Time and Dirt
(First Day -- Previous Day -- Day 12 -- Next Day)
Day 12
Heliopause Colony on Planet Vertumna, Medbay
“Solane, guess what! Today was my mother’s birthday and we sang her all happy birthday. You know, the ancient Earth song! When your birthday comes around next year, I want to sing to you as well. And I know you’ll enjoy it, I ... just need to practice a bit more first.
I also ate so much cake... and soysweets. Way too many, probably. I still feel kind of queasy actually. But they were just so good. Even if I remember the ones made by Tammy when we were all 10 or so being even better, it’s sad she isn’t around to give my fathers baking advice...
Later you made cakes for me! Or were those ones you got at the supply depot? Heh, they did look suspiciously similar to them. I never went there much, since I mostly have what I need and can get what I need for the plants via this holopalm ... thing, ick. Either way, the cakes were amazing. My favorite thing in the world, really! And of course made so much better by when shared with someone similarly amazing who shares my passion for dirt and everything that grows in it! ... Wait, didn’t they cost you more than the extra credits you got for three months of farming work every time? Let me give you another belated hug...
You’re the best.
...
The grunt means you agree, right? If you could see how much you make me smile I’m sure your recovery would make a leap forward bigger than even the strongest hopeye!
You’ll be fine. I finally managed to get Dr. Instance to back off you as well, convincing her that you should at least be allowed as much time as you got when you were out for the first time. So we should have some days in peace. But she didn’t believe me that you were making progress, again, that I was just imagining you talking to me... I think everyone believes that about me now, that I’m becoming delusional or something... When I’m the only one seeing what’s happening to our colony and the people here! And what they are doing here to the world that is meant to be our home.
Isn’t that why we’re here?
To grow in peace in a garden of our own, not be an invasive plant that tries to take over the whole world, smothering and strangling everything in our way... You know, maybe it’s not a surprise our colony gets ravaged by xenos every year. Every year when both suns have set and we have those four weeks of darkness just illuminated by the countless bioluminescent plants and fungi here... Almost every year they seem to be more ferocious, too. But no one ever asks why, it seems. They are content to let us risk our life to *defend* ourselves against this attack that we probably provoked ourselves! Every year I feel that more strongly. And it’s why after they made me kill one when I was like 11 I promised myself that I would never do it again. If ... If we can’t live in peace with the xenos here, we don’t deserve to live here at all!
Sorry, I know you probably feel differently, Solane. You never entirely stopped feeling ashamed you weren’t able to get yourself to fight when you were 10 and then again when you were 11, right? And have been trying to prove your bravery ever since by always rushing to join the forces battling the xenos every year.
But you really don’t have to. I think it takes much more bravery to do the hard and often thankless work in the fields that almost everyone else seems to take for granted. Especially those that prefer to just play sportsball or something, heh. Anyway, I find it fun and rewarding regardless of what everyone else thinks, but you had so many other options! You *could* have become a soldier full-time or something, gotten that cushy job in the supply depot or stuck to just studying everything in school, right? But hey, I guess you just missed the dirt. And everything growing in it. And-and maybe... maybe also me...
It’s always easier when you aren’t alone, isn’t it?”