So maybe Angela had exaggerated. Collecting rainbow recipes wasn't actually as hard as she made it out to be; that little pissant was just so arrogant. If Gill cared so much about the island's welfare, then by all means, she would be pleased to let him fill the recipes for her.
Despite herself, the farmer still felt just a bit guilty making him do all the work; and so, she found herself tilling the land for an extra row of spinach seeds in the pouring rain. Angela always did have a tendency to pick the worst days to be ambitious.
On the bright side, Angela had made a tidy profit from Stalin's latest coat of wool and purchased a 'miracle potion' for Bess who was now happily pregnant and giving perfect milk. She even had a chicken, Tito, for added monetary security; or, more frequently, a free breakfast. Maybe it was time to expand her little operation and price out more land? It couldn't possibly be that much.
Angela wiped some stray water from her forehead as a crash of thunder echoed in the distance. Stepping backwards, the farmer briefly surveyed her land. From the muddy soil to her fledgling pumpkins, everything was in order; unlike her shack.
Even freshly upgraded, it lacked central heating and somehow managed to leak during particularly fierce rainstorms. She had also neglected to buy any appliances other than her minuscule oven. Needless to say, it all contributed to the countless hours Angela spent at the Inn.
Angela's stomach made a very pronounced protest. Frowning, she lugged her hoe back to its resting place in her barn and made off towards the Inn.
It wasn't a long walk; however, the slick streets forced an already accident prone Angela to exert extra care. Despite a few bruises, she managed to make it to the Inn relatively unscathed.
Ignoring the mud plastered to her body, Angela grasped the slippery door handle and shoved open the heavy door. She was greeted by the familiar warmth and the smell of fine cuisine.
"I've never seen you before. Are you a new worker here?" Some man with apricot coloured hair made his way towards her with an unsettling smile on his face.
"Er, yeah. I'm Angela; I'm attempting to run a ranch down in Caramel River District."
"You're running a ranch? Good luck. Anyway, I'm Chase. I'm Yolanda's apprentice cook." His smile looked like it was about to break under some metaphysical strain at any moment.
Glancing desperately for a polite way to excuse herself from his company, Angela's attention focused on a familiar figure only a few feet away. Dressed in his eccentric overcoat, he was rather hard to miss. It took only a few seconds for Hamilton to notice her and when he did, the result was better than she could have imagined. His chubby little face lit up and he began to wave rather emphatically.
Naturally, Angela smiled and waved back with just as much enthusiasm and excused herself from Chase. Making her way over to the mayor, she was oddly unsurprised to find her heart beat just that much more frantically.
"H-Hello Mr. Hamilton!" she managed to choke out.
"Angela! How very nice to see you, my dear! Don't be shy, pull up a seat right next to me here!" he laughed; the sound was unique to men of shorter stature and chubby structure.
Angela giggled rather dimly and did as she was bid. The farmer tried incredibly hard to contain the blush that was threatening to make its way across her face. Hamilton was oblivious to her plight.
"So, I've noticed you and Gill are becoming rather close! That's excellent! He could use someone such as yourself. The poor boy has been so shut in. Ever since his mother died, I've done my best in raising him, but I can only do so much! He needs a positive female influence." Waffle Island's mayor was smiling, though it was a drastically different from Chase's hollow one. The smile was nostalgic and sincere.
It tugged at Angela's heart. However, no matter what lied in the past, she could only feign so much interest in Gill. She could help him somewhat with his aspirations involving the island, but in the end he was cold and calculative; hardly the type of man she was after.
There was no way she could tell poor Hamilton that she wasn't interested in his son; and she was, in fact, more interested in the mayor himself (having come to the conclusion some time ago). There were, understandably, certain complications that stood in the way. Her heart began to sink.
"...I understand." Angela answered; her voice foreign to her own ears.
"How wonderful! I hoped you would!" The stout man was positively beaming once more, causing Angela to feel guilty all over again.
She hoped Hamilton didn't take that as her declaration of love for his arrogant son.
"I should, um, be leaving now Mr. Hamilton." Angela pushed herself up from the chair and gazed resentfully out the window where the storm was getting progressively worse.
