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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
---☆---
The days on Iskaayuma passed in a haze of quiet motion—measured, deliberate, and unrelenting. There was no war here, no grand battle waiting just beyond the horizon. But the work was no less exhausting, no less consuming. Rebuilding was always slower than destruction.
The planet itself was a world forgotten by time. It was not a place of sprawling cities or noble houses, not like Serenno. It had no vast wealth, no grand infrastructure. Instead, it was a place of quiet survival, carved into the landscape by those who had sought refuge here long before they arrived. The land was harsh in places, cracked and dry, the remnants of old mining operations leaving scars across the terrain. But it was not barren. Far from it.
The settlements were small but resilient, woven into the natural rock formations, built from whatever could be salvaged. Some had been there for decades, abandoned outposts repurposed into homes, into gathering places, into spaces where people could exist without being seen. Others had been created by those who had come before them—drifters, exiles, those who had once called the galaxy home but had been forced to carve out a new life in the spaces where no one else dared to look.
And now, it was theirs too.
Leilani moved through the settlement with quiet purpose; her hands were never idle.
When something needed lifting, she lifted it. When the shelter needed reinforcing, she set to work alongside the others, hammering beams into place, fastening supports, and ensuring that the structures could withstand the elements. She moved among them not as a leader, not as a Jedi, but simply as another pair of hands willing to do what was necessary.
But her presence could not be so easily disguised.
They knew her. Even those who had never met her before had heard the stories, and had whispered among themselves when they first arrived. She was the Countess. She was the one who had led them from the ashes of Serenno, the one who had risked everything to bring them here. To save them.
She had seen it in their eyes, the way they watched her with quiet reverence, with hesitation, with gratitude that they did not always know how to put into words. Some bowed their heads when she passed, old habits from Serenno still etched into them. Others looked at her as if waiting for orders, uncertain of their place in this new world.
She never encouraged it, but she never dismissed it either. They needed time.
Some struggled with the loss of what they had left behind. Even those who had begged for an escape still found themselves looking toward the sky at night, wondering if they had made the right choice, if the home they had abandoned would ever truly release its hold on them.
Leilani understood that better than anyone.
So she listened.
She listened to their grief, to their fears, to the weight of the unknown pressing against them. She sat with the elders who had lived their entire lives under Serenno's rule and did not know how to exist beyond it. She helped the children settle into their new homes, showing them the safest places to run, to play, and to build something that felt like normalcy.
