Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

** This story is free to read on RoyalRoad.com **

If you are reading this on another site it is a pirated copy. If you enjoy the story please read it on RoyalRoad.

You can find the official updated story here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/122374/stars-dancing-dreams-to-lovers-romance

Tell the story.

Drip

by

drip.

Slowly.

Over a hundred years.

Collected Unpublished Lyrics

- Sibsil Creed, Stories of Shurwinn (2764)

The air was hot and dry, and the sun— high in the Shurwinn sky above me— already felt like it was burning my hair and skin. I needed to go shopping for clothing like the locals wore. Light fabrics, loose-fitting shorts. The landing platform behind me was a lot like the Skylend landing platforms, but the porter I had ordered to carry me to my casita was nothing like the porters I was used to. It hovered in front of me. It was a long rectangle and looked like two doors had been ripped off the wall and set in the air and a see-through dome placed on top. There was a bench seat in the front, and a wide open space in the back.

I guided my floater into the back space. It was loaded with my trunk, two suitcases, and a small cosmetics case. The floater easily slid into the back of the porter, and I climbed onto the bench seat, pulling the dome closed over me. It locked into place, and the glass nav panel in front of me lit up. I entered my ID code.

It asked for my destination in Universal. I could have replied in Universal, but I wanted to practice my Shurwinn, so I stuttered out the address as best I could for the autonav. My speech must have been passable because the porter started forward on a course for my casita. I looked out through the domed sides of the porter at the world around me while I pulled my long dark hair into a twist off my neck.

The village was like nothing I had ever seen. Instead of tall skyscrapers, the buildings were low to the ground— none more than three stories high. The ground was light brown sandstone, and the buildings looked like they had been grown right out of it. They were smooth stone and had an almost pinkish tint to them. Rectangular and flat-roofed, all the buildings were covered in plants. Greenery poured from the rooftops and spilled over the walls, like a pot boiling over.

It looked as though the people had taken the water out of the ground in the oasis beneath them and stretched it up over their heads with gardens of green and pink and yellow and orange. It was all brown at the base, but color popped everywhere. Bright colors— red, purple, blue, and pink. Colorful fabrics adorned everything— the people, the windows, the awnings blocking the sun. But all the fabrics were slightly faded, like the sun took everything sharp and softened it.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

I realized my fingertips were on the window like I was reaching forward to touch the village, like a painting on the wall. I was enchanted.

The stream shows had gotten a lot right about Shurwinn. People were dressed much like you saw on the stream— light, loose-fitting shorts and bandeau tops with bare shoulders and midriffs. Or leggings and a long sleeveless tank that was kind of shapeless and loose. Some had scarves, probably to block out the sun. But the stream shows were sharp and vivid.

Media Oasis looked sun washed and faded. Like everything was well worn. Casual. Comfortable. Lived-in. The people were as colorful as the fabrics, but not a lot of pale skin. I didn't see any light hair. Like me, everyone was shades of brown with dark hair. I looked like winter to their summer. A life lived indoors had my olive skin lighter than the people around me, but two weeks in the desert sun would change that.

From the air, Media Oasis had looked like a wheel. There was a round center in the village with spokes coming out of it. Buildings built in straight lines. Green gardens filled the spaces between the spokes. As I had looked out at the edges of the village from above, the green of the oasis faded out into the desert, and I could see nothing but brown beyond.

That was why Shurwinn was called "Land of Oases." It was a desert planet with just a few oases dotting the equator. Eighty-percent of the sphere was land mass, and the remaining twenty percent oceans were said to be fierce and unnavigable by boat.

There wasn't much information about Shurwinn on the stream, but I had read everything I could find. The story was that Shurwinn were nomads from Earth—from nearby Milky Way Galaxy. A few centuries ago, rural tribes from Earth had pooled resources and found a sphere to colonize. They had chosen an undesirable, mostly uninhabitable sphere intentionally so they would be left alone. They wanted to live in peace and quiet.

They were vegetarian. The whole sphere. There was no meat sold on Shurwinn because animals were considered family. Eggs and cheese were highly valued, and were not exported. But other goods? Yes, the Shurwinn knew what they were doing in the Known Cosmos. They had shrewd business skills and had been markedly successful as a colony.

They'd found desirable plants growing in the oases, bred them with familiar cultivars like cacao, coffee, and rice, and then created market demand for Shurwinn products— oasis grown. Their gardens were a mix of native plants and hybridized specialties that would only grow in their unique climate. The mysterious nature of their sphere, all the isolationism, all the secrecy, the limits on travel, and their private ways added to the allure, and the Andromeda Galaxy adored their products.

Stream shows and graphics told all sorts of tales of the mysterious Shurwinn, and some people thought that the Shurwinn themselves circulated material just to keep the rest of the Cosmos guessing about what they were really like. Others said that they weren't really vegetarians or unique. That it was all just a marketing strategy to create demand for their products.

Whatever the truth was, it was working on me. I had only been here a few minutes, and I was under the spell.

It all looked so different. So casual, so comfortable. And it felt different. It wasn't crowded. The low buildings gave me a sense of space and openness. Like I could reach out to the desert and beyond instead of being sandwiched in between tall skyscrapers. And it felt calmer. Quiet. Like there was less bustle and no rushing.

There were people, and shops, and an open-air market covered in colorful awnings. And I sensed the people, but not so acutely. Like there was something closed about them. Maybe their private ways made them less perceptible to me?

I felt myself relaxing in a way I hadn't since I'd seen that look of rage in Darwin's eyes months ago. Shurwinn was right for me. I was meant to be here. The calm. The quiet. The restfulness. It was exactly what I needed.

Magic Hour imagining of Media Oasis.