The sun was very bright in this part of the big nothing, so Solomon put the sun goggles on Howards jar preemptively before arriving so that way Howard wouldn’t flash the entire cruiser and make Arias crash into the planet. The water was blue and you could see giant reefs and fish swimming around near the shore. The tree trunks were huge and towered high above what normal trees on other planets stand. The leaves on the trees were huge and could be used to make a roof on a small hut. It was probably the nicest place to visit in all of the big nothing. Many individuals would come here to fish and vacation. The only real hang up about the Island was 5 months out of the year it had huge mega storms that would ravage parts of the planet that normal matter would be completely destroyed in. The monks speculate that is why the trees evolved to be as large and resilient as they are.

  “This is it” Arias said, pointing at a Square looking ship that had circle port windows on both sides and was painted lime green. Amelia lived out of the ship, it pretty much had everything someone would need to live: Bathroom, Kitchen, Bed etc. It’s how Amelia made sure she never had to stay in one place for too long. Amelia was about 5’ tall and had shoulder length hair that she would often shove into a hat to get out of her face. She was always excited to see Arias because every time they saw each other they would talk for hours about their scientific finds and archaeological scores. Arias was able to slip a message to her to act like they weren’t together, because Arias wanted to make sure that their relationship and his lifelong commitment to the church didn't end. Arias parked the cruiser directly next to her ship. Amelia ran out of her ship waving with a big smile. Waiting for the trio to make their way out.

  “Hello, hello! It’s been so long Ari!” (it has been like 2 weeks and she called him Ari for short)

  “Heh, Hi!” He jumped down and gave her a big bear hug.

  Amelia turned her attention to Solomon, who was taller than both her and Arias. She reached out her hand and gave Solomon a handshake. “Nice to meet you!” she said in her bubbly tone.

  Then she turned her attention to Howard, who to Arias and Solomon’s surprise didn’t freak her out at all. She ran up to Howard and hugged his jar.

  “Oh my god! What a cutie pie! What’s your name sweetie?”

  “H…Howard.”

  Howard was shocked at the warm welcome he received.

  “Ari here was saying you needed me to translate some books for ya’ll?”

  Arias pulled the three books of history of Avenj.

  Amelia grabbed the first one that was in a purpley skin bounding. She licked her pointer and proceeded to go through the first few pages

  “Yeah just like I feared…”

  “What?” Arias said

  “A boring ass history book in English used before the never ending space war…I translated almost 50 of these in College. Don’t worry I will have these three books translated in a manuscript you can take with you…probably by, let's say…tomorrow night?”

  “Sounds good! I’d appreciate it a ton.” Arias said

  Amelia then gave Arias a peck on the cheek. She then realized that she was supposed to be putting on an act. She turned around to Howard and Solomon and did the worst nervous laugh like she had never played it cool before. She then slapped Arias so hard that he fell over cold into the sand

  “That’s what you get for breaking my heart then asking me to translate some boring ass books for you!!”

  Arias was unconscious and couldn’t hear that part anyway. She then nervously laughed even harder and ran into her ship to start translating the books into a manuscript.

  “What the fuck was that?” Solomon asked, looking at Howard.

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  “If I was a betting baby, I think they’re not broken up. She’s a horrible actor. She called me cute for crying out loud.” Howard said.

  Solomon didn’t reply out of fear of whether Howard was joking or being serious.

  ___________

  Howard levitated Arias’ limp body to a section of the beach where they put their fire cube and put him face up on some palm leaves Solomon grabbed out of the forest so that way they had a decent comfortable bed to sleep on. Solomon sat up next to the fire watching the waves roll in and roll out. There were two moons, one full and one that was about three quarters that was lighting the water and beach with a nice moonlight.

  “I’m a lot like you Howard.” Solomon said as he used a stick to draw in the sand.

