Chapter Text
Every. Single. Day.
Every day for almost a week now.
This woman stood near his path to work, just stood there like she was waiting for him, and waved and said hello and at first he was annoyed but now he was just baffled. How many times did he have to say "leave me alone" before it stuck? Even most of the townsfolk, people he'd known since he was a little kid, left him to himself most of the time now.
Today was the same as always. He was walking to work, and standing right next to the Mullner's house, there she was.
"Hey!" She called out.
"Don't you have work to do?" She was the new farmer, wasn't she? Why was she wasting so much time trying to talk to him instead of working her crops or whatever? He kept walking.
"Wait, I got something for you."
Now that did stop him. Just for a second.
He turned around, and saw her holding a parsnip in her hands. There were a few more being carried in a basket, too.
She practically shoved the one she was holding into his hands, smiling proudly. "I picked these this morning! It's my first harvest."
Her first harvest. He couldn't help but smile a little. "Thanks! This is great!" He'd skipped breakfast this morning, so it really was great. Parsnips weren't his favorite, but he liked a good vegetable, and this one looked pretty quality.
It dawned on Shane then that this was the first time he'd really looked at her. He'd seen her, she was hard to miss, but she was just a blur of pink and blue out of the corner of his eye before this, he kinda made a point to not really look her way til now. She was at least 3 or 4 inches taller than him- she looked a little taller than Harvey, actually- thin with spindly limbs, short blue hair, wearing lots of bright pink clothes that didn't look practical for farming at all and- was that a garbage can lid strapped onto her head?
He blinked. Yep. Definitely a garbage can lid. Okay. He tried to pretend that wasn't weird for a second.
"I think Pierre would buy this. He's been looking for a good vegetable supplier."
"I know," she was still just beaming, "I just wanted to share with some of my friends."
She turned and skipped away.
Friends?
That was... Certainly a word for what they had going on, he guessed. Probably not the one he would have used.
... What a strange woman.