The Twin Moons
Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks - Sector 9G
889 ABY
Acier sat with his legs crossed on the lip of the orphanage roof. The city spread out below him in layers of light and shadow, towers stacked on towers, windows glowing like scattered embers. Somewhere deep beneath it all, engines rumbled. Metal clanged. Bonadan never slept.
Above it, the sky opened wide. Twin moons hung there, pale and watchful. One larger, cratered and close enough to feel real. The other smaller, distant, like it might drift away if no one paid attention to it. Acier stared at them until his eyes ached, trying to imagine what it would feel like to stand somewhere they could see him back.
He wondered if his parents had ever looked at the same sky. The thought came and went quietly, like it always did. He didn't know what parents were supposed to feel like, only that some of the kids talked about them in half remembered ways. Voices. Hands. Names spoken gently. He tried to picture it and failed, left only with the familiar hollow ache that settled behind his ribs.
Sometimes he wondered if they had loved him. At other times, if that even mattered. The laser sword rested beside him, wrapped tight in old cloth. He rarely opened it. The boy knew it was important the way children knew some things were precious without understanding why. He only knew people tried to take it. Adults with sharp voices. Older kids who watched him too closely. Even now, alone on the roof, he kept one hand near it without thinking. He didn't know what it was, nor did he have the words for it. Only the sense that it was part of him in a way the orphanage never was.
Acier lifted his gaze back to the sky. Beyond the moons were stars, too many to count, scattered thick across the dark. He imagined them as places instead of lights. Somewhere else. Somewhere quieter. Somewhere where the ground didn't shake and the walls weren't always cold.
In his little head, the city fell away. He imagined himself older. Taller. Stronger. Wearing something other than rags. He imagined ships and battles and standing between danger and people who needed help. He imagined being someone who mattered, someone who arrived instead of being left behind.
For a moment, the idea burned bright enough to warm him. Then reality crept back in. Bonadan didn't make heroes, it made survivors. The orphanage lights flickered below him, one by one, and the night felt heavier for it. The stars seemed farther away than they had a moment ago.
Acier's shoulders slumped. He pulled his knees tighter, chin resting against them, and let the future fade back into something small and distant. A story for other people. A dream for children who weren't him.
He was five years old. He was alone. And tomorrow would look a lot like today.
