- RP Date
- Late Sangatsu, YE 42
- RP Location
- Sirris VI Green Zone
Patton Farm, Late Sangatsu, YE 42
The Pattons had been busy since their move into the small estate in the green zone surrounding Obsidian City on Sirris VI. In the month or so since their arrival, they'd constructed, with some help, a small one-car garage that sat next to their small house, its unique shape owed to its origin as a starship bridge.
In addition to the construction, various fields of crops had been sown all around the property and were beginning to sprout above the earthy soil. The couple had planted the fields in the hope that it would allow them to produce most of their own vegetables, and sell the excess.
In truth, the desire to farm had likely been influenced by the novelty of arable land to those who had lived on Osman, where the main crop had been the grapelike algaeia which grew in swamps.
It was mid-day in the early days of YE-42, and while the weather might have been chilled on Yamatai, Sirris VI was experiencing its normal mild weather. As the sun shone on the small house, Alex Patton made his way towards the house from one of the fields, a bucket of weeds in one hand and a small hoe slung over his other shoulder.
As he reached the house, he set the bucket down in front of the porch and leaned the hoe against the side of the house, and entered the door, the cool indoor air a welcome relief after manual labor. He moved his hand to a patch of skin, just below his scalp, feeling the bare patch of artificial skin that marked where the implant linking him to his mech had once resided.
[color=#Whatever]"Careful, I just swept out the kitchen,"[/color] the pleasing voice of Araxie Serai echoed through the cozy little home. She'd helped Alex out early on in the morning, and the smell of something starchy - as well as the accompanying sizzle - tantalized the young man's mind with the prospect of a very-well-earned lunch. Due to the price, meat would be a little hard to come by until at least the first harvest of crops, so Araxie was reserving it for special occasions. [color=#Whatever]"Welcome back in, honey!"[/color] despite her husband being completely drenched in sweat, the Elysian didn't falter in her approach as she hugged him, clad in a nostalgic sight - denim shorts and a T-shirt, both slightly dirtied from the field.
[color=#Whatever]"Lunch is almost ready, it'll probably be about ten more minutes."[/color]
Alex accepted the embrace, the mildly cool air pumped in by the air conditioning of the small house a pleasant contrast against Araxie's warmth. He lifted her up slightly, planting a kiss on her cheek before placing her down. He slipped out of his work boots, clapping them together out the open front door to shake off the dirt of Sirris VI before setting them to the side of the mudroom.
"Smells great, sweetie!" he said, as he made his way further inside, he made his way over to the table by the door, picking up the datapad that he had placed there, which showed some of the assignments he was grading for the NDC's main college. "The crops are coming in soon. The tomatoes should be ready to sell in about a month, and the corn is almost ready to pick."
[color=#Whatever]"I thought I saw some yellow out there this morning! We'll need to rig up that scale to weigh them in before they're ready. What's the prospect looking like - doing that tonight, or tomorrow?"[/color] The cozy Elysian's smile was so warm, it could melt a glacier as she led her husband to the kitchen. Even if she wasn't out in the fields as often as Alex was, Araxie was still quite the busy woman - collaborative city design to help with the growing Obsidian City, managing the property, and setting up some of their equipment as it arrived certainly ate up a lot of her time. It showed, too, the originally pencil-thin limbs and body having thickened out, healthily containing capable muscles while remaining overall lithe and familiar.
Making ends meet so far has been more than a challenge, and an aspect of farm life that Araxie hadn't thought would ever show up - but life was, indeed, quite full of surprises. It certainly beat being a spacer, though - the long days and nights of sunless travel, never staying anywhere, faces a blur... Here, Araxie could actually have friends, neighbors, people she knew. That excited her.
Alex consulted the datapad again as he joined Araxie in the kitchen. Things were harder now that he had no direct interface with the various internets of the Kikyo sector, he kept a datapad at home, and had to wear a geist collar when out of the house to help interact with the extensively networked Duskerian society.