  “When I was kid in the Sugens roots field, It was my 2 brothers, my mom and Dad, and I was using my power to pull the long stocks to pull the roots out so we could harvest root faster and spend more time playing…our neighbor noticed and reported it..some soldiers came from the city and took me in to enroll me into the military special forces so I could learn to interrogate aliens that only communicate telepathically. I can still hear my family screams from when they mowed them down with their rifles…I never even got to see my home again…I’m not even sure where it is to tell you the truth.” Solomon started to pour out to Howard.

  “I understand Solomon…I’m sorry you lost your family. I’m glad you escaped Sugen alive, not too many Sugenians ever make it off the planet..I used to keep a watchful eye from my Tomb on Sugen out of fear they’d come to get me” Howard said revealing he was more knowledgeable on current events that he sometimes led on.

  “Yeah...they had me trying to train other young soldiers how use their telepathic blast abilities until…out of all people, Arias came to our planet to drop off a shipment of fine desert goggles for the sand storms that would occasionally blow on the root district of the city because of how it was farmed…I saw Arias and asked him if I could leave with him, he said he didn’t care and to hop on and we’ve been friends ever since…brought me to the church and convinced Lord Viaduct to let me be an outside contractor for the church…”

  “God, is everyone's parents dead then?” Howard said

  “uh..no I think Arias father is still around, he talks about him often.” Solomon said pretty reluctant to give out Arias information without him being awake.

  “I don’t remember my parents.” Howard said in a deeper voice than usual.

  Neither of them said another word and eventually Solomon rolled over onto his palm leaf and fell asleep and Howard pressed the bottom of his jar into the sand and turned off his blue light for the night.

  —---

  Solomon woke up to the sound of Birds overhead diving into the sea grabbing small fish. He sat up and noticed that Arias was nowhere to be found, but Howard was fast asleep in the sand. Solomon decided that he was going to do a little morning exercise and run around and climb some trees. He ran towards a big tree that he grabbed the palms off for their bed the night before and proceeded to look out on the beautiful sparkling water. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw Arias…and Amelia. Arias had Amelia pushed up against her ship kissing her and just looking into her eyes. Solomon then proceeded to jump from tree to tree to get closer so he could let his morbid curiosity get the better of him so he could use his telepathy to hear what they were saying from afar. He was almost to the closet tree before he lost his footing and fell onto the sand adjacent to where Amelia and Arias were having a moment and Arias screamed that if you asked Solomon, he would have told you it was Amelia who screamed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Arias said, taking two steps back from Amelia.

  “Uh…what the hell are you doing?” Solomon said in a joking tone.

  “I was just telling Ari that I finished those books for you guys and that you guys could be on your way! Get Ari away from me!” Amelia said in a most shaky nervous tone.

  “Why do you keep calling him Ari? His name is Arias..” Solomon asked, annoyed at the pet name.

  “Uh because I hate him so much that I don’t like saying his full name. It makes me want to throw up.” Amelia said in a little bit of a more convincing tone.

  “Look guys…it’s obvious you’re still…together..Look I won’t say anything Arias…I think you should be able to have Amelia and the Church..”

  The three of them sat in awkward silence for an uncomfortable amount of time.

  “Well…I love you Ari, here’s this for you guys..you should really be on your way..there’s a lot of stuff in there you’ll find interesting and there is an entire section about Howard…however he’s not called Howard, you’ll see it year 0013 C.E. that when “Operation Rainbow” happened…it details who, what and where. You can probably do without the first two volumes, but keep them just in case.” Amelia said, handing a square manuscript to Arias.

  “Thank you for everything.. I love you too, and be safe..” Arias said as he slowly walked away from her

  “Okay Solomon, go get Howard, we have to head somewhere else so the wraiths don’t pursue us in paradise..” Arias said walking toward the ship.

  Solomon tried to say some things to Arias to make things less tense but Arias shrugged most of it off. Solomon grabbed Howard and they went into the cruiser to head to a planet that is known for its junk, “Gluten” a planet in the “Shit hole” section that is a junkers paradise.

  “Time to go see Dad” Arias said as he flipped the turquoise switch and they blasted off the beach.