I'm Not Nami

By HMAWLover

Author's Note-Finally, what started out as a little spark in my head is finally going down on paper! This story is and has been a long time coming. I first got the initial idea for this Harvest Moon fic months ago and after tweaking it around a bit (not to mention weeks and weeks of jotting down ideas and prewriting!), this final product came out (after, of course, days of revisions)! Of course, an author's biggest form of accomplishment is positive feedback. While I hope that any reviews I may receive are praise, I accept constructive criticism greatly (No flames, please. I hope you all know by now that flames never stop a writer from writing or a reader from reading.). Well, I'm sure most of you have skipped over this message to get on with reading the story itself, so I will conclude this message here. I would love to hear what you guys think, so please enjoy!

Chapter 1

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Rock rolled over lazily in his bed and covered his head with his pillow. Damn this weather! Thunder strong enough to shake a building and lightning bright enough to illuminate the sky as the sun does from day to day combined with one nasty hangover that has overstayed its welcome is enough to make anyone disgruntled, but for Rock, the most intolerant person in the world, it is just plain excruciating. Okay, perhaps he should not have spent the previous night at the Blue Bar tossing back shots of moon trips like it was nobody's business, but what else was he supposed to do on a lazy day like that was?

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sharp batters were more rapid, and it took Rock a minute to figure out that it was not the thunder; somebody was pounding on the front door. Why did they not just come in? Rock scratched his head as if he was digging through his brain like a card catalogue in a library to figure out the answer. Oh yeah; Ruby, his mother, had instructed him to keep the doors of the Inner Inn locked at night while she and her husband, Tim, were Goddess knows where; Rock could not quite remember where they had trekked off to. Like anyone would break into the inn in the first place! Sure, the things that Tim and Ruby had been collecting over a period of years, even decades, were valuable, but no one in Forget-Me-Not Valley would dare steal them; and who would travel all the way to their end of the globe just to rob an inn that has not seen business in years?

"The only thing Mom would have to worry about is someone trying to find her secret recipe for her prize winning curry," he thought to himself with a chuckle as he tried not to stumble down the wooden staircase. He smile widened at the thought of Ruby chasing Murrey, the town beggar, down the street with her rusting frying pan after he had tried to steal some of that curry for his dinner. Still, Ruby's heart was too big to punish him for that, and she ended up serving him an eight course meal that night, the most he had eaten in probably years.

Rock's smile faltered, however, when the thumping on the door had started again, making his head feel as if an axe was splitting it in half. Without checking through the peep hole to make sure that (Goddess forbid) a rapacious thief was not waiting outside to steal some of Ruby's Tomatoma soup, he swung the door open.

"Yeah what the hell…" his voice trailed off when his brain finally registered who was standing before him. "…is it."

A pale but flawless complexion; an elongated and sinewy figure; most of all, the baby blue eyes that could pierce through your soul in a single heartbeat like a vulture punctures through its prey; the only thing that was missing was the signature bob of shaggy red hair that almost completely concealed her face. No, this was not Nami, but it was the closest thing to her Even if one had not met her, they would know who she was right away. Anyone whose lives were graced by Nami would know her daughter instantaneously.

"Skye," Rock breathed as loud as it could have at that point.

"Uncle Rock," the teenager whimpered in a feeble voice, much weaker than what Rock had remembered. Her ghostly white face was streaked with black lines of mascara, either from the rain or from tears. No, she had definitely been crying; her blotchy, red eyes had given that all away. With that, she fell into Rock's open (and quite fatigued) arms, weeping openly into his chest.

Rock gently rubbed the girl's back as he held her doused, trembling body against his. Damn, he has not seen Skye for twelve—no thirteen years. Yes, thirteen because she had to be sixteen now. He was surprised that he could still recognize her; she had grown up so much! Her hair, once sun-golden that flowed like silk to her waist, was chopped hastily to her shoulder blades and dyed a dark coffee color; and was that a piercing she had in her nose? Nonetheless, the delicate features that she had inherited from Nami still shone through like how the stars ignited the sea on a beautiful summer's night. Frankly, she was the spitting image of her mother minus Nami's icon red hair.

After what seemed like forever, Rock pulled the girl away from him. "Let's get you inside," he whispered tenderly guiding the adolescent out of the raging monster outside that was the hurricane of the summer and into the enticing, inviting warmth that was the Inner Inn. Soundlessly, he led her into the dimly light kitchen, where the familiar scent of Ruby's cooking lingered. Rock only left her side to tiptoe into his parents' room to get one of his mother's patchwork quilts to envelop around her quivering shoulders. It was only after he set a bowl of Ruby's yam soup that he had heated up hastily over the fire in front of her did he finally speak again.

