#farmer simone

simone & louisa

two idiots who found their way to some overgrown farmland in pelican town, either by choice or by the looming glare of a dead grandfather. not even their own, necessarily. the junimo are fans, louisa cant say the sentiment is shared in the slightest.

mustard-jerk and olive-nobody here to revive your town and date your singles.

two parts friction, one part resignation, to say the least.

bapies 1/?

“its kind of a shame, really. i always enjoyed exploring those overgrown fields by myself.”

miner/adventurer

going somewhere from nowhere in particular

stoic. silent. ambiguous.

see: an early spring rain, nettle and grit softened underfoot, a well-worn and ratty degenerate swinging out of a coal train. they probably are on the run, lewis murmurs. he doesnt recall whisper pine farm's old man ever having a grandchild. he also cant seem to remember what happened the town’s renovation funds. it goes missing the same day that stranger arrives? he wont allow anyone in the valley to think its a coincidence.

sebastian smokes overhead, peering through the pines at the bright head of his mother, who gestures openly as she guides the homeless kid towards a scrappy cabin. he cant tell if it’s a prosthetic or a readily made halloween costume they have on. sam thinks they’re just shy, and anyways, the mask’s pretty sick.

d&d sessions and experiemental noise rattle the walls. the last to exit the pub on any night leaves smudges on arcade joysticks. pouring over dwarven scrolls between gravestones with the midnight girl. a select few find a person behind the mask.

louisa

botanist/archivist

former marketing manager of joja corp.

petulant. haughty. impertinent.

louisa did not intend to move to stardew valley. she only wanted to flip the land, sell sentiment for a better state of mind. of course, the rickety bus broke down and her grandfather’s old termite-infested cabin became her only constant. as did cindersnap forest and the few faces she didnt completely ignore in town.

she stands beneath the overgrown trees on grandpa wyatt’s precious bayleaf farm and remembers being 10-years-old, arms upstretched, eyes squeezed shut, believing she could grow to be a tree.

“thats how youre gonna get a dance?” sam grins, propping himself against one of the potted flower arrangements. his bright voice brings to mind the notion of fruit juice on liquid tv afternoons. simone is adept at squashing the smile it can illicit.

their bony hands strangle the neck of their bass, switch-blade knuckles raw from labor. the breath is knocked out of a daffodil with one swing of simone’s pitiful excuse for an instrument. dirt punches the soft undersides of petals as they scatter to the wind. roots cling to the strings as they thrum, livid with motion.

“bold thing to assume i dance.”

“why come all the way out here if youre not going to shake a limb or two?”

simone stares at their friend flatly. its not a particularly difficult task, what with the jutting cheekbones and hollow temples of their mask. all one can make out is the hard-set line of their mouth and dark movement where their eyes must be.

“shake a limb?”

“you know what i mean.” a petunia bumps sam’s arm, trembling like static over an abandoned radio show’s airwaves in his shadow. he wrenches it from the soil without a thought, tossing the annoyance into the air. the blunt force of simone’s swing doesnt have the same effect on this specimen. it only flies across the clearing to land limply amongst the feet of the other villagers.

however underwhelming, its delightful. the two snort in unison.

“i guess i could fuck shit up out here.”

“yeah?” sam brightens a touch, warm glow radiating enthused sparks. simone would assume being so near to him was the cause of all their sunburns. “haley could show you the steps, if you want.”

“nah. gonna wing it.”

a dizzying breeze sweeps skirts and carries with it the first notes of a late-spring ballad. simone’s bass lays in the grass a little ways off, beetles crawling over its dents and bruises. they saddle up to watch the show as one body pivots and another dips. the movements compliment one another, one giving where the other takes.

then there is simone, stock still among the fluid bodies, save for a twitch in their knee. the music turns jaunty and their beat cuts left from the others, claiming its own song.

the townsfolk eye them curiously, mannerisms like the local bird population. each arrhythmic shudder seems to condense on itself, crawling into the thigh, the calf, the ankle. jutting and swinging, simone spins on the sole of their grounded heel, tossing a fist into the perfumed air above and slamming their foot back into the grass. the motions arent repeated so much as they are sorely recreated, all while the other youths try to carry on their tradition in ignorant peace.

sam is barking with laughter, spewing wordless encouragement. simone’s hair flies, ratty and dull against the bright meadow, not at all a spectacle to witness. lewis will comment later that the display of impudence soured the whole afternoon.

***

“think i deserve the flower crown?”