Hi People! This is a story I made with my friend a.k.a Reine Kreiss u/4977939/

Me? I'm Akikaze Ryo a.k.a Gwen Kreiss, the character on this story are based on us. They are our OCs.

Only for entertainment purposes, mind you

Summary :

Gwen and Reine Kreiss heads to their father's hometown to build their very own name as great farmers, just like how many of their family members had been. However, the glorious days of Echo Town has passed and now it is not even big enough to be called a town. The twins set out to revitalize the now-Echo Village and on the way, they bump into Allen and Neil. With their own pasts and stories, the four destinies cross and are altered forever...

Prologue

Reine

"Well, isn't this exciting?" I said as we rode rather slowly with our wagons.

I glanced at Gwen. She merely smiled, and I knew immediately she shared my excitement. Well, she had never been the type to speak up, so after almost twenty years of trial-and-error (plus nine months in womb, maybe?) I had learned how to decipher her expressions: smiles, frowns... you named it, I got it (it's amazing how much her expression could tell you, really).

Our parents gave us a farm of our own for our twentieth birthday present and we were going there to take it over now. It was located at Echo Village, our father's hometown. I remembered that he used to tell us stories about his amazing hometown, about how his farm had a champion jersey cow, how the villagers are very friendly, and how fun and exciting the festivals were. I really couldn't wait to see with my own eyes the wonder that he had mentioned over and over during our childhood.

Dad had told us that it was his family's land, but he moved out and his sisters couldn't care less about it as they moved to the city. So, no one had attended the farm for at least two decades, I wonder how it would look like.

"Don't worry, my old friend is still there. He's a damn good farmer, I'm sure you girls will learn a lot from him," Dad had told us then.

Suddenly, the wagon that we rode on stopped abruptly and the horse shrieked.

"Ouch, what the... What just happened?" I wondered as I pat my head that just hit the wagon's side. Gwen pulled my shirt as she pointed at the direction of the horse. Uh-oh, there was a person lying down in the middle of the road! (and he was accidentally stomped by our horse! Oops!)

"Shoot!" I shouted immediately as I rushed to his side. Gwen's attention was attracted by my voice and she ran as well.

"…ter…"

I moved my ear closer to his mouth.

"Water…"

I, together with Gwen, propped him up and gave him my bottle. He finished the fully-filled bottle in one gulp. Wow, this old man sure was thirsty.

He handed it back to me, "Thanks! I guess I was too tired after all." he said cheerfully. Then he noticed Gwen and became speechlessly staring at us. I blinked my eyes once, twice, then thrice, but he was stunned.

"Yes?" I asked him.

"Lyla?"

This old man knew Mom? Oh well, we did look like her pretty much as we inherited her pink hair (much to Gwen's chagrin). So I wouldn't be really surprised people mistook us as Mom's clones. Was he the guy Dad had mentioned before?

"Um, no." Gwen replied softly. "We're her daughters."

He paused for a moment as he studied us carefully. "How foolish I am! Of course you girls are Jack and Lyla's twins!"

"Yep," I assured him. "I'm Reine and she is Gwen."

He looked puzzled, as if processing the info I just gave him. Well, differentiating us could be rather tricky, because we were almost identical. There were two differences between us: our dexterity and the way we swept over our fringe. I was left-handed, so I swept my fringe to the left, when Gwen's was the other way around.

"Jack told me it's rather hard to distinguish you girls. I guess I know what he meant now." He continued, "but anyway, welcome to Echo Village, although you're not exactly there yet. Your dad had sent me a letter about your coming."

"He did?" Gwen asked.

"Yep! The villagers tried to clear up the farm a bit so the work would not be too hard and you can quickly start off." He asked, "Do you want to see the place now?"

"Yes, please!" we replied in unison.

"Okay! Let's go!" he exclaimed as we marched together to Echo Village.

The journey took only 15 minutes on foot (Well, there wasn't enough space on the wagon for three people and our luggages), I didn't realize that we were so close.

"Here we are, welcome to Echo Village!" the old man proudly said.

I looked around, amazed. This village... It's... It's exactly the opposite of what I imagined! I could see no one except us here and the village, the houses, the amenities, the road seems to be deserted (and there were dusty barrels and boxes everywhere!). Was it just me who expect too much or there was really something wrong with this village? I took a glance at Gwen. She had exactly the same disappointed look on her face.

"I haven't had proper introduction before, my name is Dunhill," he said, "Your father has told me all the details in his letter, so let me say it again, welcome to Echo Village and I will help you in whatever I can. Feel free to approach me if you have any enquiries or if you need any help."

We nodded at the same time and the old man, Dunhill, nodded back politely.

"You must be tired from the journey here right? Let's go to my house first, I will treat you to a meal and we will go to your farm after that" he added.

We nodded again in harmony. Dunhill chuckled; I guessed he was amused at our so-called 'Twin Synchronisation' when we did things together in a similar manner. Well, we were used to it. Many people had called us cute or cool or anything just because we were very similar to each other.

We followed Dunhill from behind. As we walked towards his house, the more I realized that there was something wrong with this village. There were many houses (they were very dusty and worn out though) but this village seemed… lifeless? I couldn't be sure what word fit this village exactly.

It was when we walked to Dunhill's house (I didn't know where) that I noticed another wagon with four people nearby: a plump boy, an equally-plump man (whom I presumed as the boy's father), a middle-aged woman as well as an elderly woman.

"I can't open an inn when nobody visits the village," the man said sorrowfully. "I'm sorry."

