Selenia had few expectations of anything after surviving a near-death experience in a strange and foreign place. She was happy enough to be alive. But still, of all the things she expected afterwards, farming was the last thing she expected. She didn’t even think it made the list.

  Farming? Her?

  She was a princess of the Selenar Union, a princess of the Triplet Moons, not a princess of—she stared at the melons growing in the nearby fields—she looked back at her field as they continued to sow melon seeds of different varieties…

  Melon…

  She shook her head as she thought of her substantial garden back home in the orbital colonies that she had tended to, that she had recently been tending to. Her garden, where she had also been growing melons…

  …maybe she was a melon princess…

  Selenia’s eye twitched. Why did they have to be growing melons? Even if they did, why did it have to be this field? And not all the many other ones? At this time and place? Right here and right now?

  Selenia stared at Aster, who stared back and shrugged with a smile. She was starting to grow annoyed with that carefree smile of his.

  She stopped her work and looked around, her hoe in hand. She looked around as others worked the field alongside her and Aster. She spotted some other humans working the fields. But there were plenty of other humanoids as well that weren’t human. Some who appeared reptilian, avian, and some that even looked like hyenas. And quite a few who appeared on a sliding scale between human and not.

  Those like Aster’s sister Fia, who was, as she had learned, a harpy. The Lethea Labryinth was home to all sorts of people. It wasn’t as if the orbital and lunar colonies didn’t have their fair share of nonhuman or those who were on a sliding scale between human and nonhuman. There were just fewer of them. Much fewer.

  Selenia watched Fia move about, helping to coordinate certain things and do her duties as one of SETI’s officers, flying about with her arm-wings as she went to and fro, every occasional flap of her arm-wings a powerful thrust that propelled her forward.

  Then she stared straight up at the artificial sky. Much like Merida City, there was a massive dome that covered the cavernous ceiling miles high above, which could simulate day and night, even the weather. If one didn’t know better, they could have sworn that they were up on the surface of Gaia instead of many miles underground within the Lethea Labyrinth.

  Today, the artificial sky was a bright blue, sunny, and a layer of clouds existed that occasionally shaded them. The steady warm light was not excessively harsh. But it was enough of a steady shine for the fields that working on them did make one sweat, especially combined with the manual labor of the fields.

  Then she took the view across from her. Interspersed between the miles of farmland were hills filled with lush green trees and foliage, the occasional sheer rocky cliffs, flat areas with barren soil, various clusters of buildings in varying shades of grey, and metallic crop silos.

  But in the far distance was the central mountain slope that took up the entire side of the cavern. It rose for miles high and wide on a moderate slope. On it were elevator platforms and thick metal hatches of various sizes, and some were even large enough that a warship could fit through. Some of the hatches were close to the ground, and others were high in the air. She had seen the occasional traffic, both by ground-based cargo transport and gunmetal grey shuttles.

  She was dressed casually for farm work, outside of her usual attire: work boots, gloves, overalls over pants, and a shirt. On top of her head, she wore a wide-brimmed straw hat. Others dressed similarly, though allowances were made for their particular biology.

  But what she couldn’t stop staring at, as she had repeatedly this past week, was the numerous machines at work, efficiently tilling soil, planting seeds, and harvesting crops. Her eyes twitched as she saw the machinery steadily moving serenely along without a care in the world.

  Then she looked at the hoe she had in her hand.

  “Why the hell am I doing farm work?” Selenia burst out as she threw the tool to the ground. “But more importantly, why are we doing farm work by manual labor when it's obvious this place has the machinery to do so!?”

  Selenia pointed off in the distance at the efficient machines.

  Aster chuckled as he shrugged. “Well, as Captain August said, SETI is an elite unit.”

  “It’s an elite unit that can do a lot of things, like farming,” Selenia retorted.

  “Well, you remember what Captain August said before? It’s training to help build character.”

  “Sure. Whatever that means,” Selenia glowered at him as she watched him put a towel to his head, wiping away sweat from the toil of their labor.

  Selenia wiped away her sweat as well. It wasn’t as if she were ungrateful or that the farming necessarily bothered her; it was just that she wondered if this was a good use of their time.

  Still, it was peaceful. Of course, it was better than some prison somewhere. And she did like the breeze that flowed here.

  “Not liking Alsium Two so far?” Aster asked.

  “It’s wonderful here,” Selenia clarified. “It’s just so… inefficient to farm by hand. But the farming does feel somewhat familiar.”

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  “Oh? You farmed back home? A princess like you?” Aster said, raising a skeptical brow.

  “Well, it wasn’t farming. I was just taking care of a personal garden that I had… a somewhat large garden…” Selenia didn’t want to elaborate further as she suddenly realized this wasn’t a topic she wanted to get into.

  “What did you grow there?” Aster asked.

  “I grew a lot of things…” Selenia deflected.

  Aster just stared at her questioningly.

