Scalped? In the Middle of a Forest? It's More Likely Than You Think

I’m trying to sleep, but someone is shaking me. This is terrible. Maybe if I ignore it it’ll stop.

. . .

It isn’t stopping. I open my eyes, accepting whatever horrid waking world responsibility awaits me. Looking at the source of it I see Chamomile, who is fairly blue.

“Renny I’m hungry. Give me cloudberries,” She demands.

I get up and open up my berry bag. It’s empty.

“Well, it looks like I gotta collect more berries first. Give me a minute,”

“But I need them now!” She states.

“I’ll be real quick I promise, you’re gonna get your berries,”

She pouts indignantly. It seems best to get the berries to her quickly, so I run out and begin climbing the nearby trees.

Within around five minutes, I gather up a few berries for her to snack on.

“RENNYYY,” I hear a shout from inside.

I guess these will have to do for now. I run back inside and hand them to her, she gobbles them up quickly. Still blue.

“Renny gimme more!” She demands.

I run back out to grab more berries. I should probably talk to her about some kind of manners after she’s fed. Never mind that, food is a basic need and-

“Rennyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,” I hear her call. I hope she doesn’t wake Poco.

“Just a moment hun! You’ll need more berries than I have right now,” I shout back.

I collect maybe half an hour or so longer, before I walk back into the cottage. I find Chamomile laying dramatically on the floor, she seems to be playing dead.

“Woe to Chamomile, who starved to death after her Renny left forever,” She says, adding a blegh sound at the end for effect.

It seems I’m raising a thespian then. I decide to play along.

“Oh for shame! My poor sweet child has passed beyond this mortal realm,” I say dramatically, pretending to weep.

“Boo hoo, boo hoo I say, for now I’ll have to eat these berries all on my lonesome. This is a truly terrible fate,”

As I mention berries she springs back up, deciding that playtime is over it seems.

“By the power of delicious food I have risen!” She shouts.

I open the bag for her to grab her fill, and she begins gorging herself on them. The bag is nearly emptied when she’s done, with only a few stray cloudberries left. She looks very content with this.

About then Poco wakes up, bouncing towards us to see what we’re doing; at least that’s what I assume. Chamomile turns towards them, smiling.

“Poco I ate until I was full and it’s beautiful,” She says.

Poco bounces around her.

“You wanna play now? Renny can we go to the flower field?”

I think about it for a moment. What if someone sees us again? What if they’re terrible people or something? I look to the two children who are giving me puppy dog eyes.

I don’t know how Poco is doing that considering they’re a blob with no facial features, but they’re doing it. It couldn’t hurt to go as long as no one’s there I suppose.

“Yeah sure, we can go as long as no one else is around,”

“Yes!” Chamomile does a small fist pump of victory.

Right as we’re about to walk out of the door, I hear a knocking on it. That’s not good.

“Hey, what if we play hide and seek first?” I ask.

“Um okay Renny,”

“Great, I’ll count and you two hide. Try not to make any noise though or I could find you,” I warn.

I cover my eyes.

“1, 2, 3, 4,” I hear them head into the bathroom. “9, 10, ready or not hear I come!”

Another knock beckons me. I oblige and open the door. The same green head of hair from yesterday greets me. Anxiety takes hold. He waits a moment before speaking.

“Hi sorry to bother you, I was just curious because well. . . we haven’t seen anyone new around our land in awhile. I haven’t told the townspeople about you yet in case you don’t want to meet a bunch of new people but, I’m sure a new face would brighten their moods,”

“Oh uhm. . .” I pause. I haven’t talked to another human in a month. What do I even say? I swear I can talk to wolves and slimes fine but my own species scares me? What the heck nature?

. . . I realize the pause has turned into an awkward silence. Great.

“Oh you don’t have to meet anyone if you don’t want to! You seem busy, I can leave now,” He turns around and starts walking away.

“Wait no! You can stay,” I find myself shouting out. He turns around.

“Oh great! I haven’t had someone new to talk to in such a long time,” He says happily, coming back towards the door.

I’m glad I didn’t have to be like ‘I want you here’ or something to a stranger. Wait what am I thinking? The kids are still hiding in the bathroom dangit. He walks in, and almost as if on cue Chamomile comes out.

“Renny, are we still playing?” She asks. Poco follows out behind her, making curious chirping sounds. That’s definitely new.

I look between the stranger and the children, unsure of what to do. What if he’s like a super super crappy person and it’s awful-

“Oh yeah, I thought I saw you with a couple kids. Hello there, I’m Biome,” He waves at the two.

I guess he’s not a super super crappy person. Despite this fact, the two hide behind me fairly quickly. I feel Renny pulling on my shirt, and kneel down to her level.

“Renny why is a stranger in our cottage,” She asks, staring at him untrustingly.

“He was curious about us after seeing us in the flower field,” I say. Looking back towards Biome, I give a thumbs up for some reason. He looks somewhat less uncomfortable.

“They don’t see new people very often, so I invited him in. Don’t worry, we can play in the field still,” I say to her.

“Yay!!” She exclaims.

Poco chirps excitedly. The two run outside and I follow after them. Looking back, I see the Biome person closing the door carefully behind them, and following me.

I begin following after the kids who have gone ahead, Biome following up next to me. I keep my eyes trained on Poco and Chamomile for the time being, it feels like something would go wrong as soon as I look away.

“So how long have you had kids?” Biome pipes up.

“About a month,” It hits me that Chamomile is likely around a month old, assuming the house manifested her at least. But probably not. How old is she actually?

“Adopted then? Unless the little girl is a month old-” He tries joking.

