[This post is from Thom’s point of view.]
There was no sign of the rain letting up even an hour later as Thom limped back to the opening of the forge, watching the clouds for a moment, watching the rain come down. Matt glanced his way, working on the blade of a scythe they planned to use in the next month or so to harvest the small stand of wheat they’d managed to grow down near the old greenhouses on the other side of the river. Thom wasn’t entirely sure how well the crop had done—it had been months since he’d seen it, and he wasn’t sure how much all of the rain they’d gotten that summer might have hurt or helped it, but apparently there was enough left to make the scythe necessary, which he took as a good sign.
“Still bad?” Matt asked, his hammer falling in easy rhythm, a counterpoint to the sound of the rain against the roof.
“Steady,” Thom said, leaning in the doorway for a few seconds, still watching. “Doesn’t look like it’s going to let up anytime soon.”
“Suppose one of us should have brought an umbrella,” Matt said, only half joking. Thom glanced back over his shoulder in time to see Matt flash a grin before he was intent on his work again. “It’s all right. I’ve seen you swing around on those crutches. You’re quick enough.”
“That was when my shoulders weren’t still half wrecked,” Thom countered, returning to his seat closer to the forge’s heat. “You’ll be able to make a dash. I’ll hobble along.”
“I could go and get an umbrella,” Matt offered, not pausing or looking up. He likely wouldn’t be going anywhere until he’d gotten his project shaped anyway, though the sharpening, likely, would wait until later. Neither of them had eaten much of breakfast and the day was creeping onward toward lunchtime.
“No sense in that,” Thom said. “I’ll manage. Always do.”
“Well, then we’ll get soaked together,” Matt said. “Just make sure you wrap that sketchbook.”
“Always do,” Thom said, then smiled as he picked up said sketchbook again. “This thing holds a lot.”
“I’ve noticed,” Matt said, grinning as he looked up again. “I’ve seen your designs, remember?”
Thom inclined his head. That much was certainly true. “We didn’t get much of a chance to build them this summer, though, did we?”
“It’s not over yet,” Matt reminded him. “And we’ll hopefully have another month or two at least before it snows.”
“That’s the hope,” Thom murmured, his gaze drifting toward the rain again. “We’ll see if we get what we’ve hoped for.”
Sometimes we do, anyway.
