Reincarnated extra refuses to die

Arc 2. Chapter 1-4

The day of the harvest festival arrived in the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, my family and I were locking our house as well as the barn to go towards the central plaza, a quaint and simple clearing in the junction between all other farms. There, tables were already prepared as well as the different stations where people worked over their produce, preparing their ingredients for the cooking.

Animals were stationed on a make-up corral, most of them pigs and goats. On another table there were boiled eggs but not a single chicken in sight. Of course there wouldn't be. Chickens are for eggs, not eating. If we eat them where would we get our eggs from?

I kinda missed eating fried chicken though.

When we arrived all the other adults greeted my parents. My mother went over to the cooking station with the other women, holding two baskets in each of her arms: one basket full of different vegetables and fruits from our farm and the other with bread. Meanwhile, my father took the two pigs we brought along to the corral where most of the men were. You know. Meat. Men. They were our biggest ones as well, and the ones that would be more difficult to keep feeding during winter.

That left me, Lucas and Thomas alone, though soon Thomas ran over to some of the other kids his age. It was understandable. After all, not every day he could play with them.

I took Lucas by the hand and guided him to the group of girls my age that were doing some crowns and bracelets out of dried leaves and fresh flowers. My mom asked me to help her with the cooking, but it seemed it still wasn't time for it, so I wanted to catch up with some of the girls. The boys were running around causing trouble a little away.

"Are you up to sitting with us, girls, or do you want to play with the other boys?" I asked Lucas, suddenly thinking maybe he wouldn't like making handmade accessories and so. Lucas gave a short glance to the group of boys on the other side, before shaking his head and coming with me.

It was understandable for him not to want to separate from me. Though all the kids already knew Lucas, there wasn't enough time for him to make a solid friendship with any of them. As for the reason we gave for his sudden arrival at our farm... my parents simply said I found him in some dark alley and he followed me home, and since then he'd been adopted.

Of course, there were many skeptical ones, who knew of my family's situation for the last year and of the compensation given to us by our new lord. The change in liege did not go unnoticed, and so, some were speculating Lucas had something to do with the viscount and his evil deeds and now he had to hide. Some even thought he could be the viscount's illegitimate son, a theory validated by Lucas' similarity to him.

But, well, Tosca was the farthest region from Cela, where the viscount used to live. No one has really seen his face. Maybe in passing if they ever went over to Cela, but no more than that. It helped the viscount always sent envoys to control this part of his territory rather than coming himself. So, in that way, I thought Lucas was safe.

For now.

Anyway, they could speculate all they wanted. Even if the rumor of Lucas being the illegitimate child of the viscount was true, I knew the community was more interested in gossiping, not in verifying whether what they were saying was true or not.

It's not like they had a way to confirm their theory, now, with the viscount dead. And it was going to pass sooner or later, until a new rumor started circulating and everyone forgot they ever talked about Lucas.

In the meantime, we could still enjoy the little moments life gave us.

"What do you think, Elaine?" Lucas asked once he was done with his flower crown. I took my eyes from my own work and looked at his, narrowing my eyes upon seeing a perfect creation of white, yellow and pink flowers. I turned back to my own crooked crown, before throwing it to the ground. "I take it is good then" he concluded with a smile.