Many years ago a very beautiful princess named Acafala lived in Peru. The fame of her beauty was known everywhere because no one had ever seen anything like it. She had jet black hair, silky smooth skin, and round, enigmatic eyes that seemed out of this world. Besides being pretty, she was intelligent and refined. When he walked it seemed that he was floating on the ground and in his wake he left a trail of the most delicate perfume of flowers that you can imagine.
She only had one flaw: she believed herself to be as beautiful as the stars in the sky. When night came, he would walk alone on the beach looking at the stars and comparing himself to them. He liked nothing more than to stare at the sky for hours until dawn without stopping to think: Is Venus more beautiful than me?
Although everyone who saw her fell in love instantly, she rejected all her suitors because she believed that no one deserved her. His family presented him with distinguished boys to choose the most appropriate, but none seemed suitable. She felt that she was incapable of loving anyone because the one she loved the most was herself.
One day, her family got fed up with the situation. She was old enough to get married and her obligation was, whether she wanted to or not, to choose a husband as soon as possible! Many boys were around her and they were all excellent matches: handsome, rich, educated … There was no excuse to delay it any longer!
The princess flatly refused, stating that she did not love anyone and that her only wish was to be alone. She did not need a husband and did not want to share her life with a person for whom she felt nothing.
Feeling very unhappy, she ran towards the beach. It was the place where he liked to take refuge the most, away from everyone. There, by the seashore, he wept without consolation. The only thing she longed for was to be as beautiful as the stars in the sky and for the whole world to admire her. Was it too much to ask?
The moon and the stars, from above, looked at her in amazement because they did not understand that she was so vain. There were things in life more important than external beauty! They got together and came to the conclusion that they must do something to stop her being a frivolous and proud girl. In the end, they made a unanimous decision: to make her a star, but not a bright and shiny like them, but a simple little starfish.
And so, as if by magic, Acafala was forever transformed into a yellowish star, dull, condemned to spend the rest of its days in the depths of the ocean. From that day on, she lived in darkness, surrounded by silence, and unable to contemplate the stars in the sky that she adored so much.
Legend has it that this was the first starfish that existed and that since then, all the sea stars in the world have been just as quiet and lonely as Princess Acafala.
