On an early autumn afternoon, sunlight fell gently over the valley. The air carried the scent of ripening green wheat, mingled with a hint of damp earth and the lingering traces of cooking smoke.
The distant ridges still retained a little of summer's green, but most had turned golden.
Louis and Emily rode together in an elegantly decorated carriage, its frame reinforced with cold iron and its exterior adorned with dark crimson patterns and the Red Tide Emblem, traveling steadily along the newly built dirt road.
Several squads of Red Tide cavalry escorted the carriage on either side. Each knight wore a standard-issue military sword at his waist, cloak snapping in the wind, expression solemn, their movements matching the rhythm of the horses' hooves. This was a well-trained army of tempered steel.
The banners unfurled in the wind, the sun of Red Tide flying proudly over the open country.
The carriage crested a gentle slope, and the entire valley spread out before them.
Vast wheat fields rippled in the sunlight.
The green wheat was fully ripe, its heavy ears bowing low and swaying in the wind like rolling waves of gold.
Beside the potato fields, workers swung their picks, turning up plump tubers. Row after row of coarse cloth sacks stretched toward a wooden granary nearby.
The greenhouse district presented a different scene.
The geothermally heated greenhouses stood in orderly rows, gleaming pale white in the sunlight like silver waves stretching toward the horizon.
Farmhands pushed loaded wheelbarrows out of the greenhouses, filled with freshly cut wheat and newly harvested greens.
The swish of sickles through wheat stalks, the thump of threshing flails, and the laughter of children playing on the field ridges mingled along the road.
The carriage creaked as it rolled over gravel, but the sound was swallowed