resfeber

resfeber--- the nervous feeling you get before undertaking a journey; the restless race of a traveller's heart before the journey begins, when anxiety and anticipation mix together.

Traveller Touk lives in a doomed world. She wants to be among the stars, but she is only among the stones. Her mother dare not talk to her. Her father tries, but even she can see the resentment in his eyes.

Traveller Touk lives in a human colony on the planet of Mjoiner. The colony was established by Earth eighty years before she was born. The natives, Mjoa, live peacefully with the humans, even intermarrying through the years.

The Mjoa were a beautiful race; they resembled the woodland elves of Tolkien. Their skin was a pale coral and their hair radiant, either black, auburn, or gold. The eyes of Mjoa were different. From violent violets, to silvers, blood-reds, bronzes, night blue and gold. And black as the vacuum of the space around them. Not only did they resemble the Tolkien Elves in appearance, but in intelligence.

Traveller learned from the Mjoa, for she had their blood from the marriage of her grandmother. She embraced her heritage more than her mother had before her. Perhaps, it was because she had been blessed with violet eyes with and her mother's eyes were only a human hazel. Nonetheless, the Mjoa accepted Traveller into their society and taught her what they knew; they knew about the stars and planets, biology of the planet, reading English, speaking the tongues of many races and accepting all races.

The human colony hacked away on the planet's resources, but were too lazy, not bothering to renew them after using up the sources. The colony used too much, also trading with Earth-bound trade ships. They bustled with activity, for the first years. Supplies dwindles, and at Traveller's 11th year, the trade ships stopped coming.

The Mjoa grew restless. They informed Traveller (along with their own young,) of the danger and poison of the Humans.

"Greed," Daeve, the instructor, warned them, "is the chief motivator to humanity. Beware the human, as well as where they hold the knife, for it could be sunk into your back at anytime."

Over the years, an unwise dislike of the humans grew within the Mjoa. The resources that belonged to the natives were diluted and almost gone. The once forest filled planet was almost a desolate wasteland. The Mjoa began to relocate, each one regretting having to leave their small human girl behind. She was no longer small when Daeve departed. She was the Mjoa-Human age of 19, the human age of 23, for Mjoa age much slower than Humans.

Her raven-haired instructor was filled with despair as he said his last goodbye, "Traveller, you must promise to leave this place and see the universe. You may not change it, but you must discover it. Do not wait to waste away like your mother. Find yourself somewhere far from here." And with those words, his tall frame pulled her into an embrace, a tear racing from his golden eyes. He, too, had to leave his home planet, since there was inadequate resources to support so many beings.

Traveller was left to read. She read all the books that countless Mjoa left for her in the name of love. She was frowned upon, for colonists aren't gifted with academics, and learning is shameful after the 8th year of schooling. Only proper citizens of proper worlds were expected to be intelligent. She ignored the others, a mostly-Mjoa conscious in the back of her mind scolding the human colonists for being so dense. 

If Traveller shall get her chance to see the universe like Daeve demanded she do, she wanted adventure, somewhere, anywhere. But most of all, she wanted to be reunited with the Mjoa. In her mind, the wise race was her family. Family is who you love, not whose blood bond you share.

And she does, so she takes it and she flies to the stars, forbidding herself to return