“I honestly don’t know, she was just there when I got to the slime house with Poco. She wasn’t like this immediately, started off as just a little fish. It’s kind of scary because I know nothing about her species and I-” I realize I’m dumping my emotions onto someone I only just met.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“No it’s okay,” He says. Looking into his eyes I can see that it clearly isn’t.

“No it isn’t, we just met and you don’t need my baggage,” I sigh.

“Well I mean- sure it isn’t, but it is okay. I’m not upset,” I realize something as he says this.

“Oh. . . oh my gosh,”

“What's wrong?”

I think a moment, I need to make this as not cringe as humanly possible. But I also need to say something within like a few seconds. Crap. crap. crap.

“You need to take up space, okay? You'll never be okay if you always bite your tongue for others. Be the greediest you can be with self care, don't bend over backwards for others when they wouldn't do the same for you,” I summarize the cringy emotionally driven paragraph that was in my head as best I can.

Silence. Everyone is staring at me. Poco, Chamomile, and the new face known as Biome. Yeah I did kind of spout that all out like it would be easy, which it absolutely wouldn't be at all. 

His eyes get a bit glossy. Part of me thought I might be projecting a past version of myself onto him, but it looks like my hunch was right. He’s just like I used to be, isn’t he?

He begins walking away. I let him leave, turning back to Chamomile and Poco.

“Ren. . you made him sad,”

I sit down on her level.

“Hun, sometimes people are really sad but they try to hide it to keep other people safe. But you need to know, it doesn’t keep anyone safe, it just pushes them away. Eventually the sadness will blow up and create a giant mess,”

As I explain this she begins sniffling and tears up. Crying comes soon after.

“It’s never good to conceal your emotions, you just need to manage the way that they’re let out. Both of you, whenever you’re feeling bad in any way for any reason, take a deep breath and make sure to tell everyone around you what’s wrong so they can help. I’m sorry for making you cry Chamomile,”

She takes a deep, hiccupy breath, then another, and another until she calms down a little.

“Renny, I-” She hiccups. “I’m sad because he did that to himself,” She starts crying again.

“Why would someone do that?” Chamomile asks. 

“Oh hun, I wish I knew how to explain it,” I pick her and Poco up, walking them back at the cottage. They both look physically and mentally exhausted. After putting Chamomile to sleep, I try talking to Poco for a moment.

“Poco are you alright?” I ask.

I can’t really understand them, but they deserve to release any emotion just as much as Chamomile. They wobble at me, almost like trying to simulate an ocean wave maybe?

“I’m sorry Poco,” I hold them close to my chest, letting them rest there for a moment.

Eventually they start pulling away from me, and I put them down with Chamomile.

“You two rest well okay? I love you,” I pat both their heads before heading back out.

I’m sure this Biome person is feeling like a wreck, and anyone would need support after getting scalped by a stranger. Even me would be better than no one I think.

I search around a bit, refraining from calling. Eventually the sound of sniffling reaches me, and I walk towards the sound to find a familiar green head of hair. I sit down next to him, on the edge of a cliff.

“I’m sorry-” I start. He cuts me off.

“How did you see through me like that? You knew exactly how to make me cry, and I don’t even know your name. We just met today,”

I think a moment before speaking up. 

“I used to be just like you," 

"I just said what would’ve helped a younger me along,”

He hesitates before speaking again.

“We’re not the same people,”

How do I respond to that? Of course we're not some kind of clones, but I recognized a terrible similarity and couldn't just leave it to sit and fester. Even if it hurts right now, he would need to change in some way eventually. I guess I should say something like that though. 

“Of course not, no two people are the same. I doubt we have the exact same issues in every single way,"

I pause to catch my breath.  

"But you bear a key similarity to a younger me, in that you’re terrified of hurting anyone,”

He looks flustered.

“Yes I am, and is that so wrong? What if I screw up and they leave me?”

That question terrifies me to this day, but it doesn't mean I don't have an answer for it. 

“Then they were never worth it,”

I wonder how old he is anyways? I guess I'll ask. 

"How old are you, Biome?" 

The answer, unsurprisingly, falls out immediately.

“I’m 19,”

That’s a lot older than I was expecting, I went through the ‘don’t shrink your worth for others’ journey when I was like 16.

“Well you still have a whole life ahead of you! We both do, we’re not even halfway through our natural lifespans. There’s still time to grow and improve,”

He takes a few minutes to respond. I listen to bugs humming in the distance. 

“But changing is just so terrifying,”

Change is terrifying, he's right in that regard. A weight fills my chest as I think about staying the same. That's definitely scarier. 

“It always will be. But the idea of staying the same until I die always frightened me. Doesn’t it scare you too?”

He thinks for a moment.

“That is scary,”

He pauses. 

“I don’t want to stay the same forever,” He finishes.

My response comes out naturally.

“Neither do I,”

He appears to have calmed down, a small smile returning to his face.

“Are you feeling better?” I ask.

He thinks a moment. 

“Thank you for talking to me, I do feel better. . . But I still never caught your name?”

“Oh of course! My names Rain,”

“Hmm, Rain. . . that’s kind of funny, thank you Rain,” he says.

He and I stand up and walk away from the cliff, having some small talk on the way to the bridge.

“Stop by my plant shop whenever you’d like! A lot of the other villagers are friendly too,” He waves goodbye as he crosses the bridge.

“I’ll be sure to drop by! See you around Biome!” I wave back.

Walking away, it feels weird that we barely know each other's names. I guess a heart to heart will do that to people, but jeez it feels like I sped-run a friendship. Whatever, I mean he’s probably gonna have some good growth because of this. So if nothing else, I did my best to create a healthier person; and that’s enough for me.