welcome back!

earth au! but still with their own names, i suppose.

song inspiration: Love Story, by Taylor Swift

Yellow was four years old the first time she held a fishing pole. It definitely wasn't the last time. In fact, nearly every afternoon for the last decade or so, Yellow had ventured out of the family cottage to go fishing by herself along the Vermillion River. It had become an easy routine now, marked only by a few instances here and there that, like stones tossed into a stream, disrupted the flow for only a moment.

Like how, in her third fishing year, Yellow started going alone after her uncle started traveling farther and farther away to bring back the things they needed for the cottage. It had been a lonely few months before Yellow had met ChuChu, a field mouse who was more than happy to trade an afternoon of company for a couple breadcrumbs here and there.

Or in her fifth year, when she ran out of skirts that fit and sewed two of them into pants to pair with her straw hat. That, too, had taken a couple weeks to get used to, since she had only ever slept in pants before. But time healed all, as they said. Whoever they were.

Or in the twelfth year — just a couple months ago, actually — when another metaphorical stone was lobbed her way in the shape of a boy.

Yellow knew nothing about him the first day and she still doesn't. But one day, a boy had passed by on the other side of the river. On one side of his body, he rolled a bike by the handlebars. On the other, a bucket hanging against his hip clanged loudly with each step.

Of course, she had dived backwards into the river reeds for cover, just barely managing to pull the bulk of her supplies with her. Some part of her now knew that that wasn't the most common reaction, but years of her best friends being field mice meant that her first instincts tended to be scurrying back into the shadows or even just to straight-up dive if need be.

And that was okay, especially because it worked. Those field mice were smart.

She had avoided detection that day, as well as the other couple dozen days for the rest of summer. There was a pattern, she noticed eventually. Anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour and a half after she settled down for the day, that boy would come along with his bike and his bucket. Since she only ever saw him from one direction, she had to assume he left after she headed back home.

After the first week of launching herself back into the reeds in dreadful shock, Yellow learned to keep her things packed, easier to grab and closer, until after the boy passed by for the day.

She also learned how to spy.

Just a little bit.

It was on one such spying mission that Yellow first caught a real look at the face. And, oh, it was a very nice face, handsome and with dark-hair tucked beneath a cap. He whistled when he walked, she noticed, and wore big sneakers. Now, she hadn't exactly met that many people over the last decade. Winter was the season she hated most, because winter was when she headed back to town to stay with her mother, and all she did was struggle with schoolwork and worry about ChuChu. But, thankfully, winter was the shortest season around here, and she always came back.

Nevertheless, of all the very few people Yellow had met in all her life, this one drew her eyes like nothing else. She didn't know how to describe. Didn't know the words. Didn't know what to think. She didn't really use a lot of words, in fact, but it didn't stop her from wondering.

She would close her eyes sometimes, after he disappeared into the trees, to better preserve the way he moved.

Once, when she was just a little girl and still lived in town all year around, Yellow read a book. She could read pretty well back then, at least for her age. It was something she remembered distinctly, because there wasn't much to read around here. But there was plenty to do, and while she did her work, she would make up stories, ones that changed all the time.

And that was fun.

But there was one book that she remembered very clearly. It was a fairytale.

It was a love story.

There was a big house with a pointy roof, rectangles jutting out from the top in a way so very unlike the soft, flat cottage roof. There were also people in the story: a princess in a tall thin crown and a prince in a short round one.

Yellow has grown up seeing love in the well-sealed no-longer-there doorframe cracks and in the flowers painted on every window ledge in the cottage because there were plenty of real ones to look at outside.

But once in a while, she considered meeting that boy and finding that book again and reading it. Of course, she probably never would. But she just wanted to see what it would be like, since-

"Hi," said a voice, very close to her ear.

Yellow shrieked and whacked someone in the face with her fishing rod. "Ouch!" The person said, and she scrambled backwards into the reeds while he — it's him, it's the boy, it's him! — scratched his head in pain and bewilderment. When he straightened up again, she was already crouched low in the grass.

"Uh," the boy said. "Hello?" He took off his hat and tucked it beneath his arm. "Uh, hey, where'd you go...?"

She had three options here. The first: slide out until the edge of the river reeds, climb up the nearest tree, and get home through the tree branches however possible. And it was possible; she had just done it last week. The second: lay low, hide here, and keep quiet until he disappeared. But she looked at him, still turning in circles and investigating her stuff with curiosity, not suspicious, and for some reason she thought to herself that he didn't give up very easily. The third: this is her chance to...to what, exactly?

She didn't know. But maybe that was okay.

So Yellow took in three deep breaths before letting them out slowly. Then, clutching her straw hat in both hands, she rose to her feet.