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It took two hours to reach the restaurant. Fiera and Kuen chatted about random things until they got there. When they arrived, they were shown to their table with minimal fuss. Fiera perused the menu. She was stunned to see that what these core worlders called fine dining was really just fancied up versions of some of her mother’s favorite dishes, at least the ones for heavy worlders.

“I don’t know who they’ve got in the kitchen, but these heavy worlder dishes? They’re all ones my ma makes at home, with a few different ingredients,” Fiera said. “The chef is just putting one or two luxury ingredients in basic food and calling it high cuisine.”

“Really?” Kuen asked. “What do you mean?”

She pointed to an item on the menu. “Look at this one. The chef uses lamb and a three mushroom blend along with the vegetables and spices in this pasta dish. My ma uses a poultry mix and no mushrooms but makes it with the same vegetable mix and I’ll bet similar spices. Or this one. It’s just a basic stew. My ma makes it with a red meat blend or with pork, depending on what she can get for cheap, and all the same vegetables and I’ll bet a similar gravy. She doesn’t use alcohol in the making of the gravy, as I’m assuming is used here by the way of the description, and prime beef doesn’t come our way more than once or twice a year.”

“How interesting,” Kuen said. “Could it be possible your mother learned to cook restaurant food and has converted that to feed her family?”

“Well, my ma did spend several years cooking in a hostel,” Fiera said. “Seeing to all the visitors to the colonies back before the annexation. She could have gotten her recipes from there.”

“It would make sense that if she learned to cook for a large group of people for a living, she’d translate that into cooking large meals for her family,” Kuen said.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Fiera said thoughtfully. She read through the menu some more. She decided on what she wanted and when the waiter came back, she ordered her meal. Kuen ordered his and ordered them a bottle of wine.

“Tell me more about Sorus,” Kuen said. “What’s it like there? What is life like on the farm?”

Fiera took a sip of water. “Let me tell you what a typical day is like on the farm,” she said. “Then I’ll tell you a bit more about Sorus.”

“All right,” Kuen said.

“Our day started at dawn on the farm. I’m usually up, showered, and downstairs within about ten minutes. Breakfast is served. I usually helped my ma fix breakfast once I was old enough to help cook. After breakfast, if you’re on farm duty, you grab your gear and head out to the fields. I was usually on farm duty, so I went out with the rest of my siblings and joined the farmhands. We weeded the plots, checked for disease or damage to the crops, watered everything, fertilized everything once a week, and just checked the general overall health of the plants.”

“You had to check that every day?” Kuen asked.

Fiera nodded. “Whatever they hit our fields with that triggered the famine caused our yields to be reduced drastically. We have to be very careful with what does grow. If anything happens to the crops, we’re penalized and it could lead to a child being indentured if we don’t meet our contractual obligations. Anything that’s left over from that we can keep or sell. There’s often not much left over what we’re required to send to the Core, so whatever is left we send to the planetary stockpile to shore up against a day when the Core decides to bombard us again.”

“Is farmwork all you do in a day?” Kuen asked.

“Well, that’s spring and summer,” Fiera said. “Fall is harvest. That’s when things get more interesting. That’s when we get out the harvesters and the threshers, depending on what we grew that year. Tomatoes, peas, and other delicate crops are picked by hand. Harvesters are brought in to do potatoes, corn, onions, peppers, things like that. Threshers are employed if we grew wheat, barley, or oats that year. This is also when we work from sunrise until past sunset. We can work as late as midnight during the harvest if we’ve got a lot of parcels to run through.”

“That sounds exhausting,” Kuen said.

“It is,” Fiera said. “It’s not even that rewarding considering we don’t see any real profit from our work. We get paid a bare minimum for meeting our obligations. We don’t make a real profit. My ma and da make a profit off their farm because they’ve got greenhouses and can sell what they grow there because the regulations say what’s grown in greenhouses and gardens is off limits to the collectors.”

“Does every farmer have greenhouses?” Kuen asked.

“Every farmer who’s sensible has at least one greenhouse,” Fiera said. “Even the smallest farmers on Sorus have one. They’re usually growing things for their families, not to sell, because the smallest farmers are the ones who often have the least amount of food to spare.”

“Is life really that hard on Sorus?” Kuen asked.

