Chapter Text
I quickly arose from my bed, not a single feeling of tiredness in my body. I adjusted my straw hat firmly, ready to take on the day.
“Okay!!” I yelled. “Storm, you do the farm chores, I’m going straight to Marnie’s to buy Vanilla and Chocolate!”
Vanilla and Chocolate were our future chickens. One white, one brown. We were buying them to save us from our poverty with their eggs.
We could barely afford seeds. We knew it would be hard to buy enough hay for the chickens to be happy, but with the speckle of money we were earning every day, we would manage.
Storm hopped out of his house and straight to work, whipping his watering can out of his bag and splashing fresh pond water over our crops, his bubblegum pink hair shining in the hot morning sun. “Yeah!” She said. “I’ll do the chores, you go get our chickens.”
I ran, my shoes muddying with beige dust, away from our houses and farm, through the trees, and to the clearing where Marnie’s ranch sat.
Upon my arrival, I banged on the red wood door, yelling “OPEN UP!”. I urgently needed to buy these chickens, especially when I’d been meaning to for days, but Marnie had been ignoring her shop.
Even when I hit the door as hard as I could, it didn’t budge. It was still around 7:30AM, before the store’s hours.
Storm appeared behind me, sprinting and out of breath.
“It’s NOT OPENING!!” I complained. “Marnie, YOU FUCKING BITCH!!” Storm laughed. “The fucking wanker.”
The clock struck 8:50. Time moves very fast in Stardew Valley.
“How about you buy Chocolate and I buy Vanilla.” Storm proposed. “I want to buy the white one.”
I nodded and shrugged. “Sure.” In my head, I made a mental note that if we ever discussed one of us each taking a chicken for ourselves, I’d have to go with Chocolate from now on.
9:00!
I burst through the door, the breeze billowing through my hair. Marnie stared at me, a shocked look on her face. “Um….” She stuttered. “Wipe your feet?”
I wiped my worn shoes on the prickly doormat. “We’re here… to buy some goddamn chickens.” Storm said, his face dark and serious.
Jas, a little girl with dark purple hair and a big green bow, peered out from behind a big storybook with yellowing pages and said, “Language.”
I glared at her, marching up to the till with Storm by my side. We looked Marnie dead in the eyes.
“One brown chicken please.” I said sternly, opening a sack and dumping hundreds and hundreds of gold coins on the counter.
“What should its name be…?” Marnie said, intimidated a little.
“Chocolate.” I said. “In our only coop, please. And in the same coop….” I gestured to Storm, who took my place glaring at Marnie at the till. “One white chicken. Same coop, name her Vanilla.”
The shaken woman nodded quickly. “Your total is 1,600 gold.” She scooped up the shining aureate coins gleaming on the wooden counter. “I’m going to assume this is good enough, you two aren’t doing very well anyway.”
Storm tapped his foot on the floor impatiently and raised his eyebrows. “Oh really…?!”
“Forgive me.” Marnie laughed awkwardly. “Little Chocolate and Vanilla are now safely in their coop. Good day.”
“No, that’s not it. I gave you a bit extra money. Can I have some hay?” I said irritatedly.
Marnie befrudgingly handed me a handful of hay from behind the counter. “This is 16 clumps. Now good day.”
“Good day.” Storm and I said in unison.
Once outside, we began to scamper as fast as we could back home. It was a much longer run than I'd have liked, carrying a bag full of hay and farm tools. Me and Storm beamed in anticipation, wishing with all our hearts to see the beautiful chickens we had worked so hard to build a coop for and to afford.
We tore past the trees, past the pond, through the gate and through the door to the chicken house….!
There sat two little chicks. One a coffee brown, one white as milk. They chirped cutely. Storm and I grinned like cheshire cats, full of joy and glee at finally seeing the two little chicks we’d worked our asses off for.
Storm went over to Vanilla and petted her soft feathers. The little chick looked apprehensive, but let herself be pet.
I took some straw out of my bag and but it on the feeding bar, and then the rest in our chest for animal supplies. “I hope we’ll have enough to feed them for a while…”
“I’m sure we will.” Storm said assuringly. “We usually get enough money to buy the occasional 20 bales of hay. We’ll be fine. Plus, we have 12 already.”
“True!” I said, smiling. “We can do this!”
Storm cringed at my optimism. “I’m gonna go fishing now.”
I laughed. “Wait, lemme come too!”
We exited the chicken coop, passing our cat, Amelianor, which we both petted adoringly before going back to our walk. We held our flimsy fishing rods over our shoulders with calloused hands, grotty from sowing land.
Our old shoes, nearly tattered with use, hid calloused feet, hardened by walking tens of thousands of paces.
Over the course of the afternoon, walked through the cobbled path in Pelican Town, directly across the bridge, and onto the warm sand of the beach.
“Oo, shells!” I said happily, picking baby blue shells out of the light sand.
Storm just kept walking to the end of the dock. “Yeah, shells! Money money money!”
I put the shells in my cramped bag and ran to where Storm had cast out his line on the dock. We always fish in this one spot of the dock. At the very very end, nearest to the ocean and the fisher’s den. I very much like fishing together.
I cast out my line, whooshing it far into the sea.
The air smelt so strongly of salt and seaweed, I swore it would stick to my hair and clothes.
Fish are extremely abundant in the sea around here. You can catch a sardine or an anchovy in less than 10 minutes.
I like fishing. The sound of the waves calms me, and the reward of fish—which only excites me because of the money— is more than enough for the experience to be enjoyable. I mean, whatever money we can get, we take.
Storm started reeling something in. I watched him closely. “Oo, do you think it’s a good catch?”
“I mean,” she said, focused. “It’s really difficult to get to work, so…” she pulled a big salmon out of the water on his rod. “Yes!”
I pumped my fist in the air. She wrapped the fish in paper and put it in his bag.
I glanced at my watch. “Oh, it’s 6:20PM. We should go home before it gets too late, Storm.”
I reeled in my fishing rod and put it over my shoulder like we did when we’d walked here. “You don’t have to come, but I’m gonna go.”
Storm put away his fishing rod too. “Okay, let’s go.”
As the sun set, we skipped across the beach, towards the cobbled path home.
Satisfied with our day, we hoped to escape this poverty that restricted us and find a way to a better life on Sakura Farm.