Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon nor any of the characters. Also I haven't played Tree of Tranquility so I'm kind of improvising after getting hyped up and reading game summaries so any errors… were kind of planned for. I'm addicted to Harvest Moon games but I can't afford a wii.

I stumbled into the Kirsch in almost falling down in my attempts to get away from Chihaya who had just recently released his grip on my arm. "What the hell?" I snapped glaring at him from my position of catching myself on a table. He only raised his eyebrow at me as if to as "what could I have possibly done wrong?" in a way that showed he knew exactly what he had done.

"You don't want to work on a farm. Okay then," the strawberry blonde stated walking back toward the kitchen and beckoning with his hand for me to follow. "Then you can work here part time."

I blinked stopping at the door and staring at him with a grimace. "You brought me all the way over here for that?" No answer. "Okay, I'm going then." I turned to leave but was caught by a firm grip on my wrist. When I turned back the deadpan serious expression he held almost scared me.

"No you aren't. Takeru and I discussed this and he agrees that you working the night shift with me is best. You won't get into trouble that way." Chihaya frowned then. "Though you'll probably find some way to cause problems anyway. You're a decent cook so you'll be helping me, but you have to follow orders and work hard. Do you understand?"

"Excuse me?" I asked my eyes widening. Follow orders? From him? The runner-up for Jerk of the Century award only beaten by Gil. I didn't think so. And why the sudden change in character?

"Back-talking me isn't going to save you. You don't have a choice so I would slap a cooperative mood in place before this gets difficult." My mouth fell open. What?! WHAT?! My expression composed itself more fittingly into a scowl. My brows drew downwards my eyes narrowed and the corners of my mouth threatening to plunge into a nasty sneer but I held it back. "You look ugly when you do that. Now I want you to dice some onions let them simmer a good fifteen minutes. Then I suggest in that time that you wait you work really hard on caramelizing some sugar for the desserts which you are in charge of. If you're wondering what desserts I'm referring to, surprise me. So long as it includes caramelized sugar because we have an excess of the stuff and we don't have that much room."

"I am going to skin Takeru alive for this stunt, and I may as well throw a pot of boiling water on you while I'm at it," I growled tearing my hand from him.

"Stop pouting, it's eight forty already and customers will arrive for dinner and late meals any time." With that Lucifer, disguised as a curly headed waiter, yanked me back into the fiery pits of hell and made me his slave. Jiji had returned from the bath after recollecting his clothing and had fallen for Chihaya in some un-romantic way. Every order the young man threw at me Jiji mimicked with a cynical tone. I hate the world right now.

I trudged back to the Souffle farm completely exhausted. It was three in the morning. Damn them for this. Sneaking as quietly as I could into the house I finally made it to their daughter's bedroom to find it… occupied? Someone lay in the bed breathing softly. I frowned. Where would I sleep? I know it was a rude question, but no one had informed me that the daughter would come back tonight. I sighed and shut her door as quietly as possible. Then I looked down to see that also my bag had been placed in the hall. A lump formed in my throat. Jiji was sleeping soundly in my bag as usual. He'd knocked out and almost fallen into a bowl of flour had I not caught him. Lucky little guy had had me worried to tears not all that long ago and now I was mad at him again.

I picked up my suitcase and carried it down the hallway, down the stairs and out the backdoor. I knew somewhere that would at least be warm because if I weren't so mad at Takeru right now I would have just found his room and crawled into bed with him, but I was mad and I was stubborn. Setting my bag just inside the barn door I ignored the cow's stall which already smelled awful and looked for the stall that had the horse with the white mane and grey speckles all over. When I found him I didn't bother opening the gate, that was too noisy. I just slipped through the bars that were a little higher up and landed on the hay. The horse wasn't asleep which didn't surprise me too much, but it was lying down. I smiled and held my hand out to him letting him see if he remembered me. Of all the horses I had bathed the other day, this one was the only one that was as friendly as he had been. He snorted through his nose in a way that made me think he was saying "just find a spot and go to sleep stupid."

Carefully leaning against him I didn't say anything because I didn't need to. Soon I was out like a light and the last thing I thought about—with a smirk at that—was that they would have lots of fun trying to find me in the morning.

When I woke up I felt something soft and then something wet on me. Disgusted my eyes flew open to see it was only the grey horse from the night before nudging me with his nose. He was standing up while I was still laying on the hay. I struggled to sit up and cursed myself for doing this. I was sore all over… and I smelled like animal.

"Well good morning little one," I heard and looked up to see Taylor peaking through the bars with a grin. "Did you sleep well with Tachi here? He's normally rather grumpy."

