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Post by Juxapose on Sept 17, 2008 17:43:17 GMT -5
Part 2, Chapter 6
Things are Not Looking Too Good
The Void, Outside of time
Inside a black empty space between time and space, the Harvest Goddesses group together to have an emergency meeting about what has happened recently. Many goddesses of many different villages has come to attend this important meeting.
All the goddesses are unique in some way. Some are taller than others, others had pink, blue, red and purple hair, some goddesses even have wings. Just as there are many goddesses with unique appearance, they also have different taste in clothing. Some dress a bit revealing, while others dress a bit more formal, conservative, reserved, or traditional. The colors they wear vary a bit as well ranging from shades of green, blue, red, and even rainbow colors.
As all the goddesses are gathering together, The Harvest Goddess of Mineral Town steps forward to put order into the chaotic meeting. After a while, all the Goddesses are lined up in a rectangular formation, almost like a school assembly. The only exception is the Harvest Goddess of Mineral Town who is standing in front of the crowd of goddesses.
The Mineral Town Harvest Goddess takes a deep breath and says, “Okay everyone, settle down! I know that this is sudden, but I needed to call this emergency meeting for a good reason.”
Just then, another goddess enters the void. She rushes in combing her long blond hair, and gets into the crowd of other goddesses. She then says, “Sorry I'm late. My husband and I were in the middle of our 'Personal Time' when I got the message. It was pretty embarrassing, a Harvest Sprite just appeared at the worst time possible.”
The void becomes silent for a moment. The Mineral Town Harvest Goddess then lets out a few fake coughs and says, “And this is why goddesses shouldn't get married. Anyways, about the topic at hand. It seems as though a human has found one of the cursed items!”
The crowd of goddesses gasps deeply and start to mumble between themselves. Each of the goddesses are in charge of hiding one of the many cursed items. But since a human has discovered the cursed item the Mineral Town Goddess has hidden, everyone begins to panic.
“Okay, everyone calm down!” yelled the Mineral Town Goddess. “The good news is that the human has destroyed the item, so there is no need to worry.” At that moment, everyone lets out a sigh of relief, but she still hasn't announced everything yet. “But the bad news is that something has happened to the human as a result of the cursed item being destroyed.
Everyone gasps loudly and start to mumble between them once again. After a while, one of the Harvest Goddesses in the crowd cries out, “What type of item was it?!”
“It's an item that has the power to manipulate space and time. With it, anyone can warp from one location to another as long as that person has been at that location before. Just for convenience, we'll call this item 'Teleport Stone'!”
“How did the 'Teleport Stone' get destroyed?” asked the married Harvest Goddess. “Last time I checked, a human shouldn't have the power to destroy a cursed item.”
The Mineral Town Goddess sweats nervously. She knows that it was partially her own fault that this had happened. If she reveals the truth to them, she will be the laughing stock of the Goddesses. And she also runs the risk of getting caught by the leader of the Harvest Goddesses, the Harvest King.
But even though she is embarrassed to admit, a Harvest Goddess cannot lie. So she takes a deep breath and admits, “Well, you see. . . I casted a spell that changes the weather, which caused the stone to overload and become unstable.”
“YOU DID WHAT!?!?!?!” screamed the group of goddesses.
“Well, I didn't know that he found it until it was too late!” said the Mineral Town Goddess trying to defend herself. She then fidgets with her fingers and continues, “You all know that Harvest Goddesses rarely gets visits, but this human visits me all the time. I just wanted to do something to repay his kindness.”
All the other goddesses leer at her. Even though she had a good reason to use her magic, her carelessness has still caused Eric to vanish. In an attempt to get some support, she starts looking for her sister, who lives in Forget-Me-Not Valley. However she cannot find her in the crowd.
“Has anyone seen the Forget-Me-Not Valley Goddess?” asked Mineral Town Goddess.
Everyone looks around, but they do not find her. “It doesn't look like she made it to the meeting!” yelled one of the goddesses.
The Mineral Town Harvest Goddess sighs and says, “I'll have to fill her in later then. But for now, we have the human to worry about! Considering the stone's great power, I believe that it sent him forward in time.”
“That's not good.” said the married Harvest Goddess. “If the human is out of place in time, then this can cause a time distortion! Goddess of Mineral Town, how do you plan to correct this?”
