FSE

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“Can I actually pull this off?” Erik groaned, holding his head in one hand and a pencil in the other. In front of him, a book full of sketches, pretend technical drawings of parts he needed for the sawmill, measurements from all angles possible, but his drawing skills were never great, and he was no draftsman. It had been over a week since they were at the Creekhouse, and he had been working almost nonstop in the schoolhouse before and after class. The room was lit by a rather sad looking candle, the only light he had to work by after the sun had set.

“You're doing fine, Erik.” Jenny replied. She had taken to looming over his shoulder as he worked these days, inspecting all of his drawings.

“I don't feel like it. These drawings are terrible.” He tapped the page and shrugged. “This crank doesn't even look like what it's supposed to be. It's not going to work properly.”

“We understand your technical drawings, nobody else has to really get it, they just have to be able to make it.”

“Ugh, that's something else entirely.” He rubbed his head. “And it's October now, I have to get to the harvest soon.”

Jenny shrugged. “What about Kelsey? Can't she do the harvest?”

“It's a big job, I think we all will, except maybe Kerry. But Kelsey might be out hunting down things while she still can.”

She crossed her arms. “Maybe she should be helping you with this instead of running around.”

“Now now, she helps me as much as I help her. She knows I need certain things, I'm sure she's trying to find them before winter sets in while I'm working on this.”

“Why winter as the deadline? She can walk in the snow just fine. She does get a winter coat, doesn't she?”

“Yeah, but I can't.” He shook his head. “No fur. I'll freeze to death if I don't get some warm clothes. A big, puffy jacket, that's my winter coat.”

“Heh. Sounds like she's not keeping you warm enough.” She smirked.

“Oh, with both of us needing to stay warm-” He stopped himself before he said too much. “Anyway. I should go home. Been here too long.” He closed up the book and stood up.

“Oh. Alright, I guess that makes sense. See you next time?”

“Yeah. See you.” He groggily yawned as he wandered to the door.

Now left alone in the building, to the clunking of the closing door, she sat down in his spot for a moment, and rested her chin on her hands, sniffing the air in the room. She sat in quiet contemplation for a few minutes, before the door opened again. A light clap of dainty hooves broke her concentration.

Celia looked to her with curiosity. “Jenny? It's time to go home.”

“Mm. Yeah.” She reached up to the candle to snuff it, but stopped herself at the prospect of more discussion.

“What's on your mind? This is the second time you've been sitting around here after hours this week.”

“Just thinking.”

Celia hopped up a bit to sit on the desk, and looked around to Jenny. “You think at home, that's normal. This isn't. What's gotten into you?”

She sighed, trying to collect her thoughts. “When I see Erik, and he talks about Kelsey, it reminds me of her suiting. And it reminds me that... mine is coming in the spring.”

“Nervous to go through with it?”

She shook her head. “Not really. I just... I don't know which option is right.”

“More than one option... I guess that means it'll probably be someone else's choice, won't it?”

She nodded to herself. The fighting. “Yeah. Probably.”

“Well, no point fretting over it. You get the strongest and smartest one if they do choose to fight.”

“Do you think Kelsey got the strongest and smartest?”

Celia chuckled. “Erik? Stronger than Colton? Definitely not. But smarter, you bet.”

“Hmm. Maybe I'll get the smart one, too. Or the stronger one, so I can be the smart one?”

“Jenny, no point worrying about it now. It'll happen when it happens. Just follow your heart.”

She didn't know what else to say. “Yeah. I guess. Alright, let's go.” She reached to the candle again and snuffed the small, flickering flame.

Erik returned home and sat down on the couch heavily with a groan, tossing a bundle of papers aside and held his head. His brain had been working overtime for way too long without a single drop of coffee or tea like he was used to when wracking his brain. The door to Kelsey's room opened and closed and she walked out with her hands behind her back.

“Hi, honey. How was class?”

“It was fine. Got a lot of good conversation and planning on the sawmill done. How was your day, dear?”

“Great! I got you a present!” She grinned, a darling lilt to her pronunciation of the word 'present'.

“Oh? What is it?”

“Tada!” She whipped her hands around to her front, in each one, a large black boot.

Erik woke up enough to be surprised at the find. “Oh! You found some winter boots!”

“Yep! They're a bit musty but nothing some sunlight won't burn away, right?” She walked closer and handed them over to him for inspection.

