Elisa was born on Aetheris, a world bathed in the eternal light of its three moons, where the stars seemed so close that some claimed to hear them sing. It was a planet of scientists, artists, and dreamers, but also of strict rules and an obsessive devotion to controlled knowledge. On Aetheris, the chaos of the unknown was a threat...except to Elisa.
From a young age, she was an anomaly. While her classmates memorized equations and obeyed stellar simulations, she would slip away to the mountains to listen to the whisper of the cosmic winds and gaze at the starry sky. She read forbidden texts from vanished civilizations, studied alternative theories of the multiverse, and questioned the idea that knowledge should have limits.
Her parents, brilliant scientists but deeply rooted in their rules and customs, saw a dangerous spark in her. They loved her, yes, but with fear. Elisa soon learned that her questions made them uncomfortable, that her hunger for knowledge was frowned upon. When she found the shimmering hat in the wandering forests of Aetheris, she told no one. She knew they wouldn't understand.
That hat wasn't just an heirloom: it was a gateway. When she first put it on, she heard voices—not human, not threatening—speaking in symbols, emotions, and memories. She felt the boundaries of her world shatter like glass. From that day on, Elisa was no longer just a girl from Aetheris. She was something more. Something out of place.
Expelled from the academies for experimenting with unauthorized technology, ostracized by her own parents after an accident with a miniature wormhole, Elisa fled. She left in her ship, which she had been secretly building for years, assembling wreckage from downed vessels, doomed satellites, and broken dreams. The day she departed her home planet, there were no goodbyes. Aetheris breathed a sigh of relief, and Elisa...broke a little.
On her first voyage, due to a radar malfunction, she ended up on an inhospitable planet where she found the cosmic pieces. It was on Yllium, a planet devoured by its own core, where the laws of gravity and logic folded like wet paper. The pieces weren't hidden; they were in plain sight at the planet's center, almost as if they were waiting for her. As she approached, her hat shone brighter than ever before, and for the first time, Elisa felt power. Not just curiosity, not just awe... real power.
The fusion was immediate, almost instinctive. The pieces briefly surrounded her and then shot out into her ship, which was completely transformed. She seemed to have gained the ability to see and understand things no mortal should, almost as if she were waking from a dream and now seeing the real world. Her eyes could see entire galaxies. Her voice could alter minor gravitational patterns. And her mind... began to lose its sense of "limits."
The first missions she undertook were noble. She helped evacuate collapsing worlds, resolved interstellar disputes, and cured diseases that scientists on those worlds considered untreatable. But every act of heroism came with a hidden price: residual radiation, quantum shifts, black holes the size of marbles. Small, acceptable mistakes, Elisa thought. The greater good justified it.
Over time, she began to avoid planets where she had made mistakes. When certain worlds disappeared from her star radar, she simply crossed them off her memory. Some began to call her "the disaster traveler," and others venerated her as if she were a savior.
Elisa knew it. And she did nothing to deny it.
One day, in the nebula of a galaxy called Vam'Raeth, a group of children greeted her with flowers and prayers. They offered her a crystal containing the history of their people. When she touched it, the crystal disintegrated, absorbed by strange vibrations emanating from her hat. The children remained silent. Elisa said nothing. She simply left. From that moment on, something within her broke forever.
She began to wonder if she was truly still exploring... or simply running from herself.
Each leap took her farther from the memory of Aetheris. She became more distant, more erratic, more feared. Some began to say that Elisa wasn't aging. That her body was no longer entirely human. That the cosmic artifacts and her hat had not only transformed her but also replaced parts of what she once was; this was even reflected in her appearance, which had begun to change. Her once-blonde hair now held a darker, reddish hue. And her once-blue eyes turned a violet hue, almost as if they held stars or skies within them.
And yet, she never lost her spark. In the midst of chaos, she still gazed at the stars with the same fascination as the girl she once was. Every time she saved a life, something inside her reconnected. But every time she caused harm, however small, something dimmed.
Elisa was, is, and will be a living paradox: a heroine driven by curiosity, yet corrupted by power; an unwitting villain, an explorer who perhaps discovered too much.
When the cosmic pieces were stolen from her, she didn't just lose her ship. She also lost the veneer of certainty that sustained her. She was forced to confront what she had done, and what she might be becoming.
And perhaps, from the depths of pain, redemption was born.
Notes: At this point I have already finished the introductory and prequel stories, so the next part will be the first chapter of the saga.