The rain began on a Tuesday and didn't stop. For three straight days, a relentless, gray sheet of water hammered down on my small farm. At first, I welcomed it. It was a perfect excuse for a break. My muscles ached from the constant work of expanding the fields, and a few cozy days indoors felt like a well-earned vacation.
"Looks like it's just you and me, Kuro," I said, sipping a steaming mug of tea. The "tea" was made from the leaves of a plant Seraphina had called "Calm-Bloom," and it had a wonderfully soothing, minty flavor.
Kuro, who had nearly doubled in size in the past week, thumped his tail against the wooden floor. He was no longer a tiny, helpless pup. He was now the size of a beagle, his midnight-black fur sleek and healthy, and his silver eyes held a startling intelligence. He was currently engaged in a life-or-death battle with a dust bunny he'd discovered under my bed. He'd pounce, bat it with his oversized paws, and then look up at me, tail wagging, as if expecting praise for his bravery.
Outside, the world was a wash of gray and green. I watched the rain stream down the new glass pane of my window—a luxury I planned to install properly once Seraphina returned with the money. To me, this was just a monsoon, no different from the rainy seasons back in Japan. It was a time to be patient, drink warm beverages, and enjoy the company of a good dog.
It was on the third day that Kuro started acting strange. He stopped playing and began pacing restlessly by the door, letting out low, anxious whines.
"What is it, boy?" I asked, scratching behind his ears. "Do you need to go out? It's pretty nasty out there."
He whined again, this time scratching at the doorframe. A low, deep rumbling sound from outside vibrated through the floorboards. It wasn't thunder. It was a constant, powerful roar, like a freight train that never passed. A knot of unease tightened in my stomach. I opened the door a crack and peered out.
My heart plummeted.
The gentle Whisperwood River, which normally meandered peacefully at the far edge of my property, had transformed into a raging, muddy beast. It had completely breached its banks, and a brown tide of floodwater was steadily consuming my fields. My potato patch was already gone, and the water was greedily lapping at the edges of my prized carrot patch.
"No, no, no!" I yelled, panic surging through me. All my hard work, my future, was being washed away.
I slammed the door shut. "Stay here, Kuro! I'll be back!"
I didn't waste time thinking. I pulled on my sturdiest boots, grabbed my trusty hoe, and plunged into the storm. The rain was a cold, driving force, and the ground had turned into a treacherous sea of mud. The roaring of the river was deafening.
I ran to the edge of the floodwater, my mind racing. I couldn't build a dam big enough to stop this. The river was too powerful. I couldn't stop the water; I had to give it somewhere else to go. My eyes scanned the landscape. There was a natural depression, a low-lying stretch of land covered in rocks and tough brush that ran parallel to my fields before veering back into the forest. If I could dig a trench, a deep one, I could divert the main flow of the flood away from my crops.
It was an insane plan. It would take a team of men with oxen a week to dig a channel that deep.
I didn't have a week. I had right now. And I had my hoe.
With a desperate cry that was lost in the storm, I set to work. I wasn't just digging; I was fighting. I swung the hoe with all my strength, and the enchanted farming tool responded. The steel head tore through the saturated earth like it was loose sand. It ripped through thick roots with a sound like tearing cloth and shattered softball-sized rocks into gravel.
I lost all track of time. My world narrowed to the driving rain, the screaming of my muscles, and the rhythmic thump-scrape of my hoe devouring the land. Mud caked my body from head to toe. My vision blurred with sweat and rain. I was running on pure adrenaline and the primal terror of losing my farm.
Slowly, impossibly, a deep trench began to form. At first, it was just a dark line in the landscape. Then it was a ditch. Then it was a small canyon. Finally, with one last, mighty heave, I broke through the riverbank.
A trickle of brown water spilled into my new channel. It was followed by a surge, and then, with a tremendous roar, the main body of the raging river found the path of least resistance. A torrent of water diverted from my fields and charged down the trench I had carved, crashing back into the woods far downstream. I stood, ankle-deep in the churning water, and watched as the flood level on my crops began to slowly, blessedly, recede.
As the last of the storm clouds passed and the rain softened to a drizzle, I leaned heavily on my hoe, every inch of my body screaming in exhaustion. I had saved the farm. Most of it, anyway.
I looked back at my handiwork. It wasn't a ditch. It was a new, permanent waterway, at least twenty feet wide and ten feet deep, with a steady, powerful current. A new river.
I stared at the gash I had carved into the earth.
"Huh," I panted, my mind too tired for anything but practical thoughts. "Well, that's going to be a pain. Now I'll have to build a bridge to get to the other side."
Unbeknownst to me, the farmers in the village of Brookfall downstream would wake up the next morning to find their own river had shrunk to half its size. Royal cartographers, sent to investigate, would be baffled to discover that the Whisperwood River had inexplicably changed its course, creating a brand new, uncharted tributary. They would name it the "Farmer's Fork," never knowing it was born not from an act of God, but from one man's desperate attempt to save his carrot patch.