I totally own Harvest Moon...no, no I sadly don't...

Author's Note: To some folks, Steiner is also called Skye... Sorry, but I'm gonna use Steiner...Gots to a admit, sounds a whole lot cooler -

...

Arching up her abdomen to the sky, Keia gaged and coughed all the same time, her eyes snapping open into widened spheres. Her nails dug small tunnels in the dirt and grass as air flooded into her lungs. Water dripped off her clothing while hair cling limply to Keia's skin, forming a small pool in the grass around her.

As the cold air hit into her lungs, her brain began to function out of the foggy mind set the frigid water had lulled her into. Pain shot through her nerves as her body once again registered the cold spring evening air.

I...I'm alive...

Rolling to her side, still gagging on the left over water in her lung, Keia glanced up to the new noise around her. Another person was gasping for air, though not as violently as her.

No more than three feet, Steiner lay on his own side sucking in as much air as his lung could hold on each breath. What frightened her the most however, was the fact that his eyes lay shot open the entire time. Directly. On. Her.

"W...what are...you looking at?" She managed to shout out between breaths, her violet eyes turning to glares locking with his. Boy oh boy, would Ciro be proud of her...or would he think of her as stupid for not running like he had told her? Didn't matter now, too far into the game at this point to retreat.

"S...stupidity!" It was Steiner's turn to narrow his eyes at her. "How...idiotic are...you?!"

Ouch, so much for the perverted gentlemen act.

"Honestly...Risking your...life for a...a...necklace!" Steiner's voice was raising in between pants to an escalated shout.

"Then give it back!" Keia shouted right back to the glowering man. She even extended her dripping arm with the once baggy sweater, now clinging pathetically to her wrist. Her face stated it all. 'Give it back and you might live.'

Scoffing, Steiner slowly sat up and began to wring out his shoulder length hair. Honestly, what a woman! "One track mind..." However, the thief's glare was short lived as he turned to Keia with a small grin. She visibly shuddered at it, but swore it later to be the frigid temperature mixing in with possible shock. Hell, she was so not a doctor.

"Alright, Princess... You can...have it back on one condition..."

Keia herself soon was in a sitting position, unlike the man before her though, she left her back long hair dripping in her face, making no attempt to move it.

Way to look like Samara, Keia...

"What is your, 'condition' ?" Her narrowed violet eyes made no move to break her glare as Steiner went to soon flick some bangs out of the way.

With a smile Keia could only describe as pure evil, Steiner leaned forward. "You can have it back... if and ONLY if you pass my test..." He smirked as she folded her arms over her chest with a darkened glare. "Simple test actually...however it seems no one has ever passed it, let alone get as far as you."

Nodding, Keia motioned for him to go on, still in charge of her glare.

"In half a year, I will find you...Please don't give me that look, Princess, I have my ways..." He added after Keia's growling, teeth barring appearance. "Once I find you though, you have to let me stay with you until new years the next year..." He smirked at her new appearance of horror. "But if not, I would just as gladly keep this necklace as my reward for saving your life."

Paling, Keia soon shifted into a glowering stance weighing her options. Until the new years of next year would put her at just leaving Flower Bud Village, meaning Ciro would never know, thus leaving her in the clear for an easy existence. If she ignored him, and oh boy she planned to. "...fine..." She grumbled folding her arms with a glare that could probably crack a gargoyle into crying. But nope, not this guy.

"Great! Now, princess..." He clapped his hands together as if it was Christmas at her father's home. "Let us get you to a place where you will come back and out of shock and the cold." His smirk sent more shivers down Keia's spine instead of the cold!

Stumbling to her feet, Keia glared at Steiner jumping to his own. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, was this guy like, super resistant to the cold or something?! The soaking brunette quickly pulled her arm back when Steiner made an attempt to steady her and spit back a "Don't touch me, ever!" Instead, she began walking down the pathway that had led her to hell and back.

Oh sweet sheep of Zanzibar, Ciro... Why the fuck didn't I listen to you...

As she turned to go down the pathway towards the inn, she was cut off however by his arm in front of her. Sending Steiner a dirty glare, Keia simply got a shrug back. "The inn is closed...but this farmer should be nice to help...you at least..."

Glaring at him, Keia stormed into the farm to the right, getting moos from "alarm cows" or something from the field to her right. A swift breeze though cause the girl to instantly freeze up and yank the back of her sweater down. But Steiner's laugh behind her cause Keia to twitch, realizing it had been too late to prevent the inevitable.

"Interesting tattoo you have there... Forget Princess, Butterfly is much better for you!"

Keia grumbled darkly flipping him off over her shoulder and marching up to the door. With a swift fist, she knocked on the door then folded her arms watching the lights flick on and muffled footsteps on what sounded like carpet. "I hope you are happy, Steiner... Cause I will make your life a living hell..." When she got no response, she spun around blinking for the silver haired man. "Steiner?"

But alas, he was no were to be seen and light had flooded out around her as the door pulled open.

"Oh, you poor thing, what happened to you?!"

Spinning around, Keia stared as a blonde woman that could out beat her cousin any day in body and possibly brains stood with both hands on her cheeks in a worried stance. Behind her, three other girls sat up from their current sleeping bags and a little girl sat on the bed with a tilted head blinking.

Laughing nervously, Keia did what every intelligent woman did in the situation, she rubbed the back of her soaking head laughing nervously. "I, um...fell in the river on my way into town?"