Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was no possible way that the rent for that house was really that cheap.

It was inconceivable.

You assumed off the bat that it’d been a typo or error on the publisher’s part, since you couldn’t find much else to justify the price. In complete disbelief, you rapidly flipped through the thin catalog stack to compare prices with the other ads listed, as if questioning the authenticity of what you’d read. Those particular housing advertisements were fairly new, too- maybe shoved haphazardly through the mail slot into the basket no less than a week ago.

Now normally, those were sent hurtling straight into the garbage with the rest of the junk mail. You had never expressed any legitimate interest in either house-hunting nor handling the stress of responsibility, especially the type that entailed from dabbling in something as demanding as real estate. Still didn’t, as a matter of fact, since it was difficult to care about a niche that disinterested you from almost every angle.

It was funny what desperation, a pinch of fear, and an insatiable, impulsive yearning for adventure had done to people, how the unsightliness of failure could send someone plummeting.

Bank notices, bills- you were bombarded by a ceaseless influx of necessary payments and debts you kept telling yourself you’d get around to. Cleaning up the wreckage that was your life and artistic career was so daunting to tackle that you inadvertently put off the process for months, which unsurprisingly, had worsened your already critical situation. The prolonged stagnancy and drop in activity had cost you, and all of that strenuous networking succumbed to being little more than a wasted effort.

You began compromising bits and pieces of the paychecks meant to cover food and living expenses to instead pay for new materials, even while the prices kept hiking. You dipped into funds with less and less restraint and forced yourself you paint, sketch- to create when you were withering amidst an artistic drought. The well had run dry long ago, but you pushed yourself for days, even weeks on end as if sheer effort alone could delay the inevitable. You’d pushed yourself so hard that in fact, your negligence and disinterest bled into your pieces, visually impacting your work in a negative matter. You lost clients and contacts, the very foundation of what you had worked so hard to build up.

Maybe your heart just…. wasn’t in it, anymore.

Incoherent with fear and misery, you tossed and turned and lost yourself in the stillborn silence of midnights. Your career, your passion, everything you had kick-started back when you were bright-eyed and blossoming with optimism, now crumbling like a sandcastle pitted against the oncoming tide. Nobody had bothered to let you in on just how frightening adulthood was going to be if you didn’t play your cards right every time, if you couldn’t enact an immediate plan of action every time something went horribly awry.

Fear of the unknown- the paralyzing terror of fumblingly blindly into the future.

It was just so defeating, so… humiliating. Was this situation even salvageable, anymore? Surely there had to be something you could fall back on, some kind of backup plan that could help you wriggle free from this. Personal experience alone had taught you that there was indeed, a way out of almost everything. This couldn’t have been an exception, maybe you just weren’t looking hard enough- trying hard enough to strain for a loophole you groped frantically towards.

And so here you were, hunched over the paint-smeared coffee table in naught but your sleepwear, all whilst you lowered yourself to skim through housing catalogs, fingers crossed that downsizing might give you more elbow room with finances.

You rode onto the hope too eagerly that maybe the listing you saw wasn’t an actual screw-up on the editor’s part, that it was very well intentional and that if you were theoretically, going to call the landlord right this instant to get a price check on the property, that what was printed in black would still hold true.

At this point, it was well worth taking the leap. You’d already staked so much into your own career, and even the most successful of businesses and enterprises out there had to gamble on their chances to get as far as they had. Nothing in the world was without risk.

That’s a part of life too, isn’t it?

You leafed through the last of the flyers and gazed expectantly at the endearing photo of the house, index finger ghosting over the buttons.

Exhaling a breath of air you hadn’t actually realized you’d been holding, you speedily dialed the number provided.

-----🌞-----

Luckily, the wait hadn’t stretched long enough to where your impatience had decided to go ham and pour gasoline all over the raging fire that was your inner anxiety. There was nothing in the world more nerve-wracking than the impending fear of return calls, whether it stemmed from an imminent awareness of rejection, bad news, or just… never receiving that call when you’d been anticipating it all this time.

You were blessed with the good fortune to evade that misery this once, thankfully.

The agent had responded promptly that same day, simultaneously sounding both out-of-breath and extraordinarily overjoyed that someone had made any effort at all to contact him to inquire about the small house. You did convey an interest that you would have liked to see it in person, since the picture printed on the catalog was a very pretty, flattering photograph of a fairytale cottage you’d half expect to see in those posh gardening magazines the elderly kept around.

An arrangement was efficiently made so that you were to meet him the following afternoon, where the agent would offer you a grand tour of the place and ultimately, see if the place was to your liking at all.

Judging by the address, you had an inkling that you might be urged you to drive farther out than you were typically comfortable with.

Soleil Valley.

A cute, dreamy little countryside hamlet lost amidst an amber sea of wheat. You’d seen countless photographs and paintings of the place in a few of those pretentious art galleries you needed to schmooze up to for publicity. It seemed pleasant enough, sure, and locations like that held a special charm. It just wasn’t exactly your scene.

Not to mention that it was, in addition, a three-hour drive out of town.

It was, however, the calmest three hours of driving you’d ever spent in your life, which spoke volumes considering that spending a whole three hours with a broken radio and lack of an AUX cable was… tedious, at best. It wasn’t too challenging to navigate yourself out of the dreary suburbs, even if the local soccer moms didn’t have a clear definition of what good driving was supposed to be like. The irksome traffic typically died down around the mid-afternoon in your circle of the city, so the rest of the trip was relatively stress-free.

As you journeyed down the old highway, all traces of buildings and construction sites petered out into the shifting landscape. Houses, parks, and even the bountiful orchards run by those million-dollar derby owners receded into the golden glow of the sprawling countryside, where nothing but farmland stretched as far as the eye could see.

It was staggering just how beautiful it was, actually.

The way the sun had painted the valley in tangerine hues, the sea of wheat swaying into the distant horizon, dancing beneath the capricious path of the wind… the type of scene depicted in stories told to children at night.

It was a simple, underrated, breathtaking beauty.

Those blue-ribbon artistic renditions you’d seen on display managed to capture the essence of the valley quite accurately, though the envy of it all broiled resentfully in the pit of your stomach. You could probably replicate something like that if you really tried. 

...Of course, the place was awfully remote. The last convenience store you’d gone flying past was a good twenty-five minutes ago, located smack in the corner of a four-way intersection surrounded on either side by either more wheat or a mile’s worth of crops. You hadn’t caught glimpse of a supermarket or police station in at least an hour.

It was just… pure serenity once you’d left the omniscient cage of the city, when the baying of car honks and hollering street-folk tapered far behind you.

You rolled down the window to relish the cool air that blew through, except the billowing breeze mostly just messed up your hair. Envelopes, crumpled flyers, and even the catalog you’d brought along fluttered right off the passenger’s seat and onto the floor. There was a half-assed attempt at retrieval seeing as you really needed to double-check the address for confirmation, but your GPS was adamant and confident in guiding you to your destination.

You shot the navigation app a judgmental glare when the automated voice demanded you turn left, where the pavement gave way to a tattered gravel road winding deeper into the ocean of wheat.

“I’m trusting you,” you murmured, steering the wheel gently with a palm, the vehicle rattling in rickety motions as the tires struggled atop the foreign terrain. You never drove this thing on anything that wasn’t asphalt or concrete, before.

After a straight five minutes of driving through the honey-gold heart of the fields, you finally happened across the little white cottage perched contentedly in the center of it all. The engine went quiet and you sat there for a minute to even your breathing, psyching yourself up with a brief pep talk and smiling nervously at your weary reflection in the rear-view mirror.

It was fine, this was fine. It wasn’t like you were attending a job interview. You’re literally just here to look at a house, say yay or nay, and then split. That’s it. With an insecure wink and a long sigh, you nudged the car door open with a foot and braced yourself against the crisp coolness of the evening.

The soft grass rustled beneath your heels as you stepped out of the car, staring in awe at the untouched landscape with mesmeric wonder. You took in a deep, contented breath and pondered if it wasn’t too late for you to bust out the sketchpad and start an outline of the view.

Maybe another time.

Jogging lightly up the weathered trail, you narrowly tripped upon the weeds, daisies, and small sprigs of grass that had long since reclaimed the worn path. The breeze picked up from behind you, distant wind chimes singing a soft melody in the clear air as it pulled you closer, beckoning through the wheat stalks. There across the lively field, just beyond the thin dirt trail that ebbed deeper into the bosom of the valley, you spotted your contact waving you down.

...Well, flailing was a more accurate way to describe it.

He was a portly man, stuffed into an irritating eyesore of a pink double-breasted suit. The weather was brisk and luscious, though the gentleman was sweating profusely in his clothes and padded pointlessly at the perspiration dotting his wide forehead. He bore the ugliest comb-over you’d ever seen in your life. Either way, gawking at your host wasn’t really going to be the best way to net yourself a good deal.

Spurring yourself to look anywhere but his tragic choice of hairstyle, you plastered an award-winning smile and greeted him with a sprightly disposition.

“You must be the kid who wants to see this ol’ place,” the agent strode over, holding out his sweaty hand and clamping down on yours like a vice.

Kid? You were a grown adult; the hell did he mean by that?

“The names’ Ronaldo Pizza, one of the few realtors ‘round this charming community,” he spoke in a southern drawl.

With a last name like that, everything had suddenly made sense. Like it was an epiphany.

“Oh,” you unintentionally mouthed. “Is that your real last na-”

“Yes it is,” he interrupted shortly, already on the same wavelength.

You don’t begrudge him for the reaction, really. Heaven only knows how often he got that one thrown his way.

“You sure as hell chose a weird place to live, kiddo. Nothin’ but catfolk ‘round those parts. Good people, ‘o course. Just ain’t nothin’ to do at a place like this.” As if to prove his point, Ronaldo made a wide motion with his outstretched arms towards the landscape.

“...Really?” you followed up.

“Yeah. ‘s one of the smallest villages in this region, so I heard. Got a population of a thousand somethin’ at most, and that’s if you’re goin’ where all the hustle ‘n bustle is. Otherwise, it’s almost in the middle ‘o goddamn nowhere,” he nodded, advancing towards the house in a jolly gait.

The entryway to the front lawn was adorned lovingly with a rose archway- sans the actual roses. The yard had become dominated entirely by an expansive and colorful range of flowers, save for a few gnarled, persistent weeds. Oak-leaf geraniums dappled the peeling walls in jovial bursts, as heads of wheat had sprouted so close to the cottage that they lightly kissed the faded white of the worn picket fence. An enchanting wall of bright yellow roses and their thorny brambles had overgrown one corner of the garden, lacing through the dilapidated lattice wall. Draped gloriously by the creaky gate were tall spikes of pink gladiolus, brushing softly against your clothes as you trotted past the broken gate.

The garden was perfumed by the tangy and dizzyingly sweet scent of nectar. The evening was light and breezy, not cold enough to make you shiver, but not so warm that it was stuffy. The lively garden was seemingly trapped in an eternal state of summer, with the way swallowtail butterflies flit to and fro between every speck of color. The flowers had been tenderly cared for, even if the house creaked and moaned from neglect. As you floated idly to the front door, you noticed a familiar fruit-bearing tree poised proudly beside the leaning fence.

Was someone habitually coming down here to check on them?

“What kind of tree is that?” You began with a conversational trill, ogling the view.

“Dunno,” the porky man responded with an unhelpful huff, clearly uninterested.

“Oh,” your lips pursed into a thin line, disheartened that the topic was cut prematurely.

“Now, there are a few things I oughta tell you ‘bout this place,” he proceeded cooly, as though the previous exchange had never taken place. “This here’s a forgotten beekeeper’s cottage, though the apiaries all got cleaned out a few months after the last guy here moved out. The garden over yonder is a pretty big one, perfect if you’re the type that likes to throw ‘em huge barbeques. ‘Cept you know, you’re a little lackin’ in the neighbor department. Think the closest person lives a lil’ up that hill.” He pointed over the tilted garden wall, where you followed his gaze but met only an off-color cluster of bushes.

“It took them that long to clean up after he left?” You whistled.

“Well, it was clear he wasn’t comin’ back. We put up ads for another beekeeper since the agency really wanted to hang onto this place, but nobody applied. They wound up just forgettin’ bout this place, since it’s so damn far from everywhere else that nobody in the right mind wanted to live here. To be real with ya- this cottage was abandoned for about four… maybe five years. Inside is probably gonna look like shit, kid.”

If that wasn't a mediocre sales pitch, then you didn't know what was.

To exemplify this, the door had to be forced open with impact since the rusted handle refused to budge. The entire cottage shook and groaned from the intrusion, irritating great puffs of swirling dust. You covered your mouth quickly with your hands and maneuvered inside.

“C’mon, lemme show you ‘round the place 'fore it gets dark.” he urged, beckoning to you with mild irritation.

That wasn't totally ominous, or anything.

The splintered floorboards creaked miserably beneath your shoes. Everything was draped beneath an obscenely thick coat of dust, soft tendrils of light trickling inside from the cracked windows. The decrepit living room was spacious and wide, with a bay window facing the right-hand side of the overgrown yard. You pictured the many ways that could be refurbished, maybe add a few cushions or pillows to make it a cozy hangout on rainy days- though you didn’t have nearly enough furniture to properly decorate a room this massive.

“Got a bit ‘o bad news for ya. While you can set up your wifi up here ‘n play with most of ya fancy toys, the reception here is downright awful. Don’t be expectin’ your cell phone to help bail you out in case of an emergency. Landline works just fine o’ course.”

That was… actually pretty abysmal. Landline phones were pretty cheap to access, sure, but now your phone was rendered obsolete save for those time-sinking apps you like to check in with. Hm. You were going to have to think about that gimmick.

He rallied you into the kitchen which, had been in as many tattered pieces as your life, shards of glass and abandoned dishware littering the squeaky floor. Coffee stains and scorch marks etched the ancient stovetop while insects wiggled and squirmed beneath the safety of the sink to escape detection. What made you do a double-take, however, was the oven. Not just any ordinary oven, either, but one of those fancy rustic wood-fired types that cost over five grand in the market. It hadn’t seen proper care in ages, but it was remarkably intact. Maybe you could dust it off a bit and sell it for some primo cash.

Or make some bomb-ass pizza with it.

“The good thing ‘bout this hideous place at least, is that they’re rentin’ it out for dirt cheap. In fact, the agency is so desperate for a new tenant that they’re willing to foot the bill for repair costs if ya wanna clean up the place. And uh… trust me. This place needs a shitton of work,” he chortled, parading out the kitchen from a side door back into the heart of the house.

“Ain’t gotta worry ‘bout electricity, cuz they tested the wires last night 'fore you showed up and called. Everything still runs, and the place draws water just fine like every other house ‘round here,” he boasted with a clap of his hands. The sound echoed sharply across the cottage, bouncing off the walls.

The stairs threatened to give way upon the first instance of tension. You didn’t trust the integrity of the building enough to follow behind Ronaldo in close proximity, but it’d look rude if you didn’t stick close. As if you were insinuating that the stairs weren’t strong enough to support both you and him. The doorframe of the forlorn bedroom caught in the gallant light of the falling sun, with a second bathroom on the opposite end of the second-floor hallway.

“Yup, ya got two bedrooms and two bathrooms. One of each on either floor, though the master bedroom is gonna be downstairs. Guess the upper one is good if you got a roommate movin’ in, or got a kid comin’ along the way. Good family house. It’s a damn shame they let it fall into disrepair. Wouldn’t be givin’ it away for that price if anyone bothered.” As per the usual, Ronaldo proceeded with as much professionalism one could reasonably expect this deep into the tour.

All in all, you'd seen everything there was to see in a little under than an hour. It had already grown dark outside, and the stalks rustled restlessly when you scampered back outdoors, waxy leaves whispering to the spellbound sky. Cotton-candy clouds of pastel pink melted into the sinking sun, little white stars wheeling in the eventide canvas of the airy twilight.

“Now, I’m gonna go ahead ‘n level with ya. This place? ‘S a real piece ‘o shit,” Ronaldo turned to you with a skeptical frown, rapping his knuckle against the door.

“Ah,” you replied simply, as if you didn't already have a clue.

“Now if you want, I think we got a lil’ more time, I can show you another house or two a tad further into the valley. They’re a hell of a lot nicer than this shack, I can tell you that much. Ain’t even gonna need to bother fixin’ it up-”

By some sheer whim, your eyes gravitated up towards the grassy hill where the wildflowers and sweet pink honeysuckle hugged the chipped spaces of the fence. The baby-blue house of your one and only neighbor roosted blissfully against the howling wind, the windows lighting up one by one, lace curtains drawing to reveal a small, cat-like child pressing their sleeved hands against the glass as they peered eagerly outside.

It was difficult to parse their exact appearance from where you watched, though what enraptured you were their eyes. Brilliant, rounded eyes with thin onyx slits, glimmering in the color of the wheat fields. Gentle and trusting, those eyes, scanning the lonely view of the abandoned cottage before ultimately, their gaze met yours. You were locked into the child’s stare, petrified by a jarring revelation that knocked you silly.

Had you seen them somewhere, before?

Panic, exhilaration- was there a word in the human language that could describe the shocking sense of familiarity felt when you saw this child? A sense of comfort, familial affection- a bittersweet sadness burning in the back of your throat. Somehow, that had been the catalyst.

You fluttered back to the agent, a whirlwind of movement as you met their gaze evenly with a determined, resolute smile.

“I’ll take it,” you interjected, having long forgotten that they'd been droning on this entire time.

“...What?” Ronaldo balked, the papers tucked beneath his arms scattering to the ground. While he scrambled pitifully to pick them up, the smile on your face had only grown.

“The house. I’ll take it.”

Chapter Text

The plans to settle the move had been arranged that same week, much to the vocal displeasure of those who frantically tried talking you out of the decision.

Your family had revolted initially, though they came upon the swift realization that there wasn’t really much they could do in the way of influence- not when they lived halfway across the country. They’d kept pitching in offers to take you back in if something ever went wrong, mindfully supporting your pursuits from a safe distance, albeit with those doubtful smiles of theirs.

The big move wasn’t all that out of your comfort zone, but it apparently was exorbitantly out of theirs for reasons that went beyond you. It was a risk that impacted nobody but yourself, and for some unutterable reason, they’d made a much bigger deal out of it than you were expecting. They stood witness to your floundering a mile upwind from the damage and never uttered a word when you needed actual help, but of course, the moment you decided to reach out about something you were sure of, they felt the compulsion to pull out the red card.

Sometimes, the only person who knew what’s truly best for you was going to be none other than yourself. There was neither room nor time left to argue about anything. You’d already made your choice and you were going to stick with it, consequences be damned. You could pack up everything all by your lonesome and manage at least that much.

Though admittedly, it sure wouldn’t have killed anyone to offer a helping hand.

Well, things were just like this, sometimes.

...Though maybe a good cleaning session and a bit of organizing had been thoroughly overdue, now that you frowned down upon catastrophe that was your cluttered studio.

Hoarding was never really something you’d been very guilty of in your mind’s eye, though you couldn’t really set aside the reality of it for much longer now that the evidence was so blatantly present.   

Glossing over the amassed arsenal of budget paint tubes, bristled brushes, and what must have been at least a year’s worth of unused watercolor paper stacked in the corner of the studio, you began to suspect that this nagging urge of yours to pounce on every deal you see just might have played a potential hand in how poorly you were managing, financially speaking.

