Nebula (Andromache×fem!OC)

I

Nebula's name had been given to her by her ever-romanticising mother.

The woman believed in the beauty of all things. She made the best of being a foreigner abandoned by the father of her child in a country she did not know. She found the light in all she could while she was alive and thought it made sense to reach her hand into the stars and find a powerful word to call her child from among the very cosmos themselves.

And so, there she came. Nebula Sinclaire. The death of her mother in the wake of her very birth. She was orphaned and alone from the very moment she came into the world. Destined, she often thought, to die that way. What a relief, then, that life, fate and chance, deeply entwined as they are, had other plans.

Her mother had been wrong. Paris may be called the city of love but it had its flaws... Too many to count. Nebula did what she could. She grew some flowers in her apartment so she could look at them and remember she was alive. She took care of the neighbour's cat every time it came by, even when the old woman would chastise her for feeding the hungry little creature.

Yet, with all the insults that woman threw at the pretty cat, with the meals it had clearly not been given from its frail physique, it always left Nebula to her isolation and went back to its unkind owner regardless.

Perhaps we do get too used to what we are given. And suddenly, it becomes so hard to escape a place of pain when it's all that has ever seemed normal and familiar. Like a wise fictional character once said, we accept the love we think we deserve.

Her gaze slowly rose to the irritating fluorescent lights at her workplace, a pharmacy called Morfydd's. Their bright glare used to bother her a lot before but she was adjusting to them. Once in a while, they still stung her very being with their artificial glow, forcing her out of the store, yet even the sun was too bright. The entire world seemed to constantly sparkle and shine in a way she'd never understood the appeal of. Maybe that was part of why she still stuck to the all-black look after all this time.

Today, it was a sweater with a couple of holes in it which she preferred to think of as fashion, not rodent or insect bites and really comfy sweatpants of the same dark hue. Strangers had come in and made fun of her for the way she dressed a number of times, unprompted. Just because she liked to express herself in a way that wasn't similar to theirs. Judging her without knowing her like so many people do.

Her feet echoed almost soundlessly in the quiet of the store as she walked into the storage room to check on her make-up. She was an incurable insomniac, making the night shift perfect for her but it also meant she'd slip into a brief sleep by accident, from time to time. Her manager never caught her but it was beginning to be a problem. What if someone came by? What if something was stolen?

As she blankly appraised her face in the little mirror of her compact, she let her hands drift to her short, dark wavy hair, then her pointed nose with a piercing in it. It was a bit funny to her that she might look like a badass to some when she had anxiety issues and avoided being aggressive or angry, even when it would've helped set a boundary. With a soft huff, she cut her scrutiny short and closed the little device. Setting it aside, she moved deeper into the room, her mind flashing where it always did the moment she stepped inside.

That woman...

Short hair. Strong, pale green eyes with a soft dash of terror mixed into them. She seemed so lost. So in need of something that Nebula wasn't even sure she could give if she tried.

Nebula remembered so much of it, even now, about a year later. The way the woman had looked her in the eyes to say thank you. The pain seemed to surprise her, yet bother her so little. Not a tear shed. A quiet, sturdy, pretty, graceful being. Perhaps she was used to it. We all adjust to pain in different forms in different ways but there was something about this stranger who had come and gone so quickly...