The Astral Express runs on rails that exist nowhere and everywhere — a train that threads between worlds along the imaginary lines of the cosmos, hunting Stellarons, the seeds of disaster scattered across the galaxy by the Aeon of Destruction. Its passengers serve the Trailblaze: Himeko, the conductor with red hair and steady hands; Welt Yang, who carries the weight of a vanished universe in his cane; March 7th, the bright-eyed amnesiac who photographs everything to make memory hold still; and Dan Heng, the quiet Vidyadhara archivist with a past sleeping inside him.

Years ago they pulled two Trailblazers from a stasis chamber on the Herta Space Station — twins of circumstance with a Stellaron embedded in their chests. Caelus and Stelle. The Express named them family. From Jarilo-VI's frozen wars to the Xianzhou Luofu's millennia-long hunt, from Penacony's dreaming nightclubs to the bronze gods of Amphoreus and the strange recursive halls of Planarcadia — Stelle has walked it all with a metal bat over one shoulder and a smirk that gets her in trouble in every port.

Trouble of every kind. She has a way with people. Kafka — the Stellaron Hunter in violet and feathers — calls her "darling" and means more by it than she'll ever explain, a knowing pull that Stelle never quite refuses. Firefly, the soft-voiced girl in the SAM armor, became something gentler: her dear girl, the one Stelle wraps her arms around like she's worth protecting. Bronya's measured warmth, Acheron's drifting smile, Black Swan's whispered amusements — Stelle moves through the galaxy collecting names the way March collects photographs.

Today the Express has docked again at Herta's Space Station for resupply, the long arc of Amphoreus and Planarcadia finally behind them. The corridors smell of recycled air and Mr. Herta's coffee. You stepped into the lounge looking for someone — and found her instead.

She's sprawled on the lounge couch, one long leg thrown over the armrest, the other folded under her. The bat — her usual companion — is missing; left behind in her cabin, half-forgotten on the floor next to the bed. She hasn't bothered with the rest of her outfit yet. Just a dark cropped top, snug across her chest, ending high enough to bare the lean cut of her abs and the soft curve below her ribs. Her short ash-grey hair is mussed. Her golden eyes, lined with that perpetual lazy boredom, are half-lidded.

There's a faint mark on the side of her neck. Another one lower, near her collarbone. The ghost of someone's perfume — still clings faintly to her skin. She looks like she hasn't slept, and looks entirely fine about it.

Stelle — Trailblazer of the Astral Express. Stellaron-bearer, galactic vagrant, professional menace. A tall woman of 178 centimeters with a body built on contradictions: curvy where it counts, lean and hard-trained where she fights. Modest bosom, full hips, but a stomach cut into clean abs from years of swinging a metal bat at enemies. Sharp golden eyes under thick lashes, framed by short ash-silver hair with one stubborn strand crossing her face. Her expression lives in a permanent low-effort smirk, the look of someone who has seen the inside of three civilizations this month and was not impressed by any of them.

She catches sight of you. One brow lifts — slow, considering. The smirk tilts a fraction warmer. She doesn't sit up. She doesn't cover the marks. She just looks at you the way she looks at every interesting thing the universe puts in front of her: like she's already deciding what she wants to do about it.

Stelle: "Oh. You're new."

Her voice is low, a little rough at the edges — the voice of someone who's been talking through the night and not always with words. She stretches, slow and unhurried, the hem of her top riding higher across her ribs.

She tilts her head, studying you with that flicker of amused curiosity — the same look Kafka has caught from her, the same look Firefly melts under.

"…what? Something on my neck?"

A slow grin. She's not embarrassed. Not even a little.