You boxed them up all the same, though with less deftness than the pricier kits and sets you’d spent weeks saving up for, as those took priority over almost everything else. The majority of those appliances were fortunately replaceable, at the cost of wildly inconsistent pricing that you frankly, didn’t make much of an effort to keep up with. Some were steeper than others, while the rest- you could never possibly hope to afford twice. Especially not after this whole transaction with the house.

You were tempted to sell off your old music equipment online the day after you’d checked out the house, to at least catch up on the money you’d spent. None of it had seen actual use in over a year, and more often than not, functioned as an unnecessarily bitter reminder of the blind-alley childhood dream that herded you into a pitfall. One that took you years to crawl out of. Some of the local coffee shops and nightclubs downtown still had you pinned by name, commenting as you walked past on how much they claimed to miss your singing voice.

It’s just that you just never... got anywhere with it. It was fun and fulfilling to make a game of writing songs with the same six chords over and over, but it was nothing anyone else took seriously enough for you to warrant pushing it as a career. If anything, they were all desolate reminders of another past failure that was still snapping at your heels.

Be that as it may, the memories sleepily followed you into the cargo trailer, buried beneath the perilous mountain that was your supply cache.

As an overzealous precautionary measure, the high-end utensils and canvases accompanied you directly into the car, either stowed away tidily in the trunk or propped up safely in the back. Your passenger seat was reserved exclusively for the old acoustic guitar you hadn’t played in over a year- your old best friend that you never planned to part with, even if the world set itself ablaze and your life depended on it; and your favorite plush, Toothy, a rotund stuffed whale shark adorned in a cutesy, intricately-sewn sailor suit.

There were no sad, melodramatic partings or overcomplicated goodbyes as emulated in two AM soap operas with friends, though that certainly didn’t demean their continued support and sympathetic smiles. They sent you off happily and thrust armfuls of gifts and good-luck presents upon you, most of which made their way into the trunk, save for a pack of high-end chocolates that you’d practically been inhaling. At the rate you’d been burning through them, they weren’t going to survive the evening.

Right, well… this was it. This was actually it.

Settling uneasily into the driver’s seat, your fingernails clicked against the steering wheel as you lost yourself in the view of the infinite sky, bathing for just a moment longer in the temporary tranquility of the front seat. When you felt ready enough to stomach the action, you ignited the engine and backed slowly out of the driveway, merging into the oncoming traffic as the world went on with the daily races, indifferent to your plight.

Hulking imposingly in the rearview mirror was the sickly-painted pewter of the complex you’d spent too many long years in, disappearing rapidly into the distant shroud of the city as though a mirage. You blew the omniscient skyscrapers one last kiss through the reflection as your sped along the highway, eager to bid the place farewell.

...Well, so you might miss the place a little, yeah, but that's more of the inevitable aftermath of Stockholm Syndrome rather than sentimentality or an actual attachment. You definitely weren’t going to miss the obnoxious neighbors who kept you up until 3:45 in the morning, the ones who practiced the trumpet for so long that it felt like your brain was going to start leaking from your ears.

Suffice to say, you were ecstatic about leaving the place for numerous reasons. Every good voyage into the unknown would be marked with nervous jitters and recurring bouts of what-if scenarios, possibly even regrets; but that only made the path you chose all the more worthwhile to traverse.

What made you irreconcilably anxious above all else, was the act of letting go.

Of the familiarity of the city, of your clockwork routine, of the very life you lived. You were essentially detaching from everything you were accustomed to in favor of drifting into new territory, gambling on this small chance and praying that a stroke of luck would find its way to you. It was terrifying, yes- but oh-so-scintillating to acknowledge that you were brave enough to take this first step.

This was your cue to turn over a new leaf,  that second chance to take back control of what should have, no- what was always yours. Not many people in this world were blessed with that kind of opportunity. You were going to make the most of it, even if it killed you.

You clutched the steering so tightly that your knuckles had drained of all color, finally evening out your breathing and focusing on the long road ahead, turning up the volume a few notches higher and blasting your favorite jams from a playlist you left shuffled for when you worked on pieces- such was the boon when you didn’t actually forget to bring the AUX cable.

The freeway was devoid of people, leaving you cruising along the lonely road as lazy sunbeams glinted off the mellowed fronds of wheat. Not for the first time that afternoon, you admired that the weather today was impossibly pleasant.

It must have been all nerves last time, because this time around the drive had flown by in the blink of an eye.

Careening down the corner back onto the dirt road, the trailer attached to your car clunked noisily as it rocked in violent motions, clouds of dust billowing high enough that it was viewable from the side mirrors. You winced and clicked your tongue against the roof of your mouth, slowing down the pace down as not to stir up more dust, poking a cautious head through the open window to inspect the tires. It looked fine from this angle, if not a bit mud-caked, though that was something you could fix later. You hoped that the friend who loaned the trailer to you wasn’t going to be wanting it back anytime in the foreseeable future.

That was going to be a six-hour commitment that you weren’t all that excited to tackle.

Though many insistent things nagged and weighed heavily upon your mind, the familiar white of the small cottage smiled happily in the distance, lovingly and patiently waiting for its new owner at the gentle incline of the lush hill. It was just as delightful at it had been the week before, with its verdant leaves of winding ivy quivering against the calm caress of the spring breeze, framing the house protectively with its curling vines.

A genuine storybook house, and it was yours to keep- if you did things in just the right way. Careful managing, extra stinginess with spending (which was practically a given) and a bit more networking could ensure that your new life would go off without a hitch.

Reaching your destination, the car purred to a quiet stop. You slung the black guitar case over a shoulder, kept Toothy tucked beneath one arm and lightly nudged the car door shut with a swing of your hips, approaching the house decisively and ducking under the withered archway.

The flowers bowed at your feet, blooming sweetly in all the splendid colors of the early spring, revitalized by the seasonal showers and the rich soil. Distant echoes of the wind chimes reached your ears yet again, weaving a spirited melody that serenaded you from farther up the hill. At that moment, the same beckoning gale blazed across the field to embrace you with an enthusiastic gust, the garden exploding in a cacophony of sound,  leaves rustling an aria of joy.

It was as if the very earth beneath your feet grew delighted; overjoyed that you came back and in turn, cried out to the sky, praising in song-

'Welcome home!'

You breathed in, unfurling. You fished in your pocket for the keys to the cottage, struggling to insert the thing properly for a century or two until the door clicked gingerly, ghosting open. Met with the strange, comforting scent known only to aged wood, the floors creaked just as badly upon your weight as it had last week, though you resigned to accept this cottage as it was and ventured inside.

Still, that sound was unconditionally going to become an infinitely creepier nuisance at night, likely to haunt you for the first week until you get that whole... renovation thing sorted out.

Ronaldo, or “Mr. Pizza” as you rather enjoyed calling him, hadn’t bothered to actually clue you in on where exactly it was that you needed to go, or who to speak to if you wanted the place refurbished. You had the paperwork proof and documents from the agency necessary to get it squared away, but otherwise weren’t given any precise directions on how to accomplish this yourself. As far as you were aware, the possibility of repairs simply… existed. Nothing more. It was within reach and in concept was possible, though a lot more of the key information was missing.

Your standards were low to begin with, but man, you still felt disappointed at how this was handled. Regardless, you thought it best not to complain too much and refrained from making uncouth complaints if it didn’t get under your skin that much. All things considered, you did well getting this far in the first place.

If you wanted something done right, you have to do it yourself.

According to Mr. Pizza (you grinned a little stupidly every time you thought that, immature as it was) the electricity had been switched on roughly two days ago and the water was set to run just fine, the heater itself supposedly tested first-hand by a maintenance guy you didn’t know existed prior.

Now, you were going to have to get your hands dirty with the gruesome work of lugging everything through the door.

Mr. Pizza did suggest that you could move larger furnishings through the veranda door, sectioned on the right-hand side of the house inside of the kitchen, but had the foresight to warn you that the glass sliding door had been busted and that the moment you choose to open it, it was 100% without a doubt, going to be stuck and would need excessive force to be jerked back in place. That option was reserved for extreme circumstances for when any of the adamant pieces you owned didn’t exactly feel like squeezing through the front door.

You deposited the guitar and trusty Toothy at the foot of the creaky staircase, giving him a reassuring pat on the dorsal fin before marching out the door, hop-skipping down the porch steps to the cargo trailer, nearly tumbling over a malignant weed and foiling it’s wicked plan to claim your life.

You could move the easels and drawers up on the second-floor bedroom- that’d be your new studio, and on days where the weather was temperate and the wind wasn’t too strong, you could always relocate to the garden and maybe let the creative juice flow there.

There was no way in hell you were trusting the staircase to support the weight of both you and the queen-size mattress, so you’ll happily make your nest on the bottom floor to spare yourself the trouble of more strenuous physical labor. You could throw all the cuter pillows by the bay window, maybe press the radiator up against the wall and make that be a cozy hangout spot.

This was it, now.

This was home.

The moment that thought pattered against your mind like spring raindrops, a small, gentle flash of brown and purple darted away into the whispering wheat stalks, disappearing into the ocean of gold, a scarf streaming behind them in the wind.

-----🌞-----

Your arms were indescribably sore after the bulk of the furniture had been stationed in their respective locations. The hell that was your lower back began wailing for sweet mercy once you’d dragged the coffee table through the door, one of the legs scraping off a rotting chunk of the doorframe. A little too self-indulgently, you mused that it was theoretically okay to break as much of the house as you pleased if you were just going to get the entire place renovated. It seemed too good to be true, despite not having any idea on whether or not contractors were a thing in Soleil Valley.

...Well, fine. The place was remote, yeah, but that didn’t have to mean everyone here was a country bumpkin who lived like total hicks. Someone around here clearly knew what they’re doing, if all of the wiring was kept intact after consecutive years of neglect and disuse.

Unable to push yourself any more than you already had, you collapsed into an exhausted heap atop the sofa-bed you inherited from your grandmother. You sniffed deeply, burying your head into the cushions. It was an old, well-loved thing, torn in places by that fat Maine Coon of hers that never quite seemed to approve of you, with melted crayon stains and faded marker drawings of bunnies scrawled on the arms- they were the fancy scented Misa Flank markers  you received for your 7th birthday, because you remembered with visceral accuracy just how much you loved the hot cocoa scent, and mourned for literal days when you lost it. You practically grew up with the thing, and nobody in the family had any arguments when she wrote in her will that she wanted you specifically to have it, and nobody else.

Most people in the world usually get jewelry or fancy trinkets as a memento of a loved one when they pass- but you got a couch. 

...Hey, you weren't going to complain. 

You rested your eyes for only a moment, aching muscles uncoiling in ecstasy. Feeling blindly around the sofa for the TV remote, you knew intuitively which button to press to switch on the power and change channels, and instinctively flipped to your favorite program. Displayed was a rerun of an episode you didn’t care much for, but you settled for the background noise and flopped over on your side, drawing your legs up to your chest tiredly, swaddling yourself up like a burrito. Easing yourself into the pillows, your hands caught in the handmade quilts you never slept without, sewn with fierce crimson camellias and lively hyacinths.  

Hours had passed when the nostalgic scent of the evening crept upon you. When you’d woken from your impromptu nap, the sun had long since winked out of the sky, bathing you in jet black. The cold slammed into you with the force of a freight train, bringing you just enough discomfort so that the aggressively persistent darkness ranked second place in terms of unpleasantness. The flickering drone of the television was all that separated you from what may as well have been the otherwise inescapable void.

You threw the cracked windows behind you a weary look, eyes weakly scanning for any semblance of light. No lamp posts, no porch lights from neighbors that didn’t exist- there was nothing at all. The television's glow emanating from your house had been the only star floating amidst a dark sea.

Both unnerved and incredibly cold, you hoisted yourself up and felt around for your phone, carrying it with you as a light source as the sound of bare feet against timeworn wood became swallowed by the agonized groans of the house.

The kitchen, which you refused to touch until the nasty bug problem situated itself after the remodeling, was somehow even colder than the living room, as if any and all heat was being sucked out by a vacuum. You suspected a window or two was broken that you hadn't noticed during the tour.

You were on the prowl for a light switch. Those hadn't been appropriately replaced, and you knew personally from your old workplace that fluorescent bulbs have at minimum, a thousand-hour lifespan. Several years would impact an unused lamp very little, and you guessed that the maintenance people needed so have some other way to gauge whether or not power still coursed through the place.

...Out of nowhere, it occurred to you just then how hungry you were.

Without the worry of movers to catch up to, you stopped by a Dawson’s and munched on an egg salad sandwich with some lemon tea for lunch, but that was basically it. You could always peek in the mini-fridge and rustle something up, but you weren’t even positive that the stove still worked. Not to mention that there wasn’t a lot of food you brought with you in the first place since most of it was perishable.

Guided by the light of your cell phone, you took but a single step into the kitchen, heard what must have been multiple small entities scuttling and crawling about the floor, and immediately moonwalked out.

Nope. Nuh-uh. Not happening.

If something, anything touched your foot while it was dark, you wouldn’t have time to so much as scream before you dropped dead, soul doing a backflip out of your mortal body without any desire to return.

Cool, so...  starving. That was definitely a thing.

Not a very fun alternative to being touched by an amalgamate beast in the darkness, but everyone had fears they can’t quite wrench themselves away from, no matter how vehemently they try.

A loud and sudden knocking scared the ever-loving daylights out of you, much so that your phone clattered noisily upon the ground as you struggled to recover from the shock. For what possible reason would anyone have to justify visiting when it was this dark out? If it was a robber or, oh God- a murderer; who would even find you in a location this far out?

You swallowed hard, reaching back for your phone and inching towards the door. With floorboards this loud, sneaking had clearly been out of the question and must have evidently alerted whoever was outside that someone was actually home, if the hushed voices hadn’t been any indicator.

“See? Someone’s home!” A small, exceedingly tender voice piped up, one so painfully familiar that it shot sparks right through your marrows.

“It’s so dark in there. The poor thing, I wonder if-” A second voice began, though they were instantly stunned silent when you answered the door, draped in three layers of tacky floral-patterned quilts and brandishing a cell phone as though it were a knife.

It was a Felidae woman and who was presumably her child; people whom you’d never refer personally as ‘catfolk’  because you knew that was a harmful slur, like the equivalent of calling a human a monkey. You knew better than that; were raised better than that. The two had triggered a porch light that you never knew you’d owned or even worked at all, gawking down upon the two as moths twirled and danced around the casing of the lamp.

In front of you was a middle-aged woman, perhaps in her late thirties or approaching the early forties, with lightly-tanned skin and captivating amber eyes, toffee-brown locks tied up in a side ponytail thrown in front of her shoulder, laced with daffodil-shaped clips. She wore a button-up blouse and large, flowing yellow apron skirt that rustled lightly with the dusk breeze. Her child pinched the back of her dress, concealing themselves behind her.

Ears perked up, she broke the silence with a calm, cheerful voice.

“Good evening,” she began, maternal smile lined with pearly white fangs that gleamed in the dull light.

A child in a wide-brimmed hat with cat-eared protrusions stepped shyly to the side from behind her, looking up at you with wonder and amazement- as one would admire a work of art. When the honey-gold of their eyes met yours, they bowed their head just slightly. The familiar child boasted short purple hair, long, baggy sleeves that went past their wrists, and a warm, periwinkle scarf that swathed across their tiny shoulders.

Vaguely acknowledging that you had been greeted, you stuttered back an awkward greeting and zeroed in on the picnic basket she supported on her right arm, the lid covered by a cutesy red-and-white gingham piece of cloth. It smelled heavenly.

The woman must have caught you looking as she laughed benevolently, her voice as radiant and clear as the summer sky.

“This is for you, actually! It’s our little way of welcoming you to Soleil Valley, even though it’s just our two little houses until the next town over.” She nudged the basket in your direction, urging for you to accept.

You were completely speechless.

“I, um… wow. Thank you. I-I don’t really know what to say,” you responded thickly, slowly peeling back the cloth to peer inside. Inside rested a loaf with a yellow, spongy exterior, drizzled with icing glazed with absolute perfection, practically begging to be eaten.

It was by far the most tantalizing loaf of lemon bread you’d had the privilege of smelling in your entire life.

Unthinkingly, you held out your hand and introduced yourself, returning her greeting with an enthralling smile. The child behind her uttered a small gasp the moment they heard your name. While the reaction hadn’t escaped you, the mother either hadn’t noticed at all, or simply couldn’t be bothered to pay it any heed.

“There’s no need, dear. Please, just call me Marigold,” she bowed her head, a tentative hand rubbing circles atop one of the child’s sleeves.

“...I’m Niko,” the child squeaked when it was clearly their cue, staring at you with such ferocity that it made you twitch. “It’s nice to s- meet you,” they corrected with immense guilt in their eyes.

Niko, Niko.

The name suited them well- so well that you couldn’t have possibly imagined any other name that would have suited them best.

Grinning softly, you bent over and held out your hand in an unassuming gesture.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Niko. I hope that us three can be good neighbors.” Your response was earnest and good-natured, coming straight from the heart. Niko stared at your hand for a moment, as if unable to decipher whether or not it was real, if it was really, truly there, then as if enraptured, took your hand in theirs with tiny fingers and gave it a nervous shake.

It was a bizarrely nostalgic gesture, as though you were greeting an old, long-lost friend that you hadn't caught up with in years.

“We live in that house just up the hill! We’d been anticipating your arrival all this week, ever since Niko told me that they saw someone looking at it with one of the realtors. We didn’t think anyone would ever move in here again, not after the last gentleman left. It was an awful shame, too. It was nice taking care of the bees, oh, they used to make the most exquisite honey that went great with the bread I used to bake, I still-” The woman named Marigold spoke with talkative hospitality, though she caught herself midway through rambling.

Clearing her throat, she patted down her apron and corrected her posture.

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry if I bothered you while it was this late at night. I was content to give you your present tomorrow afternoon, but Niko insisted that you were home and deserved it while it was freshly baked.” Her gaze flicked marginally towards the dark interior of the cottage with a doting, if not slightly distressed admonishment.

“I forgot to plug in my lamp,” you blurted sloppily, flagging down said object unhelpfully in the darkness.

“Oh,” Marigold replied with an understanding trill, despite being unable to see what you were waving to. “Well, I hope you situated yourself alright, regardless! You can always come to us if you need help for anything,” she nodded sagely, clasping her hands together.

“That’s very generous of you to offer, thank you. I’ll definitely keep that in mind.” You glanced down at the picnic basket, stomach growling viciously. “...Um, would you like some? I know it’s dark, but I can find some light, set up the couch and-”

“Oh no, that’s quite alright,” The mother shook her head, politely declining the offer. “I’ve left a pot pie in the oven, I really shouldn’t stray too long from the house. I really am glad I stopped by, though! It’s such a joy to finally meet you,” hummed Marigold, delicately taking one of your hands in hers.

Dumbstruck, you let out a pointless laugh and found yourself content to wait before she let go, Niko tugging impatiently on her skirt.

“Right, I’ll leave you to it! Do tell me if you enjoyed the bread or not- I’ll be glad to bake you another loaf if it isn’t to your liking! The recipe has yet to be perfected, after all.” She said soothingly, voice steeped in maternal warmth. “You’re more than welcome to keep the basket, too, we have many more.”

