Bear's dad

The Langardian Confine Royal Navy does not rely on mass occupation forces or broad planetary armies. Langardia does not rule conquered ground, occupy civilian populations, or maintain long-term military administrations outside its own territory. Its military doctrine is naval, precise, and interventionist: arrive with overwhelming fleet pressure, isolate the threat, disable or destroy hostile capability, dismantle what must not remain operational, transfer aftermath to legitimate local or allied structures where possible, and leave.

The LCRN’s strength is therefore not conventional infantry mass. Its true center is the fleet: capital ships, corvettes, fast gunboats, precision vessels, elite crews, and the personnel trained to make those ships survive and strike accurately under hostile conditions.

LCRN personnel are trained under the assumption that combat vessels may be decompressed, damaged, boarded, or forced to operate under emergency vacuum conditions. On medium vessels, corvettes, gunboats, and starfighters, combat crews normally wear hardened operational suits rather than ordinary uniforms. A baseline survival expectation exists: any suited combat crew member should be able to survive at least thirty minutes of emergency vacuum exposure, allowing evacuation, rescue, damage control, or continued limited function after hull compromise.

Capital ships follow a different pattern. Pilots, gunners, damage-control crews, and certain alert-role personnel may remain suited during combat operations, but senior officers aboard capital ships do not routinely operate in full survival gear unless battle conditions require it. Medium vessels are closer to the fight. Capital ships are armored cities.

1. LCRN Breaching Corps — “Breachers”

The Breaching Corps are shipborne tactical assault troops attached to the LCRN. They are not occupation soldiers and not civilian enforcers. Civilian protection, policing, and settled-system order are handled by local structures and dedicated civil authorities. Breachers exist for enclosed violence.

Their duties include boarding hostile vessels, securing docking collars, clearing command decks, creating tactical perimeters, protecting Knights during high-threat operations, seizing stations or depots, guarding military and Order-related infrastructure, securing prisoners and evidence, and conducting mop-up operations after decisive resistance has been broken.

Breachers are highly trained and heavily equipped, but their operational scope is narrow by design. They are specialist close-action infantry, not a conventional army. Their armor uses white hard plates over deep Prussian-blue tactical fabric, with dark blue or black load-bearing layers and sealed helmets. The visual effect is disciplined, severe, and functional rather than ceremonial.

Their presence usually means the fleet has already decided that a space must be entered by force.

2. Void-Capable Breachers

Void-capable Breachers are a Breaching Corps specialization equipped for longer exterior operations, hull work, decompression environments, and direct action in vacuum. They retain the general Breacher identity but add heavier life-support systems, reinforced sealing, extended environmental packs, magnetic or traction-capable boots, and additional suit redundancy.

They are used when boarding actions, station breaches, rescue operations, or sabotage responses require troops to operate outside normal atmosphere for longer than standard emergency limits. They may cross damaged hull sections, secure ruptured docking points, enter depressurized compartments, or hold a perimeter along a compromised vessel skin.

They are still Breachers. The distinction is environmental endurance, not a separate branch culture.

3. Fighter Pilots

LCRN fighter pilots are precision operators rather than expendable swarm pilots. Langardian doctrine does not favor flooding space with large numbers of small craft unless the tactical situation demands it. Fighters are used as specialized tools: interception, escort, fast response, reconnaissance, point-defense extension, precision strike, and protection of boarding or evacuation operations.

Their equipment reflects this role. Fighter-pilot suits are lighter and more nimble than Breacher armor while remaining hardened and vacuum-survivable. Their helmets often use wider visors than assault helmets, prioritizing situational awareness, display integration, and cockpit visibility over intimidation or face protection. The silhouette is still recognizably LCRN, but the role reads immediately as piloting rather than assault entry.

LCRN pilots are trained to think as part of naval geometry. Their job is not to seek glory in isolated duels, but to place a high-performance craft exactly where the fleet needs a small, fast, intelligent instrument.

4. Shipboard Gunners and Turret Operators

Gunners occupy a central place in LCRN doctrine. In Langardian thinking, a skilled gunner aboard a corvette, fast gunboat, or medium combat vessel may be more valuable than an additional fighter pilot. Ten expert gunners inside a survivable precision platform can often matter more than ten pilots dispersed across ten fragile small craft.

