Come, young friend, to my den. Down the rabbit-hole we go, to a large burrow. Here we will have some tea, a bit of milk, and cookies. Now let me tell you a story.

There was once a magical republic on a planet in a system far away. In this magical republic there were two young men. Their names were Lucius Solarion and Rossum Imperious. These two young men studied hard a a major university in the capital city of the magical republic. The city was suspended in the air above the mountaintops on a hovering rock. Anyway, the two young men were avid students of literature and the sword arts. Both were masterful students of a famous swordmaster. Rossum was the student of Ichinon Kenandon, a forceful, brute-strength swordfighter, and Lucius was the student of Maye Thaiesoae, a graceful, subtle-movements swordmaster. Only one student would win the love of both, a girl by the name of Freya Wyndhaven.

From day one Lucius studied business. He learned of standard costs, opportunity costs, and traceable costs. He worked at building a writing and publishing business. He designed entire worlds for his characters to live in. He was in love with his work, but he never forgot to murder his darlings when the time came.

Rossum started out as a roboticist. He worked to build a robot army that could swarm around their enemies, striking this way and that, and destroy them in a matter of moments. He hated his creations dearly, and never forgoed their destruction when the time to dismantle his creations came.

As is the case with most members of an existence race coming-of-age in interesting times as the old Sinican curse goes, Rossum and Lucius came-of-age in a time known as the Indigo, or Blue, Revolution, a time when social customs and moral traditions were being changed for new social customs or uprooted for new mores. In those days the young would no longer talk of what life meant for themselves, rather, they would talk of what life meant for the existence.

There were many issues at stake in the lives of the young during the Indigo Revolution. One such issue was pollution. In our world, pollution refers to smog and soot filling up the air we breathe, making our conditions unhealthy to live in. On Lucius’ planet, pollution refers to the amount of waste that was being put out by their facilities in the atmosphere. Most civilizations existing on the surface and not in flying rocks would be organic hydroponic agronomic cultures, otherwise they would produce herbs used as medicines. The flying rock civilizations would usually be massive cities, filled with restless, bright, polite people who could never be counted on to protect the ones below from falling meteors but were always counted on to keep the agrarian economies surviving in times of need. The rockers had lots of domesticated animals, many of whom were artificially bred to be abundant and tasty. The landers had plenty of crops to be used as food, and the two civilizations would trade their goods along a production possibilities frontier, ever increasing the output everytime a new orgainc fertilizer was discovered or the waste material rained down from the rocks overhead and fertilized the plains and forested mountains below. On the other hand, when the crops could be grown more in less time, this meant that more animals could be fed and raised and more animals fed and raised led to more butchers needing to be hired, and when the day was over, there was more food for both rockers and landers.

Lucius was originally a lander, having come from a massive, ancient, agricultural civilization which at one point in its existence was far more technologically advanced than the rest of the planet’s inhabitant sovereignties. Its comestibles output was far more than the rockers typically output today. Lucius only lived for two years as a lander, then his parents, new immigrants to rocker society, brought him to the flying rock known as Freedom Summit and raised him as a citizen of the rock of the free. Freedom was not free; rather, it was protected by those who fought and gave their lives for freedom and liberty so that others too could live in Freedom Summit without worry of invasion or death from cataclysmic disaster.

On the other hand, Rossum  came from a rock society known for its arrogance and aggression. Known as Arthur’s Boulder, the rock he lived on tumbled through the skies and smashed smaller rocks into oblivion or fused together with rocks needing its protection, then becoming difficult to break free from. Over the past three hundred years since Freedom’s rebellion and discharge from Arthur’s Boulder, the Boulder had been losing parts and pieces until right after the Second Great War the Freedom Summit paid much in terms of support to make sure that its ancestor rock did not collapse under its own weight and spell demise for its civilians and the denizens of the lander societies below.

Rossum was raised on Arthur’s Boulder for one year before coming the Freedom Summit; he then returned for another five years when he was thirteen cycles old to attend to his father’s position as a company leader before returning to Freedom Summit.

Rossum was a brash and arrogant fellow, and some say he was quite mad. He had the tendency to tell others to be quiet or he would smash a chair into the skulls. He said things without thinking of the consequences. He often wore a beard or would shave it and keep his dark moustache. He had military-cropped haircut and slim glasses. He talked in a sadistic tone and had certain qualities that would make most rockers annoyed or feel threatened.

Lucius, on the other hand, was a smily and humble person, and always took time to consider his actions before he committed to them. He would watch himself, be nice, and make sure people liked him before he went ahead and made friends with strangers. He would start conversations just for the fun of it, and loved to talk and give his opinion. Sometimes his opining made his cousins bored, but they were always so enthused with his ideas that they never fell asleep even though he would chatter on and on and on about things which they had no intellect to comprehend.

To be continued…