[The alarm went off, it was 6 AM. Jason was ready to get to work around the farm. He had 39 starting actions]

[Tess’s Almanac: 30th day of Winter! 61 days until the Winter Festival. Looks like a warmer one today, folks, at least for winter! Expect more snow sometime in the next week, though it’s hard to know exactly when. We’ve dodged a lot of the harsher weather for the time being, but I wouldn’t be shocked if a blizzard manages to make its way in our direction by the end of the season. Stay vigilant until that time!]

Jason opened his eyes, where he found a pair of soft brown eyes gazing back into his own. A moment later, Chance began licking him up one side and down the other, and he laughed and shoved the dog to the side. It bounced on the bed and sprang back upon him, and he rolled out onto the floor as quickly as possible.

Chance leapt onto the floor as well and began to pant, and Jason rubbed his head.

“You’re really turning into quite the good ol’ boy, aren’t you?” He laughed slightly, then walked up to the window and wiped away a bit of the frost. Only a small bit of the snow still remained, the rest had long since melted away, leaving the simple brown expanse. It looked like what little snow was left was rapidly melting away as the sun started to rise, and Jason flashed a smile.

“You know, Tess is coming over here today.” He remarked as he changed clothes and started down the stairs. “Does that make you excited, boy?”

Bark!

Jason laughed, and they soon came down into the kitchen. Chance ran over to his bowl and eagerly licked the metal, and Jason stepped into the back room to grab a few scoops of food. He dumped this out into the bowl, and Chance eagerly started crunching on the food as Jason sat down and began to contemplate his own meal.

“Alright, cookbook.” He folded his hands. “I want something… With sausage.”

There was a flash, and a link of sausage surrounded by eggs and spinach appeared. Jason tucked into the meal, finding that he was actually starting to get used to the leafy diet that Tess seemed to favor. When he finished, he and Chance both rose and set out onto the farm.

That particular day, it was actually warm enough that a few lone crabgrasses started skittering across the drive. Chance started barking and began to chase them, and the monsters turned and fled. His red coat gleamed in the sun, already healed quite a lot from the time when Jason had first found him. There were still a few patches of fur that hadn’t quite grown all the way back in, but those spots were rapidly shrinking. All told, Chance was turning into a wonderful farm dog, and Jason couldn’t wait for him to continue to stay with him.

Chance continued to race about the farm as Jason opened up the stable and led Lady out to her hitching post. It wasn’t often when it was warm enough over winter for Lady to just be allowed to play, and she seemed to enjoy the freedom, kicking up her heels and rolling about in the dead grass. Chance came up and sniffed her, but a small kick from her hooves sent him running. From then on, every now and again he would dart up and take a quick sniff, but always turned and ran again before she could react.

Jason laughed softly as his two animals played. He then turned and walked over to the field, and leaned upon the fence as he gazed out across the dead expanse. As soon as spring came he would start planting again. He only hoped that the Juun bugs would be a bit more manageable this time around. He really had to come up with some sort of a solution for that, but he didn’t really feel like thinking about it at that moment.

He was still standing there, gazing in melancholy across the field, when hoofbeats echoed in the drive. He turned to find Tess sitting on Angus, a smile on her face. She jumped down and came walking up to him, and he gave her a hug before heading to take Angus’s reigns and leading him to the hitching post.

“You know, one of the first things I’ll do after we’re married is to build a corral.” He nodded at the open space. “If we connect it to the back of the stable, we should be able to give them plenty of room to run about during the day, you know?”

Tess nodded. “I like that idea, actually.” She crossed her arms. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Jason raised an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

Tess shrugged. “I was just hoping we could start getting some more of the wedding plans together. As soon as spring comes, I’m going to be spending every spare moment actually putting things together, which means we need to get the last of everything solidified now.” She paused for a moment. “I… Was also hoping that I could help train Chance.”

Jason smiled broadly. “Of course! Let me go get the treats. You can set up on the porch, it’s a calm enough day I think we can work outside.”

Tess nodded and dashed up onto the porch, where she set up a small folding table and began to set several clipboards across it. Jason went to the storage shed and took out a bag of treats, which he then brought up next to the table. Chance, sensing the treats, came running eagerly, and Tess quickly grabbed out one of the biscuits.

“Alright boy!” She held the treat high. “Sit!”

Chance obediently sat down, and Tess tossed the morsel to him.

“That much, at least, we’ve pretty much gotten down.” Jason chuckled softly. “It’s stay that we’re working on now.”

“Alright, then.” Tess flashed a small smile and held up the treat. “Sit.”

Chance plopped down on the ground, and Tess raised a hand. “Stay.”

She took a step back, and Chance immediately jumped up and raced after her. Jason sighed, but Tess only laughed, returned him to his starting position, and started again. After a few moments, it became obvious that Jason was the one who would be doing most of the paperwork while Tess played with the dog, and he sat down to look over the documents that she had brought with her.

“Alright, now.” He mused, looking over the writing. “What do we have here today?”

“Nothing too bad.” Tess answered quickly. “Just a few minor details that, like I said, I’ll need to start getting together once spring starts.”

Jason nodded and started looking down the list. “Let’s see… Flower types? I thought we decided on those.”

“Stay.” Tess ordered Chance, then turned back to Jason. “We decided on flower color, but now we have to actually decide which flowers we want to use.”

