Chapter 19: An interesting weekend on the farm

[May 2373 AD – POV Timotheus Mellark – District Twelve]

Since I had spent a day with Rue after a visit to Dr. Aurelius together with her grandparents, more weeks passed, and the planing for the hydro power storage plant proceeded. There were still several sites available as a potential location, and we were busy checking out the various aspects advertising one site or another. This process was going to take months; not only did we have the check the conditions on the surface, like elevation, flora and fauna, but the geologists needed to drill into the ground and get samples, and a study needed to be done to estimate what kind of rock we would most likely encounter when drilling the holes for the pipes and installing the generators. If necessary, some of that could be done above ground as well, though, depending on the environment.

I liked this kind of work, really. I could spend my time outdoors for most of the time, I could have Rex with me almost all day long, and I did not have to talk much – perfect. I admit that the rainy days were not so nice, but even those had, with proper clothes of course, a certain charm, and a couple of times I got a chance to admire a beautiful rainbow. After all, there was no such thing as bad weather, but one could have issues with improper clothes or insufficient equipment.

My tasks were quite varied. On some days I assisted in making plans and detailed maps, on some days I helped the geologist to reach steep cliffs with climbing equipment, and on some other days I hiked around with the botanists and zoologists to identify the various plants and animals in the region. Rex helped to find some of the rarer animals, and he also served as early warning system once or twice when we got close to a bear by accident.

One specific and remarkable day had started with bright sunshine, and two botanists had embarked on what they intended to be a full day trip to collect more specimen in the area. As was required they had left a copy of their intended route at our main camp, but around noon some clouds showed up, and an hour later there were very dark clouds on the horizon. It appeared that the weather forecast for the day had missed that, as bright sunshine with only few clouds had been predicted for the entire day. I knew the two botanists, and once they were busy with their plants, they were unlikely to watch out for weather changes. They had their packs with emergency foul weather gear with them, but they might get into trouble by not finding their way back to the camp as soon as the storm and rain started. I had learned at school that earlier generations, prior to the Great War, had had satellites in earth orbit helping with navigation, even multiple systems, like GPS on our continent and Galileo in Europe, and even small mobile devices had been able to calculate their own position very exactly based on signals sent out by those satellites. Eventually we might have that again, too, but for now, we'd have to get along without those systems. For today, the best navigation system I had access to was my dog Rex, and he had surprised me before with his sense for position and pathfinding.

Thus, as soon as I learned and noticed that the weather was likely to change from sunshine into rain and storm within an hour or so, I grabbed my own set of foul weather gear, my backpack, and called Rex. I told the others that I'd find Joseph and Maria and help them to get back here.

Those names – Joseph and Maria – were a running joke in our camp. We all knew about the names of Jesus' parents in the Bible, of course; considering that the two were actually engaged, every once in a while somebody teased them with something like "be prepared for your fiancée to become pregnant even while being a virgin". The two were very patient and good-natured people, and I guess that they had known what to expect when they decided to become engaged. I left the camp and hurried to find them in time.

I took a shortcut to the area where I estimated the two of them to be, judged by the plan I had seen, and after about one hour I could see two people from a distance. They were taking samples from the ground and having a closer look at a few beautiful flowers, and they had not even donned their foul weather gear yet. Right at the time when I saw them, from a few hundred meters away, the sun vanished behind a very dark cloud, and a gust of wind hit them from behind. They looked up, without seeing me at first, and seemed to be shocked to see the dark clouds. A few minutes later I was with them, and they asked right away:

"Timotheus, how did you find us out here?"

"Well, you left your trip plans, and I do have Rex with me after all. But, I guess that you have not looked up much recently, right?"

"No, I guess not, but the weather forecast was sure that we'd have sunshine all day long!"

"Yes, I know, but it's a forecast and not a certainty."

"Of course we know that, but those fascinating flowers over here..."

"I understand, but considering that we're going to have a rainstorm coming up, would you consider getting your foul weather gear out, so that we can hurry back to the camp?"

They finally got it and did as I suggested, and five minutes later we were retracing the way I had come. When we were half way home, the storm broke lose and visibility dropped down to mere meters. I had already unpacked one of my climbing ropes and made sure that all three of us were tied together; even in this rain I would not consider it inconceivable if Maria and Joseph found another fascinating plant and got lost again. Rex was now on a long leash and followed his sensitive nose; even with my own tracking skills I had trouble seeing the path now, but Rex knew exactly where to go, so that we reached the camp forty minutes later.

