Ravens of Eternity

52 Venusian Soil

Amal’s shuttle landed on New Persepolis, the capital city on Venus.

Similar to Mars, Venus was also terraformed for human habitation. When Sol was mostly enclosed by the dyson sphere, Venus’ overall temperature dropped. This allowed its atmosphere to be transformed into something more breathable.

The planet’s atmosphere was thick with carbon dioxide, so humanity employed a great many techniques and machines to force a Great Oxygenation Event. They used different methods, from artificial photosynthesis to specialized ultraviolet light to achieve this.

In the end the result was the same – carbon dioxide was converted into oxygen. They then covered the entire planet with plant life in order to complete the process of making the planet truly habitable.

In the end, it became just like a second Gaea, though its population never quite got as high as 40 billion. It was currently sitting at just over a quarter that, at 11 billion people, with the majority of them located at the various cities across its surface.

But there were certainly plenty out there who had lived in the deeply rural areas and worked the rich soil. It was a big part of what made Venus beautiful, and they aimed to preserve that natural paradise for as long as they could.

To that effect, Venus had become far more verdant than Gaea had ever been, and remained beautiful for millennia.

Amal looked around the port anxiously. She had just been processed and shuttled away after she had respawned at a Tetragrammaton Technologies station. Since she had been reborn in the Sol Federation, she was immediately extended refugee status.

In her old life, she had come from a war-torn country and was familiar with being a refugee. She fled her old country as it was pulled apart in a vicious three-way religious civil war. Half of her family died as they ran from the extremists that sought to control the country.

.....

They fled from country to country as they were turned away by governments left and right. It wasn’t until she ended up in Europe that she finally had some time to rest, rebuild, and grieve.

Although she had lost much, she still had some guidance from her surviving family, and was able to piece her life back together.

But the war her homeland was embattled in had left a deep scar in her psyche. No matter how much she had healed herself, the pain of it never left her, or her family.

She wanted to understand why war was necessary, and later on had read books and played games like Bellum Aeterna to help her understand and process that trauma. The eternal interstellar conflict that the game was set in gave her ample ways to explore.

There, she turned her weapons on every aggressor that harmed noncombatants. It was her way of processing her anger, to allow herself to experience it without getting consumed by it.

And she found that giving in to a warlike nature offered a sense of great power. It was intoxicating.

She grew to understand the allure, but not once did she accept it.

Unfortunately, her playing had led her to become a refugee for a second time, just like all the other Bellum Aeterna players. She found the situation rather ironic.

This time, however, she had no-one to help her or guide her. It felt as though she had run from another war, but this time it had claimed all the rest of her family and friends.

She felt completely alone in the universe. And so, in the middle of the star harbor, she broke down and cried.

Grief washed through her in waves, and her tears fell quickly and easily. It came to a point that her head started to hurt from her weeping, and her sobs began to die down.

It was at that moment that someone put a hand on her shoulder.

She looked up at the person, and could tell it was a man, but he was silhouetted by a shard of Sol’s light. His voice was calm as honey.

“It’s alright,” he said. “Everything will be alright.”

Amal wasn’t sure who this person was, or if he had any ill intent for her. But she had no-one and was incredibly vulnerable. His gesture was too kind, so she quickly hopped up and embraced the man.

He was taken aback for a moment, but patted her back to comfort her.

After a minute, she backed away and wiped her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said. “I really needed that.”

When she looked up at him, he was simply smiling at her. It was friendly and warm and inviting. His skin was darkened by the sun, but his eyes gleamed a piercing blue, like fresh spring water.

She was glad that he wasn’t some sort of predator, or at least, he didn’t seem like that.

“I’m about to head home,” he said. “Would you like to join me and my family for a meal?”

Amal was completely unsure of what to do. Here was a stranger who offered her a great kindness, but she had not experienced it for a very long time. More than that, her impression of humanity had soured.

After her home was bombed to dust, after her loved ones were murdered by soldiers, and after her family was turned away by every country, she found few that were worthy of her trust.

She didn’t believe kind people existed any longer.

And yet, the antithesis to that belief stood right in front of her. A battle raged inside her – she wanted to believe that he was kind, and at the same time, not. Her silence and hesitation gave away her inner turmoil, which he noted easily.

“You’re a refugee, right?” he continued. “I’ve never met one before, and I bet it’s tough as hell for you...”

He brushed his brown hair away from his eyes so she could take a better look at them. He figured that she needed to trust him, and the best way was for her to have full access to his eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “I would like to join you. And your family. If that’s alright.”

It wasn’t as though she was hungry – it was more like she needed to see a family. It was the one thing that got her through her own personal hell. She figured that perhaps interacting with his family could help ease her troubled heart.

“Good,” he said. “My name’s Dareon. Of the Laertidus family.”

“Amal,” she replied. “Amal Nasim.”

“Great to meet ya. The van’s over here, follow me.”

He then took her to his family’s homestead, which was a full cycle away from the capital city. They traveled in a large hovervan, which was loaded up with various goods. It was filled with foodstuffs and spices, raw textiles and materials, a few tools and small machines, etcetera.

The beautiful Venusian landscape flashed on by as they traveled back to the farm where Dareon worked.

They talked more as they traveled, and Amal got the impression that he was a simple laborer. That all he did was work the land. And the contents of the van certainly supported that.

When they arrived, Amal saw that the land he lived on was basically a large farm owned by the Laertidus family. Their name and logo was practically all over the place.

