Writing The View from Sunrise Farms

Boo1972

Boo1972

Farmer
I read Kuzuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View of Hills a year ago and it broke my heart. I started imagining what it would be like for one of the characters to have a new life in Stardew Valley. Combining one of the great works of modern literature with a video games is the height of foolishness, but here we are. I’m taking great liberties with both sources of inspiration and this prologue is a first draft. I hope it works. I hope someone likes it. I hope you like strange, sullen, spider-loving Mariko as much as I do.

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The View from Sunrise Farms

Prologue

The red-head Robin chatted cheerfully a few steps ahead of Mariko. “And just down the road to the east is the main part of town.You can find anything you need there, including company.” She paused and smiled back at Mariko, who said nothing. Robin gave a little cough, “Well, here we are.”

The path opened up to a large, unspoiled stretch of beach. The pale sand dotted with debris and weeds, the trees so dense Mariko couldn’t see the edges of her island.

“There’s good soil here” Robin reassured Mariko. “I know it's overgrown, but..”

“It's beautiful,” Mariko interrupted, breaking her silence.

“Yeah, it is.” Robin nodded. “Peaceful too. You’re lucky.”

An older man stepped out from a small cabin. He smiled broadly at Mariko, his ridiculous, villainous mustache quivered at its curved ends. His voice was too loud, too friendly. “I’m Mayor Lewis. You must be Mariko, our new farmer. Everyone’s quite excited to have a new face in town.”

Mariko sighed internally. She very much doubted everyone felt the same way about anything. She tuned her guides out and headed towards her new farmhouse. It was small, but Mariko was surprised to see it was in very good shape. She tucked her short, black hair behind her ears and climbed the stairs to the porch. Not only were there no noticeable holes or cracks but someone had stacked a season’s worth of firewood on the left side of the house. Now that she was closer to the house, Mariko smelled something new underneath the scent of salt water.

“Ignore Robin, she just wants to sell you…”

Mariko ignored the mayor instead. She turned to Robin. “I smell cedar.”

“Good catch,” Robin replied, studying Mariko for the first time. “Your grandfather knew what he was doing when he built this cabin. Cedar can last a really long time, even when exposed to salt,”

“You must have fixed it some. And thank you for the wood.”

“Any time. Literally.” Robin grinned. “I sell wood.”

Mariko smiled briefly in return. The mayor muttered something about dusting and cleaning under his breath, and turned to Mariko with a smile that didn't reach the corners of his eyes. “You must be tired from your trip and tomorrow will be a busy day for you.” He and Robin turned and headed towards town. Lewis paused and turned back to face Mariko. “I really liked your grandfather. He was a great listener and an even better friend. I missed him when he left. I would have paid my respects but we didn’t hear about his passing.” His voice shook a little.

Mariko took a deep breath. “Thank you. We lost him during the firebombing. He left our hiding place in the sewers one day and never came back. It was the last time I saw him.”

Robin shifted uncomfortably in the sand. But Lewis, the politician, nodded. “It was horrible, what the Gotoro Empire did to the Crescent Islands. It's good you're here now and safe.”

They waved their goodbyes and Mariko entered her new home. It was tiny, with a small bed, a tv as old as Lewis, and a bookcase. Mariko ran a finger along the shelves and scanned the book titles. “Lewis must have cleaned,” she said to no one. The books were mostly about farming and crafting, but there were a few empty journals. Lewis had left parsnip seeds- Yuck, she thought- and a potted palm, tacky.

Mariko sat on the edge of her new bed. It was what she didn’t see that struck her. No place to wash up, no kitchen to prepare food, no fireplace for heat. Nothing a home would need. No sense of permanence. She lay down to rest, her eyes shut against the chilly air and the insistence slap of the water against the sand.
 
Boo1972

Boo1972

Farmer
Mariko swung her legs over the side of her surprisingly comfortable bed, tossing the covers to the side and was hit by a wall of cold air. Her body turned into a giant goose pimple and she instinctively wrapped her arms around her bare chest. “Pajamas”, she thought, fumbling to put on yesterday’s shirt and her lone pair of overalls. “I’ll need some. And socks”. Opening her backpack to find something to cover her feet, she remembered why she packed so light. Under several pairs of plain tees were five heavy farming tools. Mariko tentatively lifted the pickaxe, imagining what it would be like to actually swing it. At the bottom of the pack, wrapped carefully in gray silk, she pulled out her favorite thing. A small, orchid colored dagger rested in her palms.She shut her eyes.

Mariko looked up into a pair of stern blue eyes. The gray in his curly beard picked up the dim light of the sewers. The blade was bigger than her tiny palm.

“This is important, little one. These are dangerous times. You will need to learn to protect yourself.”

A mother’s wail rose from the tunnels. Mariko turned back, wondering briefly if it was her own. He firmly turned her face back towards his.

“You can help her by surviving. You can help her by learning to protect yourself.” He lifted the dagger and handed it to her hilt first. “First, you will need to learn how to hold it properly. The blade is very sharp. It will cut you as you learn to use it. You will have to get used to it.”

Mariko shook off the memory. She rewrapped the dagger and slipped it into a pocket. Leaving the clothes on the table, Mariko shoved the tools back into her bag, grabbed the parsnip seeds and headed out the door.

“Sunglasses.” she said aloud, blinking in the bright morning light. “I’m also going to need a hat.” She dumped the tools on the porch and tried to look around. “I need a better view,” she thought.
Deciding stepping on the occasional stone was a better option than a shoe full of sand, she grabbed a scythe and stepped barefoot off of the porch. She made her way west to a stand of trees and picked the tallest pine.

