The skies were a glorious mess of greying clouds as dawn arose, and with it the scent of rain on the air was as pleasant to Saki as a hard drink of whiskey to a guard after a hard day's work.
She adored the rain, the subtle blanket of fresh that stained the air and the life water that poured from the heavens. While not so much good for her house, as it were, it was the one thing that she didn't mind dealing with the cons about. All she could hope for was the invigorating flashes of light and rumbling of thunder that accompanied the more hefty of rains.
And it wasn't Saki alone who adored the rain, either.
The forests came to life with the start of rain, amphibious creatures started singing, birds bathed in the pleasant showers, and while not happily, rodents and other burrowing creatures all vacated to higher grounds until the rain would cease and they were free to move around without becoming soaked.
The usual sluggish air about Saki as she awoke to the gentle rumbling of thunder in the distance had her promptly shake off the edge of slumber that hung over her mind, and with a flurry of limbs, righted herself out of the woven hammock to descend downstairs to step out into the makeshift smithy.
Saki's gaze took in the darkening clouds synonymous with an encroaching thunderstorm and grinned.
From the flat bottoms of the clouds to the grey hues, and the scent on the air, Saki knew without a doubt that they were in for some early-autumn downpour.
Her morning couldn't get any better for her.
Without caring for the fact that she was dressed sloppily and her hair was a mess, Saki scrambled back indoors to carefully manoeuvre several old, wooden mead barrel out into the stormy grounds outside. She set them in the centre of the open ground before her house, outside of the span of the oak tree branches. She unhooked their lids and set them aside, barrels open in preparation to catch any rain that would fall in.
Such a blessing from the skies should not be left solely to sink into the soil alone.
Saki decided now was the best time for her to go gather some supplies, since a heavy storm was encroaching. So she dashed back inside to dress herself entirely and gather her belongings.
Throughout her wanderings back towards Wistal, Saki found herself amused to note that the city folk were none too pleased with the looming presence of the storm on its way. In spite of it being just after 8am, the housewives were aggressively slamming shutters closed, pulling in their hanging plants, and the stall keepers were grudgingly packing away their goods and wares in preparation for an early finish.
While Saki herself adored the rains, it appeared that the well-to-do city folk hated it.
So, to take full advantage of the stall keepers and merchants downtown before they closed up well ahead of time, Saki picked up her pace to a jog and flagged down the merchants who had the more necessary of her requirements.
A large sack of wheat was purchased, with the merchant surprised enough by the large sale to offer to deliver it for her by noon, two cheese wheels, enough root-vegetables to completely fill her rucksack among other purchases of similar nature. By the end of it, the storms overhead were almost upon them, and Saki had barely managed to finish her resupply shopping.
Her last stop was of a large building on the walk back, with a burning forge working away at the back of the premises, and a smelter cooking what looked to be iron at that moment in time. The bell attached to the front door chimed dully as Saki opened the door, ringing a little louder as the door shut behind her.
Saki glanced around the interior of the blacksmith for several seconds, before she spotted the elderly woman who ran the front of the business.
At Saki's approach, the woman lifted her gaze from a roll of parchment in her grip and immediately scowled.
'Oh, it's the omen.' The woman stated with clear distaste showing in her gaze. 'What do you want?'
Saki refrained from letting out a breath as she straightened up slightly, and instead brought a courteous smile across her face. After all, she should be used to this after so long.
'I would like to place an order for four dozen steel ingots, and one dozen iron ingots.' Saki announced as she set her purchases down on the ground at her feet, so she could pull out her coin purse. 'I'll pay upfront, I just need it delivered.'
If possible, the elderly woman at the counter seemed to scowl even more following her initial flinch at the sound of Saki's voice.
'We don't deliver outside the city walls.' The elderly woman dismissed carelessly. 'We don't have the equipment to carry deliveries down dirt tracks.'
Well that was a cop-out, the woman's husband had a donkey and cart they took all over them place.
'Ah, well can you deliver it to the south gate at least? I'll carry it all back from there.'
'We require to deliver at the recipients location.'
Saki let out a low breath as she fixed a level stare upon the crabby old woman who was making the mere task of ordering steel a pain in the neck. However, the very instance Saki opened her mouth to issue argument to the woman, the chiming bell over the door cut her off with the presence of another walking inside.
'Was there anything else?' The woman pointedly demanded, causing Saki to merely pocket her coin purse once more and lift up her multiple bags of shopping.
'No, I think I'll take my leave.' Saki quipped as she turned on her heel to leave. 'I sincerely hope the storms don't sodden your delightful mood any further, madame fussock.'
The indignant squawk that escaped the old woman in response to the insult did nothing to appease Saki's irritation, though her thoughts were immediately upon other things as she stepped around a tall, slender male of vaguely recognizable appearances. She'd kept her gaze averted as she slipped through the door before it had closed completely shut, though she did notice the same green scarf the irritating companion of Shirayuki's tended to wear. It was odd though that the red-haired woman wasn't anywhere around with him, though.
Ah but she had more important, pressing matters to attend to over avoiding such a person, and left to get her current possessions back home.
