Sorry for the Least Exciting Summary Ever but you made it this far, huh? The title is taken from the Dar Williams song – the lyrics make me think of summer life in Animal Parade.
"Want another bowl?"
Standing by the table with a carton of raspberry ice cream in one hand and a scoop in the other was Maya. And sitting at the table, slouched in their chairs due to boredom, fullness, and the brutal Summer heat wave, were Chase and Molly.
Molly shook her head. Chase simply groaned.
"Well, fine!" Emphatically sitting down at her place, Maya dug out a heaping scoop and flung it into her bowl, which was a shallow, swirling mixture of the cherry, banana, and strawberry ice cream that had been eaten before it.
"Good Goddess, when will it end?"
It would have been easy to think Chase was talking about sitting here and watching Maya go for the world record in most ice cream consumed in one sitting, but she glanced over to see the chef with his arms dangling at his sides, head tilted back, eyes half-shut and edged with a thin ring of sweat.
Summer was only a week old but already it'd been the most tortuous one that Molly – or, apparently, any resident on Castanet Island – had endured, and there was no end in sight. Even at 6 am, when she awoke each morning, the temperature was already in the 90s, with no wind blowing to offer any relief. The only day that hadn't seen the thermometer nearing the triple-digits was two days ago, when a typhoon barelled through and destroyed most of Molly's corn crop, uprooted dozens of trees in the Fugue Forest, and ripped half the roof off the fishery.
"Tomorrow, Chase!" Maya waggled her spoon at him. "It's always nice for the Firefly Festival!"
Chase straightened up to defend his griping. "Uh, it used to be before this whole place fell apart."
Molly knew what Chase was referring to: the five Bells that brought prosperity to all the land. Even though she'd managed to find and ring two of them – red and yellow- the last three were proving a chore. Worrying about finding Bells, even with the help of the townspeople and the little Harvest Sprites, was the furthest thing from her mind as she barely managed to tend to her crops and her couple animals each day without passing out from heat stroke.
"Well, then we'll just have to make the best of it!" Maya told him crossly. "Ooo, I know! If it's too hot at the festival, why don't we open a lemonade stand in front of your house? We could sell that, and iced tea, and -"
Chase cut her off. "What's this we business?"
"And what's the Firefly Festival?" Molly chimed in, causing Maya and Chase to both give her a confused glance.
"Mayor Hamilton didn't tell you?" Maya asked.
"Well..." Molly pushed back a few strands of hair that had taken to sticking to her forehead. "He did stop by earlier today but I told him I didn't have time to chat much...still cleaning up from the typhoon."
Chase let out a derisive laugh though his nose. "I hate to break it to you, Molly, but it's just a silly Festival over by the Watermill."
"What's so silly about it, Chase? It's the perfect setting to go with a special someone – and to share a lemonade with them!" Her eyes were bright with excitement as she told Molly, "There's fireflies everywhere, they're so pretty! And then we -"
"It's supposed to be a night for remembering your ancestors." Chase interrupted hotly. "But you girls have turned it into some big dumb date thing."
"It's still romantic! In ancient times, in some cultures, it was the night that families would introduce their daughters to their future husbands! Because they thought of it as a night to not only remember their ancestors, but to seek approval!"
Molly instinctively leaned slightly towards Chase, ready to catch his eyes should they roll out of his head.
"Where'd you hear that load of crap?"
"That's what Mister Calvin told me!" Maya shot back, as if that should validate it.
"What did I tell you?" A smooth, deep voice dropped in from the lobby. Calvin was approaching, his hat off and shirt opened a button lower than usual.
The wonderful coldness the ice cream had given Molly burned away, replaced by a warm, crackling sensation.
"The Firefly Festival," Chase answered before Maya could, his words laced with acidity. "Who cares what happened in - " Chase raised his hands to fingerquote. "-'ancient times'? That doesn't change the fact that our Festivals are now completely bastardized. The last thing people need is to get excited about these things...I don't even know why Hamilton bothers holding them at all. I'd be surprised if we get as many fireflies as we have people on this Goddess-forsaken-Island."
The Flower Festival, with the cherry blossoms lackluster at best, wilted and crumpled instead of the shocking bursts of pink that belonged on postcards. The Animal Festival, no cooling breeze for the hard-running contestants, lukewarm water for them and their owners to drink in a meadow of yellowed grass.
Before that, there hadn't been a New Year's Eve Festival, not a real one, according to Kathy and Luke. Castanet couldn't afford the usual contests, and instead the residents had gathered in and around the Brass Bar for hot (well, warm) cocoa and a pathetic display of leftover fireworks by the seaside at midnight.
