Dust

The deep blue grass caressed her feet as she staggered past the fresh jewel tipped mountains and velvety star tipped flowers. Her long silver hair, done up in an elegant braid, fell lifelessly to her side limply, devoid of its once lovely shine.

In the distance she caught a glimpse of glittering glass spires and could hear the silver tune of the palace birds singing in harmony as the roar on the battleships ebbed away until there was only silence.

Throwing down her sword, she fell to her knees, and grasped the earth of her home world in her long elegant hands. The earth welcomed her as it’s own and she closed her sea blue eyes, letting the sound of the grass in the wind lull her into sleep.

In her sleep Allura dreamed. In her dreams she felt the parched rigid earth, of the dying world under her feet and the roar of the engine as her father lead her people away in a giant spaceship into the stars. She remembered her father. His deep blue eyes, his dark ashy skin, his long milky white hair that shone like the stars themselves, and how she would bury herself in his long warm arms. She could hear his voice, clear, and powerful that rumbled like the roar of a lion.

“See that sky.” She could hear him say as they cruised along the cosmos in their tiny spaceship in search of a new world.

“Yes.”

“And the stars.”

“Yes, those too.”

“What do they look like to you?” He asked, his eyes peering into her own.

“Like the dust from the world we used to live on, scattered along the dark nothingness that is space.”

He smiled and sat her on his lap. “When we die, we become dust, just like those stars. We will travel the cosmos, overlooking the beginnings of each new world and see them die. To us death is not indefinite. Someday we may be reborn as a star and overlook our ancestors as they grow and eventually die too.”

Being only a hatchling, Allura didn’t understand what he meant, but the words were now ringing in her ears. The word dust.

The sound of metal against metal and the roar of battleships, as they tore through the grass fields grew louder. She felt her sword cut through the neck of the enemy leader as if it was butter. The liquid red contrasted against the deep blue landscape and glassy mountains as is seeped into the ground of her home world, tainting it.

It was all for the beautiful and dangerous element found on their second home world, called dust. Like the stars it shone, and could power a fleet of ships if one had enough of it, but that was not important anymore. The war was won, but at a steep cost.

It was there in the tall blue bowing grass on the battlefield that Allura lay, sleeping in eternal rest, her last thoughts turned to the stars and her father’s words.