It had taken three grueling weeks of sweating, heatstroke and sunburns, but Angela's crops had finally germinated, thrived and been harvested. In fact, some of them were even perfect. She had finally hit the jackpot.
Unfortunately, she needed some animals to make her farm thrive since the end of Fall and Winter were less than hospitable to crops; which also meant she had to be responsible and not spend her money on drinks. Clothes, however, were a different story; she was one outfit away from pulling a Hamilton and walking around stark naked.
Animals came first though. While she had the cash, maybe she'd even invest in a coop too.
Money still couldn't change the fact that it was still god-awfully hot outdoors. Thanking whatever unearthly force might exist for the strategic placement of her hilltop house, Angela trotted down the overgrown path to Ganache Mine District.
As expected, she found Bo working tirelessly to chop down a tree that he no chance of bringing down and Luke was making less than flattering noises in the forest a short distance away.
Having intruded on other carpenter family rituals with less than desirable results, Angela used her better judgment and headed directly to Dale. As usual, she found him behind the counter, looking rather bored. Angela decided to remedy that.
"Dale. How much are coops?"
"Two thousand. Ten material stone and ten lumber. I'll throw in an incubator free of charge."
"Done." The farmer slapped the cash down on the counter and assumed Dale would know where to find the stone and lumber.
"Always a pleasure, should be done in two days." replied Dale, before he promptly kicked her out of his shop.
Angela assumed he was just eager to start on her coop and continued her scenic trip to Brownie Ranch. All in all, it was a rather boring walk until she rounded the corner and found Jin making his weekly rounds in the district.
He looked at Angela; Angela looked at him. Both said nothing; until Angela decided to break the tension.
"Hey there, Dr. Nice Ass."
Whoops.
"...What?" contrary to the word that came out of his mouth, he still looked rather stoic.
"Doctor Jin! What brings you to Ganache Mine District?" Angela congratulated herself on the nice save.
"I come here every week."
He neglected to mention why, not that it fazed Angela. She didn't really care at this point.
"Wow, that's nice. Have fun with that!" Angela bolted as far away, as fast as possible (while still looking sane).
Jin merely shrugged and continued on his walk.
---
"T-That much? It's a worm! That's more than my entire coop cost! Um, no offense, but what a rip-off. And those ostriches? Thirteen thousand? My house isn't even worth that much."
Hanna frowned. "Times are tough here too, Angela. Maybe you'd rather have another cow or a sheep? We also have chickens, they may be more in your price range."
Angela did a mental count of her accumulated profits and took into account the red wool her latest rainbow recipe required.
"All right, I'll take a sheep and some fodder. You sell produce too, right?"
"Yes. We have eggs, cheese, honey..."
Bingo. Dale did say her new coop had an incubator and eggs were significantly less money than chickens.
"I'll also take an egg." Angela counted out the money and dropped it on the counter.
"Thanks for your patronage. We'll put your lamb and fodder in your barn." replied Hanna, handing a suitably unimpressed Angela an egg.
Who was going to handle those hefty purchases? Craig? After a few seconds of pondering, Angela decided it didn't really matter and continued out the door and out of the district.
Now, what else did she need to do again? Well, she needed fill the rainbow recipe, but given that she was a deeply rooted procrastinator and most of the ingredients weren't in season until fall, Angela put that off. She could have visited the Harvest Sprites, however that task required far more patience than she had at the moment and Hamilton was more than likely out frolicking in an undisclosed location.
After a few minutes of pondering, she finally came up with a viable solution: the tailor shop. The farmer had never visited there since its arrival and her clothes were, frankly, disgusting and riddled with holes. Besides, she had an entire 3000G left to burn.
It sounded like a good plan, but after an hour spent walking back to Waffle Town in the blistering heat, Angela was about to pass out, again. She doubted she was lucky enough to come across another Luke to rescue her again, or that she really wanted another encounter with Doctor Nice-Ass today.
