LEILANI SERENNO bridged the past and the present, born into a family of cruelty and then groomed to fulfil a role in the grand scheme of things. She was a puppet manipulated by her brother, ensnared in a larger narrative orchestrated by the Force. Y...
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Days before, Anakin had felt like a little boy again—helpless and small, unable to stop the inevitable. Or perhaps he had been that barely-matured teenager once more, brash and reckless, incapable of understanding the meaning behind his nightmares about his mother until it was too late. The memories had come rushing back, vivid and unrelenting: the dreams that had haunted him, her voice calling out for him in anguish, and his utter failure to save her.
The torment had been all too familiar—the way the darkness had crept into the corners of his mind, whispering cruel truths he hadn't wanted to face. He had ignored the warnings back then, brushing them aside as just dreams, only to find himself racing across the sands of Tatooine, desperate and afraid. He had relived those moments with a clarity that made his heart ache: the suffocating guilt, the rage that had consumed him when he had found her too late, and the emptiness that had followed when she had slipped away in his arms.
And now, it had happened again.
For weeks, his sleep had been restless, his dreams plagued by visions of Leilani. At first, they had been fleeting—blurs of her face, fragments of pain and fear he couldn't fully understand. But as the days had passed, the visions had sharpened, becoming more vivid and urgent. He had seen her in darkness, bound and struggling, her voice crying out—not for him, but for anyone who might hear.
The dreams had left him with the same sickening dread he had felt as a boy. Each time, he had woken drenched in sweat, his heart racing, the weight of helplessness pressing down on him like a physical force. It had felt as if the Force was mocking him, showing him the echoes of his greatest failure, daring him to repeat it.
He hadn't wanted to believe it—not again. But the parallels had been undeniable, and the fear had been the same. Just as he hadn't understood what his dreams about his mother had meant until it had been too late, he had feared he was missing something crucial about Leilani. Her cries in his dreams had felt like a distant echo, one he couldn't quite reach no matter how hard he tried.
The darkness that had tormented him as a boy had returned, whispering that he hadn't learned, that no matter how powerful he became, he would always be too late. It hadn't just been about Leilani; it had been about everyone he had ever failed.
But this time, he had vowed it would be different. He wasn't that helpless boy anymore, and he wasn't that impulsive teenager, blinded by his own insecurities.
Yet, for once, the fears that had gnawed at him turned out to be false. He had arrived in time. Against all odds, despite the weight of his own mission pressing down on him, and despite the near-impossible task of navigating half the galaxy from Mon Cala, he had made it. The dreams that had once felt like dire warnings, the echoes of past failures clawing at his resolve, had not come to pass.
He had arrived when she needed him most. He had seen her, battered but unbroken, the darkness closing in around her. And in that moment, he hadn't faltered. He had fought his way to her side, cutting through the shadows with the determination of someone who refused to let history repeat itself.
