Chapter Text
Hubert would have taken a sip of his coffee, yet there was a lump in his throat. It was his favourite blend, imported from the Fern archipelago. The expensive, authentic, ethically sourced paper kraft bag had travelled through the southern coast, crossed the desert, and found its way up to the capital, on Hubert’s desk. On its journey, it might have crossed Stardew Valley, and Her.
Hubert had never thought of himself as the emotional type. He’d do what needed to be done, and that would be the end of it. She had been the head of Ferngill, and he had been Her hand. Punched in the gut by a sudden strike of nostalgia, he thought about the night She had learned about the Bright Sun mission. It would have been a masterpiece of an operation, if only She had never learned about it and tried to meddle. The look She gave him had been halfway between contempt and horror. I thought I knew who you were. The disgust in Her voice… It had hurt, but not as much as Her silence, as difficult to swallow as his coffee was now. “What a waste”, Hubert thought as he got up to pour his cold cup in the bathroom sink. Inadvertently, his gaze met the mirror’s. The lines on his face were particularly sharp, his lips particularly colourless, his eyes particularly dead. Hubert had always known who he truly was: an unfeeling tool at Her service. He did what had needed to be done. In movies, the hero stared horrified at the gun he just shot with. Was the weapon to blame? If the villain needed to be shot, the gun shot and the hero dealt with the morals. So it was with him. Black. Sharp. Cold. Deadly. A gun didn’t feel.
Hubert glanced at his watch. He had spent five minutes idling over this coffee now, and it was five minutes too many. Mr. Arundel didn’t pay him to self-reflect, and with the war, there was more work than ever before.
This war was meant to be short. After all, Ferngill’s forces were overwhelming. Yet Hubert’s spies were killed faster than the new ones could be trained. Public opinion was against them, even with the constant stream of propaganda. Captured Ferngillian soldiers were forced to work for the empire. The odds were still in their favour, they simply needed to push through. Hubert contributed with all his might to the war effort. It meant everything to him, because it had meant everything to Her. He didn’t sleep, or when he did, it was on his office’s couch, ready to pick up the phone whenever Mr. Arundel had new orders.
Working under Mr. Arundel was significantly different than working for Her. First, there was this lack of trust between Hubert and Mr. Arundel, who foolishly fed him information drop by drop, too afraid that he’d betray him, making the flow of information significantly slower to navigate. Then there was the harshness of his tone. Hubert didn’t mind being treated like a dog, Her dog. But even the aggressive shepherds Hubert’s men took during some missions were pet from time to time. They didn’t receive these grating stares, they weren’t called monsters simply because they did as they were ordered.
Hubert wasn’t the emotional type, he disliked working under Arundel for entirely rational reasons. Arundel wasn’t a good leader for Ferngill. He didn’t know what was good for them, he didn’t have what it takes. She would have known to take decisive action and stop the war immediately, or to push it through a victorious end. Did Arundel really think Hubert’s spies didn’t monitor the constant flow of bribes, the amount of funds raised in the name of the war that ended up in the wrong pockets, tucked away safely?
Hubert stopped drinking coffee entirely. The war continued. Spies died and others replaced them. Arundel was re-elected, somehow.
In the evenings, when Hubert threw himself on the couch to get some sleep, he felt overtaken by feverish thoughts, over and over. The tiredness of work, the patter of rain over the panes, blurring the city lights, were not enough to fill the emptiness in his chest.
A letter came. At first, Hubert thought it was another matter of the state, another report. Blood left his fingertips as he recognised the writing, Her writing, Hubert’s name in Her small, neat italics. Reports didn’t matter anymore, She had written.
Hubert,
When I left, I felt crushed by the burdens I had to carry. My soul faded before a growing emptiness. I’d lost sight of my own life.
I have no doubt you know precisely where I live now.