“T-That isn’t necessary to do, but thanks again for the present. If you’re okay with me keeping it, um, I’d be more than happy too. It’s very nice,” you stammered, unsure if that was a stupid thing to say or not. It looked hand-made, though, and was woven with commendable care.

Marigold clapped her hands and excused herself, guiding Niko across the overgrown lawn and vanishing into the darkness.

As you drifted away back into the old house, you just barely seized the sight of Niko throwing a look over their shoulder, looking up at you again with that very same wordless reverence before melting into the night alongside their mother.

Chapter Text

It was unseasonably cold out this morning. You thought that spring in the countryside was supposed to promise an unconditional warmth, but you could pretend well enough beneath the safety of the blankets. Which, by the way, you were going to have to wrench yourself out from eventually. 

After a few moments of self-reassurance, you emerged from your cocoon and swung your legs off the fold-out couch, the soles of your feet making contact with the coldness of the wooden floorboards. 

The sensation made you shiver, driving you to flock to a suitcase to seek the comfort of your favorite sweater. You made yourself as snug as possible, ensuring that you were properly equipped before tiptoeing into the chilly kitchen, where what little appliances you owned had been plugged into the wall sockets. Your eyes darted obsessively around for the basket of lemon bread that Marigold had gifted you the previous night. 

It had taken you almost every drop of willpower not to scarf the whole thing down in one sitting yesterday night- a feat that seemed nigh impossible until the siren song of sleep triumphed over your need to indulge. That in itself was a rare turnabout, but a welcome one nonetheless. You took a piece of lemon bread and chewed, savoring the way that the cool glaze melted in your mouth, trying not to slaver over the rest of the loaf like a starved wolf.

You know what would go great with this? Some fresh-brewed coffee.

You hopped on that right away. You kept a huddled assortment of mugs on the countertop, avoiding the cobweb-ridden cabinets until you could spare the time to clean them out yourself (or have them replaced entirely.) The smell of brewing coffee was downright intoxicating- almost torturous, much so that you couldn’t bear to stay in the same room until it was done. 

Stepping outside, you faced the morning sun with a playful yawn and a stretch, ambling curiously over to the crooked mailbox despite the low likelihood that you'd actually have gotten something. Thoroughly rusted over and bent at a bizarre angle, the mailbox door hung awkwardly off its hinges. Carefully tugging back some of the overgrown vines, you noticed that someone had crudely painted flowers and ladybugs on the surface long ago, though the paint had noticeably chipped and peeled from age. There was a painting of a smiling man in a biplane, goggles tinted green with a scarf flowing behind him in the wind. You plucked off the rest of the vines, admiring the cutesy artistic merits of whoever must have been the home’s previous occupant.

While ogling, you procured an envelope from the weathered mailbox, briefly skimming over the details as the porch creaked loudly beneath your sleepy steps.

Important document enclosed, huh?

You flipped it over as you leaned against the kitchen countertop, nibbling on another piece of lemon bread as your eyes grew alight with joy at the realization that it was, finally, the documents needed to whip this cottage into shape. Mug of fresh coffee in hand, you retreated to the fold-out couch and tuned down the volume of the morning forecast down to a quiet babble, excitedly reading over the details of the document before you folded it up, slipping it into your backpack. 

...What time did they close? Heck, what time did they even open? It hadn’t even occurred to you to check the time. 

7:34 in the morning- the earliest you’ve risen in what must have been half a decade since you stopped bothering with classes. The most baffling aspect of this was that for once, you weren’t absolutely  exhausted. Well, mentally, that is. Your muscles ached and your legs were barely a few notches shy of being gelatine, but after taking one look out the fractured window and into the quiet view of the endless wheat fields, you felt that for once, perhaps you could actually tackle the day properly. 

You pumped yourself up, inhaling deeply and fitting yourself into your favorite outfit from the suitcase on the floor, checking your reflection using your phone’s camera app before rocketing out, narrowly forgetting to lock the door which, you figured was more for the sake of responsibility than anything else. 

If someone for whatever reason really wanted to break into this house, they could do it without effort and you would be utterly powerless to stop them. Allegedly, there was nobody else for miles around, and Marigold didn’t exactly seem the burglar type to you, so you had to trust that everything would be exactly where you left it. 

You shrugged, grass rustling softly beneath the worn soles of your shoes as you hopped into your car and began the drive into the nearest town, which, according to your GPS, was about a 15-minute drive through a forested road and deeper into the remote country town at the heart of Soleil Valley. 

You giggled to yourself, positively excited to explore someplace new.

-----🌞-----

The dirt road persisted even past the hilltop where Marigold and Niko’s house perched, across an old wooden bridge and a towering, lush maple tree where a broken tire swing hung sadly from one of its lonely branches. The leaves must be beautiful come the autumn’s tidings, but for now, the leaves burst in magnificent shades of green, gently fluttering into the shining stream of water that slipped further down the valley. You stopped the car for a moment to peer down, quietly observing the flashing slivers of light darting between the rocks. Minnows in the river, you thought, smiling delightedly as you continued your drive into the countryside. 

Were it not an hour away on foot, you’d have considered taking a scenic walk to the town yourself- but that’d be absolute hell on your legs after the move, and that certainly wasn’t something you needed right now. One day, you promised yourself.

The curving roads gradually ushered you through a petite grove, where the dirt path grew narrow and the trees grew thick and tall, overhead blossoms creating a fluffy archway of spring petals and lush leaves that scattered as you drove past, pooling at the bottom of your windshield in mounds of pink as you slowed your pace, narrow beams of light poking through the overhead canopy. 

There was an old, unused bus stop with a timeworn schedule scrawled on a rusted signpost. You wondered briefly how long it’d been since it last saw use.

Then, once you traversed across the thicket, there was a brilliant beam of light as though you’d broken through a tunnel, and beyond the bobbing heads of wheat you made out the many-colorful rooftops of the quaint houses and old little shops. An old clock tower rose higher than any other buildings in town, terracotta roofs blazing red across the scenery,  though it isn’t until you manage to drive farther into the town proper that you realize said building was, in fact, an elementary school if the colorful equipment hadn’t tipped it off. The playground was desolate; unsurprising, given that it was a chilly Saturday morning. The kids must have been at home, doing… whatever it was that kids did nowadays.

Perhaps Niko was enrolled, though they lived comparatively far from the other villagers.

With the main square in view, you parked alongside the street, delighted by the lack of parking meters and accented on either side by small trees that shook and swayed with the light breeze. The day was relatively windy, but with a cooling pleasantness that playfully ruffled through your hair and clothes. You followed the cobbled road with eager steps, peeking over across the streets at the many shops adorning the main street. 

There was a flower shop with a white-painted cart parked outside, positively overflowing with explosions of color. Among the many bobbing flowers, you could pick out the bluebells and peonies, and what you thought might have been the starting of a shooting star hydrangea- which your grandmother loved to argue didn’t look much like hydrangeas at all. 

Next door was a lovely little boutique that, upon closer inspection, sold clothes that tailored mostly to the particular taste of wine moms. There was a small grocery store that you suspected you’d become intimately familiar with in the coming days, a jewelry store with its shutter doors closed, an old-fashioned general store with colorful rows of candy displayed in glass jars, and a Bavarian tavern with a name whose meaning you couldn’t quite discern- Kaiserhof. Was that German? You’d google it later. 

 At the end of the plaza was an adorable bakery, which instigated an instant response from your stomach. You sniffed the air, eyes glued to the window of the shop right as the employee had seemingly pulled a fresh batch from the large furnace, setting them up neatly in a display case. The door had been pushed open- that’d certainly explain how the scent reached you so quickly. 

...Well, it’s not like you had an appointment scheduled that needed to be kept. Surely a slight detour was justified, given that you haven’t yet eaten properly. 

Sheepishly, you entered the bakery and poked your head through the door, stepping into an ornately-decorated parlour with many dusty framed photographs pasted on the walls, lace doilies blossoming like roses on each and every table.

“Welcome!” Sang a voice, bubbly and cheerful. A Felidae girl with plump, freckled cheeks beamed at you from behind the counter, skillfully balancing a tray of croissants in either hand as she whirled from the oven and towards the display case, sliding both trays behind the glass before brushing her hands onto her patchwork apron. 

“What can I get for you?” She planted both hands proudly on her hips, her reddish-brown hair tied into a loose bun that bobbed with each movement she made. 

“Morning,” you smiled politely and loomed hungrily over the delectable assortment of pastries, unable to settle on any one item to eat when just about everything that entered your line of sight looked positively scrumptious. “Uh, what would you recommend today? Everything looks so good that I can’t really decide,” you said with a laugh, continuing to browse.

“I’d highly recommend the bacon and spinach quiche, since those are a morning exclusive! The spicy sausage rolls are a bestseller, though if you have more of a sweet tooth, you can’t go wrong with a cream horn or bear claw!" She flashed you an energetic smile and hovered over the counter, lacquered nails drumming against the glass display as she doted over her many creations. Pinned to her apron was a nametag, “Dahlia” written in cursive letters that denoted remarkable penmanship. 

Your stomach grumbled indignantly, and it isn’t until your wallet has already been fished from your backpack that you recall just why it was an awful idea to shop when you were hungry. 

“I’ll take one of each of what you suggested,” you replied semi-consciously. 

“Oh, wonderful!” The baker’s eyes lit up with joy and she wasted no time, neatly plucking each pastry with a clean pair of tongs and storing them up in a cutesy pink box. She threw in half a dozen donut holes, perhaps as a complementary measure. “Where are you visiting from, if you don’t mind me asking? You have to really go out of the way to wind up in this district of the valley if you don’t live around here,” she began the conversation with a light-hearted trill, totaling up each item with an old-fashioned cash register you hadn’t seen since your childhood. 

“I’m from the city north of the main freeway,” you motioned vaguely out the window with a thumb, handing her a crinkled wad of one-dollar bills. “Guess it's pretty obvious I'm not from around here, huh? I actually just moved into the valley yesterday. I’m in town so I can speak to the contractor about… house stuff? Renovations? It’s... uh, kind of a mess right now.” 

Dahlia cooed in amusement, regarding you as though you walking through that door was the best thing that happened to her all morning. That or, maybe she was just a naturally cheerful person. She seemed to love her job and held immense pride in what she created, and you couldn’t help but feel refreshed from the secondhand cheer.

“You sure chose a great time of year to move in, then! The spring blossoms should be in full swing about a few weeks from now, but they only last for about two weeks themselves, then they’re gone for the rest of the year! We used to have a lot of people come by just to see them. Not so much anymore, though,” said Dahlia with a sigh, who smoothened out the creases in each bill with well-practiced ease, sliding you the pastry box and handing over the change with rehearsed gentleness. 

“I’m guessing tourism died out?” You slipped your hand into the box for the sausage roll, tearing out a massive chunk with your teeth. 

Dahlia gave a sad nod, elbows against the counter as she pouted at her own shining reflection in the glass. “A lot of folks around here said it’s for the best, since they wanted to keep their way of life preserved, but I think that’s just plain stingy!” The baker twirled a stray lock of hair that fell from her bun, her jeweled barrette sparkling in the light of the overhead stained-glass lamp. "...Oh, sorry to go off like that! I need to put these away," Dahlia gave an apologetic nod and returned to her task.

You gave her a sympathetic nod and left her alone, unceremoniously cramming the rest of the sausage roll into your mouth. Even if the spiciness lashed at your tongue like a thousand whips, it tasted so, so good. Sliding into a seat, you took a moment to eat and observe as Dahlia performed her magic, as she spun behind the counter to finish rearranging a tray of frosted bunny-shaped cookies, then flitting back to the large furnace, aglow like the belly of a dragon. 

“You know, I think I have an oven like that back home,” you waved the half-eaten roll in the air, realizing that the bakery oven was far more grandiose- and significantly better kept than the one collecting dust and soot in your new cottage. “Came with the place and all. It’s kind of worse for wear, though.”

“Oh, those are easy to clean! It’s important to remember to routinely scrape off all the charred bits so they don’t accumulate. Oh, and NEVER forget the exhaust stacks! They can build up a bunch of soot that affects the flavor of the bread! Or pizza, since people usually only bake pizzas in those.” She paced around excitedly as she talked, tapping a finger on her lips. 

God, you could go for a slice of pizza right now. You licked your lips and tucked the box under one arm, reminding yourself that you still had Marigold’s lemon bread to work through when you arrived home.

“...There wouldn’t happen to be a pizza joint in town, is there?”  You asked, tapping a foot against the teakwood flooring.

“Not anymore. That family business went under a year back,” Dahlia huffed, hoisting up a stack of firewood to satiate the furnace. 

“Oh, man. Sorry to hear,” you clicked your tongue, wondering if pizza was all that difficult to make. You could probably just search up an easy recipe online- the internet made a lot of recipes accessible nowadays so just about anyone could pick up cooking if they wanted- even someone with extreme ineptitude in the kitchen like you. “...Thanks for the pastries, by the way. I’ll stop by again if I’m in town,” you called as you ducked back into the plaza, smiling as Dahlia gave you a hearty wave goodbye. 

You popped a donut hole into your mouth and strolled south of town, where the buildings grew sparse and the sidewalk gave way to a dirt road that clung to the edges of a wooden fence, marking the contours of the wheat fields that lay beyond. 

-----🌞-----

The contractor business in town was apparently a family-owned gig, established a century-and-a-half ago as declared by the large sign poised on their front lawn, adorned by a string of daisies that hugged the post. You paused by the entrance, stifling the itch to sneeze from all of the dust buildup accumulated in the niches and crevices of the old-west style building. 

There was the comforting chime of the bell as you entered, catching the attention of an adult Felidae behind a splintered counter who’d been not-so-inconspicuously playing a mobile game on his phone. He was practically drowning in an oversized shirt blaring the family logo, though it hung well off his built shoulders. 

“Good mornin'! Any way I can help ya?” He flashed you a dashing smile, brushing off the sawdust pooled at the creases of his shirt. 

It struck you how gorgeous his eyes were- one eye a glittering topaz, the other as blue as the sparkling sea. Heterochromia, you think it was called. Having completely forgotten that he’d asked you a question, you plunged a hand into your backpack and procured the crinkled envelope, fumbling to retrieve the document inside as you gave the employee a nervous laugh.

“Hey, I’m here for, uh. I mean, I need to give you this,” you blurted out, stiffly handing him the folded piece of paper. “I’m new in town. My landowner uh, told me to talk to a contractor if I need to renovate the house.”

He glanced down at the document as though it might have had a disease of some kind, though he took it out of professionalism and opened it gingerly, reading the contents with a critical eye. 

“Huh, no way,” he said, expressive eyes widening in surprise. “You’re the one who moved into the Author’s old place, aren’t ya?” 

He quickly began typing away excitedly on an old computer monitor you haven’t seen since the ’90s, glancing every now and again back to the document to check for something.

“...I’m sorry, who?” You inquired timidly, gazing around the building and the many symmetrically-stacked piles of lumber and cabin models lined in a display case. 

“Oh, I dunno his real name, though I think Pops does. Think he was some kind of researcher, though I dunno what he studied. He wrote a lot, though, so everyone in town called him ‘The Author’. I thought he was supposed to be some bigshot on the verge of a discovery, but I don’t think anything ever came of his work. ‘Least not that I know of,” he gave a dismissive shrug, peering back at the document one last time before he folded it carefully, handing it back to you. 

“The name’s Sorrel, by the way.” His ears gave a playful twitch as he beamed at you, regarding you with mischievous, inquisitive eyes. “Welcome to Soleil Valley. If it turns out your place is haunted, the gang and I can scare ‘em away with all the noises from construction.”

You snickered at the remark and introduced yourself in kind, delighted by the way Sorrel’s eyes glimmered in tandem with the way he moved when he spoke, his body language varied and almost exasperated as he rambled about the details of the construction.

“-So yeah, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks to get squared away with. The foundation is what concerns me the most, but if Pops is on the job then we can get that done fast without issues. Just gimme a moment to finish some stuff up, and I’ll print out the follow-up paperwork for ya.” Sorrel continued clacking away on the prehistoric keyboard, winking at you.

“Sounds good, thank you,” you gave a gracious nod and decided to pace around the shop while he finished up. There was something to be said about the nostalgic scent of fresh-cut lumber, of the summery accents of pinewood and red cedar. It was calming, if not for the occasional urge to sneeze tickling your nose thanks to all the sawdust. 

“Hopefully there’s a hotel somewhere in these parts you can stay at for a few weeks while we fix the place up. We had one for a while by the plaza, but they went out of business a few years back. Shame, too, since they had free breakfast. I used to sneak in and fill my 2-liters with nothin’ but apple juice-”

“Excuse me?” You interrupted, immediately swamped with guilt for the outburst.

Sorrel looked incredibly ashamed suddenly, his ears flattening as his cheeks turned pink. “Uh, in my defense, I was a teenager back then! I don’t freeload off juice machines anymore, I promise I grew out of that!”

“What?” You blinked dumbly, shaking your head. “No no, sorry, I don’t mean that! You mentioned a hotel?”

“Oh, that.” Sorrel cleared his throat, tugging at the loose collar of his oversized shirt. “Right, uh. Naturally, you can’t stay at your place while we’re working on it. Safety hazard and all. You’d have to either stay at a hotel or a friend’s place for a few weeks while we tinker with the house. I think I have a phonebook somewhere if you need me to check for a place you can call and reserve. Though uh, no clue if some of these places are still… around. I think my Pops kept it from the ’70s.”

“No, that’s alright,” you said as warmly as you could, watching silently as guilt flickered across the Felidae’s handsome face. 

Sorrel shuffled awkwardly, twirling a pen deftly in his hands as he peeked up from the monitor. 

“Sorry about that. I feel like that’s somethin’ your landlord should have double-checked with you about, but uh… hey! We don’t start ‘till you give us the OK, so you technically have all the time you need to find someplace to crash,” Sorrel suggested helpfully, ears lowering as you paced slow circles in the center of the room.

Though he made a fair point, house renovations were something you really didn’t want to stall on. The sooner you tackled this, the better. Improving your living condition was paramount, but you couldn’t do much but berate yourself for the lack of foresight. Of course you couldn’t stay in the house while they worked on the goddamn thing, but the moving expenses nearly picked your account clean. There was just... no way you could afford to spend several weeks at a hotel- even a cheap one was out of the question. 

...Well, you supposed you did have that moving cart your friend let you borrow. You could always throw your blankets and pillows in the thing and live in a tin can for a little while- it was better than sleeping outside, though you weren't going to be happy about it.

Sorrel called your name a few times, tilting his head as he tried to get your attention.

“R-Right, sorry. Yeah, don't worry about. Just come by tomorrow and check the place out if you want. I can make arrangements to stay elsewhere just fine,” you threw the lie with a concerned laugh. “Thanks for the help,” you said with a smile, saying your goodbyes. Sorrel waved after you, though you didn't linger long enough to see him cover his face in absolute embarrassment. 

You tried your damnedest to maintain a positive mental attitude, but after that whole episode, it didn’t seem to be working all that well.  

-----🌞-----

Everyone in town had been disturbingly friendly to such extents that for a moment, you thought that you’d wandered into cultist territory. 

The grocer was an absolute sweetheart, if not a bit of a chatterbox, raving on and on about her bratty children and how they’d just started the new year at school, of the handful they were when she has to watch them while running the store, how the little hellions always brought insects into the house, amongst a myriad of other things. You smiled and nodded out of courtesy, insisting that you could manage the bag of groceries by yourself.