"We understand, Hossan. Good luck on the neighbouring village." The elderly lady replied as she patted his shoulder.

"We'll be back after we had enough money to reopen an inn here."

"Of course! This would only be a temporary good bye, then." The other woman said.

Then, the four of them headed away.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to let you see this on your first day." Dunhill said, "But yeah, that's roughly what's going on around."

Dunhill would not say anything again after finishing that sentence and I was too scared to ask (much less Gwen). He cooked three bowls of noodles for us. "Eat while it's warm," he said as he put the bowl in front of us. They looked tasty.

"Thanks," both of us said.

"How are your parents?"

"They are fine," Gwen replied, "Dad's still working on the farm, but now he hires some people to help out."

"How about your mother?"

"Well, she helps out in the farm sometimes, but Dad won't let her do a lot."

"He's always been like that to her." He mused, "Have they ever told you how they met?"

"Nope."

"Do you want to know?"

I grinned, "If you want to tell, we're all ears."

"Your dad was born here, in this village, and your family have been farmers for Goddess-knows-how-long. He was the only son, and everyone expected him to take over the farm later on. Then, your mother came here during summer when he was twenty-one and caught everyone's attention, including your dad's. She was seventeen that time." He continued, "They were already dating by the next spring."

"From what he told me, her parents' didn't object their relationship, but they were reluctant to let her stay in this village. So, your dad made a decision that shocked everyone: he moved to her village instead."

"That's sweet…"

"It is," he agreed. "But I guess blood can't be resisted. After they were married, he started a farm in his new village."

"Oh, so that's how it is!" we both said.

We talked a bit more after lunch before Dunhill led us to the farm, our farm. After five minutes of walking or so, we arrived at the farm he had been mentioning. We were appalled by its size: it's super huge! We took a quick look on the house, stable and barn, it seemed that they had cleaned it for us.

"How's it?"

"This is great! Thanks Dunhill!"

Dunhill took a watch from his pocket. "It's already six o'clock. I need to get back to work, you two can get your luggage in and rest for the day," he said.

"Thank you very much for all the help, Dunhill," I replied. Gwen smiled at Dunhill and nodded slightly, it was her way of saying thank you to others who wasn't too close to her.

"Oh, no problem at all! To tell you the truth, I am the one who should be thanking you two for coming to this village!" he joyfully replied, "It has been a long time since the last villagers move in to this village and more and more people have been leaving Echo Village instead. You have seen Hossan and his son, right? With him and his son leaving this village, we only have me, Hana, Emma, Neil, and both of you living in this village now."

S-six people in one village? That's very surprising... And pitiful...

"I will introduce you to them tomorrow. I really need to go now, see you guys tomorrow," he added while walking hurriedly back to his house.

Okay, this village was amazing in one way. I didn't know how a village could be called a 'village' with only six people living there. My head hurt thinking about it so I decided to forget about that 'trivial' thing and started to bring our luggage into the house.

"Gwen, can you help me a bit? Park the wagon beside the house and bring Kazuki to the stable. I'll bring the luggage in when you do that."

"Okay."

She took Kazuki's rein and brought him to the stable. Kazuki was supposedly our horse but for some reasons, he hated me. However, he's Gwen's favourite so it was expected for him to come along with us. Well, his feelings weren't reciprocal so I didn't mind.

It took me quite some time to move our entire luggage in and thankfully Gwen came to help out for the last bit. Here we are now, inside the house where we would start our farm life. Welcome farm life!

Gwen

"There, there, Kazuki, be a good boy okay?" I muttered to Kazuki as I patted his muzzle gently. Kazuki was very quiet. I believed he was very tired from the journey; he was usually very active (too active until he tried to kick Reine so many times). I decided to leave him alone to let him rest and helped Reine out with the luggage.

Well, the village was far from my expectation but overall I loved the peaceful feeling I got in this village. I didn't really ask anything about this village to Dunhill, though, since Reine had did that for both of us. Since childhood, I was always together with her. She was outgoing and she dared to speak her thoughts up (and indirectly mine). I was never annoyed or even bothered by this, in fact, sometimes I was glad because it saved me the trouble of asking myself, and thus throughout the years I had developed the ability to listen well to what others said.

After arranging our stuff to our satisfaction, we took a long, comfortable bath and talked about where to start. Reine would deal with all the purchases while I'd prepare the field for sowing. Well, it wasn't the most exciting part of farming, but I would rather do it than going round the village and buy things. Besides, Reine was better in choosing the seeds and everything (including the haggling if she had to), so I guessed I had to prepare the field.

"There's not many to buy, especially when the livestock trader isn't around!" she lamented, "Moreover, Dad never mentioned of this village being almost-abandoned and all! I gotta make him pay for this!"

"But we got a farm of our own, don't you think that's cool?"

"It is! But honestly I imagined something similar to our island!"

"Well, Mom said that Dad saved Leaf Valley from being turned into an amusement park," I reminded her, "maybe this is our own 'save the homeland'?"

Reine stared at me, speechless. I was so proud I could make her loss at words like the way she was now. After some moments, she grinned widely, "Yeah, you're right!"

We laughed at each other. This actually could motivate us to work in the farm more than we expected. At least we had a clear goal to achieve by working on this farm. It was much more better than having a mundane farm life without a purpose. Life is a challenge after all!

How is it?

I know it's quite boring at the beginning, but just continue reading and trust me, the subsequent chapters will be more interesting :D We'll try to update as often as possible.

R&R, thanks for reading!