Somehow, Molly managed to keep her affairs secret, for an entire day. By the next morning, word had traveled through the sprite grapevine (Molly had no idea how, those little buggers were crafty) that she was meeting the Wizard. As far as Finn was concerned, this 'meeting' meant she had a gentleman suitor. Because she had a gentleman suitor, her marriage was imminent, as was an unavoidable pregnancy eventually resulting in Wizard-spawn. Molly wondered if the Harvest Goddess frowned on birth control or something.
"Molly, you have a date tonight! Maybe there's hope after all..." he buzzed, as he informed her for the third time, having received no immediate qualms the first couple times.
Molly heaved more eggplants into her shipping bin. "It's not a date! I'm just taking Mr. Kitty home and that's all. Wizard's going to have to try harder than that! Besides, his magic-pants aren't really my type." Try as she might, her mind was on other things anyway. Her eggplants were netting her cash, but not nearly enough and trying to calculate the correct figures made her brain burn.
"But Molly, you're old! You should be thinking about settling down and starting a family..." Finn protested, and Molly sorely wished that he had the ability to stay quiet or sleep longer or had some other recreational activities that didn't involve what she got up to.
"I'm not that old! I thought you were still stuck on the 'Molly, save the island' thing not this new 'Molly, make some babies' thing and what's gotten into you?"
"Well, um," Finn fluttered anxiously around Molly's head, "I don't know..."
"Finn! Spill!" Molly jabbed a free finger at his tiny chest, which he expertly avoided.
"I just think that if you had children with the Wizard... Well, you're all crazy and he's so mellow... We've talked about this before!"
He wasn't even in it for Molly's happiness or the good of the land anymore. This wasn't even close to all noble tripe Harvest Sprites were supposed to spew! "You think that somehow, someway, either the Wizard will take me down a peg or, my," Molly gulped, horrified, "kids will somehow be more evened out than me?"
Finn mumbled a rather strained sound of agreement.
"Well, that settles it!" The farmer proclaimed, walking over to feed her ingrate of a cow.
"You're going to marry the Wizard and have lots of super farm babies?" Finn brightened considerably.
Molly thrust the doors of the barn open, purposefully, causing a moo of surprise from Bess. "No way!" she exclaimed. "I'm going to go find Luke, knock him out with a big rock, drag him back here to my woman-cave and seduce him right away! And we, meaning Luke and I," Molly leaned down to whisper in Finn's tiny ear that was floating conspicuously close to her face, "are going to have the most awesome spawn ever."
Finn went slack-jawed and looked absolutely terrified. Molly greatly enjoyed these magical moments and savoured this particular one for a few more seconds before her epic finish. She grinned menacingly.
After a few moments of tense silence she closed the door and ploughed on. "And you can babysit for us! D'you think my kids will be able to see the Harvest Sprites? I mean, that is hereditary, right?" The farmer held her chin, pondering exactly how magical things transferred from parents to children.
The sprite heaved a gigantic amount of air into his tiny frame, and exhaled slowly. He did this for several seconds, without tears, before Molly very nearly started to worry. She didn't really enjoy Finn's company most of the time, but that didn't mean she wanted the little guy to keel over!
Suddenly, without warning, he let out a monstrous bellow of grief and promptly flew over both her and her eggplant pile. Molly congratulated herself on a job well done, closed the shipping bin lid and skipped merrily off to meet the Wizard.
The sun was still high when Molly arrived at the church grounds, and she was pleased to be arriving somewhere on time for once. Unsurprisingly, she was usually the perpetually late party on social outings. However, this time she was darn excited trying to take home the cat!
And she had also misjudged the time, and was forced to meander around the island for much longer than she had hoped, but she was excited now that she was here anyway!
There was no sign of Mr. Kitty anywhere yet, but she hadn't really looked all that hard. The farmer was more enamored by the whooshing noises and things that she typically didn't notice. How close were they to the ocean, anyway? She could hear it roaring pretty good from up here. Molly peered disdainfully at the long, long drop off the stone ledge to the most likely rocky shore below.
"...Did you wait long? ...For me?" a masculine voice inquired from behind her. Molly cursed the sneakiness of wizards, catching her all unprepared and contemplative!
The farmer whipped around. Her caller was oddly close, almost bordering on impropriety at less than arm's reach away! She chalked another point up on her mental scoreboard for sneaky wizards.