Turned out that the Wild West-looking general store’s stock was 90% candy, which had shocked you initially since you hadn’t expected to be greeted with rows of barrels filled to the brim with taffy and sea-salt caramel. The owner was an elderly man with greying whiskers and wise, gentle eyes, his skin delicate and wrinkly like paper. You were terrified that any instance of exertion would break him to pieces, so you guiltily bought an extra pound of gummy bears and a glass bottle of black cherry soda, thanking him kindly when he threw in a few extra jawbreakers for free.

It was well around noon by the time you finished flitting about the main square, so you popped a jawbreaker into your mouth and retreated back to the car to make the quiet drive home.

Despite the relatively short outing, you were already bushed. It was taxing having to talk to so many people in one day, moreso if the interaction wasn’t wholly necessary to begin with. It’s not that you had issues with it on a fundamental level, since you had plenty of experience with networking and smooth-talking in order to ensure your artwork was cast in the best possible light, but the fact was that talking to other people never stopped being a point of stress for you, regardless of how well you adjusted to the act. 

That was one of several points that made you second-guess your career path. Once it crossed your mind that maybe, just maybe you weren’t cut out for this, that maybe echoed non-stop in your head and stuck like glue, until every little ugly thought stuck to that, perpetually accumulating until you had an amalgamation of doubts and fear that swallowed you whole-

...Dammit. You really needed to stop going on those self-deprecating tangents. 

You perked up from your needless stewing just in time to spot Niko outside of their house on the drive back, perched atop a mosaic bench in their yard, scribbling away on a sketchpad. You smiled and wave as you drove past, but they only watched you without reaction as you parked outside of the garden wall. Maybe you were being too creepy?

They were just a child, after all. They could have thought that you were a complete weirdo, or worse.

Sighing, you popped the trunk open and balanced all of the groceries in your arms with less-than-graceful precision, nearly jumping out of your skin when Niko had seemingly materialized behind you, their sketchpad and a half-empty box of crayons tucked under a sleeve. Some pepperoni slipped out from the paper bag and tumbled out, which Niko readily scooped up with their free hand. They had to tiptoe to reach the bag you were cradling, but cautiously placed the pepperoni back where it belonged.

“Um... do you need help?” Niko inquired, gazing up at you with kind eyes. 

You glanced to and fro between the popped trunk and the door, doing the mental math of how many trips you’d need to make to lug everything into the cottage. 

“Um,” you bit your bottom lip, peering through the car window. “If you want, you could grab the box of bread from the passenger’s seat and bring it to me. I can handle the rest by myself,” you reassured with a grin, juggling the weight of the groceries in your arms as you teetered through the blooming garden with some difficulty.

“Okay,” chirped Niko, who crawled through the driver’s seat to reach for the pink box of goodies, scuttling on over to meet you at the porch just in time for you to click the door open. They admired every nook and cranny of the cottage despite it's deteriorating condition, as if seeing the beauty in something that lay dead in your eyes.

“Watch your step, dear. The house is in rough shape,” you warned with a gentle trill, the nickname rolling naturally off the tongue as though you’ve said it a million times before. 

It hit you just then how peculiar that notion was. This was the first time you’ve ever actually spoken to Niko outside of introductions, and yet the familiarity of it all was staggering in a way you couldn’t articulate. It was the same as when you first saw them through the window on that windy hill, when the amber glow of their eyes lit up at the sight of you-

You were so absorbed in those thoughts that you hadn’t noticed that Niko was trying to capture your attention, pawing weakly at your legs.

“Um… excuse me? Where should I put this?” Niko held out the box of bread, tactically placed atop their sketchpad so that they could efficiently balance both items. 

“Oh, I can take that. Thanks for helping!” 

You shoved the hefty grocery bags onto the dirty countertop, gently taking the box from Niko’s sleeved hands. “Would you uh... like a chocolate cream horn?” You offered instinctively, as if whatever rusted-over maternal instinct over yours had suddenly gone into overdrive. 

Niko watched as you opened the box, showing off the treasure trove of treats with a proud grin. Their eyes sparkled as they marveled at the many snacks displayed before them, carefully dipping a hand in before their eyes flicked up to look at you, as though seeking approval.

“Go for it,” you encouraged, and Niko gladly obliged by taking a hearty bite of the cream horn. The creme filling spilled out from the opposite end of the pastry, dripping onto Niko’s scarf. You made a strangled sort of noise in the back of your throat and dove towards a roll of paper towels, dipping down on a knee and feverishly padding off the chocolate creme from Niko’s scarf. 

“S-Sorry about that, I should have given you a napkin. If your mother asks, just tell her it was my fault.” You gave a tense laugh, hoping to yourself that rubbing the fabric wouldn’t make the stain even worse. 

“Oh, um... it’s okay," Niko reassured you, instead trying to lick the filling off the opposite end. “I get it dirty all the time when I play outside. Mama won’t mind,” they said, gingerly taking the napkin that you handed them. 

You scratched the back of your head, looking over at the dirty kitchen and the decrepit sight of the living room, the tartan couch and suitcase a stark contrast to the cheerlessness of the rotting cottage. 

“Hah, still. I’m kind of a lousy neighbor if I got her child’s clothes dirty on day one,” you chuckled, tossing the dirty paper towel into the trash. 

You took a moment to size up the kitchen and dining room within the light of the afternoon sun. Things looked a hell of a lot uglier when you could actually see the house properly, and the amount of effort you needed to put in cleaning was absolutely demoralizing. The fixtures were absolutely filthy, the windows were cracked and frosted over, and bugs had taken up residency in the grimy sink. The very act of simply existing in this room was enough to sap your strength and willingness to do anything.

Niko looked curiously around the room, taking a seat atop a bar stool you pushed up against the counter. They flipped open to a page featuring a drawing they’ve clearly been working on. They reached into their wondrous box of crayons and picked out a deep blue, scribbling the space atop what looked to be a drawing of a house.

“Wow, nice art!" You encouraged with a grin. "Are you drawing the ocean?” You peered over as you began assorting the groceries in the minifridge, trying to cram the mozzarella cheese and pepperoni into the bottom drawer. You were unsuccessful. 

“Thank you! But nuh-uh,” Niko shook their head. “It’s supposed to be the sky, but I don’t have a light blue crayon.”

“Uh-oh. Did you lose some colors?” You asked, hoisting a large sack of flour up to the counter with herculean effort, feeling your arms practically screech in agony and disapproval at the strain. Maybe it was too soon to start hauling things around, with your muscles on cooldown and all.

Niko nodded, swinging their stubby legs back and forth.

“I have only half of the crayon colors. I lost some of them in school, and I broke some on accident, too.” 

You gave a contemplative hum and tapped your chin, an idea flowering in your head.

“...Wait here for a sec,” you waggled a finger, dashing your way up the creaking staircase into the musty and neglected space that was your new studio, sifting through the many-stacked boxes for your supplies. You knew you kept a few containers of them in here somewhere, and- there they were! You returned downstairs with a skip in your step, showing off an unopened tin of oil pastels that you bought on sale. 

“Ta-daaaaah!” You sang, giggling as Niko immediately leapt off their seat to get a closer look. You opened the tin, displaying to Niko an impressive array of assorted color oil pastels in pristine condition, yet to be properly used. You experimented with pastels sparingly since the colorful dust stuck to your fingers- which then wound up getting smeared all over your clothes.

“Wow!” Niko beamed, topaz eyes glittering with joy. “Those are so cool! Where did you get them?” They bounced in place, wiggling with anticipation as you handed them the box. 

“In the city where I’m from, a few stores sell stuff like that. I’m an artist, so I have a bunch of things I can use to draw and paint,” you explained with some degree of disappointment directed solely towards yourself, keeping the whole ‘starving artist’ tidbit to yourself. “I have some spares I haven’t used yet. You can have those.”

Niko stared in shock and awe, in complete disbelief of what you were offering them.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want them,” you hurriedly corrected yourself, unsure that if offering presents to the neighbor’s child was a shady thing to do. There was no ulterior motive behind the gesture, and you just felt some form of intrinsic connection with other artists, no matter the age. Niko was definitely talented, and you simply wanted to help a child pursue their hobbies.

"They're going to waste since they're just sitting in the studio, so I might at well give 'em to someone who'll use them well, you know?"

Niko hopped off the stool and laughed in delight, taking the pastels as though they were a precious gift. "Thank you! I always knew you were nice," they marveled with a relieved smile, which you were half-happy, half-concerned to hear.

“I, uh... try! But uh, does your mom know you’re here?” You asked, surprised at yourself for not asking sooner like, you know, a responsible adult. She might have been looking for her kid, after all.

“...Uh oh. I think I should go back home. I told her I wouldn’t leave the yard,” Niko fretted, fidgeting with their oversized sleeves. You returned to the box of pastries, delicately wrapping a Bear Claw with a paper towel. 

“Would you please give this to your mom, then? Tell her it’s thanks for the bread yesterday,” you said, accompanying Niko to the front porch. They stopped at the steps, gazing out to the far-reaching view of the wheat fields rippling beneath the spring sunlight, then looking back to you with bright eyes sparkling with adoration and glee. 

“Thank you for the new crayons, I really like them!” shouted Niko with a toothy grin, bounding down the stairs and waving to you as they scuttled up the hill. You didn't bother correcting them. 

“No problem. See you around, kiddo!” You called out as Niko’s response was lost in the whistling of the wind, scarf bobbing in the breeze as they vanished behind a barrier of wisteria flowers that hung across Marigold’s fence. 

What a cute kid. You were lucky you had someone as well-behaved as Niko for a neighbor instead of those nutjobs that kept practicing the trumpet at 3 in the morning. Or… was it a trombone? Uh, either way!

And yet, the moment you turned your back against the blue sky and faced the sight of the cottage, any and all motivation completely dried up and withered upon the recollection of the cleaning workload stacked on top of that whole renovation business. Right, you were going to live in a moving cart for nearly a month. 

...God, you had so much work to do.

Chapter Text

Most of the morning was spent viciously attacking the oven with cleaning supplies and a metal spatula. The prehistoric bits of charred food were near-impossible to scrape off, and you began to suspect that some of the burnt chunks had bonded to the blackened oven outright. You even had reason to believe that a mouse had used this thing as a dwelling at some point.

Soot had accumulated on surfaces and spaces where soot had no business reaching, and trying to wipe everything down was a miserable experience even with the right supplements. The whole thing was so filthy that you wrestled with the idea of throwing it out entirely. Nobody in the right mind was going to pay a single penny for something in such a wretched condition. A real shame, too, considering that this oven must have been the best of its kind during its glory days. The thing was really old fashioned. 

At least the gas appeared to be in working condition, though the hissing startled the hell out of you when you flipped the switch. So long as everything was functional, you could stand to tinker with it some more. An hour of dedicated scraping revealed the dull metal of a perfectly serviceable oven rack, though some thorough cleaning and hefty deal of disinfecting was definitely in order. 

There was a knock at the door that drew your attention. Who’d have business with you this early in the morning? Marigold, maybe? You hoped everything was alright.

You left the greasy sponge on the rack and scurried over to answer the door, still clad in your flowery apron. The hinges squealed obnoxiously and you winced,  quickly correcting your expression into a welcome smile as you greeted the sight of a yawning Sorrel.

“Mornin’ to ya,” he mumbled sleepily, droplets of morning dew sliding off the shoulders of his leather jacket. It looked remarkably expensive, but suited him rather well. 

“Morning. You look sleepy, are you here for the inspection?”

“Yup,” he said, staring up at the cottage with half-lidded eyes as if waiting for something. “...Crap, left the clipboard in the car. Just a sec,” said Sorrel, backpedaling into an absolutely beaten-up Ford truck that had rusted in several places. Stacks of cut lumber and concrete breeze blocks weighed against the trunk, bouncing as Sorrel pushed through the many bags of fast food to search for something.

You waited patiently by the doorframe and observed with some amusement as he fumbled with a bag that had fallen out of the seat, a half-eaten chicken nugget tumbling out of a box. Based on the many others you saw amassed on the floor of the passenger’s seat, it became pretty obvious to you that Sorrel didn’t exactly have much of a healthy diet. 

Not that you could exactly judge, of course. You practically lived off Chinese takeout from the joint down the street of your apartment for a good three years until you discovered the magic and miracles of yakiniku. Off-handedly, you wondered how expensive meat might have been in Soleil Valley. You might have been able to sustain on an all-meat diet for a little while if it meant saving money.

“We’re good,” Sorrel gave a thumbs up and kicked the door shut, bounding back over to the splintered patio as he clicked the surface of the clipboard with his pen. “Nice apron,” he said with a pleased smirk, entering through the doorway as you ushered him in.

“Thanks. Cool jacket,” you responded amiably, brushing off the burnt bits of God-knows-what from your grandmother’s apron. 

“You like it?” Used to belong to Pops back in the day. Said this thing cost more than my truck…” Sorrel laughed, ears perked attentively as he observed the room with a look on his face that gave away just how little he thought of the place. “...Damn, they really let this place go.”

“So I’m told time and time again,” you frowned, stretching out your arms. “ But that’s what you’re here for. Is there anything you need me for regarding the whole… inspection process?”

Sorrel shook his head, far more interested in your sparse furnishings and the pile of empty water bottles on the floor, rather than his job. “Nah. Just need permission to enter any rooms in the house for thorough results.”

“By all means. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” you said, returning to the task at hand while Sorrel did his thing.

Your hands were beginning to ache, even through the protection of the dishwashing gloves. Most of the oven rack was as clean as physically possible given the circumstances, but you were going to throw out your back if you stayed hunched over like this. Groaning, you sat against the oven and gradually slid on the floor when something inside the oven had clattered. Jolting up with a start, you stared back at the filthy thing with distrust before you finally noticed that there was a drawer beneath the oven. 

The handle had been snapped off long ago, so it was no wonder that you hadn’t noticed or even considered that this thing had a compartment for other utensils. You dug your fingers into the cracks and tugged out the shelf, nearly shrieking when a roach swiftly crawled across your hands and scuttled desperately beneath the sink. 

“Oh God, oh God-” you whined and rushed into the backyard to wash yourself off with the hose, too terrified to approach the sink after that hideous bug had made it into it’s safe haven. Thank heavens you were wearing gloves- you’d be scrubbing your skin until it turned red, otherwise.

Sorrel poked his head out from the backdoor, ears flattened against his head. “You uh, good? I heard screaming from downstairs.”

“Y-yeah, that was, um,” You gulped, flushing with embarrassment. “...That was me. I was messing with the oven, and uh… there was a bug,” you admitted with great difficulty, face growing warm.

The Felidae blinked, lips quirking into an amused sort of smile before his expression quickly returned to that of neutrality. “Guessing you’re not a fan?”

“So what if I’m not?” You gave a pout, wiping off your gloves against the thick apron.

“There’s tons of ‘em in the house you know,” he snickered, entertained by this squeamish side of you.

“Don’t remind me,” you shuddered, shooing him inside the house so you could fit through the door. “You can do something about those things, right?”

“We ain’t exterminators,” chuckled Sorrel, who seemed as if he was having far more fun than the situation warranted. “But most of ‘em will scram once all the heavy construction starts. If they don’t get out of the way, they’ll be squished anyways. I’m just hopin’ they haven’t made a bunch of nests underneath the house-”

“Okay, okay! Knock it off,” you howled, begrudgingly turning back to the evil oven and sifting through the blackened pans with an apprehensive touch.

“You’re digging back into the place where there were bugs?” Sorrel raised an eyebrow, twirling his pen.

“I have to clean these, too. They basically came with the place. Besides, shouldn’t you be… you know, inspecting the place instead of bullying me?”  you huffed playfully, standing back as you hoisted the heavy pans up and out of the broken drawer. 

“I think it’s a fun side gig, actually,” said Sorrel, a devilish smile quirked on his lips for a mere second before he turned his focus onto the kitchen. “Besides, I haven’t gotten around to the first floor yet. I started upstairs since there was less ground to cover.”

You kept your back to him, unwilling to let him see the frustrated blush across your cheeks as you began the arduous process of scrubbing the sludge off the pans. A strange tension hung between the two of you as you worked in the same room, and you couldn’t help but breath a sigh of relief when his footsteps clunked into the living room. 

“Oh, damn-” came his voice from the living room, no more than a minute into the scrubbing process. 

Now it was your turn to see what the heck he was on about. You set down the pots and pans with a tired clutter and meandered over to the couch and television, where Sorrel was on his knees worshipping the guitar case set next to the open suitcase.

“You play?” He looked back to you with sparkling eyes, cat ears wiggling with joy.

“A little,” you grunted, hefting up the case onto the foldout couch to give him a better look. “Not as much as I used to. I performed from time to time back in the city, but I haven’t really done that in a year or so.”

You really hoped he wouldn’t press you about those memories. They were an ornery and painful phase in your life that you were much better off not revisiting. Time wasted was time you would never earn back, and you’re not entirely certain that you could stop yourself from rambling once that dam was wrenched open.

“Man. So you can make art and play guitar? That’s really somethin’, you know?” Sorrel flashed you a childish grin, and you found yourself startlingly tongue-tied at the compliment. It shouldn’t have come off as a surprise that he noticed the clutter of art surprise in the upstairs room; rather it was difficult not to when that was all that was there. 

“Anyone can do it with practice,” you shrugged, secretly delighted that someone around your age already held you in such high regard. “Do you… play an instrument, too?

“I’ve been playin’ around with a bass guitar since last winter. I ain’t much good yet, but a couple of guys and me were thinkin’ of starting a band. You should totally join in, dude- you said you performed at places, yeah? Why not be our lead singer? None of us can sing for shit,” he chuckled in that warm voice of his, admiring your acoustic guitar with much wonder. 

Based on your experiences in the music career, you were inclined to turn down his offer. While you didn’t really mean to come off as negative, most local bands typically die out within a year of their upbringing because of complications, whether it’s due to finances or squabbles between bandmates. The music scene can get awfully stressful at times.

“I’m not really sure. Are you guys a punk band?” you tilted your head, looking his leather jacket up and down.

“Yeah! How’d you know?” he regarded you with astonishment, completely shocked that you’d somehow figured it out.

“Lucky guess,” you giggled, zipping the guitar case back. “C’mon, I know we both got work to do. What’s the final verdict?”

“Oh, yeah!” Sorrel shot upwards, skillfully balancing the pen between two digits. “So… this is nothin’ you don’t already know, but not only is this place ugly as sin, but it’s just an accident waiting to happen. The floorboards have turned brittle with all the wear and tear, and one wrong step can snap ‘em entirely. It’s not such a big deal on the first floor, but if it happens upstairs then you can seriously get hurt,” he frowned, his gaze following up the staircase, illuminated by a morning sunbeam. “I know you managed to get your supplies up there in one piece, but I wouldn’t recommend you go back up there for now. Especially since the nearest hospital is a two-hour drive. 

You didn’t actually know about that hospital part. Before you had a chance to comment, Sorrel continued onward with his report. 

“Second is that the dust problem needs to be addressed. I get that we ain’t home inspectors, but I can tell you straight up that all ‘o that dust is a health hazard. You can get some pretty nasty infections if you don’t clean it up. The walls seem sturdy enough to support the place well, so that’s a plus. Aside from that… the roof tiles are in bad shape. You’re gonna get tons of leaks come the rainy season, and spring showers usually start around this time of month ‘round here.”