Soon we were all sitting in the big trailer which served as shared living room, and Rex was getting special attention from the two botanists. We human beings helped ourselves to bowls of hot soup from a large pot, and my wonderful canine companion got a large bone with plenty of meat still on it.

We spent a few weeks at that location, and I was only at home for the weekends. During the first weekend off I relaxed mostly by playing computer games. My twin cousin had helped me to get state of the art hardware and also recommended proper titles some time ago. Our preferences were almost the same, so that I recently also focused on the reworked 'Elder Scrolls' series.

A few times we actually played together, using a special multiplayer mode, but most of the time it was each of us individually against the bad guys. There were quite a few NPC companions available, though, and when one saw one of the prettier ones up close, they looked so very real and attractive, specifically in HiRes and with the holographic 3D display.

Ruth turned out to be quite interested in my gaming activities. I had turned down the violence level by switching off blood effects and such, and as I tried to spend most of my time exploring and talking to NPCs, I did not see any harm in allowing her to watch. With her at my side, or sometimes on my lap, she was in charge of whom I was supposed to meet or better ignore. More often or not she had a feeling about NPCs being helpful and trustworthy or not, and specifically she defined which female NPC I was allowed to kiss or even marry in the game.

We got into a regular habit to have the girls play sessions every other week or so, connecting to my twin cousin's account and have a girl from his youth group, Corinna, play together with my sister Ruth; for that we used a special violence free version - 'Skyrim Preteen Special Edition'. The two girls were about the same age, and despite the different native languages they managed to somehow communicate; Tim S and I helped out when needed, and a translation subtitle generator helped a lot, too. We had a video chat running in parallel to the game, and watching the girls together was quite a sight to behold; I enjoyed watching and supervising that a lot.

Ruth's favorite race in the game were the Khajiit, a sentient bipedal cat race, and for her last birthday I had arranged a kind of a doll to be made for her which looked like a Khajiit, about Ruth's size too. The Khajiit doll was made to look like a Khajiit girl, and Ruth adored it; most of the time she slept with her 'pet'. I had asked her once if she would have preferred a male Khajiit doll, and her answer had been very clear:

"No, I am too young to have a boy in my bed. For the time being, I am going to snuggle with girls only."

"But, Ruth, you sometimes come into my bed, and I am a boy!"

"No, Tim, you are not a boy, you are my brother – this is different."

I chuckled when I heard that statement, and I guessed that it was was different all right. Anyway, at least in those games I could be the young and strong hero who had females of all races and ages swarming around him and always knew the proper things to say and to do, quite unlike real life, unfortunately.

For the second weekend, as the location I had been at during the week was just further out from Kirchheim and the Jones farm, I spontaneously decided to visit the farm on the weekend. I came back from the potential future plant site on Friday afternoon in my own vehicle, and I simply turned into the narrow road to the farm when I saw the small wooden sign with the name "Evergreen Farm", as I had been told the farm was called.

When I had parked the car close to the farmhouse and let Rex out of the car, Mrs. Jones came out to welcome me, and I was invited to stay for dinner and, if I wanted, for the night as well. She told me with a smirk that Rue was in the stables with the horses, and I went to look for her, with my dog at my side. When Rex saw her, I allowed him to run ahead, and suddenly Rue felt a presence next to her. She looked around, saw Rex and knelt down right away to hug and greet him. Only then did she realize that I must be here as well, and she looked around. I stepped closer to her and opened my arms, and in no time she jumped at me and hugged me tightly. A few minutes later she asked:

"How long can you stay?"

"Well, if your grandparents allow and have a guest room ready, I can stay for the weekend, until Sunday afternoon."

She looked a little off when I mentioned 'guest room', but smiled. Together we walked back to the farmhouse, and I asked her grandparents if they'd allow me to stay for two nights, until Sunday. Rue's grandmother sighed and replied:

"Just the right time, actually. For the last days, Rue's nightmares have been quite bad again, and we'd really appreciate if you could handle her for two nights, so that my husband and I get some real sleep for a change."

"Are you ready to be 'handled' by me?" I asked Rue with a smirk.

"Always, Tim!" she replied, looking quite happy with that.

"About your dog," Rue's grandfather now cut in, "can you please make sure that it does not go after our various animals here?"

"Don't worry about that" I responded. "Rex is a trained ranger rescue and guard dog, and he knows exactly that he may only hunt when I allow him to do so."

