-April 22nd,
2014-
It was a sleepy, quiet day outside, most befitting of a town as sleepy and quiet as Lavryn.
The skies were clear and full of sunlight. The faint scent of grass and flowers danced on the breeze. The air had finally taken on a hint of warmth, enough to be pleasant without being too hot— the kind of weather that'd tempt most anyone into a nap.
It was a truly wonderful day.
Most people who lived in Lavryn would agree that days like these really reflected the town best.
Lavryn's population was utterly miniscule, and its community was appropriately tight-knit as a result. It was a charming, friendly, and delightfully quiet place. Everyone knew everyone in Lavryn, and most residents would claim it to be a rather typical place with rather typical residents. They would, however, note one exception to that statement, and that exception was Natallia Ursel Thompson.
She was a bright young woman, always with a beaming smile and a pep in her step. She was of average height, and heavyset, and always had a sort of glow about her. She was almost always adorned in bright colors, wrists decorated with countless friendship bracelets and accessories. She always wore a flower in her hair, fresh-cut and pristine. She usually favored bold red carnations.
She was known for being a bit of an oddball on the best of days. Hyper and mischievous like a little kid sometimes, quiet and calm others. Usually it was the former. Yet, despite her open friendliness, she was surprisingly hard to get a good read on.
She also had a number of strange habits; slamming shovels into boulders, shaking trees for no apparent reason, running around town at ungodly early hours of the morning, those sorts of things. But of her many quirks, one was especially concerning— her worrisome tendency to disappear for months on end without warning.
No one knew where she went during these times, and when she was in the midst of one of those disappearing acts, it was hell to contact her.
It was the subject of much gossip around town. What was it that she could possibly be doing during these periods? If anyone ever tried to press her on it when she'd return, she'd dodge the subject masterfully, which only made it all seem more suspicious.
It was a pretty big talking point amongst the townsfolk the first few times it happened, but as time passed, it was something that most of them had grown used to. Odd though it may be, many decided it simply wasn't any of their business. Still, the curiosity surrounding it never quite faded.
The whispers about Natallia's strange circumstances followed her around like a dark shadow, yet she was blissfully unaware of any of it. Or, at least, she acted as though she was.
Despite this, though, she was quite popular amongst the townsfolk. Although even those who were fond of her considered her childish tendencies a bit annoying at times, the citizens of Lavryn generally found her to be more endearing than irritating.
She was over-the-top, and maybe a bit suspicious, sure, but she was kind to her neighbors and did her best to bring laughter with her wherever she went. If ever anyone needed an errand run, or a friend to talk to, she'd be there in a heartbeat. She was quite beloved as a result, having quite an extensive social network.
Amongst her many friends, though, there was no one that she held more dearly than Bones, a fact that she wasn't subtle about in the least. Bones was best known for having a heart of gold, a pit of a stomach, and being attached to Natallia at the hip.
She chattered at him and pestered him near-constantly, not that he minded; he found her to be delightful, easy to talk to and even easier to goof off with.
That's why he was so concerned when she went missing again one day.
He frowned.
He'd been pacing back and forth outside of his front door for the past few minutes now, worrying over his friend. It was late into the afternoon, and he hadn't seen her today. Did that mean anything? Or was he just worrying over nothing?
He kept turning it over in his head, but the more he thought about it, the more he second guessed himself.
Eventually, he sighed. He was overthinking this.
He'd just check up on her real quick, see that everything was fine, chat with her for a bit, and leave. He nodded to himself, and set off towards her house, along the winding river.
She'd been around town again lately, which was great to see. But today, she was just… Gone. It was highly unusual, even for her.
And considering her tendency to just vanish off of the face of the earth without saying anything… Well… He couldn't help but be worried about it.
But… It'd be fine! She'd only just come back a couple of months ago! Surely she wasn't going to leave again already… Was she?
He shook his head.
No, of course not.
It'd be fine. She'd probably just gotten distracted by something and forgotten to check in with him. That was pretty unusual for her, admittedly— she always made it a point to chat with him whenever she was out and about, which he really appreciated— but it was nothing to worry about. No big deal.
… Man, he hated worrying over stuff. It wasn't like him, and he was never really sure how to deal with it. But something about Natallia brought that side out of him, he guessed. He wasn't quite sure why.
But that didn't matter.
He was sure everything was just fine. He was sure of it.
Yet, as he stopped outside of Natallia's front door, he couldn't help the slight twinge of nervousness in his chest. Something inside of him kept whispering that something was wrong.
His thoughts drifted to her tendency to disappear again.
… She never answered the door during those periods. Whenever he tried to knock, there'd be no answer. He dreaded the silence more than he'd like to admit.
Still, swallowing thickly, he moved forward. He stepped up to the doormat and, with more confidence than he was really feeling, he knocked at the door.
Surprisingly, a response came immediately. A startled yelp rang out from what sounded to be the second floor of Natallia's house. His ears perked up.
She was still here!
