and the stars will be their guides (hermitcraft space au)

stowaway (one)

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~ hide behind your pillow, close the window, 'cause you know you can't be seen ~

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TWs: mentions of getting thrown into space and suffocating

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The engine groaned, the floor beneath him shook, and Etho's heart pounded with adrenaline. He winced as boxes dug into his back. This wasn't a great spot in terms of comfort, but it would work. 

As much as he wished he could see his home planet one last time before he left for possibly forever, Etho didn't want the others on the spaceship to know he was here. He was a stowaway now, and stowaways weren't treated kindly by anyone. Seeing the beautiful icy sphere he had called home wasn't worth getting thrown into space for. 

Etho braced himself against some of the boxes as the spaceship jolted. The engine had been rumbling for at least five minutes now, and it seemed the ship was finally taking off. He winced as a box fell from one of the top shelves of the storage room he was hiding in, hitting the floor loudly. Hopefully nobody would come in to investigate the noise, because if so, Etho had no place to conceal himself. 

The ship jerked forward, jeez, who was driving this thing?, then steadied out at a reasonable pace. Exhaling a breath he didn't know he was holding, Etho stood up and took in his surroundings. He knew he was in the storage room of the spaceship, but that was about all. He hadn't been too focused on details while he was sneaking through the room to the corner he was in now. 

The storage room turned out to be quite impressive. There were shelves along every wall in the room, completely filled out with boxes. The few shelves in the middle of the room were also fully filled. 

Where there weren't shelves, there were more boxes. Etho'd had to carefully step around and over some of the boxes when he made his journey to the corner. At one point, they'd probably all been stacked in neat piles, but a spaceship jerking and jolting around every time it arrived at and left a location would be enough to cause them to fall from their organized stacks. 

All in all, this wasn't the nicest storage room Etho had been in, but it was a lot better than the majority. That was saying a lot, too, because Etho had plenty of experience on spaceships. His father, both uncles, and his grandfather were all ship pilots, and he'd been allowed to go with them on supply runs every once in a while. Younger Etho hadn't thought much of it, but now he knew that the only reason he was allowed to come along was because he was expected to become a ship pilot after he graduated. That most definitely didn't happen and never would. 

The spaceship jolted again and sped up. Etho tumbled sideways and just barely kept himself from falling over by grabbing onto a shelf. A few more boxes crashed to the floor. One box, full of face masks for some reason, spilled its contents across the storage room. 

It wasn't long before Etho heard voices and footsteps outside the door. Panicking and unable to do much else, he squeezed himself as far into the corner as he could and hoped for the best. 

The door slid open, and now Etho could hear the voices clearer as he watched two pairs of feet step into the room. One of the beings groans and crouches down next to the spilled masks. 

"Ugh, we really need to secure these boxes better. I'm so sick of cleaning up stuff every day."

"Hey, at least it's only masks," the second being said somewhat cheerfully. "I heard Ren had to clean up marbles one time. He had bruises for weeks from tripping over them and falling." 

"Yeah, I guess. It would save so much time though if we just found some way of keeping the boxes in place."

"That's true. Maybe we can ask Zed about it. He'd probably be able to come up with something. For now, though, let's get this stuff cleaned up."

Both beings got to work while Etho continued to cower in the corner. Every time one of them strayed too close, Etho felt like his heart would beat out of his chest. Finally, all of the boxes were set back in their spots on the shelves, and the people left the room.

With a sigh of relief, Etho got up and stretched out. His legs were just beginning to cramp up from the uncomfortable position he'd been in. 

As Etho paced around the storage room, he couldn't help but think about the people who had picked up the boxes. Who were they, and who was Zed? That's when he realized: those people were people. Not aliens, people. Humans.

What were humans doing at an alien port?

He would have to think about that later, because right now, Etho needed to find a disguise. Yeah, he didn't plan on getting discovered by these humans, but he had to be prepared, just in case. Luckily, Etho was a frostling, and frostlings looked quite a bit like humans. All he had to do was grab one of those masks so nobody could see his purple-ish tongue, blue lips, and slightly sharper teeth, and apply some black nail polish to his slightly-too-pointy light blue fingernails. There were other parts of frostling bodies that were light blue, but those were all covered by Etho's clothes. The icy spikes on Etho's back were also sufficiently hidden by his clothing, as long as he kept his puffy vest on. 

The paleness of his skin would be a problem, but hopefully he could pass that off as genetics and not enough starlight (or sunlight, as humans called it, which was kind of dumb because the things they called suns were actually stars). 

With his disguise now intact, Etho starts to rummage around for food. He'll need to find a way to sustain himself if he plans to be here for a while. Since there's randomly face masks in here, Etho figures there's food as well. 

As he reaches for a box on the top of one of the shelves, Etho accidently bumps another box. Before he's able to catch it, it lands on the ground and makes a terribly loud noise. There are footsteps outside and Etho squeezes himself back into his corner just as the door opens. 

There is no way that Etho won't be spotted here. 

Etho watches the box from his hiding place. It's so close to him that it's almost taunting him. Breathing feels a little more difficult now. He has nowhere to go and there's barely a chance of this person not seeing him. He's going to get thrown off the ship and into space, where he'll float around until he runs out of oxygen. 

The human finds the box and places it back up on top of the shelf.  Etho's starting to think there's a chance of the human not seeing him until he looks right over at him. They stare at each other for a few seconds and Etho can't help but think this human is handsome. He has kind blue eyes and the prettiest smile. 

"Uhm . . . who are you?" the handsome human asks, ending the silent staring. 

Oh, right, Etho is an alien stowing away on a human spaceship that's probably illegally trading with aliens and he's just been caught.

He's so dead. 

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Author's Note

Word Count: 1,281

Song Credit: Humpty Dumpty - AJR

GUYS GUYS GUYS ITS THE BEGINNING OF SPACE AU FINALLY LETS GOOOOO

I'm so happy :D

Fun fact: the two mysterious beings who had to clean up the boxes were Tango and Impulse (Tango spoke first). 

I'm going to try to keep the A/Ns short in this (partly to keep this kind-of-aesthetic and partly because I don't want to spoil much of my current project :]), so have a great day!

-Blu