☆ Act 2: Strange Events

After the wonderful night the newly formed couple shared, they went to sleep right on that hill, under the shiny stars of the summer night. Zoey and Finn got to sleep together for the first time, as lovers would, and it was clear that their relationship was going to move quickly, specially considering that they lost their virginities, right after they both found out they loved each other.

Morning arrived, but since the surrounding hills blocked most of the sun, they woke up late. Finn noticed this ,after waking up with a pleasant view of Zoey wrapped around his arms, he always found her the most pretty person in the world, but now that they were dating, he couldn't believe he was fortunate enough to be with her, or even less to sleep, and have sex with her. Sadly he couldn't spend as much time admiring her beauty as he wanted to, because they needed to return to the village, before their friends got worried about them. So he tried waking up Zoey, by caressing her shoulder, and she nuzzled up to him as a response, tempting Finn to forget about returning to the village, and just spend the rest of his life sleeping with Zoey, but clearly he couldn't to that, so he insisted.

"Come on Zoey... we gotta wake up... it got quite late and we need to return..." - Finn asked, with a morning voice, as he was still very sleepy, not as much as Zoey though, because she really didn't want to wake up. She groaned, while holding Finn's body tightly, as she refused waking up, he chuckled from seeing her act that childish, but then got more persistent to wake her up.

"Only if you give me a kiss..." - Zoey said softly, before making a kiss gesture, while she closed her eyes, which made Finn chuckle. He hesitated at first, but after seeing that it was a great offer, he decided to go for it, and plant his lips on hers, for a short, but sweet kiss. She tried locking her arms around him, to pull him into a big, passionate kiss, but as he pulled away quickly, he managed to get her up, while also avoiding her kiss.

Zoey giggled, as she failed to kiss Finn back into sleeping, but now that she got up, she blinked a few times, to fully wake up, and then looked at Finn with a smile, who was smiling back, but showed the clear signs of wanting to go back.

"Why do we have to go back? Can't we just go back to sleep and make love? We could definitely live alone together, specially after you saw my cooking skills" - Zoey pouted, as she still tried to persuading Finn to stay with her. And even though he liked a lot the idea of running away with Zoey, and living a happy life, where she could cook for him, and make love every night, he wasn't fully convinced, as he knew the right thing was to return to the village.

"You know I would love to do that but we have to go back... come on, our friends are waiting for us... they probably are having breakfast as we speak and you know how Faranne gets worried when we are out for a long time..." - Finn replied playfully, before starting to pack the things from yesterday, like the cloth, and glasses they used for dinner. They grabbed their backpacks to return to the village, but while he did that, Zoey seemed a little upset, and wasn't scared to tell him about it.

"Of course... she is always so overprotective with you... I think she lets me do everything I want but that doesn't matter now because I'm your girlfriend now and I am going to be the one protecting you and giving you love" - Zoey said, with a playful smile, that made Finn a little nervous.

"I-I actually think we should keep our relationship a secret for a while... to keep things private while we sort things out as we are both very new to all this, you know?" - Finn said nervously, as he didn't know how his new girlfriend was going to respond, but gladly for him, after Zoey thought about it for a second, she seemed to agree with his idea.

"Yea, I think that's the best for us... I mean, we can keep it a secret if you want to but I'm sure they will still figure out that we are dating now" - Zoey replied playfully, before they both laughed.

"You are right... but still, just to make sure... Now let's go back to the village, I'm hungry..." - Finn said, before heading down the hill, to return to their friends. Zoey followed him, after a quick nod, and then they made their way back to the village, where, as expected, their friends were preparing to have breakfast.

"Good morning kids... how did it go? You took longer than I expected, did you have any trouble with goblins or did you get distracted with something else?" - Faranne asked Zoey and Finn, with her usual playful tone, as they walked to the center of the village, where their friends were going to have breakfast. They both weren't pleased by how she greeted them, mainly because she was clearly joking about them doing more than just vigilance, but also because she referred to them as kids, which always annoyed them, and she knew that. She got so used to calling them that as she raised them up, that it stuck with her, and even though they were no longer kids, she often called them that, sometimes just to mess with them.

"No... it went all smoothly... no goblins near us so I think we are safe... what are you cooking?" - Finn asked, trying to move on from the awkward topic. Faranne gave him a smile after his response, but she also had a good look at the couple, as they seemed very nervous. She knew something was going on between them, and hoped it involved romance, as she loved seeing them flirt.

"Why don't you go to the table and wait to see?" - Faranne replied, with a sweet smile, before Finn and Zoey walked to the large table to join their friends. As Lilith and Itzel greeted them, she took another good look at the both of them, to see how they were reacting, and noticed some things out of the ordinary in their behavior, like the way they walked so close to each other, but as they were going to start breakfast, these signs were going to become more obvious...

Apart from the usual delicious breakfast that Faranne prepared, it was a little out of the ordinary, mainly because of how Finn and Zoey behaved. There no longer seemed to be more playful teasing, or flirting between the two of them, which at this point had become the most prominent feature of their relationship, but there also seemed to be no more awkwardness between them, which was very odd. Even the usual jokes from Finn, that made Zoey giggle like crazy, were fewer, there was something definitely going on between these two, Faranne felt it, as she paid attention to them during the whole breakfast.

But since she loved seeing them flirt so much, she came up with a little plan for the young couple. So after everyone finished eating their breakfast, Faranne decided to make them spend more time alone, to see how they would behave in the future. She was very curious to see what they did when they were alone, and wanted to know what happened between the two of them last night, so as she suspected it involved romance, she came up with a good excuse to send them alone, and spend more hours together.

"That was a nice breakfast, wasn't it?... Anyways, Finn, Zoey... I got another task for you two..." - Faranne said, with a suspicious tone, which caught Finn and Zoey by surprise, as she rarely talks like that. Her straightforwardness raised suspicion, but as they started listening to her, she quickly continued talking.

"I need you to collect some wood and small branches from the forest nearby... to make traps and you know..." - Faranne said, but as she noticed how everyone was giving her weird looks, she got a little nervous.

"But we already collected resources yesterday with Itzel? I think we already have what we need, don't we Itzel?" - Lilith asked, to which Itzel responded with a shy nod, as he always gets nervous when Lilith mentions his name.

"Uhh yes... I'm aware, but I have some big projects for the future of this village and we could always use some extra wood... we could use it to build Sandy a house for example..." - Faranne said nervously, but as she still didn't sound convincing enough, Itzel tried to argue the fact that they already had enough wood for days, but she interrupted him with a gesture, to make him shut up.

"There's no point discussing it... Zoey, Finn... please go get me some wood and other useful stuff you could get me in the forest" - Faranne said, with an authoritative tone, before switching to a sweet one, to address Zoey and Finn. They were slightly confused, as her instructions sounded too vague, specially considering that she always gives them clear instructions when asking for specific resources, but as they didn't want to argue with her, they just nodded nervously, and agreed to do her task.