Auren Caeruleus, alone and deposed, wandered the outskirts penniless.
He once stood at the pinnacle of glory, showered in praise and beloved by the entire galaxy as the sole male zerg prince.
At that point, he thought that nothing would ever dare to hurt him.
On his first day, he thought that nobody would dare to touch him.
On his second day, he learned what it felt like to be completely powerless.
Staring into the endless sky, the only thing that met his gaze was an endless expanse of light brown dust.
An unfamiliar sky.
He was accustomed to the bright blue skies filled with fluffy white clouds from his homeland. A land where the ground was carpeted with bright green all year round, with brilliantly colored flowers scattered about. Massive skyscrapers in the horizon, away from his palace, and thousands hover cars in the distance.
Even at night, the skies looked vastly different.
His eyes were no longer bright like those of a naive prince.
Five days ago, he arrived on the third tier star. As the boundary between the zerg empire and enemy territory, it was only known as the "Border Star". There was no need to name such an insignificant a star full of criminals and useless people.
He was dropped off at the old port by the military officers that were once his personal guards. The once gentle zergs roughly shoved him out into the vast expanse of nothingness and left without a word.
Dust swirled up with every step he took.
For the first few days, he coughed constantly, his lungs unaccustomed to the polluted air.
Auren raised his hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun. The sky was just as brown as the ground. In the destitute city, starving and poor female zergs laid on the ground outside. Some may have been dead. He couldn't tell if not for the thick rotting stench that permeated the air.
The roads were not paved and the buildings were clustered together in a main square. It was a very small and poor town. He wandered the outskirts where he was dropped off, not wanting to enter the main area for fear of the crowds that may not be friendly towards him.
Still not accepting that he had been exiled, he was completely aimless.
He hid his face under a thick cloak. Only a few tufts of pale white hair and his sapphire eyes peaked out.
He gritted his teeth. He learned first hand on his second night outside why he hadn't seen any male zergs out in the open.
Auren did not know where he was going. Nor did he know anything about this planet. He just kept walking in a daze until he collapsed, then he would get up and continue in a stagger, occasionally feeling the burn of the fresh brand between his shoulder blades.
Whenever he had a quiet moment, he looked up at the sky, at the distant planets beyond the stars, and he wished his female father could come save him.
But, he knew it wasn’t possible and he’d never see him again.
The darkness of night fell upon the world. The zergs on the street huddled together for a tiny bit of warmth in the freezing desert night, but Auren did not dare to join them.
He curled up under a pile of rotting wood that he found a discovered a few nights prior and shivered himself to sleep. Small larvae and ants crawled over his body, but he didn’t dare think too hard about it.
He was awoken by the beating sun.
Auren quickly shook the bugs off his cloak and got up. Feeling the slimy touch of the larvae on his exposed skin, he wanted to cry, but held back the tears.
This was a world that would eat the weak and spit out bones.
He could no longer afford the weakness tears would bring.
The Border Star was not a place for the weak. The environment was a mix of two brutal extremes, leaving the weaker residents dead within a day if not careful.
From sunrise til sunset, the beating sun heated the sandy dirt until the air looked like it was swirling in the heat. The high temperatures made many zergs die from dehydration, then dried their rotting corpses, leaving the streets almost uninhabitable.
From sunset til sunrise, the land was pitch black except for the stars and artificial lights, far apart among the poor houses. The temperature dropped quickly, chasing every bit of warmth far away. If not for drought, it could snow every night.
If there was one good thing about the night, it would be that the corpses would freeze enough to stop releasing the strong smell into the air.
Even the zergs that resided on the Border Star were rougher and more extreme than the ones he was familiar with.
They fought on the streets without hesitation, killing each other as if it was a completely regular occurrence. Lives were worth as much as the dirt on the ground.
Auren tried his best to avoid these fights, sticking to the areas that were less busy.
Days had already passed since he first landed on this planet.
At first, Auren was on the verge of vomiting constantly, but at this point, he could at least look away from the black and purple faces lying on the ground. If he didn’t see the faces covered in maggots and flies, he could avoid it a little bit.
Every day was like a never ending nightmare.
But, he wanted to survive.
Even if he could never go back home, he wanted to live well.
Pausing his walk through the streets, Auren turned into an abandoned alley to think about his future.
He sat on a random wooden box after lightly brushing off the dirt and thought about what he should do.
Male zerg education doesn’t teach anything that would be useful on this planet.
He knew calligraphy, painting, how to play almost every instrument. He could even be considered a master at those subjects.
Males weren’t responsible for any strenuous activities, whether it be physical or mental. His place as crown prince was just a way to make sure that the family line remained with the male zergs. Any real power would be given to the zerg queen, whichever female zerg he was made to marry. He himself was only responsible for playing at home, being spoiled, and making larvae with the future queen.
On this destitute planet, even the store signs were just simple pictures, an indication that the common zergs were illiterate.
Calligraphy was useless if the zergs couldn’t even understand normal characters, and painting…well, the signs were all already made and they didn’t look like they could afford renovations. As for music, he didn’t have any instruments, so that was off the table.
Sigh.
He thought, maybe he could find a job somewhere. But, with his experience of the past few days, he wasn’t sure what kind of idiot would hire a useless person like him.
He had showed up at many businesses.
They asked him for his skills, but the doors were slammed in his face when he answered them. They asked simple questions, but a pampered prince would have never been able to answer. Even if he could, he was sure that anyone else would have had more experience than him.
He didn’t want to remember all of the insults and curses hurled at him.
Not wanting to give up, he continued the fruitless search.
There was not much else he could do anyway. He didn’t know how to steal, nor did he want to, and he definitely couldn’t live independent of civilization.
He could only hope that he wouldn’t die on the streets or taken in by unsavory zergs with other plans for him…
