Lily of the Valley - Stardew Valley - Sebastian

Chapter 1

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No, no. Not yet. You shouldn't get too close. The house was empty, anyway. The girl could be anywhere. And it would be awfully rude now wouldn't it. Enter a stranger's house without their knowledge- oh.

There she came looking a bit run over, poor thing. Her shirt was partially ripped. Had it come today or had she just not bothered to repair it. The fabric seemed expensive but badly taken care of.

She was dragging behind her a badly beaten-up luggage that must have not seen the light of day for years. And that assumption was a kind one. The ugly thing was nearly ripping off its seams as the girl let it slam against each step.

Mumbling something about some broken elevator and dropping the keys only once, she managed to cram into her small apartment with everything still intact. As she did, a large cheerful looking dog came to greet her.

The dog was an old rescue the girl had adopted for her own 18th birthday some years ago. The girl had to nudge past it to reach the kitchen. A process the curious little guy was completely oblivious to.

Now, now. It seemed like we had chosen quite the useless protagonist here, hadn't we. Having to follow a half an hour struggle to get a simple briefcase open was dreadful even in its simplest terms. I mean, really? The thing was barely holding on anyway. Oh, well.

In the end the poor thing ended up on the floor broken and badly abused. The girl had thrown the insides onto a wobbly three-legged table and as she sifted through its dissatisfaction oozed out of her face.

The insides consisted of mostly piles of clothes, all of which were useless to her. There were some artifacts and portraits that's only worth was from emotional attachment. Even that seemed hazy since it laid on a stranger's table far away from its original home.

The girl had bought it from an auction across the city for what she had thought a fair price. Now come to think of it the girl seemed to realize she had been robbed.

Only thing sparking any kind of interest was an old letter lying in the bottom of the case. Inside, there were two neatly folded pieces of parchment and a tiny red bag. The first paper uncovered a handwritten letter to some distant descendant of the writer.

In it laid a promise of a chance for a better life. A new start somewhere far, far away.

Hmm. So much for that promise, since the letter never seemed to have gotten to the true descendant. The parchment following was printed with ink and was much more formal than the former. It held the deeds to a farm in Stardew Valley. More specifically in a small village called Pelican Town.

To pile on the bad titles, the girl seemed to be absolutely horrendous at decision making. What was worse than waiting for half an hour of struggling, was having to watch the girl panic for weeks whether or not to go at all.

It was painful to say the least, so to your grace, we will skip most of it.

To get some kick into her, and to end this continuous suffering, she incidentally just happened to lose her job. And her mother. The latter was an accident on our part. Sorry for that. Not really something that could be easily fixed, anyway.

But what it did do was it got the girl going, just like we hoped.

Humans were so predictable in that sense. When they've been given an option to give up and for some reason they keep going, it will take the smallest of inconveniences for them to take it. It was ridiculously easy.

Or, in this case it took a parent's death, but that wasn't important.

We just gave her a chance for a new beginning, or a chance to take it from someone else. But she needed it more, surely. She couldn't stay in the city without a job and oh what did she have? Oh, yeah. A whole plot of land far, far away!

Everything was arranged in a few months. The girl spent the time selling most, if not all of her belongings.

Oh, yes. Why pack anything when it all was waiting for you just a few hours drive away? It would just create a nuisance, really. A real pain in the back. And why would we ever want such thing.

The deeds were hers; she had legally bought them fair and square. But it hadn't been cleanly done, and the girl seemed to realize this. So just in case, she burned the handwritten letters the evening before.

And so, the painfully anticipated day finally arrived. The girl and the dog hopped onto a long-distance bus set towards Pelican town with such high hopes. The girl didn't sleep a wink through the night. Or the night before it.

The wait she spent admiring the deeds. But she had forgotten something important, which she was soon to remember. This was all, of course, of our little help. Out of the front pocket of her bag fell out a little red bag.

Inside there laid a beautiful blue pendant in a shape of a small seashell. It had been crafted off some rare mineral because its shine seemed like no other. The girl carefully parted the chain and locked it around her neck.

At about half past ten the old bus driver called out in a drained voice; "Next stop, Stardew Valley, Pelican Town."

The sun had reached high in the sky. Ugly old thing. We'd have to go hiding, but we were never too far away. The shadows under the chairs created an excellent living space. At this hour the man dared to turn the radio on. It played all the old classics, and some of the bad ones too.

Eventually the bus came to an opening and stopped at a small bus stop, if you could even call it that. The girl wobbled down the stairs with a shaky limp to her step. The driver was kind enough to carry the girl's bags out and wish her good luck.

After that it was just her and the dog. The thing seemed absolutely delighted by the circumstances. He could roam free as much as he wanted. A heaven truly for him.

Then, we had to once again wait for the girl to start putting one leg after the other. It seemed like she had already begun to judge everything from the shabby bus sign to the little dents in the pathways.

Finally, she managed to reach the instruction sign, which could directly point her the way to go. This was rather easy, because the only two options were either "town" or "The Woodland farm". It seemed to be an easy choice.

As the road became harder and harder to follow, the look on the girl's face darkened. Before she knew it, she was standing by a metal archway. By that time the pathway had become completely unrecognizable.

Looking like she had just been pressured into eating an ugly bug she continued her way through the forest. At least the dog knew how to see the light in things. It had disappeared completely into the greenery and getting him back would be hard if not impossible.

The thick forest surrounding her created excellent hiding places, and this way it was amusingly easy to reach her.

Unfortunately, the girl's day wasn't going nearly as smoothly as the dog's. The bad sleep deprivation made her movements uncoordinated and difficult to follow. Still, she tirelessly scrambled to a small opening where she was to find her little mansion.

Except that there was none. The eye sore that stood in its place could only be described as a poor little shack. Its roof had a slight bent to its stance and the floor had caved in on the porch. She couldn't even dare go see the inside.

She did reach the porch, though. The front door stood wide open like somebody had tried and successfully broken into it. It must have not even been too hard, it seemed like. If the door wasn't practically falling apart the glassless window next to it created another easy entryway.

This place wasn't liveable. The building screamed it out for miles.

Poor little thing. This protagonist of ours. Maybe we should give her some space for now. Yeah. Let her figure it out on her own. It should never be too good to influence the story progression too much.

We'll leave you with her. She'll be just fine, surely. You're in safe hands, don't you worry. Even with her hasty flaws, there would be a reason she'll be the one telling this story, right.

And maybe, we'll see. Maybe we'll meet again.

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