“Right.” He looked them over and moved to slip one on. They were big and loose, easy to put on and clunk about in with extra socks. “Nice, good find! Kind of used to have some like this when I was younger.”

“They're not too loose?”

“Nope, once I put on extra socks, they'll fit just fine.” He put them down and reached up to hug her, though she was still standing in front of him. She giggled and instead straddled him on her knees on the couch so he could properly hug her. “Thank you, love.” She licked an out-of-place bit of hair on his head as he hugged her.

“Hey, any time. You're doing lots of work for all of us, the least I could do is help you.” She backed off a bit to look more directly at him. “So, got any more drawings to show off?”

He shrugged. “A bit, not much. I'm trying to design the crank now, I keep messing up on the shape.” He reached over and opened the bag, pulling out a couple of assorted papers before getting his last drawing. A teardrop-shaped object greeted them, with a hole in the middle, and another one near the end of the object. “See, the main axle is going to go here, and turn this. The connecting rod that goes to the sawblade is going to be on this one, and as it spins, it'll reciprocate.” He explained.

“Oh, I see. That's interesting...” She commented, looking over the simple drawing.

“It is. But I'm concerned it's not going to be strong enough to do it for too long. There's going to be a lot of stress on this part of the crank from the saw, and I think it'll break soon after installing it. And I've been wracking my brain over it for the past while.”

Kelsey shook her head. “I'm sorry, I'm not sure I could help with that... Maybe some food and rest will help refresh your mind, hm?”

She was always ready and willing to help how she could. He couldn't help but smile at her devotion.

“Yeah, that sounds nice.”

The next day, after having a refreshing period of sleep, Erik had something to take his mind off of the task for a while.

“Alright, it's the middle of October. Things are starting to slow down. It's finally time to harvest the more sensitive things. Erik, are you ready to go?”

“Of course.”

“Kerry?”

“My foot's okay for some light work.” She nodded.

“Alright, good.” He clapped his paws together with a dull thud. “Erik, I want you to start gathering the peppers. It's easier for you to wash off than us. Do not touch your eyes while dealing with the hot ones.”

“Right.”

“You know which ones are hot, right?”

“Quite sure.” He nodded. He knew enough to tell the difference between the mere two kinds they grew there.

“Okay. Pick the green ones for now, if they're turning, leave them and we'll get colors on a second pass later. Kelsey, can you focus on the corn?”

“Sure.”

“Kerry, you won't have to move much if you're on the raspberries.”

“That works.”

He looked to Shirley. “Honey, carrots.”

“Alright.”

“And I'm on peas.” He nodded finally. “The potatoes we can work on later, they're fine underground for a bit. Everyone grab some baskets from the shed and get to picking.”

Erik threw on his grey mackinaw and descended the stairs with Kelsey.

“Well, it's finally time to do this, huh?”

“Good ol' harvest. It's not like scavving, but it's fun anyway. Kind of calming, you know?”

“Yeah, I bet. Cathartic.”

She chuckled. “Another fancy word.”

“Plenty more where that came from.” He grinned as they headed to the shed to retrieve the baskets in storage there. Screeching open the sheet metal door, he grabbed a pile and handed them out the door. “Here you go.”

With baskets in hand, the family split up to their rows of plants to get to work. Erik knelt down on the dirt at the start of the row of peppers. Thick, juicy green peppers hung like ornaments off the bushes, several to each plant. Some had began to change a bit. He took a green bell in his hands lightly and pushed up slightly, popping off of the branch easily with a satisfying crack. He simply stared at it for a moment, entranced by the natural beauty of such a simple thing. The green shell of it reflected the sunlight like it were waxed. An odor rose from the stem, filling the air around him rather quickly. There was nothing quite like the smell of a freshly picked fruit, the green earthy smell, it was something that defied description.

His attention was broken by Kelsey's voice, holding several ears of corn in her arms. “Hey, you love that pepper so much, why don't you marry it?” The others around chuckled a bit as they continued.

“Maybe I will!”

Her tone changed immediately. “I will kill that pepper!” She insisted, dropping the ears in the basket.

Erik chuckled too, getting back to work. The big greens usually popped off with ease, and one after another, they quickly filled a basket. He got another and began filling it, too. A few peppers were left, transitioning from green to yellow, so he left them to ripen more.

