Chapter Text
The Work light blinks at her in acid green whenever she has the gall to peek above her cubicle, lifeless as it flickers in a steady rhythm that still manages to drag itself a half second too long. It blinks at her below the muted blue paint of Joja Company’s logo, the “Join.” and “Thrive.” and makes those promises painted on the wall seem near invisible in the dim light and the flashes of lime. The Work light blinks at her and tries to steal attention from the eternally dark Rest light at its side, the color of rust in its death. She doubts it’s there for much more than show; a carrot strung up in front of a mule.
The security camera above carries more than enough red to compensate for the Rest light’s failings, though - at the very least lights up all saccharine like a cocktail cherry - too sweet, overbearing, there to feed you attention when the supervisors standing on the upper floor are otherwise occupied. It’s all a bit superfluous - you could replace the supervisors with more cameras and maybe see if their salaries couldn’t be redirected into funding an operating system newer than Windows 2000.
The air conditioning is dead and she rocks back in her company issued chair for just a moment. She tries to ignore the ache in her hips and an odd twitch in her wrist as she taps hotkeys and enters dispositions for each box of JojaCola to put on each truck, the slight stench of too many people boxed up too close together with a non-existent AC, the cubicles a weak barrier. She’s not sweating, not necessarily, but her skin feels sticky and the sandwich she stuffed down during lunch didn’t even have the strength to drag her into a half-decent coma. She tries to straighten up again, to remind herself that there’s only eight more hours to go, that she’s already through lunch and that had to count for something . There were more trucks to load for Castle Town, right, right.
She tries. She fails.
Her fingers hover over F1 (JojaCola) and F2 (Wheat Flour) as her eyes stray to the Work signal again, as it mocks her in sour green. She feels her throat tighten. Something hums in the air just out of tune to be comfortable, ominous and demanding, even prickly as she felt a slight shudder. Thunder rumbles softly in her ears, drowning out the clicks and clacks of keyboards and she feels her heart pound just a little too hard - her fingers shaking and there was no reason for this, no reason at all no reason for her to panic but no this was wrong wrong wrong -
She bites the side of her mouth to try and abate the nerves, nearly draws blood. Takes a deep breath that constricts her even more. She swallows. Her vision still swims.
There are two more trucks to load for Castle Town. The rest is too blurry to make out.
She fails with flying colors and couldn’t find it in her to care.
Something snaps.
Every second hangs in the air like a threat, another moment of her seen on camera not working, of a supervisor taking the chance to check her out of hundreds of cubicles and see her not doing her job. Lazing on the dollar. She knows that others are watched - the person behind her had management lecture them time and time again about efficiency - but they never seem to call her out on doing the same, even when her numbers falter. The watchmen ignore her, too. It’s irrational, she knows, but it still...
Her fingers still hover over the hotkeys but drift to F3 (Sugar) and F4 (Rice) as she rolls her chair a little to the back and the right.
She tugs her topmost drawer open and nearly bangs her hip on it, squeaks and bites her tongue and reels in embarrassment - it shouldn't matter no one notices they don’t even spare a glance never ever - and forces herself to ignore the slight in favor of the one bit of vibrant color she could hide in her cubicle. She’s always carried it on her, all these years, and a decade never seemed so unimportant while the envelope still looked so new - unrumpled and unbent and a soft sort of golden-white so different from her cubicle, like a lily in concrete. No crinkles nor stains despite being on her person through storm and storm again, through coffee spills and hands that felt to need to occupy themselves with fiddling with the edge.
The envelope sits there unassuming, a royal purple seal sitting on the crease. She ghosts over the imprint - a symbol she couldn’t quite decipher and never had the mind or time to ponder - and holds her breath for a moment. The tension hanging over her is different from before - an almost giddy kind of anticipation and excitement. Encouraging.
She breathes and it comes easily.
She takes her first personal in months - since last year, when the feeling was just too much but she hadn’t considered this option - just to make sure the letter could still even be useful. Her hands shake as she looks up the town on her phone, the mayor, the number to contact.
It’s an out of body experience, it has been since she opened the letter - and she doesn’t remember what words stumble out her mouth as she hangs onto the other person’s every last syllable. The affirmation. How quick she could be there, if she doesn’t mind lodging at the saloon for a few days while the house is refurbished. It’s too good to be true (needing the house fixed aside) and she has to ask twice just to be sure.
