Last Exile

**Javidan Aliyeva,** most commonly known as the "Last Exile", was the last human to leave Earth through the portal which led the remains of humanity to their new home, the planet of Ortus. Born in a village deep within the Caucasus mountains, she spent most of her life trying to find a way for humanity to return to Earth, all the while keeping all the knowledge, history and artifacts the exiles had managed to take with them during the exodus.

She is seen as one of the founding members of the Exile party.

## Youth and Exile

Javidan was born in the small mountain village of Chazhashi, the youngest of seven siblings. In her memories, she speaks about the hardships of life in that area and also the great beauty of its mountains, forests and rivers. Javidan's youth was a happy one for the most part, with her parents often telling her stories about the wonders of the world abroad, from the Pyramids to the Niagara falls.

The chaos brought by the arrival of the planetoid destroyed all her plans to see the world however. Many members of her family, including two brothers, died during the anarchy of those years, as looting and skirmishes between different provinces and even villages became a common thing in the mountains.

Like many others, Javidan traveled to the portal in Istanbul. Moving across hundreds of miles of lawless lands and dangerous groups ready to kill anyone for a loaf of bread, Javidan was close to death more times than she could count. By the time she reached the city which had once been named Constantinople, only her older brother and her remained, half starved and terrified as the sky above turned red with the coming of the planetoid. As they tried to push their way through the crowd, Javidan's brother pushed her forwards, shouting at her to go and wait for him on the other side. She never saw him again, or any of the thousands who were trying to go through behind her.

## Alien mountains

During the first years in Ortus, Javidan, like many others, joined a group to explore the cold surface of Ortus in search of food and refuge. Unlike others, she seldom used the books and paintings brought from Earth as fuel to stay warm, using her knowledge of how to travel and survive cold, mountainous terrain as a trading tool to save those artifacts. Indeed, it is believed nearly 500 tomes and almost twice as many paintings, sculptures and other works of art were saved thanks to the last Exile's efforts. Nearly all of those can now be seen in the People's Museum of Ortus, alongside newer artifacts from other planets.

The tale of Javidan and her group has become almost a legend in the history of Ortus. Fueled by her need to see Earth again, she drove the others onwards, keeping their spirits high so they would not give up and die in the cold of this new planet. Sadly, even though her skills and those of other members of her group saved many lives, nearly 800 people died before they finally found a valley with food and shelter. By then, Javidan had become the new leader.

Instead of just staying there while waiting for the weather to change, Javidan led a number of exploration parties to find other valleys and scattered groups in need of assistance. While some of these missions were successful, there were times Javidan and her explorers returned several days after they should have, tired and sometimes missing one or two people. One of the worst missions saw an avalanche trap the last exile and four other people under several feet of snow. Two weeks later, as everyone else thought they were dead, Javidan returned, nearly dead and carrying as best as she could another survivor. Frostbite took several fingers of her right hand and only after two weeks in bed with high fevers was she able to return to her duties.

The sight of so much death, hardship and the occasional suicides of those who could not handle the situation any longer fed the loathing of Javidan towards Ortus and also the need to return to Earth. Unlike many future citizens, including members of her own family, Javidan never considered Ortus her home.

Several years after they reached the valley, Javidan gave birth to a son she named "Murad" in honor of his brother. The city which now stands on that valley bears that name.

## Leader

As the village of Murad grew into a town and then a city, contact was regained with those groups which had also survived the trip across the planet's surface. Like Javidan and her people, they had chosen to make their homes under the freezing surface. Many had no more than 100 people in them and lacked the resources to last for long.

Not wanting to see again the chaos and death of her last days on Earth, Javidan made sure to trade as much as possible with all nearby bases. To the surprise of many a future historian of these times, Javidan and the first exile worked closely together to unite all the different new towns scattered across Ortus. While it is true that during those first years people could witness the opposite beliefs of both legendary figures, they still worked tirelessly together to make sure humanity would endure and prosper. There are even rumors which say that, even if they rarely saw eye-to-eye on matters like Ortus or the return to Earth, the two of them respected each other greatly and even enjoyed each-other's company.

### **Chosen to lead**

Thanks both to her reputation and the number of allies she had made over the years, Javidan was able to create the Exile party and win a election. During her time as leader, scientists who were not researching ways to adapt to the merciless climate of Ortus focused instead on finding a way back to Earth and how to repair the damage brought by the planetoid to that world.

While a brilliant leader in many ways and a beloved figure who helped thousands survive the arrival to their new planet, even Javidan's greatest admirers admit that most of her plans to return to Earth were far-fetched at most. The portal no longer worked and it would still take decades until humanity managed to make the leap to outter space again, much less learn the ways to bring a burnt planet back to life.

Still, during her time as leader of humanity's remains, Javidan continued to work hard to keep humanity united and alive in Ortus. While she did order the construction of much infrastructure and other projects, she never allowed the members of her party to name any new transport line or dome after her, still insisting that humanity's destiny was back on Earth, not Ortus.

## Last years

At the age of 72, Javidan retired from politics and then public life. Maybe finally realizing that she would not be able to see Earth again, the Last Exile retired to her home, only greeting her family members and a few of her closest friends.

She died at the age of 79 from an unknown illness (the wildest rumors say that she might have taken her own life). Javidan Aliyeva was buried in a mausoleum in the city of Murad, right at the heart of the People's Museum of Ortus she had helped to build.

## Aftermath

Deprived of their greatest leader, the Exile party slowly began to lose their strength, as those who had been born in Earth became a minority and memory of humanity's first homeworld began to fade. Even Javidan's descendants, after a few decades, also saw Ortus as a new home.