"How did you get here, Skye?"

Skye inwardly sighed; she knew that Rock would ask her that blunt question soon, and she was finding it hard to put off giving the already overdue reply. After a moment of churning her soup in slow, haunting whirlpool motions with her spoon, she murmured to the table, "Mom and I had a fight."

Did she dare look up to see Rock's reaction? One thing she knew for sure in her life was to avoid eye contact in situations like these. That was one bit of knowledge that she was glad she learned from her mother's side of the family; and there was not much to compare that half of the family tree to considering that she (and Nami, for that matter) did not really know who her father was. When Rock gave no immediate reply, she slowly lifted her eyes up from her food to Rock. His already wide eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets, and his lighting-colored hair was almost standing on end.

"And she let you run away to here?" he spat out in disbelief. Sure, Nami has made her share of mistakes in the past (and of course, Rock would be the first to admit that), but this was ridiculous.

"Goddess, Rock, you make her sound as stupid as you; maybe more," Skye snapped, her charity case act instantly dropped. "No, of course she doesn't know I'm here. She would have gotten here before me to bring me home if she'd have known that I was coming your way. No, she probably thinks that I'm staying at my boyfriend's house again—uh, make that ex-boyfriend."

There it was: the witty, caustic remarks that made Rock feel as if he were talking to Nami instead of her daughter. Yes, this was same old Skye; even at the age of three, her words had always had a way of scathing people to nothing. Rock simply shook off the biting reply; he was used to it after two generations. He was about to question her further when a thought came to his head; Nami needed to know that she was safe.

He got up from the table and started pacing around the kitchen, thinking about the best way to contact his surrogate sister when the annoying but frank fact came to his head that Nami's horizons were bigger than the sky, and she could be anywhere. Alternatively, he ripped a piece of paper from one of Ruby's notepads and started to scribble a note to be delivered to Tim and Ruby the next morning.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Skye was suddenly peering over Rock's shoulder, casting a faint shadow over his workspace.

"Uh, what do you think?" Rock answered, not bothering to look up from his letter. "I'm writing a letter to my parents telling them to get out of wherever they are at the moment and to get their asses back here so we can figure out what to do with you!"

"Over my dead body!" With one sweeping motion, Skye plucked the piece of paper and notepad from Rock's hands and tossed them into the fire, satisfied as they withered to ashes.

"What in Goddess name was that about?"

Skye shrugged innocently and turned back to Rock. "Let's just say that Tim and Ruby aren't on the top of the list of people I want to see at the moment."

Yes, this was same old Skye: not only was she sarcastic, but she was as stubborn as a mule.

"Okay, this makes a lot of sense," Rock mused with a pleasant smile. "Let's recap: you don't want to see Tim and Ruby at all, yet you just happen to show up at their inn to see me with the danger of them seeing you. Yeah, that's really smart!"

"Will you just shut up? I'm not that dumb, Rock! Goddess, even you're smarter than that! No, I got here a few nights ago, actually, and hid out in the forest. I overheard you telling Lumina that Tim and Ruby were going out for a few days to some cooking convention—"

"That's where they were going!" Rock snapped his fingers proudly in remembrance.

"—and I just waited until they left yesterday morning. I would have dropped in sooner, but there was that small problem that you were as drunk as…uh, no comment, but I didn't want to have to deal with that at the present time. Hung over, I can deal with—how is your head feeling by the way?—but drunk? No, that's a whole different story."

Smart. Skye is also smart, Rock evoked. She was the only kid in Forget-Me-Not Valley that Rock was unable to fool with his "magic tricks" that he just performed to show off to the girls. And no girl would want to go out with him after Skye exploited his ruse of having Daryl lend his scientific knowledge to help him pull off one of the hardest tricks in the book: making someone disappear.

"Anyway, you and Lumina make a really cute couple," Skye continued walking around the room as if she were taking a casual stroll down memory lane. "My, things can change in thirteen years, even in Forget-Me-Not Valley. I remember you used to be after…what was her name? Muzzy?"

"Muffy."

"Muffy! That's right; that blonde chick that worked at the Blue Bar!" She fingered her own golden locks at that statement. "I always wanted her hair. Anyway, did you and Muffy ever go out?"

"Yeah, I think you can find old court records from our divorce that can tell you everything." Rock slid sullenly into a chair and buried his face in his hands. There were some things about his life that he did not want to discuss now with his niece, and his rocky marriage (if you can call what they had a marriage) was definitely one of them.

Skye pivoted as fast as lightning to face Rock. "No way? Marriage? I—" She snapped her fingers. "That's right! I remember Ruby writing to Mom about that, like, five years ago!"