Shipboard gunner suits are hardened for emergency vacuum, impact, acceleration stress, and cockpit or turret compartment damage. The operator may be physically seated inside a firing station, remote turret pod, local fire-control bay, or semi-enclosed weapons cockpit. Their equipment often emphasizes interface stability, display integration, arm protection, and endurance rather than walking mobility.

The gunner’s task is not merely to fire. It is to apply force accurately: disable drives without killing civilians, remove weapon mounts without destroying the prize, suppress hostile fire without damaging boarding corridors, and understand when not to shoot. LCRN fire-control culture treats restraint as a combat skill.

5. Medium-Vessel Crew

Medium-vessel crews are the backbone of LCRN precision warfare. This category includes pilots, copilots, engineers, comms officers, tactical officers, navigators, and shipboard specialists aboard corvettes, fast gunboats, patrol craft, compact strike vessels, armed transports, and similar platforms.

Unlike capital-ship officers, medium-vessel officers are commonly suited during ship operations. They are not detached from danger by scale. They operate inside vessels expected to maneuver aggressively, take damage, suffer decompression, and remain functional under pressure. Their suits are less specialized than Breacher or fighter-pilot gear, but more protective than ordinary uniforms.

Officer or senior-specialist status may be marked through subtle helmet or armor markings rather than ornate rank display. This is especially common on medium ships, where authority must remain legible under helmeted combat conditions. The visual language remains practical: the officer is still part of the machine, not standing above it.

A Langardian medium ship is not crewed as a disposable small capital vessel. It is treated as a precision violence platform. The pilot places the ship. The copilot manages systems and tactical alignment. The engineer keeps it alive. The comms officer preserves coordination. The gunners remove enemy capability. Together they make the vessel a disciplined instrument rather than a blunt object.

Operational Chain

A typical LCRN intervention follows a layered logic:

Fleet elements isolate the target area, control routes, suppress escape, and establish overwatch.

Medium vessels and precision craft disable shields, drives, weapons, hangars, communications, or station systems with controlled fire.

Fighter pilots intercept threats, escort boarding craft, deny hostile smallcraft movement, and strike specific vulnerabilities.

Gunners and fire-control teams remove enemy teeth while preserving what must survive.

Breachers enter only when the target has been made small enough to survive: corridors, decks, docking collars, control rooms, hangars, depots, and enclosed command spaces.

Knights intervene where ordinary force becomes insufficient, morally dangerous, or tactically inappropriate.

SOMEWHERE IN THE OUTER RIM (14 BBY)

The slaver ship came out of hyperspace as if it were jerked out of it. For one suspended second the stars stretched ahead of it, clean and obedient. Then the field collapsed. Alarms went through the hull in red sheets of light. Men shouted over one another on the bridge. Someone called it an interdiction field. Someone else called it impossible.

Erin Bersan felt the ship lurch under her boots. She was standing behind the ring leader’s chair in the upper meeting room, where he had gathered three of his senior men and two brokers whose names changed depending on the system. The room had been designed to make people feel trapped before they knew they were negotiating. Low ceiling. Dark table. Heavy doors. A viewport wide enough to show profitable stars and small enough to remind visitors they were inside someone else’s ship.

Now the stars were gone. A Venator Star Destroyer filled the viewport. A vision that she felt had been taken right from her deepest memories of the Clone Wars. For a moment nobody spoke. Then the ring leader swore, quietly at first, then louder, as the slaver vessel was pulled sideways into the capital ship’s ventral bay.

“Imperials?” one of the capos asked.

“No,” Erin said before she knew she meant to speak.

She could feel the shape of the other ship through the Force. Not clean. Not dark. Not empty. Too many lives, too much discipline, too much silence where panic should have been.

The first breach sounded like the ship splitting open.

Not near them. Below. Somewhere through the forward docking collar, then another impact farther along the main spine. The ship’s internal channel filled with screams, blaster fire, cut-off orders, and the sharp interruption of men dying before they understood the fight they were in.

Then the meeting-room doors buckled inward.

They did not explode. They bent, violently as if an invisible hand had taken hold of them and decided the mechanism was irrelevant. The locks tore out of the frame. The doors folded, dropped, and hit the floor with a weight that made everyone at the table flinch.

