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Mars waits for them to come.
They’ve sent five mechanical beings to her so far.
Little Terran children of earth and lightning. They are not her blood and bone but they are hers just as much as they were once Terran. Little Martian children to herald the coming age.
The Terrans will come soon. Mars knows this.
They will come in their ships and build their little huts on her body. They’ll search her lungs and heart and stomach and head for proof of Martian life. Looking for something, anything, that will mean they are not alone in this big, big universe.
Maybe they’ll even find what they’re looking for.
It is strange, Mars thinks sometimes, how much of her comes from the hopes and dreams and wishes and nightmares of Terrans.
Mars is old. She remembers being nothing more than dust and rocks floating in space once upon a big bang. But so much of her seems to have been birthed from Terran minds. She is shaped by them. Her consciousness is determined by her presence in the minds and hearts of sentient beings.
She is a celestial body, she cannot wage war. And yet she feels compelled to be warlike.
Mars sees the universe around her and she thirsts for its blood. Planets and stars and nebulas and comets and quasars. This galaxy is still in its infancy, but she wonders if one day maybe it will be rife with intelligent life. And Mars dreams of a day when sister will turn against sister and spill the other’s lifeblood on Mars’ own rusty red skin.
There had been a time when she had been ashamed of these thoughts. Now, she is consumed by them. She has no choice but to accept them – and herself – for what they are.
But Mars also longs for the day when she will be reunited with Venus.
She’ll catch glances of Venus, often enough that the sight of her isn’t too rare – even if it is from across the Solar System.
But just seeing her love isn’t enough.
They had been entwined together once, billions of years ago when the stardust they were each made of had still yet lingered together.
But it has been so long without her passionate fiery touch.
And so Mars longs for the Terrans’ inevitable expansion with more than one hope riding on them.
She awaits the chaos and bloodshed and war that their dominion will bring in a few hundred years.
But also. She hopes that when they come, maybe they will bring a little of her back with them. And maybe one day they will go to her burning love, and they will touch her like Mars has not been able to for eternity.
And through these Terrans, Mars and Venus may finally be reunited.