Chapter Text
Today is Spring, day one.
A great day to plant some turnips.
A large farm stretched out over a small mountain ridge. There were several plots of land that had been tended to recently, two coops, a barn, and a stable with a black, beautiful horse inside dozing away. The farmhouse itself wasn't too big but enough for the person inside. Or rather, monster.
Crop was a skeleton monster, short and pudgy with a lazy grin and usually a piece of hay between his teeth. He mostly went for overalls and a sunhat...okay it was like his uniform basically, can you blame him? No, of course not. Either way, every morning he got up, shuffled around the house, made a pot of coffee, and opened the door to let out-
"C'mon Cujo," he cajoled the little dog jokingly, "Ain'tcha wanna chase Henrietta around? There's a pal, yeah," the puppy had long floppy ears and blonde fur, a truly beautiful dog. Cujo elicited an image of fearlessness, and honestly, the dog was pretty heroic. He sprinted out of the house at top speed seeing the chicken perched on the barnyard's fence, barking up a storm.
However, he was a right coward, the way he'd snap at the chicken who cocked its head to the side, causing the dog to yip and scuttle away, baying at birds to chase away. Crop chuckled, shaking his head as he sipped his coffee, one hand in an overall pocket. "Yeah, get 'em, boy," he mumbled sleepily, his eyes straying over his farm lazily.
He'd had the farm...oh...a few years now. Inherited it from his father who had it from his father, and so on and so forth. He was used to the slow days, the ins and outs of traipsing around Pelican Bay, waving a cheerful hello at whoever he passed by. Sometimes he met up with his brother, who was their only doctor in town. Had a knack for it, he did. Crop, not so much, but Veg? Yeah. He certainly did.
(Everyone thought their father was crazy naming them the way he did. Was a skeleton tradition though, name 'em after your profession. Or something like that. Crop never did pay attention very well.)
Anywho, last week was the Winter storm, which blew in a bunch of nasty little things. Colds for kids and debris for Crop. He sighed, setting his cup on the windowsill with a wink. "Now dontcha go nowhere, sweet thing," he drawled out, gripping a piece of hay between his teeth. "I'll clean up and we can get back ta gettin' acquainted."
He laughed in amusement at himself, shaking his head as he shuffled away.
Henrietta and her flock of chickens were fine as ever. Sadly, the storm didn't manage to scare Lin into birthing her kid yet. She was mighty antsy when he appeared, bucking her horns against his hand when he petted her. "I know, darlin', I know. Birthin' ain't no joke," he tutted as she took a few steps to chomp into the hay he put in her feeding trough. "Soon though, I gots a feelin' on it."
Marcia and Linda, the two gossipy old cows who were known for peeking their heads out of the barbed wire and watching you go by, were just as nosy as ever. They tended to follow him through the barn, making it easy to let them out into the pasture. They were mighty sore at being tricked like that, and started up such a commotion between themselves because of it.
Fluffers, the sheep that Veg had named as a child and still stuck around to this day, merely bumped her head against him as he passed by. He smiled, smoothing a hand over the fluffy wool. "Feelin' mighty fine there, I take it? C'mon Auntie, out ya get." Fluffers kept chewing on some hay, slowly ambling her way out the door.
Lin wasn't allowed out yet, not so close to the birthing time at least. But he gave her an apple, as a condolence.
With that, the animal chores were finished, and he was off to plant the turnips.
Well, plant and move debris. Some of it was just trash from the ocean, some were large logs of wood. Honestly very useful for chillier days, or for building onto his home. Can’t say no to free wood, after all. Rocks, mud, some critters scattering as he shuffled by...
“Well, that’s new,” he mumbled, scratching at his cheek. It was a large-ish boulder, slightly taller than himself. Boulders weren’t unusual, which was why he had a pretty stout pickaxe. Thing was, this one didn’t appear to be easily moved during a storm...and it was definitely moved here judging by the crevice in the earth.
Hmm.
Did he really feel up to picking away at a boulder today? Nah, not really. It was the first of Spring, he had a lot already done...plus there wasn’t anything that way except for a small field surrounded by trees. It led nowhere except to a large tree that blocked one from the edge of a cliff. Normally he’d go there and relax or he’d take Cujo to go and roll around or bark at squirrels but the loss of the field wasn’t too much of an issue.
Still, he had to do it eventually.
