Once upon a time in space a baby was born. A baby of half blood; one part human and one part Galran. The babe had delicate skin of a soft blue hue and a sweep of hair the color of sapphire. She peers at her parents with eyes as soft blue as her skin.
Regardless of blood, the babe grew up loved and cherished. The child loved watching the stars twinkle and blink and would often sit under them with something to read. The child grew up kind and caring with a mother who was just as so.
It wasn't until the child turned thirteen that her life seemed to shatter. For their house nestled in a hidden corner of Daibazaal had been found. For the crime of marrying a human and birthing a halfblood, the child's mother was killed.
Only after serving 'justice' did the crowd leave. In their wake was left a grieving husband and a timid child. The man thought that he wouldn't know happiness again. Desperate was he, enough to fall for a cruel, cold Galra woman who had no love for a lowly half-breed.
In his anguish, the man was blind to the mistreatment of his daughter.
The man was a trader and as such he was prone to travel for extended periods of time. During his travels, his daughter grew lovelier still.
She was small for a Galra but it suited her well. At thirteen years, her horns had grown in, elegant and cut like polished obsidian. Mostly they were buried under waist long locks of deep blue. Her eyes were as warm and kind as her complexion was cool. For it, her stepmother and sisters hated her twice over.
When the girl's father was gone, the last scraps of false kindness fell away.
They dressed the girl in rags and exposed her to various cruelties and neglect.
Mostly, they made a slave of the girl. They shut her away from the stars that she loved so, confining her to the dark and dusty underbelly of their home where the life and hope in her eyes diminished. And where her health deteriorated.
It became a pass time for the eldest sister to fling one of her opulent rings or ornate necklaces into a particularly large pile of comet cinders and have the girl sift through them to find it.
So she was nicknamed Cometcinder.
More often than not, her complexion was blotted out by splotches of comet dust. "You should thank her, Cometcinder, she helps you cover your halfbree's skin." Says her step mother.
But Cometcinder feels no such gratitude.
On a night where the cosmos were particularly spectacular, Cometcinder could bear no more. The constellations were enticing, beckoning her outside. So she answered their call. In the cool night air, her heart fluttered with the joy of finally having a serene night, free of demands and demeaning words.
The best night of her life was followed by the worst. For her misdeed of skipping chores could not go unpunished. Her step mother dragged her by the hair into the house where her step sisters waited, sneering.
"Maybe we should make her sleep outside." The youngest suggests. "Since she likes it out there so much."
That night, they took a pair of scissors to her long locks, chopping away at them until her hair was fashioned into a scraggly and uneven bob.
They kicked at her and spat on her and stole the compass from her pocket. She'd fought furiously to keep her cherished item-the one thing that truly belonged to her-but they had pried it from her fingers. They crushed it before her eyes, so taking from her, the last thing she had of her mother.
But they did not take without giving.
That night they gave her the news that her father's craft had been blasted by the ray of a weeblum.
Even still, the kindness didn't flee her soul. Though terribly shrouded in sorrow and reduced to finding companionship with space mice, she maintained generosity and patience.
Days turned to weeks and weeks into months, before news came of a gala. A supposedly flashy ball to celebrate the auroras and the birthday of the young princess Allura.
Meek and quietly, the girl inquired if she could attend. "Looking like that?" her mother sneered.
"You can dress me nicely and…"
"You'll embarrass us." The younger daughter commented.
Cometcinder swallowed, her belly tingling with heartache and yearning. Just this one night, she only wants this one night. As her step family departed, their space pods the girl hugged her knees to her chest and fought back tears.
If only to occupy her mind, she took to polishing the houses metallic floors and upkeeping and managing the data on the house's computer.
With most housetasks aside, the girl wandered out to view the night sky.
It must have been an hour before a voice like an electrical hum sounded in her ear. "You're going to be late." It commented.
The girl tilted her head and tried to find the source.
"Over here."
She turned to face the computer. It had taken to projecting a hologram. An image of a small, iridescent orb that flashed softly and occasionally shifted color. "I have run through various simulations of realities and have decided that it is most optimal that you meet the princess Allura." The robotic voice declared. The orb drifted nearer and Cometcinder took a reflexive step back.
