Alicia ducked into the church from the rain, her purple hat drenched from the sudden downpour. She looked around warily for a moment, illogically afraid that some great power would manifest itself and smite her for her heathen profession.
As per usual, the church was empty save for the priest and his family. Despite the oppressive heat of Alverna in mid-summer, Gordon had closed all the windows of the stuffy church and lit the candles by the altar, giving the room a dark, yet humid, atmosphere. Seeing that there was nothing to do in the chapel, it was a house dedicated to holy aspirations after all, the fortune teller slowly made her way toward the smiling, much-to-cheeky-for-her-liking pastor.
"Well my dear, it's been quite some time since I've seen you in this holy house," Gordon chuckled, voice booming in the small confines of the church.
"This place holds nothing for me, so, knowing that, why would I come here?"
"It never hurts to pay your respects every once in awhile."
The fortune-teller chuckled darkly. "Not for women in my business."
"Ah well Karen smiles down on all of her children, drunken or sober."
Alicia quirked a thin eyebrow, "What?"
A wide smile broke across Gordon's face, his ruddy complexion transforming into a clownish, goofy expression. "Don't tell me you don't remember your Sunday school lessons, I thought Natalie had raised good goddess-fearing children..."
"Do I really need to repeat myself?" She spoke monotonously, not at all pleased with his authoritative tone.
She'd never taken a shine to parental figures; it was probably why she was always butting heads with her mother.
Gordon's booming laugh rattled through the girl's skull, instantly causing a dull ringing in her ears. Alicia recoiled, rubbing the side of her head in pain as she glared at the older man before her, un-amused at both his immaturity and close proximity.
In an icy tone she asked, "Care to refresh my memory?"
"Gladly child, just bring over some wine from your mother's wine cellar next time you pass by, giving this sermon always makes me crave a pint or two of the stuff," Nodding solemnly, as if the statement were of the utmost importance, he took up the serious priest mantle that he was meant to bear.
"Now back in the time of the first towns there lived a woman who stood out from the rest. She was born in the village of Mineral, in the region of Flowerbud, in the autumn of the eternal harvest-"
Alicia snorted indignantly, "What kind of Goddess is born?
"Will you let me finish the story?"
"Hmph, I thought you'd be all for me asking questions, it just goes to show what a diviner knows," She muttered sarcastically.
The priest chuckled indulgently, his eye twinkling in the candlelight. "Mhmm, we all know just how accurate seers are."
"Don't mock my vocation old man and I am not a seer!"
"Now, now, you started it; I was only playing along Alicia."
"We're far from being chummy Gordon, so don't act like we're friends."
The older man mused on how much the pink haired woman resembled her mother, in both her stubborn attitude and quickness to anger. It's a good thing that neither of them became warriors, Gordon thought to himself, or else the world wouldn't have held under the tyrannical force of the pink-haired duo. The piercing glare that Alicia sent his way brought the priest back to the present and he scrambled to finish his tale.
"Ahem, anyways, as I was saying: the goddess was born in the autumn of the eternal harvest, at a time when procreation was at a peak in the town of Mineral. Gifted unto a humble shop owner and his quick-witted wife, the goddess was a manifestation of the earth's mercy and love for humankind."
"So she was mother nature."
"That is a pagan term Alicia and we're talking about our one-and-only goddess here. We're monotheistic and you'd do well to remember that."
"…so she was mother nature."
"Fortune-tellers," Gordon muttered, exasperated, to himself. "Fine, she's Mother Nature, now will you let me continue with this parable?"
Alicia smirked, "As you wish."
"…so Karen graced the lives of those she touched during her brief time on mortal soil. It was under her guidance that the villagers of the Flowerbud region came to understand the holy properties of wine and its connection to the earthen spirits-
"You've got to be kidding me."
"-to the earthen spirits. She also taught that the four disciples of Mineral Town, Mary, Popuri, Elli and Ann, the dance of the goddess, a holy ritual which acted as a commune between the goddess and the witnessing audience. These disciples spread the dance to the other four corners of the world, where eventually it was transformed into an annual festival in tribute to her Karenness-"
"You're just running out of things to call her aren't you…"
"-through her glowing presence great prosperity came to the town of Mineral, and where once the lands were barren, vegetable and fruit took seed. Cattle grew plump and bore many offspring, letting the people live comfortably and securely. Karen in this way gained the title of 'Harvest Goddess,' which up until this point had oft been used by the first peoples in reference to a mystical deity who took on many shapes. This marked the only time in our written records when the Goddess actually walked among human-kind, allowing mortals to lay eyes on not only her blessings but also her beauty."
The priest's passionate ranting, that had involved much arm-raising and heaven gazing, had distracted him sufficiently and Alicia had slowly been backing away, intent on fleeing (whether the weather had improved or not) from his obnoxious preaching.
She wasn't quite so lucky.
"This is what the Book of Thomas tells us and it is with this holy text that we have come to understand the world." Gordon smiled to himself, pleased that his words had struck the other woman to the point of immobility. "You should pay more attention to it Alicia; the book has a knack for helping those who have gone astray."
"Like it helped you?"
Alicia could have sworn she saw the candles flicker when Gordon laughed again, his booming laugh reverberating off the church walls.
"It made me into a pacifist is what it did! I could've come off with much more than a scar if I hadn't given up my warrior ways."
"Are you trying to compare your dangerous 'warrior days' to my fortune telling?" Alicia asked incredulously.
"Don't you do crazier things to pull of your fortune-telling schemes?" Gordon said in response, doing his best to smother another smirk.
"I simply help my predictions come true from time to time, there is certainly nothing wrong with that."
The priest no longer held back his smirk of amusement.
"That does sound like something a seer would do."
"For the last time I am not a seer!" The pink-haired woman fumed, annoyed at the man's boldness. "I will not be compared to those wishy-washy bird-using spiritual loonies!"
Deciding she had had it up to the pointed tip of her hat with Gordon's attitude, the pink-haired woman turned on her heel and stormed out of the church. Making sure to put as much attitude into her swagger as possible, she threw open the church doors and walked out into the world at large, ready to face anything if it wasn't the sermonizing priest.
Blinking the sun from her eyes, Alicia was glad to see that the rain had finally cleared and had taken all the gray clouds with it.
"Well that's one weather prediction proved right, it is going to be sunny today."
Looking up and down Alverna's wide main boulevard, the fortune-teller's eyes landed upon her best customer, who was walking back from the square. Rosalind seemed troubled, her eyes flicking from side to side as if the girl were looking for someone.
Alicia tilted her hat slightly, shielding herself from the lower afternoon sun. The self-taught fortune-teller could practically smell the potential money that would be pushed into her wanting hands if she could help the young de-Saint-Coquille.
"It seems like my services are in need of use." Flicking away a stray hair, she zeroed in on the rich girl before her. "Better warm up first! Sim sala bim, sim sim sim sala bim~"
A/N: And thus ends my first foray into crossover fiction ^^;;. I hope everyone enjoyed this little crack!fic, regardless of how crazy it was. Just to clarify (in case some don't know her), Karen is a bachelorette who appeared in Back to Nature, Friends of Mineral Town and Harvest Moon: DS. Also, I'd like to mention that I haven't quite played all the way through Rune Factory 2, so the information about the god of the game may be inaccurate. Perhaps, in my defense, I should dub this little fanfic alternate universe; your thoughts? xD Anyways, a big thank you to everyone who read this and I hope you enjoyed!
