Her Journey
He caressed his wife's cheek. Her ivory skin was slightly flushed from the love making they just had done. She would be leaving him soon. More than soon, she was leaving him this afternoon. Her trip had been planned for over a year now. She was to travel to a far away town deep in the mountains away from him.
Her research was calling her to it. She wanted to explore the world and all that it could offer for her as a botanist. Before they married she would constantly speak about how she so wished that she could travel the world and research all the different types of plants up close like she could on the mountain. He encouraged her to go. He said it would be educational for her to really discover the world first hand. He had. It was time for his pretty wife to as well.
She wanted him to go. He couldn't. He had both of the farms to watch over. They had just recently moved to the Bluebell farm and he was still getting used to incredible amount of animals compared to the vast (quiet) fields he was used to. Mayor Ina still let him use the fields because of what he had done for the towns which helped him with the costs for all the animals in the Bluebell farm. However this to his pretty wife was just excuses. She loved him, needed him, she didn't want to leave without him. They promised to discover the world together and now that the time was drawing close he knew that they couldn't.
Turning his head out of the window the dawn light peeked through the white lace curtains Mayor Rutger had given them along with some of the other small furnishings, but they still depended upon the japanese furnature that the couple had used since his arrival into the twin towns. He slipped out of the covers trying not to stir his wife. His nude body quickly was covered in goose-bumps, the windows in the farm cottage needed to be fix they carried a nasty draft. In seconds he dressed and began brewing the coffee, it should be done by the time she awoke. Grabbing his barn jacket and fingerless gloves, the farmer stepped into the cold autumn air for another day on the farm.
…
There was no other way but by walking could she reach her home town again. The bus would have gotten stuck in the snow drifts miles back trying to take her back to the twin towns. How long had she been gone? Years felt like decades to her. Yes her husband and her had written everyday, but with each letter she felt like they were growing apart. Neither of them wanted that. Neither of them wanted to be apart either but they both knew she had learned all she could in the Twin Towns and needed to grow more, then only then could she return to her home with him.
He was the most patient man she had ever met. Uncle Mako was fed up with her trip by the third week. But her dear, dear husband had waited for her. But then again he was patient from the start. Almost instantly he had fallen for her, but it took her almost a year and a half for her to warm up to his bright smile and glossy ginger hair. She remembered how ambicion he had been when they first met, his dreams towered over the mountain one hundred times while her's were small and menial. Yet he still listened, he listened to her woes and worries. His patientness is probably what caught her, what dragged her into his arms night after night. But that patientness is also what pushed her away. It is what made her take this long journey all on her own in a land she had never seen before, in a village that was not in her journal before. It was his hard work that made her find the spark in adventuring and exploring again. It was the bright ginger hair, sapphire blue eyes, dusty tan skin, and broad shoulders that encapsulated her in big bear hugs every night after the dinner she tried to prepare yet usually failed but he would still eat every last bite anyway.
Winter in the Twin Towns wasn't as harsh as it was in some of the other farming towns that she had visited. In Konohana and Bluebell they were still able to grow winter crops such as Bok Choy and broccoli but in the Sunshine Isles that was not the case. This journey that her dear, loving husband sent her on allowed her to discover small aspects that she had not understood when she was a young aspiring botanist.
Looking to her right she spotted the knowing sign of the Oracle's home hidden on the side of the mountain. That meant a fifteen more minute walk to Bluebell. She was almost there. Almost. She was so close, after all these years being apart she was just fifteen minutes away from her beloved.
The walk was surprisingly empty of all tourists or villagers, but she should have expected that it was the middle of winter they would most likely be in Howard's cafe staying warm.
The botanist stopped walking, what if her beloved husband was no longer in the Bluebell house, or had moved to a totally different town. She pulled their last letter out of her pocket. He only spoke of how much the last expansion of the Bluebell farm allowed for more live stock and that he was planning on ordering some more beehives for the spring along with expanding the fruit orchard on the farm. There was nothing on the hand-written letter about moving away. But the letter was from two seasons back. She had gotten so caught up in the final town that she had forgotten to write that she was planning to come home finally.
