Marooned

Summary: Leia washes up on the shore of a strange beach, and fears the worst… and makes the acquaintance of a strange "land-dweller".

A/N: Ah yes, I haven't updated with a new Harvest Moon story since February, (as Gamerzgal pointed out…) and I've been thinking for awhile that it's high time that I wrote some new HM stuff, so, here it is: it isn't much, but…yeah. ' I haven't been really inspired to write anything for Harvest Moon for awhile, but I managed to finish this little story. I hope you guys like it. :)

Oh, and just a warning: this one-shot is a less light hearted then most of my other one-shots here, and is actually supposed to be vaguely serious.

Leia wasn't a mermaid that was easy to scare: she had grown up in a world where you constantly had to watch out for sharks, and electric eels, and she had spent her entire childhood learning every trick to surviving the world under the sea; so it was easy to say that there wasn't anything under in the deep that could bother her even the slightest. But of course, at the moment, none of the shark-distracting, or fish-hunting skills she had learned over the years could help her with her current situation, and for that reason, she found herself quivering with fear.

…Because while there was nothing under the sea that she feared, everything above it was new, and frightening.

Leia flapped her tail helplessly, but it wasn't any use; she'd never been on land before, and she hadn't the faintest idea how in the world she could move herself when surrounded by sand, and not miles of blue clear water. Panicking, she flapped her tail hard, and more frantically, in hopes that something would happen; but all that did was cause the sand around her to go flying in the air, causing her to cough, and choke on the sandy air.

For a moment, Leia paused in her frantic flopping, and sat on the beach coughing. But once her coughing subsided, panic settled in again, and she barely restrained herself from continuing her panic-induced flopping once more. Her breathing was heavy, and labored, but not from her desperate attempt to move: but from fear. She was lucky that mermaids could breath both in the water, and on land, or else she would have suffocated long ago, but it was not the lack of water that she feared. What she feared was the fact that she was marooned on a strange beach in a place she had never been to, or seen before, unable to move, and not knowing what would happen to her.

Would she lie there until her mother found her? Would her mother ever find her? Of would someone else be the one to come upon her in this helpless state? Or would she never be found at all? Would she lie there until starvation took her? Or would a tide come in, and save her from the fate of dying on that beach?

Panic settled in again, and her tail flapped wildly against the sand once again.

"I don't want to die." She whispered frantically, "I don't want to be eaten, or caught by a land dweller, or—!"

"Hello? Is someone there?" Leia froze in her frenzied flailing, and stared up the beach in horror: a land dweller.

Leia had heard stories about land dwellers from some of the other mermaids. Land dwellers were strange, vicious creatures with odd habits and rituals (or so she had been told). "If you ever run into a land dweller," her older friend, Forella, had told her, "swim away as fast as you can, because if they catch you…." Her friend had let the sentence trail off, but the point had been made, and Leia found herself thrashing more furiously then before.

"O-oh my."

Leia froze; he'd found her! She closed her eyes and covered her face with her arms, bracing herself for the worst….

…Only to feel a pair of hands lift her carefully up off the beach. Shocked, Leia opened her eyes, and looked up at the land dweller curiously. The man was certainly no looker by any means, and he was sort of scraggly, and at a first glance, his appearance might have scared her, but…

…his smile was kind, warm, and inviting, and Leia found herself unable to think that a man—even a land dweller—with a smile such as his would, or could possibly hurt her.

"Hello there." The man greeted, his tone strangely soft, despite his voice's obvious gruff undertones, "What are you doing here?"

"I-I…washed up on shore," she admitted, shivering slightly, unused to the temperature of the above-water world, "I couldn't move, and I didn't know what to do…"

"I'm not surprised," the man told her, "I don't think you'll be able to move around even in the water with that tail."

"What?" Leia looked down, and was surprised to see red blood streaking her tail and torso; in her panic, she hadn't noticed the pain, or the injuries when she had washed up on shore… and her thrashing had probably only aggravated the wounds even more. "OH… oh dear, how am I going to swim with this tail?" she asked sadly, her hands clenching in fright, "What am I to do…?"

"I can patch you up if you want." The man offered unexpectedly, "I can't just put you back out to sea looking like that. I have a rather large bathtub in my basement that could accommodate you while you get better."

Leia stared at him in shock. "Y-you'd do that for me?"

The man blushed, "Ah, well… It's the right thing to do, isn't it?" Leia continued to stare. "Well, do you want to stay with me until you're better or not?"

Realizing that her staring, and unresponsiveness was probably coming across as rude, Leia stuttered out her reply quickly, "W-well yes, I-I'd like that very much… but… why are you being so nice? I've always heard that land dwellers are cruel…"

The man shrugged, "Some of us are I suppose… but not all of us. And everyone in this little town is pretty nice, so you probably picked one of the best places in the world to be a marooned." Walking carefully, as to not aggravate her injuries more, Daryll made his way up off the beach to where the sand ended, and green grass began. "Oh, and I'm Daryll by the way." He added as an afterthought, "Forget-Me-Not Valley's very own brilliant scientist." He told her in a matter-of fact way, holding his head up in pride, "Hopefully you'll find the tub to be accommodating."

Leia giggled at this introduction, and merely smiled up at Daryll. "I'm Leia." She replied, "And I'm sure your bath tub will be just fine."

As way of reply, Daryll merely gave Leia one of his rare smiles. And at that moment, they both knew that it was the beginning of what would be a good, but unusual friendship.

A/N: I've always loved Daryll… even if he can be a bit weird at times. If Daryll was a marriageable bachelor in the games, I would have married him over all the other guys, hands down. It seems as though I always fall in love with the fascinating, but mostly undeveloped characters of Harvest Moon, like Daryll, Dr. Hardy, Cody, and other interesting, but highly underappreciated characters…

Also, I'm opening myself up to requests: If you have some sort of short Harvest Moon one-shot you want written, put a request in your review. I'll probably only take the first couple of requests (not that I'm expecting an overwhelming pool of requests to be coming in…). It could be a small prompt, or whatever you want. I have a few half-written Harvest Moon one-shots stored on my computer, but I haven't the inspiration to finish them… so fresh ideas are welcome.