"So, the crash that shook the northern region earlier, was you?" Tempest chortled.

She'd begun to warm up to us a bit more once we'd redirected the questions away from her and her planet and focused more on ourselves. She'd found it hilarious how I'd managed to have been outsmarted by Astra who was pretty smug about it too.

Her sobbing in my arms and begging me to pull her up clearly absent from her memory.

When we'd arrived at her current settlement Tempest offered to clean up our injuries, she asked it to both of us, but her eyes were focused on me. Or rather the cut in my eyebrow she'd reopened when she was checking the shade of my blood.

She apologized for being a bit dramatic too and insisted if she was truly trying to kill us Deimos would've just done so.

Very comforting words.

I flinched away from her hands as she dabbed too hard over my eye, You can thank Astra over there for that one," I shot her a glare "Can't drive for shit."

She pointed the bottle of liquid that Tempest had given her at me "You try drive a ship after someone has put their fist through it," She scoffed, opening the lid "Whining over a little scratch over your eyebrow," She mocked before raising up her sling "Some of us, broke bones!"

"Her first one too," I cooed, rubbing fake tears out of my eyes.

Tempest giggled putting a plaster over eyebrow "Crash? I haven't had one of those either."

I shook my head "Not ship crash silly, broken bone. Today is the first time she's ever broken a bone!" I chuckled, "Very sentimental moment."

"No!" Tempest's face dropped in disbelief, and she turned her golden eyes to Astra who was still pouting, "No way!"

Astra turned the cap of the bottle, opening it "It's not my fault you people snap like sticks," She rolled her eyes before taking a large gulp and sighing afterwards "Besides, I have an invulnerability ability."

Tempest wrung out the cloth she was using to clean us up in a dish "Or maybe no one's ever hit you hard enough," She snickered, lifting the dish to go discard the blue stained contents. I felt like telling her that my blood was never washing out of that cloth, and it was almost like a dye but refrained as she would be finding that out soon anyway.

She'd barely walked a few miles in her suit before she zipped it down hallway and let it hang over her hips. I wanted to comment on its inconvenience considering the climate, but didn't, as something told me if she wanted to, she wouldn't be wearing it at all. Unfortunately for her legs she left the suite hanging there and gave her upper body a chance to breathe as she was now adorned in what looked like many torn cloths that she'd tied together to wrap tightly against her torso.

The shades of brown went from underarm to upper waist and even crisscrossed over her shoulders, covering most of her back but setting her shoulders free. Her tan flesh was marked by small black dots all over her arms, marks I originally assumed were freckles of some sort but only when she was near me did, I realize all of them were slightly raised and puckered.

They were scars.

And not just any type of scars caused by a weapon, no these were the evidence that something had been pulled out of her skin.

Or rather, plucked.

"That's what I said!" I shrieked in laughter.

Astra shook our connected wrist "You just wait till these are off, without it I'm like pure stone," She blew her white spiral curls out of her face "Nothing gets past it."

I smiled "We'll see." Noticing Tempest wasn't back yet I called out "Hey Tempest!"

She popped her head back into the opening of the tent and smiled, the first time she'd done so since we'd met her "Give me a second, your bloods just a little thicker than I expected."

I waved her off "No take your time, I was just wondering- stars don't judge me for this I failed my out of galaxy studies- But I just can't recall if your Alienex type was an under planet dwelling species."

She blinked at me and opened her mouth to respond when Astra beat her to it. "Under planet?" Her pale brows scrunched up together in confusion.

I nodded "Yeah like you know how most creatures live on the surface of their planets? For some they find it better to live underneath, you know, like closer to their core. I heard about it for planets in Solar Systems that are too close to their star and how they literally hollowed out their planet to be able to live inside it like a shell," I leaned back into Tempests plush cushions that were scattered on the ground "It's actually pretty cool if you think about it-

"No, my people aren't under-whatever we just..." Tempest frowned, stepping back as if I'd hit her "Where would you even get the idea from?"

I blinked "Um...we're the only ones up here."

We'd walked for hours and had arrived hours after their star had set on our side of the planet. Surprisingly the darkness brought comfort to Astra whose shoulders seemed to relax more as the light disappeared. It was then that I noticed the slight glow she gave off, whether intentional or not there was a silver undertone to her flesh that made her sort of shiny.

