Ethereal ☆ STARRISON

chapter one;

RINGO Starr used to be fond of Earth.

His mother even gave him an earthly name calling him variants of it - Richard, Ritchie, Ringo - as she tucked starshooters in his hair and wrapped her arms around him. Ringo experienced the Earth through pictures, his droopy blue eyes sparkling with curiosity and awe whenever he saw nature spring surprisingly. He learned how humans apparently came from apes, and cried as a child when he read that dinosaurs died from a crummy comet that just happened to pass by.

Elsie liked Earth as well, told the precious prince stories from different cultures and even bought him a globe.

Their planet seemed to be monotonous, while Mother Earth seemed to burst out life every second. But now Ringo thinks it's hurt, and dull, like what the humans call chewing gum when they spit it out. He wishes that humans could see the effects of their actions, but like all sentient life forms they have quite the stubborn mindset.

(The most stubborn mindset amongst the stars, really.)

When the prince turned eighteen, he was deemed responsible enough by his step-father for formal occasions. Ringo was sent as a messenger from the King of Einaem Eulb, with his prime directive being the one to tell the leaders what his step-father's negotiations were. But everything went to hell, and the ship was going down as if it was being constantly, forcefully put out of the air. Ringo watched one of his friends -

"Ara!"

- fly out like a ragdoll before being placed in one of the escape pods, too late to catch her hands.

Now all he could remember after were brown eyes and warmth. Brown eyes that were nearly as dark as a starless sky but still held the light of the sun and the glow of a thousand constellations. Ringo just hopes he sees them again, before giving out and letting exhaustion take him.

✨

His majesty wakes up to gray walls and his body ached all over. He let out a whimper, not used to experiencing the pain that covered nearly three-fourths of his body. Ringo tries his best to pull the thin sheets to his chin and shuts his eyes tight. In the panicked, garbled explosion that was his mind, he wishes his mother was here and he wishes he wasn't on Earth.

He feels suffocated, the gravity pulling him was harsher than he expected. Before he could cry, the door opens, and Ringo sees the warm brown eyes filled with kindness, like what the alien prince used to think Earth was like before it started fading.

"Well?" Someone else whispered from the other side of the room. "Are they alive?"

"Yeah," Brown Eyes say, opening the door slow and nervous. "Are you okay?"

His soft, accented voice made Ringo's heart speed up. So that's what humans sound like. Chipped, interestingly flawed.

Ringo chews the inside of his cheek, tries remembering basic Englisc, finding it quite ironic that Mandarim wasn't the official language since Tsina was the most populated country.

"No," He said simply, gulping when the human boy flinched. Even if Ringo was beaten black and blue, he hated making others worry. Blame his biological father.

"Yeah, that - that was a really stupid thing to ask." The boy rambled, if he was a half-note quicker Ringo wouldn't be able to catch up. "Do you remember anything?"

"Pain, and..." Ringo chewed his lip. "Explosions, one of my friends..." Flying out of the window, he wanted to say, but the mere memory of it made his throat close up.

"I'm sorry, but... We don't know what to do and, fuck, we can't reach out because they might know-"

"They?"

"Yeah," He fidgeted with his uniform jacket. "The world isn't really nice to aliens. I- It's best to keep you hidden for a while until we get you a safe route home."

Ringo came to the conclusion that everything was an accident, one of those horrible ones which humans undoubtedly famous for. But what mattered most was that he looked apologetic, and his majesty couldn't get mad even if he wanted to.

"What's your name?" Ringo asked, burrowing back into the stiff bed.

"George."

King George III, George Washington, George Bush, Saint George; several bits of Earth history skipped across Ringo's mind. Γεώργιος, Geōrgios, earthworker.

"They call me Ringo back home. Richard seems too stiff." I'm not much of a prince here, for that matter, he wanted to add.

Before George could open his mouth, an alarm sounded off far left. Dread seizes his features, and he mumbles a quick "excuse me" before hurrying off.