I sat inside the barrier of Area 77, picking flowers and twisting the stems into a flower crown. Granted, I probably wasn't supposed to be inside their perimeter, but it's not entirely my fault. I mean, they built a fence that I can easily pass through at every single intersection point.
I twisted dandelions around cornflowers around alliums around carefully de-thorned roses. Ren, Grian, and I already had flower crowns, but Impulse did not. He recently joined the hippie commune and was still trying to fit in. Hopefully this would help him. I kept adding in dandelions to give the crown more yellow than other colors because Impulse loves yellow. Ren had a lot of cornflowers and orchids and bluebells, Grian had many roses and poppies and geraniums weaved into his, and mine had lots (f/f) weaved into mine, my favorite flower.
When I ran out of flowers in one spot, I got up and moved to a fresh spot, farther into the land surrounding Area 77. I faintly heard voices a little ways off, but just kept braiding and twisting my stems into a flower crown. I had a small cross body bag hanging by my hip which was quickly becoming full of flowers. Having no more room unless I crushed any of my treasures. I settled myself down on a grassy knoll and fished out a flower.
I was almost halfway through the crown, estimating the circumference of Impulse's head, when a metal hand grabbed my wrist.
"What are you doing here (Y/n)?" the angry creeper cyborg asked.
"Oh, hi Doc! I'm just making a flower crown for Impulse! I didn't mean to wander too far into your area."
"Too far? So you planned on breaching Area 77 land?"
I paled slightly at his words. I had meant to cross the border, but not this far. I could clearly see the many bunkers scattered across the landscape, and my RV was not visible anymore.
"The border between us is great for flower picking. I went from one pretty patch of flowers to the next. I guess I just lost focus on where I was. I'll just be on my way back. It's my turn to make the meal tonight anyway-"
Doc grabbed my bag and started digging through the flowers.
"Careful! You'll crush my flowers!" I squeaked, trying to get Doc's creeper hand out of my bag. Especially because I had loose-
My thoughts got cut off when Doc shouted in pain. He pulled his hand out and had at least three rose thorns embedded in his creeper skin.
"Oh my gosh, Doc, are you ok? I am so sorry I should have warned you I had loose thorns in there!"
"Why do you have loose thorns thrown in your bag?" Doc hissed, gripping his hand in pain.
"Hippie philosophy. Everything from nature can be used. There's no point in throwing anything away when there's a use for it. And Grian did say he wanted some rose thorns for something he's been working on for awhile now-"
"That's enough out of you. You're coming with me." His cyborg hand clamped down on my wrist. I tried freeing myself, but there was nothing I could do. Doc's grip felt like a vise.
I got lead through a deep underground bunker, full of odd and seemingly impossible sights. There was a lit nether portal missing one whole side of the portal frame, weird farms that seemed to make no logical sense, and (weirdly enough) Keralis. I blinked in surprise and waved at the wide-eyed man.
"Hey, Keralis."
"Hi, (Y/n). What are you doing down here?"
"I was picking flowers." I wanted to say more to the confused hermit behind bars, but Doc drug me down the hallway until my feet managed to catch up to us.
"Stay in here," Doc grumbled as he pulled a padlock out and latched it to the door of the cell. I stumbled in, my bag having been ripped off when Doc pushed me in here. The door clanked shut, leaving me in a cold musty cell with bars in the front.
"Can I at least have my flowers? It'll give me something to do in the meantime."
After aggressively digging through my bag, probably looking for contraband he could confiscate, he eventually gave an indignant yelp as another thorn jabbed him. He lobbed my bag at me then winced and held his green hand in pain.
"Now I have to take care of this," he grumbled, looking down at his injured hand.
"Here, Doc. Let me take a look at it."
I motioned for him to come back while pulling out some antibacterial cream and some bandages from the front pouch of my bag. Just because I'm a hippie doesn't mean I have to be nasty to a government official, or don't know modern medicine.
He walked over and I began plucking out the thorns, being as careful as I could be. When they were all out, I wrapped his wounds and gave the bandages a little kiss at the end. Doc pulled his hand away and smiled.
"Thank you (Y/n)."
"You're welcome, Doc."
Doc left and I'd been by myself ever since. The flowers in my bag were crushed from Doc's very quick search, and the flower crown had a section of squished flowers from where I had a death grip on it the whole time I was arrested. I sighed and tried my best to remove the damaged flowers and replace them with fresh ones. I also gathered up the scattered thorns and went to work assembling an impromptu flail from a thin rope in my bag. If I knew my boyfriend, and I do, he already had a plan to get me back. I trusted him with my freedom.
It was pretty dark out when sirens blared through the facility. I hurriedly gathered my things, my flail in my hand, before standing in front of the cell door, waiting for Grian. Lights flashed red as they lit up the whole facility in a pulsing light. A second later, Doc and Scar came running past, Doc only stopping for a moment to check on me.
"Those hippies are breaking into Area 77 land! We have to hurry Scar. You're not going anywhere, (Y/n), so don't get your hopes up."
I gave him a nasty sneer that must have looked pretty intimidating in the light because he flinched back. He took off with Scar, their footsteps quickly being overwhelmed by the siren screaming above me. I waited, holding my breath, when a pair of faint footsteps met my ears through the assault from the alarms. I focused on them, immediately identifying them as Grian's. He had come to save me!
"(Y/n)! Where are you?" Grian yelled over the sound of the sirens.
"Grian! I'm in here!"
His footsteps got louder and I saw him in front of me. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw his mousy brown eyes and caramel eyes. "I'm so glad I found you!"
"We're not out of the woods yet. How are we gonna get me out of here?"
"That's where this comes in," Grian said, cockily holding up a small canister.
I blinked once, completely done with him before speaking. "And what exactly is that going to do?"
Grian chuckled before bending down to the hinges on my cell door. "Impulse's latest technology. An incredibly powerful laser that fits on an RV key ring."
The hinges melted almost instantaneously when the laser traced a path over the metal. The door fell away with a loud crash and I ran into Grian's arms.
"Ok. Never underestimate Impulse." I laughed and rested my hand on his chest. "Thank you for rescuing me."
"You don't have to say that. If course I'd rescue a fellow flower child."
"Thank you my rose."
"Anything for you my (f/f).
I smiled and pulled him into a kiss, yanking his red sweater down so I could reach his lips. The kiss was filled with passion and happiness that we could be together again. We broke apart for air before capturing our lips together again, this time in a chaste kiss. Through the noise around us, I heard angry German shouting.
"Doc's back. We should better go." I broke the kiss to speak, but Grian ignored me and pulled me back into another brief kiss.
"Then let's go."
G and I ran hand in hand down the maze of hallways, looking for the right way out. When we ran past Keralis's cell, he called out to us. "Can you help me out?"
Unfortunately, Doc was hot on our trail and we couldn't stop to help him. We broke into the cool night air and saw Renbob with Impulse flying above the government-sanctioned land throwing flowers down to Scar who was running around trying to stop them.
"Jelly, help me catch these hippies!"
Jelly, unfortunately for Scar, was more interested in jumping at the incoming flowers and swatting them out of the air.
Grain gave a sharp whistle and Renbob and Impulse immediately broke away from Scar and flew over to us.
"Ride for two," Grian grinned as he helped me climb in the back of the RV. Renbob put his foot to the floorboards when Doc came panting up from the containment facility. While Scar and Doc swore revenge on us hippies, and Renbob and Impulse flew is back to our commune, Grian pulled me into a kiss. Finally I was back where I belonged, in the arms of the man I love.
I don't know who the photo above is by, but I know for sure it's been posted on the hermitcraft Tumblr. Amazing artwork to the true artist!