… Why had she been gone all day, then? She never stayed inside for this long on days like this.
He wasn't sure, but nevertheless, he was glad he'd decided to check up on her. He was worried he'd been overreacting for a minute there, and maybe he was, but now that he was here he felt much better.
Finally, the sound of thudding footsteps reached his ears. He perked up, an excited grin already unconsciously crossing his face, when suddenly a loud bang sounded. He flinched back, barely biting back a startled yelp.
It sounded like something had slammed against the closed front door.
"HELLO! Yes, hi, hello, I'm here! Who is it?!" Asked a familiar, oddly frantic voice from the other side.
"... Uhh… It's Bones? Yip yip…" He answered with some hesitance.
"Ah, shit— Bones, buddy! What's up?" Natallia replied. Just by the tone of her voice, he could already tell what expression she was wearing.
She was smiling on the other side of the door, guilty and nervous like a kid with their hand caught in the cookie jar. No doubt about it. It was an expression of hers that he was quite familiar with.
His brow furrowed, torn between a confused sort of amusement and his initial concern. Outwardly, he expressed the latter.
"I haven't seen you today, so I wanted to stop by… Are you okay in there?" He asked.
"Oh, absolutely, no doubt!" She said, that same smile still thick in her tone.
Bones squinted, suspicion growing. "Okay then... So, what was that noise?"
"NOTHING!" Natallia insisted, audibly nervous.
A long silence passed.
"Alright… In that case, uh, can I come in?"
"UM." His friend audibly froze. "... Noooo?"
"Natallia," he spoke, trying to sound as stern as possible— which wasn't very stern at all, in all honesty, but Natallia was weak enough to it that he knew it'd make her cave regardless. "What's going on in there?"
"Errr, would you believe me if I told you it was nothing important?" She asked, her guilty-smile tone trembling.
"At this point? No, not even a little bit, yip yip," he said, shaking his head. "You've gotta be the worst liar I know."
"Ahh, you got me..." She sighed. "It's really no big deal, but… I'll, um… Let you in anyway, I guess."
Bones perked up, backing away slightly as he heard something shifting on the other side of the door. It opened up with a creak, slow and reluctant.
What met him was not the face of his friend, but rather a black and gray checkered mask with a wide smile.
"What the— Natallia, what's up with the Clown Mask?!"
"Uhhhh… I wanted to change up my look?" She suggested, chuckling nervously.
"Miss N, please…"
"Alright, alright, geez!" She surrendered, cringing. "I may have… Kinda… Accidentally… Gotten stung by bees…"
"Huh? Is that it?" Bones asked, tilting his head. "Geez, that's nothing to worry about, then! I've been your best friend for, what, two years now? Did you really think I'd think less of you for something as simple as your face getting a little swollen?"
"Err…" Natallia shuffled, scratching at her mask-clad cheek nervously. "It might be… A bit more than a little…"
"What?" The canine questioned, a concerned expression crossing his face. "What do you mean? Natallia, what happened?"
Almost unconsciously, he leaned closer to the girl's face. He squinted, as though he'd be able to find what was wrong by looking straight through her mask with some sort of previously undiscovered x-ray vision.
Unbeknownst to him, the girl flushed profusely under her mask, hardly holding back a squeak as she stumbled backwards further into her house.
"H-Hey, personal space buddy!" She yelped.
"Ah— sorry." Bones apologized, too distracted by his worry to note the unusual reaction. "... But seriously, what's up? Are you alright?"
He studied her as closely as he could without getting into her space again, frowning. He didn't realize it, but his expression had shifted into his most endearing worried look. His big brown eyes bore right into Natallia's, piercing her straight through the heart.
"Ghhrk—!" She clutched at her chest, trying to keep her heart from melting. But it was no use. Her willpower had been shattered instantly.
"Man, why are you so good at getting me to tell you things I don't wanna?!" She groaned, defeated. "Alright, alright… Just… Promise you won't laugh, or start crying, or screaming, or curling up in a ball on the floor and shaking, or anything like that."
"Huh— why would I—?" He stammered. "I— you know what, nevermind, just… Yeah, I promise, alright?"
"... They… Were sold out of medicine at the store, so… It's kinda bad…"
"Natallia, I mean this in the nicest way possible— I don't care," the dog deadpanned. "Just let me see."
"... Alright," she murmured, and finally, she removed the mask.
Normally, Natallia's face wasn't anything special. She was pretty, sure, but that was just a fact to Bones. Her face was dotted with freckles, and her cheeks were full and round. Her honey toned hair was short and framed her face nicely, and she almost always wore a wide grin. All in all, a pretty normal face.
Now, though?
Her face was puffed up and painfully red, swollen up to the point where one of her poor blue eyes was completely shut. It looked like a basketball, except if a basketball was inflated with pain instead of air. It looked like she had fallen face-first into a hornet's nest and slammed into another one while trying to run away. It must've been agonizing. It was completely horrible to look at.
The first thought Bones had was, "What in the world?!"
