Ravens of Eternity

172 In Bloom

The Spirit of Amelia slowly descended down towards the ground and touched down on a flat patch of grass incredibly softly. Her landing gears’ legs creaked a little under her weight, but ultimately held firm.

There were a few muffled CLICKS accompanied by a long HISS as the ship depressurized deep inside. Vents all around the ship expelled some of its stale air.

It quickly normalized its inner atmosphere and let the crisp Venusian air slip deep inside. Every compartment and every passageway drew in the sharp scent of fresh plants, the ripe scent of human sweat, and the pungent stench of animal dung.

The side door slid open into a ramp and came down towards the ground with smooth precision. Up top were the three Ravens, who laughed and chatted as they walked down the ramp and out towards a vast and busy farm.

“The Laertidus won’t mind if we parked ourselves right out here, yeah?” asked Eva.

“It’ll be fine, honestly” said Amal. “If it was a problem, they would’ve waved us away when they saw us coming in for a landing. And besides, we can always move her if we need to.”

“Can we take a quick detour?” asked Miko. “I want to see how things have changed.”

“Ooh, great idea! Yeah, let’s do that. Follow me.”

Amal beckoned the other two to follow her as she veered off to the side, away from the main house. All three then walked around the farm and took a good look at everything the Laertidus had accomplished since they had last seen it.

.....

Eva remembered that the whole place had become overgrown, most of their crops sat completely neglected. But things had greatly improved in the six or seven months since she and Miko were last here.

The tall grass, overgrown vines, and scattered weeds had all been trimmed away. Many hedges were lined with flowers in bloom, fences were mended, and all of the walkways were properly recobbled.

The farm buildings were also in much better shape than before. The bloodstains had long since been painted over, and the bullet holes had been patched up. Although there were still traces of ash and soot in the corners here and there, a result from the multiple pyres they had lit.

The structures that were hit the hardest by the attack were repaired rather quickly, some even reinforced further. The textile mill that was blown wide open by grenades was completely torn down. In its place was an all-new textile mill that was still in the process of being built.

Scaffolding surrounded the building, and there were piles of various building materials all over the place. Materials such as outer insulation, armor paneling, and antimicrobial paint among others. Its raw exterior sections had been bolted together, but was still far from complete. Its windows, entrances, and external machinery were still in need of installation and configuration.

A number of construction workers were busy assembling its semi translucent bubble roof in sections. Inside, another team raised its insulated inner walls and nailed down its flooring.

Besides the buildings still undergoing repair, the whole farm was buzzing with activity.

There were a number of farmhands out in the surrounding croplands – some were tilling the soil, while others were already planting. Others still were clearing out overgrown cropland and cleaning them up for future use.

And all around them, more teams worked on the multiple silos for storing any future harvests – they emptied and cleaned them out one by one by one. Yet another team worked on repairing a huge combine harvester that seemed to be stuck in the middle of a barren field. They had even put a framed canopy above it to help shelter it from the weather.

The wranglers and handlers consolidated what animals they had left and let them graze in wide open spaces. They also made sure to keep their breeding pens nice and populated – to them, the best way to rebuild the farm was to repopulate it as fast as they could.

Everywhere the three looked, they saw people with dour expressions on their faces. Sure, there were still smiles and laughs and shouts and curses and boasts and apologies. But to those three, it was easy to see that there was still a good amount of pain, all of it bubbling just under the surface. They could almost feel it, Amal especially.

Not that they could blame a single one of them for still feeling that way.

After their brief tour, they walked back to the main house, where they stood in awe at its new entrance. The foyer that they had blown open was now a large and spacious entranceway. Huge doors led into the grand foyer, which seemed almost palatial in size, but still seemed cozy and humble and familiar somehow.

Probably because of the pile of farm tools leaning against a wall, while huge baskets of raw grains sat nearby. Plus the huge trails of dust and soil that tracked in through the door, and spidered to the various other rooms and hallways in the house itself.

It was basically the same as before, only larger.

Off to one side was a small shrine, which Amal curiously walked up to. There was a pedestal that displayed a holographic face above it. And on the screen below it, it showed the person’s name alongside their age and small epitaphs from those who loved them.

Tears began to swim in her eyes as she scrolled through the names and faces of all those who died that night. As each face went by, her heart began to thump more and more, deeper and deeper. She even recalled a few precious moments when she laughed or cried or joked or teased one or more of them.

When she came to Dareon, she burst out into tears – the pain of missing him tore right through her. All the months she spent burying her love for him simply flooded out of her. She buried her head in her hands and wept loudly.

Eva and Miko both came up beside her, and hugged her from both sides. They comforted her as she let her emotions flow freely. Her body trembled as her emotions worked through her, as her grief spilled away bit by bit.

The three of them stood there for some time, until Amal’s grief ebbed down to mere sniffles. Then, they loosened up and let her go when she spoke.

