(yesterday)
Despite their best efforts, Rowan found themselves not entering the caverns until late afternoon, which meant that while they made it far enough to unlock one more elevator, they also ran into a floor that seemed to be one narrow hall turning around on itself. They drifted off before they found either a staircase down or an end to the spiral. They roused a little when someone picked them up in the dark, fearing it was some monster, but the hands were friendly, and not invasive and they fell asleep again before they could identify them as anything but human. This freaked them out a little, come morning, waking in their own bed in clothes that still smelled of the mine - it had been years since they could trust another human to hold them, but then they found a letter in the mailbox, indicating it had been Linus, the old fellow with the tent. They weren't close with Linus - they weren't close with anyone, all things considered - but somehow it was still reassuring; the old guy didn't seem dangerous. They were short money, and debated whether they believed him about it being someone else he'd scared off, before ultimately deciding they didn't care, as long as no harm had come to their person.
They did consider what their cottage might look like to a visitor - a bit cluttered and a bit disorganized, mostly, but at least it didn't seem ugly to Rowan. Okay, maybe they hadn't picked the perfect flooring in the living room, but they liked it better than they liked the idea of sitting there going through the catalogue yet again. They could still use a dresser, though. It was just that so far, every time they'd asked Robin she'd said either she hadn't made one in a while (in their first spring) or that someone else in town had just bought up the one she'd finished.
Still, they went about their chores. It was raining, so they made sure the animals had feed indoors, but took their time checking the rest of the farm before they meandered down to the crops. Another tree in the orchard had matured, so they tried to set up the decorative bricking, but while it looked like there was room on the cliff's edge, the bricks looked precarious, and with the coop right below the cliff, they decided a slightly unfinished pattern because of a cliff's edge was better than the bricks coming down in a a storm and putting a hole in the coop roof.
Some of the tulips had come up garish yellow. Rowan picked those to sell, on the logic someone must love that gaudy colour, then, remembering they meant to work on the big crop order from the bulletin board, replaced them with potatoes instead of flowers. They had enough irises* and blue jazz that the bees were mostly making honey from those, anyhow, and hardly ever made it as far as the tulips.
At least the well was finished, even if it wasn't needed yet in the wet weather. Robin had dug out grandpa's dry broken classic style one with one that could almost pass for a natural spring*.
But it was late enough now for Rowan to start trying to catch a few more eels... and cursed their luck as they ended up wandering to bed after having deposited a pile of herring and halibut in the shipping bin instead. They'd even seen eels in the water*, but none, not one, on the hook.
* mods.
. In the meantime, I went to the Night Market and bought 3 of the last 4 Lupini paintings (I seem to be missing one from a previous year ... hmmm...). Put them in my display shed, which actually works out - unfortunately the shed is one tile width shy of accommodating all 9 paintings, grrrr. So I'll have to put the last one in the house. Eh.