Amourshipping and the Beanstalk

Chapter 1

"ASH! ASH, YOU LAZY BUM! IT'S TIME TO GET UP!"

Ash springs out of bed awake. He checks his surroundings and remembers that he is in a small wooden bed in a small worn out cottage. He turns his head to see Iris, a dark-skinned woman with a long lock of purple hair standing next to his bed with an annoyed expression on her face. She is wearing farming clothes and is carrying a thirteen-month-old child with dark skin and green hair on her left arm.

"Well, it's about time you woke up," Iris rebukes. "It's past 7 o'clock and you need to get going on your chores if you want breakfast."

Ash groans as he reluctantly gets up. Iris glares daggers at him while he puts on his own farming clothes. Then she turns around to face the bed next to Ash's where a tall, tan-skinned man named Brock is snoring loudly.

"You too, Brock," she barks as she kicks the bed. "This is no bed and breakfast. There's work to be done."

Brock moans and says, "Alright, Iris, alright. I'm up,"

"Good," Iris bellows. "Now you two better check on the fishing nets and get some milk from Whitey. I don't want my Maynor to spend the day hungry again."

The dark-skinned, green-haired baby named Maynor cooes and whimpers as his mother carries him. Brock sighs as he knows how important it is to feed the child and gives Iris a confident smile.

"Don't worry, Iris," Brock says as he gets dressed. "Whitey just needed a good night sleep. She should be giving us more than enough milk to feed Maynor five times over."

Iris frowns menacingly.

"She had better if you want a bite to eat," she growls. "Now get going, both of you."

"Yes, ma'am," Brock and Ash say simultaneously as they quickly leave their room and walk downstairs to exit the cottage.

Ash and Brock both take deep breaths through their noses to get a whiff of the morning hair. They smile contently before they walk over to a small barn where a scrawny, spotless cow is slowly waking up.

"Morning, Whitey," Ash greets as he grabs a bucket and places it under the cow. "Iris expects a lot of milk today, so don't let us down."

The cow named Whitey merely moos glumly. Brock finds a stool, sets it next to Whitey and sits down before he starts squeezing her teats. Ash watches intently as Brock tries to get some milk from the cow only for nothing to come out. After a minute, Brock stops and looks at Ash with a nervous look.

"I thought you said she just needed some rest," Ash says concerned.

"So did I," Brock says scratching the back of his head. "That seemed to do the trick the last time she was having a dry spell."

Ash frowns as Brock starts squeezing Whitey's teats again, acting more determined than ever to see milk filling up the bucket.

"Come on, Whitey," Brock pleads. "Give us some milk before Iris throws a fit."

Ash shivers at the idea as Brock keeps on trying.

"Should I go ahead and check on the fishing nets while you try to get milk?" he asks.

"Yeah, go ahead," Brock says not looking at Ash as the shorter man exits the barn.

Ash walks down the hill to a river about half a mile through the woods where a couple of fish nets are placed under the water and tied down to a tree. Ash looks down to find a fish trapped in each net and smiles as he takes out one of the nets, holds one of the fish tightly and hits it multiple times against a nearby rock until the fish is killed. Ash stares at it to make sure that it is dead before putting the net on the grass and grabs the next net.