he was born on niamos, that, at the time, was shifting from being a planet with its people inhabiting it to the Space Beach™ we know from andor. amidst this changing environment, little leptis was born.

niamos was divided into three main groups of people. the natives; the tourists, who were growing in number, but only stayed temporarily; and the offworlders who settled down and started to run mainly tourism-centered business. the niamos people, called avile, still ruled over the planet, having their own political organizations that excluded the newcomers. aviles allowed the offworlders to settle down in their certain parts of their lands only because that generated profit through taxes, but they weren't allowed to fully integrate in their society nor leave the permitted areas under any circumstances.

actually, the aviles allowed these settlements rather recently, after a series of revolts in the lower classes. in theory, their system was a democracy - in practice, only rich enough people could afford to become politicians, because there was no retribution for it. so, they decided to allow newcomers to settle in, with a tax, that would be used for the retribution of political positions. the more people started moving to niamos, the more new positions could get paid.

(quick colored sketch of a part of their territory - pardon the ugly af buildings but i hate drawing them)

when the initial wave of new politicians from the lower classes got into the system, they started turning the system into a full, direct democracy, reform by reform. most roles were assigned by casual drawing from a list of volunteers, and no one could keep their chair longer than a year in every position. but, after the initial wave of openness and inclusion, things changed.

initially, there weren't any laws on citizenship or access to politics. it wasn't explicitly said that offworlders couldn't partake in politics, so when they began taking interest in it, with political programs that addressed their needs and problems, the natives started to fear that their flourishing tourism business would change the political balance they had reached. many feared that, in the span of a few generations, the niamos would be governed by the interests of the tourist business, that attracted visitors (and their money) from many star systems.

so, they started to legislate. to be a niamos citizen, one had to be born in a family of niamos people, quite obviously. at first, children born of mixed parents weren't allowed citizenship, and weren't even really a thing. but as the offworlders areas grew larger, and more offworlders settled on niamos, some protests arose.

then, they had to change the legislation. they were a people with a strong and deeply felt culture - they decided to use it as a base to legislate further. the niamos had many rites and trials, and a complex language, called caile. one would become citizen only by successfully passing all the trials, partaking in all the rites, and fully learning the language.

the first trial was a long pilgrimage with a wooden boat (and an animal) to an island. this allowed the child (around 6-7 y.o.) to go to school, where they could learn the language. this first trial was easy for any "full" avilec child to pass, as they traveled around the various islands of their world on a daily basis. offworlders, however, were still confined into one section of a bigger island. this allowed only children who spent enough time sailing with their avilec parent to pass the test.

then, they would be allowed into a school that would teach them how to read and write. the school, though, only taught in avilec language - so, the children already had to speak caile at home, to be able to pass the tests at the end of the year. after that, it mostly got easier - one would study the niamos history, and was asked to partake in every smaller rite that tightened the community and better integrated the new members.

around 18, though, to become a legal adult, there was another trial (here, it granted access to vote and independence. then, as one got older, they'd have to pass a trial to be able to volunteer and be elected for each position - the age grew with the importance of the role, but the difficulty of the trials only decreased). it was a relatively simple trial: it was a boat pilgrimage around every island in the archipelago - something anyone could do.

but leptis failed it.

when he was around 14 years old, he went on a boat pilgrimage with his family to reach a sacred island in front of the offworlders' sector. there, a young sea monster who had lost its way attacked him. he clenched his big jaw on his body - the monster's mouth was big enough to cover his entire torso and get a good grip anyway. as his family panicked, from the shore, some tourists saw the scene and called for help, and help arrived in the form of medics on a speeder and an offworlder with a gun, who shot the beast, who immediately lost its grip on leptis.

the offworlders' hospitals, with special legislation, were open to everyone. it was the only thing the niamos paid a tax for, as they recognized that the offworlders' medicine was better than theirs for some things. they did mostly go to their old medics, but when that failed, they relied on those hospitals as well. knowing that no niamos medic could save their son, his parents allowed him to be taken away with the speeder.

in his parents' eyes, his survival was a miracle, and they accepted it without questions. instead, little leptis began wanting to know how he was saved. so he began studying medicine. he devoted himself to the subject. even as he ruined his connection to the rest of the community (he stopped partaking to the rites - he wasn't forced to go, as both his parents were aviles, and nobody thought a niamos would stop partaking in the rites, so there weren't any rules on that) he kept on studying.

when he turned 18, he had to leave his studies to complete the trial. he was doing well, as everyone always did, until he reached the spot where he was attacked. he never went back there since the incident. suddenly, he relived all of it again, and couldn't move anymore. he was paralyzed by the flashback, and trembled heavily as he realized that there was a wound the doctors hadn't healed. unable to continue, he failed the trial.

no avile had ever failed the trial, but the law seemed clear - he couldn't have access to politics, and wouldn't become an adult. he became an outcast - his peers continued their lives while he was forced out of it, forced to depend on his parents, forever. but mostly, he started to have trouble dealing with the incident like he never had. he was distressed and tense, and couldn't sleep properly. he went back to the medics, and they told him he had ptsd - and that they couldn't do much about it. that shocked him - they saved his organs from failing and stitched his broken body back together in ways that would seem impossible to comprehend, but they couldn't do nothing to heal his hurt brain?