El and Onine

A civil war on Venus has driven the Venusians to Earth for refuge, where they must adapt to their new surroundings and adopt the planet as their own. The Kyprian council has selected El, a sapient and earth dweller, to be the other half of an interspecies union. But contact between the species may very well mean a fiery death to both, and El is terrified. Onine, a Venusian leader, doesn't know El, but from the moment he sees her he knows he has to save her. Sapients are slaves, soiled...
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A civil war on Venus has driven the Venusians to Earth for refuge, where they must adapt to their new surroundings and adopt the planet as their own. The Kyprian council has selected El, a sapient and earth dweller, to be the other half of an interspecies union. But contact between the species may very well mean a fiery death to both, and El is terrified. Onine, a Venusian leader, doesn't know El, but from the moment he sees her he knows he has to save her. Sapients are slaves, soiled and dirty beings that inhabit the earth, and no Venusian would ever demean itself to take the crude form of the sapient. But the only way for Onine to save El is to forgo his beauty and fire, and become clay like her. A simple task if it were as simple as his giving up his form. Unfortunately, she is the one who must undergo a transformation, one for which she already has. A creation myth inspired by Ovid's "Metamorphoses," El and Onine pursue a love more resilient than the bodies they've been given and the universe in which they exist.