"Well... I mistook what time it was and hung around the town for around four hours, so yes, I suppose I did wait long! Not that it's your fault or anything though!" Molly stared wistfully at the sky, lamenting on how exactly she squandered her time downtown. Not that she had anything better to do after her morning chores.
The Wizard inched closer. Molly inched away.
Wizard looked at the sky, brooding. "You can see many stars here... At night."
"Well, yes, you can't exactly see stars during the day." Molly began to think maybe he was a little dense. "What about we go find my cat now?"
"Molly... How do you feel about stars?"
"Um, they're pretty and junk?" Molly attempted to look brooding and mysterious too, but suspected she looked more like a dork than usual.
"...We're similar, you and I," the Wizard interjected.
Molly could feel an idea bursting forth. "You mean we both like cats!"
"...Yes. I suppose that we do..."the Wizard looked slightly downtrodden and Molly couldn't fathom why.
"Right! So, um, let's find the cat!" The farmer sprinted ahead, wondering why he was getting close anyway! Weren't mythical people like him supposed to be like, suffocated by the presence of humans or something? He was oddly touchy and close by mythical-being standards.
"...I've seen him, near those bushes closer to the church before..." Molly heard Wizard comment from behind her and she commenced bolting towards said bushes. She was beyond worrying about startling her cat-buddy at this point! It wasn't the first time she'd done this, after all.
The farmer commenced searching through the foliage, carefully pawing at branches while she knelt in the dirt. The Wizard joined her, slightly farther away, though she noticed his face was red. Maybe he was getting sick. Molly wondered if magic-y types could get fevers. While she was pondering this strange revelation, the Wizard suddenly extracted a bundle of black fur from the bush. Molly thought she could hear purring and assumed it was the cat; otherwise maybe Fin really was right about him making the moves on her! Purring was rather forward though.
"Would you...like to hold him...?" Wizard cradled the cat in his arms. Molly always thought cats hated being held in funny positions, but it didn't seem too perturbed and the Wizard carefully plopped the feline into her waiting arms. Finally, she had a cat of her own to go with her other collection of eclectic animals.
"Molly... Thank you for coming."
"No problem! I'll give this guy a good home! He'll be safe and warm and happy... I won't have to worry about mice and things either!" she cuddled the purring mass of cat.
"Yes...I'm sure he will be...very happy." The Wizard smiled. Molly was shocked to witness such a rare occurrence. Usually, she'd punctuate her amusement with a jibe about his face falling off, but it hardly seemed appropriate, for some reason. "Perhaps we should leave now."
Molly nodded, oblivious to the implications of 'we'.
As it turned out, Wizard insisted walking Molly and her new pal home, which Molly found entirely unnecessary, a complaint she voiced numerous times. This wasn't the city with horrible people and murderers! Not that she was saying murderers weren't horrible people, they were just an ultra special type of horrible person that deserved their own classification! Or something.
Molly decided to do what she did best: protest. More. And louder.
"It isn't that far, y'know. Plus, chivalry is dead! Then again, for all I know, you've been alive long enough to remember the dark ages." She pondered as they walked down the path to her farm.
Wizard looked a little perturbed by that. "I haven't been alive... That long..."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you don't look a day over one-hundred-and-something, right? That still doesn't answer my other question! You're being as stubborn as, well, me!" Usually Molly would pause and listen for a retort from Finn, but he had been mysteriously absent for most of the day.
The Wizard looked torn. "I can be... quite stubborn. Do you not want me here... that badly, Molly?"
Now Molly had gone and done it. She'd crossed the threshold of being smart-mouthed and come off as rude. Not that it didn't happen often, per se, just that she wanted some friends here in Castanet and you don't exactly make or keep friends by being a gigantic jerkface.
"No, no! Of course I don't mind! Did I say I did? No... It's just, um, strange! Coming from you and all." she replied, flustered.
"I didn't think it was so odd to you... I apologize." the Wizard informed Molly, monotone as usual.
Molly glanced quickly for an out, but her farm was only just coming into view and she doubted that sprinting there and leaving Wizard squarely on the dirt road would make her seem like an even better person. She thought about the ways she could possibly mend the conversation until she assured herself it was his fault for being dodgy in the first place. Not to mention this conversation was going in an awkward enough place anyway.
