By the end of the dream I am an old woman, still walking proud and tall in this place of smaller beings, but wrinkled and tired nonetheless. As the suns set, I watch the children of our peoples’ union dart between the mud houses in play. They are growing up in a world where they are the minority, little half-breeds of two alien races, but here they are treated like the blessings they are. Back home, two universes away in a place to which we can never return, they would be hated and mistreated. Those of us who remain from the first colony remember the way hate’s seeds spread so easily through our species; that we did not bear them in our own hearts was why each of us were chosen for the worldjump.

Evening cools the hot, dry air of this desert planet, and the flattened dirt road retains just enough warmth to soothe my bare feet. I take a moment to pause and stare up at the sky, at the familiar constellations and circling moons that once felt so foreign and frightening. Now, they are a comfort. I think of those of us who have perished on this planet; do they look down on me, one of the very last, from their home in the heavens? Tears well in my eyes. I wish you were here, I plead to the beloved who was taken too early to witness this planet’s miracles. I wish you could see what we’ve created… I wish you could have known our children. I sink to my knees, weeping, my tears darkening the ground like the rain which never falls here. I miss you! I cry. I miss you so much, darling! You should be here; you should have shared all of our joys! I love this place. I love these creatures who have shown us a different way of living. But love does not replace the ones of my own species who are gone and never to return. I am one of the last. And my time is short.