INTERSTELLAR ⱽᵒˡᵗʳᵒⁿ

two

Leora was beyond embarrassed. Her kind were strong and intelligent creatures — something to be feared — and yet she had been no help at all. She had given up in that Galra cell, alone, scared and awaiting her death. It had been a morbid thought, something that had given her hope and yet crushed it all the same: the knowledge that she would die soon, and all her pain would be over. She had accepted the fact that she would be put to death, whether it would have been the arena or a random Galra soldier.

Seeing the stranger appear — well, multiple strangers — to save her both gave her hope and had frustrated tears gathering in her eyes. She was a princess and yet she could not defend herself or her people. Slaughtered throughout the night undetected and with no more than a sound. She had been awake, even out of her room and talking to a maid about the next day. The day that they had decided to hold in honor of her late mother who had passed away only a deca-phoeb before. But now the celebration had never been put on and everyone had died. Most had only been sleeping, completely unaware of their fates before they had gone to bed. Men, women, and children all alike killed before they could even open their eyes.

The thought of being so helpless then, watching as flames and screams covered her planet while she stood idly by, was something out of nightmares. She didn't think she could ever forgive herself for not being able to fight. Why hadn't she sparred with those who had asked when she was but a child? Why hadn't she tried to learn the ways of combat before it was too late? Why, when her own maid went in to fight, had she obeyed her orders and stayed behind? She was a princess and those were her people. The least she could have done was died with them in a noble way instead of rotting away in a Galra cell.

But the stranger who barely spoke, who had helped her try to escape, seemed to think she was important. He had said he was on a mission to rescue her, and though she found it sad he hadn't tried to save anyone else; she couldn't help the selfish feeling of joy that etched its way into her being. She was important. She mattered. She only hoped it wasn't because she was a princess, but distantly Leora was sure that was the only reason.

Now, sitting quietly with a blanket around her inside a blue ship with her protector unconscious at her feet, Leora wished she had died. With her people, in the base, anywhere. This man had almost died because she was too weak from her wounds to fight back. Why had she been so foolish back when she first arrived at the Galra ship? Why hadn't she conserved her energy back then so she could have waited for the perfect opportunity to escape?

Her body shook with quiet sobs as she looked at his back. He was face-down, though she had moved his head so that it wasn't smooshed into the floor. He deserved a nice sleep, but Leora feared that he would die at any moment. She wished to at least know the name of her rescuer, a smile of his lips, or even what he looked like. Leora wasn't daft enough to not notice the purple fur concealed beneath his uniform either. It had bile crawling up her throat, but she knew from his actions that he didn't mean her any harm. Their rescuers though, she wasn't sure.

At the thought of the blue man, Leora looked up. He was clothed in white armor, blue streaks of color popping in places Leora was sure were far too loud. For the attackers to be dressed so flashy like that, Leora was sure they too had a death wish. But he seemed to have been kind and charming, two things the princess had been taken aback by at first.

It had been slightly comical trying to follow the stranger into his feline-shaped ship. First, picking the wounded rescuer off the ground was an ordeal all in itself. He had been shouting at her to run, his words still slurring as he began to pass out. It hadn't helped that the blue man had started to try to pick him up and that the black-cladded man had done everything in his power to fight back. Leora had stood there, eyes wide, as the two men practically wrestled one another, but it all ceased when the black-cladded man finally passed out.