Another update! I hope I'm making up for the month-long absence! This is a weird chapter, and I'm thinking that the fic is getting really depressing. Darn Vaughn and his stupid, plot-bunny-inducing, mysterious tendencies. Anyways, just know that the fic isn't meant to be angsty, and that it will get brighter in the future! xP
Oh, and I realized that my scene-separation-things still weren't showing up, so let's see if I managed to fix them this chapter. xD Enjoy!
A loud crash sounded from outside—Chelsea shot up in her bed, an involuntary scream leaving her throat. She gasped into silence, her hand set on her startled chest. She didn't mind lightning and thunder, really. It was just that she was normally at home, with her family.
Or at least not alone on a nearly-deserted island of the coast of nowhere.
Sighing, she peeled the covers the rest of the way off her body and swung her feet onto the icy floor. She shivered slightly, wishing she'd brought her slippers when she left Mineral Town. As it was, however, she only had her one pair of pajamas, three identical sets of her normal outfit, and her bandana. Well, she had boots. And socks. And some underwear, too. Oh, yes, and some toiletries. But that was it.
She glanced at her nightstand, pursing her lips at the sight of her favorite picture. She saw her family back when she was younger. She saw how happy they were. She blinked as soon as she felt her eyes tear up, sending two salty drops streaming down her cheeks.
Suddenly, she gasped. She couldn't believe it—she was horrible! She'd forgotten to send a letter to her parents! And even after her ship went down, too… They probably thought she was—she swallowed hard at this thought, the word barely registering—dead.
She hurriedly searched her dark house for a scrap of paper and a pen, only to come up short. She didn't have paper? Really? Come on, it's paper, she thought, pulling at her hair in frustration. Who doesn't have paper? Another flash of lightning illuminated her windows, followed almost immediately by the loudest rumbling Chelsea had ever heard.
Screaming, she jumped back into her bed. This would be a long night.
oooo0000oooo
When Vaughn got off his ship on Wednesday morning, he could tell that the island had seen the worst of the previous weeks' storm. The path leading up into town was ankle-deep mud, and there were a few fallen branches pulled to the side of the paths. He brought his gaze down to his boots and sloshed his way up to the Animal Shop for work.
"Vaughn! Welcome back," Mirabelle exclaimed as he pushed through the door, a soft tickling of a bell ringing from above him, "I was worried that the storm'd gotten to your ship. It sure is a relief to see you here, safe and sound!"
He tipped his hat to her as he walked in. She smiled and told him to move some of the feed out and into the sun to dry a bit, as some of the inventory had gotten damp during the storm. He nodded once and ignoring Julia altogether, went out to work.
The sun was surprisingly bright in the autumn sky—Vaughn could hear a few birds chirping in a nearby tree. He might have smiled, if he had been the kind of person to do that sort of thing.
He immediately dropped that train of thought and started moving the huge bags of feed. He always shut down his mind whenever he started his work. And that pretty much all the time. Hell, he hardly ever just let his mind wonder. Whenever he did kit always seemed to make him just that much more unhappy. When he realized this, he'd thought that unhappy wasn't the best word to use—granted, he wasn't exactly happy, but his situation seemed like it begged a less… overused word.
He was more than unhappy.
oooo0000oooo
Chelsea needed paper. She didn't sleep well last night on account of the storm. She was so incredibly tired, and all she could really get herself to do was go and find paper.
She had a letter to write.
She hurried down the path to town, nearly slipping in the mud. She spotted the Animal Shop and immediately decided to ask Julia if she had some parchment to spare. She noticed a certain cowboy lugging bags of chicken feed into the sun.
"Morning, Vaughn," she said quickly, nearly ripping the door to the shop off its hinges in her hurry to get inside. She didn't stick around long enough to see if he acknowledged her. She was too tired and too stressed to really care.
"Ah, Chelsea! How are you today?" Mirabelle beamed from across the counter. Chelsea slowed herself down enough to smile and speak civilly.
"I'm alright—Is Julia in?"
"Yes, she's in the back. Go on ahead," the woman smiled, shooing Chelsea off with one hand. Chelsea nodded and hurried into her best friend's room.
"Julia," Chelsea called, entering the small bedroom, "I need paper—and a pen!"
"Huh?" The blonde blinked, turning away from her magazine and frowning quizzically at the farmer, "What are you talking about?"
"I need to write a letter. Now."
oooo0000oooo
Vaughn walked across a newly-constructed bridge that seemed to lead to a very green, very damp forest. Apparently someone had paid for the bettering of the town since he was on the island last week. He stared up at the dark sky, noting that the sun had set earlier than he was expecting it to—the days were shortening with the coming of fall. He dropped the subject after that, as it wasn't very interesting. He didn't really feel like thinking.
So, naturally, his mind brought up one of his least favorite subjects these days—that farmer girl, Chelsea.
He frowned deeply as he ambled among the pine trees, still dripping from the previous nights' rain. He'd had another dream about her. Well, no—it wasn't really about her as much as the fact that she was in it. He sighed through his nose as he remembered that dream. It really was more of a nightmare—a hellish re-visitation of his past, only with that girl thrown into the mix. He didn't like it. He really didn't like it.
"N-nice doggies… Wha—no! Uh, s-sit!"
Vaughn's ears perked up at the girlish shriek he heard from just up the path. Without thinking about it, he quickened his pace until he could make out a few dark shapes up a little way on the hill. He recognized two of these forms to be rather dog-like, and the other to be a person—a girl. Or a very feminine guy.
"Down," Vaughn called loudly, his voice powerful and authoritative. Immediately the dogs backed off a few feet, and soon they took off from the area. Vaughn stopped walking up the hill and was about to turn back, when the girl called out to him.
"Hey, wait! Thanks for—agh!" He could barely see her figure disappear from the path, and he could hear her yelp as she seemed to slip on the muddy path and land on her back. He started rolling his eyes, but couldn't finish before she slid right into his legs, knocking him off-balance. He teetered for a fraction of a second before falling down forward into nearly ankle-deep mud. Dazed, he blinked once and pushed up onto his hands and knees. In the span of another second or so, he realized that he had ended up falling on top of the girl, pinning her down in the mud.
And—surprise, surprise—it was Chelsea, the wonder-klutz.
He could clearly see her blue eyes just a foot away from his own, and they were growing wider by the millisecond. Her face was a very bright scarlet, although half-covered in mud; Vaughn could feel his face heating up as he really become aware of her body underneath his. He felt frozen, but he managed to move himself off of her and a good yard away from her in the longest few seconds of his life. He saw his hat lying face down in the mud and quickly put it back on his head. He pulled himself out of the mud quickly, fully prepared to leave, until he saw the girl struggling to stand without slipping. Sighing, he reached over and hoisted her up by the back of her collar—déjà vu—and pulled her to her feet. He left the forest without another look back.
The next morning, two sets of muddy footprints marred the wood of the new bridge.
Aha, cheesy ending. I always have trouble writing sequences of actions--was it really confusing, what happened right there? Or did you get the gist of it? It was my attempt at fluff, which I'd say is decent considering Vaughn's currently-emo state of being. Anyways, next chapter is kind of a part II to this one, in that it wraps up what I couldn't fit in here. Review and tell me what you thought please Do you have any advice on writing action sequences? It'd be much, MUCH appreciated :3