Tucking the letter back into her pocket, she glanced at the setting sun in the sky. It was only four thirty in the afternoon but the setting sun made her want to rush even more than she was already doing.
Finally she arrived on the cobblestone path that lead to the farm and town. She turned and entered the farm.
It was bigger than when she had left. Then again it had been quite some time since she had first left it and her husband had spoken about expansions. There were no livestock grazing the grass patches, actually the farm was quite empty for only mid afternoon. She walked up to the cottage that was no longer that. It was an expanded house with two levels. Taking out her key she hesitantly put it into the lock hoping, praying, it would still work.
The soft click of the key and the old wooden door welcomed her into the house. She expected a surprised ginger cooking dinner for one, but there was none. Only their four dogs and two cats greeted her. She closed the door behind her and inspected the house. It was all almost newly furnished. There were still some remnants of their old home from Konohana around but she knew that with the second level he must have invested in some newer furniture. She slipped off her boots and climbed the stairs to the second level where the small hallway led to three bedrooms and a bathroom. The first was almost a complete replica of her laboratory back in Konohana, test tubes and all. The second was a nursery.
Oh no.
He must have remarried. Maybe he never had the heart to tell her. Clothes and all. Everything was set for a real baby. Oh god she couldn't take it. How could he have betrayed her like this?
…
The farmer had spent the day in Konohana with his dear friend Kana talking about old times and drinking the day away. He had spent most of the morning taking care of the vast amount of livestock so that he could try and forget his troubles with an old friend. To the day it had been almost a decade that his wife had been away. He didn't want to spend it alone again like he had for the past nine, he wanted to be with someone who understood his loneliness.
He glanced at his reflection in the frozen over stream that filled into a tiny pond near Bluebell. He no longer looked like his old self. His ginger hair had lost some of the bright red luster it had when he had first started farming in the Twin Towns and it grew to his shoulders where he could keep it in a neat pony tail whilst he worked. His eyes were still their vibrant blue and his skin tan as the summer sun but would his dear wife recognize him in a busy street? Would he with his wife, how much had she changed? Had she found another lover while traveling?
There in his walk back to the farm house he had expanded for her in anticipation of her return, he stopped. There was a light on. Oh god no. A burglar? In this small community? They would see the baby's room! The room he had cried in many a night wishing for his wife to return. Over the years both towns' folk saw him crumble bit by bit while his wife was away. They saw him build the nursery, they saw him delve more into his farm work than when he had first began. And now a burglar would take that all away? Aw hell no.
He barged through the door and stumbled up the staircase he had crafted with his own hands. The door to the nursery was the only one with the light on and the door open. Throwing open the door, his face red with both drink and anger rest upon his wife's. Her's dressed in freshly fallen tears.
They were both silent. Neither of them had seen each other since her leaving ten years ago. They were the same and different at the same time. The farmer was older and stronger, the botanist was more learned and wiser, but all still the same as they were ten years ago.
The farmer moved towards her with his arms wide open ready to hold his gentle wife once again, yet she backed up. Mid step he stopped, why had she not come into his arms? Had she not recognised him? Glancing around the room, he realized why. She believed he was with another, but he wasn't.
"Reina."
He delicate name left his dry lips. Her tears once again started yet she stumbled into his arms for comfort.
"Oh Phillip. I have missed you so."
The farmer lifted his wife's face to his lips and kissed her all over. On her nose, on her jaw, on her eyes, on her lips…
…
He caressed her delicate cheek. Yes they had grown older but their love had not. They were still the same young adults when they had met. Her raven hair draped over the farmer's muscular arm. The winter night hallowed through the windows, but there were no drafts this time. His calloused hand danced over her hip and her soft one smoothed out his curly chest hair. The quilt that had once covered them ten years ago was back over both of them again.
Days after that the couple could not be pried off each other. She helped with his farming early every morning and after his watering in the Konohana fields he listened to her stories till night fell and he made her favorite meals everyday. Then when that was finished they made love into the night, or fell asleep in each other's arms.
Her journey had taken pulled them apart for longer than either of them wanted yet it brought them right back where they were when she had left. Time for the couple had stopped until both were ready to begin again.