After a while of harvesting the green peppers, it was finally time to move on to the hot peppers. The anthros, it seemed, enjoyed a piquant pepper every now and then, so they had several jalapeno bushes, each one with a handful of fruits. As with before, he popped off the green lump and looked at it. Solid, five inch peppers began to fill another basket, each one inspected for its health. Thankfully, they seemed to have done quite well. Their skin was tight and dark green on most, but the odd one had a mottle of woody brown lines on them, like bark. Still, the peppers seemed fine otherwise, so they were saved. It wouldn't too long before he had finished plucking all of the jalapenos, and set them aside with the growing number of baskets out front of the house.

As he returned to the fields, about to look for some more work to do, Shirley called out to him.

“Erik, come help me with the carrots. Over here!” She was waving to him in the middle of the row of carrots, not that a fluffy orange fox tail was difficult to spot in a field of green. He approached with a basket and knelt down in the dirt nearby. “Having fun?” She asked with a smile as she uprooted a carrot.

“Of course. It's amazing, really, but getting fresh veggies with the family is a good time.” He grabbed a the greens of a carrot and began to pull.

“Oh, pull from down lower, near the base of the root. Keep the greens on as much as you can, it's better for it, until it's ready to be eaten.” She explained it simply as she showed him, grabbing another and uprooting it.

He nodded. “Ah, okay. Makes sense.” He grabbed one and pulled it out. Several small, brown holes were on the sides. “Oh, ew.”

Shirley looked over and frowned. “Ah, it got bugs. Throw it out.” He pitched the carrot far away from the field, out into the long grasses beyond the property. “Well, I'm glad to hear you think of us all as 'the family.” She smiled sweetly to him. “I was a bit concerned at the start that you would feel like an outsider, even if you did marry Kelsey.”

He pulled out another carrot. “You know, I kind of feared so, too. But you all accepted me as much as I accepted you, and stood up for me when that agent came knocking. We both accepted each other, so, it all really worked out. I don't feel like an outsider here, not anymore.”

“And, if your plans to help out Goldenmere and the Creekhouse with wood work out... I think they'll accept you much more, as well.”

“Heh, those plans are much more difficult...”

She tutted him as she uprooted another carrot, its long, hairy roots flopping about. “Don't be so hard on yourself. You know you're smart, you know what you're doing. Have some faith in yourself, dear.” She smiled again.

“Thanks, Shirley.” Erik smiled back, knowing she called him 'dear', as she would her own child. Shirley was a genuinely sweet woman.

They picked away more, eventually uprooting the last of the carrots.

“Thanks, Erik, we got a bunch out of there in record time.” Shirley nodded to him, holding the basket under her arm.

“Of course. You know, I never really noticed how many carrots were... misshapen.” He shrugged.

“What do you mean, misshapen?”

“Well, in the before times, we'd buy carrots at the store. And all of them were this long, conical... well, carrot shape. They were all specially grown and selected for that. But lots of these are curved, or split into two carrots. They're not all perfect.”

“Kind of like all of us.” She smirked. “No two carrots are the same, and few are perfect. But it doesn't mean the other ones aren't fine too. They just look a little different, that's all. Just like us, we're not all perfect, but that's what makes us people, right?”

“Hm, I suppose so. And I'm the most different of all of you, huh?”

“Sure. Doesn't mean you aren't loved just the same. Now, let's finish off the veggies.”

The family toiled in the gardens for a while, slowly but surely picking out all they could. Afterwards, they sat down on the steps outside of the house to catch their breath, surrounded by baskets of their hard earned spoils.

“Whew... good harvest, everyone, we've got a big haul, and haven't even touched the spuds yet.” Will nodded, congratulating everyone. A crow landed near one of the baskets, but was quickly shooed away by Will. “No, get!”

“Yeah, this will liven up the market for sure.” Kerry agreed. “If everyone else got this kind of haul, nobody's going hungry this winter.”

“Especially with a baby on the way!” Kelsey patted herself lightly. “I am going to need so much food. Buttery potatoes-”

Shirley held up a paw. “Wait to see what the baby wants first, dear, it might surprise you.”

“Buttery. Potatoes.” She affirmed sternly. Then she gasped. “Ah! Cheesy potatoes...”

“What if it's March and we just can't get cheese?” Erik shrugged.

Kelsey glared at him. “Mom wants cheese.”

Will and Shirley both snickered at Erik. They both knew the pains of a mother's hunger. “Oh, you're in for a long winter, boy.”

Erik scratched the back of his neck. This sort of society could make having a child difficult.