As they passed farm hands doing their work, they often waved at Dareon and welcomed him back home.

Some even called him Junior Director, which certainly meant more than some simple farmer. She found Dareon’s humility refreshing, and all her opinions of him quickly turned positive.

Later on, she found out that he was actually next in line to lead the farm, and was literally favored by the majority of those who worked there.

The crops grew tall and went far beyond what she could see. It wasn’t some small farm, but a rather large one. It no doubt provided a good amount of food for the city.

Nearby, above a patch of one of the crops was some sort of aerial tractor. Its pilot flew it expertly as he spread fertilizer from above.

Scattered all over the place were various buildings, from the main house to a number of barns to crop and machinery storage. There was even a few silos, which Amal presumed kept a variety of their grains.

There were other buildings and structures around, but she couldn’t tell what function they served – she wasn’t a farmer herself.

The two of them carried the foodstuffs into the main house, but the other goods were quickly picked up by the various farm hands and brought to the various other parts of the farm.

Inside was a veritable chaos. Members of the Laertidus family of every age were in every room that they passed. Each and every one of them was busy doing something for the family.

Well, the children mostly just played with their siblings or were taught by their elders.

But otherwise, the family was incredibly productive.

Adjacent to the kitchen was the humongous pantry. It was easily twice the size of the kitchen itself. It housed all manner of ingredients, and in great quantities of them, too.

There, she met Jionna, Dareon’s mother and the family’s Matron. The current Farm Director. She was tall, strong, and olive-skinned. Amal guessed that she was possibly in her 40s, which was slightly younger than her own mother.

Mother and son greeted each other warmly before he introduced Amal. Jionna beamed down on her, and radiated warmth as she welcomed her.

“Good to meet you, Amal,” she said. “You caught us in the middle of our home restock, which means we’re all rather busy. I’d stop and talk to you otherwise. But we’ll chat more at the weekly gathering in oh...”

She looked over at Dareon, as though to test him.

“Five hours,” Dareon finished.

“Exactly,” Jionna said. “Best get ready. I’ll make sure there’s an extra place for the beautiful Amal here.”

Amal blushed at her compliment, then headed back to the van with Dareon. They then continued to unload the van while the rest of the family went about their busy lives.

~

Five hours later, Amal joined the family gathering out behind the house. What she saw completely amazed her.

There, she saw roughly three dozen of the Laertidus family all laughing together and having an incredibly jolly time.

Even their farmhands and their immediate families had joined the festivities.

There must have been a hundred folk there, at least.

There were multiple firepits everywhere, each one with various cuts of meat cooking on spits. Close to each of them were tables with various food and drinks.

Amal saw how rich and bountiful the family was, and how generous they were with their own wealth. They literally shared it all with those that they knew and loved.

The sight of it all completely disarmed her, and tore down whatever cold walls she had built around her heart.

She saw Dareon over by the central firepit. He had glanced over at roughly the same time. They smiled at each other as their cheeks flushed

He beckoned her closer, so closer she went.

The whole thing lasted for many hours – pretty much an entire cycle, well into nighttime. There, she met with and talked to the entire family, as well as many of the farmhands.

She found that many of them were unceasingly kind, but just as many were rather withdrawn or prickly. Despite that, none of them ever turned her away or treated her poorly.

Even the unfriendliest of them had a modicum of politeness.

Amal felt the tears come up to the surface and lightly wet her eyes, but she forced them to abate. This was everything that she had wanted for her own family, but that possibility was ripped away from them.

Jionna came up and sat next to Amal, some sort of spiced alcohol in her hand. Her face was flushed from the intoxicating drink, and it gave her an incredible glow.

“My boy says you’re a refugee,” she said, “and without a place to stay.”

Amal nodded.

.....

“This is the first time I’ve been on a planet,” she replied. “And the only place I’ve been, outside of the station I came from.”

Unlike Eva and Miko, Amal’s station wasn’t attacked, and so she had the benefit of being acclimated to her new universe. She was offered refugee status, potential citizenship, fresh clothes, some pocket money, and more, all before she left.

She stayed on the station itself for a few cycles, but left once she was fully processed. There were multiple shuttles that led to different planets and stations within the solar system.

Though she initially thought to head to Gaea to visit her homeland and see what it had become, she instead boarded the one for Venus. She made the decision in a fit of impulsiveness, one that she no longer regretted in the slightest.

“Well,” said Jionna, “you’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you’d like. As long as you help out a bit here and there, of course.”

Amal beamed at her. After she had seen what the family was like, she simply didn’t want to leave.

“I-I’d love that,” she stammered. “I’d be glad to help out, of course.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Dareon talking with his father.

And she felt a warmth fill her from within.

~

Amal stayed with the Laertidus family and grew closer to them and to Dareon with each passing day.

She too helped work the land, same as the rest of the family. Sometimes even harder. She felt like she needed to work herself to the bone, to repay the kindness that they had shown her.

The matron had sensed that Amal was feeling indebted, but didn’t say anything about it. Instead, she decided to hang on to that nugget of gold for later.

In the beginning Amal had no idea what she was doing, but over the course of a few weeks, learned how to lend a hand around the farm. Well, except with the big, specialty machines. She felt she wasn’t ready for them yet.

However, she was definitely looking forward to flying the tractor. She already had experience flying in-game, though she never actually flew anything since she first arrived. She was curious as to how well she could pilot, and that excited her a bit.

More than that, it was because Dareon had offered to teach her himself.

How could she possibly pass that up?