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Dream Catcher
Please note these stories were based from dreams. They may be indirectly using references to another story, movie, character(s), ideas, or other sources, and thus all Original Characters and Stories belong to their rightful owners

Dusty Trails.
Saloons.
Cowboys and Cowgirls.
Gunslingers.

Just a few things that would come to mind when you think of "The West".
It was once believed as the Land of Opportunity; for people to have as much space as they wanted, to live comfortably without a worry. Raise a family and a farm. Know everyone in town. To generally have a good time.
Of course nothing is Perfect. The same goes for the people too. Everyone knows how Saloons tend to be filled with drunken frisky men and sometimes even friskier women. Everyone knows how a duel goes in town: a pair to a group of men, carrying guns, move their backs against one another, take 5-10 steps forward, and then fire.
Nothing special. Not to any normal person anyways.

This was different. The West was a whole nother world. A world that Mariella dreamed to be part of.


Mariella was a worker. A Farmer's daughter and only other free helper on 15 acres of Land. She had known this her whole life. They owned many animals from pigs to cows and chickens, to rabbits and dogs, to goats and horses. No cats though. Her Father can't stand cats for some odd reason. Mariella, or Ella, as her Father calls her, would tend to the Animals while he would grow the crops. Mostly Corn. They have a small garden with many other Fruits and Vegetables that they sometimes sell if they have plentiful extra. Not often though. Still, their farm supported these two, along with some others that her Father may hire should the work be too much.
They lived way outside of town. The town was quite small and they knew everyone there. Strangers were welcomed but cautioned so as to protect the families that lived and worked there. Once in a while there would be a robbery or some sort of brawl outside of one of the located bars, but the situation would be under control in a heartbeat, and everyone would help as much as they could. It was a friendly town and nothing bad normally happens there. A very cinematic and peaceful place.
Most of the groceries there came from Ella's Farm, the Minish Farm. It's called Minish Farm after Ella's great great great grandfather, Ustes Minish. However Ella believed in the other rumor of why the farm was called Minish. She heard from her grandfather, who heard it from his grandmother, of tiny people that lived on the Farm along with Ustes, in fact living there before he bought the property. They were called many things, but Ustes named them after his family's name; The Minish. There were many Minish Folk, a whole civilization, that lived beside the farm. Her grandfather said that he had seen one, trying to grab something for its family to eat. He said he had helped the small Minish and guided it outside to safety, and never saw it again.
"They rarely leave their world," He told Ella when she was very little, "But when they do, They are bound to make friends with their neighbors on Minish Farm."
Sometimes it wasn't the case. Ella remembered when her Great Aunt Dorris visited long ago, when she was about 6 years old. She hated the farm and said they were mice and small bugs living in the walls, which was never the case because Ella's Father and Uncle rebuilt the house a year beforehand. Then before Aunt Dorris left, her face had gone pale and she kept murmuring "It was a tiny person. It was a tiny person... I smashed it with my shoe... it was a person.. not a bug... a person.."
Ella's Father calmed her down and convinced her it was just a bug, but it left Ella with a ache in her heart, because she believed in the Minish Folk, and Dorris had just killed one of them. This made Ella upset, and she left a small black rose bud outside her farm to mourn the small Minish that Dorris may have murdered.

