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In Sheep's Clothing	By : ParisWriter Category: +G through L > Harvest Moon Views: 2169 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter One

Avery frowned at the nearly-empty basket hanging from her arm, displeased at the flowers which remained within. She had only just heard of the so-called Flower Fair a couple of weeks ago from Giorgio, and really hadn't had the time to prepare. Honestly, she wasn't sure why it was called a "fair," in the first place. There were no rides, no games... people didn't even gather at the trade depot like they usually did for other fesitvals held by the town. Instead, the purpose of the day was to go from door to door and hand out flowers to your neighbors as a sign of friendship and good will. Any flowers would do, she was told, but those grown by your own hands were said to hold more positive feelings than those simply found out in nature.

Fortune had favored her with a couple of packets of old flower seeds in the tool chest within her run-down shack, and she'd hastily planted them and tended to them every day with water and fertilizer. She wasn't sure they would be ready in time, but they were – for what they were even worth. Most of what had successfully sprouted were simple daisies, and even with the amount of care she had bestowed upon them they hadn't grown to their full size. Still, those she had given them to seemed to appreciate that she took the time to grow the flowers, herself.

Madam Eda had been the first daisy recipient. Avery felt it was only fitting the kind old lady should get one of her home-grown flowers since she had so kindly helped her out in getting started with her new life on the farm. Not only had she been trained for a week by the veteran farmer, but after she moved into her permanent residence, Eda had gifted her with the very cow she had learned how to milk. Eda loved the flower, and even put it in a fancy blue vase. She'd offered to make the younger woman some tea, but Avery had to politely decline – the rest of the flowers wouldn't deliver themselves, after all.

Giorgio and Fritz each received one of her daisies, as well. They were both her rivals, but she respected them each in their own ways. Fritz wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box, but he always tried his hardest and put his all into everything he did. As much as he got on her nerves sometimes, Avery couldn't help but admire that ever-positive attitude of his. Giorgio was a bit flamboyant and put too much emphasis on superficial things for her liking, but that very quirk meant he had a keen eye for detail and could tell which crops were the best based on sight alone. Avery knew that he was restraining himself from critiquing her skills as a cultivator of flowers when she gave him his daisy, but he smiled and thanked her politely.

Elise was the only one of her fellow farmers Avery did not give a daisy to. The wealthy little miss was a farmer in name only, as Avery had learned she had servants who cultivated her land and tended to her animals for her. She got one of the bright blue flowers Avery had collected in the mountains the previous morning, while her two maids – who had always been sweet to her every time she visited – were instead gifted the daisies. The maids had been all smiles upon receiving their gifts, and told Avery they had never gotten flowers before on the holiday... not even from their mistress. It made Avery even more glad she'd given Elise something she just randomly found.

The next stop was the guild hall, where she gave both Veronica and Marian a daisy. Veronica had politely accepted the offering, though she insisted that there was no need for such kindness as she had merely been doing her job in helping Avery after her arrival to town. Marian had been overjoyed and enveloped Avery in a giant bear hug as he openly wept over how happy he was that she considered him worthy of the gift. She left several additional blue flowers from the mountains with Veronica, and asked the guild master to help her out by delivering them to the other residents in her stead. She would have done so herself, but she still wasn't caught up on everyone's name, despite having lived in Oak Tree Town for a full season, and she didn't want to embarrass herself by calling someone the wrong name.

She caught Raeger just as he was opening the restaurant for the day, and even as she held out a daisy to him he held out a carnation to her. She recognized it as a flower from one of the window boxes outside the restaurant, which meant he had grown it himself. She gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek to thank him for the gift, and he groped her ass in return. Avery slapped him in the chest, causing him to chuckle, and he nodded at the basket on her arm when she pulled away.

"Got one for Klaus in there?" he asked, absent-mindedly twirling his flower between his fingers.

"Maybe," Avery replied, smiling coyly as a blush started to color her cheeks.

"You better," Raeger admonished her, poking her in the nose with the head of the daisy. "And it better be the best damn one you grew."

"What do you care?"

"Uhh, let's see... Why would I care if the girl I'm friends with gives the guy she's got the hots for her flower?"

He flashed a wicked smirk at her, and the color in Avery's face increased tenfold once the double entendre of his statement hit her. She smacked him again, this time in the shoulder, and Raeger ducked to avoid any additional blows, heading up the steps to his restaurant.

"Come by later and tell me how it went," he requested before heading inside to prepare for his regulars. Avery continued to gape after him even after the door had closed behind him. She'd confessed her crush on Klaus to him less than a week ago over drinks after he'd closed up for the night, and apparently she'd also admitted to much more that she couldn't remember telling him about.

