User:Tiakall/You Have Three Years/Part 8
...And Some Right At Home
People really gotta stop visiting me this early in the morning. I still wasn't quite used to the whole 'up with the sun' thing, so it took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. Spying on someone in the woods? Right, I did recall hearing someone muttering loudly to themselves as I passed near the lake the other night. I guess if one counted 'spying' as raising an eyebrow in that direction and pausing in their walk, that counted.
I wasn't quite sure if it was not being fully awake, or this girl just being weird. I did get that her name was Juna, she was a ballerina (uh? Did Pelican town have a performance hall and I missed it?) and her hobbies were messing with the Wizard, and well, that was it. Not sure I'd fuck with a guy that does magic for a living, but hey, to each their own.
She skipped off shortly after, leaving me to head by my mailbox, and wonder why there was a pallet of cinderblocks next to it.
Yoba, this man. He wasn't going to give up, was he? Did I need to consider a restraining order? Maybe I could use the cinderblocks to build a wall in front of his door. I hefted the pallet into the cave for easy storage, and then went to check the rest of the mail. Another letter from the florist association... I was really going to need to try some of their potting techniques, wasn't I? And then a letter from Toshinori, written on bright, vibrant stationary.
Of all the people in town, I was warming up to Toshinori the fastest - there was something about the way he was almost desperate to get along with everyone that made him so easy to get along with. I always left a conversation with him feeling a bit more relaxed than I had before. Like a little ray of sunshine. Sunshine... sunflowers? Maybe I could grow some in the summer. Sick people liked getting flowers, right? If nothing else, maybe he'd appreciate how they resembled his messy-but-cute pinned up hair.
Maybe I could write him back. I hadn't done a pen pal thing since some aborted attempts in third grade. But right now, some ripe things in the field were calling, and I wanted to get done before my special delivery later in the morning.
I'd almost forgotten about the patch where I'd put Vincent's "invisible seeds". But as I walked through it on my way to the garlic, I could feel... something. A solid, leafy sort of something that became vaguely carrot-shaped when I pulled it out of the ground. I held one up. Nope, definitely couldn't see anything, but I could feel it in my hands, sure as shit. At a loss, I tossed them into a box, labeled it "invisible carrots", and dropped it in the shipping bin. There. Let Lewis or whoever did the agricultural capitalism figure it out.
Off in the distance, in the direction of the road, I could hear a truck and trailer moving about. Ah, my special delivery, here at last! You see, I'd quickly figured out that with the size of the land, manual hoeing and watering wasn't going to cut it. I needed a tractor. And Robin, sweet and opportunistic carpenter that she was, had mentioned she had a contact selling a used one for cheap that she'd arrange for if I bought a garage off her. I'd pulled together the money and materials, and she'd finished the building just yesterday, leaving only the tractor itself to be delivered. And now it was here. This was about to get a lot easier.
The delivery people had already left by the time I got to the end of the road, but the tire tracks marked their visit. Weird that they didn't need me to sign anything, I thought as I picked the delivery slip off from where it was tacked onto the garage door. Right. Time to go see my new friend.
For a moment, I stood there and blinked, trying to figure out how reality and my expectation had ended up so far apart. This was a fox, multi-tailed and silvery-gray in color, its fur glistening in the light like actual silver, dark eyes regarding me without fear. I checked the delivery slip. One tractor, a John Foxe model--ah, I got it, it was a joke, an actual fox instead of a Foxe tractor. But the fox was moving as if alive, its tails swishing slowly around, independent of each other, as if moved by the wind.
The fox looked me up and down, then yawned. "Keep staring, I might do a trick."
"I'm pretty sure someone already did," I replied.
That got a reaction, as its head snapped around to look at me again, and then it rose, walking over to me. Yoba, but it was huge, easily the size of the tractor I'd been expecting. It moved its head around me, sniffing, and I decided stillness was the better part of valor. "How interesting. You've got the sight, don't you?"
"If you mean I see forest spirits and other--" weird "--magical things, yes."
It let out a little bark that sounded happy, I guessed. "What a relief! I thought I was going to have to continue to play the part all this time. You don't mind if I relax a bit and get rid of this glamour, do you?"
"Make yourself at home. It's your garage, I guess." It let out a yip of delight, then shook itself, the fur rippling from nose to tails. I didn't see a difference, but the fox seemed pleased as it sat down again. "So, uh, do you have a name? How did you get mistaken for a tractor? That was you that got delivered just now, right?"
"Yes, that was me. You can call me Inari," it said, daintily licking at one paw. What was it people said about foxes? Cat software on dog hardware? "And no, one does not simply mistake a kitsune for a tractor. Let's just say I had my reasons for being in disguise for now, shall we?"
"...okay." Inari, kitsune... another fairy tale name, a supposed goddess of the harvest. Appropriate for a farm, I supposed. If she was named after a goddess, that meant a female fox, right? I wasn't about to lift her up and check.
