Difference between revisions of "Starwing"

Life On Malva

A race of decadents and hedonists, Malvans rarely if ever leave the comforts of their homes, having everything from entertainment to knowledge at their fingertips, planet wide teleportation systems having eliminated the need for much activity, gladiatorial games being held daily in every city, slaves and machines removing the need for malvans to do any manual labour, automated systems controlling everything from the weather to the infrastructure, and advanced terraforming technology sculpting the planet into an artificial paradise.

Few malvans ever show any interesting in knowledge, culture, or anything other than their own self pleasing desires -Corina Xotol was one such exception. Born in what humans would call 1578 C.E., Corina was conceived from the genes of two married malvans known as Ariesta and Farol Xotol. Like all malvans she was raised by nannybots, sophisticated child rearing machines that have been employed for by the ancient people for aeons, few malvans actively involving themselves in the lives of their offspring. As a child Corina was a brilliant young girl with an inquisitive mind, unlike most malvan children she was interested in discovering facts and information, and as she grew older she became obsessed with one day visiting the wonders of her world.

And so she did, from the great Poetry Forest to the Sapphire Caves of Kumaria she traveled to every corner of Malva, basking in the beauty of its artificial wonder. Alas, as great as the sights of Malva are, even they are not infinite, and as time went on, Corina had fewer and fewer wonders left to see, she had traveled the entire surface of the planet and experienced everything it had to offer -it was time for her to leave and experience what the rest of the Galaxy had to offer.

Early Travels

Using a malvan ship designed for civilian use, Corina set out to explore the rest of the galaxy. She traveled counter-spinwards, away from Malva and towards the the worlds of the Velarian Confederation. At first they were suspicious of her but eventually she was accepted as a traveler and treated as a tourist. Here she lingered for a few decades, exploring the cultures of the few member races and partaking in their customs before continuing on her way.

Her next escapade was in the territory of the Varanyi Empire, her time spent here was not as pleasant as her time amongst the Velarians however. She wasn't very welcomed by the Varanyi and so she only spent enough time there to learn what she can of their publicly available information and then left, heading into Se'ecra space.

Unlike the Varanyi, he Se'ecra were very welcoming to her, she spent well over a century living amongst the beetle-folk and their allies the Se-lag -a beaver or otter like race of mammalians. During her stay here she developed a liking of the Se'ecra's passion for education and advancement, adopting some of their philosophy along the way whilst also picking up on the Se-lag's sense of humor on the side.

Rebirth Through Fire

Corina's adventures however came to a halt when she received news that her mother had died in a freak accident involving arena beasts escaping their pens. Even though she was already an adult by the time she first met the woman, Corina decided that she could at least pay her respects to the distant parent of hers. Deciding to take a quick hiatus from her exploration of alien cultures in order to do so, she set a course back to Malva.

Her returned home was however delayed when her ship was ambushed by a flock of insurgent roin'esh ships, the ships masquerading as a merchant envoy until it was too late for Corina to realize the deception. With a swift and coordinated attack they disabled her ship's communications, propulsion, and weapons, readying to deal the final blow and rid the galaxy of another 'loathsome slaver'.

Corina tried to get the ship's AI to do something, anything, but it was to no avail, she was a sitting duck now. A sudden, sharp, stinging pain in her back followed as the ship exploded, the roin'esh weapon detonating the infrashunt engine's core, thus exploding the ship into a great ball of 'fire'.

What followed stunned the pilots of the roin'esh ships, where once was a malvan ship now floated a bright, gold-orange female figure bathe in fire. Before any of them could react the being soared towards the nearest ship and cut into its hull, starting to massacre the crew once it breached the hull. Seeing this the other ships started turning to run away, but only a pair of them managed to escape the onslaught as the being tore through ship after ship, disabling them one by one.

Pain -excruciating, unbearable pain- was what wrecked through Corina's body as she felt herself burning alive, her entire past rushed through her mind as her subconcious searched for a way to save herself, however futile that may have been. In the flashbacks she saw herself as a young girl, reading about the myths of the malvan people, she saw herself as a young woman, diving off the coasts of Kumaria, she saw herself as an adult living amongst the velarians and the se'ecra, but nothing she saw could help her now... But maybe it didn't need to.

Corina was certain she was about to die as soon as the pain hit her body, but a mere nanosecond later she felt the pain go away as her body became weightless. Opening her eyes she found herself naked in the void of space, gold-orange flames still covering her body -yet she felt no pain. It did not take her long to assess her situation -she was on fire and yet alive, in a void. She immediately remembered tales of warriors in Malva's ancient past, beings clad in gold that could soar through the void that existed to hunt down and kill the vile Elder Worms which controlled half the galaxy in those times.

She also remembered tales of a specific kind of such Golden Hunters, the Firewings, sometimes called Starwings, malvans that walked through the Great Flame in the Temple Of The First Ones and survived, their sins burned away as they were reshaped into beings of great power. She knew there was no way she had suddenly turned into a Firewing, that'd have been silly, but she hoped that maybe what happened to her was close enough, that maybe if she willed it she would be able to move through the void.

She may have been a bit too zealous however, as when she exerted herself to move forwards she suddenly shot forth at an incredible speed, slamming into the roin'esh ship that was in her path. Quickly collecting herself she immediately found herself under attack by the roin'esh inside and with another simple exertion of will she found that she could redirect the flames around her when she threw a ball of them at one of the attackers. And so she did the only thing she could, she began fighting the roin'esh attempting to kill her, disabling the ship's engines before moving on to the next, managing to halt six of them as the last two escaped. With the six ships now adrift with whatever was left of their crews, Corina managed to activate the computer of one and activated a distress signal, a se'ecra ship coming to her aid within the day.

Sadly this meant couldn't reach her mother's funeral in time, the destruction of her ship having severely impaired her ability to traverse the galaxy with haste as se'ecra ships would've taken months to reach Malva. Thankfully at the time she had enough influence with the se'ecra to receive a ship from them as a gift, meant to aid her in getting back on her way. And thus, resigning herself from the idea of returning to Malva any time soon, she set back out on her counter-spinwards trail.