Klaus' home was to be her final stop on her flower delivery tour. First, however, she needed to stop by the trade depot to deliver two more flowers: one to Jonas and one to Asche. Jonas blushed upon receiving his and told her he hadn't gotten flowers from anyone since he was a young man, save for his wife. Asche had seemed confused upon receiving hers. At first, she tried to pay Avery, thinking the daisy was meant for shipment. After the situation was explained to her, she bowed deeply and thanked her best customer for the kind gesture, then insisted that she would bring a gift in return the next time she visited the town. Avery tried to turn down the offer, but Asche was insistent. It was against the customs of her people to accept a gift without giving one in return, she said, and so Avery had dropped the argument out of respect for the trader's culture.

That left only one flower to be delivered...

Avery looked down into her seemingly empty basket and pulled aside the plain white cloth she had used to line it. Hiding beneath was a solitary pink rose.

She'd been shocked to discover the rose growing among the daises in her field. Apparently, a single seed had somehow gotten mixed in with the others in one of the packets she'd found. It was probably an error in packaging, but she'd taken it as a sign. Roses were a symbol of love, and she had grown just one.

There was only one person she could think of to give it to.

Klaus was on a roll. He had finally perfected a new fragrance he had been working on for the longest time, one which he'd feared he would never be able to finish due to a creative block. He hated to admit it, but Avery had been the reason he was finally able to finish his work. The final scent profile was based on her, after all... sweet and innocent, but also cheerful and strong. It was his latest masterpiece, and he was sure the buyers he dealt with would love it.

He had just finished placing stoppers into the test bottles when a knock sounded upon his front door. Right away, he knew it wasn't Marian. The town's doctor was an old friend of his, and as such he always chose to flamboyantly barge right in rather than knocking first. Setting the last vial into his briefcase, he stood from his work station and made his way to the door, peeking out one of the windows along the way. He was greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar woman standing on his doorstep.

When he opened the door to greet her, however, he was surprised to find a pair of familiar brown eyes gazing up at him.

"Avery?" He blinked at her appearance. She had changed her usual simple dress for a fancier one in shades of blue and white, and her golden blonde hair was no longer held back under a kerchief but instead hung long and loose, framing her heart-shaped face perfectly.

"Good morning, Klaus," she greeted him with a smile. "Mind if I come in?"

Klaus nodded and stepped aside to allow her to enter his main parlour. She quietly thanked him as she passed by, and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. She smelled of fresh air and sunshine, and... flowers? He'd never noticed any sort of flowery scent upon her before, and he eyed her curiously as she went to his dining table and set down the basket she had been carrying upon it. Had she worn perfume just for him? She had dressed up, so he assumed it wasn't outside the realm of possibility, but his suspicions were dashed when she lifted a single pink rose from the basket and held it out to him.

"This is for you," she told him, the color of her cheeks a shade or two darker than the flower in her hands.

Klaus tilted his head to the side and wondered why she was presenting him a flower in such a formal manner. Then he remembered – it was the day of the Flower Fair. He'd stopped celebrating the event years ago, but apparently one of the others in town had informed her of its existence. A small smile tugged at his lips and he closed the front door to his home before crossing the room to where she was. He took the flower from her and looked it over, then raised it to his nose and inhaled the sweet scent. It was very faint, but still there.

"I know it's not as impressive as the ones Giorgio grows, but I wanted you to have it," she told him, and he watched as she began worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. He tightened his grip on the rose to keep from taking her hand in his and pulling her to him so he could kiss her, the sharp thorns pricking his skin and reminding him that he needed to stay in control of his urges, lest one of them ended up getting hurt.

"Thank you," he said, placing the rose upon the table and reaching for her hand. The rational part of his brain screamed at him not to do anything stupid, and he chose to ignore it – at least in part. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it, his eyes transfixed upon her sweet, blushing face. Avery finally looked at him properly after he lingered a bit too long with her hand raised, and her gaze broke his reverie. He immediately let go of her hand and briskly walked into the next room, desperate to put space between them. There had been something within her eyes, something he had imagined to be a flash of desire he knew couldn't possibly be real.

"Klaus?" she called after him, her voice full of confusion and disappointment. He turned on his heel and took a step back into the room, then held up a finger to indicate he would be but a moment before returning to his work area.

"I promised you a gift, did I not?" he called out to her as he searched on his shelves for just the right fragrance to give her, reminding her of his offer from when they had first met.

"Speaking of gifts," he heard her muse, her voice slightly muffled by the wall between them. "What's with all the presents?"

He had forgotten to clean up the pile of brightly-colored packages he had piled on one end of his sofa. They'd been there for a week, and Marian had made several comments already when he stopped by in the mornings for coffee about how he should either open them or throw them out. He knew what would be in them, and it was nothing he had any interest in, but he still couldn't bring himself to merely chuck them in the trash. They were from his valued clients, after all.

"Birthday presents," he explained to Avery when he finally emerged from the other part of the house, a pale blue bottle in his hand, "from my clients. They think it's suitable to shower me with gifts of decadent treats every year despite my repeatedly telling them that I have no interest in sweets."

Avery's face was a mask of pure horror and shame, and Klaus couldn't help chuckling a bit. She immediately began apologizing, stumbling over her words as she explained that she hadn't known it was his birthday and if she had she would have gotten him a full bouquet of flowers or at least asked Giorgio for one from his garden to give him. Klaus held up a hand to silence her.