Armored soldiers entered first. Their armor was not Imperial. Mandalorian lines, maybe, but too uniformed for clan work. White and dark plates, red markings she didn't recognize. Controlled movement. Rifles raised. Trigger discipline. They spread into the room without shouting.

Behind them came a man in dark clothing and armor elements, tall, calm, carrying no visible urgency. Behind him, a woman with red hair and a stillness Erin noticed before she noticed her face.

Erin moved while reaching for her lightsaber.

She got one step.

Then the Force closed around her.

Not a push. Not a blow. No hand lifted against her. Her body simply stopped belonging to movement. Her knees struck the floor beside the table. Her saber remained in her hand, useless as her fingers were no longer hers to command. She tried to rise and could not. She tried to turn on the blade and could not. The pressure was complete without being painful.

The ring leader snapped at her.

“Do your job!”

Erin’s jaw tightened.

“I can’t move.”

The man looked at her.

“Tsk Tsk. You. Stay put.”

His tone was mild.

The ring leader stood quickly, his chair scraping backward.

“You have no idea what you’re attacking,” he said. “No idea. I work under Hutt protection. You’ve just put your entire command in debt to people who will spend years teaching you what that means.”

Her boss still mistook the intruder for an Imp.

“I’m not here for you,” he said to the slaver without looking at him.

The room went eerily quiet.

The man’s eyes stayed locked onto Erin's.

“I’m here for her.”

For a moment she did not understand the sentence. Then she understood too many versions of it at once.

Jedi survivor? Execution? Claim? Punishment delayed five years and arriving in armor?

Her mind began racing so fast that the room seemed to fall behind it.

The ring leader stared, then laughed once.

“She is not for sale.”

The man’s expression did not change.

He looked at Erin with something she could not read. Not pity. Not disgust. Not the cold appetite she had learned to recognize in men who saw power and wanted to own it. He spoke to her then and it felt almost gentle, caring. It was unnerving.

“Well then, let’s release you from your obligations, shall we?"

The ring leader had just enough time to misunderstand.

Light broke out around the man.

It did not come from his hands. It came from the space around him, branching in sudden white-blue violence, clean and enormous. Bolts struck every man at the table at once. The capos jerked back in their seats. One of the brokers hit the wall hard enough to crack the panel behind him. The ring leader remained standing for half a second longer than the others, mouth open, eyes still full of argument.

Then he fell.

The light vanished.

No one else had been touched.

The soldiers had not moved. The red-haired woman had watched, neither pleased nor surprised.

The pressure holding Erin disappeared.

She rose with all the force her body had been denied.

Her saber came up.

It left her hand before the strike could begin.

The orange blade spun once through the air, still lit, and landed hilt-first in the man’s grasp. At the same time the Force hit Erin across the chest and drove her back into the wall. Not hard enough to break her. Hard enough to make the point. Her boots left the floor. Her shoulders struck metal. The pressure held her there.

The man clicked his tongue again, softer this time.

“Nuh-uh.”

Erin bared her teeth.

“I do not mean you harm,” he said. “And I know you could not possibly harm me, even if you tried. The people accompanying me, however, may not know that quickly enough. Do not provoke them into protecting me from you.”

The red-haired woman stepped beside him.

Her eyes went to the saber in his hand. The blade painted her face in molten orange.

She tilted her head.

“Nice color.”

The man gave her a side glance.

Something passed between them. Erin saw it and hated that she did not understand it.

The man retracted the blade. Silence returned with the absence of its hum.

He looked back at Erin.

“Can I release you now?”

“Who are you?”

“That is not an answer.”

The pressure at her throat and wrists seemed suddenly enormous.

She swallowed.

“Yes,” she said. “I yield.”

“Very well.”

The Force let her go.

She dropped to her feet badly, caught herself on one hand, then stayed half crouched because standing too quickly felt like another mistake. Her throat ached where nothing had touched it. She rubbed the pressure points anyway.

The man tossed her saber back.

She caught it by instinct, stared at it, then at him.

“Who are you?” she asked again.

The red-haired woman watched her with an expression so careful it was almost kindness.

“What do you want?”

The man seemed to consider which answer she would survive.

“I am Kell,” he said. “This is Vala.”

The name meant nothing to her. The room said otherwise. The soldiers held their silence around it like discipline around a fire.

Kell looked at the dead men, then back at Erin.

“We find people who were left too long in places like this.”

