherwise, he seems unfazed.
“Since when did you get here?” he asks.
“...I came here last night to find shelter from the rain,” Crew answers. “When did you get here?”
“I live here!” the man answers after a short pause.
“This is your house?”
“Yes.” He nods. “You see, before I was even born, my great grandparents had built this house, by hand, from the ground up. Me and my family have lived here for generations.”
Crew blinks. “Wow, really?”
“No, I made all of that up. I also came here to get out of the rain.”
“Oh.”
The man lowers his hands slightly. “Foster.”
“Foster?”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” he says with a peculiar rhythm.
“Did you get here before or after me?”
“I came in through the back door and forgot to check the other rooms before I fell asleep.” Foster shrugs.
This causes Crew to realize he also entirely forgot to check the rest of the rooms before laying down.
“...Me too.”
“Well then, how lucky that neither of us are dead.”
Unsure how to respond to the statement—which he thinks was supposed to be a joke, but was said in a hard to read, flat tone of voice—Crew gives a little halfhearted chuckle.
They’re still for a couple moments, Foster’s hands in the air and Crew’s hand over his knife, before they decide to return to their normal postures. Then, they’re still for a couple moments longer before Foster speaks.
“Hold on, I’ve got something out here...” he mutters, sounding half like he’s talking to himself. Crew hears him still, though, and gets up to follow when Foster retreats through the doorway he’s been standing in this whole time.
Foster makes his way through a room or two, Crew shortly behind him, until they find themselves at the back entrance (that Crew did not know existed until now).
Foster casually opens the door and walks down the steps. On the ground in front of him sits a decently sized wooden bowl, full to the brim with rainwater from the night before. He sits down on the bottom step and inspects the bowl.
Crew, still standing in the doorway, thinks Foster must be harvesting rainwater to use for washing, or drinking, or...something. He watches Foster reach for his knapsack and expects him to take out a jug or some other portable vessel for the water.
After rifling through his knapsack for a little while, though, Foster takes out something else. In both his palms, he retrieves an assortment of small wooden knickknacks, then he drops them into the bowl with a splash. The sun glistens off the peaks of the water.
Crew, intrigued, waits for him to do something further, but Foster just stares while the knickknacks float in the water.
“...What are you doing?” asks Crew.
Foster shrugs. He stirs the water with his hand. In the quiet, Crew can just barely hear pleasantly dull taps and tocks as the wooden knickknacks bump into each other and the sides of the bowl.
Crew finally walks over and inspects the various wooden trinkets a little closer. There are beads of different shapes and sizes—spheres and circles, round cubes, some made into shapes like stars or hearts—small carvings, including one, a fish, that’s surprisingly intricate, what look like old tree seeds, and some wooden dice of assorted shades. None of them exceed the size of his palm. It’s an interesting collection.
“Is this how you clean them?”
“I just think it’s fun,” Foster answers.
“Oh.”
The knickknacks’ swirling slows to a stop. Crew continues to eye the fish carving.
“Did you make these?”
“No, I just collect them.” Foster glances around the forest briefly before getting up and walking a little ways away into the trees. He casts around, looking for something in the underbrush, though Crew can’t quite tell what. Just when he’s about to question, Foster leans down to pick up a pinecone.
He returns shortly and sits back on the step.
The pinecone is a little smaller than Foster’s hand, and surprisingly not covered in mud for having been nabbed from the ground of a freshly rained-on forest. Foster dips the pinecone in the water, then rakes it against the rim of the bowl with a trill of mellow clacks, then does it again.
“Nice sound,” Crew says, before too long of a silence passes.
“I’m sure someone’s made an instrument like this,” replies Foster.
While Foster continues with the bowl and the pinecone, Crew remembers something. His bag is mostly full of supplies and necessities for traveling, but there are a few small things he holds onto because there’s no good reason to simply throw them out.
“Hold on...” He takes out his bag and searches through it. “...here.”
Foster turns to look, and sees that Crew is holding a wooden trinket of his own—a carving of an animal’s head, though it’s hard to tell exactly what kind. It’s simple, and round, and a pleasant size to hold.
“I got this in a village I visited...traded it for a couple of berries.” He tosses it up and catches it. “It was fun.”
“Oh.” Foster looks at it closer, then nods lightly. “Want to trade it again?”
“Huh?”
“For one of mine.”
“Oh.” Crew pauses. “...Sure.”
He leans over and looks at the bowl. Of course, his eye is once again drawn to the fish carving floating on the water.
“How about that one?” He points to it.
Nodding, Foster takes the fish carving, shakes it off, and hands it to Crew. Crew gives him the animal head carving in turn.
“Thanks,” says Crew.
“Yes,” replies Foster, before turning his attention back to the bowl and, almost immediately, dropping his newly acquired wooden trinket into it. It bobbles for a few seconds, then he flicks it lightly. It glides on the water and hits the side of the bowl with another pleasant tock.
“...Is it good?” asks Crew.
“Hm.” Foster swirls the water with two fingers. “Yeah. Is yours?”
Crew brings the fish carving closer to his face. He admires its scales.
“It is.”