The Mineral Town goddess waves her hands and says, “Don't worry, I have it all under control! I sent my seven Harvest Sprites to relay the message to the other Harvest Sprites, and they should be out looking for him. Observe!”
She then turns around, and waves her hands in a circular motion opening up a window showing the Mineral Town Harvest Sprites in a meeting of their own. They are sitting inside their hut around their round table making plans on what to do next.
Chef, the red Harvest Sprite stands up and says, “We can't do this by ourselves! We are going to need the help of the humans for this!”
Timid, the green Harvest Sprite shivers in fear and says, “Are you sure that's a good idea? What if the humans do something scary, like cook us in a pot and eat us?”
Bold, the purple Harvest Sprite answers, “That will not do! We need to get this done as fast as possible! I say that we need the help of the humans. I recommend Eric's friends Mary, Cliff, and Ann.”
Nappy the Orange Harvest Sprite sigh and says, “That's so boring. Look, the other Harvest Sprites have already been dispatched to look for Eric! Lets take it easy, and play around for a while.”
“You're so lazy!” yelled Staid, the blue Harvest Sprite. “If we want to get Eric back, we need to work as hard as we can! After all, Eric has done a lot for us, so we need to make that extra effort for his sake!”
Aqua, the light blue Harvest Sprite sighs and says, “But what can we do? It's not like the humans have enough power to help search for Eric anyway. And besides, I might get my beautiful light blue color dirty.”
Chef sighs with a palm on his face and asks Hoggy, the yellow Harvest Sprite, “Okay, it's your call Hoggy. Get help, or just wait it out?”
Hoggy then wakes up and yawns, “What were we talking about again? Sorry, I was sleeping.”
Chef slaps his forehead and says, “GAH!! This is too stressful, even for Harvest Sprite.” He then jumps on the table and yells, “I have an idea!! Lets take a break and I'll make some tea and cookies!! Staid, get the flour ready!!”
“Um, we are out of flour. . .” said Staid.
“Well that's no good!” said Chef. “We'll just have to go to Eric's farm, and ask for an advance. . .”
All the Harvest Sprites then yells, “OH NO!!! ERIC IS GONE!!! THAT MEANS NO MORE FLOUR FOR US!!!” Everyone then starts screaming and running around the hut in a hectic panic.
As the goddesses are watching this fiasco, the Mineral Town Goddess sweats nervously and closes the window before they do anything else embarrassing. She turns to the crowd of Goddesses who are staring at her with angry faces. Some of the goddesses snicker in the back of the crowd at her incompetent Harvest Sprites. She had promised them that she had everything under control, but leaving the Harvest Sprites unsupervised was not one of her better ideas.
She then bows at the crowd and begs, “Please don't tell the Harvest King about this! If he finds out that I messed up like this, he'll have my head!”
The Homeland Harvest Goddess sighs and says, “Fine, we'll keep this a secret as long as you can get things under control. But as far as things go, we are not getting involved with this. If the Harvest King finds out that we had this meeting without telling him, all of our heads will roll.”
The Flowerbud Village steps forward and asks, “How is the situation right now? Did you find out where's the human? And has he done anything that might put the time dimension at risk?”
The Mineral Town Harvest Goddess answers, “I'm still waiting for any Harvest Sprites to report his current location in time. Even I cannot know how far ahead in time he went. He could have traveled 5 years, or 5 centuries, or even further ahead. As far as the condition of the time dimension. . . . Lets check it out!”
She then turns around once again. She opens her arms and starts chanting in Celestia, the Harvest Goddess' native language. A bright light shines in the distance revealing a huge rope that represents the passage of time. Everyone gasps as they notice that the rope is severely damaged. The rope has already lost a quarter of it's durability in the short time Eric has been missing.
“What is happening to the rope of time?” asked the Flowerbud Village Harvest Goddess.
The Mineral Town Goddess shakes her head and says, “This is worse that I expected. It seems as if Eric's spirit has been broken, and he might be losing the will to return to his own time.”
“Eric? Is that the human's name?” asked the married Harvest Goddess. “Could it be that we have another Harvest Goddess who has fallen for a human's affection?”
“That's none of your business!” yelled the Mineral Town Goddess. “What is important is that we need to find him fast. If this rope snaps, the entire space-time balance will collapse. Who knows what will happen when that does, but I can promise you that it won't be a good thing!”
