Fairy Dust and Starbucks Cups Chapter 3
I do not own Harvest Moon or Starbucks Coffee of any related terms, products or characters.
Hello all. Back beating up my keyboard to bring you another late installment of Fairy Dust and Starbucks cups. Again, sorry for the lateness and shortness etc.
Enjoy, and thanks for your support.
Sometimes Hikari just liked to sit in a corner of the greenhouse, squat amongst the rows of sprouts and stacks of pots and piled bags of black soil and stare out at the town from the fogged windows.
She breathed in a fresh load of crisp march air, exhaled a faint white cloud that beaded more moisture on her woolly scarf. She clutched at her mug, filled with weak, cheap coffee and tried to feel the warmth through her flimsy garden gloves. Dirt had found its way in though the pores in the rubber-fabric, and had packed in the finger-tubes, hard, cold clumps that dusted her hands with silt when she removed them from her hands.
She spent her break watching factories and businesses billow pale morning steam from their smokestacks and air vents.
The shop itself was tiny, mazelike especially in the warm months with displays and arrangements of bright flowers.
Narrow rows of polished glass baubles amid the myriad flora segmented the shop, wall upon wall of old, blue-tinted refrigerator-display cases, their humming and buzzing an annoying orchestra.
The floor was tile, half-covered with rubber mats never free of spilled soil and water. The manager kept several clear vases of water in various shapes around the cash desk, each containing only a single fish. The one left of the register was a goldfish named Cecil, and a guppy, Frederick, swam listlessly in the weak not-quite-noon sunbeams on the windowsill across from a row of orchids.
Her breaktime expired; Hikari resumed standing behind the counter in her green linen apron, waiting like some sort of flytrap for customers to wander in. The day was going to presumably be incredibly boring, another piece of daily life she'd rather skip.
The Harvest King had taken to standing at the head of the meeting-table like some sort of bodyguard as the assembled magical beings spoke closely amongst themselves like wary birds. Rarely did he open his mouth at all; almost never did anyone address him directly.
The Harvest Goddess coughed behind a pale, slender hand, a pathetic, miserable sound webbed with mucous and phlegm. Her breathing was harsh, rattled deep in her chest.
It was no ordinary human's cold. The Harvest Goddess was plenty elderly, having lived through most of creation. It was simply that her power was running thin, the sacred marsh in which she kept her tree plowed down for development land. Saving that tree and replanting it had been a huge drain on her magic, and losing the pond that had been her home for so long hadn't helped.
Still, even though her condition was obviously poor, the Goddess was still effervescently cheerful, even as her giggles turned into gasping coughs and the vital blush drained from her cheeks.
The Harvest King held no expression.
Witch looked on the verge of sleep, lazily circling chunks of text on a piece of paper she had picked off the floor with an obnoxiously yellow highlighter.
Wizard himself had been messing around with a formula in his head, the proper ratio of this herb to that powder for an even consistency in headache potions. He wasn't often bored, what with all his books and research projects, but this meeting seemed to be dissolving his brain in tedium. He already knew what was going to happen, even without having to see into his crystal ball.
The meeting that day was really about finding a cure, or in the worse-case scenario, someone to inherit her ability.
The Harvest king had contributed nothing. Wizard didn't quite know what to make, since his power was directly dependent on the Goddess's. It worried him slightly…why wouldn't he want her to get well? Wizard couldn't read him and truthfully wasn't sure if he really wanted to.
And suddenly, he knew it, like a bolt of lightning down a metal pole. What if they could find someone with the innate purity and affinity for nature to nurse the plant back to health? Wouldn't that- by extension- improve her health too? But it seemed like such a foolish idea- Wizard had long ago learned not to trust people. What could they do? They were living one day, dead the next like a breath of wind. And so fragile! He kept his mouth shut and waited until the assembly passed him over in favor of the Harvest King. But his mind was working away, picking at the problem and trying to adapt his solution to fit it. Wizard was so busy contemplating that he hardly minded when Witch succeeded in firing a pretzel down the back of his shirt. He could see her raise her hand in a victory salute out of the corner of his eye, but for once didn't care. There were much bigger things to worry about.
Hikari shoved her empty thermos into her purse, and wedged the spare umbrella around it, preparing to leave. It had been a slow day again, only ten or so customers and a few arrangement orders. Her boss hadn't showed up at all, and neither had any of her co-workers.
She was apprehensive about going back to the secluded little coffee shop, and meeting that creepy magician-guy again. She took extra time inspecting the flowers, wiping up every molecule of water and spilt soil on the countertops, locking up with extra care, before throwing on her coat (still damp from the day before, despite having spent the night draped over the radiator) and heading out into the gray-orange twilight.
It was misty and nippy out again, but her drumming heart kept her sweating as she tried to recall the path to the little shop. Hikari really had no desire whatsoever to go back there. She felt like it was a place in which went on things she would rather not be involved in.
She eventually found it, recalling the boisterous bars and pubs surrounding the place, and walked up, intending to just drop the umbrella in the mailbox or leave it leaning against the door. The windows were dark, the curtains drawn, and the small coffee shop seemed devoid of presence.
Hikari pulled it from her purse and had pried the old brass lid of the mailbox up, when the door opened like the mouth of some terrible beast and a hand shot out and tightly grabbed hold of her wrist. Hikari couldn't make out the figure in the gloom.
Surprised, she gasped loudly, dropping her purse, and prepared to scream when another hand caught her coat and yanked her inside the dark entranceway.
These next chapters really aren't as dark as they seem here. They're pretty vital, and they're in Wizard's and Witch's perspectives! I love writing about them… Been stuck on a few writing projects lately, but I've also been forcing myself to write a bit. It's not very productive to just sit and wait for inspiration to just come jogging up the street and bump into you.
Thanks for your support as always.