A/N: Hey, guys! Renee here with a random, dream inspired fic. I hope this turns out as totally awesome as I think it will, but that is up to you, my dear readers.

Anyhow, I'd like to point out that in this fic there is some DonniexOC (I had a request to change up the LeoxOC for this one. And I'm glad) and some Capril. But you won't know how the heck Casey gets into this until much, much later.

Enjoy your little hearts out. C:

Escape from Crater

It was a beautiful day in the Crater, although cold, but that was par for the course. The houses all had a decent amount of snow heaped on the roofs, and Reni smiled as she looked around at the sparkly white stuff. She never got sick of it, even if it stuck around all year. The brightly coloured vendors on Main could be seen from her rickety front porch. It stuck out like a sore thumb from the stark white and brown of the town. Wood smoke curled from the chimney of her crooked, worn and wooden abode, along with all of its neighbours and their chimneys.

Crater was bustling, although you'd never be able to tell from where Reni stood at the moment. It looked the same as it did every other day, and it had since before she could remember. The high walls of earth at the edge of the town loomed a good story over the tallest building in Crater. Above that, it was clear blue. A small, fragmented circle of blue. That was the only thing Reni wished she could see: more of the summer sky. Living In a literal hole put a damper on her horizons. If only they were allowed to climb to the top of the walls on good days.

Reni gathered her thoughts and stepped down from her front porch. Bundled in her shabby, patch-job jacket and mismatched fingerless mitts, she kicked through the snow toward Main with a bag of woollen accessories. Today was the trade fair, and the young girl with the bright eyes was selling her wares.
She also had another stop to make, with a special delivery, but it wasn't expected until supper time.

Reaching her destination, she heard the sound of the band, their homemade instruments singing sweetly in the crisp morning air. Not for the first time, she was grateful that her booth was close to the square where they played. It gave her a good look at the boy who played the drum. He was cute, she admitted to herself, but although he was her best customer when it came to gloves, she could never get up the nerve to do anything other than business with him.
She passed several booths on her way to her own, but stopped when someone called out her name. Turning, she smiled at the familiar voice.

"Hey Amir," she said cheerily to the young man behind the counter of the spicy food stand. "How is your father doing today? Better, I hope." The smell of spices filled her nose as she neared their source. She wondered if she could convince him to give her a mimosa before she left.

"He is, thank you. He told me to give you this for sending those bowls of soup over. He was getting tired of eating my cooking," he chuckled, the dark-toned skin around his eyes crinkling as he came around the counter to embrace his friend. "From father."

She hugged him back. "Tell him that he's welcome to come over any time he wants for more." They released each other.

"How's business?" Amir asked with a twinkle in his eye.

"Oh, so-so." She looked at his eyes, which were a few inches above her own, and noticed the shine in them. Realizing what he was hinting at, she mock-punched the boy in the arm.

"He hasn't bought any gloves yet, I just got here!" She referred to the drummer. She didn't know what he did, but every time he came back, his mittens were completely tattered.

"Well when he does come over to buy his gloves, try to make conversation with the guy! He's not going to magically like you if you don't talk to him."

Reni sighed at her friend, but she knew he was right. "I should open up shop. See you later?" Quickly, she snatched a mimosa from one of the steaming trays, and popped it into her mouth.

Amir tweaked her toque and smiled. "See you later."

At her booth, Reni made all of her expected sales but one. In the time between, she thought about her special delivery. It was a big order, and quite strange: four hats, four scarves and four pairs of three-fingered gloves in four different colours. She was excited to see who had bought them. Reni was on a friendly basis with almost everyone in town, but as any other town (she assumed, she'd never been anywhere else) there were the few shut-ins.
It just so happened to be the shut-ins that wanted these items.

They'd better like them, she thought, for all the time she took to make them.
First, getting the wool from Mrs. Johnson's sheep was a day's work in itself. Since the sheep needed their wool to keep warm, she and Mrs. Johnson, the elderly lady next door, had to take wool from a bunch of different sheep. A big order like this took a lot more wool than usual!

Then there was the day of brushing out and cleaning the wool. Again, there was a lot of wool, and it was a long process. The spinning wasn't so bad. Reni loved spinning yarn. Mrs. Johnson had taught her how to do it when she was younger, not long before her parents had caught the flu and died. Spinning had given her something to keep her mind off her parents until the friendly old lady had stopped knitting due to her arthritis. She found a talent in working with wool. Now, she did it for herself, giving Mrs. Johnson a portion of the profits, of course.

It had taken forever for Reni to dye all the wool she'd needed before she could even begin to start making it into the articles. She'd had to borrow some needles from her elderly neighbour, since hers had broken because they were old and brittle. Once they were finished, she didn't think she'd ever been more proud. They looked uniform and cozy at the same time, and for the first time making three-fingered gloves, she thought she did pretty well.

She peeked in her bag again, partly to make sure they were still there, and partly just to look at them. The red hat and gloves were sure to stain the head and hands of the wearer the first time they were worn. It had said specifically in the letter with the order for the colour to be dark and vivid. It was vivid, that was for sure. Reni thought it looked a little like blood. The blue was lighter in hue than the red. It reminded her of the sky. In fact, she had held the articles up to the sky often while working on them, to see how close the colour was.

