Storybook of the Stars

Pirates and Princesses, Oh My!

The Grove; Wild Space (Starship; Space)

Katherine Glimmer, Joey; Recent Event

Katherine was in a bit of a pickle.

Honestly, she might have even called this a whole jar of pickles for how fucked everything was. She should have known that getting her people and herself into space wasn't going to be the hardest thing she faced, even though they'd given up everything. There was always going to be something else getting at her.

Sometimes she swore she was cursed.

At first it was the people themselves, getting used to cramped quarters as they fled their old homes. Fights were a common thing with tensions and stressors high, her citizens were getting injured left and right. Then it was the accidents, people who weren't in fights were suddenly running into walls that they swore weren't there or tripping over nonexistent steps. The medbay had been filled for weeks before whatever it was had moved on. Moved on to Katherine.

It was then that the Fog started seeping in.

She knew that she'd been touched by the Fog and that it was no ordinary weather thing. The princess had been the last one on the ship, putting her people on the last escape ships and hoping that her parents would miraculously walk out of the mysterious blight that had descended on their planet with a plan and save her from responsibility. It wasn't until people stopped getting injured for no reason that she noticed the Fog had infiltrated her.

She ran her hand over the skirt she was stitching, bringing herself back to the present as her fingers ran over the unfinished parts of the black skirt. Even though she was out fighting monsters in this skirt, it didn't mean she couldn't look cute while doing it. Plus tailoring the clothes she had, as well as making her own, kept her mind from wandering too much. Brain Fog was getting the better of her. She had noticed that she spent a lot more time staring off into space than usual.

Then again, they were actually in space. Staring into space was pretty much the only thing to do on a ship too packed with people to breathe without bumping into someone else. Although that breathing thing was starting to get a little sensitive as well.

The oxygen generators were failing.

After the people and the fighting and the accidents and the brain fog, even the generators were giving up on them.

Katherine really wished she could have blamed them. If she were being honest, she would have given up too. No home, no kingdom, no parents, no leadership skills, just a fleet with breaking down ships and a princess that was more into fighting monsters than caring about her people. Their chances weren't looking great.

She was hiding down in the engineer's room, a small portly woman named Floran, who was always happy to hide Katherine for a couple hours in exchange for mending the holes in her clothes. And the princess took her up on that offer often enough for them to be pretty close. Katherine needed a place to hide from everyone who expected her to know what she was doing, somewhere for her to just do what she enjoyed while Floran was working on the engines in the background. Where Floran could help her train, at least a little bit, to take both their minds off of the failing systems of The Grove.

She pulled the thread out of the skirt and tied the small knot on the inside, brushing off the dust that had settled on the parts of the skirt she hadn't been working on. And then everything, predictably, went wrong.

The entire ship shook.

It shook until Katherine was almost sure it wouldn't stop until the hull broke apart. She threaded the needle into the cloth and ducked under the table she'd been working on, squeezing her eyes shut and waiting for it to stop. But it didn't.