...maybe tomorrow, he told himself as he whistled lightly, turning around to shuffle away, intent on grabbing Cujo away from being smacked by a fish in the river...again.
It started off small. First, in his shipping container, a few eggs went missing. A flask of milk. Bundles of berries he picked from bushes. He wasn’t too worried, if he was honest. Critters sometimes got into the thing, and he couldn’t begrudge them a good meal.
Then he heard about the stuff happening in town. Undyne, the carpenter, griped about missing a few logs. Alphys, the odd librarian, had mentioned her garbage can being rifled through at night. Still, not too odd...until Veg had even raised up his concerns.
“IT’S JUST THAT,” Veg explained as he started stacking up items from a basket, his doctor’s coat flicking around him as Crop had his feet up on the desk behind him, “WELL, I’M NOT SURE...”
“C’mon, bro,” Crop smiled. “You c’n tell me.”
“WELL.” Veg paused, a hand flexing as he held a roll of bandages. “LAST WEEK, SOME OF THE CHILDREN HAD BROUGHT ME SOME MEDICAL HERBS, REMEMBER?” He did. “I HUNG THEM OUT ON THE LINE TO DRY, AND WHEN I CAME BACK, I WAS MISSING THREE OF THEM!”
...that WAS concerning. Medical issues here were big deals, and as they didn’t really deal with money or commerce, trading was easy. Give some healing items, get a meal, or a fix-up on your home, whatever it was you needed. Someone resorting to stealing? That was...well it wasn’t great. Crop frowned. “Hmm. Been hearin’ a buncha weird stuff. You be careful, bro.”
Veg nodded, smiling at him. “YOU AS WELL, BROTHER!”
Crop chuckled, tipping his hat lightly.
On the 7th of Spring, he found out what was happening.
Crop wasn’t the most skilled with a pickaxe. That was Undyne. She could punch through a boulder in half a second. But he hated bothering her, and besides that, when he did things on his own he could revel in the silence. It was nice, you know? So, ting ting ting went the pickaxe, scraping at the boulder every so often. It took him half the day. He stopped for lemonade and a sandwich, and to feed Cujo, of course.
The boulder cracked and crumbled in view, to which he happily picked up a few rocks to put away in his storage. You’d be surprised on what use they were in town. The stonemason there, Gerson, was able to make damn near anything out of them. And Crop, well, he couldn’t help making the old codger happy with a few simple stones, so sue him.
The pathway to the field was littered in debris, shredded clothes and waterlogged books of all kinds. He shook his head. What a horrible storm that was, truly. Kept him in nearly the entire time.
He paused as he stepped up over the small hill, hearing voices. He frowned, adjusting his hold on the pickaxe, just in case. He licked his teeth slightly. Okay...it couldn’t be a spirit, right? There were none up here in his little farm...still, better safe than sorry. He was surprised, very much so, when he came upon the trunk of the large tree.
A tall skeleton with mismatched teeth kneeled next to it, nervously tending to a smaller skeleton. His clothes were torn and...bloodied? One glove was missing, showing his cracked fingers as he tried to nudge the other into drinking something from a bowl, whispering in the same way Veg did, loudly.
The smaller one...well, if it weren’t for the fact Monsters dusted when they died, he’d have assumed the shorter was dead. No eye lights, his mouth slack, being held on the other’s lap. The skull shifted when the tall skeleton moved, and Crop could barely hold in a sharp breath.
A large hole stared back at him. It was so big he could probably fit his entire hand into the skeleton’s head. It made him sick, and he took a step back, freezing when a stick snapped and the taller skeleton’s head snapped around. This was it. He’d be eaten by some lost tourists or, or sacrificed to the spirits or-
“PLEASE!” The taller one scrambled up, holding the smaller in his arms even as he shook in place. Crop could see he was missing a boot, too, and the shorter skeleton’s arm dangled down. Surprisingly they were both very clean, but that could be from the storm...”PLEASE, I-I REALLY, I NEED, HELP?” The words came out stuttered and slick, the teeth unable to click correctly.
Crop hesitated, his eye lights flicking between the two. He shouldn’t. He should run, he should get one of the others in town, hell, he should get Veg at the latest, he was no healer-
“Okay. C’mon.” He twitched his head to the side, turning around and leading the shaky, stumbling skeleton back to his home.