I rubbed my eye and glared at him with the other. "Pestering me this early after yesterday is probably not the most intelligent move I've seen anyone make. What time is it?" I grumbled.

"I see, so the two of you are the same." He paused and then he opened the door to the stall. "Right now it's probably about ten twenty or so…"

"Yay," I muttered.

"So how did you get in here with him and him not trample you to death?" Taylor asked as the horse made an obvious effort to back away from him. I stared at "Tachi" in thought. I didn't know I was special. He didn't back away from me. So I shrugged. Taylor laughed as he put fodder into a little bin the corner. "I guess he's a one person horse then. He's pretty timid most of the time but he's charged people before and he has reared up like he planned to do something bad. I've never given him a chance though."

I looked at the horse that was now changing the weight in his feet back and forth, back and forth. I could tell he was thinking rather fondly of darting out the door so guess what I did. I grabbed a handful of his mane and pulled myself up as best as I could onto his back. Giving him a little nudge with my foot was all he needed. He bolted through the door so quick it surprised me. I smiled and turned my head just before we were out of the barn. "I'll bring him back!" I yelled.

Taylor appeared in the doorway not long after scratching his head. It made me wonder if anyone had been able to ride this guy before. To be honest I had no idea how to ride a horse. All that I knew was hold on for dear life at this point. Not long after we had started bounding across the small grassy lot in front of the barn we were on a road and mind you I wasn't steering this maniac at all. How could I? I didn't know how to drive a horse. I now wondered if I would be able to hold to my promise of bringing him back to the barn… "Genki desu ne, Ta~chi~san?!"I asked singing his name. I knew he had to feel a lot better than being cramped up in that stall all day long.

"Ugh, what are you doing human?" I heard and looked down to my purse where Jiji was peeking out with wide eyes. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HUMAN?" he repeated holding onto the bag as best he could. I snickered.

"I'm being nice." I stated.

"Why are we on a horse?!" the little sprite yelled.

"Because…" I really couldn't think of a good excuse. I couldn't say I'd wanted to do this really because I had just done it without really wanting to or not wanting to so there went that excuse. "We just are," I concluded.

Then a determined expression came across his face. "Well while we're on this horse we need to collect ingredients. Tell this horse to go to the nearest apple tree."

"Apples?" I questioned and the speed at which Tachi was loping sped into a full on gallop. I screamed and threw my arms around his muscular neck. Apparently this horse knew what an apple was. He was probably fond of them too. Actually… I was fairly positive by this point of being bounced around recklessly on his back even with my attempts to stay attached that he adored the fruit.

We flew by someone near a building and I didn't really get a good look at them, but that didn't mean I didn't hear them. "What's the hurry?!" they shouted. I turned my head to see a taller guy with dark hair peeking out from beneath a bandana and what looked like an axe slung over his shoulder staring after us.

I shook my head and turned back to face forward in case we were headed toward anything perilous. Along the way I noticed what looked to be a mine shaft… well that's a little creepy. I wondered if anyone had been killed because it collapsed. I had always heard awful stories about mines. "Is there really an apple tree this far out?" I questioned and Tachi snorted as if telling me off for wondering about his sense of direction. I laughed. "I get it. I get it."

Sure enough only a moment later we came upon a tree that brandished apples on its branches. It wasn't terribly big, but the fruits were ripe and I secretly wondered how that was possible being that apples were a summer fruit not fall—not to mention that it was getting rather late in the fall and very close to winter's start. This whole island was just… weird, from its name to everything that seemed to happen. The people were strange, the animals, the fact that I had found out about Jiji was enough to make me wonder how I hadn't lost my mind yet. Hell, this place had me and Takeru weird too. It was cursed. Yep, that's what I decided in the moment. This place was cursed so that everything that it had any contact with was made topsy-turvy and just downright wrong.

I slipped off of Tachi once he came to a stop at the foot of said tree. Reaching up tenetively I plucked a crimson fruit off of a branch and tossed it in my hand noticing it wasn't as heavy as it looked, at all. I handed it to Tachi who left drool all over my hand when he took it. Disgusted I wiped my hand as best as I could on the tree's bark not wanting to wipe horse spit on my clothes even if they were dirty from having been worn for FAR too long. Then I plucked another apple from the tree and handed it down to Jiji who stuffed it into my purse with him. That's when I just gave up. What the hell, I would pick a few more. Who knows maybe I could make an apple pie today… or better yet! I was going to prove to that jerk Chihaya that I was a better cook than him. Stretching my shirt so that I could carry apples in it like a pouch I filled it up, somehow managed to get back up on Tachi without falling off or dropping any of my new fruits, and then we headed off—at a much slower speed—back toward the Souffle farm so I could get cleaned up.

