Early May

It was a nice day that day, very traditionally spring. Sunny and warm, flowers were just starting to blossom. It's the reason why Lydia took a more scenic route by carriage towards her home after work. The more scenic route involved passing by the farmland that wasn't too far from her home, and as she passed it by she realized that she wasn't very far at all from Glenn's house. When was the last time she even visited him? The thought brought a faint frown to her lips.

It was easily remedied however. With a change of instructions the carriage soon pulled up close to Glenn's barn, rather than her own home. Hopefully she wouldn't be interrupting anything. And hopefully? Just hopefully.. Carley wouldn't be there. Working with her for hours was about all the Carley she could take sometimes. After paying the carriage driver, she got out and meandered down the path that led to his barn. Her hair was pulled back, attire a simple pale yellow sundress, and her bag was tossed over her shoulder, a tell-tale sign she was coming from work. Pausing in front of his door, she knocked briefly and loudly, shifting weight from one foot to the other.

Inside the barn, Glenn was still slaving away at his work bench, little thought given to the fact that the work day had ended for almost everyone else in city. Either he didn't notice, or didn't care. Regardless, he was intently sanding away at a chair leg, making sure everything was perfectly smooth and finished before he put on a coat of finish. Inside his workshop were the usual tools of his trade: rulers, T-squares, saws, chisels, hammers, pencils, paper, sheets of sandpaper and blocks of wood. Some of them were hanging from hooks on the wall, some were sitting on the surface of his bench, others were just scattered on the floor.

In addition to those items, the floor behind him had a three legged wooden dining chair, crookedly standing on the sawdust-covered floor. When Glenn heard the knock at the door, he very nearly plowed into the chair as he turned around, narrowly avoiding the piece of furniture. He scurried to the door, shouting as he did so. "Coming!" He opened the door, dressed simply in a white t-shirt, light brown carpenter's slacks with hammers hanging off of each loop, and his scuffed up brown leather work boots. His hair seemed damp with sweat; had he been working all day?

As the door slid open pale blues shifted up, her brows rising in faint surprise at the condition Glenn was in. "Hey..." Lydia smiled a little, before tilting her head to the side somewhat. "Is now a bad time? I know my dropping by was kinda unexpected so I can go if I'm interrupting something..." She paused, briefly. "I didn't think you'd be working this late into the day."

He leaned out the door a little, to take a look at the sky. The sun was very clearly in the west, though it was far from setting soon. He frowned a touch at the sight. "What time is it? I kinda lost track of time..." He stepped back inside, motioning for her to come inside if she wished. The right side of the barn, near the entrance, was much as it always was. Some of Glenn's larger projects (currently, a dining room table and three finished chairs) sat in the entryway room, while the chair he was working on was dimly visible in the workshop straight ahead. To the left, though? Was a different story entirely. Where the rooms had once been unfinished and undivided, there were now a series of thin, wood frame dividers set up, with what looked like sliding doors spaced at intervals that seemed to suggest the different divisions of rooms. "Wait a moment? I should probably change into some, uh, cleaner clothes." The sweaty carpenter turned toward the divider nearest the entrance, slid it open, and stepped inside, closing it behind him. The faint shadow of him removing his shirt could be seen through the rice paper.

She too, peered up towards the sky briefly, then back at him. "It's almost five, I think. I got off work not long ago." When he gestured for her to enter she did just that, pausing not too far from the door to look around. Nodding to his words, she turned to shut the door to the barn. "I really like what you did with the place!" Speaking loud enough so that he could hear. Dividers were examined, save perhaps the one that she could see his silhouette through. "It reminds me of the places up in Jenli. The inn we all stayed at had dividers like this. The.. ah.. Koi Inn. Very pretty place... did you get a chance to see it when you were in Jenli?"

A bit more enthusiastic in his tone, at the familiar name of the place he had stayed when he had been in the Mount Yasuo area. "Yeah! The Koi Inn. That's where I got the idea for all this stuff. Easier to do that then to try and build new walls out of wood and stuff. I bought it up there and had them send it down here." He changed into another white t-shirt, paired with a pair of wrinkled (but otherwise clean) blue jeans. With his old shirt, he wiped some of the sweat off of his forehead and arms, before tossing it aside and sliding the door open once more, to re-enter the working side of the barn. "I didn't really see all that much when I was up there, though. I was really busy."

"If you really wanted to go all out you could try having the same kinds of ponds they did too since you have the space for it... but I imagine that's a lot of upkeep. I wouldn't trust myself enough to try it." When the door slid open and Glenn stepped out from behind it she turned that way. She still lingered kind of close to the entrance of his barn, not wanting to wander about too much. "Busy? I thought it was a vacation?" Her smile became just a touch wry. "People don't tend to keep busy on vacations."

He smiled faintly, at the discussion of the ponds in Jenli. "I don't have a lot of time to do that, I don't think. I got a little bit of farm land behind the barn and the outhouse and the old farmhouse, and I'm trying to figure out what I should do about it. I can't really farm." He paused slightly, as his head tilted slightly at Lydia's comments on his 'vacation.' "It was a business trip," he said, in his usual monotone.