But it had been part of his way of distancing himself from his past life of violence and conflict. As he tapped at the datapad, he thought about the farm. Neither he nor Araxie had known anything about farming at first. He would have been tempted to call it a miracle that they'd succeeded, but it had really taken long nights of research and long days of labor.
"The containers should be arriving late afternoon today, but I'd like to give the corn another day to ripen." This would be the point at which, hopefully, all of their hard work paid off. "I'm looking forwards to being able to afford a bit more than a teacher's salary allows for."
A familiar hand caressed, squeezed, and massages Alex's shoulder. [color=#Whatever]"Think so? I've had some bad timing with deliveries in the past. Hopefully, they've got a guy who actually cares, or we won't see the containers for at least a week!"[/color]
There were some things that Araxie learned about her husband shortly after he'd chosen to remove his implant - the subtle way he'd look at a light fixture when he wanted it to illuminate or dim, accidentally forgetting to turn the oven off, or the slight awkwardness he had when actually, properly driving for the first time. Little bumps in the road, and she was there to help him out every time; Elysians like her never had the option for such a connection to the technology surrounding them.
[color=#Whatever]"But yeah - once the payment rolls in, we'll be so much better off! It'll take us most of the day to load everything up, so I'll be making breakfast a bit early and a bit big then."[/color] Yeah, that was a good day for meat. There was some sausage and ham left over - great protein and energy to keep everyone moving on what is going to be, simply put, the biggest day of their career.
Alex absently rubbed the hand on his shoulder gently as he agreed, before moving to the kitchen to help finish preparing lunch.
Patton Farm, 10:59 AM Shigatsu 12, YE 42
With the sale of the corn harvest, the beginning of Shigatsu had been much easier, with a great deal less fieldwork needed. On this day Alex had spent his morning inside, upstairs at the desk in the bedroom grading assignments. It was lucky that the harvest season lined up just before the second half of Osman University's first semester of the year.
He'd known that Jack was going to be making a speech that day, and had decided to tune to listen while he worked. The previous ten minutes of speeches had mostly been dull and canned, and in large part, he'd not paid too much attention. As the hour ticked over, a loud CRACK spat forth from his datapad, and as he turned to view the screen he saw chaos erupting and a shaky camera focus in on Jack's body, which appeared to have lost about half of its torso.
"Honey!" He called, "Honey, come here!"
[color=#Whatever]"What is it?"[/color] The clatter of the screen door to the front porch, followed by rapid thudding of the Elysian's feet on the stairs preceded Araxie's anxious approach, the stress in Alex's voice putting her into overdrive. She sighed in relief when she saw that Alex himself was okay - then her frown intensified, as she saw the man's face glued to his datapad in horror.
It didn't take long for her to see why, the mangled corpse of their friend still being displayed - at least for a couple of moments before the crowd erupted into chaos, smoke and screams filling the air. [color=#Whatever]"...No.... No! How could this happen?"[/color]
Alex glanced back and forth anxiously, appearing for all the world to step backward in time, his expression not dissimilar to one commonly seen during his time on Osman. "I don't... I wasn't paying attention."
He wrung his hands a little in stress, "Whatever did that to him, it must have been big. I need... I need to go help." He placed a hand on Araxie's shoulder. "I'm going to get the car, I want you to stay here." He didn't look sure of himself.
[color=#Whatever]"And where do you think you're going to go? The city's going to be in chaos! They'll never let you in, Alex!"[/color] As she held Alex's hand with her own, the Elysian tightened her grip. [color=#Whatever]"There's.... Nothing we can do. Not tonight."[/color]
Alex's face was a mix between empty-headed blankness and despair. "There's... nothing?" The response was almost childlike.
Embracing her husband tightly - just as much to comfort him as to keep him from leaving - Araxie stated, [color=#Whatever]"We can't do anything, honey... Alex. Jack is... Jack is gone."[/color] As she held on to Alex, Araxie started to cry, the loss of a friend like Jack was... Almost too much.
