Stellar

Chapter One

My eyes opened slowly. Specs of white and yellow dances above my eyelids. My head was throbbing. There were black figures looming over me.

It's probably the crew, I rationally deducted. God, what happened?

I heaved forward on my elbows, coughing, finally breathing air into my lungs.

Did they take my spacesuit off? The station floor feels really dirty.

A roar of gasps and murmurs surrounded me, but I couldn't understand what my crew was saying. It was foreign, almost like another language, but it was probably just my imagination.

As I sat there, my vision started to restore itself. I looked up to the detail-lacking figures, expecting to see my crew fussing over me, and regretted it instantly.

What the hell are these things!

There were hundreds of things...aliens surrounding me. They had two arms and two legs. Some had tails. Some had horns.

They had two eyes, a mouth, and a nose. Thin mouths. Narrow noses. Their ears were small and pointed. Almost all had two small horns on their collar bones. There were different skin colors; blue, black, and purple, ranging in shade and intensity.

They were dressed in what looked like leather.

They surrounded me. They were whispering.

I stared in fear. My breath caught in my throat. My heart was beating faster than a bird's wings, but the bird was trapped in a cage, and my heart wasn't strong enough to break the confines. I lifted myself up, staring wildly at the creatures before me.

I'm having a heart attack.

"Please," I choked out, stuttering on everything I said in desperation. "P-plea-se don't ki-ill me."

They stopped speaking. Everything stopped: noise, time, and my rationale.

To my left, the crowd began to split, creating a long path.

Maybe they understood. Maybe they're letting me leave.

My guess was shot down immediately as what appeared to be guards trudged down that open path carrying staffs. They looked just like the others, except their armor. Their armor had a rounded helm with a pointed, t-shaped opening, leaving the eyes and mouth exposed and a pointed nose guard to protect the nose. Attached to the top is a long, curved metal blade which curved forward and ends in a sharp point. The shoulders are pointy, very wide and huge. They're decorated with metal chains, hanging from the edges of their shoulders. Their upper arms are protected by chainmail rerebraces that sit under the shoulderplates. The lower arms are covered by vambraces which have layers of rounded leather on the outer sides. The breastplate is of layers of leather, mimicking the scales of a dragon. It covers everything from the neck down and ending at the groin, if these things even have groins.

The upper legs are covered by a skirt of diagonal layers of leather and fur reaching down to the assumed knee area. The lower legs are protected by leather boots which have layers of rounded leather and fur on the outer sides.

The guards circled around me, blocking the crowd and making yet another open circle, only to reveal, what I assumed to be, their queen or ruler, or whatever. She was tall, from what I can tell, and her skin was a shade of purple; not as dark as violet, but not as light as lilac. Her hair, or fur, was blacker than oil.

She wore a silver dress that only covered a small portion of her shoulders, showing off the horns on her collar bone. It looked like a tight fit, accentuating her breasts.