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Winter 3 515 AV
There was hardly anything to do during this season on the Estates. It was during this time Solla had her gardener’s help the grounds keepers. Saej didn’t know it yet but she was about to find herself doing odd’s and end’s jobs for Miss Solla. Okomo Estates in the winter was a snowy paradise, if you liked that sort of thing. The clever little houses looked at home covered in a couple inches of snow and gave off a serenely artistic vibe with their icicles hung like garland off of the roof tops. The streets had been carved out by a shovel and the remaining snow was well trodden by hoof prints of people’s horses and the occasional okomo and also feet prints of people on their daily tasks.
It was nearly the 8th bell of the day and Saej had just gotten back to her house from eating a breakfast of porridge from Star’s Shadow. She had her meals at the pub rather than buying groceries, this season had left her broke but it not in squalor. There was enough for regular meals but nothing grand unless she wanted to splurge and buy something better than porridge for breakfast and bread and cheese with the occasional meat hunk for lunch and dinner. This left her a bit irregular in the bowl area but otherwise no worse for wear, if a bit more tired than usual. The tiredness could also be said to come from this dreadful season, Windreach had some bad winter’s... okay that was a lie. A bold lie. Life inside the volcano was pleasant and warm. This evil reign from the sky was freezing to her hot blood and she hated it. There wasn't much she allowed herself to hate but the cold was number one on the short list. The list also included chocolate, she couldn't stand the stuff. In any case; she envisioned snow as something from some evil level of the universe and once a year it was wrung out on Mizahar much to her avail. What god did she pray to rid, or at least ease, her of her cold suffering? It was bad for her business, not even allowing her to prepare for her garden until spring as winter was much too cold to till the soil. The blanket of icy disdain was good for one thing and one thing only; there were no weeds to pull, it was a miracle.
Saej had hardly gotten out of the door, wrapped up tight in her fur-lined cloak, before Miss Solla descended on her like a cat consuming its first kill of the day.
“GOOD MORNING”, came an overly chipper greeting from the older woman. Did she know what time it was?
“Mornin’ Miss Solla,” Saej choked out, still finding her voice and fighting sleepiness from her head, he bosses presence meant it was time to work. She shut her front door and walked up to meet Miss Solla a few paces from her stoop.
“I have a lot for you to do today; I think you’re going to enjoy it.”
Saej fought back a groan, usually when this came from an employer’s mouth, she found, it was going to be a long day. She settled on giving Solla a furtive glance pleading with her eyes. Solla caught the look.
“Oh now don’t be like that young lady you should be excited!” The last word was drawn out dramatically, the woman certainly had something up her sleeve, “Since we both know you’ve had so little to do and have been SO bored with work lately I’ve been cooking something up! First thing is you’re going to clean out the tool shed, it really needs some work done on it.”
Saej stood outside her door awkwardly, thinking silently to herself and dreading that this was going to take hours before saying, “Aye, Miss Solla.”
“Oh you’ll make quick work of it, don’t worry, besides I have you meeting the blacksmith this afternoon to have my gardening tools sharpened. I need you to go through what we have and pitch the bad ones, whatever’s broken and rusted to shyke. I need you to pick out two of the best conditioned of each, if there is two I mean. Those are going to be mended and fixed up by Etran over at Touch of Fire in Shinyama.”
Saej moved a dreadlock from her face and tucked the lot of them behind her ear, “Of course, I’ll try to be done as quickly as possible to do that.” It didn’t sound too hard, right? Saej followed Solla to her house and they parted ways, Solla retreating inside leaving Saej to go around back all stuck out in the cold until her work in the shed was completed.
The shed was medium sized and painted a light yellow, a path scooped out through the garden making a path to the shed and to the gate leading to a street within the Estates, fitting in well with the iridescent sea shell brick that the surrounding houses were made of. Solla’s backyard was large, by far the largest in the Estates, and at this time it was barren. One could garner that in the full swing of spring to summer it was quite the sight to behold. The bushes that trudged on through this season were supple even now, grand in stature, and must have been very beautiful during their flowering months. Saej felt as if she could almost smell the sweet scent lingering like a memory as she walked up, slightly shivering, to the tool shed at the back portion of Solla’s yard. The Inarta opened up the doors.