As we passed back by the same tall bandana wearing guy from before I thought he was going to run out in front of Tachi to make us stop. "Hey!" he called with a grin hopping the fence after leaving the enormous axe wedged in a decent sized stump. "Hey!" He stopped beside Tachi who had flicked his ears back in annoyance.

"…Hey?" I replied looking down at him from the rather large horse's back. He couldn't have been older than myself I noted looking at his face and surprisingly bright amber eyes. His grin grew a little wider and he extended a lean arm toward me. I stared at it for a minute before catching on that he wanted me to shake it. I did so hesitantly.

"So you must be one of the new farmers I heard about. That was some serious riding you were doing earlier. I'm Luke. I work in carpentry here on the island with my dad and a friend Poen. Of course he's off doing business the next town over today or he'd be here to meet you too." Then he paused and I was waiting for him to take a breath seeing as he had just spit all that out in a steady flow without breaks. He seemed to be observing me. "Y'don't seem like the type to do farm work to me. I've never seen anyone so tiny… well besides Roomi, but she's just as prissy as she looks."

"Honestly," I sighed. "I don't want to be here. I'd rather be back at my old job but this is good for my brother so I'll deal."

"Well, we should be done with you guys' house tomorrow." Luke still hadn't let go of my hand and it was getting sweaty and gross.

"That's great, but uh—" I looked down at our hands. He followed my gaze and immediately recoiled.

"Jeeze, I'm sorry," he said genuinely. "I kind of forgot about it." Luke smiled sheepishly. "So how are you liking Waffle Town? It's pretty boring eh?"

"At times," I answered in all honesty. Tachi pawed the ground getting impatient. "Maybe I can come by again later… before work or something. I really need to take a bath."

The pink that formed in Luke's cheeks was something I decided to ignore. "Uh—yeah, sure. That's no problem. What time will that be?"

I looped my fingers into Tachi's snow mane again. "Maybe three or four?" I offered. "That way we can finish talking. I really want to hear about the house. This guy wants to get back."I motioned to Tachi.

"I should still be out here then actually so it shouldn't be a problem. I've got double work since Poen's not here." He shrugged and threw his thumb back over his shoulder toward a rather large tree that was laying in the field he had just been in. "I've got plenty of time to wait."

"Okay. See you then," I stated and before either of us could say anything else Tachi took off. I squeaked at the sudden movement and clutched tighter to the edge of my shirt which held the apples. Behind me I could hear Luke laughing rather jovially and were I not totally occupied with not dropping the fruit and trying not to fall off I would have turned around to stick out my tongue. I was happy though. I had met a genuinely nice guy, not my type at all, but a nice guy none the less. I could imagine that he was the loud type though just from his rather cheerful demeanor even making a horse stop so he could talk to someone. He more amused me than annoyed me.

Back at the Souffle farm I pulled a little larger of a bag from my suitcase and wrapped the apples in paper towels setting them inside while I grabbed a fresh set of clothes and headed to the bath. I had given up on skirts for now—mainly because I had run out of them—and pulled out a pair of baggy cargo pants some roughed up grey tennis shoes and a navy turtle neck. When I was done with my bath which made me feel so much better self-esteem wise, I took a hair band and attempted to pull my hair up. Though I hadn't been in an irritated mood before, I was now. Damn hair was too short. I let out my breath slowly to try and calm down and just left the hair tie on my wrist until I wanted to drive myself crazy again.

Taking my dirty clothes and putting them into the plastic bag in my suitcase with the others I grabbed my purse and my bag attaching my purse to my waist as usual. Jiji sat on my shoulder smelling of mint and ginger and I had the feeling he felt a lot better too. "So, are you still going to talk to that boy Arika?" he asked quietly.

I nodded. "Yep."

"What about the rainbow?"

"What about it?" I retorted heading out of the barn door since all my things were still in there. "I'll get it done. Don't worry."

Jiji was quiet. "I never got to tell you the other night, but the Harvest Goddess told me to tell you something else." I waited. "She said that… that you had the fate of the island resting on you and that if you failed it would be catastrophic."

"And you omitted that part why?" I grumbled now walking on the path that Tachi had taken earlier that day. "It seems kind of important."

"I know, but it's a little hard to remember that I was supposed to tell you that when you've got me half naked," the sprite spat defensively.

I shook my head and grinned. "Pervert. Why would I ever be interested in you that way?" In the end just before we reached the field where my new to-be-friend was chopping away Jiji and I laughed for a long time. When I heard the chops I stopped laughing and waved. "HEY!" I said.

The young craftsman looked up and a grin that put the sun to shame spread out over his face. "Hey yourself!"