It takes five minutes to compose herself enough to trudge back out to her desk, to stop her hands from shaking enough to type out a polite thank-you-for-having-me email.
A victory fanfare rings in her ears. She tries to abate it by reminding herself that what she would do next wouldn’t be easy. It only somewhat works.
Her manager just looks in apparent confusion when she presents the resignation form, all hesitant and shy and it takes all of her willpower not to apologize just for approaching him. He tries not to smile at her at first, like there’s a joke going on that she’s missed, and then glances to his computer and taps a handful of keys. He frowns, glances at her again. Squints a little. The smile turns precariously cordial.
He asks to see her ID. Asks for her name. How long she’s been here.
Apparently they hadn’t even bothered to put her into the system, even if her payroll said otherwise. She ignores the lead in her stomach at the revelation and flashes a demure little smile and a sheepish, “better to know now than later, I guess?”
She supposes where she’s going it doesn’t matter anyways. She’d been polite. She’d given her two weeks. They couldn’t ask more of her.
Right.
A breeze somehow slips through the building as she continues on her path out, a sweet aroma of honey and sugar and flowers that reminds her of sunshine. It carries on out the front door and mingles with the city air, warms the winter chill and clears the ever-present tinge of smoke. She must be going mad. (Wouldn’t doubt Joja putting something in the vents.)
She doesn’t notice the flowers that trail behind every footprint, tiny sprouts shooting between the cracks in the sidewalk.
The snow falls and smothers them soon enough regardless.
Traffic is thick and the snow thicker on the bus ride out. Her pillow is a godsend and she splurges - ducks into the bookstore on the way over - and only feels a slight bit of regret on not getting something more relevant to the situation than another young adult romance. (Did people even use farmer’s almanac’s anymore? That’s about as close as she could find there...)
It takes hours to get out of the city - more than a few traffic jams had the bus driver tense his jaw - and she spends her time swapping between chapters of her book, staring down at her notebook without notes to write, or taking questionable-quality photos of the scenery when they’re stuck in another jam - earbuds in. It’s passable in the city, when the electricity keeps things illuminated and alive, when she loses herself in the people walking past. She hopes they’re handling city life better than her. Actually getting out. Making friends. Appreciate more than cubicle walls and solitary lunches and “it’d look great on your resume.”
Maybe she should’ve told the mayor to give her another week to dawdle instead of two weeks wasted hermiting in her room. (Packing, something productive, right.) More expenses, though, and it cost more than she’d thought to shove her comforter in a box and ship it. She knows that it could take weeks before even the quickest of radishes could mature, and while she was assured the saloon would be happy to accommodate her, she already winces at how much daily takeout could dent her savings.
There’s less to see when they pass the outskirts. Headlights, mostly - occasional flashes of the moon between bare branches. They’re not far away enough to cleanse the stars of light pollution. The rest of the bus has long since quieted or gotten off the bus - what was originally a game of sardines now a bit more empty, and she sets her backpack on the newly free seat next to her after a particularly rude gentleman evacuates it. (He ignored her the whole time even when she offered a polite nod and a hello, earbuds aside. She supposes she wouldn’t blame him and it was probably for the best, but...)
She picks more calm music when night reigns - soft ambiance and acoustic and unnecessarily angsty indie - and while she hugs her pillow and tucks it under her chin, her nerves still have yet to really settle. It’s childish, really - like she’s taking a road trip or having a sleepover when this was so much more. Sleepovers weren’t permanent, after all, and a road trip tended not to be one-way. Not unless there was an accident and oh dear, that wasn’t what she intended at all, but she’ll be alone there, won’t she? Out there in a town full of strangers and she’s a fool if she expects Arcadia.
Or, well. Mostly strangers. Childhood summers allow a slight bit of wiggle room for the mayor, at least. She’s not sure if the others are around.
The songs start to melt together as she shuts her eyes. It’s hours before the sun rises and it’ll be okay, she thinks. Get some rest after a busy day and prepare for a busier tomorrow.
She wakes with a crick in her neck, sunshine blinding her, and a creeping horror that she missed her stop. Her knee smacks against an armrest more than a handful of times as she makes a mad dash to a driver, manages a squeaky, “how much to Stardew, again, sir?” as she cradles aching bone.
The driver doesn’t take his eyes off the road but he quirks an eyebrow and shoots an unimpressed look all the same. “Ten more minutes.”