Rock's face slowly rose out of his hands. "Really? And what did Nami say?"

"'That's what happens when you're drunk.'"

"Look, it was just a mistake!"

"Oh, so you're not denying it! You and Muffy got married drunk!" Rock watched in annoyance as Skye bent in half hysterically laughing. "Oh my Goddess! Why didn't I come back here sooner?" This was deliciously great. Forget-Me-Not Valley had finally done something to Skye; when was the last time that she had laughed this hard?

"Skye, can we please not talk about this now?"

"No, please, I haven't laughed this hard in forever!" After taking a few deep breaths, Skye finally seemed to calm down. "The only thing that can make me pass out from lack of air now is if you tell me that Muffy popped out one of your kids!"

Rock sighed heavily. "Kirby was the only thing that Muffy and I did right," he muttered.

Skye's eyes suddenly burst open; no, she was not going to laugh. How could Rock have—no, she would have heard about it, wouldn't she? Still, Nami had a way of keeping important news from her. She gently sat down next to Rock and placed her clammy hand on his shoulder. "Kirby is your—?"

"Daughter. She's nearly five years old." Rock's eyes glistened with pride. "I'm so lucky to have such a great girl like her."

Skye smiled warmly. "I wish I knew about her when she was born. I mean, she'd be like a cousin to me, wouldn't she? I want to meet her."

Rock put his arm around the teenager and gave her a tight squeeze. "You will. You will soon enough; but you need to meet two other people first, and they are Tim and Ruby."

"No!" Skye pulled away from Rock and practically leapt to the other side of the room. "Rock, I can't. They'll only make me go back with Mom, and I can't deal with her anymore! Why did you think that I hid out in the forest all of those days?"

"We need to talk about that too. What were you thinking? You could have gotten hurt or worse pulling a stunt like that!"

"Oh, come on. Forget-Me-Not Valley may be crawling with a bunch of weirdoes, but they're not all serial killers. You should know that, Rock. I'm surprised you haven't moved out of here yet."

"Don't change the subject! My parents, not to mention your mother, would kill me if they knew that I knew you are here? And what are you going to do when Tim and Ruby come home in a few days?"

"Well, I'll be long gone by then."

"No you won't!" Rock quickly stood up and took Skye by the shoulders as if she were going to dash out of the inn any moment now. "No, you're not going anywhere. Whether my parents know or not, you're staying here."

"What? No, you can't do that!" Skye protested trying to wriggle out of Rock's grasp. "Forget-Me-Not Valley is like a prison to me! The only thing that Mom ever did right for me is get me the hell out of here!"

"Well, you should have thought of that before you decided to run away here."

Rock had finally let go and wondered off to the other side of the kitchen, lost in thought.

"Goddess, since when were you so uptight about everything. I thought you were the cool uncle."

"I'll be cool again when we know for sure that you're safe."

"Fine."

"Then you'll stay here?"

"At least for tonight. Do you know how hard it is to sleep out in those woods?"

"Actually I do. Ruby kicked me out this one night when Van needed a place to stay, and that's the only place I could go." Skye turned to him with confusion written all over his face. "Van is that fat merchant who comes here all the time," he replied to her puzzled expression.

"Oh, him! Yeah, Mom and I used to make jokes about him all the time. It was fun—" She suddenly stopped and yawned. "I guess I'll go to bed, but uh…where am I…?"

Rock chuckled. "Your old room: upstairs and to the left. I think some of Nami's old stuff is still up there if you want something to change into unless you want to wear something of Ruby's."

"Right. Uh, good night, I guess, and don't worry; I will be here tomorrow as long as you heat up more of Ruby's irresistible cooking. I can't believe I spent thirteen years away from that!" She started out of the kitchen but stopped and turned around. "Are you coming?"

"Not at the moment. I need some time to think. No, I will not tell Tim and Ruby you're here; not yet," he added hastily in response to Skye's scowl.

"Thank you, Rock. For the record, you're the cool uncle again."

"That means so much to me," he said with a knowing smile.

It was one of those grins that bothered Skye so much as if he were keeping some deep, dark secret from her. "What?" she snapped after a moment of waiting for Rock to say something more.

"It's nothing. Just…when we were talking before, it kind of reminded me about how Nami and I used to talk."

Skye's scowl turned to an air of exasperation after hearing those words; the words that she knew that every resident of Forget-Me-Not Valley would say in some shape or form if they saw her right now. "Look, I'll be anyone you want me to be," she responded in a robotic tone; she had answered this too many times, "but I am definitely not Nami."

With that, she strode out of the kitchen.