“Right.” Jason frowned, then checked the first three boxes on the list of yellow flowers. He was getting ready to do the same with the blue, but Tess caught his arm.

“Not so fast! We have to actually think about it!”

He rolled his eyes, but nodded. They subsequently spent the next half-hour talking about different types of flowers, comparing and contrasting a number of different details, and, in the end, Jason also checked the top three boxes on the blue list as well.

“See? I could have just saved us a ton of time.”

“Yes, but now we can be confident in our choice.” Tess shrugged.

“I was confident.” Jason muttered, then flipped to the next page. “Streamers?”

“Yeah! What streamers do we want?”

“Is there more than one type?” Jason blinked.

“Of course there is!” Tess looked at him as if he had just grown an extra head. “There are thick streamers and thin streamers, and some have decorations, and some are made from silk and others from lace, and-”

She launched into a great description of the different types of streamers, then the different types of bows that could be tied with each type of streamer. Jason’s head was spinning by the time she got to the end of the list, and once again, he largely check-marked whatever he thought that Tess was indicating that she wanted.

The next section, though, was table decorations. Here, part of it was already locked into place, as they would be put together from the flowers that they had decided earlier. Part of it, though, was still to be decided, as Tess wanted to have some sort of decoration that went along with the flowers that spoke to each of the two of them.

“This is the part where I need you to get creative.” Tess smiled as she threw another treat for Chance. What do you think best expresses me?”

“The skull of a defeated enemy.” Jason remarked without nearly as much thought as Tess would have likely wanted him to include. Even as he said it, though, a smile flickered across his face. If Tess went into the dungeons and pulled out a whole bunch of troll skulls, Lacy would be livid. Plus, it would just look really cool.

“Jason, I’m serious.”

“So am I!” Jason flashed a grin. “Can you imagine how cool it would look to have a… Oh, I don’t know, a minotaur skull on each table with flowers coming out the top?”

“That… That actually does sound pretty cool.” Tess admitted. “Let me think… We don’t have any minotaurs in our dungeon here in Summer Shandy. No trolls either, for that matter. Or dragons…”

“What sorts of monsters do you have?” Jason asked. “Come to think of it, I don’t know if I even know what the inside of the dungeon is like.”

“I’m not surprised.” Tess sighed. “Since you can’t go in, I always get kinda disappointed when I think about it.” Jason felt a small pang shoot through his heart, and Tess stroked her chin. “The old dungeon, the one that was around when you first got here, was mostly zombies and draugr and stuff. It was an old crypt, so you got a lot of those creepy-crawly type things. This new one is a lair, the lair of a small wyrm aspiring to become a planet-eating dragon. It doesn’t succeed, of course.” She nodded at Jason’s concerned face. “It actually drops a pretty cool skull, but I’d have to kill it like a hundred times in order to put one in the center of every table. The other monsters are mostly lizard-things that work for it, though there’s a side chamber with a spider if you know where to look.”

Jason blinked at the number of tables. “How many guests are coming?”

Tess pulled a list out of her inventory and handed it to him. It was rolled up, and as he let the page unravel, it spilled off the edge of the table and ran down across the porch. Chance subsequently ran across it as he once again failed to actually stay for Tess, and he scooped it up as quickly as possible.

“How difficult will that be?” He asked. “To kill it a hundred times?”

“Pretty hard. It respawns once for every visit, but the team coming inside has to be unique. I’m classified as a guide, so I don’t count in that regard, but it also won’t respawn just for me. To repeat the dungeon with the same team, you have to wait at least twenty-four hours.”

“Hmm.” Jason stroked his chin. “And the other lizard skulls won’t work?”

“They’re so small I doubt they would hold very many flowers.” Tess shrugged. “In any event, that’s a place to start from. What do you want your table decorations to be?”

Jason thought for a moment, then grinned. “Cannonballs.”

“No.”

“Miniture cannons?”

“No.”

“Medium-sized cannons?”

“Jason, cannons are Jeremiah’s thing.” Tess crossed her arms. “When you see a wyrm skull, you’ll think of me. If you were to see a cannon, everyone would think of Jeremiah, and that isn’t the look I want to give.”

“That’s fair.” Jason frowned, then brightened. “A sprig of wheat.”

“Too cliche.”

“A sprig of sorghum.”

“Possible, but still pretty cliche.”

“Umm…” Jason stroked his chin for a few moments. “A pot of dirt taken from my field.”

There was a long pause, during which Tess stroked her chin. After a moment, she nodded slowly. “That could actually work.”

“I wasn’t being serious.” Jason rolled his eyes.

“No, but dirt is your thing!” Tess grinned. “Think of it! Maybe not a pot of dirt, but I bet we can come up with something. We could do vases… Or maybe fuse it into glass…”

“Glass with dirt infused into it?” Jason raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve seen it done before.” Tess countered. “Admittedly, it’s mostly done with cremated ashes for pets and stuff-”

“Gross.”

“But it could be done here, too!” Tess grinned. “Jason, you’re a genius!”

Jason didn’t feel particularly like a genius, but as Tess was the one telling him so, he didn’t dare argue. Instead, he sat back in his chair and sighed as Tess continued to throw treats for Chance.

Maybe he had stumbled upon something, and maybe he hadn’t, but… He had to admit, however it turned out, he was excited that the wedding was coming together. He couldn’t yet picture it in his head the way that Tess could, but he was certain that it would be beautiful.

He just couldn’t wait to see it in person.