So Molly, despite wanting to tell Chase to shove it, had to admit he was right. Calvin may have known all this, but he couldn't have been expected to have really felt it the way the other Castanet Islanders could. Molly herself hadn't, and Calvin was the only person who was newer to the island than she was.
"I can tell you why." Calvin replied with remarkable calm. "I've noticed that, no matter the hardships of different civilizations, be it war or natural, or anything else, it's community and tradition that keeps them from crumbling apart."
Chase scowled, clearly not liking that Calvin had given him answer, and a viable one at that. "That doesn't mean I have to go."
"No, it doesn't," Calvin agreed.
"Well, what're you gonna do, Chase, lock yourself in your room all night?!" Maya demanded, her ice cream bowl rattling as she smacked her palm on the table. "It's right in front of your house, how can you not go?! What about our lemonade stand?"
"Again with this 'our', 'we'..." Chase grumbled, then, in a sudden burst of energy, stood and snatched up Maya's bowl and the carton of ice cream. "Are you done with that, Maya?" He threw a very obvious glare in Calvin's direction. "Don't let it sit out, you might attract pesky insects."
"Chase!" Maya squealed and pushed to her feet as the peach-haired chef hurried off to the kitchen with her half-eaten treat.
"Let him go, Maya." Molly stood too, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder to prevent her from going after Chase. She was sure her friend knew that Chase's way of dealing with most problems was avoiding them altogether, since Molly herself had figured that out after only a few short conversations with him. But she also knew that Maya's overwhelming sense of caring got in the way of her better judgement most of the time, especially where Chase was concerned.
"I'm sorry, I didn't think it'd be such a touchy subject..."Calvin started, and Molly knew it was directed solely towards the young waitress. That Chase's feelings in the matter played no part in his apology. Which, she didn't blame him for, as anything innocuous to most people set Chase on the defensive.
"It's okay, Mister Calvin." Maya let out a sigh, then immediately replaced her disheartened expression with a hopeful smile. "He never actually said 'no'!"
Molly admired Maya's optimism, that her desire to ensure all the attendees of the Festival could quench their thirst with fresh-squeezed lemonade was the only thing more powerful than Chase's sourpuss attitude.
In some ways, it reminded her of how encouraging Calvin had been in the couple weeks she'd gotten to know him. All those moments where she would have been otherwise easily dismayed by her lack of instant results, time with Calvin calmed her down and made her put it all into perspective. Learning about the history of not just Castanet but other civilizations made her realize how true success was the sort of result that was perpetual, not a one-off hastily obtained.
It was strange, Molly had thought more than once, how they'd both arrived at Castanet at nearly the same time, for entirely different reasons and yet they seemed to have the very common thread of the Bells.
They also seemed to have the commonality of holding each others' gaze a little too long, but Molly told herself, no, that was just a figment of her imagination. That Calvin was likely more caught up in a far-off wondering – he was as intelligent as he was handsome, always mulling over his latest discoveries, and often having to ask others to repeat themselves, as he'd been too lost in his own thoughts to listen to anyone who spoke to him.
Much like she herself was, the conversation between Maya and Calvin nothing but a fuzzy static. Until Maya grabbed hold of her arm, shaking her.
"Right, Molly?"
Molly just blinked, nothing to say as she took in Maya's broad smile.
"You'll be there tomorrow, right? I'll even give you a free glass of lemonade, promise!"
"I..." She moved her gaze a fraction to see Calvin sitting where Chase had been, seemingly as interested in what her response would be as Maya was. "Of course, Maya. I'll probably get there around six."
"Goody!" Maya folded her arm into Molly's, leaning in and resting her head on Molly's shoulder.
"And you, Calvin, you'll be there?"
"Of course." The amused smile he wore made Molly suspect that he had just stated this but a few seconds ago,when she was off daydreaming. "I wouldn't miss it."
Molly wondered if, for all Maya's assurance, anything could be as satisfying as the genuine, for-me-and-only-me way that Calvin's eyes lingered on her.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
When Molly crossed the bridge over the Flute River the next evening, she was a half-hour early, eager to see what the Festival was all about before it began. To her pleasant surprise, there were more people than she'd counted at the Spring Festivals combined – the Firefly Festival really was a different level of importance.
Her first instinct was to search for Calvin, since they were, in essence, attending together. Were each other's date, technically, even if it the word had never been used.
And yet, she'd taken the time to gussy up, find a fashionable floral-print tank top and a pair of cute denim shorts instead of the plain skort and cotton tee she so often wore on her farm. Much like she would have, had they defined it as date.
