Having somehow managed to escape the general store without burning it down, Shiv carried a box filled with all kinds of colorful, soft swaths of cloth, with a happy little girl skipping along behind him.
"Hey, Farmer Shiv!" A short man that Shiv recognized as one of the farmers he talked to every other day ran up and started walking beside him. His short legs took a step and a half for every step Shiv took. "Have ya heard? Big Farmer is stayin' in Feathertown!"
Shiv blinked at him, having no idea who 'the Big Farmer' is, nor where Feathertown was.
"Oh, uh. You've been atalkin' about harvestin' a buncha stuff, and Big Farmer has ginormous fields that stretch on as far as the eye can see. If ya can convince him to let ya, then ya could harvest to yer hearts content." The short man elaborated as they came to a stop. Blaze examined him closely, as if trying to figure out a puzzle.
"Where's he at?" Shiv asked, excitement bubbling up in his chest.
"I told ya, he's in Feathertown!" The farmer fed off his excitement and replied in an energetic manner.
"Yeah, you said that, but I don't have a clue where that's at." Shiv replied.
The farmer rubbed his neck bashfully and gave a thorough set of directions. Shiv thanked him, and was about to continue heading back to his farm, but Blaze's question held him up. "Hey Shorty, you know there's a way you can walk that'll help you keep up with tall people, right?"
He knelt down, though Shiv wasn't sure why, when he was already nearly at eye-level with the little girl when standing. "Is that right? What's this special walk yer talkin' about?"
She giggled. "It's not special: it's skipping!" She skipped around the kneeling farmer to demonstrate, and he cackled and laughed as Shiv looked on with confusion.
'That's not even walking. That's skipping. Those are two completely different actions.' He whined mentally.
Blaze suddenly stopped skipping and looked at the farmer again. "Are you a plant?"
"Thanks for the information, Shorty, but we really must be going back to the farm now. I'll see you around!" Shiv grabbed her and threw her in the box of blankets, scooped it up and started walking again as he called out over his shoulder to the perplexed farmer.
They made it back to the farm without incident just as the sun began to set. Blaze wandered over to play with Uriel while Shiv prepared vegetable stew for dinner. He called them over when it was finished, and they ate it while Blaze chattered on about the adventures she'd had during the day.
After that, they turned in, Blaze sleeping in what was previously Shiv's bed, happy to have blankets. Shiv spent some time using his earth manipulation powers to widen his branch and make it smoother. Then he turned in with his own blankets, and they all slept through the night.
The following morning, Shiv was astonished when Blaze rode out of the treehouse on top of Uriel. "I said no dogs were allowed in the house!"
"He's not in the house!" Blaze yelled right back with an astonished look to match Shiv's.
Uriel yawned and casually went off to do his thing while the two humans went back and forth yelling at each other.
Eventually, they calmed down enough for Shiv to get back to work with Blaze watching his every movement like usual. This time, she copied some of his movements, and planted some seeds in the completely wrong spot. When he saw this, he quickly corrected her and showed her where she could plant seeds, then turned his focus back to his work.
***
An hour passed, and Shiv finished his task. He went to check on Blaze, expecting a burned up mess, and instead found that she had completed her job perfectly. "Wow! You did a good job, kid." He said as he examined her work.
She beamed and dragged him by his hand to all of her 'favorite' seeds that she'd planted. He inspected them and could not find anything wrong with her work, no matter how hard he tried. Curious about the limits to her farming potential, he tested her in all of the other jobs he thought she could handle on the farm, including weeding, watering, bug killing, and many other jobs. She was more than capable of completing each task set before her, and having a great time as she did so.
At her request, he went about showing her how to do everything he usually did on the farm.
By the time they were finished, the scorching sun was almost completely hidden behind the horizon, and they were both exhausted.
As they were eating dinner that night, Shiv told her about his problem, seeing as her ears were much more attentive than the forest and Uriel had been. "I want to go meet the big farmer the short dude was talking about, but I can't leave the plants alone. That's the problem." He waited till she nodded in understanding before he continued, "Now here's the solution, though it also presents its own set of problems. You'll find that happens a lot." Another pause, followed by another nod. "The solution is to hire one of the farmers to take care of the farm. The problem that comes with that, is my lack of funds. I spent most of my money on the special seeds I planted this morning. Now, I have another solution for this problem. You ready?" A confident nod. "I think I've built up enough trust with the farmers to have them do the work, if only for a few days, on credit." Shiv finished, and looked up at the sky with his hands behind his head.
The silence lasted several minutes, till Blaze asked, "What is a 'dude'?"
Shiv leaned forward abruptly and looked at her incredulously. "Why did you nod if you didn't understand what I was saying?!"
He then went through and explained everything again, making sure she understood all of the words he used.