The tree bark was rough except for the parts that were sticky with sap or squishy with insects, but Mariko pushed on higher. She stopped a couple of feet before the top as the tree began to creak in protest. There was a group of smaller islands a little further to the west. The largest was almost completely covered by a dilapidated building. That seemed like an eventual project for Robin. A little ways beyond the building was an island with a few crumbling gravestones and what must have once been an ancestor shrine. “A project for me.” Mariko looked south. There was a rectangular plot of actual dirt, covered by all manner of rocks, sticks and large logs. South of the only farm plot was a small pond and forest, like a secret garden in the middle of all the sand and weeds. To her east, long grass bent and shook in the almost white sand. The stumps of what must have been massive hardwood trees dotted the landscape. “I wonder what happened to them”. A tree covered in pink blossoms grew out of the water on the eastern coast. Despite the smell of salt, Mariko decided the water must be brackish. She pressed her back against the trunk and breathed deeply. Her farm was beautiful. “Time to work,” she announced to a flutter of butterflies warming their wings in the sun. She grabbed a branch and swung down, landing crouched in the sand.

After several hours, Mariko had managed to clear space for her 15 parsnips and a few random seeds she had found in the weeds. One, at least, was a potato. She hoped the others were edible. Her third-hand tools were too dull to clear out the larger stumps and boulders, so a vegetable garden in front of the house would have to do. “No one is going to spend money on parsnips”, Mariko muttered. “Maybe I can buy something else in town.” She tossed her tools on the porch and hesitated, finally heading north up the mountain.

The path was quiet and empty; Mariko surprised a gathering of sparrows and was scolded by an indignant squirrel. She gathered a few wild leeks scattered on the ground and a brown, lumpy root. She scratched the skin of her find and was about to smell it when she bumped into a large yellow bird-man. No, just a man wearing yellow leaves stitched together.
“Excuse me,” he offered, “I was foraging and didn’t see you.” He stepped back nervously.

The man’s strange tattered outfit matched a nearby yellow tent which seemed more like a permanent set-up than a weekend trip. Mariko held out the rock-like vegetable. “Do you know what this is?”

“It is a wild horseradish. It's perfectly edible.”

“Huh. That’s not how I pictured a horseradish.” Mariko sniffed it and immediately felt a tingling sensation in her nose.

“Oh?”

Mariko looked in the man’s wary brown eyes. “I thought white and jarred.”

He chuckled. “I’m Linus, I live up here in the mountains.”

“Mariko. I inherited Sunrise Farm.” She held out her horseradish. “Want it?”

Linus gazed at Mariko intently, his eyes resting on her prominent collar bone. “Thank you, “ he said kindly. “But you should keep it.”

Mariko stepped into town and immediately regretted leaving her shoes at home. Loose and missing cobblestones marred the quaint town square and irritated the soles of her feet. There appeared to be only a handful of houses, and she wondered how any businesses could thrive. Still, she found the general store easily enough and pushed open the front door.

“Good afternoon and welcome to Pierre’s General Store!” a loud voice called out, more eager than friendly. “I’m Pierre, the proud owner and operator. You must be the new farmer. Here at Pierre’s we sell the finest seeds around.”

Mariko approached the counter. Pierre smiled at her like a starving man at a feast. “Here, let me show what I have available. I can assure that I only stock and sell the highest qual-”

“I don't like any of these.”

Pierre’s friendly facade faltered for a moment. “Well, these vegetables are guaranteed money makers and easy to grow for a new farmer.”

Mariko shoved the seed bin back towards Pierre. “No.” She turned to walk away.

“Wait, look, buy what you can now and I’ll be able to order more seeds. What do you want?”

“Some kind of fruit.”
“Deal.”

Mariko bought a green bean, two cauliflower and a bunch of potatoes. She could feel Pierre’s disappointment, but he gave her a tired smile. As she turned to leave, Mariko found herself face to face with a violet-haired young woman. She was almost as short as Mariko, but athletically built, and so pale Mariko wondered if she was allergic to the sun.

“Hey, you’re living in the old farmhouse right?”, the girl ventured, and then continued on without waiting for a reply. “It's too bad. I liked wandering those old, abandoned fields on my own.” She sighed.

“Who said you can't?”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll plow the fields or whatever farmers do and it won't be the same.”

Mariko raised an eyebrow. She opened her mouth to respond when the store door clattered open and a voice boomed like an actor on stage, “Ahh, the new farmer we’ve all been expecting!” The man in the doorway was so broad and tall he blocked the sunlight and was as impossibly chiseled and handsome as any movie star. He sauntered to Mariko and engulfed her small hand in his own. Mariko was suddenly acutely aware of the pine needles stuck to hair, the sticky pine residue on her palms, her baggy and somewhat smelly overalls. She rubbed a foot against her calf, hoping to dislodge some of the dirt. “Your arrival has sparked many a conversation. I’m Elliot, I live in the cabin on the beach.” He made no indication he noticed Mariko’s general state of disarray.

“I’m Mariko.”

“It's a pleasure, Mariko. Enjoy your first day in our lovely little valley.” Elliot went to browse the shelves, leaving the scent of soap and old books in his wake.

Mariko raised a hand to flatten her hair and yank out some of the pine needles. She had reached the door when the pale, purple haired girl called out.

“Hey, I'm Abigail by the way. I’ll see you around.”
 
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