When the golden sun was already hanging high in the sky, Omelette the chicken snapped its beak towards a fleeing worm as her breakfast dived back into its hole for safety. While she and her feathered companion Scrambled Eggs had adjusted to their new life on this farm, it was unfortunately repetitive. Day in and day out, they were confined to the same wooden pen with the same rope used as a noose to keep the chickens fenced in. It was dull to have the same scenery before you each and every day. She sighed and nudged the gate with some effort as she did daily in hope the noose would slip and it would give way to her freedom.

And it did.

11111

Roxy adjusted her glasses and gave out a long, restrained exhale through her nostrils. Despicable. Just despicable. She gripped the handle of the feather duster and prodded the lump on the bed none too softly in the rib.

"Nick." When there was no answer, Roxy poked harder. "Nick. Wake up."

"Hnrghwha?" The young man rolled over onto his protruding stomach and blearily opened his beady eyes. With one arm, he groped to his right on the nightstand until his hand grasped the glasses he needed to see properly. Slipping them on took more effort. "What's goin' on?" He asked in a single slurred drawl.

"I need to clean. Get out." The young lady jabbed a thumb over to the open door. "It's one in the afternoon already. How long are you going to sleep?"

Nick smacked his lips together before letting out a drawn-out yawn that made Roxy grimace and back away from him defensively. "Call of Booty marathon last night. Was awesome…"

She snorted and rolled her eyes at him, putting her hands on her hips as she did so. "As expected from a loser like you, Nick," Roxy remarked. "Staying up watching your stupid cartoon porn."

"Actually, you are referring to 'hentai', but that was not what I was watching," Nick pointed out. Using a bit of momentum, he managed to roll his body right off the bed and land clumsily onto his bare feet. "It is about five beautiful women who are looking to find the right man to fall in love with. They just happen to have big boobs." He looked down upon himself to see that he had fallen asleep in his wrinkled t-shirt and jeans. "But why're you here? I thought you'd be in the woods by now with Mitch."

"I'm not because he wants to visit Miz Sophie today alone." She made a face that made Nick shrug nonchalantly. "He wanted to talk to her about coming around more often or something."

Roxy was going to continue, but Nick held up a hand to silence her. Sniffing the air, his tone was curious with a hint of alarm attached to it. "Do you smell something burning?"

"Nooooo!" A heart-wrenching screech made the duo jump a few inches in the air. Roxy darted past the door with Nick at her heels, but she stopped almost immediately, causing Nick to stumble into her.

Ed limped out of his room, thin curls of black smoke flowing towards the ceiling like an upside-down river. He staggered a couple of feet before falling dramatically to his knees with a hard thud and clutching his fists in frustration.

"Failure," he bellowed to the heavens. "Complete, utter failure!" He shook his right fist towards the ceiling and rolled his eyes back. "Why is life so cruel to those bestowed with ingenious minds?"

He was answered with a feather duster to the face.

"ED!" Roxy roared. "You made a mess again, didn't you?" He cowered at Roxy's oncoming wrath, each stomp of her foot signaling that she was getting closer to suffocating him nice and slow.

"You look really pretty in that maid outfit today," he squeaked.

11111

"Yeeeeek!"

Aly flailed her hands and let go of the furiously flapping feathered creature she had managed to capture only moments before. Scrambled Eggs made it down to the ground and clucked her beak at the female human aggressively with her feathers stuck out this way and that.

She protested, "I can't do this!" Stomping her muddy boots in a tiny circle, Aly ended up facing the escaped chicken anyway. "Why do you keep flapping your stupid wings?" Again, she made a quick lunge and grabbed at it, only to grasp its legs. The chicken retaliated and cuffed Aly on the cheek with its wings. "Stop moving," she screamed, trying to keep the thing at arm's length while feathers barraged her endlessly and claws scratched desperately at her fingers.

Her brother stood there with his arms crossed. Inside, he was shaking with mirth, but he wiped whatever smile had crept onto his lips off of his face. "This is your fault, Aly. You didn't secure the gate. It's the only way."

Aly held on while the twins slowly made their way back to the farm after an exhausting trip around the village. "This still isn't fair!"

"One down, one to go," Eli called out to her, making the poor lass wail. "We haven't found Omelette yet!"

"… I see you're handling things well."

The twins stopped dead in their path upon seeing Ben pause mildly in his mid-afternoon stroll. He shifted the stack of documents he was holding and made a small nod towards the escaped bird. "You have poultry on the loose?"

Amidst the angry clucking and the sound of ruffling feathers, Aly carefully hid the chicken behind her back even though Ben had already made a mental note of it. "Two chickens," she uttered in the tiniest voice.