The skies were blackening with every step Saki took, and along the way she found the merchant with the sack of wheat for her, wandering around as he tried to locate where exactly he was supposed to be dropping the delivery to. With a far more polite mannerism to the old woman from the blacksmiths, the man was comfortable enough to wait for Saki to drop her current itinerary onto the ground outside her house and drag over a large plank of wood as a makeshift bridge across.
He was exceedingly quick to retreat back to Wistal as soon as her delivery had been received, leaving Saki to gaze up at the blackening skies with a small smile.
Saki judged by the massing of birds taking up refuge within the rafters and shelves of her makeshift smithy that the storm was going to be quite a long one, those of which didn't seem to care as Saki lugged her shopping indoors. The scent of rain on the air drowned everything else out, and another crash of thunder overhead brought her to bristle with enthusiasm.
Ah, thunderstorms. Such a wonderful detox for the soul.
Of course, Saki would have just stood there admiring the turbulence of mother nature's power, but she had things she needed to do. Like actually dragging in a load of firewood before it started bucketing down with rain, preparing dinner, and that wasn't including bunkering down until the storm passed over.
The wind picked up, rougher and rougher until its embrace through the branches of the oak tree caused it to start howling against the blackened skies, and with every passing minute, more birds and rodents looking to escape the brunt of the storm came trickling in to take residence in her smithy. In fact, along with the birds and the rodents, along came a panicked stray cat who tore straight through the door of Saki's house to hide beneath the table.
Well, it looked like now was a good time to cover over the front of the smithy.
However, just as Saki had begun to pull out the shutters from within her house, a glimpse of colour across the river caught her immediate attention.
A figure belonging to a young, petite woman with scarlet-hued locks stumbled along the dirt trail, basket in arm and a hand lifted to try and hold her haywire hair out of her face. Saki stared, gaping at the vaguely familiar form struggling with the winds lashing against her weary form, before a flying plank of wood was lifted off of the ground and sent tumbling across the island inlet to plummet into the river a few meters away.
This was getting a bit too wild to let the woman walk all that way back to Wistal like this, and it was starting to rain, too.
'Oi!' Saki called out, though she inwardly swore as she realized her broken voice would mix too well with the howling of the wind through the trees. She cast a glance back at the skies before she dropped the shutters in the doorway of her house and threw herself into a dash towards the stepping stones across the river.
However, along the way Saki had to halt in her steps as a flurry of black and tan feathers came hurdling right towards her head. Her hands immediately reached up to catch the bizarre mess of feathers, where a startled clucking escaped what turned out to be a living creature.
'Wait-- A chicken?!' Saki practically gaped.
The chicken seemed to cluck indignantly, though Saki's gaze quickly went back to the stumbling form through the storm.
Well ... weirder things happen during storms, she guessed, but that wasn't important right now.
'WAIT UP, WOMAN!' Saki shouted as loud as she could while crossing the river, all the while tucking the rattled chicken beneath one arm. 'OI! RED LADY!'
The scarlet-haired woman seemed to hear her that time, as she staggered to a halt and managed to turn her head towards Saki's form. Wide, green eyes seemed to stare at Saki's beckoning form for several long seconds, before she turned properly to come dashing over.
Stepping stones were traversed with near misses on Shirayuki's part, and just as a deafening crash of thunder and lightning tore through the skies overhead, Saki, Shirayuki and wayward Chicken were undercover from the brewing storm.
A breathless wheeze escaped Shirayuki as she struggled to catch her breath, all the while Saki pulled shutters in place and locked them down. A chorus of disgruntled chirping and squawking overhead from the refugees in her smithy were heard, though no panicked flapping of wings echoed in spite of the storm.
'Th-thank you, Miss Akazawa...' Shirayuki spoke with a heartfelt sigh of relief, all the while Saki merely glanced back at her. 'I hadn't expected the storm to set in so quickly...'
Well, Saki had guessed it was something like that.
'It's fine.' She dismissed as she stepped past Shirayuki to head indoors properly. 'You can make yourself comfortable until there's a decent break in the storm.'
'Thank you, I really appreciate this.' Shirayuki was prompt to thank her. 'I had no idea you live all the way out here, though. I thought this place was abandoned.'
'It's not.' Saki responded curly.
A weary sigh escaped Saki as she cast a glance back at Shirayuki's shivering form in the smithy, and she motioned towards the open firepit in the right side of her house with a rough wave of the arm.
'Fire's there. Warm yourself up before you chill.'
'Oh, yes, thank you.' Shirayuki thanked her once again as she edged inside, with her wide-eyed gaze taking in the lacking décor in the room. 'I hope Obi isn't too worried...'
Obi?
Saki guessed she was referring to the suspicious man who was often with the redhead while she ventured out of the castle, from as far as Saki could discern.
'I will escort you back to Wistal when the storm calms enough.' Saki responded as she tossed more firewood into the firepit and carefully set a pot on the hanging hook over the flames. 'Your companion will just have to live with that.'
And Saki hoped that would be the end of that.
--=[Submitted April 23rd 2018]=--
[I am currently working on the next installment of Marionette, but between customers at work, Opal Wings is comfortable enough to drabble in and complete chapters without losing place and planning. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the read. Marionette isn't too far away, promise.]