This was her first time peering into the shed, what was before her could only be described as a slice of mundane discordia. It looked as if anytime anyone used an item in here they simply threw it back into the shed and slammed the doors, in fact upon opening two rusted shovels and a trowel fell out into the surrounding snow. Saej surveyed the mess with her hands on her hips. This was going to take the better part of a couple of bells, that was for sure. No wonder the previous gardener got fired. She shook her head and got to work.
The first thing she did was take every item out of the shed. Her first order of business was to take every free floating hoe, shovel, shears, and trowel out of the shed. Shovels of all different sizes seemed to grow out of the shed like weeds, so to speak. She laid each out in the snow, which wasn’t much luckily being only a couple of inches high, with its brothers, keeping them separated. Some were rusted beyond repair, others had broken handles. A couple of the rakes were missing some spokes. Within the categories she had a sub pile for the ones she deemed broken and ready to pitch. All this moving around and lugging things actually had Saej working up a sweat, had there not been snow on the ground it’s likely she would have taken off her cloak. By the time she finished she had several piles of the equipment picked through and ready to be either thrown away or sent off to the smithy.
With the brunt of the mess taken care of she began moving out the posts and lumber, careful to lay it down where the snow was shoveled away so as not to get the wood wet and leave it unable to be used for whatever project Miss Solla had in mind. Now that the two biggest items were out all that was left in the shed was the clutter on the counter opposite the door, a large plow that looked to be a doozy, a wheel barrow, a few buckets filled with odds and ends, and an old, slightly questionable shoe. The shoe held the most interest to Saej and she went to pick it up. The shoe was actually a large workers boot, stained with a black substance. A large hole in the toe and the seam lifting off of the sole gave an indication as to why it laid in the back of the shed, derelict. She peered into the boot and was surprised to see it filled with bits of cloth and a fuzzy substance similar to wool. She was about to put her hand in the shoe to see what it was when the fuzz moved. Saej leaped back and hollered a terrible screech, flinging the shoe out of the shed and into the snow. A mouse came flying out of the boot at top speeds like a bat from a cave, followed by its two friends close behind. Saej stood in shock for a couple of moments before doubling over with laughter at her foolishness; it was only a mice nest. What did she think it was for the god’s sake, she was practically a chick screaming like she did. She waited a couple more moments half expecting Solla to come rushing out of the door to inspect the shrieking but she never did and Saej got back to work.
With the boot taken care of she returned to the task at hand. There was no way she was going to be able to pull that plow out of the shed by herself and left it where it was, beside the wheel barrow; with most of the items out of the shed it was simply up to organizing now. The sun had crawled up the sky by a hand’s width or so, telling her she must have been out pulling things from the shed for the better part of an hour and a half perhaps. She was making great time. About five buckets were stacked in the corner and that was where she left them, moving the remaining buckets filled with pretty, lustrous rocks over to rest beside them. Two other buckets held within their circumference a type of fertilizer by the smell, but they were obviously forgotten and old as mold had grown over the top like a white spider web. Given the right conditions she could have grown Funkus in these buckets, she suspected. She took them outside one by one and dumped them in a pile of leaves behind the shed, putting the emptied buckets in with the rest of the stack. The counter simply needed to be organized. She brushed the dirt off of the counter with her hands and moved the leather pouched filled with bulbs and seeds over to one side. What remained were calipers and tongs which she laid out in a respectable manner on the counter top. It was looking good in here.
To finish up she went back outside, beginning to get cold again due to not straining herself as hard though not for long, and replaced the lumber and posts into the shed again on this time off to the side instead of helter-skelter as they had been. The read head could tell that her back would be protesting in the morning from all the lifting, she wasn’t used to such manual labor. The last thing she had to do was replace all but two of each of the unbroken equipment back into the shed. Saej found herself enjoying organizing the shed, it looked so much better. There was little to do with returning the equipment, there wasn’t more than five of each type of item and nearly two of each was irreparably rusted. She took out the wheel barrow and filled it up with the items to be mended at the smithy. The rest she let lay in the snow where they were.
Now that everything was done she went to the front of the house and rapped three times on Solla’s door. Her breath came out in shallow puff’s, condensing in the cold as mist. Solla came to the door with a wide grin on her face. “Well done! I didn’t expect you for at least another hour or so! Let’s see what you’ve made of my gardening shed.” The woman waddled out the door and Saej followed close behind unsure if she’d done a good job or not. Luckily for her Solla was impressed with her work and even slapped Saej on the back with her hand, “You did a fine job. Now, take this wheelbarrow to Etan, he should be waiting for you.” Saej did as she was told.