Don't make something out of nothing, was what she kept in the back of her mind as she'd made an effort to actually style her hair, trying to add a bit more texture to it with some mousse that Julius had demanded that Heavens! She'd better use at least once in a while if she didn't want to look like a hobo!
The problem was, whatever she felt towards Calvin wasn't exactly nothing, not to her, not when he'd offered to help her discover the secret of the Blue Bell's melody. Seeing the happy tears in Ruth's eyes when Marimba Farm sprang back to its vivid green life,and Craig actually cracking a smile when Anissa came back, that wasn't nothing, either, and Calvin had helped her with that.
She passed by Mira and Perry, giving the widow a small smile, and almost collided with Chloe as the little girl sprinted towards the river's edge, arms cradling a glowing, papery-looking object. Molly's gaze followed her, trying to inspect what she was holding, but she was already too far away.
"Molly!~ Over here!" called Maya's voice. Molly turned her attention to see, as promised, Maya and her lemonade stand.
It was a crude little set-up, nothing more two wicker chairs behind what Molly was sure was a couple of the end tables from Ruth and Craig's kitchen.
And no Chase in sight. As much as Molly had been looking forward to seeing Maya, a tiny bit of her had hoped to see Chase as well, if only for the amusement it would provide.
But Chase had clearly been involved, with so many drinks to choose from: regular old lemonade, a few different berry-infused flavors, and a half-lemonade, half-tea concoction. He had to have been, as a jar taped with a piece of scrap paper -"TIPS! :)" - was filled up with a reasonable amount of coins and bills. As much as Molly adored Maya, she couldn't believe her lemonade-making ability would have been so profitable.
"Which one are you drinking?" Molly gestured to the glass in front of Maya, half-full of a reddish drink.
"Strawberry!~ The best kind!"
"I'll take a glass of that, then." Molly laughed, feeling around in her back pocket for coins.
"Hey, it's free for you, remember!" Maya handed Molly her lemonade, and Molly deposited her would-be payment in the tip jar instead. "Stay, talk to me!..since Chase isn't!"
Molly could only laugh again, and moved off to the corner of the stand so she wasn't in the way. She took a short sip of her lemonade; it was the best she'd ever tried, strawberry or otherwise.
"Where's your lantern, huh?" Maya took a loud sip of her own drink.
"My...what?"
"You know, your lantern for the Festival!"
No. She thought this was a less interactive Festival, a memorial of sorts. A lot of standing around and muttering oaths, a somber version of the Flower Festival.
"The lantern!" Maya repeated when Molly only blinked in confusion. "The one that - " and then she pressed her lips together, as if she were withholding a secret. "Oh, I should let Calvin tell you about it, I bet he'd explain better than me, teehee~"
Just then, Molly heard a minor creaking noise – Chase's front door opening, and the chef stepping out with a pitcher in each hand.
Wanting to greet him in some way, all Molly could muster was a small nod, which Chase acknowledged with one of his own.
"Chaaaaase, what was taking you so long!" Maya took the pitchers from him, scowling. "What were you doing?!"
"Looking for a chair and a long rope."
"That's not funny!" Maya smacked him on the shoulder with one of the wooden spoons from a lemonade pitcher. Smirking, Chase's eyes met Molly's and she couldn't help but smirk back; Chase's sense of humor didn't appear too often, so as twisted as it was, it was nice to see.
His smirk transformed into a very curious but angry expression, his eyes fixing somewhere beyond Molly.
She turned around, knowing almost for certain what – or who – she would find, and pursed her lips around her straw, sipping her lemonade to stop from grinning like a loon.
"Good evening Molly, Maya." Calvin smiled at the girls as he approached, and then gave Chase a cursory glance. "Chase."
Chase made a noise that was something like a laugh mixed with clearing his throat.
"Bless you." Calvin said with a hint of mock-sincerity.
"Calvin." Before she remembered how nervous it made her to do so, Molly reached out to touch Calvin's arm. She wanted to steer him away from Chase almost as much as she wanted to be with him alone. "I think the Festival's going to start soon, we should go get our lanterns from Ruth."
"Not without lemonade from my favorite waitress." He was looking at Maya, but Molly felt him inch his body just a bit closer to hers. "Just regular, please."
"Sure thing, Mister Calvin! It's free for you, too!"
"Maya, you can't just -! Watch what you're doing!" Chase snapped, steadying a pitcher as Maya's elbow almost knocked it over.
"The strawberry's good too." Molly offered just to fill in the pause while Maya hastily poured the plain lemonade.