It had been almost 10 years since the last Ella heard anything about the Minish. Her grandfather had died of Cancer, and She was the only one that would ever remember the stories of the Minish Folk. Her father of course never believed in them, even when he was a child himself. But Ella believed. She would draw pictures and write poems and stories about the tiny people that she wanted to see. She believed her whole life. And for good reason too.
When Ella was near her 17th birthday, she woke up late one night after a nightmare of gunfire and blood. She stayed awake for two hours before she decided to move around. She went outside and laid down in the grass, looking at the Crescent Moon which still seemed to show enough light to look around. She laid there for what seemed like hours, still unable to sleep, when she heard a small popping noise. She sat up and looked straight at a small rock that was no bigger than her head. It was still dark so it was hard to see, but Ella could make up a small group of figures on the rock, 4 surrounding one.
Ella gasped when she drew near. Her heart was racing as her vision was becoming more clear as she gazed at these tiny people, shocked and surprised to see such a large person staring at them with dark emerald eyes.
She pulled her long dark-blonde hair back as the four surrounding figures lunged and ran off the rock in a panic, leaving one figure behind, and it was lying down. Ella then quickly pulled out her Reading Glasses, and aimed it at the tiny body. It wasn't much of magnification, but it was enough to show Ella that it was a man, and he seemed to be wounded or hurt, or perhaps even dying.
Ella felt panic in her heart, but she stayed calm and whispered "It's gonna be Okay" to herself and the figure, as she daintily picked up the figure with the frame of her glasses, as careful as she could be, and placed him in her hands. He was as tall as her thumb, so he fit quite well in the palm of her left hand, and she was as cautious as she could be when she sped to the house. She jolted up the stairs to her room and gently placed him on her table, on a small piece of tissue, as she ran back downstairs to the cabinet in the dinning room. She grabbed the Sewing Kit and ran back upstairs. Then Ella took out the Magnifying Glass with the attached light and placed it next to the tiny body. She turned on the Light and moved the Glass over to the body, Truly and Clearly seeing what was wrong with him.
He had what seemed to be a bullet wound on his arm, and the shot must have knocked him down and hit his head, which was bruised but would heal just fine. Ella remember when she was called to help out in town after a gunfight happened, and one of the townsfolk was wounded. It was the Gas Station Manager, Rafael, and he was shot in the side. Ella was in town when it happened so she rushed to help tend to him until the ambulance arrived. Luckily for Ella she doesn't have to worry about a bullet being in the man's arm like it was in Raf's side, as the bullet had gone through the flesh. It hadn't hit any bone too, so all she had to was apply pressure to the arm to stop the bleeding, and then clean and treat the wound.
Ella could tell the man was still alive, as when she was pushing a piece of bandage tissue on his arm he winced and started to breathe heavily. "It's gonna be Okay. You're gonna be Okay.." She would whisper to him as quiet as ever. It was a good thing Ella's Father and Friends taught her what she knew, or else she would have never been able to help this man. When she finished wrapping up the arm using tweezers and needles, she put her kit away and placed his resting body on a quilt cloth that she was saving for Crafting later in the week. The cloth was soft as a pillow and so it must have been wonderful to sleep in as such a small person. Ella then waited in her small chair until just before the sun was beginning to rise.

