Selenia had to admit that she had grown up rather sheltered in life. As a princess of the Selenar family, of the family that stood as a symbol of the Selenar Union, one of the major component nations of the Settlement Front Alliance, there was rarely a moment when she grew up that she didn’t have people shepherding her around, from one thing to the next. Whether it was in her private life or her public one, she always had people by her, whose job it was to guide her and help her.

  From a young age, she was taught she had a duty. Even as a small child, from her earliest memories, her tutors and teachers had taught her that as a princess, she had an important role to play. As the daughter of her father, one of the key figures of the Settlemet Front Alliance, of the Selenar Union, who had advocated for and helped to lead the Alliance’s rebellion against the Gaia Sphere Federation to seek their own independence among the stars, she served as an important link to him, especially considering that her father had mysteriously disappeared when she was a child.

  Growing up among the stars, back in the orbital and lunar colonies, she had never gone anywhere without her own personal detail, both for security and to attend to her needs. Everyone around her had treated her, seen her as nothing more than a dainty little flower to be shuttled around here and there, for the needs and wants of others, as a symbol of the Selenar family.

  Despite what she had been told, her role had been more ceremonial than actual. Because even as a princess, she never felt like an actual princess. Even when she had attended public events, ceremonies, and functions, she had felt like nothing more than a girl who played dress up. Being a princess was something that others simply called her. She was nothing like the princesses from the history of Gaia. Even the fictional princesses she read about in storybooks felt to her like they deserved the title princess more than her.

  She wasn’t an idiot.

  Selenia knew that others around her were merely using her for their own ends. Even as a young child, it had been obvious to her. Everyone around her was simply using her like a little flowery ornament for their own needs to obtain legitimacy, as she was a link to her father, one of the key leaders of the rebellion against the Gaia Sphere Federation. She still remembered innocently asking some of the tutors and teachers she had trusted, in a straightforward manner, questions about the political situation of the Gaia Sphere, of the Selenar Union, and the Settlement Front Alliance, and if she was simply going to be a puppet to be used by others. It still embarrassed her to this day, even if she had gotten the answers she wanted. And she was thankful and fortunate that the tutors and teachers she thought she could trust and sometimes confided in were sympathetic to her.

  And a puppet she had been.

  The Selenar family was an ancient one. It was said that her family could trace their lineage thousands of years back to Gaia’s ancient past as priests and priestesses of the Goddess of the Moon. Their family had played an important part in the history of Gaia as leaders and warriors. And it had been no different in the founding of the Gaia Sphere Federation, where their family had been one of the leading figures in founding it. In some legends of their family, it was said that their family had descended from the Moon Goddess herself. So it wasn’t all too surprising to her that she served as a figurehead to be used by others in their struggle for power, influence, and control of the orbital and lunar colonies.

  So, she pretended. Whether it was the Raban family, that family that had taken over the political apparatus of the Selenar Union in the wake of the End War and her father’s untimely disappearance, or any other faction of the Settlement Front Alliance, she pretended that nothing bothered her. She nodded her head. She gave smiles to others around her. She agreed to the things that they wanted. Pretended to be something she wasn’t because it was what others expected of her. To others, she gritted her teeth in a smile that masked the fear and anxiety behind it. So that others would simply see her as a harmless and useful idiot.

  Because she always worried that one day, everything would come apart, and she would become just like the rest of their family.

  Her father had mysteriously disappeared when she was young, in odd circumstances. Selenia surmised that he had been assassinated in the power struggles in the wake of the End War and the Astral Nova. And those few who had any inkling about what may have happened had been tight-lipped.

  Her older brother, who had joined the military, had died on the battlefield as a casualty of war in the still ongoing conflict with the Gaia Sphere Federation. Though she suspected that he had murdered, and it had been covered up. She knew her brother, and he was simply too skilled and intelligent to have died so easily. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had been betrayed, either killed outright or left for dead by his own comrades.

  And her mother…

  Her mother had died in a terrorist attack when she was a small child, not too soon after the death of her father. Both she and her mother had been on the orbital colony Lumina Seven at the time that a terrorist attack had happened on it. The entire colony had been destroyed. Half of it had simply been annihilated in a powerful explosion. And the other half had gone up in flames. If it weren’t for her mother protecting her, she would have died that day.

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  The official line was that the terrorist attack had been carried out by dissidents of the colonies backed by elements of the Gaia Sphere Federation. But even that, she wasn’t too sure if it was actually real or just a false flag operation to kill herself and her mother to leave her youngest sister all by herself.