"So soon? Well, don't be a stranger now! You're welcome to visit anytime!" Mayor Hamilton's face fell, though his smile did not vanish.
"...Thank you. I'll see you later." The farmer made her way out the door without a backward glance and woefully without a meal.
The sky had grown dark during her time indoors and lightning had begun to rip through the sky. Angela was drenched beyond reasonable belief; though it was, admittedly, her own fault. Trudging by the street lamps the thought finally occurred to her that maybe, just maybe, she should invest in a rain jacket and patch up things up with Luna while she was at it.
"Let me guess, a rain coat, right? You're the third one today." Luna looked frustrated.
"Yeah, and about the Firefly Festival..." Angela started.
Luna sighed and shook her head. "That's why I hate cocktails. I shouldn't have been dumb enough to let you force me into drinking them."
Angela frowned and watched Luna's cotton-candy hair bounce from hanger to hanger on the rack; no longer feeling the need to apologize.
Luna abruptly pulled a seemingly random jacket from the line and tossed it at Angela, who slid it over herself.
A perfect fit and it even looked good; freaking Luna. She drew out the allotted money and placed it on the counter in front of Shelly.
"Thank you for your patronage!" Luna grinned.
"Thanks for the coat," replied Angela before sauntering out the door.
It was only three o'clock; the street lamps were illuminated and the sky was dark. Time seemed to be moving obscenely slow.
Angela began walking across the cobblestone path, face down and transfixed by the rain bouncing increasingly high.
"Angela," a distinctly male voice caught her attention. "What do you think you're doing out here?"
She looked up and found herself staring into a pair of cold blue eyes. Regarding him blankly, she considered her options and decided to just ignore the irritant and keep walking.
"Angela. You're going to catch a cold." He sounded frustrated.
"Probably." She kept on moving towards the edge of town.
"You idiot, you can't possibly mean that."
The farmer didn't even grace him with a reply. She just wanted to get home, as far away as possible from anyone.
Gill didn't attempt to follow her.
During the next week, Angela had decided to make a genuinely balls-to-the-wall attempt at farming. On top of growing her regular six or so rows of crops, she invested in twelve more. Instead of saving up for feed for winter, the farmer cut stacks upon stacks of fodder and increased the amount of time she spent with her animals two-fold.
Needless to say, retreating to life as a hermit was very beneficial to her farm and, indirectly, her rainbow recipe gathering.
She had yielded not just one, but three perfect spinach, produced red wool yarn, and found a frozen banana in the back of her fridge. Angela was even lucky enough to be given a blue wonderful by some kid in the mining district and the only thing that was missing was a saury; fishing never was her forte.
Eventually, she'd have to leave her encampment; the Art Festival had already eluded her and she was in desperate need of more land, even temporarily, having maximized her crop output. To be honest, she had not really planned the road ahead and while she was making money on Waffle Island, she was leading a rather mundane life.
Angela had always known her crush on Mayor Hamilton was doomed to failure, but what she hadn't realized was the distinct lack of other options. Her prospects on the island were rather dismal; and while she didn't exactly miss the city, she didn't know how much longer farming would satisfy her.
First things first, the farmer needed more land and that required a trip to her new least favourite location.
Putting aside her feelings, the farmer hopped her pasture fence and proceeded to take the longest route possible to Waffle Square.
Angela trudged down the dirt path, eventually winding up along the beach. After a few more minutes of walking (and pondering how much sand would inevitably wind up in her sole pair of shoes), she found herself near the entrance of On the Hook. From there, she made her way down the familiar Waffle Town path and up the stairs that led to town hall. It took all her resolve to actually push through the familiar doors and slap on a look of confidence.
Elli was stationed in her usual area behind that counter as Angela began to make her way over.
"Oh, Angela! Is there something I can help you with today?"
"Actually, I was wondering how much it would cost for some land by the town?" It must have been a shocker for poor Elli, she rarely had a purpose after all.
"That plot costs 4500G. Would you like to buy it?"
The farmer set the money on the counter with a smirk. Elli took it with a gentle smile.
