Clitheroe: A BaRKCRound Three: Renaisse

o, journal keeping. Yeah. Writing isn’t really my thing, buuuuut I guess I can do it for the queen. She’s treated me well enough so far, I guess.

Like giving me this place. Sure, I had to dig up some treasure to afford the windows and the fancy fencing on the patio, but it’s pretty sweet. Queen Keika says it’s the best starting house anyone’s had in the kingdom so far.

Personally, I trust her. I saw that Lariel place at the beginning of this round. Nope, nope, nope.

Speaking of the queen, she met me at the lot after I packed up and left Townieland, and explained how life in Clitheroe goes down. Laws, something about no custom ticket pricing, I don’t know. Stuff. To be totally honest, I was only paying attention for half of it.

R.A. DIENDA. Come on, that was important information! I’m your queen! When I say listen, you say YES YOUR DIVINE MAJESTY I WILL HANG ON YOUR EVERY WORD. Just like that, in all capitals and with no commas.

This is me, by the way. Dienda Renaisse. Red-headed brown-eyed Clitheroan extraordinaire. Pleased to meetcha.

R.A. Yeah, yeah. Pleased to meet you, too.

Anyway, after the queen left, some of the old townie crowd came down from the mountains to congratulate me. I don’t remember this guy, Howard Wetherby, being there, but I’m glad he found me now.

I’ll never forget his first words to me. They were, and I quote,

“Hey there. I’m wearing a purple jacket with a yellow print shirt.”

The man is a dreamboat.

We got on very well. So well, in fact, that he didn’t leave until the next morning. We shared some cereal, and then I actually went outside and did that treasure hunting for those windows and the fencing I’ve already shown you.

Turns out I’m not very good at treasure hunting. Yeeeeaaaah. Took me ages to finally be able to afford those windows. Buying a community lot from the queen for a business? A few more ages.

But there’s lots of stuff happened between the digging and the business. Keep on track here, Dienda.

This is more important than my failure at digging up the yard.

My belly suddenly popping the next morning took me totally by surprise. I mean, it was just one night I had with Howard. I hadn’t even seen him all day since.

One flipping night.

I was happy. Also I was scared. And a little sad. I didn’t know what to do, so I put a whole box of toaster pastries in the oven and slowly started eating my way through them.

I didn’t think of much other than the flaky goodness and the cream filling until the doorbell rang.

I swung the door open and froze, hands still in the air. “Oh. Ah. Your Majesty.”

The queen herself was standing on my doorstep, and she had a look on her face like I was in for some serious business. “Dienda. I’m here as your queen.”

“Uh-oh.”

“We need to Talk,” Queen Keika said, her voice totally level. I was like, Well… crap.

“How did you find out already? I’ve only known myself for a couple-a hours…”

“Word travels fast in a small kingdom, Dienda.” The queen settled herself comfortably onto my couch. Personally, I stayed standing. She put her hands on her lap and looked up at me with a small smile. “Don’t worry. It was the town crier, but I made her promise to keep it secret for now.”

“Oh. Okay. Why does it need to be a secret?”

The queen fixed me with a stern gaze. “Dienda. I hope you’re planning on marrying that man.”

My stomach turned. “Whaaaat? What for?”

“Clitheroe is only just beginning,” the queen said. “If you bear a daughter out of wedlock, and that daughter inherits, it might cause trouble for your descendants later. Your entire house could be discredited and shamed because it was descended from an illegitimate heir.”

“Uh-huh.” I raised a finger. “One question. How do you know that?”

“I am a goddess, after all. I have a vague idea about where this kingdom is headed.”

“Listen,” she continued, patting the seat next to her. I caved in and sat down while she kept talking. “Your neighbors—and by neighbors, I mean Imelda Lariel—don’t know about this yet. Get the guy over here, marry him now, and no one need ever know.”

“Yeah, well…”

“This is serious, Dienda. Consider this a direct order from your queen. Marry the man.”

And so I called Howard over.

Basically, the conversation went like this.

“MARRIAGE!?”

“Marriage.”

“Okay.”

So Howard and I got married. Romantic, am I right?

Pregnancy is super uncomfortable, by the way. This was my exact facial expression, the way Howard tells it, when I popped again the next day. Felt like my innards were exploding.