Calvin took hold of Molly's glass, hand closing over hers and moving her arm with his as he pulled it close to take a sip. "It is."
It was hot outside, but Molly could feel her cheeks burning even hotter.
Maya all but shoved the drink at Calvin, wishing the two fun (did she say it in a suggestive way? No, not Maya, Molly thought).
They started together towards Ruth's stand, and weren't but three steps to it when a door slammed in the background.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
The flower lantern in Molly's lap eminated a hazy glow. Even with the heat, it was a comforting aura – a softness, in all the supreme harshness that had reigned in Castanet these past weeks.
But it was the only thing that radiated any sort of beauty.
"This is such a fascinating little invention. Moonstones, hm?" Calvin marvelled at his own lantern. "It's really a shame ..." he looked down at Molly, who was sitting cross-legged on the river's edge with their lemonade glasses for company.
There was a lot he could finish that sentence with, she knew. Mostly, she imagined it to be, "that Chase is right."
Because he was, and had every reason to be so against this Festival. There should have been a sort of regalness to it -the fireflies that would have sparkled over the crystal-bright river, on and on for miles.
Not a handful of fireflies over the trail of silt and algae that was in front of her.
This wasn't fair to the Islanders, and especially not to the ancestors they were remembering.
"So we're supposed to float these things down the river?" She asked Calvin, as he knelt down beside her, setting his lantern in the river but not letting go.
"Yes, that's the idea behind it all. From what I learned, it started as a recognition of ones' ancestors' souls passing – you know, as in Greek Mythology, with the River Styx? Except that had a rather – negative connotation to it – the Underworld, all that. People associated with Hell, even though it wasn't. This is more...uplifting." His lips curved up with fondness at that word.
"More like the souls are going...someplace better?" Molly followed the path of a single, solitary firefly in front of them, as it slowly hovered up and up, disappearing into the dusky sky.
"Exactly."
For a few minutes – or less, or more, Molly couldn't tell, with how pleasant the suspension was – they sat in a comfortable silence. At some point, Molly felt a hand on her knee: Calvin's, cool and slightly slick from the perspiration of his lemonade glass
"Molly..." He gave her knee a gentle shake. She blinked her eyes open to see two lanterns approaching, almost as if attached. Molly leaned forward a bit, and caught sight of Kathy knelt in front of the river, holding Chloe in a one-armed embrace against her.
A tightness filled her throat; she knew about Kathy's mother. She didn't know much about Chloe's family, but there were only so many explanations as to why the little girl with the courage and trouble-making penchant of a pirate lived with her Grandpa.
After those lanterns passed, Calvin lifted his hold on his, and allowed it to begin its journey. Molly saw the light from the moonstone in Calvin's eyes, the bronze warmth against an earthy brown. And more than that, a deep reverence.
"Who..-?" Molly started. Of course, she'd only know Calvin for a few weeks but she still considered them to be close; he'd never mentioned anyone close to him passing.
"Everyone."
A thoughtful pause. How was she supposed to ask Calvin about his dead family members?
"Oh...I thought...I thought it was more specific than that."
"No. No one in my family – that I really knew, anyway – has passed away. But I'd still like to honor those who came before me."
For this, Molly was grateful. Like Calvin, she had been lucky enough not to experience the death of anyone close to her. "Same here. I mean, my grandfathers both died before I was born, but – I wasn't sure if honoring them really...made sense."
"It's still part of who you are. Think about it this way: Castanet isn't just part of who's currently here, correct? No civilization is – it's generation after generation, that makes it so. And people, individually..." Calvin gave her a wry little smile. "Well, in most cases, at least in my opinion...people are far more complex than most civilizations."
She knew that, for certain – at least for one individual in particular.
The weight of understanding hit her, when she'd been so selfish to think Chase's bad attitude towards the festival was just another instance of Chase-being-Chase. Of wanting to be contrary to Calvin, who'd waltzed onto Castanet and garnered the attention of everybody.
Molly threw a glance behind her, but couldn't really see Maya's lemonade stand, with the slant of the hill. She had no way to tell if Chase had come back out. He wasn't down by the river, at any rate.
"Calvin?"
"Hm?"
"Is it true what you told Maya? About how this was...kind of a betrothing thing? For families to agree on arranged marriages?" She didn't know why she was keeping her voice so low. No one was within earshot, but maybe it was because Calvin had brought his voice down too, providing a sort of intimacy between them. Something secret.
"Oh, that? Yes. Mostly just because it was a convenient time for families in towns to meet. 'Do business,' as it were. Eventually it morphed into a more casual sort of thing. Like this."
