A/N: To everyone reading, reviewing, following, favoriting, or simply enjoying the story-thank you! Your support, however you choose to express it, is what motivates me to continue doing my best. I hope we can all continue this journey together, until I take Kutone's story to the end.
Another sunny day beamed over the Banks. With a full basket of grapes and spice berries next to her, Kutone portioned the summer fare into manageable helpings, before bundling the stalks together with twine. Spreading a bright yellow cloth onto the farmhouse's wooden floor, she carefully set the bundled fruits on top, hoping she wouldn't crush them in the transit between farm and community center. At least sweet peas could take a little more abuse, though the thought of crumpling the purple petals slowed Kutone's hands, working another length of twine around the flowers. But finally, with a triumphant snort, she laid her spoils side-by-side across the yellow cloth.
After double-checking the list of summer fare, requested by the Junimos at the community center, she tucked the corners up and around her gifts, turning the squared cloth into a tied sack. With a few testing tugs, and seeing her knots holding fast, she stood up from her seat on the floor. Luckily, the bundle only slightly sagged, so with it one hand and her pack slung over the other shoulder, Kutone set off down the path toward Pelican Town.
Like before, she turned the corner at Harvey's clinic, and passed the playground and fountain, until she stopped on the doorstep to the derelict community center. According to town talk, Morris still hadn't found his last membership to convert the center into a warehouse. For the time being, the building, the memories inside, and the Junimos remained safe.
As always when she approached the community center, Kutone cast a cautious glance over her shoulder. So far, none of the villagers had asked about her activities inside the deteriorating building, and she didn't want to start forging answers either.
All clear.
She scooted inside, carefully closing the door behind her. A Junimo chirp echoed from around the corner.
"Hello?" Kutone whispered into the dim building, "I'm back." She stood perfectly still, but only the hollow whistle of wind, and that accompanying hum of chimes, responded. "I've got something for your crafts room."
Again, nothing. For a moment, the building's forgotten chimes resembled the Junimo chirps, but no apple-shaped creature poked its face from the building's niches. Kutone cast one more glance, then crept toward the corridor.
Passing the pantry, she turned into the crafts room, where the same golden tablet lay glowing on the floor. As she approached the artifact, the pressure of curious eyes made her stop. She repeated the wizard's words to herself: "Nothing to fear. You have nothing to fear." The Junimos just wanted her to bring stuff. Maybe talk to her.
And maybe they expected a lot out of her. Terrifying. She stepped lightly, avoiding the creaks of the weakened floor, for the rest of the way to the tablet, then set her yellow bundle down. "Spice berry," she read, "grapes, and sweet pea flowers. This should do it for your summer foraging."
Two happy chirps finally answered her. Within a blink, a Junimo appeared, and hopped around Kutone's bundle as though examining the cloth. While Kutone watched, fascinated, it raised one of its little arms, crinkled its eyes in a smile, then chirped again.
Too struck by the Junimos' lovable natures, she almost choked on her voice. "Um—you're not—are you going to check inside?"
No answer. The Junimo hopped behind Kutone's bundle, heaved, then—with perfect balance—hoisted the bundle over its apple-shaped body. It huffed with confidence as Kutone applauded, then skittered off into the hallway. With its disappearance, the curious pressure lifted, leaving Kutone in the darkness once again.
Great talk.
She shook her head. Whatever the Junimos wanted, they spoke through the golden tablets. There was no necessity for anything more than that. Like a business transaction. Kutone pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, hoping to stem the oncoming headache. Thinking of the Junimos as friendly forest sprites had, maybe, given her the expectation of more interaction with the creatures. She chided her delusions and, snickering, sauntered back down the hallway and toward the community center's front door.
How dare she think she was anything special. The Junimos could have picked anyone else at this rate. Maybe the wizard spouted nothing but crazy talk after all.
But just as she laid her hand on the doorknob, chirps called her back.
At the threshold to the west wing of the community center, a couple Junimos bounced high and flailed their arms, as they pointed down the corridor. Upon seeing Kutone step away from the front door, they tittered in what looked like excitement, and disappeared into the dank hall.
Clearly, they needed her to follow, and Kutone, still admittedly star-struck by the Junimos' existences alone, dashed back into the old building and shot down the west hall.
There.
At the very end of the hall, past the pantry and even the crafts room, the Junimo pair continued their merry hops and beckoning flails. As soon as Kutone stepped into her sprint, they blinked out of view. And despite nearly slamming into the far wall of what she quickly identified as the community center's dilapidated kitchen, she couldn't bring herself to believe the Junimos had pranked her.
Not with those elusive chimes ringing ever so slightly louder in the kitchen.