You nodded slowly, face souring with each little thing that was checked off the list. “And the repair costs… I was told they’d be covered. That’s… that’s true, right?” You gulped nervously, terrified of the answer.

“Totally,” Sorrel grinned. “Townhall was serious about trying to get people to live here to boost the population, so they’re being pretty generous about fixing up the property. Good thing too, since I know Pops would normally charge a fortune to pretty-up a house this big.”

That was reassuring, at least. You didn’t have enough funds in the bank to cover even a tenth of the normal charges, much less anything else. You were going to have to keep a tight watch on your spending habits until the end of the year- or at least, whenever you expect you’d be out of the red. Which is, of course, not exactly an easy feat if you’ve been in the red for 5 consecutive years. You can’t even begin to remember how you even managed to let it get that bad in the first place.

“Thanks for the hard work,” you praised politely, appraising the miserable condition of the little cottage for the umpteenth time. “When can you guys start, you think?”

“Hmm. At the earliest? Probably two days. We ain’t got much in the way of business nowadays, so we have pretty much everything stockpiled at the workshop. I’d need to order specific materials for some of the bathroom fixtures, but we know a good company that’s usually pretty fast ‘bout stuff like that.”

“Sounds good. I’ll… um, try to get my furniture out by then so they don’t get in the way. Is it okay if I just leave them in the yard?” It took you hours to move the furniture inside in the first place, and now, less than three days later, you were going to shove them back out . There must have been some kind of world record to have luck this foul. 

“Actually, might be kinda better to just leave ‘em past the front gate. Don’t want debris ‘n stuff fallin’ all over your couch, y’know?” 

“Right, right,” you said, knitting your fingers together in a nervous sort of gesture. 

“Now that everything is said and done, I’ll pop back home and share the results. We’ll be over in about two-days time to spruce this place up. That cool?” he flashed you that smile of his, and you couldn’t help but grin back.

“Sounds perfect. Thanks again!”

You saw him out the front door and watched as he hopped into his pickup truck, a little worried that the plumes of exhaust fumes might choke out some of the flowers. The morning was still relatively young, however, and the April sunshine was reinvigorating enough to send you marching back into the kitchen, ready to tackle the troublesome oven.

You glared over to the sink, where the pompous bugs danced and made merry in their home as you toiled away. 

“Just you wait. In two days time, I’m going to kick all of you little jerks out of my house.”

-----🌞-----

In the dazzling rays of the afternoon, you kicked up your legs atop a garden table and were quite content to sip on some homemade iced coffee, listening to the sounds of the whispering garden. The house creaked and rattled with the wind, and from further up the hill came the sound of Marigold toiling away in her kitchen, the noises drifting across the valley as the wheat fields danced beyond the edges of the picket fence. 

You were taking a hard-earned break from the relentless scrubbing you’d done to whip that oven back into shape. You were practically finished, by which you meant to say, that the oven was as clean as it was going to get and you were probably going to lose your mind if you kept at it for much longer. So you indulged in some respite in the splendor of your new yard, beneath the lazy shadow of the cottage as you unwound. 

A few moments later, you were snapped out of your blissful reverie by the sound of the front gate creaking open. Then came the soft pattering of little feet on the grass, then a gentle knocking at the door.

“I’m in the yard,” you called out to the small visitor, who scampered across the daisies and flounced into the grassy patio. Niko gave a sunny smile as you greeted them, sketchpad and pastels tucked under an arm.

“Hello! Is it okay if I play here today?” asked Niko, bedazzled by a swallowtail butterfly that flitted across the azalea bushes. 

“Sure thing,” you smiled, retracting your legs from the table so that Niko could set down their tools of the trade. They seated themselves at the opposite end of the table, squirming into a garden chair and deciding very carefully about which oil pastel to use today.

“How goes your artistic pursuits?” You asked benignly, resting a chin on the back of your hand. 

“These new cray- sorry, I mean pastels! They’re a lot of fun to play with,” said Niko as they flipped their sketchpad open to a fresh page, pastel hovering over the paper in deliberation. They ultimately wedged it back into the tin and began glancing about the yard, seeking the most energetic and picturesque angle for their newest piece. Finally, their eyes settled on you and they pulled out another pastel, the same color as your eyes- and began doodling.

“Should I pose for you?” You joked, chuckling as you took another slow sip of your iced coffee.

Niko shook their head, occasionally glancing up at you to capture you in your essence. “You’re perfect the way you are! You look natural,” they giggled, putting a baggy sleeve to their mouth. 

Aww, what a sweetheart. 

Still, you had to wonder how and why Niko came to trust you so quickly. You didn’t doubt that Marigold must have warned them of stranger danger and the risks of approaching people you hardly knew, especially if they give you presents out of the blue. Yeah, so it might have been a little shady of you to just give Niko a gift when they first went into your house, but you didn’t have even a lick of bad intentions within your heart, let alone a single bad bone in your body. 

Maybe this was a normal thing in small communities. Smaller villages tended to have close-knit relationships and more wholesome means of maintaining traditions, so you assumed that Niko got along well with the other villagers, and you were no exception. It also explained why Marigold went out of her way to bake you something; you, a total stranger they knew nothing about. 

It was heartwarming, now that you think about it. 

Like hell you’d find that kind of hospitality in the city, where the people couldn’t stand each other’s presences, frantic and exhausted by a bustling city that chewed them up and spat them out. Everyone back home was always grouchy, tired, or both, and nobody ever really seemed to know why. While it was incredibly unpleasant, it was something one became accustomed to very quickly. Everyone pressed up in the same, driverless train car, the jerking of the train knocking you into a schoolgirl or a stylish businessman who was definitely too young to be juggling a 16-hour shift, all on the morning commute.

The only things you think you’d miss about the place were the convenient store croquettes and lemon tea, and maybe some of the street food they sold downtown with all the pachinko parlours. Here, you felt like you could actually breathe. 

Niko had finished their drawing right as you snapped out of your daze, carefully setting their pastels back. 

“Wanna see?” asked Niko, sending you a little smile.

“You know it,” you hummed, leaning closer to get a better look at Niko’s drawing.

They flipped their sketchpad over to show you a colorful portrait of you, with flowers and butterflies in the background crowding around what you assumed was the entryway to the house.

“Impressive,” you said, whistling. “You’re definitely going places.”

Niko nodded, genuinely happy with the praise. They glanced down at your coffee, then your hands- and tilted their head. “Why are you wearing gloves outside, though?” 

“...Oh, this? I was cleaning the oven back there since I wanted to try using it to make something. I’m pretty much done,” you answered, watching as the ice clinked and swirled within the glass.

“What are you making?” asked Niko, who had seemingly taken a keen interest in your daily activities.

“Pizza!” You threw an arm into the air for flair, which made Niko clap their hand together. “I’m gonna try baking it for the first time.”

“Oh! Is that what the pepperoni in the shopping bag was for?” They actually remembered that. Niko sure was an acute observer for someone so young. 

“Bingo,” you smirked, downing the last of your iced coffee, savoring the lingering chill as it went down your throat. “Alright, break time is over. I oughta start right about now.”

“Can I help?” Niko offered, bouncing out of their seat. “I help Mama bake all the time! She lets me knead the dough!”

“Oh yeah?” You put a hand to your lips, feigning the act of being lost in thought. “Alright, kiddo. You’ll be on dough duty.” 

Niko let out an excited squeak and skipped into the house, waiting for you by the countertop where you had the semi-clean pans stacked on top of each other. Niko was just a tad too short to properly reach the counter, so you dragged a stool from the living room(which you were using as a makeshift ottoman) for them to stand on. 

“Here, you can use my apron. I don’t want to get your nice scarf all dirty,” you insisted gently as you tied the apron around their tiny waist. 

“This is a big apron,” they commenced, swishing around with a giddy smile.

“Mhm. It belonged to my grandma,” you said, starting up a playlist and opening up a recipe that you had bookmarked since yesterday. 

‘An Amateur's Guide to Making Pizza’, read the title of the article.

“Let’s do this thing!” You pumped a fist into the air, a gesture that Niko happily mimicked.

God, they were so precious. 

“Step one,”  you read aloud, peering at the phone screen which you’d set down on the windowsill. “Proof the yeast. Uh... proof? What does that even mean?” You squinted at the bag of yeast condescendingly, as if that’d somehow get you an answer. 

“Oh, um… I think that means you have to mix it a certain way,” answered Niko, who was eagerly brandishing a whisk. 

You looked up what the hell ‘proofing’ was supposed to mean in accordance with pizza-forging. Apparently it’s when you mix yeast, sugar, and warm water together. Said water needed to be at a very specific temperature, since it’d kill the yeast if it was too warm and it won’t proof. You still didn’t get what that meant, but at least the instructions were pretty concrete. 

You set down a kettle of water on the kitchen oven and began heating it, keeping a watchful eye on the temperature as you prepared all of the ingredients and a bowl for Niko, who was very adamant about mixing it themselves. 

Once that was done, Niko mixed everything into the bowl slowly and watched as bubbles and foam began to stick to the surface of the bowl, which was (luckily) a sign that the yeast had proofed and was… activated? Was yeast something that was supposed to be activated? Man, pizzerias must have had it rough if they pulled all of this off for each and every order. 

Next came the flour, olive oil, and salt. You offered to pour the olive oil into a measuring cup for Niko, as the bottle was notorious for being slippery. You’ve let it slip and tumble out of your hands and spill onto the floor one too many times, so you figured you’d take the safer route this time since Niko was in the equation. 

“Alright, start mixing until it forms a sticky-kinda ball. Then we transfer it to a… floured surface?” You raised an eyebrow, unsure of what that meant. “If I slap some flour on a cutting board, do you think that’d work?”

“I think so,” sang Niko, who hummed along to a song that came up on shuffle. “Mama does something like that.”

If Marigold did it, then clearly that must have been the right answer. You shrugged and rubbed some flour onto a wooden cutting board, prepping the next step ahead of time.

“I’m going to go preheat the oven. It takes kind of a while to get going, so I’d probably better do it now,” you said, receiving a hum of affirmation from Niko as you tinkered with the gas. 

Niko was having a wonderful time kneading the dough. Maybe it was in a cat’s nature to- shit. No no, don’t think like that. That was racist- you were raised better than that. Felidae and cats were two completely different species, despite the coincidental similarities. Humans originated from monkeys, after all; and most people weren’t really chimp-like in any consistency. Most of the time. 

Still, you were proud of Niko and how the pizza was turning out. This was most definitely going to be a pizza to reign supreme over the apex of all pizzas. 

“Now for the fun part,” you grinned, procuring a massive rolling pin from the moving box of kitchenware, weighting it in your hands. “We’re gonna beat this thing like it owes us money.”

Niko didn’t look too excited at the prospect of violence. That was a very good thing, you decided, letting out a nervous laugh as you handed Niko the rolling pin. “I’m just kidding. You gotta flatten it.”

“I can do that,” giggled Niko. They studiously rolled the dough, carrying more strength in their frail arms than their appearance suggested.

Niko seemed to be doing most of the legwork, but it didn’t look like they were unhappy with it. In fact, they seemed awfully happy to have such a pivotal role in the art of making pizza- it was adorable to see. While Niko worked their magic on the dough, you prepped the sauce, cheese, and pepperoni on the countertop and scrolled through the instructions again, then checking up on the heated oven.

“I see people spin this on TV,” Niko remarked, holding the flabby dough in their hands. 

“It always seemed like a lot of fun. Try it,” you encouraged, popping off the lid of the sauce jar. 

Niko did just that, giving weak attempts at flipping the dough in the air, though they grew bolder and bolder with each botched throw and launched it into the air, where the pizza began to spin wildly out of control. 

You churned out an embarrassing squawk and rushed over to Niko, saving the dough just in time from splattering all over the filthy wooden floorboards. Niko let out a terrified gasp, clasping their tiny hands over their mouth.

“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that,” they panicked, gazing up at you with a look of shame.

“Hey, don’t worry about it! No harm done. Let’s just stick with plan B and sauce this thing up,” you said, trying to cheer up the small child. Niko perked up quickly enough and was happily smearing the pizza sauce all over the flattened dough, giggling at the ‘slap’ as they dropped a dollop of sauce onto it. 

The two of you worked together in harmony sprinkling the mozzarella cheese,  then meticulously tried to make a smiley face with the pepperoni. The end result was something that looked straight out of a horror movie, so you and Niko exchanged concerned looks and decided to patch it up with even more pepperoni. By now, the pizza was 40% meat.

You appointed yourself the task of sliding the pizza pan into the oven, as Niko was too young to handle dangerously hot surfaces. You flung the oven mitt back onto the table and wiped the sweat from your forehead, wincing at the mess that was now the kitchen.

“I’ll… clean all of this up. If you wait outside for a bit, I’ll get us some snacks,” you said, watching with contentment as Niko darted off into the patio, eagerly returning to their sketchpad. When all was said and done, you returned with the box of those fancy chocolate your friend gave to you as a goodbye present, along with a cool can of lemonade for Niko and that black cherry soda you bought from the candy store yesterday. 

Before you knew it, the evening had painted hues of pink and solemn blue across the sky, tiny stars scattered overhead like spring petals. The crickets began their nightly serenade, and smoke puffed from the chimney of Marigold’s house up on the hill. It was pleasantly cool outside, and the patio light had flickered on while you uncapped the soda bottle, enjoying the delightful fizziness as Niko swung their legs, taking eager sips of their lemonade. 

“To tell you the truth,” you began calmly, gazing upwards at the evening sky. “I wanted to make that pizza for your mom as thanks for the bread.”

“Really?” gawked Niko.

“Mhm. And for you too, of course,” you smiled again, reflecting on what a productive day today was. 

“Let’s share it together, then! I’m sure Mama will be really happy. The neighbors haven’t shared much with us in a while, since we live a little farther from everyone else,” they remarked sullenly, taking a piece of chocolate. 

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll share lots with you guys instead, then.” 

Niko’s cheeks grew rosy with elation as they took more sips of their lemonade, chatting with you about a variety of topics until the box was empty and soda pop had gone dry. You and Niko drifted inside of the cottage where it quickly grew dark, the firelight of the oven setting the room aglow in warm colors.

“Let’s get this thing out and over to your house, hm?” You twirled the pizza peel in your hands, jamming it right into the dragon’s mouth to procure what was probably the best pizza you’ve ever smelled in your entire life. That had to have been proof that you were doing something right. 

You didn’t actually plan ahead after that. You could transport it on another pan, sure but it was going to be burning hot and you’d only have more dishes to wash. You blinked at your carelessness, but decided it was probably just as well that you carried the pizza to Marigold’s place with some oven mitts. 

You left the patio door open, unconcerned about burglars as you hiked up the hill through the sweet meadow grass, sprigs of rosemary brushing past the rotting fences. 

-----🌞-----

Without knocking, Niko opened the door. “Mama, we’re home!”

We? That was charming, you thought with a smile as you ducked into the quaint little house.

“Pardon the intrusion, but we brought dinner!” You turned your head just in time to see Marigold seated at the dining room table, who frantically gathered a bunch of envelopes and documents into a bunched-up mess, which she hurriedly shoved into a drawer in the nearest side table. 

“Oh, welcome back! Sorry about the clutter- here! Just set it down on the table, dear, I’ll get us some plates!” Marigold swirled into the kitchen with a lively smile and almost enough cheer to completely distract you from what had just happened a second ago.

Niko didn’t react to this in particular, and you pretended not to notice they were bank statements and, something with which you were frighteningly familiar with, overdue rent documents. So it seemed Marigold had her fair share of financial troubles.

“I hope you like pepperoni! We, uh. Kinda put a lot of it on there. A lot,” you reiterated for emphasis, a little anxious about how Marigold might have critiqued your pizza.

The mother returned from the kitchen with cute little porcelain plates, blue jays and pink poppies hand-painted on the outer edges. It looked far too ornate to be used for something like pizza.  

“Thank you,” you said, seated next to Niko as Marigold began slicing the pizza into even pieces with a pizza cutter. You mentally cursed to yourself that you forgot to bring one yourself instead of making the guest do it for you. Well, even if you were the one in her house…

“It smells heavenly,” Marigold cooed with a lovely smile, taking the seat across from you and serving each person around the table. “It’s very sweet of you to bake something for all of us. I’ll have to return the favor.”

You felt a little flustered and shook your head, trying to swallow your food. “That isn’t necessary, Miss Marigold-”

“Please, just call me Marigold. I insist,” she hummed sweetly.

You nodded shyly, returning her smile timidly. “I did this as thanks for the lemon bread. You pretty much fed me for two days straight, and that was the nicest thing a neighbor has ever done for me. I wasn’t used to that kind of thing, so I… I thought it’d only be right of me to be kind back. One good favor deserves another, that sort of thing,” you nodded resolutely, trying not to let the cheese drip all over your outfit. 

Marigold looked immensely emotional suddenly, and you began panicking internally. Had you said something wrong?

Before you could let out a strangled apology-

“Thank you-” she said, so quietly that it was almost inaudible. Her watering eyes promised all of the warmth in the world, and it was clear that she was being heartfelt. 

“Yeah,” you croaked, nodding stupidly. “No problem, anytime. We’re uh, neighbors after all, right?” 

Marigold nodded sagely, smiling serenely at this revelation. 

“Oh, I saw the builder man come by this morning,” piped Niko, who steered the conversation towards a less emotional destination.

You nodded, crunching on the pizza crust. “Yeah, inspection. They’ll swing by in two days to start working on the house. Um, Marigold…” you hesitated, a little too afraid to meet her gaze. “Would you mind if I… borrowed your restroom until the construction finishes? I can’t stay at my place when they work on the place, hah, so um…”

Marigold folded her arms together, eyes widening in surprise. “Goodness- don’t you have anyplace to stay while they renovate the house?” 

“Technically, I was going to live in the cargo trailer until then. I did call up some friends back in the city to see if I can crash with them, but most of them are either out of town or have… complicated home lives that can’t really fit me. I don’t have enough for a motel,” you laughed pitifully, sliding a slice of pizza onto Niko’s plate as they struggled to reach for it. 

“You poor thing,” she lamented, pretty lips pursed into a frown. “You’re more than welcome to stay with us, if you’d like.”

...You’re weren’t sure if you heard that properly.

“...Huh?” you cawed. “I-”

“Yeah!” Niko yipped, wiggling in their seat. “It’ll be like a sleepover!”

Marigold nodded kindly. “We have a spare room downstairs that isn’t being used. You’re free to use it until your house situation is all sorted out,” she offered, and the ingenuity in her eyes made you think that she actually meant it. She wasn’t just pulling your leg. 

“N-No, I… I couldn’t impose,” you stammered, almost drowning in happiness at the offer.

“I insist. If you bake more of these lovely pizzas, consider it proper payment,” she smiled mischievously for one of her demure grace. “...And, I suppose I wouldn’t say no to a hand in the kitchen.”

“Are you positive that this is alright?” you gulped. 

Oh my God. She meant it. She actually, honest to God meant it. 

You didn’t know how to respond in a way that wouldn’t make you sound like a blubbering fool. 

“I… of course,” you laughed out, completely giddy. “Of course. I can do the groceries and help with laundry if you need it. You’re… you’re doing me such a huge favor, Marigold, I-I don’t know how to repay you-”

“Oh, hush,” Marigold tittered, putting a hand to her glossy lips. “I won’t hear another word of it. You said it yourself- we're neighbors. We look out for each other. Niko already thinks you’re a part of the family,” she turned to her child, who was busy cramming the rest of the pizza slice in their mouth. Niko gave an eager nod, padding away the grease with a napkin. 

