James Arthur Carrington

Birth and Family Heritage

James Arthur Carrington was born on 22 June 1992 in Brierly, the historic settlement founded in 1810 by a group of settlers and their Guardians. His arrival marked the continuation of a botanical lineage that stretched back to Brierly's earliest days, connecting him through five generations to Elizabeth Anne Carrington, the scientist whose innovations had transformed barren soil into productive farmland.

His parents, William Henry Carrington and Clara Margaret Carrington (née Thornton), represented Brierly's agricultural traditions in complementary ways. William managed one of the settlement's oldest vineyards, continuing the viticultural work that George Whitmore had established alongside Elizabeth's broader botanical efforts. Clara worked as a horticulturist, maintaining the community gardens and seed preservation systems that Elizabeth had instituted nearly two centuries earlier. Their marriage united two of Brierly's foundational agricultural families, and James grew up surrounded by the accumulated wisdom of generations.

The Carrington family home sat adjacent to Brierly's botanical gardens, the direct descendant of Elizabeth's original experimental plots. James's earliest memories involved accompanying his mother through rows of vegetables and medicinal herbs, learning plant names before he could properly spell them. His father taught him the rhythms of vineyard work—pruning, training, harvesting—whilst explaining how the grapes had adapted over generations to Brierly's unique conditions.

The weight of family legacy was present but never oppressive. His parents spoke of Elizabeth with reverence but also practicality, emphasising that her greatest gift wasn't the specific techniques she'd developed but the scientific mindset she'd modelled: observe carefully, experiment systematically, document thoroughly, and always remain open to what the land itself might teach.

Childhood in Brierly

Growing up in Brierly during the 1990s meant inhabiting a world that had changed remarkably little in fundamental character since its founding. The settlement remained self-sufficient and isolated, its approximately eight hundred residents maintaining the agricultural practices and community structures their ancestors had established. Modern conveniences were limited—Brierly had developed its own technological adaptations over the centuries, but these differed significantly from Earth innovations and from the more advanced systems emerging in other Clivilius settlements.

James's childhood was shaped by the rhythms of agricultural life. Seasons determined activities: planting in spring, tending through summer, harvesting in autumn, preserving and planning through winter. School lessons incorporated practical work in fields and gardens, ensuring that every Brierly child understood the fundamentals of food production. James excelled in these practical subjects, showing early aptitude for understanding plant needs and predicting growth patterns.

His closest childhood companions were the other members of what would later become known as the Brierly Pioneers of Progress: Amelia Whitmore, whose family maintained George Whitmore's viticultural legacy; Sophie McMonagle, who showed remarkable engineering aptitude; and Daniel Thornton, a craftsman's son with gifts for woodworking and construction. The four children roamed Brierly's fields and forests together, their play often incorporating the skills their families were teaching them.

Music provided another thread through James's childhood. Brierly's isolation had preserved musical traditions dating to the settlement's English and Scottish founders, and James learned fiddle from his grandmother, who had learned from her grandmother before her. Evening gatherings in Brierly often included music—folk tunes passed down through generations, adapted and elaborated but recognisably connected to songs the original settlers had carried from Earth. James discovered that music provided a different kind of communication than words, a way of expressing feelings that his naturally reserved temperament found difficult to articulate directly.

Education and Early Career

Brierly's educational system combined formal instruction with practical apprenticeship, and James's path through both reflected his emerging vocation. In the classroom, he absorbed the botanical knowledge that Brierly had accumulated—Elizabeth Carrington's original texts remained required reading, supplemented by observations and refinements added by subsequent generations. He learned plant taxonomy, soil chemistry, cultivation techniques, and the particular adaptations that made Brierly agriculture possible.

His practical education came through work alongside his parents and other community members. By his early teens, James was contributing meaningfully to both vineyard and garden work, his observations earning respect from experienced farmers who recognised genuine aptitude rather than mere family connection. He developed a particular interest in the intersection of tradition and innovation—understanding why established practices worked whilst remaining curious about how they might be improved.

His grandmother's death when James was sixteen marked a significant transition. She had been his primary connection to family history, the keeper of stories about Elizabeth and the generations between. Her passing left James holding knowledge he hadn't fully appreciated whilst she lived, and he began more deliberately documenting Brierly's botanical heritage—not just the techniques but the reasoning behind them, the failed experiments as well as the successes.

By his early twenties, James had established himself as one of Brierly's most promising young agriculturalists. He managed experimental plots testing hybrid varieties, worked to improve crop yields through careful selection, and contributed to the community's ongoing seed preservation efforts. His combination of theoretical knowledge and practical skill marked him as someone who might eventually assume leadership in Brierly's agricultural planning.

