"Valentine ... "

The voices called out to him as he ran, booming from the skies above. He had to reach the light, the impossibly bright luminance ahead of him that burned with the promise of sanctuary. He had an oath to uphold, a duty to—

"Valentine ..."

He kept running in spite of his wounds. Blood ran freely down his front, leaving a trail of red in his wake as he chased the light. There were just a few more steps now, he was almost there. He reached out, so close that he could just touch it—

He tripped, falling to the ground as shadows and whispers crept in from behind. He turned around in horror to find that his ankle was in their grasp. They dragged him away from the light and towards the infinite abyss of the black waters. He screamed, but they screamed right back at him; his defiance was nothing against the millions of other voices that rose up from the depths to consume him—

"Val!"

His eyes shot open, and he found Ten standing over him with one eye half-lidded and the other wide open, her best attempt at mimicking the quizzical raise of an eyebrow. "You were mumbling in your sleep again. Another nightmare?"

He groaned groggily. "You have no idea." Even now, his heart was beating rapidly from being chased by the ... by the ...

Sitting up in bed, he swung his legs over the edge and rubbed his face as he shook off the last vestiges of sleep. "Sometimes I feel like I'm so close to remembering, like all these dreams and flashes are finally going to mean something ..."

He sighed. "Then it all just disappears, and I'm back here again." He glanced at her and hastily added, "Not that there's anything wrong with being here."

"I know what you meant," she reassured him, sitting down next to him. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "Not your fault." As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he noticed her attire; a sleeveless jacket with a thin hood. "Does that jacket mean what I think it does?"

"It does indeed," she confirmed, holding a similar jacket out to him. "It's harvest day."

Two years. Two years since he'd woken up in the world of Spectra.

After the first few months of living here, Prag had extended the invitation for Val to stay on the farm permanently. Val was happy to accept and help him and Ten out with tending the crops—it wasn't like he had anywhere else to go anyway. Besides, he found that he actually quite enjoyed farming, especially once he'd made some improvements to the process.

As it turned out, the new irrigation system was just the first of several changes that Val would end up designing for the farm. He'd also helped create some automated canopies that deployed when it started raining so that the okinlas didn't drown, and then he even improved upon that with a gutter system that funneled all the excess water back into irrigation. Prag had come to expect that Val would approach him every few months or so with a new idea, and the irva was always happy to hear about what he had come up with.

That being said, there were still some parts of the process that Val had left untouched. Currently, he and Ten were harvesting this field of okinlas by hand, hoping to have them ready by the end of the day. The Mercantile had finally arrived, its visage able to be seen in the sky just as Ten had told him two years previously. And with it came harvest day, the day that all of this cycle's okinlas would be gathered up and prepared for shipment to the Mercantile for sale to merchants and traders.

But truth be told, their labor wasn't necessary. The other fields Pragley owned were all tended to by hired hands or automated machines, there was no reason they had to personally see to the one beside their house.

No reason aside from the fact that they chose to.

As he knelt in the afternoon sun with Ten and gently pulled the stalks of the okinlas out of the soil, he reflected on that choice. It was a choice borne out of the philosophy that Ten and Pragley lived by; they could have done whatever they wanted, been however lazy they wanted, but they wanted to work. They wanted to defy the assumptions others had of their race, wanted to be something other than the snide braggarts other irvas were seen as. Similarly, Ten rejected the culture of her people, the expectation that she was valuable simply because of the syllables in her name. Her name and identity were her choice.

Unfortunately, as far as his own identity was concerned, that was the one thing he was still no closer to learning about than he had been two years ago.

Sure, he knew a bit more about himself as Val, the human farmer who dropped out of the sky; he had sandy unkempt hair that he kept short due to the nature of his work, and lightly-tanned skin that had come from spending hours out in the fields, growing him into a stronger and healthier image than that of the hairless, pale boy who had first arrived on the farm. He liked to craft things and tinker with ideas on how to improve them. He liked spicy foods, especially the noodles and broth that Prag had been known to cook on occasion. He liked going with Ten at night to the top of the nearby hill that overlooked the farm, lying on the soft blue grass alongside her, and just gazing up at the dark sky and stars as he wondered what else was out there.

But that was Val, who he was now. He was still trying to find out who Valentine had been. His past remained a mystery, his only clues being the strange dreams and occasional flashes of memory hidden deep within his subconscious. Those, and the symbol emblazoned on his wrist.

He took a break from pulling stalks to momentarily stare at the aforementioned scar. The Mark of Eden stared back at him, plain as day. Why that Sentinel had decided that his body was its personal canvas, he had no idea. All he knew was that, somehow, the Mark was tied to who he was ... and maybe to why the Cell wanted him. Pragley had said that Eden was surrounded by an energy cloud, and that's exactly what Val had seen on the bridge of the Cell ship. But he'd never told Prag or Ten that, and he didn't plan to anytime soon. What would be the point? That terrifying part of his life was over, and telling them wouldn't change anything—

"Having fun down there?"

He noticed a shadow looming over him, and looked up to see Ten snickering at him as he crouched in the dirt. Her arms glistened with sweat like his did, though the sun's light reflected much better off of her nearly white skin.

He had asked Pragley a while back about her skin changing from its lilac color, and been told that it was a sign of physical maturity. Apparently, irvas started out with vibrant skin that could sometimes change hue and saturation as they grew older. In Ten's case, her skin had gotten brighter and she'd lost her lilac tone aside from some lingering wisps of it on her arms and legs. He'd certainly experienced some bodily changes as he'd grown as well, but none that he had any plans of sharing with her aside from his height.

