All Who Wander [Chapter 14 - AUTUMN]

[Chapter 13]

Katsuki froze in the doorway, when he saw the man trekking up the mountain. He was wrapped in bulky layers of wool and fur, much more covered up than any of the townspeople were at that time of the year, and he led an unfamiliar reindeer behind him, loading up with bags.

“You’re letting the warm air out!” Mitsuki yelled from across the house. “Leave or don’t, make a decision!”

“There’s a trader!” he yelled back.

He hurried out to meet the man, not bothering to close the door behind him, and got a weak chuckle as he led him toward the house without even a word. The fire was crackling away in their living room, so Katsuki walked him straight inside, finally closing the door to give him some warmth.

“What’s the deer’s name?” Katsuki chose as a greeting.

“Borrowed ‘im from Raksuon,” the man answered. “Dunno.”

“I’ll take him to the stables. Stay here and get warm, we’ll talk after.”

He hurried back outside, carefully lifting the saddle from the reindeer and setting it inside the house, with all its bags and bundles strapped on tight. He stroked the reindeer’s nose fondly, smiling to himself, then poked his head back through the door briefly.

“Ma!” he yelled “Heat up some milk!”

He walked the reindeer through the village, getting a few confused looks but no questions, until he reached the little stable where Toshinori lived. The owner didn’t seem at all surprised to see him, though she adjusted her glasses when she saw the reindeer beside him.

“Trader came,” he explained. “Do you have space for one more, for a couple of days? He could use a rest.”

“Of course,” the woman assured him. “What’s his name?”

“Apparently he never asked,” Katsuki huffed.

The old woman tsked, but led the reindeer indoors all the same, and Katsuki hurried back along the path to home. By the time he kicked his boots off, his parents had both settled in the living room with the man, watching him hold a hot cup of milk between his shivering hands.

“No one ever comes up here,” Katsuki said, as he joined them by the fire. “Um, thanks for coming.”

“I met one of your folk in Samura,” he explained. “They’re scraping by for food down there, but said you’re even worse off, so I thought I should make a trip.”

“You brought food?” Katsuki asked, hating himself for immediately getting his hopes up. “We’ll take it.”

“Katsuki,” Masaru said sternly. “Let him settle in, first.”

“It’s okay,” the trader chuckled. “Bring me my bags, son.”

Katsuki retrieved the saddle without question, carrying it over, and watched eagerly as he began to unwrap a damp cloth bundle. From inside, he produced a collection of glass jars, each carefully wrapped in more cloth to keep them from clinking together, and Katsuki reached for one greedily.

“That one’s a jam,” the man said, handing over the jar of something bright red. “Sweet and delicious, they let me try some before they sold me the jars.”

“All of these?” Katsuki asked, gesturing toward the rest.

“A few jams,” the man amended. “Plus tomatoes. Never had a tomato till this trip, they were excellent. Not as sweet as the cherries, more sharp, but just as juicy.”

“Where did all of this come from?” Masaru asked, when the trader began unwrapping a second bundle. “Are there many towns with such excess?”

“Most food I’ve seen in years,” the trader said, looking down at the second batch of jars that now sat in his lap. “There’s a farm, never seen anything like it in my years. Most of it won’t reach this far, but they’ve been preserving things for winter. Bought a bunch of sugar from me, next day they show up with all these jams, asking if I want to buy them. Earned themselves a tidy profit, I reckon, but no skin off my back. Knew I could sell ‘em out this way for more, anyhow.”

Katsuki swallowed hard. They didn’t exchange a lot of coins in their village, they preferred to trade directly, where they could.

“How far away is it?” he asked. “This town.”

“Oh, a long way,” the man said, with a tired sigh. “Took me the better part of a season to make my rounds, and that was with good weather.”

Too far for him to go meet them, then, Katsuki lamented. He couldn’t be away from the town for that long.

“Are you going back there?”

“Hope so, nicer place to spend the winter than up here. Won’t be any trades out this way in the winter, so I’d stock up now, if you want anything.”

Katsuki glanced over at his tiny indoor farm, sighing to himself. They’d done better than outdoors, that was for sure, but it was nowhere near enough to get the town through the winter, even if they filled the whole living room.

“Can we make some kind of trade?” Katsuki asked. “I have a few coins, not a huge amount, but maybe I could trade you something in return.”

“I’m open to that. What did you have in mind?”

“Anything,” Katsuki said, even though he knew it came across desperate – some traders would take advantage of that, he knew, but he had to risk it. “We’re desperate up here. That farm in the corner is all we can grow.”

