The Runaway: A Stardew Valley Story

Egg Hunt

"Have you met my friend, Leah?" Elliot asks.

We stop in front of a cheap table with a cheap plastic covering blowing in the wind. There's a sign reading: face painting $5, and the red-haired girl from the forest poised with a paintbrush in hand. She paints yellow stars and a crescent moon on the chubby cheeks of a small girl with violet hair.

I nod at Elliot because I don't trust the words to form over the tightness in my throat. Somehow the word friend hits me in the chest. Though, that's what we are. Elliot and I are friends. Why can't he have other friends?

"Did you find the onions you were looking for?"

The smile Leah gives me is strained, like the conversation we had in the forest. The smile I return mirrors Leah's.

"I... did. Yes, thank you."

Elliot turns his attention to me, "Oh, you went foraging?"

I nod again, still smiling with full effort.

"Well, Willy and I will have to teach you how to collect urchins in the tide pools," Elliot says.

My stomach sours at the idea of more fishy smells related to the former.

"Maybe later," I say.

"Just say the word." Elliot smiles broader before shifting his gaze back to the woman behind the table. "Well, I've got my date — though, it's  just friendly fun," Elliot winks at me, "so where is yours, Leah?"

Leah scrunches her nose and tries to hide a curse under her breath, but the big violet eyes of the girl widen in mischievous glee. "She had to work, okay? She has a big show coming up."

Oh.

Ohh.

Shit, I'm an idiot. An assuming, presumptuous, idiot.

"What does your girlfriend do?" I ask trying to cover up a cold sweat of relief.

"Kel's a painter in Zuzu." Leah pauses to examine her own painting. "She's really good."

"Leah is a great sculptor and a great painter," Elliot adds special emphasis to his words, and I can tell that there are words understood between the two that I will never know.

Just as the artist in question opens her mouth to retort, a whistle sounds in the center of the square. The little girl at Leah's fingertips jerks to attention. Leah's paintbrush streaks white across the canvas of the child's face, but the girl barely seems to register.

"It's time!" the young girl shouts before leaping from her seat.

"Jazz! Come back!" Leah yells. "Let me wipe your face at least!"

Elliot squeezes my arm. I feel the pulse of sensation even in my toes. "That's your queue."

"My what?"

"It's time for the egg hunt."

Every muscle in my body tenses as Elliot leads me stiffly to the center of the festivities. Mayor Lewis stands with a clipboard and something that looks like hairspray with a wide mouth. Sam, Vincent, the little girl Leah called Jazz, and Abigail stand behind a rope laid in the grass.

"Ah, Junox," Mayor Lewis smiles, "join us at the starting line if you will."

Feeling more lost than anything, I move to Sam's side where he's waved me over. He stands with feet apart and shoulders taught. In his hands, he holds a light blue basket.

"Where's your basket?" he asks.

I give him a blank expression to answer.

"Mayor," Elliot says from behind me just loud enough to be heard over the throng but not to be heard by everyone, "this is Ms. Junox's first egg hunt. She may need to be allowed a few grace points."