When he finished, she laughed at him. "You're so silly. Why don't you just have me watch the plants? I'll take good care of them!"
"Come on! Just have her watch the plants. There won't be any fires or anything, I'll make sure that at least one plant is still here when you get back." Uriel appeared and added enthusiastically.
"Are you insane? I can't leave a little girl to do manual labor all day. There are laws and legislation specifically prohibiting it!" Shiv protested.
Blaze looked at Uriel, the confusion clearly evident on her face.
Uriel leaned in closer to Blaze and whispered in her ear, "Dad just doesn't think you are big enough to take care of the plants."
"Wait, there is legislation and stuff against that, right?" Shiv asked, not having heard what Uriel whispered and suspecting he was being mocked.
In a louder whisper, Uriel said, "See? He is even making up words, because he doesn't want you to watch the plants."
"This is a savage planet." Shiv said glumly. "Fine. Just try not to burn the place down while I'm gone, OK? Both of you." He ordered.
"I have a one plant guarantee," Uriel said.
Shiv turned pleading eyes to Blaze, who giggled and repeated what Uriel had said, along with, "I'm big enough to do it, I swear!"
"You're going to put gray hairs on my head, and I'm not even twenty years old." Shiv groaned and headed to bed. "I'm leaving in the morning. Take good care of my farm, please. You know where the food is and what to do for the plants."
***
The next morning, Shiv was on the road again.
It was shockingly quiet without Blaze around, and he felt surprisingly lonely. He'd only known the little girl for a few days, but she'd already made her presence so strong that you could feel its absence.
He spent some time wondering if his girlfriend back on earth felt his absence. 'Yeah, this is going to be a miserable trip.' A dark mood settled on him when his lonely feeling intensified dramatically, but he trudged on.
An entire day passed, but he never once looked back or stopped to rest. Around midday, he'd pulled a bowl of stew out of his inventory and eaten the food, still-steaming thanks to his timeless inventory, as he walked.
Then, with the sun low in the sky, he saw Feathertown.
***
"Hello, stranger. Are you here to speak with Big Farmer?" A man sitting on a stool with a self-important look greeted him at the entrance to the town. When Shiv gave confirmation that that was, indeed, his reason for being there, the man nodded knowingly. "Welp, laddy. I'm afraid I must needs inform you that you're too late. Big Farmer is asleep right now, and won't be taking any more visits till the morning."
"That's unfortunate. I do hate being that guy, but I'm afraid I can't wait till the morning. I'll just have to wake the sucker up." He moved to push past the man, but the man grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip.
"And I'm afraid I can't be letting you do that. You're going to have to wait till the morning to talk to him. There's an inn right over there that you can stay in." He pointed at a relatively large building behind him in the town.
"Which inn is the Big Farmer staying in? I'll need to know where he's at if I'm going to be able to meet him tomorrow morning." Shiv asked tiredly. He could feel the strength in the man's grip, and it was more than Shiv had in his entire body.
The man hesitated, but after seeing the depressed look of the man in front of him, he decided it shouldn't be a problem to tell him where Big Farmer was at. "He's staying in the Mayor's house." The man released Shiv after giving directions to the place, and he headed into town, still lit by the last rays of the setting sun.
Shiv walked through the town to the far side, where the Mayor's estate was located. There were two intimidating, armed men standing outside the gated entrance to the walled-in area the house was in. He nodded at them respectfully while noting that the buildings were built very close together, right up against the wall, and that they were made completely from stone.
'I can jump from building to building like in that one video game, without any fear of falling through the roof.' His depressed mood abruptly left him when he realized this fact. 'I can still get to the farmer.'
He walked out of sight of the guards and found a barrel sitting next to the wall of a building. He scaled it quickly and effortlessly thanks to his practice in climbing trees, and reached the roof in no time. He quickly jumped from roof to roof, getting closer to the wall with each hop until he was on the roof of a building that seemed to have been built into the wall. He stood there mapping out his route to the house, and hesitated when he had to decide between going into the fenced-in yard at the back of the house, or through the front entrance.
Then, smirking at how easy it was, he dropped down in the estate of the Mayor.
After that, making his way to the house in the center of the house was childsplay, even with the group of guards walking well-defined routes through the estate's property. 'The blind boar would be better at guarding things than these guys.' He snickered. 'Not to mention the hordes of deerbucks and redhounds. If they had those things guarding this place, It'd be almost impossible to get in here.'
Having made it successfully to the house without being spotted, he knocked loudly on the front door, and leaned on the doorpost with his arms crossed.
Moments later, a little girl that looked to be just a bit older than Blaze opened the door.
"Hiya, kid. How are ya? Is the Big Farmer dude here?" He knelt and winked at her, and was hit with another pang of loneliness.
"What's a 'dude'?" She frowned at him.