"I'm mean only to help. I will make sure that you will impress." The orb made its staticy promise. It hovered over to a dressing pod. "Step in please."
Reluctantly she does so. The machine whirred to life a soft green light scanned her up and down, taking in her measurements before producing an outfit for her. Replacing the rags was a slee one piece suit of midnight blue latex, outlined in vivid neon blue. She barely had time to appreciate it before the orb said, "now let's do something about this." In a series of zippy motions, the orb singed off locks of her hair until it fell evenly.
The orb halted before shedding small beads of electric blue light. It fixed them into her hair and accented her horns with them. At the ends of her hair they dangled like glow-worm threads. It completed her look by placing a glass helm over her head.
Satisfied and having completed its task it buzzed, "follow me."
The girl nodded and allowed it to lead her down the hall to where her family stored their spare parts and discarded devices and machines. "Do you prefer a V-style craft or would you like a more classic spherical model?"
"Something simple." Cometcinder answered.
The orb grew in size and flitted about, moving pieces and parts until an elegant black craft shaped like a jagged triangle sat before her. "I implore you to enjoy your ball. But my power has its limits." The orb paused. "The system will glitch and shut down at precisely midnight. For an optimal ending, I advise that you leave before then."
The Galra stroked the craft's steering wheel, still skeptical of its reality. She smiled to herself; she will meet the Altaen princess after all.
.oOo.
The ballroom was nothing like she had ever seen. Vast and made of black titanium, UV veins of purple streaked the walls and ceiling. The floor glimmered and sparkled with chips of amethyst.
She saw all manners of dress from simple one piece jumpsuits like her own to elaborate gowns with glowing hems and tall collars lined with LED lights. Hues popped and flashed from all ends of the color spectrum.
But most eye catching of all was the princess herself. She stood in a tiered white gown. Each layer had a ring of magenta light outlining it, creating glowing halos on the layers below. Her hair was fashioned in an updo adorned with various crystals in shades of violet and pink.
For as much as Cometcinder was compelled to strike up conversation, she couldn't bring herself. It had been years since she'd spoken to anyone save for a space mouse and she feared for her social competence and mannerisms.
All in all, the setting and its extravagance overwhelmed her.
She met the princess' eyes and she flushed. The noise in the room seemed to swell as Allura broke away from Cometcinder's eldest sister. She found herself shaky with nerves and her nerves whisk her abruptly away from the jubilant chaos of the ballroom.
Palms still shaking, she sat beneath the silently enchanting bursts of the auroras. She wished that she weren't so terribly shy.
"Hey!" A voice greeted. "I was hoping to catch you!"
Cometcinder took to staring intensely at the back of her hands.
"I've never seen you at any of my balls before."
"I don't get out much." She confessed. An understatement, considering that she hadn't been beyond her yard in several years.
Allura laughed. "Well, welcome to the outside world! You picked a great time to see it." She gestured to the sky and its drifting, dancing splendor.
"I'm more taken by you than the auroras." Cometcinder admitted.
Allura smiled. "You have a name?"
She nodded. "I am Acxa." It was weird on her lips, for it was the first time she had said her name since her mother died. Somehow, saying it made her feel less like an object.
:"That's a pretty name."
"Not as pretty as Allura."
This time the princess blushes. "Hey, you've never gone to a ball before, does that mean that you've never danced?"
Acxa's face grew hotter still. "I have not." she confirmed.
"Can I teach you?"
"Yes please.." She paused. "Can we dance out here, away from everyone?" It would certainly make her feel less nervous.
"Dancing under the lights does sound nice." Allura nodded. The princess walked her through the steps of The Weeblum's Waltz and The Daibazaal Ditty.
As she did so she told Acxa of the bustling spacecraft travel center and of her favorite places to stray to when running a kingdom become too heavy a burden. In turn, Acxa spoke of her father's ventures as a tradesman and of the cute space mice.
"Oh! You'll have to show me one day." The princess gushed. The way her eyes lit up almost caused Acdxa to forget the orb's warning.