She addressed his latter comment first, with a simple nod. Most times she saw him she thought he could use a vacation, but best not to bring that up now, perhaps? "You could try gardening, maybe? Nothing too big.. flowers and some vegetables, though that's probably harder than it seems. I've been trying to do some gardening for a while and that's just.. not gone too well." She shuffled her feet a little before taking a couple small steps further inside. "Of course if you don't have the time for the ponds you probably wouldn't have time for the gardening..." Musing, as an afterthought.

"Probably not. I hardly have enough time to get out anymore. Not that there's a lot of places in the city I like to go..." He adjusted locks of light brown hair on his ears, before he suddenly realized something. He laughed, a little uneasy. "I should've checked before I answered the door." He glanced down at his chest, smiling wanly. "I'm not wearing my necklace. I don't, usually, when I'm here. Only when I'm in the city, or meeting with customers. I'm getting sloppy..."

Lydia frowned, just a little bit. "..why don't you have time? And I'm sure you could find some place you like going to? Especially with it warming up. It's the time of year people should be going out more, and there's a lot more to do now." Attention turned to the empty spot on his chest then, before she glanced back up towards his face. His real face. "Mm.. maybe not sloppy.. maybe you're just more.. comfortable, as you are now?"

Glenn shot Lydia a crooked a grin, a gesture that seemed at odds with his softer, more feminine face. "Maybe...maybe not." A typically cryptic response from the carpenter. Then, he waved a hand around at his workshop and the various pieces of furniture he was working on, in response to Lydia's first question. "Busy working, you know? Not as busy as I'd like to be lately, but I'm doing alright."

Not as busy as he'd like to be? He seemed too busy as it was. Brows furrowed briefly, but she wouldn't comment on that. She was a workaholic at times, what right did she have to say anything to Glenn? "Mm.. that's good to hear." She turned to look over the various pieces in progress. "These are really nice." She reached out, almost touch one of the legs of a table but paused and withdrew her hand. Probably best not to touch unfinished pieces. "Any of these chairs finished so I can test it out?" She shot Glenn a grin over her shoulder.

He pointed out one of the chairs, sitting a good distance away from the other two chairs and the table in the main entryway. It was positioned on a white cloth, that had drips and drabs of various stains and paints splattered all over it. The seat itself was a simple design: wooden seat and legs (obviously), and the back of the chair had an "X" pattern created out of crossing wood planks. It was stained a rich mahogany color, and almost looked smooth to the touch. "That one was drying today. Should be all set to be sat on. Try it out?"

Rolling her shoulder, she slid her bag off of it and down her arm to pull it off and leave it resting on the floor not far from the door. Carefully making her way towards the chair Glenn pointed out, she looked it over, giving a nod of approval. "This is really nice..." Reaching forward, she tentatively ran her hand over the back, as if testing out how dry it really was. And not only did it look smooth, but it felt it as well. "Mm. I end up ruining my dress on this because it's not dry yet, I'm gonna be absolutely livid with you." Her chuckling made it very apparent she was just jesting however. Moving around the chair and to the front, she went ahead and sat on it. Hm...

"You like it?" Glenn asked, with a touch more excitement in his voice than usual. "I got a standing order from some restaurant in Dragon's Gate to make them tables and chairs when they need them. But the stuff I make doesn't break all that often, so this'll probably be the last one I make for them for a while."

Leaning back, she paused, as if to ponder over his inquiry. After a moment she smiled and nodded. "I do. It's comfortable and pretty too. There's not much else worse than a chair that's not comfortable." Shaking her head, she leaned back in the chair a little more, making no effort to get back up. "All the chairs at the arena and outback don't sit too well. Maybe you could do some work there sometime? Or at least for one of the tables so we can all have nice chairs to sit in." Her tone and demeanor didn't suggest she was jesting per se, but she didn't seem altogether serious either.

Glenn had only ever been to the Outback and Arena briefly, but he had been observant enough to see what shape the furniture there was in. "Everything there's kinda scratched and beat-up right? I guess that's not too surprising, though..." He started tapping away at his forehead, clearly deep in thought at Lydia's potential proposal.

Her brows lifted at the fact Glenn was deep in thought. He was seriously considering it? She had thought to provide more details and names of people he could talk to, but.. then again.. how much did he work anyways? Best to try to distract him. "Anyways, work aside, how have you been lately?" Not exactly the most subtle of topic shifts, but Lydia wasn't exactly known for being smooth.

He took the bait on the topic switch anyways, though he assumed (right or wrong) that most of his conversation was old hat. "I've been alright. You know about a lot of the stuff that happened to me. The thing with G, me and Carley talking a little bit about stuff, me getting stuck at the Inn for a couple of days."

She nodded a bit to his words, sighing some at the mention of G. "Gods, that man is impossible sometimes... definitely impulsive. You really can't get him to do anything he doesn't want to do." Shaking her head. "He's not always so bad, but sometimes he certainly can drive me up a wall."

Glenn arched his brow slightly, though he still managed to keep his voice even and slow as he spoke. "You know him?"

To that? Lydia couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah, I do. He's actually a pretty good friend of mine, when he's not driving me crazy."

It wasn't clear, by the tone of his voice, what exactly he thought of the words Lydia spoke, and the simple answer he gave her didn't help matters much. "Yeah." He shuffled his feet on the ground for a moment, before he finally half-blurted out the question that was on his mind. Not that he didn't mind seeing Lydia and all but... "Did you come out here for a reason, or just to visit?"


((Edited and Adapted from Live RP))