Orion was the first to wake up, head groggy. He rubbed his eye as his brain slowly booted up to full speed, and realized one of his arms was draped over Rami, who was still asleep. A clock across the room read that it was almost a quarter past eight.

They were late.

He lightly shook Rami, who stirred slightly, until he, too, looked at the clock.

“We’re gonna be in deep trouble,” he said, throwing his nightshirt on and bursting out the door. Orion, still wearing a shirt, did the same, and went down the stairs. From there, he found the Clockwork still hovering behind the couch, and they made eye contact.

Rami, however, was staring out the window. “They aren’t here yet. If we get moving fast, we can catch up on our work so that we’re not behind whenever they get here.”

He ran back upstairs, and Orion once again followed. They threw clothes on and headed out the front door, where Rami led the way to the fields, and warmed up the tractor.

Orion had the Clockwork moved to the next section of the field, to which the Clockwork immediately got to work, mowing down large swathes of the crops. The other two loaded it up in the tractor and took it to its new home, then repeated that process long after the Clockwork had finished its section.

In its eagerness—or inability to process they were only doing one section—the machine continued, moving into the next and getting a third of the way through on that before Rami and Orion had made it back to stop it.

“Might as well finish this one off, but that’s it,” Rami said, trying to talk to the machine. It seemed to have listened, because when it reached the end of that section, it simply stood there, scythe at its side.

“Are you able to help us load up the wheat in the silo?” Orion asked, pointing to the structure in the distance. It looked down at the harvested wheat, extended its arms out, grabbed a massive bunch, and lifted off towards the silo, dumping the entire load in.

“Well, that’s insanely convenient,” Rami said, “aside from the amount it dropped on the way there.”

“I’ll make sure it gets it all cleaned up. Either that, or we can do that.”

A chore which usually took half a day without the Clockwork’s help was done in two hours, and with the same quality. There was an excitement in Rami’s eyes that he found hard to hide.

“This is a total game-changer,” Rami said, staring at the field. “If we really wanted, we could do… four times the amount of work in one day?”

“Or we could take a break,” Orion said, leaning on his own scythe.

The sound of a vehicle approaching cut that idea short. Rami’s parents were back, slowly taking the winding gravel path up to the house, before stepping out of the car. Rami went running up, and Orion followed behind, moving slightly slower.

“How is she?”

“She’ll be alright,” his dad said. “It’ll take a while for her leg to be back in good condition, but they were able to get it pretty fixed up.”

Max opened her door, and Rami and her dad helped her out of the truck and into the house. Their mom followed, carrying paperwork and medication.

Ever a fly on the wall, Orion followed them back inside.

“I see the field is already done for the day,” their dad said, setting Max down on the couch.

“Double, actually. We were on a roll this morning.”

“Were? What happened?”

“You three came back.”

“Well, we’re back. Now it’s time to get back to work. Did you take care of the animals last night?”

“Yeah.”

“Then make my midday rounds for me.”

“Yes, sir.”

-◦=[ ]=◦-

After finishing the rest of Rami’s usual chores and a good portion of random chores his dad sent them on missions to do, they were finally allowed to be done for the day, still a couple of hours earlier than normal. Rami had the idea to use this chance to go out to a nearby lake.

“What are we doing here?” Orion asked.

“This is a remote-enough place for us to talk, and… you know…”

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“I guess I don’t know.”

“Let’s just say there won’t be anyone bothering us here. We can do whatever we want with almost no risk. That means I can do this.”

Rami leaned in towards Orion and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Orion blushed, unsure of what to do. A bad feeling bubbled in his chest.

“Aren’t you worried? About your parents finding out? About their traditional values?”

“I’ve been keeping this secret for years. I’m so far from worried. At this point, I say screw it. If they find out, they find out. There’s nothing they could do to me that’s worse than ten hours of farm work every day.”

“You certainly have a lot more confidence than I do. If they found out, there’s no saying what they’d do about me.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. But either way, that’s why we have the lake.”

Orion looked out at the lake. It was a beautiful blue against the afternoon sun, and the ground around it consisted of fine pebbles before going back to the tree coverage that went on for about two kilometers in any direction.

“I come here every now and again when I need a moment,” Rami said. “The birds in the trees, the fish in the water, the sounds of the water crashing on the shore. There’s not a lot like it here.”

“It really is great,” Orion responded.

Rami led them to a bench nearer the shore, and they sat down together. For a while, neither of them talked, and instead took in the very sensations that Rami was talking about.

“What do you want to do?” Orion eventually asked. “With your life, that is.”

“What do you mean?”

“You clearly don’t want to be doing farmwork until you kick the bucket. What do you want to do? What’s the biggest thing on your list? Your dream?”

