(avis)
Avis always wondered why she decided to move to the backwater planet number 19867, called "earth" by it's dominant species, in the first place. Perhaps it was wanting to get away from her overbearing parents who wanted to force her into the medical field. Or perhaps, it was because of the amazing opportunity for archeology and biodiversity on a planet that had its dominant species wiped out by the votalks.
Whatever it was, avis was currently waiting at the spaceport with thyme and the rest of her crew, waiting to board a shuttle to go to an archeological dig, that was found in what the humans called "the amazon rainforest."
The humans were so weird, and they always named and made things so strangely.
What did earth even mean? Personally, the kymari homeworld that was long since gone by now, was named after dirt. But what did earth mean? It surely didn't mean dirt.
She pulled out her tablet, and started to draw while she waited to board the transportation shuttle.
Her pen pressed on the screen, guiding the lines as her hand drew the shape of an incredibly tall mountain on this planet. The humans had called it "mt.Everest", whatever that meant. Mountains on Avis's home planet never got very tall. The reason most likely being the vast amounts of rivers, and the frequent storms that reached speeds comparable to the enormous gas giant in this star's orbit, which the humans called, 'j u PIE t e r'. All those elements combined to create a world habitable, but which needed underground cities instead of your usual town built on the surface.
Avis paused as she noticed thyme tapping her shoulder. it was time to go.
the shuttle arrived, and all the waiting kymari piled inside for the voyage.
planet-bound shuttles always used less advanced methods of travel, so even though an interstellar voyage shuttle only took 6 hours to travel about five star systems, planet-bound shuttles usually took much longer, taking two or so hours to travel across continents.
it was still immense speed, but it was also still deathly boring.
Avis stared out the window of the shuttle, drinking in the view.
planet earth was much more impressive from space than it was from the ground.
"what a weird name, planet earth," she muttered, crossing her arms.
Jia, a kymari with a darker green skin tone and long, braided hair, (and also Avis's older adopted sister of one century) had to hold her hand up to her face to keep herself from snorting. she was the technician on Avis's team, and also the one to provide the sibling banter to pass the time.
Avis lightly jabbed her sister with her elbow, after making sure nobody was looking.
"Am I wrong?" avis asked incredulously. "Every other sentient race we have come across, has named their planet after dirt. It's natural. It's the ground under our feet, and we assume that's just what it is in the early stages of intelligence. But the humans named their planet 'Earth.' and we don't even know what that means."
Avis's sister promptly ignored the rest of her sister's shpeel, and put her earpeices back in to finish listening to the rest of her romance audio novel.
Avis just sighed, and tried to get more of her sketch done.
When that didn't work, she found herself looking out the window once more, and saw the land below slowly go from water, to mountains.
Avis was just about to get a snack, when the shuttle suddenly made a very terrible lurch.
Lights cut across her field of vision, and the kymari was suddenly in the dark.
"What's happening?" Avis asked, looking around in panic.
Jia wasn't able to answer avis, because the shuttle jerked again, forcing avis to clutch her seat in a rush.
she was able to steal a quick look out the shuttle's window, which may have been a mistake.
outside the reinforced glass, she saw cube-shaped whimsical votalk ships, the kind meant for ground assaults.
Avis was just about to say something, when the shuttle jolted again.
they were being shot at!
the evil things flew out of a cloud layer at the shuttle, shooting with red beams of light.
Avis just had time to yell something before being completely thrown from her seat, as one of the large beams connected, sending the shuttle into an uncontrollable spiral to the ground.
she felt herself smash against the ceiling of the shuttle due to g-forces, which quickly resulted in the black spots dancing in her vision to expand quickly.
Avis thought it might be her time to go, so she closed her eyes to wait for the end.
Pain was... what she expected. But instead of death, she felt pure undefiled confusion. Then that gave ways to fear and panick blazing through her mind, feelings that very clearly were not her's.
"?!?"
Avis started smelling smoke, but her eyes were still shut.
"Uhgh... flying with one eye is hard... CASEUS! I WAS ONLY GONE FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS! HOW IN THE WORLD DID THIS HAPPEN?!"
Avis tried opening her eyes to see who was talking in her head, but she ultimately failed as she fell unconscious.
~~~
author:
sorry for late and short update, im going on hiatus this week to work on chapter 20 to release next week. I hope you enjoyed this little interlude from a different character's perspective. this is planned to be a thing every time we reach the end of this book's arks.
I hope you all have a good rest of your week, and have a marry Christmas or Hanukkah wherever you may be in the world.
every vote on this chapter is one wish for happy holidays to everyone.
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The Designs Of Change
Fantasy(The Design of Change, an Upon wings of change fanfiction. Thank you to crystalscherer for writing such an amazing original work.) ~~~ dear journal, Something big is happening behind the scenes. This is something much bigger than deleted amber alert...