The trader looked over at it, and while he didn’t say a word, Katsuki saw the look in his eyes.

“We have plenty of firewood,” Katsuki offered. “I don’t know what other towns are like for forest. We get milk daily. We have some furs we could part with. I can go around the town and see what people have to offer, if you don’t mind waiting a day.”

He had hoped the trader would jump on something, but he just sat and listened.

“I don’t know, uh, seeds? Maybe someone will want a certain crop? Or a reindeer, I guess?” he choked up at the thought of giving Toshinori away, but maybe he could convince the farm to part with a different one, if he tried hard enough. “They’re good for milk, or hauling stuff and riding in the snow.”

“Seeds?” the trader asked.

“Seeds!” Katsuki agreed, relieved. “We can spare some seeds to grow crops, if someone would want those. What kind are you looking for?”

“I’m not sure. There’s a kid who likes to grow new things, does a lot of business with all the traders. He’d buy ‘em.”

“Okay, um, let me go grab some and you can take a look.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, already stepping back into his boots, but no one tried to stop him, so he ran out into the village again, heading toward Melissa’s house. She would be on the same page, right? She wouldn’t try to stop him from trading for seeds. Actual food took precedence over potential crops, surely.

“Hey,” he said breathlessly, when she opened the front door for him. “There’s a trader. He has food. Said he’ll trade for seeds, of all things. Do you think–?”

“Of course,” she cut him off. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

They hurried down the stairs together, Melissa turning on all the lamps as they went, into the freezing cold cellar where her father had carefully preserved his old collection.

“Probably not tomatoes,” Katsuki said, as he began flipping through paper packets. “They have a bunch of those, I think. And cherries, whatever those are. I’ve never seen them in here anyway.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar. How about onions? We have a ton.”

“Yeah, grab anything we have extras of, I’ll let him pick what he wants.”

Together they grabbed handfuls of seeds, and Katsuki tucked them inside his jacket to keep them safe, giving Melissa a tiny smile as she began to turn the lanterns back out.

“Wish me luck?” he asked.

“You don’t need it,” she laughed. “Go do some bargaining!”

When he got back to the house, he found a much larger collection of jars laid out on the floor, and his stomach churned. He should have grabbed more seeds, should he go back again?

“Seeds,” Katsuki said breathlessly, kicking his boots off again and hurrying over to unload his pockets. “I hope these are new.”

The trader’s eyes widened when he saw everything Katsuki poured out, and he glanced over at his jars again, pausing.

“Are these all different?”

“A few of each,” Katsuki said, lining them all up to show the carefully inked labels on the fronts. “Do any of them sound familiar?”

“None,” the trader assured him. “You didn’t give me a chance to show you the potatoes.”

“Potatoes?” Katsuki knew that name, he’d tried growing them himself with little luck. “The little lumpy things?”

The trader shifted a little, sliding a blanket over, and Katsuki found the biggest vegetables he’d ever seen, just staring him in the face. It took everything in him to not just sob. They’d used his tiny versions for soups that had fed the whole town; that pile could probably feed them for a month.

“Give me two of each,” the trader requested. “I think he’d like that.”

“For all the potatoes?” Katsuki asked, wide-eyed.

“And the jams and tomatoes,” the trader said, smiling slightly as he pushed them Katsuki’s way. “I just need to keep enough to feed myself here and back to Rakuson.”

“What if we feed you here?” Katsuki suggested, hoping his parents wouldn’t be too horrified. “We do big, hot dinners with the town, we can easily fit you in too.”

“In exchange for the radishes?” the trader asked with a smile.

Katsuki didn’t know what a radish was, but the man gestured toward another set of jars he hadn’t seen yet, so he nodded all the same.

“And I’ll give you fish and milk,” Katsuki offered. “It doesn’t last as long, so your stuff is better for us. You can take it down the mountain though, no problem.”

“Sure,” the trader agreed. “I’ll give you all my food stocks, if you provide me enough to get back to Rakuson safely, and two of each of these seeds.”

“Perfect. I’m gonna start making dinner for the town, then. You can have my room for the night; if you want to rest before we eat, go ahead.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

With a giant potato and the fish he’d caught earlier, he’d easily be able to feed the town a good, hot soup. If he added some of the tiny carrots he’d grown, he could even make enough to feed the trader on his way back down the hill the next day. Soup got boring, sure, but it stretched their stocks so far, and kept them all warm and full.

He couldn’t wait to see everyone’s faces when they tasted the potatoes.

[Chapter 15]