"My birthday was last week, Avery," he corrected her. "On the 24th. You had no way of knowing, so there is no need to apologize. And, for the record, I happen to like the flower you gave me."

"You do?" she asked him, her eyes going to the smallish rose lying upon the table. Klaus walked up to her and gently grasped her chin, then turned her gaze back to his.

"That flower came from your land, did it not?" he questioned, though he knew the answer. "You put your hard work into raising it. It might not be as spectacular as one grown by someone as expert at cultivating flowers as Giorgio, but one from him would mean less to me because you would not have been the one who cared for it each day before bringing it to me. Having this flower is almost like having a part of your heart that I can call my own."

She continued to gaze into his eyes for a moment longer before looking away and blushing once more, and Klaus suddenly realized what he had said to her. He felt his own cheeks starting to burn, and he cleared his throat as he held out the small blue bottle of perfume to her.

"Here. This is for you."

Avery took the bottle from him and removed the stopper, then took a tentative sniff of the concoction within the vessel. Klaus started to smile at her appreciation of his work, but the smile never fully formed as she soon started sneezing uncontrollably. He quickly grasped the perfume back from her and stoppered the bottle once more before she ended up spilling the contents all over herself, then led her to the empty part of his couch to sit and handed her his handkerchief.

"Too much chamomile?" he asked once her sneezing fit had subsided. "I did add a bit extra to that batch."

"Lavender," she told him, her voice having a more nasal quality than usual. "I'm sensitive to lavender. It makes me..." she paused and another, hard sneeze escaped, finishing her uncompleted statement for her.

"I apologize. I didn't know."

"You had no way of knowing, so there is no need to apologize," she assured him, returning his earlier sentiment regarding her ignorance of his birthday.

Klaus stood and watched her silently for a moment, his mouth set in a thoughtful frown. Most of his fragrances contained at least some small trace of lavender in them. It was a popular note among his city-dwelling clientele and so he usually made a habit of using it somehow. There was one fragrance he knew he had in stock which didn't use it, however... but it had not yet been tested. Then again, she was the perfect candidate to tell him what she thought of it.

"Wait right here," he told her, then went back to his work station once more. He removed one of the plain, unmarked test vials from his briefcase and brought it to her, removing the stopper himself as he knelt in front of her and held out the open vial for her to smell.

"No lavender in this one, I promise," he assured her. She still hesitated a moment before leaning toward him and taking a small sniff of the contents. Klaus watched her exhale with a dreamy sigh, her eyes falling closed, and she took another, deeper breath of the perfume he had been working on prior to her arrival.

"What do you think?" he asked her, watching the slow smile which spread across her lips the more she continued inhaling the fragrance.

"It's wonderful," she replied, her voice barely audible. "It smells of sweetness and sunshine, a little bit of spice and... is that raspberries?"

Klaus chuckled quietly, and she opened her eyes to look at him. He wordlessly drew the vial away from her and placed the stopper back on.

"You have quite a good nose," he complimented her. He had only added the barest hint of raspberry as an afterthought, remembering the color of her lips which enticed him every time they met. His eyes fell to those very lips once more for a brief moment before he forced himself to meet her gaze, and he held out the small vial to her.

"It's not a fancy bottle like the other one, and it's merely a prototype I've been working on, but I would like you to have this."

Avery shook her head and placed her hands upon the one offering her the vial of perfume, attempting to push it away.

"I can't, Klaus," she argued. "Not if it's a prototype. What if you need it to remember how to properly mix the combination?"

"I have five others of the exact same formula in my briefcase right now," he informed her. "And I always write down notes as I'm working on new formulas, as well, so there's no need to worry about me forgetting the proper combination. Please, take it."

He held the vial out to her once more and she hesitantly took it, thanking him as she removed the stopper herself and took deep breath over the contents within.

"I don't know how you came up with this one, but I think it's magic," she told him, her eyes sparkling.

"The magic is in the inspiration," he informed her, though he held his tongue about what had truly inspired the fragrance she was now holding in her hands. He watched her inhale the scent once more before she dabbed a bit of it onto the pad of her finger and applied it behind each of her ears.

"There," she said with a smile, stoppering the vial. "Now I will be able to smell like your brilliant new fragrance all day."

"Nothing makes me happier than when a customer enjoys wearing one of my fragrances."

Especially when the person in question is you and the fragrance happens to be a representation of everything you embody, he added in the back of his mind.

He offered to make her coffee and share some of the treats his clients had sent for his birthday with her, but she politely declined. She needed to get back to her farm and do the chores she had been neglecting in order to pass out flowers to the residents of Oak Tree Town. She promised to come by again later in the week to take him up on the offer, though, and Klaus couldn't help but smile.

"It's a date, then," he agreed, though he meant it as a figure of speech and not a literal date. He knew he was too old for her, but there was no harm in enjoying her company over a cup of coffee and some sweet treats...

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In Sheep's Clothing