She sat the wheelbarrow outside of the door before entering, hoping to the god’s that it didn’t get ransacked, Lhavit was a pretty calm city though and she had never encountered much crime within its shining streets; so sure was mostly sure it would be fine for the moment. Stepping into the door she was greeted immediately by a showroom, while it had a display of tools she thought her task was dull in comparison to some of the weaponry they had out to be sold. It wasn’t long before a young man, not much older than she, welcomed her to Touch of Fire. She inquired for Etan, as she was instructed, saying that Miss Solla had already set things up. He disappeared father into the depths of the shop and returned almost instantly, the apprentice seemed to bounce and glide around the shop.
“He says he can work on yer stuff now, mam.”
Saej had been admiring a set of chakrams and peeled her eyes from them with much effort.
“Good, it’s just outside. Let me go get it.” Before he could flit away she added, “Where do I take it?”
He motioned behind him, from the room where he came out of.
“Through this showroom and you’ll be right there… Mind them showcases mam you certainly ain’t got the coin to replace them.”
This assertion mildly offended her but she followed instructions.
It was somewhat difficult to get the wheelbarrow through the door, lucky for her it when she returned to it nothing was amiss, but she managed. When she finally stepped into the grand showroom she was impressed. There were many of the same type of sword shown off in here of obvious master craftsmanship. She paused in the doorway, swaying a little until she steadied herself from the weight of the tools. The wheelbarrow was as awkward as it was heavy, with its contents handles jutting out from its front. She now understood what the apprentice meant, there was no way she was breaking anything in here, she’d go broke and be in debt for a whole year. Taking her time she waddled through the display area and into the workroom.
Not only was an older man, presumably Etan, and the apprentice in the smithy but a woman was too. She had dreadlocks, just like Saej, and Saej gave them an appraising staredown. The woman herself was pouring molten metal into a mold, what looked to be a hammer. The entire workroom was hot and on each of the people she could see sweat pouring off of them. This was a stark contrast to her earlier morning’s work in the blistering cold.
“You must be Solla’s runner, well met! I’m Etan,” the older man greeted her with practiced manners, “I see you’ve brought my work load.” Without saying anymore he walked up and selected a trowel from the wheelbarrow.
“Hail Etan, I’m Saej and, yes, I’ve brought you lots to do!” She smiled at him as he began picking off some of the dirt from the trowel.
“Well, Saej, you can either stay here while we work or wait in the showrooms. Be my guest.”
Saej wanted to watch them work.
For two bells she stayed in the shop, watching Etan and his apprentice work. The apprentice was tasked with washing off the dirt from the tools while Etan grinded the heads down to make them sharp again and fit new handles on some. After only thirty chimes she had worked up a sweat from the woman continuing to pour the molten metals into the molds, wait for them to solidify, and then heat them back up again and shape them with a hammer on an anvil. It was very interesting work and Saej considered herself learning the trade, fancifully though as she knew it was nothing more than a pipe dream. Each rapport from the hammering made Saej jump slightly, the noise bothering her ears. As Etan ground the tools and the apprentice used a metal scrub to remove the dirt it sounded like a metallic symphony in the smithy. Saej watched, eyes wide, as sparks flew from everywhere. Bright red ones, which cooled on theird trip downward, from the woman’s work hammering and large silver ones from Etan’s work on the tools. Everyone had a place in the blacksmith and Saej was enjoying herself even if she was sweating as if she were seated in the middle of a summer heatwave.
When everything was finished she loaded it back up into the wheelbarrow, paid the man, and left, returning to Solla’s house just in time for a late lunch. Solla was satisfied with the work Etan had done and regretted not leaving more money for a tip. She instructed Saej to put the tools back into the shed and then she would be free to depart. Saej was glad, today had been hard work and she was yearning to lay down with her cat in bed after a hot meal. As fast as she could without throwing everything in there, like she found the shed, Saej replaced the tools into their home noticing that the rejected tools had already been taken away.
Finally finished with all of her hard work of the day she left the house and went back to her own, happy to flop down on her bed in her warm house with nothing else to do but nap and eat. And she did.