  Selenia leaned in shyly. “Just don’t laugh, okay?” Selenia said.

  Aster nodded.

  “I grew melons,” Selenia whispered.

  Aster held a hand to his mouth as he attempted to suppress his chuckles.

  “I said not to laugh,” Selenia whispered in anger.

  “S-Sorry,” replied Aster. “Was that why you said you were a melon princess before? When we first met?”

  “S-Something like that. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. And you know there are so many different varieties of them with so many nuances in how you grow them, taking into account the soil and moisture conditions, not to mention the growing cycles and optimal lighting. You know, that doesn’t go into the quality of the seeds, spacing between the sproutings as they grow, and—”

  “Melon princess!” yelled one of the fairies who had snuck up behind them. There were five of them.

  “She really is a melon princess!” “The moon princess is a melon princess!” Melon princess!” “Melon princess!” the rest of the fairies behind them said.

  Selenia attempted to shoo them off.

  The gaggle of five fairies stuck out their tongue at her as they ran off. “Melon butt!” they said in unison as they scampered off.

  Selenia shuck a fist at them. “You little brats! Who are you calling a Melon butt!? Don’t think you can call me a Melon butt every single time!”

  And the fairies had. Repeatedly. More than she would have liked this past week.

  In the distance, some of the others around them laughed.

  Selenia’s face flushed in embarrassment.

  Aster chuckled in amusement as he saw Selenia blush after the fairies had run off. Then, he saw a shuttle in the distance approaching as it entered through one of the hatches of the central mountain slope in the far distance.

  The large, angular gunmetal-grey transport with swept wings landed nearby at a designated clearing that had been prepared in advance. The engines built into the wings slowly adjusted themselves from horizontal to vertical as it softly touched the ground.

  Captain August departed from it, accompanied by a group of new arrivals. All wore the black and dark red uniforms characteristic of Despar’s military. There were two dozen in the group. He called out to the field as he approached, “Alright everyone, breaktime.”

  Selenia bowed gracefully to Captain August as he approached, along with several others who all lined up instinctively as they came to a halt before him and Selenia.

  Aster stuck his farming tool in the ground and leaned against it as he watched them.

  “And here is where you’ll be working on the fields,” August said to them. “It’s a rite of passage for everyone who joins SETI!”

  “And how long is that?” one person in the group asked.

  “When I say so,” August clarified.

  The others looked at each other in skepticism. “It’s more like indentured labor, is what it is,” a different person in the group grumbled.

  “And how is farming by hand supposed to help with anything?” another said in annoyance.

  The group nodded in agreement.

  Captain August laughed. “It builds character! It’s training! How else do you all think you’re going to get strong? You need to build up your bodies! Even our resident princess from Selenar”—Aster saw some burning gazes from some of them at the word Selenar—from the moons, can do it.”

  Selenia shrank away as she pulled her wide-brimmed hat down a bit tighter over herself.

  “I thought a military unit was supposed to have some kind of military discipline?” Selenia whispered as she leaned over to Aster.

  “Well, sure, but as Captain August always says, SETI is an elite unit,” Aster said. Well, it did seem that Captain August did use that excuse for everything whenever it seemed like it was convenient, which was… quite a lot actually, now that he thought about it.

  “SETI is an elite unit! And an elite unit more elite than Despar’s other elite units!” Captain August said with pride.

  Aster laughed under his breath. There it was.

  “Which is why we think outside of the box at SETI!” August ended.

  “...And that means farming?” a voice asked.

  “Yes, it does!” August laughed again. “Now, dismissed. You should familiarize yourself here at Alsium Two,” he said as he walked off, giving them a lazy wave as he did so.

  Aster watched Captain August depart as he entered the nearby shuttle, which took off and left.

  As the new arrivals made for the nearby buildings, Aster saw a familiar face, and their eyes brightened as he looked at them. He recognized those teal eyes.

  “Aster!” the voice called out from afar.

  “Arnis?” Aster replied.

  Arnis ran up to him in cheerful glee and clasped his hand against his own as he came to a sudden stop that shook the dust around them.

  “Did you finally cause enough trouble to get assigned to SETI too!?” Arnis asked.

  “I did! Did you!?” Aster replied.

  “I did!” Arnis said.

  “Alright!” they said, laughing.

  Arnis looked between Aster and Selenia, who stood nearby. “You know, a rumor has been going around about a certain moon princess. I’m guessing that she’s the moon princess that everyone has been talking about? And that you were involved in it?”

  Aster nodded wordlessly with a faint smile.

  Arnis looked Selenia up and down. “She doesn’t really look like a moon princess to me,” Arnis ended.

  “Well, just wait until nighttime. She glows like a glowstick!” Aster laughed.

  “Are you serious!? You mean she glows like the moons?” Arnis said.

  “Hey! I am not a glowstick!” Selenia said in protest. “Even though at night, I glow… like a stick…”

  Selenia sighed as Aster and Arnis laughed.