  Selenia’s hands shook, trembling ever so slightly, and she held it still with her other hand to hold it. She shouldn’t have been too surprised that the latest attempts to kill her had happened. Whether it was the Settlement Front Alliance or the Gaia Sphere Federation, it seemed that everyone was trying to kill her for one reason or another.

  But what could she do?

  If she died, then her youngest sister would be all alone. She had hoped that by pleasing others around her, she could at least do something to protect herself and her youngest sister, even if it meant being nothing more than a puppet on strings dancing around to the tunes and will of others.

  All in the hope, the dream, that one day she and her sister would be free of the prison that trapped them. Because her dream was to be a hero, just like all the ones she read about in the history of Gaia. All of those heroes, so strong and free, who could fly and soar wherever they wanted. Unlike her, a bird trapped in a cage. That one day, she would be strong enough to free herself and her sister.

  And the hero she admired most was her mother. She had also been a key figure of the Settlement Front Alliance, just like her father. As someone who had fought in the End War on the frontlines, her mother always had the best advice. One of the things her mother had taught her growing up was that panicking during a tumultuous event was one of the worst things to do. And that if you were running around like a headless chicken, that was especially bad.

  So the moment that fighting had broken out in Alsium Two, the vast underground cavern that reminded her so much of the space colonies that had come from, she had gone to ground among the trees, bushes, and foliage of the forest she had been at the edge of, herself small and scarce, and sat down, safe and tight among the density of the environment around her.

  Selenia had also taken out the Circlet of Stars that her mother had given her when she was young and put it on herself. It was a crown of silver stars. And she felt comforted wearing it. Whenever she wore it, it felt like her mother was by her side. And her mother had made it herself.

  She wasn't left with much from her mother.

  It was…

  The only keepsake she had of her. It was special because it had been both technologically and archaeologically created, a highly advanced relic. It formed a barrier around her, a few inches from her skin, a personal shield that could protect her from kinetic and arcana energy. It also helped to prevent others from sensing and detecting her.

  Well, she also had her memories of her mother, like her sweet, comforting, and calming lullabies.

  La… La… La…

  La… La… La…

  La… La… La…

  So there she was. Sitting with knees held to her chest, her back against a tree, as quiet and still as she could be. Sometimes she held her breath as different groups and people moved around and past her. Their blows were smashing trees, cutting into them, and hacking them apart. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was safe where she was. The big tree she was hiding behind was big; its trunk was large enough to cover her a few times over. Though given the explosions and ground shaking around her, the tree trunk felt like a twig.

  As a matter of fact, she had seen people use twigs as makeshift knives.

  She knew about arcana, studied it, but it was another thing to see it in action. To see people reinforcing weak twigs strong enough to be makeshift daggers against one another as they parried each other, punched, kicked, and even bit each other. The fighting was savage. And even though she had plenty of arcana herself, she wasn’t proficient in combat. She never did do that well in the combat lessons she had been given growing up.

  More than that, everyone here looked so strong and deadly. A lot of people had awfully sharp teeth. Many with awfully sharp claws. Sharp wings. Sharp talons. Sharp everything. Even the regular humans she had seen were smashing boulders with their fists like it was an everyday thing.

  Selena wondered if she could burrow into the ground like some kind of mole, but then she had seen people rise out of the ground and ambush people from below the surface of the ground, and then she had given up that idea.

  No.

  The best thing to do was to stay where she was, sit still, and keep as low and as quiet a profile as possible.

  Selenia was sure that help was on its way as she sat there.

  So Selenia mentally sent a small prayer to the Moon Goddess that she had been taught when she was young. The same prayer that so many of her family had done over thousands of years, at one point or another, that some random people wouldn’t suddenly pop up and try to kill her.

  Then Selenia felt something, someone to her side. She slowly turned her head. Right by her head, a handful of inches away, was a small flying human at eye level. She was tiny. A person the size of her hand. She was wearing a dark red and black uniform and a peaked cap that was characteristic of the Despar Dominion’s military. She hovered there, glossamar wings on her back, a slight energy coming off of her.

  The tiny person had a glowering, angry expression on her face. And she was close. Far too close for comfort as she leaned her tiny head forward to stare right into her eyeball, hands on her hips.

  Selenia blanched white, recoiled, and yelped in fright.