"Just one moment please, I'll need to have you fill out some forms..." The receptionist ducked and began rooting around for what Angela assumed to be the paperwork for her new land; from her new vantage point, Angela could now clearly see what events were transpiring in the town hall.
Gill and his father were talking rather animately just out of her earshot. It was comical really, Hamilton was positioned stiffly in a chair behind a rather elaborate desk and Gill was moving his arms up and down exasperatedly.
"They're discussing the Harvest Festival plans. Though, you'd never guess with the way they're going about it." Elli chuckled and handed her a few papers and a pen. "You can use the desk over there near the door or fill them out in the library if that's more comfortable. Just bring them back to me when you're done."
Angela nodded and decided to fill them in the upstairs library; it allowed her to avoid the mayor and his son, and she had never actually visited the library.
She soon found out why she had neglected to visit the library; it boasted a dismal amount of books, yet was oddly cramped due to the space taken up by the school room. The area in its entirety was a woefully forgettable place.
Papers in hand, she slowly pulled up a chair at one of the desks at the far end of the room and began filling in information with her back to the stairs.
The questions were rather standard; her name, birth date and an added few regarding how she planned to use the land and for how long. None required a great reach of her mental capabilities, but paperwork was always a tedious task for Angela.
A chair beside her squeaked under the weight of a new occupant; Angela pretended to be absorbed in filling out the sheets of paper. The man cleared his throat causing her to stare blankly into his eyes.
"Angela." He frowned.
"Congratulations Gill, you learned my name. You may now pass go and collect two hundred dollars." She rolled her eyes and continued to scribble on the page. What could he possibly want now? To give her a lecture on personal responsibility and ask why she was frolicking in a thunderstorm last week?
Gill made a frustrated grunt. "I've been meaning to ask you, have you finished the rainbow recipe?"
"No."
"What are you missing?" He pressed while drumming his fingers along the desk.
"A saury." Angela replied as she finished filling out the papers and rose from the chair. Gill, stubborn as ever, stood as well.
"Stop running from me. I want to help the island prosper. This is the only place I have ever known and the only place I want to live. I want the children that grow up here to feel the same." He sounded sincere and there was an oddly desperate look on his face.
She supposed that ignoring him this time would just be akin to kicking a puppy. Putting aside her personal grievances, Angela sucked up her pride.
"What do you want me to do? I have no talent for fishing and frankly, I have a farm to run."
Gill shook his head. "...If I get you a saury, will you finish making the rainbow?"
She was planning on making that rainbow anyway, but this did make things far easier.
"I suppose that could be arranged..."
In what was quickly becoming a regular morning occurrence, Angela awoke to someone knocking with an odd amount of vigour on her door. Quietly, so as not lead her mysterious knocker to believe she was indeed home, she pushed off her blanket and padded over to the calendar.
It was Fall 27, the Harvest Festival. Hamilton was later than usual. Maybe if she ignored him, he'd go away.
After the tenth knock, she assumed he had finally given up.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she made her way over to her pathetic kitchen and flipped through her equally pathetic recipe book. It sported one sole entry: potato soup.
Digging through her admittedly disgusting fridge, she managed to find two potatoes from the previous spring. It wouldn't matter, right? It was just soup. Shrugging, she tossed them in the pot and within the hour had what she presumed to be a decent dish for entry in the cooking festival.
Having left her animals out the previous night and deciding to shirk her crop tending for the day, Angela figured she actually had a reasonable possibility of making it to the festival on time provided she left right now.
As it turned out, there really wasn't a need for her to rush to Brownie Ranch. The competition didn't start for another hour and entering a dish had effectively trapped her at the ranch until the judging began.
She didn't feel like shopping or participating in some odd game thought up by a resident, so Angela wandered around desperately searching for anyone she knew well enough to start up a conversation with. To her chagrin, Kathy was enthusiastically participating in the town's favourite hobby, shopping. Owen was nowhere to be found (not the she knew him that well anyway) and Luke was similarly missing in action.