Yet, she saw no signs of metal rods hanging in the kitchen's window, and if Kutone's ears weren't misleading her, the chimes echoed from someplace higher. She looked up toward the ceiling, where along the beams of the rafters, that same Junimo pair waved down to her. Sounding delighted chirps, they pointed toward the kitchen's sink, nestled under the window.
Glancing between the Junimos in the rafters, and the kitchen sink, she mapped a vague trail up through dusty desolation. Kitchen sink, window, wall, shelf, ceiling beam. Or maybe that protruding spit of snapped rafter. It looked easy. Looked. "You want me," said Kutone, pointing at herself, "to climb up there?"
The fairies bobbed their arms in encouraging sweeps. One scurried further down the beam, disappearing into the ceiling above the hall, while the other continued its cheering. Distantly, like a child's whisper, a voice wisped into Kutone's thoughts.
The chimes! The chimes! Issu's prayer chimes!
"Grandpa's…prayer chimes?" Kutone echoed. Mom had never spoken about anything that sounded so like a family heirloom. Maybe on purpose? One of those Eastern "when you're ready for its burden" type of scenarios?
Then again, Mom favored minimalism in her life. She liked loose ends tied neatly and tightly, and turned a haughty nose up on relics and treasures. As a compromise with Dad, though, she kept some photos—like marriage and graduation photos—in solid white or black picture frames, and tolerated Dad's growing collection of shot glasses—so long as he contained them like data aligned in a matrix. "It's cleaner and business-like," justified Mom, "and it makes the house presentable to our guests and clients when they stop by."
And, when Grandpa Issu passed away, Mom had no problems hauling his belongings into the dumpster. Even while Kutone sadly watched the pile of apple-themed crystalware, dishes, utensils, and clothes crashing into the can, and even while Dad, with his clenched jaw and sober, It's okay, honey. Do what you need to do, stood rigidly at Mom's side, she snapped back and forth between Grandpa's belongings and the dumpster. Her movements, Kutone reflected, were efficient, but they failed to hide Mom's lips pressed into that thin, pale line, or her wet, red eyes, or the dribble of moisture at her nose.
Prayer chimes. Whatever they were, maybe Mom would consider having those in the house. Maybe they could be the one thing from her Pa-Pa she wouldn't call junk.
Kutone took a running start, and ignoring the dust clouds and her too-heavy footfall, scrabbled up onto the kitchen sink, then bounded onto the sill of the kitchen window. Little claps and chirps of the single Junimo continued cheering her on, as she scanned the peeling wall for her next purchase.
There. An inset beam with enough width for her fingertips, ran parallel to the edge of the kitchen window. "Fuck me, tell me I'm going crazy here," she grumbled, and ignoring the Junimo's mock gasp, reached up and grabbed the slim ledge. Her toes left the sill, and her arms already screamed in protest against the involuntary stretch. Now what?
She could attempt a pull-up to reach the next protrusion, that jutting beam snapped from decay. Splinters guaranteed. No dice. But that shelf in the corner—she could scrape her shoes against the side to drag herself up on top of it. Much better idea. Her arms, elbows, and shoulders just had to cooperate long enough to slide her across this thin edge. And she had to hope to all the goodness in the world, her fingers wouldn't find a stray splinter or protruding nail.
Prayer chimes, she repeated to herself, and with the Junimo running across the beam and squeaking encouragement, Kutone hauled herself across the wooden spit. Left hand, over. Right hand, followed. Still smooth. No splinters or nails. Again. Left hand, over. Right hand, followed. Still smooth. Her body hung flat against the wall, her fingers already sliding out. If she fell, who knew what kind of junk she could stab herself on? This was the kitchen, after all. "Please don't let me stick my foot into a working burner."
Thoughts conjuring rusty knives waiting below, Kutone dragged herself on. Left hand. Right hand. Over and over again. When muscles and tendons and ligaments all protested, at the same exact time, the way one moved her body, a theoretically short journey turned into a life-or-death survival. Left hand. Right hand.
Then finally, her hip hit the shelf. With a heave, she threw her left hand onto the shelf top, and dug her foot against the shelf's side. No wobble, but the coat of dust on top rejected her grasp. She had to make it quick.
I can make it. Come on. Get on top of this thing, and you're at the ceiling.
Nodding to herself, she strained the balls of her foot, and with another heave, slammed her other foot against the shelf, and finally, finally, pulled herself up on top. Her hands slid against the dust and thrummed panic into her chest, but she found purchase with her elbows and rolled up on top.
Pressing chirps greeted her as Kutone, totally ignorant of the dust caking her hair and back, laid on top of the shelf. "You're asking me to join you in those rafters!" she groaned. "You think that little piece of wood's going to hold me up?"