The orange had been fun to knit with. It was such a bright colour, and while she had crafted with it, it had made her happier. The wearer ought to be a child, she mused. It matched the bright personality of one.

Lastly, there had been the purple. Purple dye was not the easiest to create, especially to get the violet tone the customer wanted. It required a lot of cabbage. Reni hated to admit that she had worked the hardest on the purple items. The colour was beautiful, and she just felt that those particular mittens were in need of some extra care. So was the hat. And the scarf.

Unbeknownst to the girl at the booth, a boy approached. He rapped on the table in front of her with his knuckles.

"Afternoon," the boy said in greeting.

"Gah!" Reni nearly jumped out of her skin, and she scrambled about, trying to organize herself before she noticed who the boy was. The cute drummer from the square. She stopped her scrambling and took him in, maybe for a little longer than was necessary. His dark hair was curly at the ends and in need of a trim; it fell into his dark brown eyes a bit. He was taller than she was, and often wore black, but he smiled a lot. His smile made her giddy, all perfect except for the eye teeth, which were crooked like his lopsided grin. She almost sighed.

Hadn't he said something to her? Oh, right!

Quickly composing herself, she replied, "Oh, um, yeah. Good afternoon to you, too, Morris. Here for your gloves?" She tried to hide the blush that came to her cheeks. Good thing it was cold out, so she had an excuse.

The boy nodded and dug in his pockets for the trade item he'd brought. "My da made these," he explained as he pulled them from his jacket, "so pardon if they aren't completely straight." He handed her two pairs of needles. Wooden knitting needles of two different sizes.

Reni beamed. How had he known that her old pair had gotten brittle and broken? "Oh, this is perfect! Thank you." She took them from him. "How did you know I needed a new pair?"

"Last month, when I bought these," he wiggled his fingers, "I overheard you talking to the guy in front of me that your old ones were close to breaking. I figured that since I needed somethin' to give you the next month, I might as well give you somethin' you need."

He'd been listening? The thought made her giddy all over again. She set the needles down and reached for the pair of gloves on the top of her bag. "I made them extra thick this time. Maybe you won't wear them out as fast."

He chuckled. "Maybe," he mused.

"I don't think I've asked before," Reni said, gathering her courage and keeping Amir's encouragement in mind, "but how do you wear out your gloves so fast?"
Morris smiled. "It's a secret."

"Oh. Okay." Reni wasn't about to pry, so she let the subject drop. "Well, thanks for coming back, yet again," she said, awkwardly. Inwardly, she cursed her horrible social skills. She should have asked what he was doing later. She should have suggested that he come with her sometime to the dinette. But no, she didn't, and she mentally kicked herself.

"I'll be here next month," he said, swiping his purchase from the counter, and giving her a two fingered salute as he walked back to his band.

Later, when he brought the leftovers from his day at the trade fair over to her place, Amir groaned at how much of a chicken Reni was.

"You really just... Dismissed him? Like 'yeah, great doing business with you, bye'?" He picked up a piece of food and popped it into his waiting maw.

Reni wasn't about to take flak from anyone. "Well, I don't think it came off that way."

"You essentially told him you weren't interested."

"Oh, yeah?" Reni bit back. "What do you call my blush-fest then? Doesn't that just scream 'I like you'?"

"Sure, sure. If he saw it over your already cherry-red cheeks. You get so red in the cold that I don't think he did."

Reni crossed her arms defensively. She hated that she turned red in the cold when everyone else seemed to be so well-adjusted. She was a throwback of evolution.

"Whatever," she growled. "I have a delivery to make. You coming?" She trudged the short distance to her front door and shrugged her jacket on.

Amir wobbled his head back and forth. "Yeah, why not," he decided, getting up from his rickety chair. "Where to, Chief?"

"Across town, near the wall. You know that house where most of the lights are never on, and the curtains are always closed? That one," she carried on when Amir nodded in understanding.

She grabbed the bag with all the woollen items and pushed open the door. She squinted into the evening glare of the snow, and stepped put onto her dreary front porch again. When Amir donned his clothing and joined her, they set off.

It took fifteen minutes to go from Reni's house to the delivery. The walk there was spent in comfortable silence and the sound of snow crunching under heavy boots. Both youth were apprehensive of who they would find opening the door. No one had ever seen who lived in there, not that they knew of.

The house was the same sort that Reni's was, although... Creepier. The whole front was weathered, and looked as if no one had taken care of it in years. It was probably a good assumption. The shutters on the top floor windows were drawn shut, but crooked, giving the house a lopsided look that wasn't at all charming.

The mystery of the residents combined with the spookiness of the building had Reni bouncing anxiously on her toes as she knocked on the door. "I hope they answer," she mused aloud.

"Why wouldn't they?" Amir said sarcastically. "They wanted it at their door at this time."

"True."

There was a muffled scuffling noise, like someone had fallen, from behind the door, and it flew open.

"HELLO, THERE!" a... Thing with a creepy voice, lumpy and mismatched clothes, and green skin shouted from the threshold.

There was stunned silence from the two teens for approximately two seconds before Reni threw the bag of mittens and scarves at it, grabbed for Amir, and ran, screaming, back toward her house.

A/N: well, my friends, it seems Reni has met a turtle. Which one? You tell me. We'll see who's right when the next chapter is up!

R&R, everyone!