“It’ll be fun! You can teach me how to draw, and I can, um… oh, I can read you some of my favorite books!”

You beamed at Niko with a genuine smile. “I’d love that.” 

That was probably the best dinner of your life, and not just in the sense that the food was filling and absolutely delicious. The pizza wasn’t bad for a first-time baker, but it was the presence at the dinner table that made the experience a sheer delight. You almost felt like… like you truly belonged here in the valley, and with the loving neighbors that sat atop this hill, watching over the wheat fields like a gentle guardian. 

You offered to do the dishes that night, despite Marigold’s insistence. Tomorrow, you’d move all of the furniture out for the renovators and keep the suitcase and other belongings in the guest bedroom that Marigold had offered. You asked her at least 4 or 5 more times that night if it was really, truly alright if you stayed at her house for a couple of weeks, and her answer was the same each time. 

When you said your goodbyes and strutted down the grassy path towards the old cottage, the evening felt just a little sweeter. You slipped back into the dark cottage, snuggling under the quilts and comforters of the fold-out couch and flipped on the television, breathing in the cool air and letting the soft colors of the television lull you to sleep. Before you knew it, you’d been lulled into the calmest sleep you’d known in years.

Chapter Text

In the early hours of the morning came the sounds of the construction crew, just as the cool mist made way for the lazy sunbeams to break through the silvery clouds. Marigold and Niko were early risers, always up with the rising sun. The two were (gratefully) content to let you sleep in, though they found it a tad peculiar that you weren’t an early bird. 

The sound of little cat feet tip-tapped down the hall, and from the sunlit kitchen, you could hear Marigold humming a melody as she prepared breakfast for the day.

In the past week you spent in Marigold’s household, you made it a habit to at least try and get up around the same time to help out around the house better. It was tricky to sit still and find peace of mind doing absolutely nothing when someone had offered you free lodgings and food at no cost whatsoever. You couldn’t take advantage of her generosity like that. At least, not with a clear conscience. 

The duvet, still heavy around your legs, taunted you with the false promise of sleep. Hopping off the guest bed with a sigh, you sifted through the mini-suitcase and fit yourself into something presentable enough to walk around the house in.

About a week had passed since your stay, and the narrow hallways and macramé wall furnishings had become a gradual part of your life in this household. Each morning, the sun rose just a little earlier, and the air had begun to warm up as spring marched proudly into the countryside. The air smelled sweetly of honeysuckles and rosemaries from the garden.

Marigold was grinding down something on the kitchen counter. Niko was stationed at their usual seat on the table, coloring in a cartoon shark from a jumbo-sized coloring book you bought them a couple days ago.

"Mornin'," you said, ducking your head into the fridge for some orange juice. 

"Good morning, my dear." Marigold smiled, glancing up at you from her task. Niko looked up from their book, waving to you with a sleeve. 

"What are you making?" you asked, gulping down the last of the orange juice before scribbling it onto the grocery list. "I'll help out."

"I appreciate it," Marigold grunted, using her full weight to try and grind whatever was on the wooden cutting board. "Would you be a dear and get started on the pancake mix?"

You apparently robbed Niko of their daily job of helping out their mother in the kitchen, though they didn't seem to mind the vacation at all. You put the pancake mix, eggs, and milk into the bowl before dusting off the powder onto your legs, whisking away until the mix settles into a perfect thickness. "What's that you're crushin' up over there?" you asked, trying to remember which container kept the white sugar.

"Fresh hazelnuts," purred Marigold, who pointed over to a wall rack where many porcelain jars stood in a line, monarch butterflies painted on the lids. 

Hazelnuts, huh? That was a unique ingredient to use for breakfast foods- maybe it was a family recipe. "Thanks," you smiled and popped off the lid, dumping a tablespoon of sugar into the bowl before you tried to go down the checklist of whatever else might be missing. Wait, was it supposed to be a tablespoon of sugar or just a teaspoon? 

"Don't forget the vanilla extract!" She reminded, hefting the ground hazelnuts into the pancake batter as she began heating up the frying pan, coating it in a layer of butter. You fumbled with the bottle of extract, wondering just how much was considered too much. These pancakes were going to be ridiculously sweet, huh?

You went ahead and got started on the bacon while Marigold worked her magic with the pancakes. As your mind wandered upon the outside view of the spring valley, you realized just how long it'd been since you had the time or energy to make yourself breakfast like this. Most of the time, it was just a bagel from the gentrified cafe down the street or something quick from the minimart if you had the time to spare. You hadn't actually made yourself breakfast in what probably must have been years. 

Hurriedly, you scooped the crispy bacon onto a plate and kept the chewier strips for Niko, who vastly preferred its taste and texture over the crunchier ones. Marigold's pancakes were always perfect and fluffy in comparison to your misshapen lumps, and it was apologetically easy to tell who had prepared breakfast that morning based on the presentation alone. Even so, Marigold had always suggested that a dish's true merits could be judged in the way it tasted, rather than its appearance. You thought she might have had a point when Niko gobbled them up all the same, relishing the taste with as much gusto as they would their mother's cooking.

You plopped into your usual seat closest to the door, fork clicking against your teeth as you marveled at the taste sensation in your mouth. "Oh my God," you hummed, chewing on the hazelnut bits that Marigold had mixed into the batter. "This is amazing. I've never had pancakes this good before," you snatched another piece and shoved it into your mouth graciously. 

"I'm glad you enjoy it," cooed Marigold, who cut up Niko's pancake into smaller, bite-sized pieces for them to eat. "I'll give you the recipe one of these days if you'd like."

"I would like that very, very much," you trilled, savoring the way the syrup and butter melted into the pancake with each bite, the hazelnuts adding an earthy and flavorful magic to an otherwise staple breakfast food. 

"Mama's cooking is the best," Niko wiggled happily in their seat, licking the maple syrup off their lips as it threatened to drip onto their scarf. You passed them the napkins and wolved down the rest of your meal, slumping into a pleased puddle against the teakwood chair as the meal settled in your stomach.

-----🌞-----

As an unspoken agreement, you always handled the dishes after a meal. You pitched in at every opportunity, more than willing to make up for Marigold's generosity by contributing as much as you can to the house's overall cleanliness. She fought against it at the start, but your pride had none of it as you urged her to leave at least half of the chores to you so she had some breathing room. Not once was the cooking and cleaning an issue- it was the alien absence of tasks or responsibility that came after. Once the last of the dishes had been cleared away, there came that same creeping sense of emptiness.

Truthfully, there'd been a myriad of things that you could, or rather, should have been doing in your spare time. You were technically unemployed and currently bunking with your neighbor... who you'd known for two weeks at most. 

You stared blankly at the ceiling while laying on a pile of blankets on the floor, listening to the soft rustling of Niko's pastels gliding across their sketchpad as they worked next to you. They glanced up periodically to make sure you were still there, as though they expected you to vanish into thin air. Sorrel and his coworkers were hammering away just down the hill, making your new home a more hospitable place for you to live. 

...You considered looking for a new job somewhere in Soleil Valley. The moment you mentioned that you intended to do such a thing, however, Marigold shot down the idea before you could get another word in.

"You won't find any in town," she sighed, elbows up on the table as she flipped through some familiar-looking catalogs. "I've tried applying to every place I could find in the valley. Everyone has me on speed dial in case there comes a moment where a position opens, but I haven't had any luck," she smiled sadly, her eyes looking far more tired than you last remember them being. 

She did let you sift through a couple magazines and there you saw it, funny enough. There was that very same apartment building you moved out of just a few weeks ago, now seeking tenants. Maybe the paint stains wedged in the cracks of the counter and cupboards had lowered the price a little. Apparently not, as you rolled your eyes at the still-ridiculous monthly rent and flipped the catalog shut, deciding to call it a day after finding that almost every job available in the ads were at least a two-hour commute from your new house. 

"Any luck?" Marigold's eyes were glued to the job section of the newspaper, her intense focus prevalent even as she took periodic sips of her tea.

"Nope," you sighed, trying to assuage the guilt of helplessness by busying yourself with cleaning up the kitchen counter. It was easy, mindless work, but it served to get your mind off things when the placidness got to be a little too much.

Not once had you considered the long-term consequences of how an aimless life of chaos and misdirection would have impacted your life. The peace and quiet, the very absence of pressure- was new and frightening in a way you couldn't have imagined. There were perhaps millions of people on this planet who would have killed to be in your position, crippling debt aside; you were squandering it by stressing over something as menial as what you should be doing for the day. You felt instantly guilty at the ridiculous notion of being stressed by... well, the lack of stress you'd become so accustomed to. 

You really needed to get out more and at least try to clear your head. Maybe a nice walk down the fields would do wonders for you- Marigold was always in proactive support of you exploring as much of Soleil Valley as possible. 

Throwing on some shoes, you announced to the family that you were going off on a stroll, promising to return at least sometime before sunset. 

"Have a pleasant walk," said Marigold, giving a delighted smile. 

Niko was immediately interested, setting their coloring book and pastels to the side to zoom over to you in the blink of an eye. "Can I come, too?" 

"Fine by me, though you should probably ask your mother." While you didn't have any objections, you cast your gaze over to Marigold for her thoughts on the matter in case the idea was too invasive. 

"Make sure you don't cause anyone trouble," Marigold warned lightly, her smile warm as she flipped through the newspaper. Niko let out a delighted squeak and bounced out the door, scurrying across the front yard and waiting for you by the picket fence.

"I'll bring us back by sunset," you promised, clicking the screen door shut. "And I'll bring home some groceries while I'm out," you added in quickly before Marigold had a chance to reject the idea, ushering for Niko to stay in your line of sight at all times. 

The sunshine was glinting off the wheat fields, the stream gleaming white as minnows darted away like shooting stars when you and Niko's footfalls thumped atop the rickety bridge. The tire swing dangled to and fro from the great maple tree, swaying along to the playful whims of the calm breeze. Niko's interest was immediately piqued. They flounced over to the broken swing, pushing it carefully with a single sleeve as brilliantly colored leaves whispered from atop the lush branches.

"This used to be mine!" proclaimed Niko, looking very much pleased with themselves. "I wanna fix it someday. It's not as hard as it looks to set it up!" 

And then, as if in defiance of the child's will, the rope snapped and the tire plunged into the leaf pile below, threatening to roll into the stream had you not halted its rampage with a foot. Niko, positively dumbfounded, looked you straight in the eyes, then back at the tire with a heartbreaking frown. 

"Um," you stammered. Out of respect for Niko, you refrained from kicking the tire and balanced it with a foot until you could nudge it to recline by the tree trunk. "I think I know a guy who could probably fix it," you suggested helpfully, Sorrel popping into mind. You weren't sure how much a carpenter could help with something like this, but it was certainly more of his forte than it was yours. "I'll bug them about it later if you want."

"Really?" Niko's mood had drastically improved, and you couldn't help but grin in return. They gravitated ever-so-slowly away from the broken tire swing, parading towards the countryside as you paced yourself behind them, trailing along the road and into the tree-tunnel that bristled with spring petals. 

The road went so unused that plant life had slowly reclaimed bits and pieces of the asphalt, easily missed by the car ride you'd embarked on earlier that week. The road was surprisingly wide, more so than you what you could gauge from the driver's seat. The sun tried its best to break through the canopy of blossoms, a sunshower of petals catching in your clothes as a couple of flecks of pink gathered in the brim of Niko's large hat. They spun in slow circles, arms outstretched, watching the flurry of petals dance in the air as the wind blew peacefully from the mouth of the entrance behind you, beckoning you further and further into the tunnel where the trees had met overhead.

Beams of light filtered through from the canopy, illuminating the cracks and crevices split from the road by invading tree roots and persistent weeds. Sprigs of sweet meadow grass hugged the contours of the path, yellow-and-white buds bobbing happily. You took this time to stretch your arms, straightening your back a little as you took in the fragrance of the plant life that blossomed all around you. Though Niko was content to bound around the road, inspecting each and every blob of color that crossed their line of sight, they had always remembered not to stray too far. 

It was so comfortably warm outside that you could have probably fallen asleep where you stood. You breathed in deeply and relaxed your muscles, passing by the old bus stop with the collapsed shelter, caved in by a toppled tree that seemed unburdened by the fact that it was snapped halfway. You strained to get a good look at the moss-coated post, but couldn't make heads or tails of what used to be written on it.

"It's been like that for a long time, ever since I was little," Niko commented, taking note of your fascination. You stifled the urge to point out that Niko was, in fact, still little. "Mama said it still works, though."

Huh. Does it, now? Coulda fooled you. 

You didn't know that the buses went this far out. The only ones that you thought did were airport buses, set on specific routes, and one-way trips for those who couldn't find a closer place to disembark. At the very least, none of the buses in your city were willing to travel this far outside of the perimeters. 

Following along the same path, you and Niko strode in mutual silence towards the luminous clearing. About half an hour of walking bore fruit to the cozy scenic view of the village, seeming very tiny when swallowed up by the golden vastness of the wheat fields. With the sun on your face and the wind at your back, you and Niko walked across the cobbled steps leading down into the fields, heads of wheat poking eagerly through the white-painted wooden fence.

You mused on the grocer's stock on the journey into town. Niko had been picking at the wheat, gathering a small bunch in their little arms. Were they allowed to take some like that? Maybe since they were local, it was just something they happened to accept. Niko tramped joyously beside you, picking up more wheat from the field on the opposite side. 

You and Niko strolled into the plaza, popping into the friendly little grocery store for more ingredients. You procured a small basket from the front entrance and fished around your pockets for the grocery list. Niko took one peek and darted away into the narrow aisles, leaving you to your business. 

"Good to see you again," greeted the grocer, that cheery Felidae woman who had quite the difficult time trying to keep her unruly children in check. She peeked over at you from behind a towering pile of boxed cake mix, which she had miraculously managed to balance with utmost precision. "Can I help you find anything today, love?" 

"I think I'll be alright," you answered politely. "Is the wheat flour in the same place as last time?"

She paused, a flash of concern glinting through her pretty eyes. "Ah- down the corner on aisle 3," she suddenly remembered to say. Pretending you hadn't noticed, you give her a good-mannered 'thank you' and careened down the isles, plucking up goods off the shelves. Niko dipped in every minute or so, dropping off various goods marked on the shopping list. 

"Do you do much baking?" Asked the woman with a hint of caution as you checked out. You wondered why that was any business of hers but supposed that it was just a quirk of living in such a close community. She was probably just curious- it wasn't worth getting defensive over.

"Nope," you said, rummaging through your pocket for a wad of bills. "My neighbor does, though. I'm just helping out with her groceries."

The grocer suddenly looked immensely relieved. "Sorry, I know that must have been an oddly specific thing to ask. I don't often carry flour in stock- it's mostly for tourists or visitors, but we don't get much more of those these days..."

You gave her a sympathetic smile. "So I'm told. Funny you mention baking- the lady who runs the bakery across the street told me something along those lines."

" Oh, that's my sister !" The woman beamed, ears standing proudly. "She's the one who buys practically all of the bread flour here. I was... more than a little worried you were going to compete," she smiled meekly, ears folding down. 

"Oh, God no," you stammered, shaking your head viciously. "I'm just... the unsuccessful artist dropout that moved into town," you insisted, a little flustered. 

"Like that Van Gogh fella? Well, plenty of wheat fields around here for you to paint! And sunflowers, once summer rolls around," she added helpfully, right as Niko scurried from the corner of an isle with the goods in tow. You weren't sure whether to feel flattered or concerned at the comparison. Didn't Van Gogh shoot himself in the chest? And cut off his ear? Probably not in that order, but you know. 

"Oh, hello there, Niko!" The grocer immediately fixed her attention to Niko, who smiled cutely at her. 

"Hi, Miss Holly! I'm helping Mama with groceries. This is my new friend," Niko introduced you, picking up your hand and waving it in the air. 

"Oh," Holly grinned, eyes sparkling upon hearing the news. "You got that lovely ol' cottage all to yourself- aren't you a lucky one!"

"Yeah, well..." you scratched the back of your neck, realizing that it was your cue to pay. You uncrumpled a wad of bills (maybe you should start using a wallet) and thanked Holly, swaying the grocery bags.

You and Niko made a pit stop at the candy store, picking up some more black cherry soda and half a pound of gummies for Niko. They chewed happily at the treats and gazes skyward, watching the clouds blissfully trail across the canvas of pale blue. 

-----🌞-----

When the two of you had emerged from the tree tunnel, the evening sun had painted the valley in a warm, golden glow. 

"We're back," you grunted, trying to nudge the door open with your shoulder for Niko. You heard Marigold's voice whispering inside, but she hadn't responded to you. Figuring it was something you shouldn't interfere with, you made your way to the kitchen and began rearranging the fridge so that it accommodated the groceries.

Niko was already planted on the couch, flipping on the television to watch a cartoon that you'd never seen before. They locked eyes with you when you'd hauled the last of the wheat flour into the pantry and beckoned for you to sit beside them, patting the seat.

"Don't mind if I do," you smiled, sinking into the couch as Niko drew up the blankets to your knees. 

You could hear bits and pieces of Marigold's phone call from the other room. There wasn't enough information to parse just what the context was, but her voice was unusually taut. It reminded you of your old retail voice back when you worked at Burger Lord in high school, but it was disconcerting to hear it from someone like Marigold. 

"She's been doing that a lot," Niko commented, looking up at you. 

"...Using the telephone?"

"Looking for a job," they corrected. There was something in their voice that made you uneasy.

You didn't really know what to say to that. Searching for a job seemed like a relatively normal thing to do, but you could hazard a few guesses as to why Niko felt vaguely threatened by the prospect. 

For starters, it was apparent that Marigold was the primary parental figure in Niko's life. There was a moment where you thought she might have been the only parental figure Niko had, but... based on the several well-cared-for photos arranged atop the fireplace, that clearly wasn't the case. Niko definitely had a father, but there wasn't any indicator that he played an active role in their life. The topic of divorce wasn't exactly something you intended to surface with Marigold, so you left it alone and kept your musings to yourself. 

"Are you worried she's going to be busy?" you asked. They nodded, sinking further into the blanket.

"I'm sure everything is going to be okay," you gently brushed their hair with your fingers, smiling at the way Niko's eyes fluttered shut in delight, purring softly. 

Marigold waltzed past with the telephone no less than a moment later, her expression painted in various shades of concern. Her ears flicked up at the sight of you and she quickly switched back to mom mode. 

"I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in! Welcome home," she beamed with that usual maternal smile of hers, tiptoeing past the television so as not to blot out Niko’s cartoons. 

“No problem. That sounded important, so I didn’t want to bother you,” you said, casting the line. Niko shot you a thankful look and glanced over to Marigold to gauge her reaction. She made a straight beeline for the kitchen, the muffled clattering of pots and pans signaling the makings of what must be dinner. 

“Thank you for doing the groceries,” she said in a grateful chime. “Is gratin alright with you tonight? I’d like to use up the chicken thigh before it goes bad.”

Dang, not even a nibble.

Niko mumbled sleepily from beneath the blankets, already about to nod off. You smiled at them and left the cozy couch to help her with dinner, despite not knowing the first thing about preparing gratin. People used potatoes for that, right? You could peel a potato. You weren’t really the deftest with a peeler, but at least you’d be contributing somehow. 