“Thanks for being here,” she said. “I really needed that.”

They both rubbed her back to help ease her pain.

“We will always be here,” said Miko.

They stood there for a while, at least until Amal’s sniffles vanished. She reached up and dabbed her damp eyes with her sleeve, and wiped as much away as she could.

And as she did so, a familiar voice called out from behind her.

“There you are,” said the voice. “I’d heard you landed outside just now, and was wondering when you’d come and say hi.”

The three of them spun around and saw Jionna standing in the middle of the foyer. To Amal, she had aged to some degree, and had more gray strands that ran through her dark brown hair. She also gained a few more wrinkles to match.

Despite that, she looked tougher, more resilient, and somehow more radiant than ever. Her skin seemed to glow, and her shoulders seemed broader. Her smile was weary, but still motherly and kind.

Amal smiled widely, ran towards her, and gave her a huge hug.

“It feels like I’ve been gone forever,” she said. “Thanks for finally putting in the shrine. I kinda feel silly for saying it was a bad idea. But it’s the opposite. I-I didn’t even realize that I needed it.”

“Took me way too long to put it up, honestly,” said Jionna. “But I’m glad that I finally got around to it. It’s helped everyone cope a bit, myself especially. Though some still can’t even look at it yet. I guess it’s still way too much for them to handle right now.”

“Want me to talk to them? See what I can do?”

Jionna shook her head with a little sadness.

“Naw, they just need more time, is all,” she said. “They need the time and the space to figure out their own hearts. I can’t make them look, and I can’t make them move forward before they’re ready.”

She rubbed Amal’s upper arm, and gave her the best smile she could. Then her eyes fell on Eva and Miko, and curiosity soon took her over.

“In any case,” she continued, “are you gonna introduce me to your friends?”

“Oh, oh! Right!” said Amal. “This is Freya, and this is Raijin. They helped take down Nightmare and his marauders.”

The two of them waved at Jionna, smiles on their faces.

“Is that so?” said Jionna. “Well, I guess we’ve all got you to thank for getting us our farm back. Or at least, getting rid of Nightmare so we could get it back.”

“It took a lot of us to take him down,” said Eva. “The thanks goes to everyone involved, Amal especially. We were just doing what we thought needed to be done, what we thought should’ve been done long ago. Took us way too long to take care of.”

“Still, thank you. Honestly, sometimes I think we should’ve brought him in ourselves. Take our land back ourselves. It’s our farm – we should’ve fought them harder. Or we should’ve come back immediately and-”

“No,” interrupted Amal. “You’ve all already gone through a great deal. No need to burden everyone even more for one psychotic asshole. Every single one of you is a farmer, or an engineer, or a herder, or a hunter. Not one of you is some kind of soldier or killer or mercenary.”

Jionna smiled deeply at Amal, a hint of sadness was buried deep inside of it.

“You’re right, of course,” she said. “Still, I can’t shake the feeling.”

“Maybe once the trial finishes, you’ll be free of it,” said Amal. “Maybe once everyone sees justice served, things’ll get brighter again.”

“I hope so, I really do. Funny enough, the prosecution reached out to me, asked me if I wanted to give testimony on the... the attack.”

Amal’s eyes went wide. Jionna was going to testify at Nightmare’s trial?

“That’s great!” she said. “You’ll have the chance to help put the nails in his coffin! We have to go too!”

She glanced at Eva and Miko, who nodded resolutely.

“I wonder why we have not been asked to provide our testimony,” said Miko. “We have all been victimized by him.”

“Prolly ‘coz we were the ones who arrested him,” said Eva. “Could be seen as biased testimony, maybe?”

“Possibly,” said Jionna. “Nightmare and his band of idiots made thousands of victims across the Federation. More likely, that’s just too much testimony. They’re not about to put everyone up on the stands.”

She sighed deeply as she spoke. The law was never really interested in individual people’s lives, unless they made up too many to ignore as a whole.

“Instead,” she continued, “the prosecution’s interested in how he injured communities and organizations and companies. How his actions impacted everyone else around him. After all, he went after everyone, right? Shipping companies, luxury liners, farms, all sorts of companies. And this had an effect on hundreds of thousands.”

“I get that,” said Amal. “But don’t they care about your assault? Isn’t that what they should be talking about instead? Or at least, that should be a big part of it! Am I crazy for thinking this?”

Jionna saddened even more at Amal’s words, and looked away.

“Of course I’d rather do that,” she said. “And maybe I’ll get to say some of what’s on my mind. The truth is... people hardly ever pay attention to everyone else’s pain. But people like judges and officials and juries like to see when there’s serious institutional damage instead. It’s like their way of understanding loss, to see it in some numerical form.”

“That’s so incredibly unfair!” said Amal. “Our pain means something too! Way more than ledgers and credits and... ugh!”

“That’s just how the galaxy works, my dear. There’s no changing that, not in a million years.”