"Ah, then that shouldn't be much of an issue," Ben smiled icily. "Unless there are already some poor villagers suffering from injuries caused by your chickens. After all, being pecked and scratched at most certainly would not make anyone's day, now would it?" The young mayor gave a slight chuckle at his unappreciated joke. "However, if you had any cows or sheep, I would imagine that you would have to pay for all the damage caused to private and public property, as well as footing the bill for any medical issues that spring up. All of that aside, the farm is going well, I would assume?"

"It's, uh, it's coming along," Eli blurted nervously. He shifted his weight to one foot and avoided Ben's piercing gaze.

"Splendid. I was actually going to drop by later to tell you that our Spring Community festival is tomorrow."

Scrambled Eggs pecked and vigorously flapped to be free, protesting her position with the loudest clucks she could muster.

"We compete with the four other villages in the area by having our local farmers present the best crops and animals of the season to be judged. It is a way for the villages to interact and mingle once every season, to promote a sort of unity, so to speak. Eric, the shipping man, should be at your house by six tonight to pick up whatever chicken you choose to be judged tomorrow. As you don't seem to have cows…" Ben trailed off for a few seconds before bringing his attention back to the subject. "You bring one of each crop you've grown to the community plaza yourself tomorrow morning, since vegetables are the freshest when picked at the last second. The festival starts at nine sharp, but I expect you would need to be there by eight to set up and get yourselves acquainted with the other farmers."

Ben paused to allow the noise of angry chicken to fill the tense atmosphere.

"If you head directly west and follow the path for an hour, you'll happen across the lake. The plaza's right next to it."

It was here when Ben looked at the two newbie farmers with eyes that screamed for them to do him an impossible favor. "Can I count on you to make Kestrel proud?"

The twins glanced at each other uneasily at such an expectation. Nevertheless, Eli turned from his sister and nodded solemnly.

"You bet you can."

11111

Mitch looked like an elephant trying to sit on a glass of water. Despite the absurdity, he occupied the only other available chair in Sophie's house, and he was not going to sit on a floor that was riddled with wood chips and flecks of paint.

Gratefully, he accepted the cup of lemonade. "Thank ya, lass. I don't suppose there's a chance a bigger chair could be made, could ya?"

The wood whittler smiled faintly, tracing the rim of her own glass thoughtfully with a finger. "I do not think so… Even if I did, you would have to sit outside if you wanted to be in it. It would be much too big to fit inside."

"Well now," Mitch chortled, "Never hurts to ask." He changed the subject soon enough. "You not comin' down to the festival tomorrow? Grand interestin' sight to see, with them twins in their first competition."

"Mm, no, I think not." Sophie took a small sip of her lemonade. "There's… lots of people around, and…" She shrugged, despite Mitch's urging to continue. "I can't bring Sandy with me, so Sandy would be lonely. Wouldn't you, Sandy?" Peering up at her from her feet, the canine gave out a single soft bark in agreement.

"That's right, dogs aren't allowed, since they'd be scarin' the animals and all," Mitch complied. "But still, Miz Sophie, we haven't seen ya around since Spring Thanksgivin'. T'would be nice if you'd, uh, come aroun' more often." He looked around at the tiny wooden cabin. "Fresh air does good. And ya gotta be tired of only havin' me for Sunday company, no?"

Sophie wordlessly heaved her shoulders while Mitch took a drink.

"But, I mean…"

The broad-chested man glanced at her as Sophie began to speak.

"People are not very nice there. They… They always look at me, and…" She clutched her glass in her hands, the memory of attending the last Community festival fresh in her mind. "They do not understand… They always ask me so many questions and stare at me when I… when I talk to them. If they don't talk to me, then they avoid me and talk about me when I am not there."

Mitch's gaze softened. He knew all too well how Sophie felt cornered the more people talked to her, like a little bird in the company of street cats. How they regarded her as not being normal. And whatever is not normal, you become wary of.

"They do not think I am one of them because of the way I talk." Sophie stiffened her back in her chair and frowned into her drink. "They pity me. They try to console me when there is nothing wrong… They tell me they feel sorry for me, and look at me like I am some two-legged dog!

Even their children make fun of me."

He parted his lips to speak, but there were no words that could be said.

"You just speak differently because you have an accent, Mitch. People may not understand sometimes, but they still see you as Mitch, you know?" Sophie struggled to say words at a faster pace, growing frustrated at having to carefully pronounce every syllable. "They don't see me as Sophie. They don't… They never see me as Sophie." She glared at him defiantly with misty eyes, daring him to challenge her, daring him to tell her that she was wrong.

What do you say to a two-legged dog too frightened to venture out of its cage?