Her shoulders slump in relief until a turn in the road has her faceplant onto a row’s worth of armrests.
Robin the carpenter hums as she surveys the scene, and leans just so on her axe. She pauses, smoothes down her puffy vest, and considers again.
“It’s... I guess I got a bit more into the groove than I thought? Didn’t expect to get as much done as I did last night -” didn’t remember, she means, “- but no complaining on my end, I guess? It’s all up to regulation.”
The mayor tilts his head at that. “I could’ve sworn... mm...” He turns to her. “Well, at least this way you’ll have more time to settle in, hm? If Robin gives her okay then it should be all safe to stay in, although there’s still some time before winter’s quite over - not much to grow for a few days still.”
She nods at that and she supposes that’s all she can do.
They apparently expected more from her if the silence in the air hung for any particular reason, but then Robin lets out a clear little laugh soon enough. “Well hey, there’s always room for improvement. What’d you say it had again, Mayor? Rustic charm? Nothing I can’t refine.”
He quips something back at her that turns the laughter sheepish, but the farmer can’t help but drift away, in the direction of the - her - field.
She’s not sure what she expected, in hindsight, but at least she feels back in her own skin again. A whole day of absurdity coming to a head and finally simmering down. A lot more rocks than she expected on a farm, though. A lot of space. It’s a faint reminder, assurance to herself that it’s better to grow into something than to not start off with enough. She forced herself into this position anyways. No going back. (Like she wanted to anyways.)
The earth is cold right now, and she won’t complain about the frost killing the weeds, the wildflowers. Not dead, though. The potential is there and she recognizes it as well as the back of her hand, when she’s caught in the moment, when pretenses are for the weak and things are so close to fruition already and she’s featherlight and she’s smiling, smiling something giddy and manic and finally finally finally -
It’s when her back is turned that the two natives exchange looks. The carpenter gives a slight shake of the head; the mayor purses his lips and forces it back to a welcoming smile under his mustache. Replaces one sincerity with the other.
Robin clears her throat - breaks the trance and offers to treat her to dinner at the saloon tonight. It takes entirely too long for her to stammer out thanks, to get over the shock of someone offering that in gods knew how long. The woman just waves it off with an easy grin and a ginger curl tucked behind her ear.
Unpacking takes an almost depressingly quick amount of time, but then again, what else could she have expected? Rent was harsh in Zuzu and she already had to take extra hours to cover for it, let alone scrounge up enough pocket change for anything worthwhile unless her father sent her a gift.
What she has now is comfy, though, so much more homely than where she was - a small little thing all her own, with a TV thrown in for boot. It almost feels like a homecoming if the term were more apt.
She unpacks and finds her clothes, the books, the tea set with its painted cherry blossom petals; her half empty-box of The Good Tea with its peach and lemon verbena. She wonders if it’s the climate to grow her own leaves later on, or if she could ever repair that greenhouse, understand the mechanics.
...She should probably go see about growing the parsnip seeds she was gifted first before jumping to something so much bigger like that, though. Eventually. Still a couple days for the thaw.
It takes until noon to finish, to plop down on her bed and just take in the quiet, the smell of burning wood as it crackled softly in the fireplace. (The lumber a gift from Robin, she makes a note to return the favor as soon as she can.) She takes it all in - takes a deep breath and smoothes out her skirt. She pushes herself up and heads for a shower. Her head feels light, her steps airy. She’d be concerned if she didn’t feel so great about it.
The water turns warm surprisingly fast and she lets the city, lets Joja wash away down the drain. She replaces it with cucumber and melon as she washes her hair, scrubs at her skin with eucalyptus and spearmint with a determined set to her jaw. There’s time, for once, and she takes it in greedily, gluttonous - a starving man offered a buffet and she has to take a moment to be embarrassed at herself for making it so dramatic.
Time is non-existent as her vision is clouded with steam and tile. There’s a chance to think now, she realizes. The potential consequences slam into her without mercy.
She scrubs a little quicker, a little more harsh, until her skin is red and raw.
It’s the blacksmith’s birthday and it’s just enough to let her fly under the radar. The Stardrop Saloon is warm and crowded and gives just enough space to fit everyone in when they so desire, with dim yellow lights and something delicious in the air as people play sardine and hit the bar, the jukebox, the pool table. Her head spins, just a little, and it’s only in the fear of making attention with her fussing that keeps her from bolting out into the snow.
