I Don’t Want to Start a Story!

Cy’s presence was slowly grating away at Max’s patience for over a week. Wake up? Cy was having breakfast at the kitchen table. Go to milk the cows? Cy happened to be taking a walk in the same field. Travel to the village? Cy was already talking to Liv or Adelaide whilst waiting for him at the village shop. Help Aldwin to get some extra cash? Cy was getting cosy with the farm owners as they watched them work the fields. Venture into the woods for some alone time? Cy was watching him in the trees again. On the toilet? Cy was knocking to ask where Bessie was.

There wasn’t a moment of peace, and unfortunately his options to do something about it were limited. Cy was genuinely helping with keeping the plague story prompt away by identifying the future victims, so all the dairy farmers appreciated his presence. The villagers seem to like his eccentricity and have been asking for news about the capital. More importantly, the knights who were sent to hunt the abducting aliens have turned their attention to keeping the peace whilst they waited to be summoned back home. Considering the amount of them he encountered during his daily commute, Max theorised that the decrepit mayor must’ve organised for their paths to frequently cross. There were always eyes watching him the moment he walked into the village, even though there was a much stranger foreigner wandering around. His murder had fractured their trust in him.

Max rubbed his eyes as he came down to the kitchen and was sadly unsurprised to see Cy at the kitchen table. “Morning,” Cy offered Max a cup of barley tea, which was rejected for a cup of water. “So, what farms am I scheduled to visit today, Bossman?” It was so hard not to hit him. Farmer Pill might cheer him on since he loved a good fight, but Bessie had no tolerance for violence thay she didn't instigate. If he were to lose his patience, they would both be out on the streets. “I heard that Bernadette was asking if Nihtomes is transmittable to goats.”

… “Is it?”

“No.” Cy laughed as if the idea was ridiculous. “But it would be a good excuse to go over there. Her cheese is supposed to be amazing.”

Max wasn’t even sure who Bernadette was, but a prompt appeared giving him motivation to avoid her cheese.

Story Name:

Farmer Y/N

Genre:

Slice of Life

Description:

With no heirs, retiring Bernadette is searching for someone to inherit her farm.

Goal:

Make the farm profitable.

Difficulty:

★★☆☆☆

How to Start:

Go to Bernadette’s farm!

Two stars for a slice of life was relatively rare. Farming really was a dangerous industry to work in. Whilst there were sweet cows like Juniper, there were also nasty fuckers ready to attack, like Lingon. Max began to wonder how Juniper was doing after being abducted. Was she even still alive?

“Well, you want to go?”

“You go ahead.” Max cut himself a slice of the remaining stale loaf. Food was tight unless it was about to go off. “I suspect I’ll need to go into the village-”

“Another delivery?” Cy’s eyes rolled before they flicked over to the stairs that led to the married couple who were snoring in their beds. He lowered his voice. “I’m beginning to suspect Bill’s knee isn’t even injured. He always grumbles in the morning, but then he’s walking fine around the farm. Do you think he’s just trying to make you do his work?”

Bill… Farmer Bill… Why can Cy remember his name properly, but he can’t? Perhaps it was connected to a story? None of the prompts so far suggested a link between a plotline and farmer Mill’s name. “You’re doubting his injury?” Max asked in a hyperbolized voice. There was no doubt the injury was a trick for sympathy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make Cy feel bad about it though.

“No, no! I just.. It just seemed odd. That’s all I was trying to say. Besides, what would two young guys like us know about knee pain?” … This fucker always knew the wrong thing to say. Max slammed his empty cup into the sink. He enjoyed making Cy flinch before the pair jumped out of their skins.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing, Max? Is that your cup, eh?” Bessie bellowed from the bottom of the stairs. It seemed impossible with a woman of her figure to sneak down the creaky stairs that cried under the weight of farmer Mill. But Bessie was Bessie, and the smallest squeak meant immediate disassembly and reinstallation of better stairs. “Anything else in the kitchen you want to slam around?” Max silently shook his head. “Well then, you better get to work. Out you go.”

Max grumbled to himself in the fields, in the barn, and even on the way to the village. He was muttering so hard to himself under his breath that he had just assumed he would be taking the milk deliveries to Liv without checking. Unknown to him, farmer Milly would spend the next four hours searching the farm for his cart before calling it a day because of his bad knee. The curses under his breath only stopped when the warm tinkle of the village shop reminded him to get his customer service smile. This only came crashing down when he saw who was behind the register this morning. “Max! Come in! It’s a bit cold this morning.” It was the warmest day of the year so far.

Max didn’t say anything as he listened to Adelaide’s ramblings. It had been a couple of days since he last saw her, so she was filled to the brim with the latest village gossip in an attempt to capture his interest. After he had finished putting down the milk and politely listened for a few minutes, two strange things slowly started to dawn on him.

The first was her hair accessory. He had never really paid attention to what she was wearing since they were always the most extravagant clothes from the capital that her parents could afford. A sore thumb in a village so small. But this time there was a small, metallic, Chinese dragon pinned into her hair. It wasn’t too difficult to imagine Noah making the pin since he made that sculpture. But it was difficult to picture Adelaide going into the blacksmiths, shifting through the piles of stacked metal pieces, and picking a pin of a mythical creature she had never seen before.

The second strange thing was the system. Where was the prompt for Adelaide’s story? They had been in close proximity for long enough to trigger the prompt, but it was completely absent this morning. “Adelaide,” Max interrupted her mid-story.

“Ada, please.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”