Meleah is a former slave who fled from the Non Aligned Worlds to one of the independent colony worlds called Zeventu (A name derived from it's original designation, ZE 72 U), the first free world she came across after nearly five months of living on the slow cargo shuttle she had stolen, surviving on the food shipment that had been destined for the local market. While food had not been an immediate concern she decided to ration it nontheless as she had no idea how long the journey would take, and it wasn't like she wasn't used to being fed barely enough to live and work as a cargo mover, her main problem was a lack of entertainment and a place to sleep as these cargo ships weren't intended for long distance travel between star systems and it's FTL drives were ancient and long since disabled on these old ships usually except for this one. The only things she had available were a couple of board games a deck of cards, a dartboard and a few books which turned out to be religeous texts.

So the first few days she spent taking stock of what supplies she had and setting up a ration plan, figuring that if she rationed two meals a day she could stretch out the food supply to about 10 months if the stasis containers didn't fail. Also she ripped out some of the bunks which were too small for her anyways to make herself a sleeping area in a spare room near the bridge by piling up matresses and blankets into a makeshift bed just big enough for her. While the boardgames were no use to her to play alone and she didn't know any card games she only really had the dartboard and jogging on a treadmil she found, so at least she had some exercise. She also eventually started reading the religeous texts and after a while she became rather fascinated with the ideals of them, even if it conflicted with what she knew growing up as a slave, but she wasn't interested in finding faith yet in any of them at that time.

That was at least untill sometime after she arrived on Zeventu.

When she finally found the planet it certainly wasn't what she expected, as she had feared she would get captured and sent back perhaps or made a slave again since she didn't know anything about this planet. But much to her surpise other than having to identify herself and being asked to report to the port authority where she was questioned for a while not much else seemed to happen to the point where Meleah was starting to worry this was some kind of trap. She was given a room and asked to stay there while burocracy did it's thing in the background, and though there was a guard nearby she was relatively free to move about and even step outside to watch the activity in the port, which turned out to be a fusion of the space and sea port and a main cargo hub. One things she had noticed was that the majority of these colonists were actually morphs like her and there were few humans around from what she could tell, not that she minded that because she wasn't too fond of humans at the time.

This lasted a week and some days before she finally was called to the port master's office where she was greeted by about a half dozen official looking types, and her heart sank expecting to be either imprisoned or worse sent back. Much to her surprise they were all quite friendly with her, even the sole human in the room, while they asked her some questions and talked about some legal things she didn't understand which made it all the more confusing when she was handed what looked to be like her brand new ID which stated "Independent Trader" under her name and she was then officially welcomed to Zeventu as a citizen, what's more it seemed she now had a credit account with a fair amount to her name. Aparently the local authorities had gone through her ship and it's cargo and determined any useful supplies for the colony and sent payment for purchase to her new credit account despite knowing full well that she was an escaped slave with a stolen ship and goods.

Turns out she was hardly the first former slave to arrive on the colony this way and while they would normally have to report this to the Star Corps, the locals turned a blind eye and offered citizenship rather than turning over any refugees that arrived on planet or were found in territorial space. Star Corps either didn't care or just ignored these things it seemed but maybe that was thanks to the colony manager, a Chakat named Silverflank, who has always done things hir own way and probably the reason she was former Star Fleet. As they explained to Meleah she was already paid for the purchase of her supplies, which was the food she had left in the stasis containers as well as tools and building materials and other useful supplies that happened to be part of the cargo. They also told her that she would be paid some extra if she made the delivery in person to a frontier town on the far southern end of the island and where her skills could be useful should she choose work there, they even arranged for a local to guide her there. And so that's how Meleah found herself in the small town of Red Hills, named so because of the red colored grass that was abundant in that paetticular area.

Red Hills it turned out was still a growing town with permanent buildings but some lived in house sized shuttles not unlike the one she arrived on except that hers wasn't built as a movable home but had plenty of space to convert once the cargo pods were removed. The entire flight there Meleah was still struggling to process everything that was happening right now and she likely would have had a panic attack if it hadn't been for her very chatty guide talking her ear off and asking many questions about where Meleah was from so she didn't have time to think. Fenna, her guide, was an energetic little thing and had been a slave herself once but bred for companionship and show. She resembled a fennec but with a red panda like fur pattern and longer and more glossy fur than normal for a fennec, particularly around her hands and feet where she had even longer fur still and so much chest fluff it made her look rather busty when hidden under clothing. Even while showing her around town Fenna was still chatting away while Meleah just looked as confused, if not more so, than when she first was told about her new home back at the port. So it took her a while to become self concious about the fact she had stripped out of the overalls she was given to wear on the ship and had been walking around topless the whole time. Something that had never bothered her before in her life but beign here in this crowd seemed to have made her aware of it, even though she had seen several morphs walking around similarly half undressed or even entirely in the fur.

Thankfully Fanna had noticed and she pulled Meleah into the community prayer center, although being there seemed to make her feel even more under dressed, thankfully nobody seemed to notice or care. The place seemed larger on the inside with a large domed ceiling which seemed impossible untill she realised that the entire space was carved out of the hill behind the external front building. Something else seemed somewhat off as there did not seem to be any particular religeous symbols and the decorations seemed like a mix of different cultural styles. As Fenna explained this was because this place did not cater to just any religeon considerign the many cultureal backgrounds of all the people living in Red Hills, also this was a new religeon created by the former slaves who settled here, so while some things looked like Christian or Catholic elements on the surface the religeon was more of an amalgamation of faiths so there were pews and prayer mats as well as ritual baths in side rooms and a portion of the river outside had been diverted through the building for ritual purposes as well. Before she could spend long to take in the scene she was introduced to a group of nuns who had been waiting for her, a human woman flanked by a lioness and a tigress and in front of them a small feline even shorter than Fenna stood smiling as she introduced herself as Mother Seia before ordering the other women to lead Meleah to a side room where she was bathed and given some fresh clean clothing while Seia explained the local religeon to Meleah.

By the time they were done it was late afternoon already when Meleah found herself back at the now empty ship as workers had unloaded the cargo and delivered it to the warehouse to be distributed among the few shops and entertainment venues. It was only then when Fenna bid her a good evening that she found herself alone with some time to think, but she still could not process the entire turn of events and she ended up crying herself to sleep that night as all the stress of the past months and a lifetime finally was released. In the following weeks and months she spent her time helping out around town with the many building projects, getting to know the locals, and also having her own ship refurbished to serve as her home from here on with proper ameneties like a decent sized bed for her, a shower and bath and even a kitchen, and she even had a guest room to spare even though she was sure she'd never have use for it. It was strange how the ship had changed from a way to escape to a kind of prison for those months in space and now a beacon of hope for a new life... But she did not quite feel at home there despite that. So she joined the prayer center some time after and joined the order where she now helps other escaped slaves and gives back to a community that had given her so much without demanding anything in return.

After joining the order and moving in there she felt that the ship she arrived in no longer had a need to be there as a reminder of her past so she asked the community to help her restore it more or less to it's original state before launching it back into space on autopilot to return home to the planet she escaped from, with it's only cargo this time a message of forgiveness to her former master and an apology for taking the ship and cargo but she had accepted it as compensation for the past and allowing her to build a new life for herself, having cast off her old name and signing with her new one, Meleah...

Art/Design by  ChernobylMadonna
Character and chaarcters mentioned belong to me  Chakat_Blackwater