Screw it. Angela was close enough, she could tough it out.
Surprisingly, she actually did manage to cover the rest of the distance to the tailor shop and didn't even resort to taking a dive in Maple Lake District's stagnant pond or the ocean. It was entirely too tempting, though.
Nudging open the shop's door, Angela immediately felt a rush of...warm air. Didn't anyone here have air conditioning?
"Hello! Welcome to the Waffle Town tailor...Whoa, you really reek." a cotton candy haired girl informed her as she walked in the door.
"Yeah, well, I am a farmer and it is disgustingly hot. Anyway, I need some new clothes."
Pink-hair made some disgruntled noises. "...So, how would you describe your style?"
"I don't know, or care really. Look, I have 3000G. What can I buy that's slightly less disgusting and I can actually work in? You obviously know something about these things."
"Me? You want me to try and pick something out for you?"
Angela was just about to attempt a reply when the door opened again, revealing an elderly woman.
"Luna, what have I told you about bothering the customers? You're making her feel uncomfortable! Forgive my granddaughter Miss..."
"Angela."
"I'm Shelly. Pleased to meet you, dear."
The rest of Angela's afternoon was spent trying on various outfits picked out by Luna. Much to Angela's dismay, most of them were variants of the one she already had on, just in different colours. The day wasn't a total waste; she'd gotten a new outfit and spent enough quality time with Luna, Luna's quiet sister what's-her-name and their grandmother to last a lifetime.
Ignoring the call of the Inn, Angela began her unhappy trudge home.
Angela had completely forgotten about her sheep (and egg, for that matter) until she made her way to the barn that morning to feed Bess the cow and got the shock of seeing a foreign lamb in her barn.
Her farm family was growing and she had to think up a great name for her sheep, one that would stand out above all of Craig's at the annual Animal Festival.
"Hmm, your name will be...Stalin." Technically, he wasn't exactly a socialist (she had an inconsistent theme to keep to, after all), but it had a nice ring to it. Angela ignored the fact that she had forgotten to ask the gender of the sheep and was relatively ignorant on the topic of animal anatomy.
Not that it mattered; Stalin gave a bleat of approval anyway. Angela proceeded to milk Bess and hum 'Beasts of England'.
Bess wasn't nearly as compromising as Stalin and decided to give her a decent milk, looking about as surly as a cow could possibly manage. Angela wondered if that would change if she saved up enough cash for one of those cow 'miracle potions'.
Angela shrugged and sauntered over to the shipping bin, tossing her decent milk inside.
Since her mundane chores took an entire twenty minutes and she wasn't ambitious enough to grow anymore crops with Winter only a few days away, Angela decided her best option was...to sleep for a few more hours; waking up at 6am every day was exhausting.
Angela exited the barn, careful to close the door this time and proceeded to walk up to her house and nudge her paper-thin door open.
No more than five seconds later, the farmer heard a rather loud knock at her door, causing her heart to jump into her throat. Briskly, she turned around and wedged open the door, only to find nobody there.
"Good morning Angela!"
Angela craned her head downwards and was met by Hamilton's blinding smile.
"Oh, um, good morning Mr. Hamilton!" She put on her own blinding smile and added a little giggle for effect.
"Have you heard about the Firefly Festival? It's tomorrow night at Caramel Falls. Make sure you bring someone special!"
Angela smirked and took a deep breath. "So, Mr. Hamilton, what are you doing for the Firefly Festival?"
"Why, I'll be working, of course!" He laughed, oblivious to Angela's inference.
Damn.
"Why, that sounds exciting. Thanks for telling me about the festival."
"Of course, of course! It is my job after all!" He waved and retreated from her doorstep.
Angela cursed and slammed her door. Slowly, she trotted over to her bed and flopped on it, spread eagle.
Another knock resounded through the house, causing Angela to muffle a groan in her pillow and begrudgingly walk over to the door yet another time.
"Hello, how are you?" Again, Angela saw nothing. However, having learned her lesson, she looked down.
