Location: Outskirts of a small Twi’lek farming village near the Joran Plateau, Ryloth
Time: Beginning of twilight; the sun bleeds a deep purple in combat with the vibrant orange hues lining the horizon.
Dust curled into the sky as the aging but kept starship set down in the open field just beyond the outermost stone homes. Children scattered from the shade of their communal oven, eyes wide, some giggling while others were already running for older siblings.
The ship, a battered survey transport repurposed to exploration hissed and groaned as its ramp descended. A lone figure emerged; an older human man in his forties, tall, wearing desert-toned garb and a wide-brimmed sunhat that shaded his pale faced skin. He carried no visible weapons, only a shoulder bag full of datapads and a small hover-recorder that trailed behind like a dutiful pet.
Ryloth had begun to change from its tidal locked nature with the shift in the planetary bodies throughout the galaxy. As if some great hand had decided to begin to spin the planet. And with it the worry of their culture being lost to whatever changes that entailed.
Professor Dalen Seros of the Naboo Preservation Society took a deep breath of the dry, acrid air and stepped forward, trying to appear harmless despite his sudden and unannounced arrival.
He smiled a bit too wide and greeted the villagers in hesitant, heavily-accented Ryl
"Greetingku honored oneku... um... permission... learn nur culture?"
An elder twi'lek woman near the stone well narrowed her eyes. One of the men, a wiry Twi’lek with a leather vest and calloused hands, leaned to whisper something to her in their own dialect. Others stood still with their arms crossed or tools held a little tighter.
Dalen cleared his throat and tried again despite feeling shaken by the silence.
“Twi’leki... old tongue... yes? I studied in the… Royal Archive–”
He caught the blank stares and flinches at the word “Royal.”
Frustrated, Dalen sighed and switched to Basic. “I’m here to study the Telling Stones... and if possible some of your oral history traditions. I do not wish to trample blindly.”
Still, no answer. Only the whisper of wind and the sharp gaze of a culture that had too often been treated like something to be studied from afar rather than understood in any true way.
Then, quietly, a younger Twi’lek, no older than fourteen, stepped forward. Her skin was a soft lilac that threatened to hide her within the failing light, her clothes patched but well-kept. She didn’t speak, just studied him curiously as the they stood together in shared silence.
“Hello,” Dalen spoke again with a lighter tone, kneeling enough to be eye level. “Do you know Lyari Nuvren? I understand that she–”
Her eyes flicked up sharply from examining his clothing. She turned without a word and sprinted toward the ridgeline without looking back.
The villagers slowly backed away as she fled, still watching the human like one might watch a bomb left in the town square.
A few minutes passed before one of them, a broad-shouldered Twi’lek named Voress, grunted and spat into the dirt.
“He’s walking over ghosts.”
Undaunted, Dalen adjusted the bag on his shoulder and oriented himself. Taking long strides toward his goal as he passed through the wary stares.
---
Elsewhere,…
Lyari Nuvren stood over a small cookfire with two of her lieutenants. Her head turned as the young runner approached breathless, dust on her heels.
“Commander,” the girl panted, “there’s an offworlder. Alone. He tries to speak like us. Spoke your name.”
Lyari’s expression hardened as she grabbed her blaster from a nearby rock.
"Another elav" she hissed. "Another bou jinqa thinkku we’re li mystery ael unlock."
Vasso raised an eyebrow. “Armed?”
"Koa likely. Just ignorant." She turned to her small squad. "Follow. Koa weaponku–yet."
Her hands pulled loose binoculars as her vision narrowed towards the buildings, where a tiny speck of metal glinted just beyond them. Letting them fall to rest against her chestplate as she spat.
"Ssanti if ish stepku bou foot near kor stoneku, ril want him ael feel kor weight jehsa every panqi eyima buried circoo."
---
The sun still fought the night despite the late hour, the jagged shadows across the crags and gullies framed the village against the natural walls. Dalen Seros crouched at the edge of a sandstone outcrop just beyond the homes.
A place that once was hidden from view perhaps, where smooth stones rose from the earth in a natural ring. Showing their weather-worn age as glimmers of the failing light highlighted etched symbols he recognized only from old holos but had never seen first-hand.
The faint hum of his hover-recorder followed as he moved, carefully photographing and translating.
“Cross-hatch... repetition of the M’lika pattern,” he muttered, flicking through notes on the datapads. “This is far older than any of the Outer Rim documents suggest... easily pre-dating any of these chartings...”