“It wasn’t always this bad,” Fiera said. “It used to be your typical farm world. Then we got hit with whatever the CAF nailed us with, which destroyed our soil. Now it’s hard to do anything. But it’s not all bad. Sorus still has a lot of rivers to fish in, the badlands to hunt in, there’s even a few forests to gather wild fruit, mushrooms, and vegetables in. I never ventured into the forests because there isn’t one near the settlement I grew up in, but I did hunt the badlands several times.”

“What are the badlands?” Kuen asked.

The wine and food were brought to the table and there was a pause in the conversation as the wine was uncorked and served. When the waiter left them in peace, Fiera resumed the conversation. “The badlands are a rocky blotch of land in the middle of the planet. Some people think they’re a desert, but they’re not. There’s plenty of water that runs through it. There’s scrubby foliage that grows there too. The soil isn’t good for farming though, and there are a lot of nasty things that live in the badlands. They make good eating though, so it’s worth the effort to go out there once every few months and thin them out.”

“You actually hunt for game?” Kuen asked. “I’ve heard of hunting parties before, but usually they’re trophy hunting.”

“Meat is expensive, though there are cheap cuts available to us,” Fiera said. “Any time we can supplement our food supply with something we don’t have to pay for, we’ll do it. It’s why we go fishing too. Da never got the hang of fishing, but my ma taught all of us kids to fish. Once a week we’d go out to the river and bring in a whole mess of fish for her to make into something. The river ran right by my parents’ farm, so we had easy access.”

“I find it interesting that people hunt, fish, and gather out in the Colonies,” Kuen said. “Is that true on all the planets?”

“Worlds like Aruistrides it’s no longer possible,” Fiera said. “There are a few others where Core depredations have taken their toll and it’s not feasible to hunt and gather. But most of the worlds, no matter what their primary industry is, they can always find something to hunt, fish, or gather that the Core can’t touch. Even on the worlds where something like fishing is the primary industry, they can find things the Core won’t touch to gather and eat.”

“It still sounds like a hard life,” Kuen said.

“It is,” Fiera said. “But it’s one we embraced when we decided to leave the CWA and create the Colonies in the first place. We wanted that challenge. We wanted that way of life. It’s only because of the annexation that we’re being forced out of our way of life. Most of us just want to live our lives and go back to the way things were before.”

“Your father isn’t one of those, I take it,” Kuen said.

“I don’t think da knows what he wants,” Fiera said, taking a mouthful of food. “I was right. This is exactly what my ma makes, with a few added ingredients. It’s good though. I think he wanted the annexation over with in the beginning, but between him and his friends, things have gotten out of control.”

“Do you think there’s a way to fix things?” Kuen asked.

“Get the CAF and the CWA out of the Colonies,” Fiera said. “Let us go back to just trading with you instead of taking everything we produce and leaving us with nothing. Support treaties with us instead of violence. That would fix things.”

“You really think that being allowed to go back to your previous existence would be beneficial for your people?” Kuen asked.

“In a heartbeat,” Fiera said. “It’s all we want. Lord Nakano, the vast majority of us don’t want violence. We don’t hold with what the resistance members are doing. We want peace and simple lives. We aren’t getting that with the CAF and the CWA all up in our business.” She knew he hated her using his family name, but they were in public, so she had to do it.

“I see,” Kuen said. “I still don’t understand how you can prefer that way of life over what we have in the Core, but I suppose it’s all about what you’re raised with. Yet you’ve enjoyed the benefits of the Core, and you still want to go home. You’re telling me you prefer Sorus over Bouarus?”

“Very much so,” Fiera said. “I think it’s hard for you to understand because you don’t have the sense of family and planetary pride that we Colonists have. We’re proud of our homes. We’re proud of how little we have and what we do with it. We established ourselves without much technology and we survived. Not only did we survive, we thrived. That’s a major point for us and our way of life. We don’t need what you have to be happy. And we have our families. We’re not always running off leaving children in the care of nursemaids or sending them off world to school while we live out our lives. We also have larger families than you do in the Core and take an interest in every member’s life.”

“I know Gaspare has several sisters,” Kuen said. “But his is the largest family I’ve encountered. Usually we restrict ourselves to two or three children, and as you said, most children are sent away to school or are hidden away with private tutors or nursemaids.”

“Not in the Colonies. Sure, we go to school, but it’s public school and we’re home working with our families once we’re old enough after school hours are done,” Fiera said. “We’re always together, always in each other’s business, always knowing what’s going on with each person in our family. It’s important to us to have that connection.”

“Does every family member live on the same planet?” Kuen asked.