You know, meals at the dinner table really bring a family together. Know what I mean?

So I had a really tough final trimester. As in, really tough. I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t have time to bathe because I was always so hungry, and speaking of hungry, I was REALLY hungry. I got up from failing to catch a few winks to stuff some cookies in my face, and I swear I felt… a presence. I can’t explain it. It was weird. Not malevolent or anything. Just… weird.

R.A. Oh, pickled toads on a flipping biscuit. I had no idea she got that close.

Howard acted all cool about it to my face—he was great, giving me backrubs, bringing me food, all that jazz—but I heard him shouting supplications to the gods to keep me and the baby alive. I don’t know what good that would do him; all he needs to do is pick up the phone and call her.

Still… nice to know he cared that much.

And yes, both me and the baby did in fact make it to my due date. Such a relief to have that behind me, let me tell you!

This is my and Howard’s son. I guess this means I’ll have to take my life in my hands and get pregnant again sometime down the line, to make sure my family name survives and all that. Still, the little guy’s pretty cute. His name is Darion.

To be honest… I wasn’t really sure what to do with him. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the kid to death, but basically my thought process was, what’s next? When do I feed him? Is that gas or a smile? He cries sometimes… what does he want? What do I do?

Darion was born Friday. It’s Sunday now, and I still don’t have all those answers. He’s still alive. That’s something, I guess.

Well, I was finally out of danger, but now we were down to less than a thousand bucks in the old bank account, and I hadn’t bought my first business yet. I did remember that was one of the things Queen Keika wanted me to do. That meant Howard and I had to double-team it up with the shovels and hope we struck gold in the next few days.

Joy.

This is not the gold I meant. Thanks for playing.

Well, we did pretty well at digging anyway, despite the weird golden toads. We made over half of what we needed our first day at this.

Halfway isn’t all the way, though, so we had to get back at it the next day. …Hm. “Halfway isn’t all the way.” That should be a saying.

Before we got back to digging, I walked in on Howard cuddling with the kid. Now, trust me, Howard’s not much of a family guy. So, that makes him sneaking into the nursery to cuddle Darion really, super cute.

Plus, Howard was the one to figure out how to get the kid to take a bottle. Props to him for that one. I could’ve done a lot worse picking a husband.

We took a break from the shovels to celebrate Darion’s birthday. It was kind of a sad, lonely birthday, with just us there. I’ll make sure to change that for his next one. The kid deserves friends other than his parents, know what I mean?

Yep, still pretty cute. Spitting image of his daddy. The kid’s gonna drive the ladies crazy someday.

Well, Sunday morning hit us with a freak snowstorm out of nowhere. Seriously, what gives?

All that snow meant no digging. No digging meant we were going to come up short on money for the store. No store meant I was going to get a royal lecture from the queen again.

R.A. I see she’s got me figured out!

Our only choice was to sell that beautiful fencing we worked so hard to install on the patio. Don’t worry, fencing. I’ll be back for you.

At least it got us the store. Howard stayed home with the kid while I went in to put in a token showing at my new business for the queen. Apparently Darion was more interested in his blocks than learning any of those skills he was irradiated for. Yeah, could-a guessed that.

This sure isn’t the best view of it—snowstorm, you know—but this is it. I call it… The Flower Lady.

Question is, is the store the flower lady, or am I the flower lady? Oooh, mystery!

The way I figure, there’s a lot of businesses going up here, and the serious ones are going to need snapdragons around to keep their customers happy. Thing is, not everyone’s gonna have the time or patience to stand at the flower bench actually making them. That’s where the Flower Lady comes in.

Well, it will someday. Obviously neither Howard nor I have even touched the flower bench yet. We’ve been kinda busy, you know. So instead, I opened the store with what you see here. Not much, but Charlotte over there sure got excited.

By the end of my shift, I had enough money secured to pay taxes, plus a bronze sales badge and the first rank on the Flower Lady. Not bad for a one-woman show. Plus, I came home to find Darion walking and talking. Not bad, Howard.

That’s about it for the round, actually. I’ve got a husband and a son, plus a business all financed before the queen had to yell at us. Pretty successful, wouldn’t you say? As an added bonus, Howard and I are fantastic parents.

“Here, baby. Eat this.”

Signed,

End of the Renaisse record of Round Three.