But Brierly's isolation also chafed. James had grown up hearing stories of other settlements, of the wider Clivilius beyond his community's boundaries. The arrival of the Bixbus exploration team in September 2018 would transform vague curiosity into concrete opportunity.

The Bixbus Connection

The Vineyard Venture Exploration Mission's discovery of Brierly in September 2018 represented the most significant event in the settlement's recent history. For over a century and a half, since the death of the last Guardian in 1857, Brierly had existed in near complete isolation, unaware of developments elsewhere in the region and beyond. The arrival of explorers from Bixbus—a settlement founded just months earlier by people with portal access to Earth—shattered assumptions Brierly residents had held for generations.

James was among the Brierly residents who first encountered the exploration team, his botanical knowledge making him valuable for assessing the agricultural potential of trade relationships. The negotiations that followed revealed the vast gulf between Brierly's traditional practices and Bixbus's emerging modernity, but also the complementary value each settlement could offer the other. Brierly possessed accumulated wisdom about regional agriculture that Bixbus desperately needed; Bixbus offered technologies and connections that could transform Brierly's prospects.

The agreement reached between the settlements included an exchange of younger residents—Brierly sending agriculturalists and craftspeople to share their knowledge with Bixbus, whilst some Bixbus residents would eventually relocate to Brierly to help integrate modern systems. James volunteered for the initial relocation, motivated by scientific curiosity, adventure, and perhaps an unacknowledged sense that Brierly's familiar boundaries had become confining.

On 11 October 2018, James joined the first group of Brierly settlers relocating to Bixbus. The journey itself proved revelatory—travelling through landscapes he had never imagined, encountering settlements and peoples whose existence Brierly had never suspected. Arriving in Bixbus, he found a community utterly unlike anything he had known: rapidly growing, technologically ambitious, populated by recent arrivals from Earth whose assumptions and practices differed fundamentally from Brierly's centuries-old traditions.

Life in Bixbus

The transition to Bixbus life challenged James in ways he hadn't anticipated. His agricultural knowledge proved immediately valuable—Bixbus was struggling to establish sustainable food production, and his expertise in Clivilius cultivation helped address critical gaps. But the social environment was disorienting. Bixbus's pace, its diversity, its constant change—all contrasted sharply with Brierly's stability and homogeneity.

James threw himself into work, finding that professional contribution provided anchor when social navigation felt overwhelming. He collaborated with Bixbus agricultural planners, sharing Brierly techniques whilst learning about Earth innovations that might be adapted to Clivilius conditions. His experimental plots outside the settlement tested hybrid approaches, combining traditional Brierly methods with technologies the Earth settlers had brought.

His contributions extended beyond pure agriculture. James documented Brierly's botanical heritage for Bixbus's growing archives, ensuring that knowledge accumulated over two centuries wouldn't be lost as the settlements integrated. He trained Bixbus farmers in cultivation techniques that had taken generations to develop, translating his grandmother's stories into practical instruction.

The social adjustment came more slowly. James's reserved temperament, comfortable in Brierly's familiar community, struggled with Bixbus's constant introductions and fluid relationships. He made acquaintances rather than friends, respected colleagues rather than close companions. Music provided one consistent connection—he played fiddle at community gatherings, the traditional tunes resonating with some Earth settlers whose own heritage included similar folk traditions.

His living situation reflected this partial integration. James maintained quarters near the agricultural planning offices, his space filled with plants rather than personal decorations. He returned to Brierly periodically, maintaining family connections and contributing to ongoing projects there, but increasingly his primary residence and work were in Bixbus.

Meeting Nathaniel

The encounter that would transform James's life occurred in mid-2019, several months after his relocation to Bixbus. He had been struggling with communication equipment for agricultural monitoring systems—technology far more advanced than anything Brierly had developed—when someone suggested he consult the IT support services that helped settlers navigate Bixbus's growing technological infrastructure.

Nathaniel Baker arrived to assess the problem: a reserved young man whose systematic approach to troubleshooting reminded James of his own methodical botanical work. The equipment issue proved straightforward, but their conversation extended beyond technical matters. Nathaniel asked questions about the monitoring systems' agricultural applications; James found himself explaining Brierly cultivation philosophy to someone who listened with genuine interest rather than polite tolerance.

Their subsequent interactions developed gradually, shaped by temperaments that both valued patience over urgency. James needed technical assistance repeatedly as agricultural systems expanded; Nathaniel provided it with quiet competence. They discovered shared appreciation for work that required careful attention, for problems that yielded to systematic effort rather than quick fixes. They found they could work alongside each other in comfortable silence, neither requiring constant conversation to feel connected.

