a Stardew Valley fan fiction: The Proper Care and Feeding of Souls

Home

"'Grow old with me. The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made."

- Robert Browning

Fall came to a close, its transformation finally complete. A frigid chill embodied the air of the valley. A blanket of white, sparkling snow covered the ground. Winter, quiet and still, had arrived.

The thick scent of cinnamon and nutmeg wafted through the farmhouse. Scattered across the table were walls and rooftops made of gingerbread. Steadily, Clint squeezed the bag of royal frosting, expertly sealing the seams of the house. Impatiently, desperate to interfere, Haley started to reach her hand out and then quickly retracted it. She bit her lip.

"Clint!" She joked in exasperation. His painfully slow and steady pace was too much for her.

Clint flung his large free hand at her, batting away her impatience.

"I got this, Haley," he grumbled.

Haley leaned back against Alex, her arms crossed with a faint smile on her face. Alex reached his arms around her from behind. Haley wasn't perfect, even though she strived to be. Mostly, she was abrasive and conceited, walls her insecurity and fear built up around her heart ages ago. Alex had found cracks in those walls, windows, and small openings through which he'd come to know who she was beyond her calloused exterior.

Alex knew he had a calloused exterior, too. His walls looked much like Haley's: conceit and false confidence. He bullied the easiest targets he could find, just like his dad did before he left them for good. Alex was the target his dad bullied most. It was his physical and emotional abuse that built up Alex's walls around his heart, brick by painful brick.

He knew what everyone in town thought about them. They were all wrong, though. He and Haley clung to each other because they'd seen the other side of each other's walls and were fiercely determined to protect what they'd discovered.

Clint raised his eyes, a grin of satisfaction on his face as he watched the gingerbread structure stand firmly on its own.

"There," he said, handing the frosting to Haley. "Decorate away." Haley excitedly grabbed the frosting and picked up a red gumdrop from her pile of candy.

From across the room, Emily smiled at Clint's kindness toward Haley. She knew her little sister was not the easiest person to like. Under his simultaneously gruff and bashful exterior, Clint was a good man.

Sam had spent the entire week swapping names with other villagers until he'd gotten Grace as his "secret friend" for the town's traditional secret gift exchange. Tomorrow afternoon, at the festival, he planned to pull her down to the beach and play a song for her, the song he wrote the night he confessed his feelings to her, the night of their first kiss.

Leaning up against the wall of the farmhouse, Sam looked around at his friends who were family, the ones he'd grown up within this small little speck of a town, this place that was no more than a pinprick on a map, this place they were all lucky enough to call home.

Across the room, he watched Grace, joy spread across her face, as she covered a steaming mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles and handed it to Sebastian. Sebastian scowled at Grace with more love than Sam ever thought possible escaping from his dark, obsidian eyes. Her arm wrapped around his waist, Penny leaned against Sebastian grinning up at his scowl. Delicately, she skimmed the top of his hot chocolate with her finger and brushed his lip with the taste of whipped cream, sprinkles, and adoration. Grace beamed at the two of them. Man, she had come in and changed everything.