"And I assume that people who viewed it for its...initial reason. The remembrance part? Probably didn't care for that much." Molly's fingers gingerly skated along the slivered leaves of the lantern as the image of Chase, burning with frustration, flickered in her mind.
"No – change is hard for some people, especially when it comes to things that are so...steadfast, like these festivals." There was a gentleness in his tone, a sympathy, as if speaking as a human and not a history textbook.
"That doesn't mean others should suffer for it." She said passionately, as though in argument with Calvin, not agreement.
Even if Chase didn't want to be a part of this, that didn't mean his ancestors should miss out too. Or, she suspected, someone or someones much too recent to be an ancestor. Family.
She closed her eyes momentarily, while inhaling deeply the pungence of dank water, the sweet-green of clover blossoms that peppered the hill, the spicy scent that clung to Calvin from all his time at the inn.
A cluster of fireflies danced in front of her when she opened them. With a tiny nudge, the lantern bobbed out into the river. For all the Greenes before her, and all the Bakers, too.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
"I had a wonderful time tonight, Molly."
Her and Calvin were standing at the juncture were the path split from her ranch to Harmonica Town.
"I did too. Free lemonade. Fireflies..." she paused, faking as if she had to think hard about what else had added to her enjoyment. "Oh! You were there too!" She laughed, and Calvin joined in with her.
"But seriously, Molly." He said as his chuckle died away. "I'd like to go with you to...something again. I heard the Summer Festival is in a few weeks."
"It is..." She knew from Colleen and Jake that the Summer Festival took place on Harmonica Beach, by the ocean.
The ocean and its still waters, its sad supply of fish. If only she could figure out the secret behind the Blue Bell, it would be the perfect timing – a little too perfect for her to think it was possible to accomplish so much by then.
But then again, with Calvin there to help...
"So, I'll see you there...?"
Molly had never heard Calvin like this. Unsure.
"You're going?" Was her outstandingly clever reply. She inwardly winced.
"Of course. Maybe Maya will have expanded to an ice cream stand by then, and I don't think I could not support her."
"Yes, I'll be there. For Maya's ice cream, yeah." Molly giggled, but then grew more serious. "It's just, it's not...at least, I don't think there's some long-standing history behind the Summer Festival. I think its just a...carnival sort of thing. I didn't think you'd be interested."
"But I'm interested in you. And especially ice cream with you. "
Her stomach was more jittery than Maya after a box of strawberry candies, but she did her best to cover her nervousness with a shaky laugh, and a less shaky smile. "The best kind of interest."
"Indeed."
Calvin took a half-step toward her, and she didn't, couldn't move. His hand swiped up, inches from her face.
Backing away, he opened his curled fingers for her to see. A firefly, barely lit. It didn't move, nor did his hand. Then it flared a white-yellow that so bright, that Molly would have thought it impossible for its size.
"Their beauty really does amaze me," Calvin murmured, his eyes drawing up to meet Molly's. "So small and unassuming...yet so vibrant."
Without warning, the firefly took off, zipping away from where they'd come – to Flute Fields. She automatically whirled around to watch it.
"Good night, Molly." Calvin touched her shoulder from behind, and she whispered a good night in return, not turning back to face him.
Instead, she squinted through the Summer night down towards the river. The Festival should be over by now, but...
She counted...one...no, it separated – two. Two lanterns lazily drifting along the river ignited a spark of happiness inside, spreading up through her until it split her mouth into a grin, burned onto her cheeks with the figurative glow of the fireflies whose light was visible, even through all this dark.
This is a gift for Yoru No Angel, somewhat based on her Calvin/Molly/Chase fic, "Bittersweet". I've said eleventy billion times I SHOULD WRITE A MOLLY/CALVIN THING and she's always been like YES YOU SHOULD because we both agree they are a fabu couple. So this is for you, M.
I'm a very big fan of Maya & Chase's friendship (not as a couple, although I guess you could take it that way in this fic if you wanted to) so I wanted to explore that as well as their friendships with Molly. I'm not a huge Chase/Molly fan but again, if you want to read into this that way, that's okay. I was going for a sort of ambiguity, there.
And yes, I realize that it's almost impossible to be able to invite Calvin for the first Firefly Festival in AP but /FLASHES ARTISTIC LICENSE/ /sunglasses/ deal with it.
Hope everyone else who read this liked it too! :D AND IF YOU DIDN'T BECAUSE MOLLY/CALVIN THEN MUWAHAHA I DUN CARE cuz they're awesome bye.
-EC