An officer appeared in the ruined doorway and bowed his head.

“My lord, the ship is secured. No threats remain aboard.”

“Very good,” Kell said. “Start stripping its systems apart for anything useful.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The officer left.

Erin stared at Kell.

My lord. Of course. She thought.

The word completed the shape her mind had been trying to make. A formidable force-user. A warship. Soldiers in uniform. Enemies killed without effort. The old owners dead. The ship already being taken apart for spoils.

He had come for her.

She understood.

She carefully set her saber at her side and solemnly lowered herself to one knee.

“I will submit to you, my lord” she said.

Vala's face changed. Only a little but enough for Erin to feel something she hadn't expected. She bowed her head.

“Please,” Erin said, because the word had become easier than pride years ago. “Teach me.”

Kell looked down at her.

He did not smile. He did not accept. He did not correct the title either.

“You will have to learn by yourself first,” he said.

Erin did not understand.

“You may keep your saber,” he continued. “You may walk freely aboard my ship. Do not cause trouble with my people, and they will not cause trouble with you.”

She looked up slowly.

Freely.

The word did not fit anywhere.

“Yes,” she said, because obedience still knew what to do when understanding failed.

“I can do that, my lord.”

Vala looked at Kell.

Kell’s eyes remained on Erin.

For the first time since the doors had fallen, he seemed almost tired.

OF COURSE IT'S A FANFIC

“Come with me.”

“Dad.”

“It is not another mountain.”

“There are many things that are not mountains.”

He was already walking.

The lower passage opened into the cliffside access corridor, then into the private hangar cut into the mountain below the Residence. Suny knew the space well: polished stone, composite decking, recessed lights, stored vehicles, the smell of coolant and metal and cold air moving through pressure seals.

A compact ship waited in the near bay.

Suny stopped. She instantly recognized its aggressive shape, although she wasn't sure about the exact variant, then she noticed the elongated cockpit and the two in-line seats. ‘Skysprite’ she thought.

The frame was old, sharp, elegant, predatory in the clean way of old Jedi hardware, but it had not been preserved as a relic. Its avionics were obviously updated and the ship well maintained. Langardian blue stretching along the pale hull, small family markings set discreetly near the forward paneling, not ostentatious enough for state display, too deliberate to be accidental.

She looked at Kell.

He did not say a word. He let his wide smile speak for him, as he put his hand on the frame, obviously satisfied. Suny walked closer. The ship sat low on its landing struts, canopy dark, hull catching the hangar light in long, pale bands. The old shape should have felt archaic. It did not. It felt awake.

“What is this?” she asked.

“A Delta-12.”

“I can see that.”

“Then your training was not wasted.”

She turned to him.

“It has been kept flight-ready,” he said. It will be recognized immediately, system-wide. The only real change was the registration.”

Suny stared at him.

“Registration.”

“Yes.”

“To whom?”

“To you.”

She looked back at the old Jedi Fighter.

“You’re giving me my own Star Fighter.”

“Yes.”

“This? For me.”

“Yes.”

Her throat tightened before she could stop it.

Kell’s expression softened, but he did not step toward her.

“It was your mother’s idea, actually.”

Suny turned quickly.

“What?”

“I wish I had come up with it. To be fair.”

“Mom?”

“Yes.”

Suny looked at the Delta again, and the gift changed shape.

“She said that?”

“She said you needed a way to return to the city without waiting on household transport, academy shuttles, or my availability.”

“That sounds like Mom.”

“She also said that if I kept letting useful ships sit in storage out of sentimentality, she would have Alfrid start inventorying my emotional problems by hangar bay.”

Suny laughed.

“She did not say that.”

“No,” Kell admitted. “Not exactly.”

“Close?”

“Close enough.”

She walked another step toward the ship.

“We rarely fly with it anyway.” He said.

“Why?”

“It seats two. We either fly solo or all together.”

“So it was just sitting here.”

“Waiting for a better use.”

Suny touched the hull.

The metal was cool and she could see a distorted version of herself in it.

"With this you can go wherever you like, whenever you like, with whomever you like".

She swallowed.

Kell stood beside her now, both of them facing the Delta.

She glanced at him then looked back at the Delta.

The passenger seat was dark behind the canopy.

“For Juvian,” she said.

“If you want.”

“I don’t know when I’m leaving.”

