Honeycomb Hearts

Fruits of Labor

As the rays of sunlight drifted through the shades, a cloud had moved just enough to direct a ray right into Yang's eyes. The blonde groaned in response and moved to turn over, which only resulted in her promptly rolling right off the couch and onto the floor. Yang let out a gasp as she hit the wood, followed quickly by a thump and a groan.

"Welp, guess I'm awake now." Yang groaned. She slapped the small ottoman beside the couch several times, stopping when she felt her hand hit her phone instead of more wood. Dragging the phone to her face, she saw it was only 8:37 AM. "Ugh, too early for me." As she moved to get back onto the couch, a voice called from outside.

"Yang, was that you? Are you okay?" Ruby walked through the door to see Yang still half sprawled on the floor, eyes half shut. "Did you fall off the couch?"

"Apparently not too early for some people." Yang thought. She pushed against the couch and propped herself up, brushing a bit of dirt off of her shoulder. "Me? Pfft, nope. I've never fallen off of a couch in my life."

"Not even at your 8th birthday party? Where you sprained your ankle?" Ruby tilted her head, giving a devious grin.

"How do you remember that so clearly? I swear sometimes you're a robot who replaced my sister and stole her memories and love of cookies."

"Speaking of which..." Ruby cautiously approached Yang. "Do you know where the package of cookies I had in my backpack went? I was saving them for when I was hungry in the middle of the night, but this morning they were nowhere to be found. Seems a bit suspicious, since you're the only one in the house besides me."

Yang shrugged, "No clue. You sure you didn't share 'em with Nora last night? Maybe you got an ice cream hangover and forgot."

"Nope, you definitely ate them! And for that, your punishment shall be severe and unquenching! You shall help me plant these strawberry seeds!" Ruby roared, holding out a paper bag with a familiar icon on it. "I got them this morning from Ren and Nora's store, I thought it would be fun to grow crops just like your Papa Branwen did!"

Yang sighed, "Why am I not surprised that you chose strawberries?"

"Because it's the perfect time of the year for them?" Ruby smiled innocently, dancing on her tip toes. "Come on, we gotta get a move on before the day's over!"

"Before the day's over? It's not even 9 AM!"

"I know, I meant to be back before 8 but I talked with Nora and Ren for a while. Well, more like talked with Nora, Ren isn't very talkative. But anyways come on slowpoke! We have some seeds to plant!" With that, Ruby grabbed Yang by the hand and pulled her out onto the porch, where a pair of trowels and a watering can were waiting. The tools seemed to have been rusted over multiple times, making them look like ancient embalming materials than gardening tools.

"Where did you find this stuff? Ancient Egypt?" Yang chuckled, picking up one of the trowels. "We can't use these, one small cut and we could get seriously sick. Remember what dad said about rust?"

Ruby sighed, "Then what else can we use? No shovels means no moving dirt!" She slumped down onto the steps of the porch, head in her hands. "I got gloves as well from the store, they're in the bag."

Yang peeked in the bag and saw two sets of gardening gloves and somewhere near a million bags of strawberry seeds. Pulling out one of the pairs of gloves, she saw that they had matching patterns to Ruby's favorite blouse. But the other thing she saw was that the glove wouldn't be able to fit over her metal hand, let alone allow any movement of it. Within seconds, she broke free from her grogginess and hatched a plan.