But, since that’s silly, I set the thought aside, and we make our way back home as a happy little family…of four.
Chapter 27
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Did I expect to gloat about my marriage in front of Austin? No. Not really. But who am I to miss gloating opportunities?
Tearfully, I press my fingers to my lips and watch my beautiful babies.
They are so marvelous, I can almost ignore the fact they have a crowd.
This morning, fresh and happy and on my usualslept beautifully in my beloved’s armshigh, I marched myself to my farm and put my Great Mid Summer Harvest Plan into action.
Since my land is mostly clear now apart from what turns up and over in the middle of the night, I have so much room for crops, and you better believe I amusingthat room.
I spent all morning tilling with my lame starter hoe, heading to Kaolin’s for seeds, and returning to plant, but when I started to water the great big expanse with my lame watering can, my trailing puppies caught onto the task, so now Tsuki is trotting a cloud cover above my farmland while Yami pops along behind him, every pawstep of hers creating raindrops.
My angels.
This should have been a feature in the game.
I can’t believe WonderGlass actually went through the trouble of making you earn mythical magical beast pets that then behave like any other farming sim’s pets, which you’re given day one.
Utter. Nonsense.
“What the—” Austin swears, standing beside Aurelia, who dragged him out of the forge when she saw my babies and I making our way back from Kaolin’s shop.
I still haven’t thought up a snide remark about my having been here for, wow,overaseasonnow. Insane, I know. Look at all I’ve done in such a brief—yetlonger than a week—time.
How’s it feel to live in the shadow of the person you were nasty to, Austin? Must suck. I wouldn’t know.
Hehehe.
“This is…incredible.” Aurelia’s wide eyes track every movement my wolves make, glimmering. “I can’t believe it. It’s like a moment taken from ages gone by. Animals like these aren’t common anymore.”
“Humans poached them,” Austin growls, and for all the horrible things I think about him, the level of anger in his voice just now was acceptable. “Imagine killing such amazing creatures just to wear their skin.”
I don’t want to imagine that.
Huffing, Austin tucks a hand in his pocket. “Who the—” He swears. “—are you, Citrus? How do you blow into town like a second storm and just act like someone looking for a home?”
“I don’t know. How do you live here for so long and…nothave magical wolf puppies helping you in the forge?” I sniff. “Seems silly to me.”
Aurelia giggles. “She’s so right.”
“S-shut up…” Austin mutters, and Samson chooses this moment to make his way through the path between our farms.
His brow rises first on our playful puppies helping their mommy water her crops, then on Austin and Aurelia. Lifting his chin vaguely in our guests’ direction as a Samson greeting, he makes his way to me and naturally tucks a golden lock of my hair behind my ear before he lets his hand linger there, tracing the shell. “Lunch is ready, Lemonade. Are you almost finished up here?”
“Yup,” I say, keenly aware of Aurelia’s eyes burning into the interaction between Samson and me. Her lashes flutter as her lips draw a perfect circle.
In stark contrast, disgust riots across Austin’s face, and he blurts, “Are you twodating?”
Without missing a beat, Samson glances at him and says, “We’re husband and wife, actually. Why?”
Aurelia’s hand hits her mouth in such a way that the resounding slap can probably be heard at Slate’s lab on the far side of the map.
My knees, for reasons unbeknownst to me, go weak, and Samson has to catch me before I collapse in a puddle before him.