“No,” Fiera said. “My ma and her twin are the only ones out of her family who live on Sorus. But I’ve got fourteen other aunts and uncles that we called regularly. We heard from the whole family at least once a week, if not more often, because we’d call them or they’d call us. When my grandparents were alive, we’d hear from them two or three times a week. We visited them a few times on Icrtara as well, though those trips were planned out a year or two in advance.”

“I remember you saying that,” Kuen said. “You had to save money to go.”

“Yeah, with a mob the size of ours it took a good long while to save the funds to travel,” Fiera said. “Of course, travel was less expensive then. We were still under the annexation, but the prices hadn’t skyrocketed like they have over the past twenty years.”

“I wonder if my mother had something to do with the prices going up,” Kuen muttered.

“It’s possible,” Fiera said. “I don’t think fusion engines got that much more expensive to manufacture in twenty years.”

“I think they’d have gotten cheaper,” Kuen said. “With all the strides we’ve made in the process.”

Fiera shrugged. “It is what it is, Lord Nakano. Until such time as the Colonies are free, we will continue to suffer under the boot heel of the CWA,” she said. “It’s become as much a part of our daily lives as our usual routines.”

“You make it sound as if you have little in the way of fun in your lives,” Kuen said.

“There’s plenty of fun to be had, in the evenings, during the winter, and at the summer festival,” Fiera said. “When the work’s done and there’s time to relax.” She smiled. “Sometimes it’s just with family members and sometimes other farm families will come over and it’ll be more of a small gathering. My ma fed everyone who showed up, and me, Phelix, and Muirne would help cook once we were all old enough. Then she’d let the three of us relax after dinner and make Mark, Neven, and Teigue do the cleaning up. Children would be watching holos or playing with toys, calling out to each other, laughing and having a good time. The teens and adults would be playing cards or some other game, usually with good natured insults and teasing going on.”

“It sounds chaotic,” Kuen said.

“It was,” Fiera said wistfully. “But it brought home the fact that we were all part of a community. Then there was the summer festival. Everyone in the community got together for that. We shared food and drink and the whole community took turns entertaining each other. If you didn’t want to entertain you could volunteer to help set up or take down the festival kit. Or you could bring food. If you didn’t volunteer or bring food, you had to entertain. That was understood by everyone. Only littles were exempt from this.”

“Were you a volunteer in the summer?” Kuen asked.

“I was an entertainer,” Fiera said. “I’m a fairly good singer. So are most of my siblings. We’d all pile up front and sing a few songs, then pick someone else to take their turn. We always had people complain about having to go after us, but it was all in good fun.”

“What about the winter? Did you have snow?” Kuen asked.

“We’d get snow every winter. It’s worse if you’re up in one of the higher elevations,” Fiera said. “Down where we were we only got a few feet at most. It was pretty easy to sweep and clear paths to the greenhouses and the outbuildings. Winter was mainly for repairing machinery, mending clothes and farming gear, and Himostava.”

“Did you have a big celebration for Himostava?” Kuen asked.

“Every year,” Fiera said. “Ma would start baking about two weeks before, mounds and mounds of cookies. Da would make the sugar globes to go over the cookies. All of us were sneaks and would steal cookies whenever ma’s back was turned. She’d chase us out of the kitchen and we’d just laugh and run off while someone else stole a few cookies while she was distracted. It was as much a tradition as her baking the cookies was. She started getting me, Phelix, Murine, and Teigue to help her bake so we’d quit stealing them.”

“Did it work?” Kuen asked with an amused smile.

“No,” Fiera said, laughing. “We’d eat them straight off the tray once they came out of the oven and had cooled off a little. Mother thought we were the worst of them all because we weren’t even trying to hide our thievery. Somehow though we always had tons of cookies for the actual celebration. Everyone got a huge pile under a sugar dome. We would wake up on Himostava and smash the domes to get at our cookies. Ma and da would have decorated the house with garlands and presents would be exchanged.”

“Were there a lot of presents?” Kuen asked.

“Everyone got presents from everyone else,” Fiera said. “We’d all spent some of our free time in the evenings making presents during the previous year. And ma and da saved up some money from the greenhouse profits to buy us each a gift. So everyone always had a pile of gifts waiting for them. They weren’t always perfect. Sometimes it was hard to tell what the youngest littles made for you, and you had to be very careful when asking them to tell you about the gift they made so they wouldn’t get hurt feelings. But it was always worth it to see the love that went into everything.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Kuen said. “My mother never really celebrates Himostava, and we always held a day of remembrance of those who’d died the previous year when I was at the Academy.”