She sticks close to Robin that night and can’t find one place to really settle her eyes on - she can’t tell who the birthday boy is and there’s pinpricks because people must be staring, they must be - an intruder in something so obviously tight knit as people drift from one close huddle to the next. The carpenter takes pity on her and takes her by the arm as she nudges them into a spare space at the bar, between a man with long ginger hair and an older fellow who decidedly smells like the sea. They don’t notice her just yet.
A woman with blue hair and bright eyes flashes her a smile as she passes, a bowl of dip and chips and three pints on her tray. The portly fellow manning the bar notices first Robin, then her, and his grin is kind as he introduces himself as Gus, you must be the new farmer he was hearing about, what were you in the mood for?
Her cheeks are burning as she turns desperate to find a menu, something, anything since and before she can blurt out something about dip, Robin shakes her friendly on the shoulder and smiles easy. “She hasn’t eaten all day - ” she explains to the man and turns to her, “- how’s a salad and spaghetti and a pint on me? Unless you want the artichoke dip instead of the spaghetti for some reason.”
She doesn’t and it gets her a clap on the shoulder and a laugh and the urge to bolt rises again because (surprise surprise) noise gets attention and suddenly the ginger and the fisherman and a scruffy fellow leaning up against the wall have their eyes on her and oh, look, fresh meat.
But Robin is quick to take mercy on her again, for better or worse, introduces her like the carpenter’s known her for more than a couple hours. She feels like a child hiding behind her parent’s legs on the first day of school.
The ginger, Elliott, smiles and offers a handshake and an “it’s a pleasure,” and the fisherman, Willy, gives a polite nod of the head before they get distracted by a shattering glass and a curse behind them.
Robin gives one last squeeze of the shoulder before she drifts away over with the rest of them, but she can still catch the man with the five o'clock shadow staring her down. Her food comes quick and she flees to the room with the pool table - not as empty as she’d like but it’s emptier all the same, and she keeps her head ducked down as she flees to a corner. She counts three pairs of feet and dry murmurs that lessen only for a moment on her arrival.
She eats (too) quickly and tries to keep it all down before she drops her plates back on the bar and scurries out. It’ll be easier to say thank you to Robin later, she decides.
Spring arrives and the earth officially welcomes her home with warm sunshine and a gentle breeze. Livin’ Off the Land tells her to prepare for salmonberry season. The fortune teller promises nothing but good things.
All she comprehends is that it takes four days to grow a radish. Four.
She double checks her guide book (three weeks earliest, yes, alright, she was right there, and the pictures do match the real thing,) wipes the sweat from her forehead, and decides with joy thrumming in her heart that she deserves a treat now that her first successful harvest is shipped and taken away when the mayor stops by for his morning round, two given personally to him as a thank you gift that he graciously accepts.
She gets out The Good Tea, with its peach and lemon verbena, and while she waits for the kettle to boil, she realizes that there’s nothing left in the pantry to have with it - the last of the bread she bought finished for breakfast. Her wallet shows similar, pitiful results. It’ll be hours yet before the General Store opens and she probably looks less than decent after her digging through the soil. She feels like a fool for not saving any of her crop. A farmer that couldn’t feed herself! What an achievement indeed.
Her stomach growls.
Desperation grows as an alternative method presents itself proudly in her head. Shame exudes from every pore and her cheeks redden from even considering it. There’s a very low chance she’ll find something still edible. But...
Her trips to town are uncommon and occur at ungodly hours when they do happen. There’s too much going on at the farm to allow her to dawdle when there’s weeds to cut, soil to till, but Willy sent her a letter in invitation yesterday and she forced herself to take it - chastised herself for even considering to chicken out when the meeting ended up providing her with a fishing rod and a bit of good will. She spends all day out there on the docks, figuring that the crops were watered and that the weeds could relax just for the day, and it doesn’t take long with her clumsy attempts at catching anchovy for the sun to clock out and let the moon take over its shift.
It was when she slunk through town that she heard the clunk of metal and the thump of something dropping. A peek out from her hiding spot at the Saloon let her witness Old Lady Evelyn hobble back into her home with an empty plate.
Even she could put two and two together.
It’d just be this once, she tells herself.
She is not proud. But she is hungry, shame is a luxury to those smarter than her, and it should be early enough to avoid any witnesses.
She is wrong.