As this was my first visit to the farm, I was shown around after supper, and I noticed that the buildings were quite old and partially poorly maintained. It also looked like part of the farm chores were done with animals rather than machines. When Rue's grandfather went for a quick walk with me outside, we passed some smaller fields, and I noticed a type of grain I did not know. I was certainly not an expert on farming, but being part of a baker family, I had picked up some knowledge not only on baking, but also on the plants related to that. Mr. Jones explained:

"This farm has a tradition to grow various types of grain. Besides the normal wheat and rye, we grow 'triticale', which is a cross breed between wheat and rye, and 'einkorn' and 'emmer', which are wheat variants; my grandparents managed to get some special seeds from Europe, and they seem to grow well in the fertile soil here. There is only a very small market demand for those, but this has been a tradition since my grandparents started the farm here."

"Wow, that sounds interesting."

"You are interested in that?"

"I am not sure if Rue told you, but my uncle and my brother run a group of bakeries. In particular, my brother Peeta has a rare gift for baking, and I have heard him complaining about the quality of the flour he gets quite frequently. I wonder if he knows about those types you grow here. By the way, which mill do you use?"

"My younger brother operates a small mill not far from here" Rue's grandfather explained. "Without access to that, we couldn't afford to actually keep going, as the big mills charge too much for us."

I took a few scans of the grain with my tricorder, and as dusk was close, we walked back to the farmhouse. Rue and her grandparents started to yawn, and I understood that they were looking for a polite opportunity to call it a day. That was just fine for me, so that I suggested:

"Look, it has been a long day for me. May I please be excused to get to sleep? And, which room would you like me to use?"

I had a pretty good idea where I was supposed to sleep, but politeness dictated that I needed to ask; even with my lack of social skills, I knew about that.

"That's easy. With Rue's nightmares, you'd better stay with her in her room, unless you insist on getting a separate room. She's been asking us for weeks already to allow that whenever you came to visit, and we know that she needs you. She will lead the way – good night!"

Okay, that was that. I followed the little girl, and I was shown into a large room, which quite obviously belonged to a girl. There was a narrow bed with a bright pink comforter, a big wardrobe for clothes, a set of shelves with books, and a desk and chair for school work. No bathroom was attached, and Rue explained that the bathroom was across the aisle. The whole room smelled like Rue, and this was not uncomfortable at all. The two windows were framed by nice curtains with colorful dragon prints on them, and when I looked at them, Rue giggled and admitted that she liked to read fantasy stories, specifically those with dragons appearing:

"When I read one of those books about elves, dragons, and other mythical creatures, I can always pretend I am in that world, too, and forget about problems in the real world. I feel like I am special, rather than just being a small girl with problems."

"Rue, you are special, also in this world!" I just had to tell her. "And, by the way, I like stories about dragons and elves and all that as well; there's nothing at all wrong with that."

"You do, really? Most people think it's childish and my fantasies goes wild."

"No, not at all. There are even adult people writing stories about dragons and such for other adults. For instance, I like reading fantasy stories about a spaceship getting to a planet far way, and they genetically manipulate small flying lizards into big fire breathing dragons, and there are dragon riders and all; this is so totally cool!"

"Wow, maybe I want to read those books as well."

The girl looked around and mentioned that we could get a larger mattress out from storage if the narrow bed turned out to be a problem, but I told her not to worry. We both did our chores in the bathroom, and twenty minutes later we were in bed. Like we had been before, she was right on top of me, and in that position the narrow bed was indeed not an issue. Rue radiated pure happiness when I kissed her forehead to say good night and wrapped my arms around her. Just before I fell asleep I mused about my situation. I was not just allowed, but even encouraged to sleep with a thirteen year old girl; even considering the special circumstances, that was almost surreal, but apparently it was the right thing to do.

I did not recall much about my dreams, but I had rarely slept better, despite the narrow bed and the girl on me, which prevented me from moving around much. Normally, when I slept, I sometimes turned from one side to the other, and I usually managed to keep my favorite large teddy bear firmly in my arms. When I woke up in the morning, I noticed that little Rue was still – or again? – firmly in my arms; she was still asleep, and I enjoyed the light and the sounds of early morning. I heard cows mooing and the sound of somebody milking them. I heard a rooster calling out multiple times, and more noises of nature. I was not used to a farm environment at all, but it was much nicer than city noise for sure. In addition, I had a sleeping beauty on top of my chest, and she still smiled even in her sleep, with her arms wrapped around my neck. Her mouth was partially open, and her long canines together with her pointed ears clearly made her look somewhat feline, almost like a Khajiit or at least Half-Khajiit in the 'Elder Scrolls' games, but that only added to the warm feelings I had for her and made her look very cute and adorable.