“Talk to mom first. Thank her for the idea”

“Dad, of course." she said in a voice more sorry than she expected. She opened her arms and he welcomed her hug.

That afternoon, after eating more than she expected and checking the Delta’s systems twice with a technician who pretended not to be amused, Suny sent Juvian another holo.

“I’m flying back today. Citadel Academy landing grounds, probably western approach. I attached guest credentials. They’re tied to my flight clearance, so show the code at the access gate. They’ll know you’re with me and point you to the exact landing pad.”

She hesitated.

“Don’t worry. Or worry a little. That’s probably normal.”

His answer came voice-only as she was checking the Delta's preflight status.

“I’ll be there.”

Then, after a breath:

“I want to see you arrive.”

Suny smiled.

The sky over the Residence had cleared into hard blue by the time she took off. She had kept the parting as light hearted as she could. The Delta-12 helped make it feel less final. Two and a half hour flight from the Capital. It would be easy to come back more often. The mountains were already falling away behind. The controls felt familiar enough to trust and new enough to demand attention. The engines responded cleanly. For the first quarter-hour, it was perfect. No instructors. No transport schedule. No shuttle crew. No Alfrid politely managing thresholds between her and the places she wanted to go.

Just altitude, weather, and direction.

Then, about halfway into the flight, two marks appeared on the tactical display.

Fast.

Military.

Suny straightened.

The Delta identified them before she needed to ask.

Fang-class interceptors.

She watched them close from the north-west, angled out of a training corridor over the wilderness. For half a second she wondered if something had gone wrong.

Then the first Fang slid into visual range off her left side. The second crossed above and settled to her right. They did not hail her. They did not intrude on her comms. They only matched her course with enough distance to remain formal.

The pilot on her left turned his helmet toward her and saluted through the canopy.

The pilot on her right did the same.

Suny stared.

“Oh, no.”

She looked down at the comms and saw the setting of the transponder panel.

Active broadcast.

Household identity visible. Flight path visible. Destination category visible.

“Oh, Dad.”

The two Fangs eased back into escort position, one on either side and slightly behind, forming a loose V around the Delta.

She could turn the transponder passive now, but that would not make the Fangs disappear. It would only tell them she wished they had not come.

She left it alone.

The escort was not the problem. The kindness of it was the problem.

Some wing commander had seen the broadcast, understood whose ship it was, and dispatched two pilots without being asked. Not security. Not necessity. Respect. A small airborne bow from people who had decided that Kell Ljun’s daughter returning to the capital in a newly registered personal craft, should not cross the sky alone.

It was generous. It was unbearable.

Juvian was going to see this.

Suny closed her eyes for one second, then opened them again because she was still flying a ship.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Fine. We are doing this, apparently.”

The Fangs kept their distance all the way toward the capital airspace.

As the city appeared on the horizon, rising out of the afternoon haze in stacked towers and suspended traffic lanes, Suny adjusted her approach vector and tried not to imagine Juvian waiting below, looking up at her arrival with two military interceptors framing the ship.

This was not how she had wanted to return to him.

Except of course, that it was exactly how she was returning to him.

The Citadel acknowledged her flight automatically. Landing clearance opened. Her escort peeled away, each Fang banking outward in turn.

No words passed between them.

The left pilot saluted once more before breaking off.

Suny raised two fingers from the control yoke in answer.

Then they were gone.

The Delta descended alone toward the Citadel Academy landing grounds.

Suny exhaled.

She set the transponder to passive the moment she cleared the last marker.

“Never again,” she said.

The old fighter said nothing in return.

The landing platform opened below and the Delta 12 was swallowed into the Citadel itself.

Suny kept both hands on the controls even after the guidance system took over the final descent. Below, the landing grounds opened between the academy towers, all clean lines, marked pads, wind barriers, signal lights, and the small moving figures of people who knew exactly where they were allowed to stand.

She hated that she searched for him before the ship had even settled.

Then she saw him.

Juvian stood near the western access line, exactly where the credentials would have led him. He had dressed better than usual and looked as if he regretted it. His hair was disturbed by the landing field wind. One hand rested near his side, not quite in his pocket, not quite still. He looked up at the Delta as it came in.

The landing struts touched down with a soft mechanical shudder. The engines cycled down. The canopy released.

For half a second, Suny remained seated.

