Mantrin Imperial Guard - 004 Homestead

Chapter 1: Home, Solbrecht

Author's note: Okay, first of all, thanks to everyone who's kept up until this point. This is my first author's note since the start of this series and it's there for several reasons. This episode will be part one of a two-parter and will feature some very actual themes that for some may be a little difficult to stomach. For example, racism. It is the cancer that is destroying our society and it's there in the future as well.

The second reason for this author's note is that this story closely relates to another fic on FF called Lachrimae. I'm not going to start a rant again about how much I wished that the writers duo behind it had finished this story, or at least found a way to get all 45 chapters of this unfinished epic up somehow. Lachrimae is as close as we're ever going to get to Stith's backstory and even though it's written by fans, I consider it canon. I LOVED the ideas, the writing, the comprehensiveness of it all, I can go on and on about it. But the truth is, what once was, will never come back. So I hope the writers can forgive me for using some of their ideas. I'm not going to reuse their characters and I'm not trying to steal and claim anything as my own. I'm only going to weave together my ideas with theirs to enrich this forgotten universe.

Last but not least, my older story called the Boundaries to Break, about teenage love on Solbrecht, a human girl and a Mantrin boy in a forbidden relationship, takes place at roughly the same time as this episode. It shows the lives of ordinary citizens on Solbrecht in a smaller town and how they deal with the main issue of this episode and the next. Enough of my rambling. Let's kick this episode off!

PS. The name of Raeth's sister Yimeh is pronounced 'Yeemay'.

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Bear McCreary - Battlestar Galactica Season 1 - Main Title (US version):

The galaxy isn't what you'd call a friendly place. Some situations require what I describe as special treatment. My crew and I have been selected to handle these cases in the name of the Emperor. For we serve the most powerful military organization in the quadrant: The Imperial Guard.

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Two steps tall. Four wide. Should be enough.

Picturing what it would look like in his mind, Thylun could already see it hanging on the wall. It was customary for a Cathaiyra to occupy a central place in a household. Therefore the mess hall would be perfect and the empty bulkhead next to the wide viewport offered enough room for a sizable canvas, painted by claw with the name of every crewmember in an artistic form. As he stepped back from the wall, he heard the light thumps of steps behind him when a fellow crewmate entered the mess hall.

"Hey." Seylah gave him a faint smile. Approaching him with small steps as he turned to face her, she flattened one ear. They hadn't talked that much in person, but she seemed to interact well with the crew, even outside the engineering team. She had already run a number of shifts, getting familiar with the Myr'shala's systems, and Majih had praised the quality of her work. "What're you doing?"

"I'm thinking about making a ship's Cathaiyra. Would look nice on this bulkhead, don't you think?"

"A Cathaiyra. Haven't seen those in a long time. Sounds nice, I guess."

Surprised to see Seylah's ears droop a little in response, he frowned.

"C'mon, a little more enthusiasm! Your name will be up there too. You're part of the family you know." She smiled again, a little wider this time, a brief sparkle in her copper-colored eyes. Something bothered her though. His kindness did little to remedy that. "What's wrong?"