The Junimo lifted a hand, and with a fierce expression, bounced up, and landed square on its two feet. Its little paf did nothing more than lift a dust bunny.
"Now I get it," sighed Kutone. "The prayer chimes are for me, for when I snap my neck after falling from the ceiling."
She craned her neck back, watching with a smile as the Junimo bounced again and again—paf paf paf—on the beam. Finally, it stopped and sagged its little body, eyes forlorn.
The expression reminded her of Oki's perpetually tearful look. Maybe she had a weak spot for cute things looking sad. "Come on," she crooned, "I'll believe you. Long as I can jump onto that without bouncing off it, I'll be home free, right?"
The Junimo peered down the beam, nodded, and swept its arms up again, squeaking a cheer.
Rolling over into a crouch, Kutone glanced again at the distance between herself and the beam. Herself and the floor. Shook her head. Don't be afraid. A breeze ghosted through the destroyed kitchen window, and with that air, the chimes rang again, their sonorous tone clearly above her. Prayer chimes. Grandpa's last heirloom, after the Banks.
Oh the things she did for the sake of running from reality. Or at least, attempting to mend her reality.
Bunching her legs underneath her, she launched herself forward.
The floor yawned beneath her. Panic bubbled and boiled in the pit of her stomach.
I'm not going to make it!
Slam. Uf!
A strangled bundle of air burst out of her stomach but she ground her fingers into the beam. Coughing and wheezing, she clambered up. She wasn't crumpled and broken and dying on the floor from a snapped neck or back. Holy shit.
But that Junimo—damn scurrying little thing—gave her no time to celebrate. It already had skittered to the far end of the beam, and hopped at the threshold leading back to the hall. One bounce. Two bounce. Gone.
What looked like sticks on the floor, the ceiling beams were thick enough she could carefully crawl across them. After catching her breath, wiping sweat with a dusty sleeve, and massaging her bruised diaphragm, she tested her weight. Both knees on the wood. Both palms. A slight creak echoed into the kitchen, but she didn't feel the wood bowing. Okay.
The beams—the entire network of rafters, really—echoed in glum squeals as Kutone shimmied along the wood. Climbing through and over cobwebbed support beams, and taking care to not fucking look down, you dumb broad, she finally passed through the hall, and back into the community center's main lobby and banquet hall.
More beams connected into an even bigger network of rafters, but a telltale chirp guided her attention away from the labyrinth, and to a wider awning on her immediate left. Junimos scurried along the platform, and disappeared into the dim expanse of what looked like a hidden crawlspace. Great. The life-or-death journey continues. If one thing tried and didn't mess her up, another thing always followed and tried again.
So after crossing the rafter network and stepping onto the platform before the crawlspace, Kutone sat down again. Farm work was one thing, after all, but this climbing around and jumping onto things—her body hated doing stuff like this. And yet, she thought, how fitting was it that alleged forest fairies were guiding her, huffing, bruising, sweating, and cursing, through this maze of weakened support beams?
Behind her, in the kitchen, something cracked, snapped, and crashed to the floor. Loud and foreboding, unlike life, which did the same thing except soundlessly, and through the byways of backstabbing "best" friends.
She gazed at the open and dim crawlspace in the far wall. If this was a means for an elaborate Junimo prank, Kutone vowed to purchase that Joja membership. Let the fuckers bulldoze the place and get their warehouse running. Betrayal had become a boring, repetitive routine in her life, and she liked the idea of violently quashing affronts to loyalty. Tried and true, from her time in the concrete labyrinth, after she fell from the top.
Prayer chimes!
She patted dust out of her clothes and hair, and got on to her knees and hands again. She just couldn't begrudge the Junimos. They just couldn't be that cunning. And, well, the wizard had told her to follow them.
So follow she would.
Spatters of sunlight cast spangled shadows through the crawlspace, as Kutone shuffled along in the dark. A steady incline had her panting in the chute, stuffy with prickling summer heat, but with the chimes ringing nearby above her, she pressed on. Even though her lungs cried for fresh air free of hot dust, even though her calloused knees scratched for relief from the dry wood, the Junimos' chirps and melodious squeaks encouraged her further. Just gotta get to the top, she told herself. There'll be air up there. Gotta be.
The incline took a sharp turn, then another. She cursed loudly, sweat wetting her palms and dripping down her face, as the incline suddenly leveled and she made a veritable face plant into the crawlspace's exit door.
But she opened into sweet, clean, cooler air, and a burst of sunlight shone into the pyramiding slats of roof above her. An attic, she surmised, and peeling her face off the floor, levered herself up onto her knees.