Ella was starting to close her eyes for a small nap when she heard a small groaning sound. It was so quiet she barely heard it the first time, but when she heard it again she looked at the basket where she had the cloth, and saw the man move around.
She got up from her chair and then crouched beside the basket, watching the man sit himself up and looking around... but not before he realized how wounded his arm was.
"KSSSSSSS" The man gritted his teeth as he gripped at his bandaged arm. He looked at it, realizing it was tended to, and whispered a cuss or too questioning what happened to him. He then looked around, only to see this giant woman with her hands up at him, which set him backwards to the edge of the basket, but he hit his injured arm on the end, which made him wince in pain.
"Be careful!" The giant whispered at him. "Your arm is going to ache for a while, but I managed to stop the bleeding. You shouldn't be moving around so much.."
He looked at her giant emerald eyes in confusion.
"You.. Yer the one I saw last night.. 'fore I.." He said, looking down while trying to manage his thoughts together, and then looked back up at her, "Wait a damn second.. You did this?"
He pointed at his arm, which in return she nodded. "I fixed up your arm, yes. Wasn't easy. But I'm glad it wasn't as bad as I thought. I'd still be trying to work on that arm if the bullet, I'm guessing it was, had been stuck.." Her whispers were still as quiet as ever, because she didn't want to be so loud to the tiny person, or to wake up her Father
"Bullet..?"
"Mhm. I found you and about a handful of others that circled you, like vultures to a corpse. When I did see you, the rest ran away and left you on your backside..." She paused for a moment. "..I'm guessing they weren't any friends of yours."
"The hell they were!" The man exclaimed, anger in his voice which was clear to Ella. "Thugs and Cowards, the lot of them. Dragged me out there to finish me off and leave me for dead. Couldn't handle me back in Town, so instead they ambushed me like the chickens they are."
"Town, huh?" Ella whispered to herself, which the man heard quite clear. He realized what he was talking to again, and stopped himself from his complete ranting and started putting his longcoat and hat on, avoiding eye contact with this giant.
"Yeah.. Listen, Thanks for the help, but I gotta run."
"Going back to town, huh, Sheriff?"
His head jolted up at the girl who was giving off a slight smile. Before he could ask her anything, she pointed at his coat, revealing a small silver star-shaped badge. Of course she couldn't read what it said, but no one had to. If you saw that kind of badge on someone, you knew there was at least one word on it, and that word would be Sheriff.
"Huh, smart girl." He said, adjusting his hat so it tilted down slightly as there was a small hint of sunlight revealing itself at Ella's window. "Yeah, I'm headin back to town. If you really did scare off those goons, they won't be back for a while, but I don't want town to think I'm a goner."
Ella was disappointed for him to leave. She wanted to know so much about him and this town he was talking about. Her face revealed a frown which the man clearly saw, and paused for a moment.
"Come to think of it... You're not scared or freaked out at me, are you?"
"No, sir." She said, looking at him as she sat on her behind, her legs aching from crouching so much.
"You ever seen someone like me before?"
"No, sir. Never have."
"And yet here you are, having a conversation with a person who's as big as your pinky toe without a hint of being uncomfortable... Now Why's that?"
Ella smiled softly and told the small man about a couple of the stories her grandfather told her when she was little. How Ustes had been paired with some of these tiny people and called them Minish. How she was beginning to give up on believing in them until the night she couldn't sleep and then ran into the tiny man she had saved from bleeding to death.
The tiny man raised his eyebrows in interest and curiosity, his body just standing there in front of the giant.
"Minish Folk, huh? That's a cute name." He chuckled.
"Do you call yourselves something else?" Ella asked, and watched as the man shook his head.
"Nah, just People. Humans. Regular names." He then pointed at her. "We just call you all Giants."
"I could understand why." She giggled. She let off her small smile, glad to have this casual conversation with this tiny person. "So how come you're not scared?"
"Huh?"
"Why aren't you scared of me? Being the Giant I am?"
He looked at her curious smiling face, and smirked. "Well, first reason is this." He showed his injured arm at her. "If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it." He said. "And if you had wanted to keep me, I wouldn't be walking around talking about leaving without you puttin' a jar over my head."
She chuckled at the thought.
"And two. Im a Sheriff. I'm not supposed to be afraid. I gotta keep everything calm."
"Yeah, that makes sense." Ella said with a sigh. She then stood up, still staring down at the small man. "Well, Sheriff, you don't wanna worry your town." She then placed her hand beside the basket, offering the Sheriff a lift.
Ella didn't want the Sheriff to go still, but she was still glad she not only got to talk with this man, but save his life. And he seemed pretty interested in her stories of the Minish Folk.
The Sheriff hesitated for a moment, but then climbed on her hand and held on to one of her fingers with his right arm, the good arm. Ella lifted herself carefully and then steadied herself down the steps and outside, as the sun was shimmering over the horizon.
After heading outside, Ella looked at the man to ask where to go. He looked at her with a puzzled look, as if she was asking something crazy of him.
She shook her head. "Oh, no no. I don't want to see your town." She lied, "But I could at least give you a head start with your wound and all."
He looked around for a moment, and then pointed East, some ways away from his town, but still easier for him to travel then to start from her porch.
When he told her to stop she placed her hand down and let him climb off. She crouched down at him and smiled, watching him look up at her pink cheeks from the morning chill.
"Many Thanks to you." He said, tipping off his hat at her. "You saved my life. I owe you one."
Ella shook her head. "You don't owe me a thing, Sheriff. I'm just glad to have you back to your home safely."
He turned and was about to leave, when he stopped and looked back at her. "I never caught your name." He called out to her.
"Mariella." She said. "And yours? Or would you rather I just call you Sheriff?"
"Sheriff Wesker." He smiled and gave a bow. She returned with a nod of the head. But then her smile started to fade as she was watching him walk off, thinking about how this may be the last time in her life she will see a Minish.
"I'll never get to see you again... will I?" She asked finally, her question stopping him in his tracks. He didn't say anything for a while, and turned back around to see her standing up, frowning.
He started to frown, but then made a small smile. "I think you might." He waved. "It's the least I could do.. And Plus I wanna hear more of those stories."
Her face turned red as she smiled. She waved back at him watching him leave, hearing him call out how he would find her, and then when she couldn't see him, she turned around and headed back to her house, to get herself ready for the day, a big lump of joy in her chest she would keep secret from her Father, and from everyone else in Town.



End of Part 1