Astra & Astronaut

Braids and a pompadour

Fluff chapter

The rueful orphan sits at the corner of the room, her ochre hair looks like a chopped mess, her clothes have wet ink on them, and her doll's head is non-existent on the body. The orphan cried and cried to fit her pathetic image. Everyone detests her, even if she tries to do herself justice, it only makes her more undesirable, to the potential parents and the people around her.

So long has passed, and the orphan stayed an orphan. Her head was down on her desk, a feeling of fatigue, emptiness, and seething hatred for everything around her.

Even though the orphan vows to never go back to that orphanage again, everything is still the same.

She remained undesirable and gullible as she had always been.

Maria stepped out of the airlock and took off her helmet, going out to space always brings out a little fear in you no matter how many times you do it. A few days passed since she had heard the name Reece, a name she was now actively trying to forget.

Maria spotted Astra looking out at the void again after opening the airlock for her. "We should let you go out next," Maria joked.

Astra panicked for a moment and shook her head

Oliver the doctor walked over with his usual clip pad and pen "I'm taking over Violet's duties for the time being, so is the maintenance check complete?"

Astra gave a thumbs-up while Maria nodded

"All right then..." murmured Oliver as he walked away while scribbling on his clip pad

Maria started counting on her fingers, mentally checking off all the duties she had and hadn't done. Astra noticed she did this a lot and her hand was always shaking with distress even though her confident and charismatic semblance told an entirely different story.

"Hmm...exterior check, cleaning-!" Maria stopped her repeated mumbling as if she had just recalled a recent memory.

Maria hurriedly stepped in front of Astra; she was a little startled but decided that she could hear whatever Maria was about to say "Can you help me fix the control room? It's just a few screws loose and wires unorganised, it might fry itself if we don't fix it"

Luckily, Astra didn't have any objections to that. She was rather happy Maria suggested that.

Maria was used to Astra's facial expressions so she pulled her hand the moment her features softened and her eyes sparkled "Great! No time to waste let's go"

Astra yelled as Maria pulled her along with lightning speed "Woah! Wait up!"

Maria pretended she didn't hear that, deep down she knew Astra was enjoying every bit of time she spent on her spaceship from exploring the ship to mixing medicine just to know what it would taste like.

After a whole lot of dragging, the two reached the control room. Astra moved a hand across the sleek metal, she was more engrossed in observing her surroundings again than the reason why she came here. Meanwhile, Maria prepped a heavyset toolbox and inside nestled a plethora of tools.

Maria picked up the screwdriver and so did Astra, soon they both began to unscrew the plates beneath the control box. Once they did inside was a bird's nest of wires, an unknown domain to Astra.

Astra handed the tools while Maria delicately worked on fixing the wires. A while passed, but it felt like hours for Astra until Maria was done. Everything was flawlessly fixed Like what you would expect from a perfectionist.

Maria swiftly closed the metal plate back on while staring at Astra, Maria had to admit that she was a unique beauty with a unique personality, the type of personality that seemed to fit like a defective jigsaw puzzle. Her figure in the star's light looked like a phenomenal painter's work whose art style focused on softer lines. Now that she thought about it there was always one thing she wanted to try.

"Astra, can I have a go at braiding your hair?"

"Braiding...hair...?" said Astra with a perplexed look plastered on her face, she thought for a while and nodded at her conclusion. Astra turned the other way around so Maria could start braiding her hair.

Maria smiled to herself through braiding Astra's hair, her slivery-blond locks reached down to her hip, almost representing the stars if they were weaved into thin strands, like time itself. Maria happily worked on Astra's loose braids, the end product turned out well and better than Astra expected.

"Thank you!" praised Astra then she gestured to Maria's hair "Can I?"

Maria took off the rubber band that was sustaining her loose bun to let Astra start tying her hair.

Astra flashed a cheeky smile; she was going to go above and beyond on Maria's hairstyle. She borrowed some bobby pins from Violet to stick them into Maria's amber hair accordingly. That strand overlaps this one and that should be pinned up...

Astra stuck more pins here and there until she ran out of pins "I'm done!"

Maria eagerly scrambled to see her reflection on the spaceship's panoramic windows "Let me take a look!!"

Maria chuckled to what she was, she almost burst out laughing behind her trembling smile. Her hair was a bird's nest of bobby pins big, small, long, short, thick and thin. Stray hair was flying everywhere like a gravity-defying rollercoaster but the hairstyle itself was an entangled thick mass of hair, piled high and pulled back.

Astra decided to ask for feedback with passion in her void eyes "Do you like your pompadour?"

"Mhm, very much" answered Maria, still with her laugher caged behind her lips

"I know you're trying not to laugh. Don't laugh."

"I won't! I'll wear it for the entire day to prove it" remarked Maria with every ounce of truth she could have.

Astra looked pleased when Maria said that, she knew well enough that Maria Katz was a woman of her word.

Maria went around with her duties with the hairstyle Astra did for her, she got confused glances and everyone told her to fix her hair, or just to ask what is up with her hair. But Maria refused to fix her hair nor answer any of their questions for the rest of the day.