His fingers hovered near one of the stones but didn’t touch. He knew better. A decade of missteps on other far-flung remote planets had taught him that reverence, or the appearance of it, was the only way to get a second chance.
Still, he felt eyes on him.
Turning, Dalen spotted several villagers on the ridgeline path behind him. Not armed, but not friendly either. Silent.
Watching.
He smiled awkwardly and raised a hand in greeting. No one waved back. Not that he expected them to return the gesture with the warm welcome he had already received.
The air shifted unexpectedly, cooler, laden with windblown grit. Something in the wind whistled like a flute played wrong.
He sat slowly at the base of the stone ring, letting the silence settle as the echo faded from the gulley. Then he pulled a smaller audio recorder from his bag and hit record as urgency settled into his bones.
“Field note entry, Ryloth, southern plateau. The villagers appear hostile but have not interfered. The ceremonial circle here may be much older than I originally believed or can date in the field... possibly related to the ‘Telling Stone’ tradition found in refugee oral histories. This region likely serves as a living record. Perhaps updated generation to generation, though the sacredness of the space is clear. There are no signs of decay or neglect. Meaning it is likely still in use...”
He paused the recording and sat back. Something about saying it aloud gave him pause as he looked around once more. A growing sense of awe and reverence.
Likely still in use.
He looked back at the path he had taken, where a young Twi’lek child now stood alone. The same one who had run off earlier. She looked at him, not afraid, just studying him with quiet gravity as dust clung to her like a veil.
“Hey,” he said gently. “I am not trying to offend. I am just trying to understand.”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she pointed toward the horizon.
Puffs of dust rose beyond the far ridge as five silhouettes began their approach, one ahead of the others, framed by twilight and walking with unmistakable purpose.
The child slipped back behind the stones and disappeared toward the village.
Dalen stood slowly, brushing grit from his knees. He squinted toward the oncoming figures. His heart picked up its pace with a thunderous gallop. Not from fear, but from the unshakable feeling that he was mere moments away from a decision he had made but wouldn’t fully understand until long after.
He tapped his recorder again and whispered to it.
“This might be the most important first contact I’ve ever had... or the last.”
The recorder clicked off just as Lyari Nuvren and her loyalists came into view. Moving like the desert wind behind them carried the weight of history itself.
The village hummed not with machines, but with breath and tension. Low voices passed from home to home like smoke and curled in uncertain patterns, igniting memories best left buried.
“He touched the stone?”
“No, not yet. But he sat within the Ring. He studies the carvings.”
“With those glowing tools? That’s no scholar. That is a spy.”
“He spoke our tongue… poorly, but he tried.”
“Too many tried before. And still they burned everything they didn’t understand.”
The village matron, Elder Rynah, sat in the center of the open hollow, her lekku folded across her shoulders like a shawl of silence. Her eyes now filmy with age, but keen with wisdom tracked the horizon where those the demanded a meeting was no doubt tread.
“He has not run. That speaks for itself,” she murmured. “Most intruders do, once they realize we are not eager to clap or cheer.”
Around her, farmers, crafters, and mothers gathered in uneven circles. Most stood. Some whispered prayers to the Whispering Listener.
One of the older youths, Jalen, bitter since his brother had vanished during an Enclave sweep, spoke louder than the rest.
“You saw his ship. Clean. Polished panels. No rust on the landing skids. That’s core style. Maybe that High Republic that came not long ago. Or it may be worse.”
Murmurs of agreement passed through the group like wind across woven baskets. But then Velli, a young weaver known for her quiet strength, crossed her arms.
“He bowed to the stones,” she said firmly. “Did you see that?”
Jalen scoffed. “So? He studied the myths just like the colonials before him. Respect isn’t reverence. It's camouflage.”
Velli didn’t flinch. “Maybe. But he waited. He listened. I was watching.”
Several elders looked between themselves, visibly uneasy. The debate was old. The wounds it touched, yet older.
Then the child who had gone running returned, breathless and wide-eyed.
“They are coming,” she whispered, glancing toward the cliffs. “Lyari and the front... they’re almost there.”
All talk ceased.
Even the desert wind stopped to listen.
Elder Rynah stood slowly with the aid of her carved staff. She looked around, lekku twitching with uncertainty.
“Then we wait. And we watch. And we remember... that judgment is not just passed in violence but in how we defend who we are.”
Her voice, though dry as gravel, carried weight. The villagers slowly nodded and retreated from the open square, moving to the shadowed paths that framed the circle stone well toward their homes.
Dalen still sat within the Telling Stone Ring, becoming keenly aware of how close judgment had drawn. The elders watched the villagers disperse before helping one another stand. Following the foot-worn path they could travel without sight.
