There was a skid, sharp and swift, boots rolling over the sand instead of finding traction in it. Her head turned sharply, expecting to see the crash.

Rain stopped himself in mid-air, then let himself go again. His boots hit the floorboards, and the container of glass she’d collected and set down near that spot rattled with the nearby impact.

He bent down, grabbed the strap, and gave it a test lift.

“Oof, good collection.”

“Thank you,” she said. She gave him a smile.

“And you got a bunch of stuff over there. This is great.”

“Thank you,” she said, giving him a curtsy, picking up the sides of her jacket.

He smiled, and walked past her. She could feel him there, her power telling her that he was there. She could sense the totality of him, proportions, like how he’d put on muscle but lost weight, to the point he was rangy. She knew he worked the jobs where people got extra servings, because they needed the extra servings, but he ate like someone on rations. That he was tired, in part as a consequence of diet, in part because he worked harder than many of the other people out there.

She knew, through the dull sense of his physicality that her power provided, that the smile and proximity to her went along with the faintest of good feelings flushing through his body.

She wasn’t sure how to interpret that, except that most of her male family members didn’t do that. It kind of disappointed her, and she had no idea if she was being unfair, or if she’d be more hurt if he didn’t feel anything at all.

He went straight to the tech stuff she’d grabbed, lifting up the bag to peer inside. Because of course the tinker would be curious about that. She leaned against the doorframe, still trying to quiet the anxieties that had leaped into her chest, and studied Rain as he studied the tech.

His nose had been broken once and hadn’t healed quite right, and with the light shining in through the holes where the windows had been now open to the elements and letting the chill wind through, she could see spots on his face where there were faint lines. The faintest of scars. He hadn’t cut his hair in the last few weeks, and she kind of liked it better like this. Medium length, instead of being so short that nothing could be done with it.