“You and Lord Benoit should do something fun for it this year,” Fiera said. “I know you can’t really have a party. Your mother and his father wouldn’t allow for it. But you should find some way of making the day special for you two.”

“I’ll talk to him about his plans,” Kuen said. “His family may be doing something for it. I don’t know what the High Admiral and his wife do for the holiday when the children are home.”

“That makes perfect sense,” Fiera said. “If you want to contract me for it, talk to Intira at least a couple months in advance. I book fast for Himostava parties for some reason, and they start requesting me as soon as the first parties are announced. That’s usually around two months before the parties actually start.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Kuen said. “I’ll let Gaspare know as well, in case he wishes to contract you for the same time.”

“Good idea,” Fiera said. She sighed. “I probably should have ordered something else. This is making me homesick.”

“It probably doesn’t help that I’ve been asking all sorts of questions about your homeworld,” Kuen said.

“I don’t mind talking about Sorus,” Fiera said. “It’s harder when I have to talk about my family. I’m sure they must think I died when that ship exploded. Unless my da told them I was alive, they’ll have no idea I became indentured because my name wasn’t on the list.”

“Why is that?” Kuen asked. Fiera saw understanding blossom on his face. “Because you were indentured under your current name, not your family name.”

Fiera nodded. “Da would keep it quiet who I was because if ma found out he’d done what he did, she’d pound him into the ground for endangering me like he did,” she said. “Not to mention how many people died because of his stupidity.”

They finished eating and Kuen paid the bill. He escorted Fiera back to his car. “I have something I want to show you,” he said. “I have you for the rest of the evening, so we don’t have to rush you back to your House.”

“Okay,” Fiera said. “I was wondering why my schedule was closed for this evening. I didn’t think dinner was going to take all night.”

Kuen drove into an area Fiera had never been in. He parked his car and got out. He opened her door and she climbed out. She was immediately assailed by the scent of green and growing things. “Where I want to go isn’t far. I know walking in those shoes isn’t going to be pleasant,” Kuen said, indicating the low heels Fiera was wearing.

“No, these are definitely not made for hiking,” Fiera said with a laugh.

He led her down a path shaded by trees. Lanterns in the trees gave off a subtle glow, highlighting the path without making it as bright as daylight under the branches. Fiera stared at the trees and plants around her as she made her way down the path, full of wonder at the beauty surrounding her.

They left the covered pathway and Fiera could only stare as they stopped in a clearing. It was full of water cascades tumbling down over glittering crystal spires. It was almost musical the way the water sounded as it flowed into tiny pools. “This is the Sanctuary Crystal Water Garden,” Kuen said in a quiet voice. “It’s one of my favorite places to come and think. Gaspare doesn’t like it because he says the water sounds strange.”

“It’s almost like music,” Fiera breathed. “It’s so beautiful.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Kuen said, smiling.

Kuen led her over to a bench half hidden in the shadows. The two sat down and just listened to the water. They sat for a long period of time, neither speaking, simply enjoying the water garden.

Finally, Fiera sighed. “It’s getting late. We probably have to get me back to the House now,” she said regretfully.

“Yes, I suppose we do,” Kuen said. “I could wish we had longer, but I do not wish to earn the ire of Iacchus Santorini. Nor do I wish to see you penalized for my keeping you out late.”

They rose and he took her back to his car. They got in and he drove her back to her House. Intira saw them come in. “We were beginning to wonder if you were keeping her all night, Lord Nakano,” she said. “It is quite late.”

“I will pay any additional fees for bringing her back at such a late hour,” Kuen said. “We were passing an enjoyable evening and I lost track of the time.”

“Of course, Lord Nakano,” Intira said. “I’ll let Iacchus know that you were pleased with our Blue Butterfly this evening.”

“I was very pleased with her,” Kuen said. “I know you have a busy rest of your week ahead of you, Fiera. I’ll bid you good night.” “Good night, Lord Nakano,” Fiera said. “Thank you for such a pleasant evening.” They parted company, with Kuen heading back out the door and Fiera making her way to her rooms. Her stylists had long since gone to bed. Azari and Sidonie were still up, but Fiera sent them to bed as well. She changed into her night clothes and went to bed, the memory of the water garden soothing her to sleep.