The Citadel moved around her. Ground crew approached, then slowed when the ship’s registry fully resolved in their displays. A technician near the pad straightened. Two cadets crossing toward the east hangar stopped speaking when they recognized the markings on the hull.

Suny closed her eyes briefly.

Then she stood.

The canopy lifted above her. Wind entered the cockpit, carrying the smell of hot landing surface, fuel trace, and city air.

She removed her head gear and left it on the Delta's seat as she climbed out of the frame, before anyone could offer a hand.

Juvian had not moved.

Suny crossed the pad toward him, trying not to walk too fast. His eyes moved from her to the ship, then to the empty sky where the escort had vanished, then back to her.

As she approached she didn't know what to tell him.

"Hi." She felt silly.

He answered in kind, obviously sharing the emotion around it. Then, after a pause: "You're really you."

He took one step toward her, then stopped, as if suddenly remembering that they were not alone.

That annoyed her more than it should have.

She stepped into him first.

The kiss was shorter than she wanted and less careful than the place deserved. Juvian made a small sound of surprise, then his hand came up against her back. For a few seconds the landing pad, the Citadel, the old fighter, the people pretending not to look, all of it dropped away.

When she pulled back, he did not let go immediately.

“You came in a Starfighter,” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

“With escort.”

“Accidentally.”

"I still can't believe any of it"

"Get used to it city boy"she said, playfully. Then more seriously:

“I missed you.”

His answer came without hesitation.

“I missed you too.”

She closed her eyes.

Someone behind them shouted her name.

The voice was amused, and badly timed.

Suny went still.

“Oh no.”

Juvian looked over her shoulder.

A boy roughly their age was crossing the pad toward them with the confidence of someone who had never once wondered whether he belonged in a restricted area. He wore training clothes, half-fastened as if he had come directly from some exercise and decided rules could catch up later. His face was bright with relief, radiating friendliness.

“Suny!”

Before Juvian could ask anything, the boy reached them and threw his arms around her.

Suny staggered back half a step.

“Ben.”

“Stars, I’m glad to see you.” He held her tight for a second. She hugged him back.

For Juvian, the world narrowed unpleasantly. This 'Ben' approached close enough to touch her without thinking. He knew her name. He smelled of training rooms and outside air and came with no visible fear of the place, of her, of anything attached to her. He felt out of his depth but also reminded himself, that this is what she had meant all along when she asked 'can you live with who I am'. This was who she was. Juvian found the strength to keep his face composed then.

Ben pulled back and looked her over.

"Dank farrik you look miserable" "Thank you."

Ben grinned. Then his attention shifted, and he seemed to notice Juvian for the first time as more than scenery.

"Juvian, this is—"

"Ben, Ben Skywalker" the blonde boy said, extending his hand to him.

Juvian shook it, only half-registering the name.

275 PAGES OF LORE

On Erin over the years

-- Erin watches him when she believes she is unseen. She is incorrect. I see her. Always. It is as if she believes proximity is invisible if no words are spoken. She is attracted to him like one enters an orbit without admitting being captured by gravity.

There is nothing malicious in it. Only need learning its own name. I do not yet know what shape this will take. But shapes like this do not remain abstract for long.

--

She does not speak of her past unless asked. Even then, carefully. Her guilt is her structure. She arranges herself around it like architecture around a fault line. When she thinks no one observes her, her posture collapses slightly under its weight. Only slightly. Enough for me to notice.

--

I have not told Kell I see through her. I am unsure if he would want to know. Or already knows and has decided it is not the time to acknowledge it. He often does that.

--

She loves him. She does not yet understand this. Kell does. Naturally. He pretends not to. Naturally. They are absurd.

-- Erin stood at the threshold for some time before speaking. I knew already. One always knows when one gathers courage. She asked, carefully, terribly carefully, Whether loving someone already loved must necessarily wound. Poor child. Such fear. Such shame in the asking. As though affection itself were theft. I told her:

No soul belongs to another. No love diminishes another by existing. Love alters shape. That is all.

She smiled without conviction. I smiled back, knowing the implications, But not yet the outcomes.