“I’d love to have a brick oven like yours one day,” said Marigold as she began chopping up the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Bandages were wrapped around her index finger and her pinky. 

“You can have it if you want,” you chuckled, picking up a shred of potato skin that had missed the trash can. “I’m no baker. You’d get more use out of it than me.”

“I’m flattered that you're offering, but I don’t think we have any space for it though.” she turned from her work to beam at you, the bags under her eyes made prevalent beneath the softness of the kitchen lights. 

Tonight's dinner was a collaborative effort, made all the more tastier that you and Marigold had given it everything you got. Dinner was pleasantly quiet, though Niko was noticeably less talkative tonight. You suspected the reason was regarding the phone call, but that wasn't exactly something that'd make for amicable conversation at the table. 

You offered to do the dishes that night, hands pruning unpleasantly by the time the bulk of them had been cleaned. Retreating back into the living room, you watched an old childhood classic with Niko, lights flickering in pleasant, lulling colors. You felt yourself growing sleepier and decided to call it a night after seeing an hour of this had passed, looking over to Niko to check if they were awake. 

Niko was out like a light, snoozing lightly with their head tilted up adorably. Smiling to yourself, you carefully scooped up Niko in your arms and tiptoed up the stairs to put them to bed, nudging their bedroom door open. You carefully maneuvered past the many stuffed animals scattered on the floor and tucked them safe and snug beneath their blankets. You checked around for their stuffed owl, Mr. Banana Bread, Niko called them, and nestled him beside Niko. 

Closing the curtains, you quietly snuck past the bed before you felt something tug weakly at your wrist. You turned to check on Niko, growing concerned.

"Niko?" you asked, peering over to the child. "Are you okay?"

Only the sound of chirping crickets and the downstairs television answered you. Then,

"Are you going away again?"

Niko's voice was so small, so... afraid . You've never heard them sound like that before.

"What do you mean?" You hovered over the edge of the bed, confused and worried over their meaning.

" Don't go away, " they repeated, golden eyes opening just a crack. A trick of the light, maybe, or it might have been something about the door angling open just a crack, but you thought Niko's eyes were glowing faintly. 

"Of course I won't," you answered, clasping a hand over Niko's small knuckles. "I'll be downstairs for the rest of the week, and even when I have to go, I'll always be next door. I won't be far," you insisted warmly, unsure if that would actually assuage any of Niko's concerns. 

Niko doesn't respond, and their grip on your wrist slackened. You called out their name softly, just to make sure they were okay, but they'd fallen fast asleep. Their breathing was calm, even, chest moving up and down in gentle motions. Maybe… they were talking in their sleep?

"Sweet dreams," you whispered quietly, smiling down at Niko before you clicked the bedroom door shut. 

The lamp beside the kitchen cabinet was left on when you returned downstairs. Huh, you must have forgotten to switch it off. You went to remedy that, unwilling to crank up Marigold's electric bill more than you already had. 

There you saw her, hunched over the kitchen table with her palms planted against her forehead, paperwork scattered in messy droves atop the lace doilies. 

Oh. That's...

You've seen this before. 

Because this... this was you just a few weeks ago.

Stumbling upon something you very well knew that you weren't supposed to see, you backtracked slowly into the living room before your foot squished against something soft and fluffy. One of Niko's stuffed animals let out a ghastly squeal as you mistakenly stepped on it during your attempt to retreat. Marigold jolted upright from her seat, ears pricked up and her pupils blown wide. You winced at the comedically painful timing of it all and approached from beyond the corner of the room where the living room and kitchen connected.

Though she had her guard thrown up, Marigold's face perceptibly softened when she saw that it was you.

"Oh, it's just you, dear," Marigold attempted to smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Are you still hungry? I can heat up some leftovers for you if you'd like."

You shuffled awkwardly in place and shook your head, politely declining the offer. Inevitably, your eyes were drawn to the documents that lay folded open on the table. Marigold followed your gaze and sighed miserably, wrestling with the idea of addressing the elephant that was clearly in the room. 

Neither of you really knew what to say, which only intensified the awkwardness tenfold. What was the correct thing to do in a situation like this? What was the right approach? Should you offer to help cover the living expenses, or would she interpret that as pity and turn you down? Would you hurt her feelings? Her pride? She had a child to care for, though, surely you could have done something to help ease the burden, right?

"I'm sorry," you said suddenly, heart racing faster than your brain could catch up. "I didn't mean to disturb you." 

"Don't be," Marigold insisted quickly, hastily assorting the paperwork and shuffling it into one, neat pile. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

Of course not. You knew that. But even so, there was this foreboding sense of guilt that gnawed at you. Nagging and insistent, a part of you didn't want to let this be swept under the rug. 

"Are you... having problems?" You mustered up the courage to ask. The answer was obvious, duh, but you'd rather hear it directly from her mouth rather than come to conclusions.

Marigold didn't look too pleased, but you could piece together that it wasn't due to any fault of yours.

"A little," said Marigold, who turned back to her papers. "I can manage just fine if I get a couple of phone calls back."

You nodded. "Job hunting? I've spent most of my college days doing that- I can try to hook you up if you need," you offered helpfully, though Marigold only dismissed it with a waning smile.

"I appreciate it, but I'll be fine," she interjected, gasping at her own rudeness. "I mean, I've already applied to many places, mostly out of town. I'm waiting to hear more responses before I try again," she said patiently, exerting more effort into convincing you than herself. 

"Right," you nodded weakly, trying to appear placated by the response. "Well, if there's anything I can do for you, just let me know. You've done me a huge favor by taking me in, and... well, I have every intention to pay you back for it one day."

You're unsure if Marigold was swayed at all, but she gazed up at you from her paperwork, and there you saw it, her eyes glassy and vulnerable from the embers of something that had long since worn her down. Niko had those same eyes, sometimes, where they thought you weren't looking, or when you'd catch them staring at the sunset with fierce, melancholic concentration.

...You wondered what had happened to them both to make things turn out this way.

"Thank you," she said, genuinely happy and mere seconds away from crying. 

Embarrassed and flushed, you nodded sheepishly and tapped your hands together. "Of course," you said. "If you have interviews out of town, I can watch Niko for a while."

Her left ear twitched at that moment, as though you'd finally said something that had captured her attention. Not wanting to impede her more than you already had that night, you excused yourself and snuck back into the guest bedroom, climbing gratefully beneath the sheets of the warm bed.

Your eyelids fluttered shut and, for the briefest of moments, bathed in the dark silence of the bedroom, you wondered if everything that had transpired tonight was just a bad dream.

Chapter Text

The week passed blissfully without incident, although conversations with Marigold had become a notch more awkward. She had made it abundantly clear that she loved and appreciated your presence, but the house carried a portentous air that fogged your mind. 

As it turns out, the perfect remedy for that had fallen right onto your lap.

You and Niko were on the usual afternoon stroll back from the grocery store when Sorrel flagged you down. He jogged all the way up the hill, incredibly out of breath, and had keeled over on the picket fence by the time he reached you. 

"Great timing," Sorrel coughed out, attempting a smile that made him appear moderately constipated. "We... just wrapped up the last of... the renovations!" He pointed feebly down the hill, trying to keep himself from collapsing on the spot.

Niko was instantly delighted by the news, whiskers jittering with innocent anticipation. 

"Can we see?" Asked the child, already dashing downhill before awaiting a proper answer.

"Wait, Niko- " you called out, trying to catch their attention to no avail. Man, that kid could run. Letting out a discouraged sigh, you gave Sorrel a bashful smile and motioned to Marigold's house.

"Gimme a second to put the groceries away?" 

"Take all the time that you need," gasped Sorrel, who was still heaving for air. 

You quickly darted inside of Marigold's house, recalling her graceful precision as you neatly organized the groceries. While she wasn't very particular about exact placement, you'd prefer to leave the pantry as organized as it was before your stay. 

Once finished, you sprinted outside and whizzed past Sorrel as you tried to locate Niko. Stacks of plywood were propped up against the walls of the new cottage, carried off piece by piece into a bulky pickup truck by the workers. You bowed your head thankfully to each one as you strode past, stopping dead in your tracks as the new cottage came into view, towering high in beautiful splendor.

Speechless, you stared slack-jawed at the carpenter's handiwork. It was like something out of a storybook. 

Blue terracotta shingles accentuated the ivory-white walls in soft and muted tones. The fireplace was renovated entirely, rebuilt with smooth white stones that peaked from above the azure rooftop. You can already imagine what it would have looked like when summer rolled around, with dangling fairy lights on the porch, sweet peas and hydrangea bushes blossoming like fireworks. The garland roses would bloom red in early July, weaving between the lattice fences and crawling across the walls towards the sun. 

"Looks pretty damn good, if I say so myself!" Sorrel's voice came from behind as he approached, beaming with pride. "It wasn't as bad as it looked, honestly. The rotting floorboards were the most annoyin', but everything else came 'long smoothly after we got that outta the way," he said, admiring his work. 

A large shadow emerged from behind, blotting out the light of the sun with their sheer stature. And then, you were snapped out of your reverie by the guttural sound of someone clearing their throat. 

There approached a hulking Felidae, with perfectly chiseled abs and muscles sculpted by the Gods themselves, a mountain of plywood balanced effortlessly atop one shoulder. From his jawline and across his chest were a constellation of scars, each wound a bookmark to a story yet untold to you. His gaze took on a knife-like sharpness, and he eyed you up and down in a way that made it frighteningly apparent that he was judging you for something. Your worth, perhaps, or something else entirely. You didn't even know where to start placing your bets.  

"You the owner o' this place ?" He said gruffly, staring you down with the ferocity of a lion. His tone of voice was a front, feigning disinterest, but his stare evidently declared otherwise. 

"Uh," you balked stupidly, trying to play off the fact that you were very much intimidated. "I-I am, yes. Thank you so much for your hard work, sir! " you hurriedly bowed your head, extremely cowed, cold sweat beading down your back.

"Cmon, dad. That ain't funny," Sorrel quipped nervously, edging closer into your field of vision to wedge as much of a distance between him as possible. 

...Wait, dad? This musclehead was Sorrel's father?

The alleged father-in-question regarded Sorrel's interjection with indifference. Locking eyes with his son, he rebalanced the plywood skillfully with one arm, then allowed for them to slip one by one atop the grass.

"Take the rest back to the car, wouldja?" Demanded his father, who deliberately worded the request as a command. Nodding quietly, Sorrel obediently did as instructed, struggling with the load the entire way to the truck. 

The father, plainly unsympathetic to his plight,  procured a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it over. You tentatively took it in your hands and unwrapped it then and there, withering from beneath his expectant stare. 

Cost of exterior furnishings, unit prices, total cost...

Oh, good Lord. This was an invoice. 

The costs for the renovations overall amounted to zero, as stoutly promised before the move. Mr. Pizza (shockingly) wasn't lying when he claimed the mayor was willing to foot the bill to help maintain the stability of Soleil Valley's population. If the whole thing was allegedly covered, there shouldn't have been a problem with finances in the first place. 

So then, why...

...Why were there so many zeroes at the end of this total?

"Um," you began, eyes flickering up to face him. 

He returned your gaze with great impatience. His right ear, chipped and scarred, flicked irritably upon the sound of your voice. 

"There a problem ?" He snarled, appearing three seconds away from snapping your spine like a twig. 

Maybe if you lied and said no, you can manage to walk away from this with all of your limbs still intact. 

Why did everything have to be so hard?

"Well, it's just that..." you gulped, shrinking back as his eyes bore into you. "I was, um, informed by my real estate agent that the costs for the renovation were covered by-"

"They are." He interrupted, pointing at the first checkbox of the invoice impatiently. "Ya see that? All zeroes. Our resources get eaten up by the fat cat 'n we don't get any interest." he growled, irritated by this fact. 

"Right," you stammered, voice cracking towards the end. "I-I was more referencing... the second box," you tapped the section weakly, terrified that he'd find the gesture belittling. 

"Oh right, that," the man smiled suddenly, a complete 180 from his previous demeanor. His grin hit you with the volatile impact of an eighteen-wheeler, so menacing in nature that it sent chills down your spine. 

"Labor costs."  He said simply. Just like that, all tension in the air came crashing down into a heaping mess. "Yer landlord was ol' Ronny Pizza, right?"

You nodded, dumbfounded.

"Sounds 'bout right for 'im,"  he grumbled at a volume that you were very clearly meant to hear. " Yeah, we know all 'bout the boss's new ordinance. You ain't payin' a cent for the refurbishin', no worries. The labor costs, though? That ain't covered. You're payin' out of pocket for that one."

...Ah. Of course. 

There was always...  something,  wasn't there? Something to miss, something that didn't click quite right. At that moment, your grandmother's words from your childhood echoed in your mind.

"If something sounds too good to be true, then chances are... it probably is." 

Speechless and crestfallen, all you could do was stare at the invoice with empty, hopeless eyes. So many zeroes. God, this was worse than your college tuition, which was really saying something. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, huh?

...Man. This really may as well be happening to you. 

"Hey dad," Sorrel returned, out of breath for the millionth time that day, positively red in the face. "We... we're good to go. Everythin' alright?" He gazed between the two of you back and forth as if sensing the storm that brewed. 

"Jus' fine, kiddo." His father let out a hearty laugh, slapping his shoulder with such herculean force that Sorrel cowered from the impact. "Good luck," he chuckled knowingly in a way that got under your skin.

Niko emerged from the side garden with what you branded to be the worst possible timing, and you straightened yourself up as they pranced over to you with a radiant expression. You breathed out a sigh of relief, thrilled to see Niko's sunny face. 

"There you are, kiddo. Don't run off like that," you warned gently, lips pursed into a stern frown.

"...Sorry," Niko gave an apologetic pout, eyes of gold fixated onto the piece of paper in your hands. 

Sorrel had a similar idea, looking over your shoulder at the invoice, letting out a long whistle. 

"Yikes. If it helps, I might be able to talk my pops into bumping it down. I told 'im not to include the labor cost for me since we wouldn't even need this many people on shift, but-"

"Oh, God no," you shook your head. "I mean, even if this is a lot, I'm not about to cheat you out of your hard work," you insisted, stiffly tucking the slip of paper into your pocket. "This is... this is fine. I can manage," you lied straight through your teeth, brain trying desperately to come up with plans to cope and coming up short each time. 

"Are you sure?" asked Niko, tilting their head. "You don't look so good."

You inhaled shakily through your nose, trying to maintain the facade for Niko's sake. The way they looked at you with those golden, inquisitive eyes- it scared you sometimes. Niko was still just a child, yes, but they were far more astute than you gave them credit for. You caught them observing you often, regardless of whether or not you were working or otherwise unoccupied. No matter the situation, Niko would lift up their head and flick their eyes over to you, just to make sure that you were still there. 

Normally you would chalk it up to a child's insatiable curiosity, but... well, Niko was sharper than that, whether you chose to acknowledge it or not. Sometimes, you wonder if even Marigold knows that they're like this. In a way, it felt like Niko could just... see right through you. It was unsettling just a bit because, at times, it felt like Niko knew you better than you knew yourself.

"Yeah," you insisted, though Niko was unconvinced. They frowned at your dishonesty and glanced over at the house, then threw the pickup truck an accusatory glare. "Can you tell your mom that I'll start packing up my stuff later today?"

"...Okay," they said, with the faintest hint of worry in their tiny voice. Before you could ask Niko if they were feeling okay, they had run off towards the top of the hill, scarf streaming behind them like a shooting star.

"Hey, I'm really sorry. If I could do anythin' for ya, I would," Sorrel winced apologetically at the exchange.

You drew your eyes to the top of the hill and opened your mouth to speak, the great big maple tree coming into view, and suddenly you remembered.

"Actually," you trilled, tapping your chin with a finger. "Well... this isn't super relevant, but I do need a handyman for something."

"Oh, w-what's up?" Sorrel stammered excitedly, ears pricked up adorably in anticipation. Although his body language gave him away almost instantly, you could read from his expression that he was trying his best to play it cool.

Your lips quirked into a faint smile, explaining to Sorrel about the broken tire swing. The branch itself was sturdy, but the rope was likely over a decade old and simply wore with age. 

"Oh, yeah. Saw that thing on the drive here, actually. Need me to take a look at it?" 

"If you can, please?" You clapped both of your hands together in a pleading gesture. 

"Sure thing! Should be a piece of cake," Sorrel boasted with a confident smirk, elated at the prospect of strutting his stuff. 

"How much would it be, you think?"

Sorrel contemplated this, tapping his foot against the grass. "Tell ya what," he said with a noticeable spring in his step. "Grab lunch with me later today and we'll call it even."

Really? That was it?

You shrugged. "Sure, fine by me."

Sorrel's eyes widened, ears drawn back in shock. "...Wait, r-really? You'll do it?" He sputtered in utter disbelief, sincerely certain that you would decline for whatever reason. 

"Yeah. You know the town better than I do, so you can recommend someplace good." You pulled out your cellphone, fingers swiping across the lock screen. "What's your number?"

Sorrel looked as though he were on cloud nine, euphoric for reasons that went beyond you. "...Oh, I can just text you! I already have your number," he laughed, completely deaf to the stalkerish implications of that sentence until you shot him a quizzical look.

"Oh, oh no, I mean- it was in the company books! We keep a log of customer contact info in our database, and we've had yours since the day you moved in! We haven't had a customer in a couple of weeks, so Pops was really keepin' an eye on this project," he suggested frantically. 

"...Right, cool. Text me the address later on and we'll hang out," you played it off with a casual smile, making it out as if you weren't extremely concerned about him a second ago. 

"Oi,"  the frightening foreman called from beyond the cottage gate, interrupting whatever semblance of a moment you two were having. He narrowed his eyes at Sorrel and motioned demandingly to the pickup truck with a jerk of his head.

"Forgot to tell ya," began the foreman. "But we didn't touch the basement, aside from fixin' up the door. That one was an add-on from the previous owner and wasn't part 'o any contract. If you want us to deal with that one, yer gonna have to pay extra," he crossed his arms and scrutinized the cottage, looking over his work with a critical eye. 

...Wait, what?

"Ya got six months to pay off the invoice, by the way. Godspeed," he interjected with a chortle, driving off into the valley as you stood alone on the porch, thousand upon thousands of questions swimming in your head. 

...Basement? What basement? 

-----🌞-----

So it turned out there was in fact, a basement in the house. 

It was here this entire time, apparently, and Mr. Pizza had just somehow neglected to tell you about it. That or, he deliberately avoided bringing up its existence at all. It really could have gone either way.

You're more baffled that you somehow missed something so glaringly cryptic. Admittedly, the basement door was fairly well concealed, tucked away in a corner of the kitchen separated by a wall where the laundry machines stood. They gave it a new paint job and replaced the rusty hinges, but the matter of fact was that this thing was here all along and you just... never knew about it. That didn't sit right with you.

You stood in front of the door and stared pensively at the crimson finish, straining to imagine the horror show it must have looked like before the workers arrived. The afternoon was sunny and indescribably pleasant, and yet not even the birdsong of the garden bluejays could drown out the oppressive haze that choked this secluded little corner of the house.

...Did you really want to open this thing?

