The pronoun 'he' was used for convenience.
The evening sun was slowly beginning its descent into the Earth, and the stars shone faintly miles above in the darkening night. And yet, two figures lingered still in the field, sitting and dancing amongst tall grasses as the cicadas chirped to the end of day.
The elder hummed and put one of his hands to the soil, grasping at the dirt and small weeds, pensively watching the younger dance to the rhythm of the land, still a child really, even in human terms. "Can you feel the Earth thrumming for you?" he asked.
The child turned to face the elder, head tilted, still unschooled in the ways of their kind. "Thrumming? Like... singing for me?"
The elder regarded his response. "I guess... thrumming is still a better word though. It's like the Earth is resonating with you; the land is dancing to your rhythm as you are dancing to its rhythm at the same time. It should feel strong; we are on your land after all."
The child's eyes lit up in recognition, his hands clasped together with joy. "Yes! The Earth is thrumming for me. I can feel the drums; they are very strong." The younger tilted his head again, considering the elder's words. "If we are not on your land, do you still feel the thrumming?"
A gentle breeze swept over the grassy plains, the sunset in full color now. A deep orange bathed the world in ethereal fire.
The elder 'hmmed'. "I do feel it still, it's just much more faint; my people are not as near as yours are, and so I cannot hear the Earth so clearly." He paused, looking to gaze at the little one. "Remember that it is through your people that you hear the Earth. They are your ears; they are your voice."
The child frowned. "But I'm using my own voice and my own ears all by myself!" he exclaimed, and the elder laughed softly.
"I mean that it is your people and their ideas that make you who you are, and they should always be special in your heart to you. They are yours, but above all, you are theirs."
The child's eyes lit up again. "They make the Earth sing for me!"
The elder nodded, moving his eyes away from the younger to the red sun, so that his face was made the color of blood. "They are a blessing..."
The sentence trailed off, not sounding quite so complete. The little one inched closer to the elder, waiting in anticipation for him to finish. "... but they are also a curse. Learn this early in existence that nothing is ever truly good nor evil in this world."
The child frowned, fingering a blade of grass. "If they are who I am, how are they a curse?"
The elder smiled sadly at the child's ignorance of their ways; the truth was always hard and many of them had tried to get around it, but it was best to learn and accept it. "It is precisely because of that that they are also a curse. They and others who contribute to the idea of you decide on who you are and what you do. We have no free will; only a duty to fulfill."
"But..."
The sun sank lower into the sky and the world sank deeper into the shadows so that the elder's face was now covered in a soft blue instead of a terrifying red.
"You understand that it is only because my people have brought me here that I am with you now, yes?"
The blue was less intensely frightening than the red; but masks are always more dangerous than the truth.
"... Yes, but..."
The elder was the one who tilted his head this time. "But what?" The child looked dismayed and the elder sighed. "Come now, don't be so sad. It's good to have hope." The elder pondered his own words and confessed, "I may have lied earlier. There is one thing that is always, always, good, and that is hope. You should always hope, so you do not do things in despair."
The stars twinkled brighter in the night sky.
"So we do have something that's of our own?"
The elder pursed his lips, his hand still on the ground feeling the faint thrum thrum the Earth was singing to him; to all of them. "We... while our relationships with the rest of our kind are influenced to some degree by our people, it is we who choose whether we act on that influence or if we choose to act on the shared thrumming of the Earth."
The younger blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?"
The elder pondered his words again. "I meant that wars can call us to arms and severe relationships, but..." He paused, brushing off the dirt on his hands and resting them atop his knees, feeling the thrum thrum reverberating quietly throughout his entire body and smiled softly, "... peacetime is a wonderful thing. When humanity has calmed down for some of us - there will always be unrest somewhere though, mind you - we can cross boundaries and borders and recall memories with the others and rebuild. Peacetime gives us a sort of freedom, you know? We can choose then what to do without being pulled this way and that by our people."
The little one danced again in the starlight, pulling the elder from where he was sitting to dance with him. "This here, right now, it's peacetime, right? You can choose to play with me because of that, right?"
"Yes, of course, yes. While distant lands can call for us to come" - he ruffled the younger one's hair, who giggled - "we choose what we do here. We choose what memories we make in peacetime and whom we can love."
The little one giggled more and then yawned, the white light of the moon and stars glimmering with faint light, weak light; but strong enough to render the fields visible and the tired face unmistakable. "Come, now, that's enough dancing for today. It's time to head home," the elder said, walking from the small clearing in the fields while beckoning the child.
The child, too tired to argue, instead reached his hands out to the elder. "Carry me!"
The elder laughed, walking back over to pick up the little one who snuggled contentedly into the older's arms. The child sleepily blinked his eyes, saying, "Since it's peacetime, I'm choosing to love you."
The elder chuckled, "And I love you too." The little head nodded happily and drifted off to sleep.
The one figure carrying a child left the clearing in the windswept silver fields and walked home in the shared thrumming of the Earth.
Thank you for reading.