If you ever feel like I did – as if your forces had waned, as if you needed to let out this scream you’d be holding like it was the last thing you ever held in yourself, then you must know that I have not forgiotten you. I have had Rodrigue, a new friend of mine, make a cabin for you. You will always be welcome by my side, in spite of everything.
Sincerely,
E.
Hubert was an efficient man. It took him three months to put his affairs in order. Was the capital always this rainy? In the silence of his car, stuck between the traffic and his thoughts, he asked himself whether he was making the right decision. At a red light, he took the letter he had left on the passenger seat. Red, speckled with the shadows of droplets, he pondered over Her words. A horn took him out of his reverie. Hubert was never this careless before, what was going on with him? He turned on the radio, he needed something, anything, to make him go back to earth, to make things real again, to ventilate this irritating fog of the mind.
All doors open
In a great draft
I am an empty house
Without you
Upon reaching Calico, he found out that he couldn’t safely keep going. He stopped at a building in the middle of the desert. It was the exact wrong shade of pink, decrepit, and didn’t indicate what function it held, showing an enigmatic sign where an outdated font read: OASIS. Hubert looked around him, at the windy desert night. The building was the only thing standing. He entered.
A weirdo with an absurdly long pink ponytail was resting her head on her arms, sleeping on the counter. It looked like… a convenience store? She woke up, stared at him. “You’re here for Mr. Von Riegan?” She gestured at a discreet door in a corner, between the milk and the yoghurt, where stood a huge blonde bodyguard, arms crossed over an undersized shirt, face unreadable behind sunglasses. A second glance informed him that the giant was, in fact, sleeping. “Oh, no, wait!” exclaimed the receptionist, “you’re here for my seeds!”
Before Hubert could ask where the hidden camera crew was, she had already taken seed bags from under the counter. “You won’t find these anywhere else! I have cacti, rhubarb, beets, cact…
- I’m looking for a place to spend the night.”
Hubert didn’t even pretend that her falling face didn’t bring him sadistic joy. “Oh. Well Mr. Von Riegan rents some rooms for his clients. They’re expensive, though.”
Of this evening, Hubert couldn’t tell what was weirder, Mr. Von Riegan or his guarded casino over a little pink store. The man wore an impeccable suit, the hint of a rose tattooed on his neck, and a cool, calculating gaze. He rented a room well over the price it was worth and fell over the bed. Tired of his trip and his ever-circling thoughts, he wondered what the valley would be like. It was the perfect place to lay low, She had chosen well. He would only be there for a season. Maybe two. His cheek met the pillow as he took in the smell of hot dust, strangely comforting. In the distance, unbothered by the pink Oasis, coyotes gathered to sing.
In the morning, after having left Hilda and her seeds, Hubert took back to the long road. Claude Von Riegan had insisted on sharing a cup of coffee with him, going so far as to accompany him to his car.
“My name’s not really Claude, you know. It’s just good for business”, he had said. Hubert didn’t ask.
Sand let way to rock, then finally to grass. He crossed field upon field, entered Ferngill’s breadbasket that was known as Stardew Valley.
Pelican Town wasn’t quite the way he had expected it to be. At the end of a tunnel through the mountains, the road simply… Stopped. Hubert stepped out of his car, parked behind a bus whose flat tires indicated how frequently it was used.
Birds chirped, squirrels stared.
She was here. She had come from a small dirt path, haloed by the morning sun, smiling. She had cut her hair just a bit shorter, had well-worn blue jeans, but she was still undeniably the girl he had grown up with, the one he had sworn his life to, his Lady through and through.
She came to him and he knew everything was still the same, in spite of what had happened. A world without Her wouldn’t have made any sense, and the world wasn’t so absurd. The night wouldn’t have made sense without the knowledge that the sun would chase the darkness, after all.
“Hello, Hubert. I started wondering when you’d finally arrive here.”
Words dripped like honey from her tongue, clear, golden, real.
“Good morning, Edelgard. It’s good to see you.”