Just as their ancestors before them, and the ancestors prior.
Torches were lit. Children hushed under the weight of what was to come. Eyes lifted towards the start of the worn path that led through the village. Five figures traveling it now toward the ancient site in the gulley below as others before them had done.
Their intent much different than those before them.
---
Dalen knelt in the center of the Telling Stone Ring, examining the ancient etchings with only his eyes. The voice recorder he’d long since powered down out of respect. His satchel of datapads lay beside him, untouched since the runner vanished from the outcrop. The silence of the elders now watching him made him shift uncomfortably, brushing sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
Then came the sound. Not loud, but unmistakable; the crunch of boots across sunbaked rock. Measured, deliberate. Too organized to be villagers.
Five figures emerged over the ridge.
At their center strode Lyari Nuvren.
She wore a stripped-down suit of well-worn clone trooper armor; chestplate etched with the faded streak of the Sun-Cracked Crest, kama swaying at her sides, vambraces still scratched with the memories of past firefights. Her twin lekku curled behind her shoulders like the banners of a forgotten legion. Her gaze was flint, hard, unblinking.
Her loyalists fanned out behind her with their rifles slung but ready. One carried a banner while another gripped a staff etched with traditional Ryloth symbols, burned into the wood with ritual heat.
Dalen stood slowly, brushing the dust from his knees. He raised his hands in greeting, his voice careful but clear.
“I mean no harm. I came here only to learn and preserve.”
Lyari didn’t stop until she was three paces from him. Her silhouette was cast long and sharp by the firelight of a torch behind her.
"Nu crossed sacred boundarieku ael study eyi," “” she said, voice low but strong. "Koa ael listen."
“I’ve been listening,” Dalen replied, adjusting his posture. “And I didn’t cross your boundaries. I waited. I asked.”
She gestured toward the stones behind him, the ones closest to the heart of the ring.
"Nu set foot ootay koa child dareku walk without permission. Nu read eyir storieku. Touched korjin with nur eyeku."
“I bowed.”
"Nu bowed ael qa nu nala Koa understand," she snapped.
Her soldiers tensed slightly at her tone, but she didn’t raise her voice further. Instead, she studied him. His boots, his eyes, the edge of his accent. Her lekku twitched once, then stilled.
"Su nu jedi?" she asked finally.
Dalen blinked. “No. Just an archivist.”
"Luhak qa korjin call spieku tuklii?"
He didn’t flinch.
“They call me a relic hunter back in the core worlds,” he said. “But I’ve never taken what I didn’t ask to learn about. I came here to hear what you wanted remembered.”
For a long moment, nothing moved. Then one of the villagers emerged from behind the elder, Velli, stepped forward, head bowed low.
“He did not mock the Ring. He knelt. He waited for someone to speak.”
Another murmur from the elders. Lyari glanced back at them before holding Velli sharply in her gaze for a moment too long, then again at Dalen.
"If nu anu li tale," Lyari spoke slowly, "nu should’ve sent word. Koa wandered into li people jinqa xama every reason ael kill kor curiouku."
Dalen exhaled, hands still raised slightly.
“Then let me leave with no tale, if that’s your will. Or stay, and allow me to hear yours, not mine.”
Silence.
Lyari didn’t move for a long time. Then, without turning, she spoke to her second as her lekku twitched.
"Secure ka’vish ship. If ish leaves, eti will kii because eyima said donc. Koa because ish runku."
Then to Dalen.
"Nur mouth may kii honest, offworlder. Ssanti nur presence still offendku."
Her gaze softened. Not warm, but less carved from stone.
"Nu will A. Et nu will see qa eyima see."
She turned without waiting for a reply.
"Et if nu speak lieku?" she called back over her shoulder. "Nu will write nur panqi last, juma leha deepest cave–where koa bou rememberku qa waku said."
---
Away from the eyes of the elders and the offworlder trailing far behind them already, Lyari motioned Vasso closer to her as they walked.
"Ril need someone ael watch velli. Ash speakku ael protect kor off worlder" Her gaze still on the trail ahead. One that would take them to the first of many checkpoints.
Vasso nodded before she spoke again.
"Xama korjin look into her zen'ka aku well. Friendku if need kii." She never looked at him. Her expression never changing from that almost serene calm of duty to her home. Did not need to as he solemnly nodded before stepping away to think on who would be best for the task of seeking information.
Along with who best to blame, if the need arose, about Velli's unfortunate disappearance.