--

Kell woke up briefly yesterday afternoon. He looked at her, then at me. Then, at his hands, cupped by hers. He looked at me once more, smiled. Smiled at her and lost consciousness again. For a short while it felt like he understood; Our world evolved without him, in spite of him. Later I asked Erin to sleep beside me. In our bed. I was too afraid to face the silence on my own. She hesitated. She wasn't the only one. Laying in bed, I took her hand and kissed its back. Then I looked right at her and said:

I understand why you love him. That part was never difficult to understand.

She tensed suddenly, opened her mouth then closed it. She didn't dare reply. I continued:

I also know why he loves you. I have come to see it too.

She sobbed, softly. I pulled her in closer to me. Her hand remained closed around mine even in sleep.

--

I've been feeling the tender bite of new love. Unexpected love, Squeezing my heart. Though today I live within a new fear. That of being only good enough until he recovers.

--

Erin came to me while I was sitting under the tree. There, I laid bare all my worries. "I fear this is temporary" I said. She misunderstood. She thought about what he would think. I told her he was the least of my worries. Then, I dared: "but you are." Her mind churned a short moment as I trembled. She dropped to her knees and took up my hand. "No" she said, squeezing harder than I expected. "Not temporary. I don't want you to think that". I watched her bring the back of my hand to her mouth and kiss it. I recognized my own gesture in her. I touched her cheek then stood up still holding her hand, inviting her: "Come, I'll make us some tea."

The following AI generated images depict scenes from my Alternate EU time line that are ranging from ABY 26 to ABY 42.

Her journals are private fragments; notes on people, memory, family, politics, loss, and the small moments that survive around major events. Through them, the larger story of Langardia is seen from inside the household.

——————————————————————

Vala Tariss' journals, compilation I.

——————————————————————

As Weather

Kell says the Force is not a river. He says it is weather. Unpredictable. Cyclical. Unconcerned with observers. I find this explanation unsatisfying and accurate at the same time. He too, is unconcerned with observers. This is part of why people follow him.

———————————————————

Passing Through

I have learned something about him. I do not believe he is guiding events. I believe he is standing where events eventually pass through.

———————————————————

Proximity

Kell did not ask. I did not offer. It simply became true that presence was shared more often than absence. There is no proper word for this phase of long companionship that is neither beginning nor commitment nor formal naming. We simply stopped denying our proximity.

—————————

Motion

I asked him once, years ago, if motion meant progress.

He said:

“Sometimes it simply means nothing is allowed to remain still.”

———————————————————

The Gardens

The gardens are overgrown again. No one has trimmed the southern hedges this season. I prefer it this way. Kell walked through the wild grass without noticing its disorder. He did not speak for an entire hour. When he finally did, he said only:

“They will come eventually.”

He did not specify who.

———————————————————

Cold Tea

Kell did not sleep. He believes I do not notice. I found him seated before dawn on the western terrace with tea already cold beside him. The mist had not yet lifted from the lower valleys. I sat. He said nothing. Neither did I. After some time he reached for my hand without looking. I watched him hold it. We remained there until the sun rose.

———————————————————

Mountains

Kell asked today whether I regretted remaining. Not in accusation. Never that. Merely sadness. The sort that invites itself when he forgets briefly that he is loved. I told him truthfully:

I regret only moments. Never paths.

There are sorrows I would not choose again. Yet I would choose him again. Entirely. Immediately. Even knowing. Especially knowing. He closed his eyes at this. Such fatigue in him lately. He thinks I do not recognize fear if he hides it behind gentleness. My beloved. Even mountains tremble.

———————————————————

Windows

He forgets himself in windows. I placed a blanket over his shoulders once without warning. He did not react. Only said:

“You are awake.”

I answered:

Langardian Confine

This is an alternate Star Wars continuity that rewrites the post-Return of the Jedi EU into a more coherent canon/EU hybrid. The broad aim is to keep what works; Luke’s Jedi, Mara, the New Republic, the Vong War, the old adventure/legacy feeling, while stripping out both some Disney-era dead ends and some EU excesses. At the center is the hidden civilization of Langardia (built from waves of rescued people from different eras, including but not limited to Mandalorians, Order 66 survivors, Imperial defectors) which gives the Jedi and the New Republic a stronger, stranger ally in the Unknown Regions.

The core change is that the Jedi are eventually made less absurdly vulnerable to the usual “dark side corruption” trope. Luke’s Order still has conflict, trauma, disagreement, and danger, but it is not constantly collapsing because someone feels angry for five minutes.