Rami sat for a short while. “I want to see the world. All my life it’s been fields, and the rare trip into urban Carmsborough. No changes in scenery for almost two decades. I want to live my life from a new perspective.”

“I like that.”

“What about you?”

“The one I still hold on to is a cloudship pilot. I’d love to be up in the air, soaring across the ocean, experiencing life in the sky.”

“Life from a new perspective.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe that’s something we could do together.”

The two looked at each other in the eyes. Things felt like they were moving pretty fast between them somehow to Orion. Or at least, the talking was. Still, it felt natural. Right.

Rami grabbed Orion’s hand, and they sat in silence for a while longer, eyes on the light waves in front of them. Then Rami perked up. “I should show you my little collection here.”

“Collection?”

Rami practically dragged him off the bench and into a small clearing in the woods, marked by a single stump in the center. On top of it were small little tools, some coins, a compass, other metal items Orion didn’t really recognize, and a book.

“These are the things I’ve found in this forest. As far as I can tell, they’ve all been here for a while. I keep them here because I can’t imagine my parents would be too happy about me keeping a bunch of trash around my room.”

“This is fun,” Orion said, picking up the compass. It still worked, despite the rust and dirt caking it.

“Yeah, I don’t get to come back here as often as I’d like to.” He sort of surveyed their surroundings a tad. “We can head back to the lake if you’d like.”

Hand-in-hand, they retraced their steps, and as they approached the visible shoreline, they immediately noticed something different: there was a fisherman staring right at them.

“What are the two of you doing here?” the fisherman asked, his voice echoing across the lake. They immediately let go of each other’s hands and fear struck Rami’s face.

“We’re just checking out the scenery,” he answered.

“I saw what the two of you were doing. Shame on you.”

The two of them paused a beat before running in the opposite direction towards home. Once they arrived back on the farm, Rami wiped his brow.

“That was too close.”

“What do you mean? We were literally caught.”

“Yeah, but that’s Old Man Dave, and he can’t see worth a crap, supposedly. Even if he recognizes who I was, not a single person will believe what he saw from all the way across the lake.”

“I sure hope you’re right.”

A rumble sounded off from the clouds in the distance as they approached the house. The Clockwork was standing there at the front entrance, where Orion had commanded him to stay. He wasn’t sure how the machine would react to rain or water, but he supposed it wasn’t a good time to find out.

“Do you think there’s anywhere I can store the Clockwork for now?”

“Maybe in with the cows. I doubt Mom and Dad are going to want him inside.”

The two stepped into the house, where the other three were gathered around the kitchen counter. Rami’s mom was the only one to look up when they approached.

“They were talking about you on the radio again,” His dad said. “Somebody thinks they’ve spotted you, and it sounds like it was from the other day, when the two of you went to get eggs.”

Orion wasn’t sure what to make of the news. Rami’s mom, on the other hand, had an idea. “You might have to get leaving.”

“Leaving?” Rami said. “He can’t leave. He has nowhere to go. Haven’t you seen the work he’s done around here for us? With the Clockwork?”

“We’ve all been under the assumption that this was a temporary engagement,” His dad spoke again. “We don’t have the money or resources to house another person, even if he does make the workday go by twice as fast.”

“So that’s just it, then? He just has to go?”

“He can have a few more days. I’m not just going to throw the kid out on the street to fend for himself again, but we can’t risk Syndra and his men coming for us.”

Orion couldn’t stand the way they were talking about him, as if he weren’t standing right there, but the message was abundantly clear. His time living with them was coming to a close, and it figured that the second he and Rami started having something good going on, it wasn’t meant to be. A sinking, heartbroken feeling traveled down to his stomach, but he feigned a smile as Rami’s parents looked at him.

“I appreciate the time you’ve given me so far,” he said.

“And we appreciate the help.”

He glanced over at Rami, who looked like he was trying to hold himself back. No doubt he was feeling the exact same things Orion was. Orion wasn’t sure who had it worse—the one who had to stay here with parents that wouldn’t support him, or the one who had to outrun a dictator on a mission to kill him. At least with the dictator, Orion wasn’t trapped.

Yet.

“I’ve enjoyed having Orion over,” Max said. It was the first time Orion had heard her talk since coming back from the hospital. Clearly, whatever pain she had been in wasn’t fully gone, but at least she was well enough to at least listen to the conversation.

Maybe their dad heard something in that statement that Orion hadn’t, but his eyes shifted immediately to their guest.

“And why is that?”

“I don’t know. He just seems like a good person.”

“He is,” Rami said, almost too fast. Orion suspected they were both trying to insinuate that he should stay, and maybe for the same reason, despite Max being slightly younger.

If that were the case, it was just a matter of time before things got really bad.