#farmer!cassian

By the time Nesta passed Newport, the M4 changed into a single carriageway. A glorified farm track, more like. The sat nav had stopped working properly shortly after that, giving up on offering an estimated arrival time after it kept sliding backwards and changing instead to “Recalculating”, complete with an annoying little spinning wheel.

She’d watched the scenery change from concrete jungle to rural Wales with growing dread. She’d passed hedgerows tall enough to blot out the sky, and more than occasionally, she’d been stuck behind a tractor doing eleven miles an hour. She’d stopped trying to read the road signs with names consisting exclusively of Cwm-something or Pwllh-something. London had a Pret on every corner, and the tube that ran every four minutes rain or shine. Wales, apparently, had sheep. Actual, physical sheep, standing in a field, watching her car crawl past as she was stuck behind yet another tractor, wearing expressions that she had trouble not to interpret as judgemental.

Not for the first time since her move to Wales, she wondered if she truly had needed to take such drastic measures to get away from Tomas. London, after all, was one of the largest cities in Western Europe. Surely, she could’ve been reassigned to somewhere within city limits and still be without risk of walking into him. Apparently, past Nesta hadn’t had the headspace to think of that, and when Cadw had been in need of a field officer, covering casework across the Vale of Glamorgan, she’d jumped the opportunity. Or at least, that’s what her manager had called it. An opportunity. Driving through the countryside, she was wondering if she’d voluntarily gotten demoted in exchange of a better view.

Said view, at present, was another hedge.

She found her turning eventually, which was a gap in the hedge marked by a leaning gatepost and a sign so weathered she had to slow to a crawl to read it: Cuddfan Farm, and beneath that, in fresher paint, PLEASE SHUT THE GATE.

Turning onto the farmyard, it became immediately clear that she wasn’t properly dressed for these dire circumstances. The yard consisted of mud, mostly — a wide, churned expanse of it, glistening in a way that meant she’d ruin her heels the second she got out of the car. She’d worn her best, most expensive pair, along with a pair of grey wool trousers, because when she’d reviewed the file it had said initial site visit, applicant present, and in her head that had translated to something closer to a planning meeting in a farmhouse than whatever this was. There was a rusted trailer, a huge barn with a row of farming machines, and a shed with what looked like animal food. On the opposite side, there was another barn, from which she could hear distinct animal sounds. She could already smell the farm getting into her car, which made her scrunch up her nose. The longer she sat in her car, the more it became clear she was not properly equipped to deal with any of this at all. She got out anyway, because the alternative was reversing miles back down a road with no passing places, and stepped directly into a puddle, sinking deep into the ice cold water.

“Fantastic,” she said, to no one.

Someone answered anyway. “You’ll want to avoid that side, cariad. Bit of a bog.”

The deep rumble of a voice came from the far end of the yard. He sounded faintly amused, his lilting accent ensnaring Nesta for a second. She shook her head and looked up, ready to launch into her scolding about advance warning, but the words got lost somewhere between her throat and her teeth.

—————