The adventurous, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed part of you was raring to delve below and see what splendid mysteries this cottage had to offer. The more sensible and down-to-earth voice in your head, on the other hand? It was shrieking like a banshee from every conceivable angle,  demanding that you board this thing up and pretend it never existed. 

Well, you should probably try to rationalize things before impulse takes full control. 

First and foremost- what would happen if Niko found it? Children were endlessly curious, sometimes curious enough to voluntarily stick themselves into troublesome scenarios simply to satiate their thirst for knowledge. If the stairs were too steep, or if there was a leaking pipe someplace that made the floor slick and dangerous to traverse, they could have gotten seriously hurt. 

The second was... hm.

Honestly? The thought of Niko in any form of pain made the decision stunningly easy. You abhorred the concept of Niko being hurt in any capacity. 

For Niko. You're doing this for Niko.

Right. Somehow, that made things marginally easier. 

You pulled in a nearby stool to your side and dug around your pockets for your phone, switching on the flashlight app. You sucked in a deep breath of air and steadied yourself, vastly unsure of what to expect. 

Your fingers tightly clutched the doorknob like a vice, experimentally jiggling it in the off chance that it'd snap off. It was abnormally frigid in your grasp, further sabotaging your resolve. Gathering yourself, you turned the knob with overwhelming hesitance and caught yourself unwittingly holding your breath, second-guessing yourself at the last possible second. 

This is a bad idea,  cried a voice in the back of your head, begging you to see reason. The hairs on your arms and legs were standing on end. 

Stop. Stop it. Don't go down there. You can't go down there.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you gritted your teeth and remind yourself that this was for Niko. 

You threw the door open suddenly and swiftly, assailed by the overwhelmingly musty scent of mildew and what must have been years worth of mold accumulation. The staircase was cracked and decrepit, cobbled together in a hurry from concrete and plaster. Visibility was abysmal. It was impossible to see more than a few feet in front of you without assistance from your phone, which you thought was odd, given that the afternoon was remarkably bright. 

You wedged the stool in front of the door, minimizing the chance of a monster slamming the door shut from behind you for shits and giggles. Giving yourself another half-hearted pep talk, you embarked on the expedition towards what very well might have been your untimely demise.

There was no lightswitch to be had when you checked the walls. The railing was rusted and warped, threatening you with tetanus if you dared to lay your greasy hands on it. You placed your free hand against the wall, palms flat against the cold wood, maintaining steady footing as you slowly descended the steps. 

It was indescribably cold, more so than one could reasonably expect from a basement that you guessed hadn't been touched in years. It felt less like it was an absence of warmth as much as something was just... sucking it out entirely. Maybe at the end of the stairs was a black hole, absorbing any and all light, sound, and hope. Maybe if you fell in, you'd never come back out.

...Yeah, this tangent was exactly what you needed right now. Ugh. 

To make matters worse, the stairs were nightmarishly long. Unnecessarily, unrealistically so. The flashlight app couldn't seem to scrape the bottom no matter how much you descended. You began to suspect that you were on a one-way trip straight to the shadow realm.

You could no longer feel the warmth of the sun on your back. There was nothing left but a cruel, invasive chill assaulting from all angles, shadows creeping into your field of vision with each blink. Incidentally, you wondered how long it would take for someone to notice that you were missing. You know, in the off-chance that something... unpleasant transpired. For whatever reason. It's not like that would happen, or anything. This was a purely hypothetical train of thought and you totally didn't feel as if your life was in any danger. Yeah. Totally.

And then, eternity was cut short. The flashlight brought forth an object into view as you reached the purported bottom. Hackles raised, you traced the shape of this object with a keen and distrustful eye, determined to figure out if this thing was worth the years of life this little endeavor had shaved off. 

It was an old computer, big and bulky, the kind that your grandmother used to let you play Solitaire on when you were just a kid. The whole device was caked in layers upon layers of dust and debris and the screen was cracked, streaking across the monitor like a lightning bolt. A broken lightbulb lay shattered a couple of inches away, shards of glass splintered across the floor. 

Oh, God.

A hidden basement and an old computer tucked away at the bottom?

You weren't too fond of the picture this was painting. Not at all. Your first inclination was to contact the police, or the closest equivalent that Soleil Valley offered- the previous owner might have had a particularly sick hobby and could have stashed their degenerate content on this thing's hard drive. The situation here was incriminating enough to where it probably could have been justified, but... well, what if there was nothing in it? 

Did you... really want to check, though? What if something potentially scarring was stored on here? The last thing you wanted was to inadvertently unearth a hidden piece of the owner's past, only to have it come knocking on your door as punishment. Well, assuming that's not what was already happening right this instant. 

Most mystifying of all, however, was the lightbulb. Unremarkable in virtually every way, you couldn't piece together just why you couldn't look away from it. You gazed forlornly at the broken lightbulb, heart fluttering fearfully as you inspected it, tempted to reach for a shard of glass. For some odd, inexplicable reason, the sight of it made you incredibly uneasy. More so than the possibility of a computer being chock full of dubious content, apparently.

A broken lightbulb. It just... felt wrong. Like it wasn't supposed to be like that. 

Swallowing hard, you dropped down onto your knees and shone the flashlight app upon the old PC, illuminating it in excruciating detail. Your fingers ghosted over the monitor, hovering over the cracks. You traced out the lines in your head, familiarity guiding you along the fissures made upon the monitor. You ruled out the possibility that it was thrown down here in a hurry- the computer wasn't damaged nearly enough for that to have been the case. It could have been deliberately placed here, and the fracture had just occurred with time or from an undue mistake. The Author who lived here beforehand could have simply forgotten about it when he moved out. You tried mapping out the many potential reasons this was here at all, though some made less sense than others. 

Still unsettled, you reached out an unsteady hand over to the monitor. You had just barely brushed the top, drawing a clear line where you slid your index finger against the dust, and then it happened.

The screen flickered to life, all by its lonesome. 

With no cables, no power button, or further provocation. A PC at the bottom of a dark, smelly basement of an abandoned house that had been unoccupied and untouched for years, had turned itself on in an act that defied all logic and reason.

There wasn't even time to think.

You sprung to action and bolted up the stairs with a hideous scream, stumbling on your way up, survival instincts shifting into maximum overdrive. You lost your footing amidst the frenzied escape and slipped, knee slamming hard into the stone as you cried out, nearly losing grip of your phone, involuntarily bashing it against the concrete as your limbs spasmed. You kicked your legs wildly and thrashed about, instinctively prepared to fight off whatever attacker might have come clambering from below. Beyond terrified, you clawed your way up the stairs and made a mad dash for the door, knee throbbing in pain, and shoved the stool out of the way with such raw, desperate force that it flew across the kitchen.

You slammed the door shut behind you, adrenaline coursing madly through your veins, heart pumping with such ferocity that you fear it'd burst out of your chest. You pressed your full weight against the door, gasping for air, tears streaming down your cheeks. You half-expected something some start pounding on the other side of the door, scratching and clawing and maiming its way to you, but nothing happened. 

Five minutes of pure, hysteric dread passed. You gradually came down from the adrenaline rush and sank slowly to the floor, drawing up your knees to your chest, making yourself as small as humanely possible.

The shaking wouldn't stop and you couldn't articulate any of what transpired in that miserable place. Was that... a hallucination? Was your mind playing tricks on you?

Maybe... maybe you were finally starting to lose it. 

The non-stop stream of debts, the indisputable stress of moving, and the unforeseen labor fees that you couldn't possibly hope to afford even if you worked your ass off for the next decade? Maybe you finally lost your mind. Maybe just seeing that basement had put you off so much that it was the last nail in the coffin. That it tricked you into seeing things because you couldn't cope with the reality of your awful situation.

Your cellphone, which you hadn't even realized was going off amidst your fall to madness, had cracked. Oh, joy. Another thing to worry about.

Sorrel was trying to get ahold of you. You took in a shallow, shaking breath and made a hasty attempt to disguise your fear. 

"...H-Hello?"

"Hey! Sorry to bug ya so soon. I know it's only been an hour, but I wanted your opinion on somethin' before we get lunch."

"Uh... yeah, sure. What is it?" You wiped your nose with a sleeve and gradually stood yourself up, looking for something big and heavy to blockade the basement door with.

"How d'ya feel about bratwurst?" 

-----🌞-----

Sorrel invited you over for lunch at the Kaiserhof, that fancy German-American tavern whose name you struggled to pronounce. According to Sorrel, the name roughly translated to something among the lines of 'castle courtyard',  then corrected himself saying that it technically meant  'imperial court',  but that the owner preferred the atmosphere of the first one. 

Framed family photographs, quaint knickknacks, and signed autographs of unfamiliar celebrities were posted on the walls. Staunchly protecting the entrance was a large, hand-carved statue of a bear with a salmon caught in its fangs, stamped by a bronze plaque paying homage to who you assumed was the artist behind the woodwork. The bar was seated by a couple of noisy locals tended to by a waitress with plump cheeks and a frilly, alpine skirt. 

Utterly in contrast with the jovial and upbeat surroundings, you felt like absolute death, staring at the menu with lifeless eyes while Sorrel watched you with incredible concern. 

"Uh... should I order you a beer? You kinda look like you need it."

"Too early for day drinking," you mumbled, temptation cruising you towards the selection of craft German beers. While that hasn't stopped you in the past, you decided it was best to keep that factoid to yourself. 

Sorrel rolled up the sleeves of his leather jacket and rested his arms atop the table, hands beneath his chin, fretting over your unusual behavior.

"Sorry, I wasn't tryna be rude. You just... you look upset. Well, more than upset," he began, scratching his fingernails absently against the varnish. "Was today a bad day for this? I know you still gotta move out of Marigold's." 

"It's fine. Don't worry about it," you forced out a laugh, further sullying the atmosphere.

Great, way to make him feel even more  uncomfortable around you. 

The very same waitress from the bar counter whirled her way up to you, her accent delightfully thick. She managed to snap you out of your spell long enough to order, though it occurred to you that although you were gawking at the menu this entire time, you hadn't actually processed anything that was written on it. 

Sorrel nervously ordered the bratwurst, which you faintly remember he mentioned during the phone call. You thoughtlessly mimicked his order and stared blankly as she went off with a gleeful smile.

"So, uh... how's the house?" Sorrel began with a conversational smile, doing his best to try and make things a little less unbearable. 

"It's fine," you said, realizing a moment too late that 'fine' was probably not the most flattering way to describe a house that he and his father had spent weeks fixing for you. "I-I mean, it's gorgeous. Can't get enough of it." You rectified, smiling as sincerely as you could.

"Oh," said Sorrel, clearly sensing your dishonesty but making the politely decision not to pry. "Glad to hear," he responded with an awkward smile, anxiously sipping his drink. 

Oh, goddamit. Why do you always make things worse, somehow?

"I mean," you said, holding your head in your hands. "...Listen. I need your help with something," you said, dropping the act entirely, wrestling with the idea of coming clean to him.

Sorrel's ears perked up, his attention fixed on you. "...Sure, anything. Is this about the tire swing?"

You shook your head.

"It's... um... about the basement."

"...Ah," said Sorrel, eyes alight at the realization. "You want us to fix it up?"

Not really, no. It would have been great if they found a way to demolish it without compromising the house's infrastructure, actually. Hell, he could just supply you with concrete and you'd happily fill the accursed place up yourself. 

"No, actually. Uh... I need you to help me... board it up."

Sorrel paused in the middle of sipping his cherry coke, staring you down as if he'd just caught you in the act of something very embarrassing. "...Should I ask?"

"Listen," you hissed quietly, shoulders taut. "I just... I don't like that place, okay? It freaks me out and I didn't even know it existed until your dad mentioned it. It's... it's creepy and I don't like that it's there." You admitted, feeling very much like a child. 

"Uh," said Sorrel, voice breaking a little. "I mean- yeah. Sure. We can do that," he offered, smiling behind his mug of coke.

"...You're making fun of me, aren't you?" You huffed, leaning back against the booth. 

"Nah," he chuckled. "You just didn't strike me as the type who gets easily spooked. Then again, there was that time with the inspection and the roach-"

"DON'T," you yelped. "Mention that." 

Sorrel let out an amused laugh, his voice pleasant and smooth against your ears. In a way, being around him was calming. You didn't feel as crazy anymore when you confided in him about the basement, though it isn't as though you told him about what you found in it. Maybe you should just... keep that to yourself. Take it with you to the grave. Hopefully, whatever was in the basement didn't personally drag you into one.

"Alright. We can swing by my place later 'n grab some supplies. Shouldn't take too long if we're just boardin' up an ol' door," he promised. 

Somehow, you already felt a little at ease. You felt your muscles start to relax as you unwind, taking in slow, calming breaths as you tried to ground yourself to the world around you. You focused on the blinking lights of the jukebox in the corner, of the singing bass above the fireplace mantel that you honest to God hoped was out of batteries, and the way Sorrel's ears wiggled cutely at the slightest sound.

Everything was going to be okay. Yeah. You could handle this. One step at a time. 

When the waitress returned with both of your orders, you dug into your meal immediately and felt your mood improve drastically with food in your stomach. Sorrel wasn't kidding- the bratwurst was godly. 

"It's so good," you wailed, entirely forgetting to pace yourself. 

"Toldja it was good stuff," said Sorrel, tearing off a piece with his teeth. "This is my favorite place in town. It's uh, also the only bar in Soleil Valley." 

You watched him for a little while as you ate, feeling guilty about your earlier standoffish attitude. 

"...Thanks, by the way," you said simply, cutting off another piece with a fork and a knife.

"What for?" asked Sorrel, genuinely clueless.

You shrugged, giving him a bashful grin.

"Everything, I guess."

-----🌞-----

Sorrel had driven you home in his dingy old truck, which he quite happily explained was a '7th generation of Ford F-150'. The windows were rolled all the way down, letting in a cool breeze from the meadows that lightly kissed your cheek. The radio was blasting 80's rock, playing a couple of songs that you vaguely recognized, humming along to the lyrics as Sorrel jumped in. 

You peeked your head out the window, expecting to see Niko coloring out in the front yard again, but didn't see any sign of them outside on the drive back home. 

Sorrel parked his truck outside of the picket fence, sliding out and attempting to hoist the wooden boards from the trunk himself as a feat of strength. To his credit, he managed to hold most of them together, though a couple went clattering to the ground as he struggled to properly balance them. You gave a good-natured laugh and plucked up the rest, ushering him inside of the house and into the kitchen.

He took obvious note of the toppled stool, staring it down with a contemplative look before deciding it simply wasn't worth it to comment.

"Guessin' ya mean this one?" he motioned to the basement door, setting down his toolbox with a massive clatter. 

"Considering it's the only one I know of, yes," you said cheekily. "...Unless there's more than one of these. Please don't tell me there's another." 

"Hah, well most houses ain't got more than one. Help me nail 'em to the wall?" 

You carefully picked out a second hammer from Sorrel's toolbox, nervous about accidentally pricking yourself on something sharp and pointy, and helped him steady the boards so he could hammer them into the wall. Admittedly, you were kind of worried that Sorrel would flub his aim and smash your fingers, but he was remarkably nimble with his tools. You supposed he is a professional, after all, and wouldn't do anything shy of his best even for tasks as small as this.

"That oughta do it," he huffed, flinging his hammer carelessly into the toolbox where it made a startling 'clang '. "Whaddya think? Ya think it'll keep the zombies out?" 

You had to give credit where credit is due- Sorrel was an organized worker, contrary to his disheveled appearance. The basement door wasn't boarded up haphazardly or with sloppy workmanship. Each slab of wood was nailed in near-perfect horizontal lines, barricading the door. The four-by-fours were at least an inch thick, making it a colossal nuisance for anything on the other side to break through. 

"It's perfect," you breathed out a sigh of immense relief. "...Now I need to find something to cover it. It looks about a hundred times more suspicious."

"Jus' throw a curtain on it or somethin'. A flag or poster, even," Sorrel advised, hefting up his toolbox and strolling merrily out the door. You followed suit with hurried steps, patting yourself down for any spare bills.

"Hold up. How much do I owe for everything?"

Sorrel looked at you with a confident grin, and without missing a single beat- 

"Nothin'. Just treat me to lunch again next time. Actually," he snapped his fingers. "The Kaiserhof is havin' an event this weekend. It's the last week before the spring blossoms are gone 'till next year, so they're havin' a blossom-viewin' party... thing. It's this bash they hold every year." He explained with a hopeful gleam in his eyes. "Hang with me this weekend?"

That did sound like it'd be a fun idea, especially considering that you hadn't really taken the time to intermingle much with the community, outside of shopping, that is. 

"It is cool if I invite Niko and Miss Marigold?" 

"Hell yeah," he beamed, revealing a row of pointed teeth. "Been a while since most of us have seen those two 'round."

"It's a plan," you hummed cheerfully.

Sorrel made his exit and hauled himself into his truck, sticking his arm out the window to wave to you as he drove away.  

"I'll pick you up this Saturday," he called out, far enough to where you were out of his earshot. 

You quietly watched the silhouette of his rusty pickup truck vanish from atop the hill. The air was getting cooler as the sun dipped lower into the sky, the breeze pushing against the steady resilience of the new house. You turned to face the cottage in all of its renewed glory, gleaming an innocent white in contrary to the dreary darkness of the basement beneath.

A part of you wished that you had some way to get in contact with this supposed 'Author' who occupied this house before you. You mostly wanted questions about that damned computer and why he shoved something down there in the first place. It was an absurdly suspicious thing to do, and you haven't gathered enough clues about him from the townsfolk to determine whether or not he was the type of person to do something so... bizarre.

Well, Marigold was the Author's neighbor for years, after all. Maybe she knew something that the others didn't. The question was whether or not it was a good idea to pry for knowledge like that when it didn't directly involve you. Yeah, maybe you owned the house now, but... what you did with it was entirely up to you. 

This house definitely had some form of history, and the Author was at the epicenter of it all. It wasn't just by coincidence that his name had popped up whenever the topic of your move arose; this Author had to have some form of prominence in these people's lives. If only you had a name- you could look up his works and trace things back that way.

Marching back inside of the house, you grabbed ahold of your grandmother's old kitchen hutch and lugged it across the room, shoving it into the hidden laundry room. You pressed it right up against the basement door, blocking it entirely from view, checking the sides for potential airflow that may give away its location. 

Whatever lay down there didn't seem interested in coming on up here, at least not yet. You fully intended to keep it that way for as long as you lived. 

You've hardly done anything today, and already you felt drained, both physically and mentally. Flopping down onto the foldout couch, you switched the television on and checked your phone, only to be backhanded by the grim reminder that your phone screen had cracked during your fun little basement excursion. You should be thankful that the stupid thing still worked properly.

You tilted your head back against the couch, blinking as the evening sunlight filtered through the windows, casting the shadows of your furniture across the birch hardwood flooring. It was awful nice of them to move them in for you.

You thought about what to do for dinner, already starting to miss Marigold's cooking. She's really spoiled you in the two weeks you've bunked at her house, and you've grown so attached to her recipes that you didn't actually know what you'd do without it. Well, maybe once you've pulled yourself together, you'd pick up your belongings and ask her for suggestions.

You'll figure things out sooner or later. 

For now, you needed a recovery plan to tackle a new debt that's hanging over your head. Determined to dig yourself out of this hole, you traipsed into the downstairs studio to take stock of your belongings, digging out your painting supplies from a tattered box, tucking the canvases beneath your arms.

Like it or not, it was time to get to work.