Alex bowed his head a little, pulling Araxie into a hug. As chaos played out on the datapad, a few stray tears could be felt falling from his face onto her shoulder.
The Pattons had been busy since their move into the small estate in the green zone surrounding Obsidian City on Sirris VI. In the month or so since their arrival, they'd constructed, with some help, a small one-car garage that sat next to their small house, its unique shape owed to its origin as a starship bridge.
In addition to the construction, various fields of crops had been sown all around the property and were beginning to sprout above the earthy soil. The couple had planted the fields in the hope that it would allow them to produce most of their own vegetables, and sell the excess.
In truth, the desire to farm had likely been influenced by the novelty of arable land to those who had lived on Osman, where the main crop had been the grapelike algaeia which grew in swamps.
It was mid-day in the early days of YE-42, and while the weather might have been chilled on Yamatai, Sirris VI was experiencing its normal mild weather. As the sun shone on the small house, Alex Patton made his way towards the house from one of the fields, a bucket of weeds in one hand and a small hoe slung over his other shoulder.
As he reached the house, he set the bucket down in front of the porch and leaned the hoe against the side of the house, and entered the door, the cool indoor air a welcome relief after manual labor. He moved his hand to a patch of skin, just below his scalp, feeling the bare patch of artificial skin that marked where the implant linking him to his mech had once resided.
[color=#Whatever]"Careful, I just swept out the kitchen,"[/color] the pleasing voice of Araxie Serai echoed through the cozy little home. She'd helped Alex out early on in the morning, and the smell of something starchy - as well as the accompanying sizzle - tantalized the young man's mind with the prospect of a very-well-earned lunch. Due to the price, meat would be a little hard to come by until at least the first harvest of crops, so Araxie was reserving it for special occasions. [color=#Whatever]"Welcome back in, honey!"[/color] despite her husband being completely drenched in sweat, the Elysian didn't falter in her approach as she hugged him, clad in a nostalgic sight - denim shorts and a T-shirt, both slightly dirtied from the field.
[color=#Whatever]"Lunch is almost ready, it'll probably be about ten more minutes."[/color]
Alex accepted the embrace, the mildly cool air pumped in by the air conditioning of the small house a pleasant contrast against Araxie's warmth. He lifted her up slightly, planting a kiss on her cheek before placing her down. He slipped out of his work boots, clapping them together out the open front door to shake off the dirt of Sirris VI before setting them to the side of the mudroom.
"Smells great, sweetie!" he said, as he made his way further inside, he made his way over to the table by the door, picking up the datapad that he had placed there, which showed some of the assignments he was grading for the NDC's main college. "The crops are coming in soon. The tomatoes should be ready to sell in about a month, and the corn is almost ready to pick."
[color=#Whatever]"I thought I saw some yellow out there this morning! We'll need to rig up that scale to weigh them in before they're ready. What's the prospect looking like - doing that tonight, or tomorrow?"[/color] The cozy Elysian's smile was so warm, it could melt a glacier as she led her husband to the kitchen. Even if she wasn't out in the fields as often as Alex was, Araxie was still quite the busy woman - collaborative city design to help with the growing Obsidian City, managing the property, and setting up some of their equipment as it arrived certainly ate up a lot of her time. It showed, too, the originally pencil-thin limbs and body having thickened out, healthily containing capable muscles while remaining overall lithe and familiar.
Making ends meet so far has been more than a challenge, and an aspect of farm life that Araxie hadn't thought would ever show up - but life was, indeed, quite full of surprises. It certainly beat being a spacer, though - the long days and nights of sunless travel, never staying anywhere, faces a blur... Here, Araxie could actually have friends, neighbors, people she knew. That excited her.
Alex consulted the datapad again as he joined Araxie in the kitchen. Things were harder now that he had no direct interface with the various internets of the Kikyo sector, he kept a datapad at home, and had to wear a geist collar when out of the house to help interact with the extensively networked Duskerian society.