The next, which ended up tumbling out of his mouth before his mind could catch up, was, "Good god, you need medicine right now."
"Ouch," Natallia muttered, as though her friend's immediate concern for her well being somehow hurt more than the countless pinpricks of pain speckled across her face.
"Dude— What even happened to you?!" Bones demanded, grabbing her hands and practically dragging her out of her front door. "How'd it get so bad?! How many bees did you get stung by?! A thousand?!"
"Oh, no, it was actually only, like, seven," Natallia answered, dismissively waving a hand as though that was a totally normal number. "Where're we going, anyway? I just told you, the store has no medicine."
"Only seven?!" He repeated, distressed. "Natallia, what?! Are you serious?!"
"Yep, only seven," she said, nonchalant. "Nothing to worry about. It just looks worse cuz I'm allergic."
"You're— you're WHAT?!" Bones yelped, spinning on a heel to face her. "Natallia—!"
"Woah, woah, easy!" She attempted to placate him, waving her arms frantically. "It's only a mild allergy! Like, really, really mild! If I was in any real danger, I would've done something by now!"
"Natallia! That's not— you can't just do these things! I swear, you're gonna give me a heart attack one of these days!" The canine cried out. Had his friend been in a better state, he probably would've grabbed her by the shoulders and shaken her.
"Look, it's fine, I knew what I was doing!" She insisted, chuckling nervously. "You should SEE the other guy."
Bones didn't reply, continuing to drag the girl along.
"... You really worry about me too much, man…" She tried, face flushing— not that it was particularly noticeable, considering the state her face was in currently. "How do you always manage to know when something happens to me, anyway? I mean, seriously, I only got jumped by a few hives—"
"Wait, a few?" He interrupted, voice suddenly going flat with seriousness. "Natallia. This wasn't just one hive's worth?"
"Ah," she paused, realizing her mistake. "Um. Well. I might've. Pissed off one hive on accident. And then by that point I figured, well… I was already all swollen, so… I might as well… Keep shaking trees, right?"
"Natallia," Bones said, tone pitching upwards sharply in disbelief.
"... Okay, so I might be slightly dumb," she conceded.
"That's not even the half of it," he sighed. He ignored his friend's indignant cry; normally, he wouldn't be one for such mean jokes, but she'd really earned it this time.
"Come on," she whined. "It's not that bad!"
He shot her a look. She immediately grew quiet.
"... Okay, so maybe it's a bit bad," she mumbled. "Uh... Sorry."
"Don't feel bad. I'm just worried," he sighed, exasperated. "You've gotta be more careful."
"I'll try," she replied quietly.
"Alright, good. Now come on…" He murmured, opening up the door to his house. "Let's get you patched up."
Hello again, everyone!
Here's this chapter! In case you're new, now's probably a good time to mention that this fic takes place in Animal Crossing City Folk specifically, since that's the version of Animal Crossing I had as a kid. So any specific item names that I drop (I.E. Clown Mask) will probably be referring to City Folk items. This also means that Natallia is just a normal citizen of Lavryn town, not the mayor or island representative or anything of that sort. Personally, I really enjoy that aspect of older Animal Crossing games; getting to play as a villager like any other. Made me really feel immersed in the community and whatnot! Of course, that's not to say that the later games aren't also great, or that elements of the fic won't be influenced by the later games. I always sorta wrote a lot of the original version's chapters by playing the games and being inspired by that, and then writing stuff in turn. And that's definitely still going to be happening with the new version. But since I'm playing New Horizons nowadays, well. Naturally, some newer elements will probably make it in, lol. The fic taking place in City Folk probably won't come up all too much, but it's just something to keep in the back of your mind, I guess.
Anyway, I digress.
Hopefully this chapter turned out good! It's the oldest one I had prewritten, so proofreading was a slight pain. To any fans of the original work, it should look a bit familiar. That's because this is a rewrite of the very first chapter of the original fic! Again, my goal isn't to leave behind the original work entirely, because people did like it, and there were good things about it. But I also don't want to just, like. Copy it. So hopefully this chapter is good and fresh and interesting while still using the ideas of the original piece! And also hopefully the grammar and spelling is okay because, despite having had this one prepared for the longest, I'm still not exactly satisfied with the amount of proofreading I got done, lol.
This should also be the last of the overly exposition-y stuff, hopefully. This chapter still had some lingering influences from being intended as a Chapter 1 previously. I didn't remove that entirely because I figured it'd be good to cover how people think of Natallia, as opposed to how she perceives people outside of herself. This is also the first chapter that's primarily in Bones' POV! Technically all of it's in third person, but you know what I mean, lmao. It's Bones-focused. You can expect that to flip-flop a bit, hopefully it shouldn't be confusing. Honestly, I just go with whatever POV is funnier given the situation, lol. It's probably going to be mostly Natallia, but, well. We'll see, I guess.
Anyway, thanks as always for reading, and feel free to lemme know what you think! Next chapter is both prewritten and entirely new material, so stay tuned for that! :)