She paused in washing her paw, and the eyes narrowed in a foxy smile. It reminded me of Puck, the fox in the forest. "You must be thinking you're disappointed to not have a real tractor. Fear not. I keep my contracts. Provide for me, and I'll be your 'tractor'. You'll find I'm far superior to any manmade machine."
"Isn't it, uh, kind of rude to make a supernatural creature do my farm work?"
"If you're unpleasant about it, I suppose. But I am a farming spirit. This is my raison d'être. And though perhaps you have not fully accepted the terms of our contract, it is still in force." She rose, tossing her head. "Ride on my back. Let's inspect this farm of yours."
Riding on the back of a supernatural creature also seemed rude, but on the other hand, I didn't think I should argue with her twice. I pulled myself up onto her back, situating myself as best I could. I hadn't ridden a horse since the county fair when I was ten, just small enough to still be allowed on. And how did one sit on a kitsune?
"Hold on." I barely had enough time to grab at her fur before she leapt forward, racing down the path back to the farmhouse. She was fast, but her fur was so soft and her gait so smooth that it felt a bit like riding a cloud. She paused by the field, trotting down its length. "This is it?"
"Hey, I've been doing this by hand."
"It was a question, not a judgement. Calm your human ego a bit." She turned her head to the other side, where I'd mostly cleared out the stray logs and rocks. "This one, then? And the other over there, as well?"
"Yeah, that was the plan eventua--" That was as far as I got before she ran up and down the field, cornering so tight I thought I might fall off. Under her paws, the dirt simply... lifted, the grass and weeds slithering into the ground like earthworms, the soil becoming loose and soft.
And then she did it again.
She turned her head to look at me, and gave me another foxy smile. "Are you not satisfied?"
"I am not... sure what just happened."
"Fetch your seed stocks, and you'll get to see it again."
My seed stocks, impressive as they were, were not prepared with such situations as "a magical kitsune tractor suddenly hoes all my fields", so we had to go into town to get more. And by "we", I meant her trotting down the long road with me on her back, trying to figure out how I was going to handle all this. "So when you said I should provide for you...."
"Rice is my preference, but I'll also accept corn."
"That's it?"
"What else depends on how good a cook you are."
"Uh..." Sure, I'd DVR'd some of that Queen of Sauce show, mostly because it was one of the few things on in the late evenings and that lady's voice was made for ASMR, but I hadn't really tried out anything yet. "We can, uh, keep that in mind for future options."
She let out a yip of laughter. "You're funny. I think we're going to get along."
"Thanks, I think." I fell silent for a bit. "Say, are you... like, familiar with Stardew Valley?"
"I've been around here a few times before, yes." She glanced back at me. "You're a Falkner, aren't you?"
"Huh?" I blinked at the sudden change in topic. "I mean, yeah, that's my last name. Did you... know my grandpa or something?"
"Was it your grandfather? I can never keep track of how quickly human generations move. But yes, I knew him. We had a contract for quite a few years."
By Yoba, a possible source of information. "Did you know about him? About boinking the elven princess, and she said that three years after I came to this farm, some big dark forces thing was going to happen and apparently unless I get allies for something, I'm going to die?"
She laughed, and I wasn't sure if that was reassuring or not. "Oh, that sounds like her all right. She did have such a flair for the dramatic."
I felt my anxiety ease up by a small tick. "So there's probably not going to be some big war thing that'll kill me?"
"Oh, no, her predictions were spot-on, if absolutely drenched in purple prose." Inari let out a sigh. "Well, this is problematic. I don't like moving so quickly after I got here. I prefer to settle in one place for at least a couple of decades."
"And I don't like dying. Any idea of what she meant?"
"None. Knowing that farm, could be anything."
Nope, that tick of anxiety was right back, and it brought a house party. "Explain, please?"
"You haven't noticed? That farm is sitting on a swirl of," she paused to wave a paw. "Something. Magic, but it's more than that. Reality doesn't quite sit right down there."
"Can you be slightly less vague?"
Her head turned to me, and I thought her expression looked regretful. "I really can't, sorry. I've lived for quite a while and even I'm not really sure what's going on with it."
"Do you think the wizard might know?" Maybe that was why he'd built his tower out in the woods, not too far away from the farm.
"Oh, Rasmodius? You mean he's still alive?" She bark-laughed. "You can ask, but I don't know if he'll know, or be that forthcoming if he does. He's strictly on a need-to-know basis with people. But his specialty is the elementals, so I doubt he'll know that much."
"Given the farm might be trying to kill me, I think I need to know." I thought of my other visitor that morning. "He's not really popular, is he?"
"Oh, I don't dislike him. But he's not good at dealing with people. Too much time with his nose in books, you know. Leads him to do less-than-ideal things in the rare occasion that he's around people."
