By the Light of the Valley Moon

by Spacewheat76

When her Grandpa dies, Chessy inherits his old farm in Stardew Valley. She quickly realizes that all the magical stories she was told as a kid were actually true. She befriends many of the residents, falls in love with one, and discovers all the valley has to offer.. A cute fluffy fic that will get steamy later. Slow burn. Femmeslash between Haley and OC.

1. Chapter 1

By the Light of the Valley Moon

A Stardew Valley fanfiction

Why don't we drive a little.. ride a little.. find a place with a view?

We could smoke a little.. float a little.. Vibin' under the moon

-A. Baraz

Chapter 1

I'd been working at the Joja Mart call center for five years when my Grandpa finally died. He'd been dying for a while in a facility and though work hardly permitted me to visit him, we stayed in touch through letters. In the last few months, however, there became fewer and fewer. The last one, stuffed into my mailbox between a handful of bills, held his goodbye.

Chessy,

Seein' as how you're the only member of the Bukaters that ever listened to any of my old stories, I'm leavin' Dewitt Farm and everything on it to you. I know you hate that job of yours and I promise you, if you leave it all behind and head on down to Stardew Valley, you'll never look back. The thing is, Chess, all the stories I told ya? They're true. The Fern Islands are real and so are all the people I told ya about and all the places I spent time in too. It really is a magical place. And all ya gotta do, is get a charter plane to take you out to Calico Desert and then take the old bus into the valley. Knowin' you and your adventurous spirit (the same one inside me) I reckon you'll end up makin' the right choice. I already sent a letter to my old pal Bernie's son Lewis (he's mayor now) askin' him to look after you. Nothin' in the valley will harm ya, of course, but I know you'll wanna go pokin' around in the mines and that's where you'll needa be careful. All my old tools are back at the farm so help yourself to those. And my old backpack is hangin' on a hook by the door. It's special, so keep it with you! Now all that bein' said, I ain't got much time left and I wanna spend it dreamin' about the old days so I'm gonna go ahead and get. Thank you kindly for always bein' so willin' to listen to an old codger's tales and take care of yourself. Oh, and if you could do me a favor, when you see Evelyn, tell her I never did forget about her and she better not forget about me either. And kick George in the shins for me!

Lova ya Kiddo,

Grandpa

PS- I enclosed the last of my savings in this envelope- a paper check for 500 gold. Lewis will cash it for ya. Money works differently there and that'll give ya a pretty good start, you'll see!

PSS- Take my ashes with you and spread 'em over the water on the shore of Coconut Island that way I can go on listenin' to the rustlin' palms forever. :)

The call from my dad came a couple of days later, and that following weekend, all the Dewitts, and a select few of the Bukaters got together for his funeral. It was a modest affair and even though the entire family came, they spent the entirety of the service gossiping about how crazy he was. An official from the court found me outside the church afterwards and went ahead and named me soul executor. I signed some papers by using the brick of the building as a hard place to write, then went on standing there, looking out at the drizzling rain. That's where my father came and found me. He and I were the only ones left of our immediate family. My mother was my Grandpa's only child.

"Tell me the truth," he said, I suppose as his way of a greeting, "you're not going to go chasing after some fairytale bullshit are you?"

"It's not bullshit," I replied, not looking at him. "Grandpa said it's true."

"Your Grandfather was nuts, Chesapeake. He used to tell me and your mom that when he was a boy he'd fight dragons with nothing but his magic slingshot and a handful of pebbles."

"Well," I said, pushing my hands into the pockets of my faded jeans, "maybe he did."

He was a no nonsense type of guy, my father, and he scoffed at my comment. He sold insurance and wore suits everyday of his life and always combed his salt and pepper hair exactly the same way. He was the opposite of my mom, who, from what I've been told, was as flighty and imaginative as her father. No idea how they wound up together. Anyways, she died when I was a baby. That's why my Grandpa moved back from Fern Islands, or at least that's what he told me. He wanted to be near me. And he was, right until he got really sick and my father put him in a home.

"You've got a good thing going here," Dad said, "you'll move up soon enough and make more money and-"

I rolled my eyes. "I'll never move up. The call center is a dead end job and I'll die one day at my desk and they'll just push me aside and give someone my headset and have them keep taking calls."

"Oh they will not."

My dad lived uptown in a mansion and I lived downtown in a shitty apartment with three deadbolts on my door to ensure I wouldn't be murdered in my sleep. I made just enough to barely scrape by and though he was always trying to give me money or convince me to move home, I was determined to make it on my own.

"They will," I argued, "Joja may hire people, but it sees them as cogs and when they break, they just replace them so the machine will keep running."

He sighed. "You're not going to Stardew Land or wherever the hell it was."

"Oh I'm not?" I turned and faced him, "And what are you going to do to stop me? Ground me? I'm twenty-seven years old, Dad, I can do what I want."

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