"Geez, it isn't your fault, don't apologize." She sighed, "I just sort of wanted to know why, that's all. People where I come from don't just walk you home out of the goodness of their hearts! I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to like, corner me and turn me into a frog or some fancy food, whatever wizards and witches do with people! I guess it's not like you'd tell me if that were the case anyway..."
The Wizard chose not to answer that particular statement. Slowly but surely, Molly was certain he was learning the strange social survival tactics that came into play when she was around. The ball of fur in her arms was blissfully unaware of any altercations happening around it. Needless to say, the farmer nearly leapt at her front doorway as soon as she came close enough to make it seem appropriate.
"Yeah, so..." Molly rubbed the back of her neck, trying to think up a suitable way to ditch the Wizard, "Thanks! Um, bye!" She fiddled with a key in her pocket and scrambled to open her farmhouse door.
"Molly..." the voice behind her uttered, softly.
She swore, trying to force open her door as she adjusted the cat in her arms.
"Molly. Listen..." the voice told her more firmly this time.
"Yes? What is it? I can't seem to get this thing open..." she continued to fiddle, cursing whoever made the door so darn hard to open. Didn't they think about owners trying to beat a hasty exit?
The Wizard grabbed her shoulder. Not roughly, but enough to startle her into actually looking in his direction. Molly searched her repertoire for something to make light of the situation, but couldn't find a single thing to say.
"Is something... Wrong?"
Well, other than her needing to save the entire island, no. But he didn't need to know that. In fact, she much just preferred if everyone thought she was jittery and weird, of her own making, than pawn it off on fantastical island creatures.
"Not exactly, no. Aren't I always like this? What about you, getting all handsy! Sheesh..." she stared at him pointedly, wondering if she should attempt the lock again.
He looked slightly put off, and red again. Molly chalked it up to the mutant wizard-cold.
"Molly..."
"Yes, that's my name! You're saying it an awful lot today. Pretty soon you'll speak without stuttering and I won't know what to do with you!" the farmer informed him, feeling less obliged to barge through her own door.
"...You should...visit me more often... I enjoy your company." Molly noted that even his ears had turned a nice shade of pink. Molly wondered if this is the part where he was about to blind-side her with a blunt object in order to cart her away to somewhere. Possibly to ravish her, if the raunchy romance novels she used to collect were any indication.
After a few moments, it became obvious that the Wizard was really just waiting awkwardly for some sort of approval. Molly decided to abandon her skepticism and give him an affirming nod. "I'll visit your smelly Wizard pad lots and lots! But I still need to get this door open..."
The Wizard seemed pleased. Molly assumed it was because he knew her well enough to confirm this interaction as a nominal step in their odd, cat-finding partnership. With a sense of purposefulness, he brushed past her and turned the knob. The door hadn't even been locked. In her odd urgency, Molly had somehow managed to make a jumble of opening the finicky object.
Flustered, Molly made a few interesting noises before mumbling something that resembled a 'thank you' and turned to push the door open.
Wizard interrupted her by striding toward her, planting a peck on her cheek. His face was such a bright red that she could almost swear she could feel the heat radiating from him. Luckily, she was saved from any nonsense she may have uttered by Wizard bidding her farewell and making a hasty retreat down the path to town.
Molly mumbled something about violating personal boundaries and plunked her cat down to acclimatize to his new surroundings. Finn appeared shortly after her arrival, looking every bit as smug as he could manage. Usually, Molly would find an expression like the sprite's disturbing; however, he lacked the height to set off the alarm bells in her head. She recently found that she had trouble taking anything that wasn't much taller than her forefinger very seriously.
"I saw that! I saw that! I knew it!" the farmer supposed Finn must have been excited; the cat was passed off as entirely unremarkable.
"Knew it?" began Molly, "How did you..."
"I watched!" the sprite proudly announced.
"You watched?" Molly had an inkling, but was entirely too alarmed to address her misgivings.
Fin beamed. "We all did!"
"You all did?" Now she was convinced. Really, what other being had the capability to probe into island life nearly so much?
"Yep! I went and saw the Harvest Goddess. We had popcorn and everything." Finn chirped, happy to be included in some sort of deranged sprite bonding experience.
Molly spent the rest of her evening contemplating if it was possible to get away with murder if regular humans couldn't see the victim. She found, however, that cats could indeed see the sprites and that they made fabulous, and cheap, cat entertainment.