"I would love to show you them." Acxa said as the half hour bell chimed.
"Can I?" Allura asked, her fingers traced over Acxa's glass helm.
Acxa didn't know what she was asking until she began lifting the helm. Acxxa curled her fingers around her slender wrists. The bell chimed again and that tiem Acxa jerked and sprung to her feet. Her sudden movement caused the glass helm to fall to the floor. She heard it crack but she had no time to be embarrassed, much less to mourn the semi-shatter of her beautiful helmet.
She didn't stop to pick it up.
"Wait!" Allura's calls grew distant as she sought out her craft. "I'm sorry! I thought that you wouldn't mind."
Acxa's mind spun, through her jumbled thoughts, she felt horrible for departing so hastily and without explanation. She couldn't even say why she was so eager to get home when there had been a perfect chance to find freedom from it and from her tormentors. She took a moment of pause, considering letting the system shut down. But she couldn't imagine that Allura would be captured by her scruffy and unkempt appearance.
She wished that she hadn't looked back.
Allura stood in the vacant spot where Acxa's craft had been, with her head hanging low.
By the time she made it home she was in rags again and her craft crumbled into trinkets and spare parts.
There was no glamor in that house.
It was empty and silent.
.oOo.
"She is smitten with you." Acxa's stepmother says to her eldest daughter. "You are going to be a royal"
It was all Acxa hard in the next several days.
"She's smitten with a stranger." The youngest scowled.
"Who abandoned her." The stepmother reassured. "I can't imagine she still has any love for the stranger.
Acxa's eyes burned with tears for her lost opportunity and chance at love.
Confined to her room for disopadiance and negligence of her duties, she was only able to get snippets of rumors regarding her rude departure.
From them, she assumed that the princess must not think fondly of her anymore.
She thought it cruel that she had been given a taste of freedom, at what life could have been, only to have it so rudely yanked away from her.
"The princess is trying to find the stranger." The youngest informed glumly.
"Then your sister shall try on the helm and insist that it is hers.
Acxa bunched her fists.
"She should be here soon, so get yourself ready, Ethnor." Ethnor nodded. "Dress yourself well." She turned to Acxa. "And you keep out of sight. We can't have anything unsightly just prancing about."
Her demand came just shy of a knock at the door. The Galra woman cursed. "Stick to the kitchen she hissed. "And keep your ugly, half-breed mouth shut."
Acxa sighed. "As you wish, mother. The word sat ill on her tongue.
The girl made her way to the kitchen as the door opened.
"Good evening princess!" Her stepmother greeted her with a false sweetness. It sickened and unsettled Acxa. She yearned to scowl and out the woman for the beast she was.
And what was stopping her?
Decidedly, she was a coward.
"Oh thank you, princess! I didn't think that I'd find it again!" Ethnor exclaimed. She could practically see her fitting the helm over her bulbous head.
A moment's pause.
Following it was a forced and gritted toothed, "I can't get it on."
"She is not my love." Allura declared.
A warm tingle of hope swelled in Acxa's chest.
"Give her a moment." Her step mother hissed. And then, "are you sure that that's not your sister's? Give Ragna her helm back."
Acxa couldn't hold back a small snicker as she listened to the girl struggle. Her embarrassing predicament gave Acxa just enough courage to step forward.
She lingered in the doorway fighting her brain for words. They didn't come so she only stood there dumbly.
"Who is that?" Allura asks.
"Oh that's just Cinder." Ragna dismissed. "Our servant."
Acxa bit her lip. "It's a pleasure to see you again." She said at last.
"Again?" Her step mother asked.
Acxa nodded and reached for the cracked helm. "May I?"
"Please." Allura said as her stepmother cried, "absolutely not."
Acxa closed her eyes and pulled the helm over her head.
Allura looked as cheery as her step family looked outraged. But that time they had no power to act on their simmering wrath. Acxa stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the small princess, taking comfort in her warmth. "I apologize for leaving so abruptly, I had to make it back home before they did."
Allura nods. "It's alright. But a goodbye would be nice next time."
"If you will…" She stammered. "If you will have me back at the castle, you won't' have to worry about a next time."