James recognised his own attraction before he fully understood Nathaniel's situation. He had known he was gay since adolescence—Brierly's small community had included same-sex couples without particular controversy, the settlement's practical focus on contribution mattering more than personal arrangements. But he sensed that Nathaniel's reserve around this subject ran deeper than mere privacy, that there were complications he couldn't assume away.

He proceeded carefully, offering friendship without pressure, creating space for whatever Nathaniel might eventually feel safe sharing. When Nathaniel finally spoke about his background—the conservative religious household, the years of suppression, the identity he was only beginning to claim—James received the information without judgment, understanding that trust given deserved trust honoured.

Their relationship formalised through accumulation rather than declaration. They began sharing meals, then sharing space, then sharing a life. Bixbus's practical approach to partnership—commitment recognised through action rather than ceremony—suited them both. By 2020, they were understood by their community as a couple, their complementary skills and temperaments creating a household that worked.

Building a Family

The children came unexpectedly, as the most transformative things often do.

In 2022, a settlement failure elsewhere in the region sent refugees streaming toward Bixbus, including families shattered by displacement and loss. Among the arrivals were three siblings—Marcus, seven; Elena, five; Thomas, three—whose parents had died during their settlement's collapse. The children had survived through the care of neighbours who couldn't provide permanent homes, and they arrived in Bixbus traumatised, grieving, and desperately in need of stability.

James encountered them through agricultural relief work, helping refugees from farming communities adjust to Bixbus's different systems. The children's situation moved him in ways he hadn't anticipated—their loss echoing something in his own experience of displacement, their resilience reminding him of Brierly's founding stories about building life from devastation.

He brought their case to Nathaniel tentatively, uncertain whether his partner would share his unexpected pull toward parenthood. Nathaniel's response surprised him: quiet certainty that they should help, practical assessment of how their household might accommodate children, and beneath the methodical planning, a longing James hadn't previously recognised.

The adoption process moved quickly by Bixbus standards—the settlement prioritised finding stable homes for displaced children, and James and Nathaniel's established household and community standing supported their application. By late 2022, Marcus, Elena, and Thomas had become their children, their family expanding from partnership to something larger and more complex.

Parenthood demanded adjustments neither had fully anticipated. James discovered patience he hadn't known he possessed, learning to translate his agricultural teaching instincts into child-appropriate explanations of why plants grew and how seasons worked. He found that music—the fiddle tunes his grandmother had taught him—soothed the children during difficult nights when grief and fear surfaced. Nathaniel's systematic nature proved valuable in creating the routines traumatised children needed, his technical skills repurposed for building stability rather than fixing equipment.

The children healed slowly, as healing does. Marcus, the eldest, carried responsibility he shouldn't have had to bear; James worked to lighten it, modelling that adults could be trusted to provide. Elena's initial withdrawal gradually warmed into curiosity and engagement. Thomas, youngest and most resilient, adapted most quickly, accepting his new fathers with the flexibility young children can show when given consistent love.

Return to Brierly

By 2024, James had spent six years in Bixbus—longer than he'd anticipated when he'd volunteered for the initial relocation. His contributions to the settlement's agricultural development had been substantial, and his family had built a life within Bixbus's growing community. But increasingly, his thoughts turned toward Brierly.

His parents were ageing, the generation that had raised him entering the years when family presence mattered most. Brierly itself was transforming through its connection with Bixbus, integrating technologies and practices that required people who understood both traditional methods and modern innovations. The settlement needed bridges between its past and its future—people who could help it change without losing what made it valuable.

James discussed the possibility with Nathaniel carefully, understanding that asking his partner to relocate meant asking him to leave the community where he'd finally found acceptance, the settlement where his own family had also established themselves. But Nathaniel surprised him again, seeing in Brierly an opportunity rather than a sacrifice—a chance to contribute his technical skills to a community that needed them, to raise their children in a place where agricultural rhythms might help them heal, to support his partner's homecoming.

The family relocated to Brierly in early 2025. For James, the return carried complex emotions: joy at familiar landscapes and family reunion, grief at how much had changed during his absence, responsibility for helping his community navigate transformations he had helped initiate. For Nathaniel, Brierly represented new displacement but also new purpose—his technical expertise proving immediately valuable as the settlement integrated communication systems and modern agricultural monitoring.

The children adapted with varying ease. Marcus found Brierly's structured agricultural life grounding after Bixbus's constant change; Elena discovered cousins and playmates among the settlement's children; Thomas, still young, accepted the new environment as simply another chapter in a life already marked by transitions.