After seeing that, The goddesses begin to worry about the future. Even though they know that it's not a good idea to get involved, they decide to work together anyway to search for Eric. With that, they all vanish and return to their villages. The only thing that they can do is wait for the day when Eric suddenly appears.
Forget-Me-Not Valley, Spring 20, 2108
Eric and Flora wakes up to another refreshing morning in Forget-Me-Not Valley. Like clockwork, Flora grabs her toothbrush, toothpaste, and cup and heads over to the river to start her morning. She fills her cup with water, and moistens her toothbrush. She the adds toothpaste and begins to brush her teeth. As she brushes, she returns to the tent to check on Eric.
As usual, Eric wakes up lost in thought. Even though Eric always behaves like this every morning, Flora still has yet to get any information as to what is bothering him. after rinsing, she calls out to him. But as usual, he is so lost in his own world. She feels bad for him, she always catches him staring off into space, or getting lost in thought. Considering how and where she found him, she knows that he has many hidden secrets.
“Eric!!” she cried finally gaining his attention. “We should get ready. The mines are calling our names already!”
Eric sighs. He knows that he did agree to work with Flora in the mines, but he is not feeling very motivated to work. Mining and trying to figure out how to get Marty to become a better farmer is making him feel homesick. So he looks up at Flora and says, “Would it be too much trouble if I take the day off today?”
“What's wrong? Not feeling well?” Flora asked. Skipping out of work is not something he usually does, so she is a bit worried about him.
“I guess you can say that. But if there's a lot to do, I'll just have to toughen it out.” answered Eric.
Flora sighs and says, “No, it's fine. I'll be fine by myself. Just get some rest, okay?”
Eric nods, and Flora goes off to get ready for another day at work. Flora can tell in his sad lonely eyes that he's thinking about something. She is not sure what it is. Thinking about it so much is causing her to feel a bit sad and lonely herself.
After several hours, Eric decides to go walk around the valley. However, he avoids Marty's farm and any of the mines for the time being. He wants to get his mind of the past so that he can start to think straight for once. Working at the mines reminds him of the time when he went digging in the Mineral Town Winter mines for that cursed teleport stone that got him stranded in the future. Being in Marty's farm only reminds him of the farm that he left behind against his will.
Around the same time, Lumina is also walking around the valley. She finds Eric walking around aimlessly by the lake south of Marty's farm. She waves her arm in the air and yells out his name gaining his attention. He looks over, and sees Lumina nearly running to him, By the way she is coming towards him, he feels that she must have been looking for him. He is curious to know what she needs, so he waits for her to approach him.
“There you are, I was looking all over for you!” said Lumina as she reaches him.
“You were looking for me?” asked Eric.
“I checked the mines where you work, but Flora said that you were resting in the tent. I checked the tent, but you were not there.”
“So, why did you need me for?” Eric asked curiously.
“Actually, I kind of need your help. If you don't have any plans at the moment, you think you could come to the mansion to help me out?”
Eric nods and follows her to the mansion. On the way there, he becomes curious as to what she may need help with. He assumes that since Lumina lives in such an expensive looking mansion, she's asking him to help out with some domestic chores. Like trimming the hedges or moving some heavy furniture. He does have the build to do that sort of stuff. He doesn't mind though, he does need some sort of distraction from farming or mining.
As soon as they enter the mansion, Lumina asks him to wait by the piano that she always plays on. She heads up to her room, and looks for a score sheet. After she finds it, she returns to Eric and says, “You see, I was hoping that you can help me with this song. It's kind of difficult, but since you knew how to play that other song I had trouble with earlier, I thought you might be able to help me with this one too.”
She hands him the score sheet. A great sense of nostalgia overcomes him as soon as he sees it. It's a very old score dating back when Mary and Eric were together. In fact, Mary was the one who wrote the song that he is holding in his hands. He even sees her signature in the top of the page.
“Where did you get this?” Eric asked.
“Marty gave that to me a while ago. It's something that his family owned for generations. But he is not into music, so he gave that to me.” answered Lumina.
At that point, he feels that there might be some sort of connection between Lumina and Marty. Earlier he has seen Lumina's photograph in Marty's home. Now, he finds that he gave her something that might be important to him. Similar to how Eric has given Mary something important to him so long ago.