It was a mound of pink hair; otherwise known as Luna.
"Uh, hi. Can I help you with something?"
"Actually, I brought this for you." Luna whipped out an over sized flower unique to Waffle Island and handed it to Angela.
"Um, are you coming onto me?" Angela took the flower and put in her rucksack.
"Excuse me?" Luna looked a touch offended.
Angela thought it was an excellent question. After all, she'd barely known Luna for a day. Apparently she'd made some impact on Luna during their afternoon 'bonding' over functional clothing.
"I mean, do you want to come in for tea or something?" It wasn't as if Angela had anything better to do.
"Well, since you're begging me, I guess I could..."
After Luna had finished telling Angela what a dump she owned, Angela actually found herself having a relatively good time chatting with Luna. She talked about clothes a lot, and occasionally gossiped about the people in the clothes. Most of her comments were negative, but some of them, usually involving Gill's sense of fashion, were positive.
To each their own, Angela supposed.
"Are you going on a date for the Firefly Festival, Angela?" Luna asked, sipping her tea.
"No, are you?" Angela never really had a soft spot girl talk.
"I wish I were. I even have the perfect dress picked out..." Luna frowned.
Angela shrugged and gulped down the last of her tea.
"Well, we could always go together, you know. As friends or something."
"Hmm, well, I would get a chance to wear that new dress made with Fim's fall pattern... So, I suppose we could..." the pink-haired girl smiled.
"Excellent," replied Angela. "Do you like cocktails?"
As promised, Luna met Angela at Caramel Falls on Summer 24th as soon as nightfall began to permeate throughout the island. Angela, always prepared, brought a multitude of blueberry cocktails.
"Well, I hope more will actually show up later. I was thinking about making a firefly-inspired dress; it would be the latest in Waffle Island haute couture."
"Waffle Island has what now?" Angela took a gulp of her cocktail and handed one to Luna, hoping that wasn't illegal or something.
"Never mind. Geez, you are dense, even for a farmer." Luna took the cocktail from Angela's hand and downed the entire thing in one gulp.
Angela was suitably impressed. Needless to say, by the time the fireflies (or those blob things that Angela assumed to be the fireflies) made an appearance, neither Luna nor Angela could form logical sentences.
Luna giggled. "Wooow, they're so pretty! I just want to capture it and stick it on a dress!"
"Yeah, it'd be a v-very beaut... beautiful dress!" Angela agreed.
If both of them weren't so impaired, they probably would have noticed the footfalls that were slowly resounding only a few meters away.
"...You really think so? Reallly? You're so nice, Angela!" Angela figured Luna must have been hammered; she actually said something nice.
"Yeah...I-" Angela was promptly silenced; by something rather unexpected too.
Luna's lips. It was hardly her first kiss, probably wouldn't be her last, and in the end Angela decided it was just one more experience to add to her growing list. For some reason, she just couldn't shake 'The Bad Touch' song that was now on rewind in her head.
Aforementioned footfalls abruptly stopped and if either Luna or Angela were actually paying attention, they may have noticed a small, strangled sound of surprise.
Luna pulled away and regarded her with a flighty look on her face. "S-Sorry! Guess I just got caught in the moment!"
Angela was about to respond when something caught the corner of her eye a few meters away. Squinting, she actually managed to make out some ugly shoes, capri pants, and...
Her impaired eyes didn't need to wander much farther before she saw a very shocked expression belonging to a very blonde man.
Damn it, Gill.
"...It figures..." he finally muttered, his breath hitched.
"What are you doing h-here?" Luna was oddly unperturbed.
"...I can't believe this..." Gill shook his head, did a complete turn away from them and walked back down the narrow path to Caramel Lake District.
Angela tilted her head to the side and faced Luna again.
"I t-thought guys were usually into that sort of thing?"
Luna merely shrugged and downed another cocktail.
Angela hoped neither of them would remember any of this in the morning.