Talk:Space Princesses

Aurora Alloces Kushimitama Ovsol-Klystron

I wear this expression more often than not these days, it seems.

About my name

Aurora Citrine Alloces Ovsol-Klystron

What does this tell you about myself? Like all nobility - yes, I can be addressed as Nari but I am also Captain - my name is multipart and meaningful.

Aurora is my given name. That which shines brightly.

Citrine is a reference to the golden-yellow eyes I had even as a newborn.

Alloces is derived from the family of my father, an intellectual from beyond the Great Wall.

Ovsol is my noble prefix, and it is noble indeed. I hardly need to clarify that every title granted during a reign of an Emperor shares the same prefix and every Emperor's prefix is unique. But I can see you don't recognize mine. Is it one of those unusual ones that break this rule, such as those given to the survivors of the Siege of Bataria? Say it out loud. 'Ovsol'. 'Of Sol'. Sol, the star around which humans originated and all but abandoned in the Exodus. Comprehension dawns, I'm sure.

And finally Klystron is my surname. Would you recognize any Klystrons, you ask? Doubtful, unless you go into the history books and find the Galtz-Sonika Affair. We have been one of the House Obscura for a long, long time.

My Story

When I was 11, my parents vanished. The ship they were one dissapeared mid-jump with everyone onboard. An event rare enough to make some minor headlines, but not so rare as to be unheard of. At a stroke I was alone, the last Ovsol-Klystron. I had relatives, an aunt and grandparents, but they were on my father's side - beyond the Great Wall. I was instead sent to school in Luxor, capital of a hundred worlds as an Emperor's Ward where I stayed for the next five years. I have little to say about that time; I made few contacts and fewer friends. I will grant that it was an education, if nothing else. By age 16 it was clear that without a House or a patron I was faced with four choices; join the Fleet as an ensign and hope to one day claw my way up to some small rank, be a petty bureaucrat for a position that needed a title but little else, join the debutante scene and hope to snag someone with rank or money or join the clergy.

I chose none of these.

The Klystrons had some wealth stashed away; savings and survivor's pension. That, plus my small stipend I recieved as a Ward was enough for the down payment on a (frankly usurious) mortagage; by age 17 I was the owner and sole proprietor of a cargo ship older than myself, the Rampant Phoenix. Hardly uncommon - many ships are owned by individuals, even if many more are owned by Houses or large commercian firms - but mine was a rare case indeed. As a noble, I could rightfully call myself not just Shipmaster, but Captain. A minor distinction, but an important one in a very specific way - as Captain I could bid on various shipment contracts for the Fleet, even ones to the front lines. These were, of course, the most profitable and I was up to my eyeballs in debt. All was well for five years, just me and as few crew as I could manage moving all manner of military supplies from reaction gasses to flowtanks to livestock to garrison troops (I paid out of pocket to have my ship cleaned after transporting livestock. I paid out of pocket to have my ship cleaned twice after transporting garritroops - never again!).

It was on the eve of the 108th Gran Plemora, that greatest of all celebrations - save only coronations themselves - that marks the once-a-decade creation of another wormhole seed by the Star Forge when my life changed forever. I was transporting a shipment of interface fighters to Ultima Thule, passenger cabins taken up by Monsignor Santagio - an unusual priest who made regular trips through the sector and had found my unflinching atheism a challenge - and the sisters Lasalle - the two Fleet officers in charge of the interface fighters and who were a study in contrasts and sibling rivalries - when the message came through. Princess Zarya had been on an inspection tour and was returning to the capital for the Gran Plemora when reavers stuck her ship. We were onboard the only ship less than a day's travel away.

The rest is, as they say, history.

I had never expected to actually go to the Gran Plemora, but there I was. My beat up transport limping into a parking orbit, portside cargo shell still torn open from where I'd rammed the reaver across its engine deck, surrounded by gleaming, gold-skinned ships of the Guard - a Crown Yacht, the princess having paid me honor for her rescue.

What comes next is legend.