Harvest Moon: Kestrel Village

Chapter Five

Chocolat

Sunlight serenely filtered through the blinds of the windows, painting the inside of the wooden farmhouse with a striped golden glow. Dust danced silently amongst the furniture to the occasional rhythm of a cheerful blue jay’s chatter. It was disrupted now and then by the persistent snoring from a certain male farmer. With his tousled hair, Eli grunted for a second before burying himself ever so deeper underneath the cotton blanket within the lull of sleep. He and Aly had stayed up late last night trying in vain to comfort the two grown chickens freaking out from the sudden thunderstorm. The two farmers escaped largely unscathed from the old chicken coop in the end, but not without making a mental note of precaution for handling future poultry.

Speaking of the other farmer, there Aly was, gradually tiptoeing closer and closer to her older twin brother from her room. The blonde stopped for a moment and readjusted her pale blue pajama collar that was tickling the edge of her neck before continuing on. A mischievous smirk plastered her enthusiastic demeanor, but it was important she stay as quite as a cat on the evening prowl, her brother the unsuspecting prey. She wasn’t very far off now to activating her mission objective.

A loud groan from an old floorboard halted the girl in her tracks. Her wide brown eyes locked onto Eli’s sleeping form for any sort of undesirable reaction, but there were none. Slightly relaxing herself, Aly hastened before anything else could deter her.

“ELI!”

With a flying leap, Aly bounded towards her brother and landed right on top of him with a hard bounce, hair flying and name screaming included. This initiated a surprised grunt, and the young man snapped his blues wide as he was rudely awakened from his slumber. He quickly gave out a drawn out sigh at the sight of his sister and rubbed his eyes with a lazy hand. Aly merely laughed joyfully and kicked her legs in the air without a care in the world.

“Happy Spring Thanksgiving! Gimme chocolate!”

Eli delayed answering the combination of declaration and demand. He slowly pushed the girl off of him, enough so that he could sit up in bed and attempt to rub the sleep out of his eyes one more time. After stretching out his arms and his lower back some, he chuckled in good nature.

“If we finish early today with our chores, I’ll probably have plenty of time to make cookies and hand them out,” he finally answered, starting to become more and more awake as the minutes passed.

Aly messily ran a hand through her own blonde bed head hair. “We’re all supposed to meet up at the inn at noon, right?” She rolled off of the young man and leapt to her feet. “Then let’s hurry up and get to work then!” The girl flew off in the direction of her room before Eli could make a joke about Aly’s so-called work ethic. The blonde had a point, though. The two would have to hurry if they wanted to enjoy the festivities.

In approximately half an hour, Aly was unarmed and expected mayhem at the chicken coop. The tiny building was barely large enough to hold two poultry comfortably, but for two chickens, it did its job well enough. Sifting through sticks of hay along the floor and wrinkling her nose at the scent of bird poop and feathers, Aly carefully approached the two reluctant hens squatting in their nests at the opposite wall.

“Here, chickie, chickie… Good chickies, nice chickies,” the blonde quietly cooed, creeping towards the birds with an air of utmost caution. If they attacked with her beak and talon, she possessed no weapon to fight them off and no shield to defend herself with. Pitiful. She forcefully pushed the thought of showing up at the inn with scratches and a black eye out of her imagination.

Omelet and Scrambled Eggs clucked quietly at one of the new owners. Their arrival at their new home had been eventful, with a frightening thunderstorm to end the first hectic day. Ruffling their feathers, they hopped to their feet and approached, cocking their feathery heads at the human girl. She slowly bent down and petted them quickly on their heads with two fingers, her eyes scanning their empty nests.