I felt like that was a story in itself, but also one that I probably didn't need to hear. "Like getting the newbie in town high off his cauldron 'potion' so they can understand forest spirits?"
The head whipped around to look at me. "You're talking about the Junimos."
"Yeah. What do you know?"
"Let's start with what you know."
I sighed. "That they're tiny ninjas that live in the community center? They put out scrolls of things they want and I bring them what they want when I can."
Inari thought about this as we reached the town limits. "Okay, side trip. Show me."
"Hey, Kalla!" Alex called out as I nudged her toward the upper part of town. "Sweet ride!"
"Thanks, she's new!" Under my breath, I muttered, "What exactly is he seeing right now?"
"A bit outdated, but very lovely John Foxe model."
"I knew the Foxe thing was a joke."
She made a beeline for the community center once it was in sight, and after glancing around to make sure no one was going to see me smuggle a tractor inside, I let her in. She looked this way and that, taking in everything with dark eyes. "What an interesting human building. It must have been used quite a lot."
"Not so much anymore, though, as you can tell." I waved a hand toward the little hut in the corner of the main room. It looked as empty as it always did, but given how the junimos vanished into thin air whenever I approached, maybe I just couldn't see them. Maybe she could.
After a long moment of studying it, she turned back to me. "What about these scrolls?"
"They're all over," I waved a hand. "Oh, but let's go to the one over here. I have something they want." I led Inari to the boiler room, or what used to be a boiler room, with a broken down furnace and a box of coal trying to figure out if it could grow mold. Inari studied the scroll carefully, touching it with a paw. "You have the metal bars it asks for?"
"Yeah, just a sec." I shucked my backpack off, reaching inside, fumbling around. I wasn't sure if I had actually remembered to put them in there, but no, there they were. I set them down on the scroll, taking a step back. "Usually it just va--"
Belatedly, I realized the bars had been the last item pictured on the scroll. Completing it seemed to have un-hidden every Junimo in the immediate area, all of them hopping around and making cheerful sounds. "Um, hello," I greeted, looking around at all the small eyes on me. "Who are you?"
Junimos, I heard a voice inside my head. Keepers of the forest.
Just like that, they were all gone again, except one which was dutifully trundling the bars down the hallway. Inari and I followed it to the hut, where it emerged seconds later with a gold, plaque-like star in its arms. As we watched, the star flew into a little indentation above the mantleplace.
"I'm guessing you have five other scrolls," Inari said.
"Meep," said the Junimo.
"Sounds about right." I knelt by the Junimo which was now hovering near my ankles. Apparently completing the scroll had built up enough goodwill that it now allowed me to pet its head.
Inari stood on her hind legs and put her front paws on the dusty fireplace mantle, studying the stone plaque with its six identical star-holes. "What do you think it means?" I asked her.
"Meep?"
She didn't answer. "Shouldn't we go get your seeds and get them in the ground before the sun goes down?"
I blinked at the sudden change of topic. "I guess so. I'll see you later, Junimo."
"Meep!"
Pierre was surprised, but thankfully didn't ask any questions about my seed splurge that couldn't be answered with "tractor". After some small talk and saying hi to a few people, we started the trek back down to the farm. "So what are you thinking?"
"I only have a theory. A best guess, really. Even as a fox spirit, there are creatures that exist on a level beyond me. I doubt you'll find anyone, even among the mystical, that truly understands Junimos." Inari let out a sigh. "My best guess is that this particular group of Junimos is in trouble."
"Trouble? How so?"
"Junimos typically avoid humans and human settlements. Likely the reason they've chosen to settle there is because it's a building with a long, positive history--good vibes, I guess you would say in human terms--and it was also more likely that they would find a human to aid them. Namely, you."
"What do they need my help for, though? All I'm bringing them is random stuff. They might have a problem with smelting ore, sure, but I imagine they could get the natural produce even easier than I could."
Inari shook her head. "It's not even so much the physical item that's important. It's the act of gifting them willingly. You'd be surprised how much weight that can carry."
"Hm. But then, what do they need those, er, good gift-giving vibes for?"
"I think they might be stuck. Or at the least, they can't reach where they want to go. You noticed them appearing and disappearing, right? Junimo are planeswalkers."
I'd played just enough Solarion to understand what she meant. "They can cross dimensions?"
"Precisely." Inari let out a sigh through her nose. "A prediction of darkness, a farm that plays loose with reality, planeswalkers who can't properly planeswalk... I wonder if there's a connection."
"It's better than anything else I've got to go on right now." I let her walk in quiet for a time. "What are those other dimensions like?"
"Who knows? I've never crossed the lines, myself. All I can hazard is that they aren't perfect if the Junimos keep coming back to this place." Inari entered the farm. "Well, ready to do some planting, farmer?"
"Sure. Let me just tighten my grip and clench my bladder."
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