If Tempest also thought it was strange she didn't comment on it, leading us through the sand as if it were muscle memory even when I couldn't see two steps in front of me. It seemed to be normal to her- being alone.

It only made me feel uneasy. The planet wasn't just empty of people but empty of structures too. Surely if people had lived here once there would at least be proof that they were here? But even as we walked around dead volcanoes and over hills all that greeted me on the other side of them was miles and miles of more empty sand.

Sometimes I would sometimes think I'd had seen the remnants of some sort of civilization, but I'd blink and the wind would've carried it away like it was never there to begin with.

"Unless you moved here from the planet you originate from!" I suggested, after a few minutes of silence and her staring at me in almost disbelief. "You seem so comfortable being by yourself, are you here by choice? I get it, I've always thought I was more of a social person but after being attached to this one for a couple hours I can confidently say I would rather be-

"-Alone, you want to know why I'm alone," She was looking at me as if I had either said something highly offensive or incredibly obvious. I glanced at Astra to see if knew what she was talking about, but her attention seemed to be focused on something outside. Tempest's eye twitched as she searched my eyes for more than the cluelessness, I'm sure they were filled with.

I flinched back in alarm as she laughed in my face, a dry, hollow and empty laugh that lasted an uncomfortable amount of time before she shook her head in disbelief "You actually have no- yes," She told me sarcastically switching into nodding her head "I'm alone on this planet by choice, I am never going to see my people ever again and I'd never have it any other way."

She stormed out after grabbing her helmet and I waited until I could no longer hear her footsteps before looking at Astra who still seemed uninterested. "What?" My sharp voice broke her out of her train of thought making her finally look at me "So you don't think any part of that was strange?"

She shrugged "She's friends with an overgrown worm Sol and has feathers all over her but doesn't fly, it'd be faster to name the normal things about her."

I put my hands up and got to my feet, my mind too exhausted to be even processing what just happened. My limbs ached with the weight of all the events that had happened to me over the last few hours, and I wanted no more than to fall asleep and wake in my warm prison cell and pretend like it was all a horrible dream.

"I'm taking myself to bed, you joining me or are you good with staring at the sand for the next couple of hours?"

Her dark blue eyes that looked almost black in the dark eyed the small cot in the corner, barely big enough to fit one person and shook her head "I'll take the sand."

I didn't try convincing her, grabbing more pillows for comfort and heading to sleep I desperately needed. I was halfway there when the handcuff yanked me back causing me to drop one of my gathered pillows, Astra on the other hand had been dragged along with me. She'd been toppled over to the side and looked too surprised to have even let out a noise of reaction.

Getting up she shot me a glare before stomping over to and violently picking up what I'd dropped before smacking me with it a couple of times "Happy?" She huffed, following me to the bed instead.

I tried to conceal my laugh as she sat at the end of the bed, her arms crossed cross her chest. "Well don't just stare at me!" She told me, gesturing to the bed "Be quick with it!"

I wasn't sure if she was referring to me sleeping faster or getting into bed faster but I also wasn't in the mood to get assaulted with another pillow, so I hurried to the sheets "Yes ma'am!" I saluted mockingly, snickering when she threw the pillow in her hand at me.

My smile only widened when I heard her mutter under her breath "I don't know why you were scared about Deimos eating you anyway, you're too big," She sniffed as she shifted so she wasn't sitting on my legs that poked out of the bed even as I bent my knees slightly "And you look chewy."

"I assure you I am delicious," I yawned, blowing a discarded feather from the abused pillow out of my face.

She scoffed "I'm sure you are."

"Glad you agree."

"Wait! I didn't mean it like-

I turned in the bed so that I was now facing the tent "I'm already asleep Astra."

"No, no wake up and listen," She shook me desperately, her nails curling into my arm as she tried to retract her statement "I don't think you're delicious! Wait not like that I just- how would I even know if you were delicious, I've never tasted you? Not that I don't want-" I drifted to sleep listening to her adorable rant, slightly disappointed that I didn't get to see the shiny blush I was sure was currently burning across her face as she rambled on.

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