She angled her thrusters, weak as they were, and let herself fall toward it. Not into it—never into it—but close enough to feel its light on her faceplate. Close enough to remember what warmth felt like.
She had been lost—truly lost—for what felt like a thousand years. Her ship, a fragile silver petal, had spun off course after a solar flare shredded its navigation array. Around her, the stars hung like frozen chandeliers: blue, white, ancient. Beautiful, but indifferent. They watched her drift without a single blink.
Then she saw it.
Sunny among stars. A contradiction. An impossibility. And yet, there it was: a small, defiant piece of summer in the endless winter of space.
She felt found . Not by a rescue ship. Not by a map. But by a little sun that had no business burning so brightly in a place so cold. sunny entre estrellas
"Sunny," she whispered, her voice crackling through the suit's comms. "You're sunny. Entre estrellas. "
That was the first thought that crossed Elara’s mind as she drifted through the void. Not cold. Not silent. But warm, as if she had stepped into a hidden patch of summer while the rest of the universe shivered in darkness. She angled her thrusters, weak as they were,
Not a star. Not a planet. A glow —soft and golden, pushing back against the deep violet of space. It grew as she floated closer, until she realized what it was: a sun. Small. Almost shy. Nestled in a pocket between three larger, colder stars, as if it had wandered into the wrong neighborhood and decided to stay anyway.