Clare-Dragonfly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clare_dragonfly) wrote2015-06-07 08:14 pm
clare_dragonfly) wrote2015-06-07 08:14 pm
Fiction: The Rightness of Rain
Title: The Rightness of Rain
World: The Wasteland
Word count: 454
Rating: G
Prompt: Thimbleful Thursday: right as rain
Redhe pedaled her bicycle as fast as she could, heedless of the slick the ground was turning into under the deluge. She was too happy, too bursting with energy, to slow down.
The rain poured from the sky and plastered her hair to her face and her clothes to her body, probably ruining the pretty dress she’d worn to town. It chilled her, making the hairs stand up on her arms and her toes pinch. It fell into her eyes and made it hard to see.
But it was rain.
She finally reached her family’s home and practically leapt off the bicycle, hauling it through the flaps and under the covered porch but leaving it, and her, spattered with wet and mud. It didn’t matter. If things returned to normal, it would dry quickly enough; if this rain stayed, she would have no chance of drying it anyway.
“Papa!” she cried, bursting in through the door. “What can I do? What do you need me to do? The rain barrels?”
“We have the barrels!” he shouted back joyfully to her. The rest of her family were all busy at work, frantically pumping the rain into whatever they could find to hold it. “But you’re already wet! Bring the chickens in!”
Redhe laughed with absurd delight, picturing the poor chickens out in their coop, not knowing what was going on. The last time it had rained more than a sprinkling most of them hadn’t even been hatched.
She dashed back out the door, not waiting a moment to take care of the poor chickens, even though every other time she’d been asked to check them for mites or clean their coop she had grumbled and dragged her feet, and this would be worse. She’d have to find all of them in the field, then catch them, one by one, and drag them wet and squirming into the house, where they didn’t want to be. She’d go out into the wet and come in into the dry and do it a dozen times. Plus, if any of them had laid eggs since this morning, she would have to go back out to get those. And then the house would be full of wet and miserable chickens.
But it was worth it. She was happy to see the big old brown girl sitting and giving her the most evil look a chicken was capable of giving. She was happy to throw her arm around the wet feathers and haul the heavy chicken up with her. She was happy to carry a shrieking, squirming, wet bundle back into her clean house.
Because it was raining outside, and that meant that everything, finally, was going to be all right.
Thanks for reading this story! If you enjoyed it, visit my main page for all stories I've posted at Dreamwidth, or the tag for this world for more stories with this setting or characters. You can also pledge at my Patreon for exclusive patron-only stories and prompt posts.
World: The Wasteland
Word count: 454
Rating: G
Prompt: Thimbleful Thursday: right as rain
Redhe pedaled her bicycle as fast as she could, heedless of the slick the ground was turning into under the deluge. She was too happy, too bursting with energy, to slow down.
The rain poured from the sky and plastered her hair to her face and her clothes to her body, probably ruining the pretty dress she’d worn to town. It chilled her, making the hairs stand up on her arms and her toes pinch. It fell into her eyes and made it hard to see.
But it was rain.
She finally reached her family’s home and practically leapt off the bicycle, hauling it through the flaps and under the covered porch but leaving it, and her, spattered with wet and mud. It didn’t matter. If things returned to normal, it would dry quickly enough; if this rain stayed, she would have no chance of drying it anyway.
“Papa!” she cried, bursting in through the door. “What can I do? What do you need me to do? The rain barrels?”
“We have the barrels!” he shouted back joyfully to her. The rest of her family were all busy at work, frantically pumping the rain into whatever they could find to hold it. “But you’re already wet! Bring the chickens in!”
Redhe laughed with absurd delight, picturing the poor chickens out in their coop, not knowing what was going on. The last time it had rained more than a sprinkling most of them hadn’t even been hatched.
She dashed back out the door, not waiting a moment to take care of the poor chickens, even though every other time she’d been asked to check them for mites or clean their coop she had grumbled and dragged her feet, and this would be worse. She’d have to find all of them in the field, then catch them, one by one, and drag them wet and squirming into the house, where they didn’t want to be. She’d go out into the wet and come in into the dry and do it a dozen times. Plus, if any of them had laid eggs since this morning, she would have to go back out to get those. And then the house would be full of wet and miserable chickens.
But it was worth it. She was happy to see the big old brown girl sitting and giving her the most evil look a chicken was capable of giving. She was happy to throw her arm around the wet feathers and haul the heavy chicken up with her. She was happy to carry a shrieking, squirming, wet bundle back into her clean house.
Because it was raining outside, and that meant that everything, finally, was going to be all right.
Thanks for reading this story! If you enjoyed it, visit my main page for all stories I've posted at Dreamwidth, or the tag for this world for more stories with this setting or characters. You can also pledge at my Patreon for exclusive patron-only stories and prompt posts.
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