“Is something wrong?” asked Lumina who snaps him out of his daydream. “You were spacing out for a minute there. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, every thing's fine.” he answered. But he is curious to find out how far along are they. So he asks, “Did Marty give you anything else? You know, like a pendent? An incomplete one?”
“No, nothing like that. Why do you ask?”
“Nothing, I was just curious.” he answered.
Rather than asking more questions that may seem strange, he allows her to play the song written on the sheets of music Mary wrote so long ago. As Lumina plays, she sometimes gets stuck on some difficult parts of the song. Because Eric is so familiar with them, he is able to help her play it properly.
As she plays, the thought of Marty having feelings for Lumina keeps floating in his mind. The curiosity is too great for him to ignore, so he casually asks, “Hey, what do you think of Marty?”
She stops playing and answers, “Marty? Well, he is a good friend. He keeps me company every once in a while, and he can be a nice guy when he wants to. But I don't think he's my type though.”
“Why not?”
Lumina thinks for a moment, and answers, “Well, I feel that he's not doing his best. He owns a farm that his father left him, but he's not taking such great care of it.” She then looks down sadly and continues with her story. “You see, I lost my mother and father when I was just a little girl. So I do my best so that they can feel proud of me in heaven. Marty's father died, but he's not doing his best. I don't know how his father must feel about him right now, but I feel that he should try harder with his farm. At least for his father's sake.”
Eric nods and drops the topic. By the sad look in Lumina's eyes, he feels that he might have touched a sensitive topic. So he continues to tutor her in piano, and doesn't mention anything else about Marty. A few hours later, the sun begins to set, and Eric feels that it's his time to go.
Before he leaves the Mansion, Lumina asks Eric, “Hey, can I ask you to become my tutor? If you want, I can pay you.”
Eric looks back and answers, “Okay, I'll be your tutor. But you don't have to pay me. I'll come by in the afternoons if you like, will that be fine?”
Lumina nods, and they part ways. Even though Lumina has asked him to play the role as a tutor, he knows that there is another reason she asked him to do it. He knows that Lumina just wants someone to be by her side. A friend who she can trust in. Possibly even a lover who she will spend her life with. But Eric's heart already belongs to only one person. Even if she is a hundred years away from him, he still wants to keep her in his heart. But on the way back, he wonders what she might be doing.
Mineral Town, Spring 12, 2008
Time has passed in Mineral Town. Eric has yet to appear, and the whole village is worried. Some people think that he might have left the farm permanently. Others say that he might have died in the forest, or fell into the river as he was fishing. But Mary still has hope that he will come back soon.
It's a rainy Monday in Mineral Town. Four days ago, Mary, Karen, and Cliff had just pulled up their first real harvest of vegetables, and hit the proverbial pay dirt the next day. Even though the money they got was rewarding, they also have their own jobs to take care of as well. Working in both Eric's farm, and their own jobs leaves them with very little time to themselves. Then the rain comes and gives them a well deserved rest.
With the library closed, Mary decides to pay Eric's home a visit. She was hoping to find him there apologizing for being missing for so long. Unfortunately, he's not there. But she does notice that the house is getting a bit dusty.
Rather than having Eric coming home to a dirty house, she decides to clean it up for him. As she sweeps the dust out the door, she also notices that his bed is undone. So she goes ahead and makes it for him. But as she is making the bed, she finds a book sticking out from under the mattress. She pulls it out, and finds Eric's diary.
She gasps as she holds his diary in his hands. As she looks into the diary, she asks herself many questions. Did he really disappear? Did he just get up and leave? Or did he go for something else? Desperate for answers, she wants to open it to see what is inside.
Yet no matter how much she wants to pry that diary open, she knows that she shouldn't. It holds all of Eric's secrets, hopes, dreams, happiness, fears, loss, and pain. All of his emotions locked away in his private little book. She feels that she doesn't have the right to open it, even if she is his girlfriend. She knows that she would be hurt if Eric were to look inside her own diary.
But even so, she also feels that the diary may contain a clue as to what happened to Eric. She knows that it's wrong to open it, but her desire to find Eric makes keeping the diary closed a challenge. So she has to make a heart breaking decision. To open his diary, and run the risk of losing Eric's trust. Or she could leave it closed, and continue to worry about Eric, but at least his privacy would be kept intact.
She doesn't know what to do. . .
To be continued.
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