I took me some time to get it, but I actually felt fully at ease and at home in my current position, and while I had always been an early bird, I felt no urge to get up, as I normally would. I pondered my feelings for some time, and they kind of surprised me. Why would I feel so comfortable being in a foreign narrow bed, with bright pink comforter, and a load on my chest? Why had I slept so well without my usual teddy bear in my arms? Why did I enjoy to breathe the smell of Rue's hair, and why did I still have my arms wrapped around the girl's upper body? Why did I prefer to just lay back and enjoy rather than getting up, as I almost always did in the morning? I mean, this wasn't the first time I had a girl in my arms in bed. I had two younger sisters, after all, and specifically Ruthie had a habit to climb into my bed when she was sad for some reason or when she just felt like cuddling. When our grandmother, Mom's mother, had died two years ago, Ruthie had been in my bed for more than a week, looking for comfort, and I had always woken up with her at my side or on top of me, like Rue was right now. I dearly loved my youngest sister and still liked to cuddle with her whenever she wanted, but that was my sister, and Rue was not related to me. But at least Rue, despite being 13 years old, still had a little girl's preteen body; having her on top of me with a more developed body, like a typical 13 year old girl likely had – not that I knew very much about that, but Primrose was 16, so that I had a vague idea at least – would have been so much more difficult, or so I assumed at least, lacking any personal experience in that area. Primrose had stopped close cuddling when her puberty had started years ago, and Ruth would sure stop too, whenever she got there. Anyway, maybe there was no need to over-analyze the situation. I liked it as it was, Rue liked it, and her grandparents, her legal guardians now, seemed to be fine with it, too – good enough for now at least.

Some time later the door was slowly opened and Rue's grandmother looked in. I smiled at her and pointed to Rue; she understood that Rue was still asleep, smiled back at me, nodded and left again. Recalling the short conversation we had had on the evening before, I whispered a few times: "Rue, you are really special." She probably could not hear me as she was still asleep.

Half an hour later or so Rue started to stir, and when she opened her eyes and looked into mine, she beamed and looked like happiness itself. Her radiant smile reminded me of toddlers and how they frequently beamed when they had just woken up in the morning; I had seen that a few times when I had visited relatives and good friends. With a wide smile of my own I asked:

"How was your sleep, Rue?"

"Great – no nightmares at all!"

"Didn't you have any problem by myself turning around a few times in my sleep?"

"No, not at all. Rather the contrary – your occasional movements together with the steady rise and fall of your chest made me feel almost like I am in a cradle, and it was perfect!"

"That is good to hear; are you ready for breakfast now?"

"Yes, I guess that I am, indeed."

We got up, and when she was done in the bathroom, I also did my morning chores. Rue even invited me to use the bathroom at the same time when she was in there, but I declined for multiple reasons. Even with my own little sister at home I had stopped being in the bathroom together with her a couple of years ago. In my opinion, that was dictated by modesty and morality.

When I was ready, I entered the kitchen. Rue and her grandparents were there already, and the kitchen was an old farm kitchen, large enough to have a big table for eating in here, at least on work days. The older people were dressed in work clothes with brown and grey colors, whereas Rue stuck out; she had chosen a bright pink top and blue jeans, and yellow socks were visible around her ankles; her two braids were tied with neon green ribbons. This girl like bright colors, and they suited her well and harmonized nicely with the semi-dark skin, at least in my opinion. Grandpa Jones must have noticed me looking at his granddaughter for some time, as he eventually suggested:

"She is something for sore eyes, isn't she? She has literally enlightened our days since she came here. Now, what would you like to drink with your breakfast?"

"Black tea, please."

Rue smiled at me and commented: "I am glad that you don't also drink coffee. Coffee has such a horrible smell!"

Her grandmother looked at her and said: "Rue, how can you say something like that? Most people love coffee smell!"

"Maybe most people, but I don't!" she stated.

"Rue, same here, I also don't like coffee smell, honestly."

Soon we ate and were silent for a few minutes. After breakfast Rue's grandparents got back to work; even on a weekend, there was plenty of work on a farm, but Rue was asked to show me around more outside. As the weather promised to be quite nice, I suggested that we went to have a picnic somewhere, and Rue claimed that she knew just the right place for it. Fortunately, I had planned for that, and I had purchased some supplies on the day before, all wrapped carefully in my large backpack. At this time, though, I left the large backpack in my car for a later pick up, as we planned to explore the farm first.

[Author's Notes: For the grain types being mentioned – triticale, einkorn, emmer – see the English language Wikipedia page on 'Cereal' or the German one on 'Getreide'.

The books being mentioned, those on fire breathing dragons and their riders, are those in the 'Dragonriders of Pern' series by Anne McCaffrey; quite fascinating IMO.]