Then, a puff of wind through the crumbling wall and missing window, and the song of chimes. Leaves rustled in trees somewhere beneath her, as Kutone held her breath. There, gleaming in the sunlight filtering through the window, hung a circle of metal rods, wooden clapper gently swaying in the middle. A makeshift wooden dais, adorned with leaves, ferns, berries, and other forest fare, rose just beneath the chimes. And at the base of the dais, a golden tablet.
No Junimos visible, but she felt their eyes on her, as she crawled toward the engraved gold.
She traced her fingers across the blocky letters, sparse on this tablet in comparison to the others downstairs. But just like the others, especially after drinking the wizard's vile potion, the letters on the attic's tablet glimmered, swam, and spiraled into letters Kutone could read. Only one word glittered across the tree motif engraved into the slab.
Memory
"Memory?" she echoed, and the chimes sang again as Junimos leaped to the sides of the tablet and laid their little hands on the golden sheen. Light sparked, a wind blew, she tumbled back, the chimes clanged like bells, and then—
Then the fading image of an older man, kneeling before the chimes and dais, ghosted into Kutone's view. She swallowed her held breath, as she identified the stocky shoulders and graying beard. "Grandpa," she mumbled, and her strength melted into stillness, as she watched Grandpa Issu cleaning the metal rods of the chimes.
I've become an old man, my friends. Apparitions of past Junimos appeared at Grandpa's side. Many watched the old man with worried expressions, as he unwound his legs and rubbed his knees. Lewis is taking away my ladder after this. Nothing we can do about a dying community, he says.
She remembered the Wednesday nights Lewis spent at the Saloon, always drinking two beers before he left Gus in the early evening. "One for myself," the mayor explained to Kutone, "and the other for your grandfather. It was a Wednesday, wasn't it?" The community center had probably started falling into disrepair while Grandpa Issu was alive in the valley. His gravelly voice, usually nothing more than a static recollection in Kutone's ears, quavered then with melancholy.
The man's right, I suppose. Grandpa stopped rubbing his knees, and lifted his face to view the window, as though enjoying the same breeze and musical chimes as Kutone. You know—I have a granddaughter now. Nagisa, sweet girl, sent us a picture. The apparition reached into the breast pocket of his faded shirt, and pulled out a card. Look at that baby's bright smile!
The excitement in Grandpa's voice brought a smile to Kutone's own features.
Along with tears.
Andres has made my daughter happy, I know it. What I couldn't do for that poor girl out here in the valley, he's done for her in the city. And that, my friends, is a fine thing indeed. Grandpa laid the card on the floor, as the Junimos gathered around the picture. They are happy. This Pa-Pa couldn't ask for better.
But I fear for that bright smile! Grandpa pressed his palms together, and leaned his head forward. It is a worrying thing, to have a granddaughter with such light in her smile. I am afraid, my friends—afraid people will steal that light from her, and she will forget the kindness of people.
Kutone shook her head. "Grandpa," she murmured, "that's not what happened. Part of it was my own fault, you know."
Grandpa Issu continued, unhearing. If little Kutone ever, ever forgets the kindness of people, I will help. And the valley will help. He lowered his pressed palms and looked at each of the Junimos gathered around him. You will, won't you?
The apparitions chirped and bounced in agreement, as Grandpa laughed happily. A fine thing! Then I leave a prayer here—may my granddaughter learn the blessings of stardew, of forest, of sea, and may she remember the kindness of others and do unto them, the kindness she finds within her.
Her view clouded. Wavered. Sparkled. Dripped and landed on the dusty slats of the attic's floor. She clenched her arms around herself, and leaned forward, trying to choke off the tears as they came. "I don't deserve this," she breathed. "Grandpa, I don't—I really don't! It was my fault too!"
A wind blew. The chimes hummed. The ghosts and the tablet vanished like smoke melting into air, into breath. Only the chimes swayed back and forth, continuing their singing tones against the clapper.
She cried. She cried and cried and cried, because she'd already started remembering kindness—in Lewis, in Robin, in Alex, in Marnie and Evelyn and Emily and Sam and Abigail and Sebastian—in all of the residents of Stardew Valley, even though she still couldn't understand why they took her, shadowed and secretive and so goddamn sad, with open arms.
"Thank you," she murmured into the floor. The words just came. Made no logical sense to her, but they quieted her sobs.
A Junimo touched her wet cheek. She smiled and sat up, scooping the little fairy between her palms. "Thank you."
Sunlight wrapped around the chimes like a halo. "I promise," she said, "we'll do good on Grandpa's prayer. Can I count on you, little friend?"
It hopped from her hands to her shoulder, and nestled against the crook of her neck.
We will help!