Meandering around the barn proved to be relatively pointless; until she caught sight of Luna rounding the other path. Lacking any other options, Angela attempted to casually walk over and start a conversation. Since Luna often seemed to have a one track mind (not unlike Angela, really), she decided fashion was a relatively safe topic.
"Hey Luna, is that a new dress?" Unfortunately, Angela was woefully inept in the art of tactful conversation.
Luna stared at her blankly before answering. "Yes. I'm surprised that you noticed, actually..."
Luckily, Luna was an excellent conversationalist. They spent the next ten minutes discussing the finer points of the dress and how the colour simply brought out her eyes and drew attention. Angela apparently gave all the right answers, as the pink-haired girl seemed quite enamoured with the topic and even managed a few smiles. However, even Luna could grow tired of the same stale topic.
"So, Angela, have you met any nice men here?" Luna asked with a sly smile spread across her face.
"Not exactly. I could ask you the same thing." Angela attempted to dodge the question.
"Well, there is one. It's not a big deal or anything though. It really would be nice if I could find a prince here, though."
"Good luck finding that. Maybe I'll abandon my dreams of farming and just marry a rich, old tycoon from the city." It wasn't a far stretch, really. If she couldn't find a nice man, she had better find one that was filthy rich.
"Hmm. I think money is actually an important factor when looking for a husband."
"I was joking, but--"
Angela was interrupted as the judging announcement blared across the fields, calling all contestants and gathering most of the townsfolk; including Luna and herself.
"Good luck." Luna whispered.
Angela fidgeted as Yolanda and Chase made their way to the podium. Actually, as it turned out, Chase was also entering a dish. It was hardly fair, but there was little she could do now.
Slowly, the pair made their way along the table sampling every dish and writing notes down, expressionless. That is, until they made it to Angela's potato monstrosity; even the most stoic couldn't stand a chance against it.
Yolanda's face contorted as she furiously scribbled something in her notebook; Chase was reaching for a garbage can. Angela couldn't suppress her merriment. If she couldn't win, where was the harm in bringing them down with her?
When both were finally done judging and announced the winner, it was hardly a surprise that Chase won; sneaky bastard and his shining dishes. Angela came in dead last.
However, both judges more than likely also came down with food poisoning; which was good enough for Angela. Having wreaked enough havoc for one day, Angela collected what was left of Potato Soup.
According to Chase, it was more than likely an already semi-conscious being. Since she couldn't bring home her friend the cat from Maple Lake District, she may as well keep Potato Soup. It would be like a pet rock, only it could grow fungus.
"Well Potato Soup, we didn't win, but the important thing is that we tried our best." Angela smirked.
Once more, Angela awoke to the sound of someone banging on her door. With a yawn, she checked the calendar and noted the absence of any kind of festival.
"Angela! Open the damn door!" a frustrated voice yelled.
"Sorry, I'm naked!" Angela called; it wasn't a total lie, and she could have been. It served him right for demanding anything of her at six in the morning.
Gill responded by sighing heavily. Angela decided that her fun was over and trotted over to unlock the door.
"About time. I have the fish. Let's go." He turned back around.
"Hey, I have chores to finish!" Couldn't he grab some patience?
Gill frowned. "You have all day. Do them later."
After a few seconds of quiet persistence, Angela relented and followed him in silence all the way to Waffle Square; where, with some glee, Angela noted that he couldn't follow her along the rainbow.
"This could take a while, you know." She still had to search for Ben's badge.
"I'll wait." The blonde crossed his arms impatiently.
Angela shrugged and ran up and over the rainbow to the Gull Islands. Ignoring the fruit and other consumables she could sell for profit, the farmer made her way over to the Harvest Sprite and promptly gave him a good soaking before dropping her ingredients on him. Luckily for both parties, the sprite didn't take any offense and proceeded to craft a rainbow. He even had the badge.
As expected, Angela had no problems making her way over to the nearly identical twin island. Finding Ben's badge wasn't even that difficult; the item was shining obscenely and contrasted the sand.
Gill had better be satisfied, because she doubted she would be going through the hassle again. For what was sure to be the first time in her life, Angela meant it quite literally.