"Funny, that's usually my line," he replied. While they'd both grown, he'd gained a bit more verticality than she had. Now that he was taller than her—even if only slightly— it had become something of a sore-point that he loved to tease her about.

Her eyes narrowed in mock indignation. "Why are you even sitting like that? I can't imagine it's comfortable."

Grinning, he lifted his arms wide in a mocking expression of contentment as he balanced on his heels. "Maybe not for you, miss digitigrade."

She snorted, letting the light jab roll off her. "You look ridiculous down there."

"And you look ridiculous up there," he shot back jokingly. "Not my fault your legs bend the wrong way and evolution gave you too many arms."

Her eyes widened, and she looked at him with sudden concern. "What's wrong with how I look?"

His laughter died in his throat. "Oh, uh, nothing! I wasn't serious, I didn't mean—I mean, you look great, more than great—no, hang on, that's not what I meant either—"

His apologetic stammering was cut off by the disarming sound of her own sniggering, and he found his own eyes narrowing like hers had as she held her stomach with one of her lower arms.

"Glad to see that my dignity is still your favorite prey."

"Oh, please," she said through her laughter, "it's your own fault for being such an easy target."

She lowered her hood and wiped the sweat from her brow, then held her left arm up and glanced at a device strapped to her forearm. It was called a 'gaunt', a digital multi-tool meant to serve a variety of functions for the user. Right now, she was using it to track their progress throughout the day; a holographic layout of the fields appeared over the gaunt, and she nodded in satisfaction.

"I think we've made good time. Want to take a break? We can finish this last section when it gets a bit cooler."

He nodded. "Sounds good. Let me just grab a few more to make this bundle even, and then I'll—"

A loud roar interrupted him and immediately commanded both his and Ten's attention, the hologram winking out of existence. Looking skyward, they saw a ship tearing through the clouds as it descended into the atmosphere. Its trail seemed to arc from the sight of the Mercantile up above, lending credence to the idea that it had originated from there. Visiting ships were already a rare sight on Jantii, but what made this even more puzzling was the fact that it began to slow down as it approached the farm.

Ten's head-fins rose up in curiosity. "That's ... strange. The shipments aren't supposed to be until tomorrow."

"An over-eager customer?" Val suggested.

She shrugged. "Probably something like that. We'll have to turn them away, we don't allow early purchases. Keeps the farm from being swarmed every cycle."

Val set down his current bundle of stalks, and the two of them began to jog back towards the house where the ship could be seen setting down roughly thirty meters away from it. As they watched, Pragley came bounding out of the front door, hastily throwing on a grey overcoat, and he looked none too pleased at its intrusion onto their relatively quiet land.

"What the hell is this? I swear, these slag-heads get more impatient every year ..."

The ship was certainly not lacking in appearance. It was a small ship, only built to house a few occupants, with bright red streaks lining the sides of its silver hull. Its wings were angled like a jet's, clearly built for speed and precision, and stretched from the very front of the cockpit to the back of its body.

Whoever owned it was very wealthy indeed, which made sense concerning the price of okinlas, but it would function better for racing than hauling cargo. Why bring this kind of ship if they were interested in purchasing produce?

The back of its hull began to lower into a ramp, though Pragley was already yelling before it had touched the ground. "Whoever you are, I'm not sellin' anything today! You better turn this tub around and fly your ass back to the Mercantile—"

He stopped as the silhouette of a figure was revealed standing in the frame of the ship's bay. From this distance, all the trio could see was that they wore a long, dark coat, one that dipped far below its waistline. Slowly, as they descended the ramp, clearer details emerged.

"Prag?" Ten whispered urgently, "What is that?"

"I dunno," he muttered, genuinely sounding at a loss. "Some kind of synthoid? It almost looks like—"

"Me," Val breathed. "It looks like ... me."

Neither of the irvas could deny the resemblance—like him, it had two arms rather than the four that they sported. Its proportions were also remarkably similar to his, and its legs were plantigrade rather than digitigrade.

But that was where the physical similarities stopped.

Pragley hadn't been wrong in his assessment—it was some kind of synthoid, one which made no greeting as it steadily drew closer to them. In place of skin, it had metal plating. Instead of eyes, it had glowing optics that stared unblinkingly at them. And lastly, instead of calling out to them in a standard greeting, it broke into a sprint and charged at them.

"Get inside!" Pragley ordered, immediately readying himself to defend them. Before either of them could protest, he pushed them away and entered a defensive stance to brace for its attack.

It ran right at him, and he kicked out with his leg ... only to find himself tripping as it hit nothing but open air. It had evaded at the last second, and pressed on towards the other two.

"Val, get behind me!" Ten yelled, holding her arm protectively over him. She only fared slightly better than Pragley, however, as the entity wasted no hesitation on placing its hand on her shoulder, and promptly shoving her aside and to the ground.

"Ten!" he cried out in horror, and moved to help her—but he wasn't quick enough. He found himself incapacitated as the entity grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him closer to it, leaning its face in next to his.

"Kid!"

"Val!"

Both Pragley and Ten shouted in horror as they watched him dangle in its grasp, unable to touch the ground. But it didn't hurt him as all three of them quite clearly had expected it to. Instead, it asked a question—perhaps the strangest question possible.

"Who am I?!"