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“Tell me your home has more than one bed.”
“My home only has one bed, though I can put down mats on the floor if you would prefer to sleep next to the fire. They’re not as comfortable as the bed, but I keep them for guests.”
“You get guests?”
“From time to time. Travel and trade still have to happen, even on this broken, rut-ridden world.”
I wonder what the others are like, the traders. Are they sane? Or are they lust-driven rut monsters like the wild buck I encountered?
“Come upstairs,” he says, gesturing up a cross between ladder and stairs that sit at the very rear of the house, in what I guess is designed to be a lounging or eating space. There is no formal seating, but there are a lot of large cushions placed in orderly fashion. None of them match, and they all have different points of origin, I am sure. They look like gifts.
I follow him to the back of his cottage and up the stairs. His bedroom takes up the entire loft space. There are stained glass windows at either end of the space. I have no idea how he made those, but I am guessing he probably didn’t. It’s something else he traded for, I’d bet. There are marks of craftsmanship everywhere in this home. Nothing has been made en masse. Everything is hand crafted. There’s not a lot of things, either. At the side of the stairs, there is a bathtub against the wall. It’s made of beaten metal. It must have been a pain in the ass to get upstairs, and I can’t see how it is easily filled, but the light from the blue, green, and yellow window dances across it in an enchanting manner.
Next to the bathtub, in the middle of the room, there’s a wardrobe carved with caprine motifs. Horned, bearded beasts, some alien, some goat. There’s a bed underneath the far window, and a bedside table. Just one. I think he made that. It is simple and rough-hewn, much like the exterior of the house. There’s a simple round chandelier up above that can be raised or lowered on a rope. Candles burn inside little glass chambers up there.
“This is very pretty,” I say.
The bed is large. Gruff-sized. Six of me could fit inside it. It has white linen pillows and sheets and a patchwork quilt, though not one that humans might have made historically. It is not a tidy set of squares or triangles. There is no real pattern. It is a series of scraps cut into straight lines where possible and sewn together in thick, rough hands. He made that. I am starting to develop a feel for Gruff. For what he is and what he is not like.
“Thank you,” he says. “It is comfortable for me. Everything I need, and nothing I do not.”
I sit on his bed. It has been stuffed with god knows what, but it is soft. It has been a long time since I slept on a surface that was made with true comfort in mind. The dome bed is just an inflatable surface. EET keeps deployment weight down. We’re expected to fashion our own environment-appropriate shelters once we orient ourselves to the planet. I didn’t get started on that yet. I still hadn’t gotten my bearings. I tried to get settled with Strumpet and nearly fell into the river of death. Comfort has been a very long way from my mind for a very long time.
“Stand up,” he says. “You’re filthy. Have a bath.”
I could get offended, but he’s right. I’ve not had a chance to change out of my suit for a while and it is covered in all kinds of crap and garbage and general world goo. I smell too. Being properly clean sounds like a dream.
“I’d like a bath, thank you.”
“Let me run it for you,” Gruff says. He walks over to the bath, pulls at a chain hanging from the roof, and a little round cylinder sticking out from the side of the wall opens up and begins to flow with warm water. He opens the windows at both ends of the room to allow air to carry the steam outside. Everything is ingenious and practical, even the things I thought wouldn’t work at all. Gruff has a way of making things work; that’s what I’m learning today.
“I don’t have a spare change of clothes.”
“I have a light robe that will probably fit to your knees. It will be comfortable,” he says. “You bathe. I will make food.”
That sounds like a good deal to me. Gruff puts a towel and the robe down on a little table next to the bath, and keeps the water flowing until the bath is almost entirely full.
“Soaps are there,” he says, directing my attention to a row of soaps sitting alongside it in a little wood rack. The soaps have various colors and scents, not to mention styles and sizes. He is clearly an inventive and creative creature. I’m impressed. I don’t want to tell him that, but it is true.
I peel my filthy uniform off, my sweaty underwear following it to the floor. I climb into the bath, finding it to be the perfect temperature. This is a primitive means of cleaning myself, but it will have to do. I sink down to sit in the tub and feel myself enveloped by watery warmth.
Reaching for the various soaps, I start to pick through them. Each of them smells different, many of them of flowers from the surrounding forests. I was trained to survive on my own for a very long time if I had to. Gruff might not ever have been trained, but he is incredible at it.
I run the soap over my body, slowly spreading the lather over my skin. I draw in deep breaths and release them slowly as the natural oils of the soap soothe my skin even as they eat away at the bonds of the filth clinging to me. I’m starting to feel that everything might be alright after all. I think it’s the bath that’s doing it. It’s like a magical mood booster. I feel warm and held and safe in a structure that is much more robust than the thin dome that has provided me shelter so far. I can hear Gruff moving about downstairs, doing something in the kitchen. I wonder what he will cook, and if I will find it edible.
When I am clean, I put Gruff’s shirt on and pad downstairs. He has stoked the fire and made the house warm enough for me to be comfortable in relatively little. I see him working in the kitchen, his muscular form bent to a domestic task I would never have imagined an alien monster would indulge in.
He looks up as I reach the floor. “Did you enjoy your bath?”
“I did. Thank you.”
I have been trained to survive alone. I had no idea how nice it is to survive with someone else too. Gruff has prepared a kind of vegetable stew. It smells delicious, and when he offers me a spoon to taste, I discover that it tastes amazing too.
“Very good,” I say. “That’s tasty.”
“A variety of root vegetables, roasted with goats butter, and then blended into a nourishing soup, served with bread, also buttered with goats’ butter,” he says proudly. “You will find I tend you just as well as I tend my herd.”
That’s almost a sweet sentiment. I sit at the kitchen table and Gruff serves dinner. It’s quite romantic, sharing the meal as the sun sets outside, casting warm glows across the room.