But it had been part of his way of distancing himself from his past life of violence and conflict. As he tapped at the datapad, he thought about the farm. Neither he nor Araxie had known anything about farming at first. He would have been tempted to call it a miracle that they'd succeeded, but it had really taken long nights of research and long days of labor.
"The containers should be arriving late afternoon today, but I'd like to give the corn another day to ripen." This would be the point at which, hopefully, all of their hard work paid off. "I'm looking forwards to being able to afford a bit more than a teacher's salary allows for."
A familiar hand caressed, squeezed, and massages Alex's shoulder. [color=#Whatever]"Think so? I've had some bad timing with deliveries in the past. Hopefully, they've got a guy who actually cares, or we won't see the containers for at least a week!"[/color]
There were some things that Araxie learned about her husband shortly after he'd chosen to remove his implant - the subtle way he'd look at a light fixture when he wanted it to illuminate or dim, accidentally forgetting to turn the oven off, or the slight awkwardness he had when actually, properly driving for the first time. Little bumps in the road, and she was there to help him out every time; Elysians like her never had the option for such a connection to the technology surrounding them.
[color=#Whatever]"But yeah - once the payment rolls in, we'll be so much better off! It'll take us most of the day to load everything up, so I'll be making breakfast a bit early and a bit big then."[/color] Yeah, that was a good day for meat. There was some sausage and ham left over - great protein and energy to keep everyone moving on what is going to be, simply put, the biggest day of their career.
Alex absently rubbed the hand on his shoulder gently as he agreed, before moving to the kitchen to help finish preparing lunch.
Patton Farm, 10:59 AM Shigatsu 12, YE 42
With the sale of the corn harvest, the beginning of Shigatsu had been much easier, with a great deal less fieldwork needed. On this day Alex had spent his morning inside, upstairs at the desk in the bedroom grading assignments. It was lucky that the harvest season lined up just before the second half of Osman University's first semester of the year.
He'd known that Jack was going to be making a speech that day, and had decided to tune to listen while he worked. The previous ten minutes of speeches had mostly been dull and canned, and in large part, he'd not paid too much attention. As the hour ticked over, a loud CRACK spat forth from his datapad, and as he turned to view the screen he saw chaos erupting and a shaky camera focus in on Jack's body, which appeared to have lost about half of its torso.
"Honey!" He called, "Honey, come here!"
[color=#Whatever]"What is it?"[/color] The clatter of the screen door to the front porch, followed by rapid thudding of the Elysian's feet on the stairs preceded Araxie's anxious approach, the stress in Alex's voice putting her into overdrive. She sighed in relief when she saw that Alex himself was okay - then her frown intensified, as she saw the man's face glued to his datapad in horror.
It didn't take long for her to see why, the mangled corpse of their friend still being displayed - at least for a couple of moments before the crowd erupted into chaos, smoke and screams filling the air. [color=#Whatever]"...No.... No! How could this happen?"[/color]
Alex glanced back and forth anxiously, appearing for all the world to step backward in time, his expression not dissimilar to one commonly seen during his time on Osman. "I don't... I wasn't paying attention."
He wrung his hands a little in stress, "Whatever did that to him, it must have been big. I need... I need to go help." He placed a hand on Araxie's shoulder. "I'm going to get the car, I want you to stay here." He didn't look sure of himself.
[color=#Whatever]"And where do you think you're going to go? The city's going to be in chaos! They'll never let you in, Alex!"[/color] As she held Alex's hand with her own, the Elysian tightened her grip. [color=#Whatever]"There's.... Nothing we can do. Not tonight."[/color]
Alex's face was a mix between empty-headed blankness and despair. "There's... nothing?" The response was almost childlike.
Embracing her husband tightly - just as much to comfort him as to keep him from leaving - Araxie stated, [color=#Whatever]"We can't do anything, honey... Alex. Jack is... Jack is gone."[/color] As she held on to Alex, Araxie started to cry, the loss of a friend like Jack was... Almost too much.
Alex bowed his head a little, pulling Araxie into a hug. As chaos played out on the datapad, a few stray tears could be felt falling from his face onto her shoulder.
