The Medicine Seller was well suited for winter in rocky regions. He had been born to the mountains of Hokkaido, and felt perfectly at home in the biting frosts and billowing snowfalls out here.
For now, the day was clear, with only a few inches of snow crunching beneath his feet, and a couple of salmon handing from his pack. He'd seen the plume of smoke from where he'd been fishing and had heard there was a veteran out here of a decent nature, offering work and pay. Perhaps he'd be willing to share some of the Medicine Seller's catch and would let him stay the night for some medicine. Veterans, after all, always had some wound or another still giving them trouble.
After politely greeting the horse, he knocked once, twice, three times on the cabin door, and frowned. His nostrils were thick with the scent of bear and...
No, that was impossible.
He pushed aside any wishful thinking and peered in through a window. Someone had definitely been in recently. Food laid out for cooking, the horse freshly fed...
But death came quickly and even those who had been young during the war were starting to reach the ages where the heart could just give out. This man had not been described as particularly young.
He peered inside each window, making sure he couldn't see any signs of a collapsed body, while occasionally calling out. When he spotted fresh tracks leading off to the woods, he breathed a small sigh of relief. He came back around to the front, setting his box down by the door and using it as a makeshift seat to await the owner's return while stuffing his pipe with tobacco and lighting it to take a bit of the edge off the chill.
totally did not get a little teary eyed over arthur nope, nuh uh not me *ugly cries*
For now, the day was clear, with only a few inches of snow crunching beneath his feet, and a couple of salmon handing from his pack. He'd seen the plume of smoke from where he'd been fishing and had heard there was a veteran out here of a decent nature, offering work and pay. Perhaps he'd be willing to share some of the Medicine Seller's catch and would let him stay the night for some medicine. Veterans, after all, always had some wound or another still giving them trouble.
After politely greeting the horse, he knocked once, twice, three times on the cabin door, and frowned. His nostrils were thick with the scent of bear and...
No, that was impossible.
He pushed aside any wishful thinking and peered in through a window. Someone had definitely been in recently. Food laid out for cooking, the horse freshly fed...
But death came quickly and even those who had been young during the war were starting to reach the ages where the heart could just give out. This man had not been described as particularly young.
He peered inside each window, making sure he couldn't see any signs of a collapsed body, while occasionally calling out. When he spotted fresh tracks leading off to the woods, he breathed a small sigh of relief. He came back around to the front, setting his box down by the door and using it as a makeshift seat to await the owner's return while stuffing his pipe with tobacco and lighting it to take a bit of the edge off the chill.