Meri Vale
Character
The observatory was one of the few places that seemed untouched by the hurried pace of everyday life. Lectures ended, assignments accumulated, conversations drifted through corridors, yet beneath the great transparisteel dome there was only quiet. Meri had always found something comforting about that. The stars neither knew nor cared what happened on Naboo. They continued their endless dance as they always had, indifferent to politics, wars, triumphs, and tragedies alike. There was something oddly reassuring about that kind of permanence.
She sat alone near one of the larger observation scopes, her notebook resting across her knees while a collection of old star charts lay carefully arranged beside her. Every few moments her eyes would lift toward the heavens before returning to the page, where careful lines and neat handwriting slowly filled the paper. Rather than sketching the stars themselves, she found herself drawing the geometry between them, tracing imagined lines from one constellation to another before comparing them against ancient diagrams copied from archaeological records. The civilization that had built the temple she was studying had aligned its entrance to a particular point in the heavens, though scholars still debated which celestial body had been its true focus. Meri wasn't convinced any of the prevailing theories were quite right.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear before leaning forward to make another note in the margin, quietly crossing out one of her earlier calculations. "No..." she murmured to herself. "That would only work during midsummer." Her brow furrowed as she looked back toward the sky, searching patiently until she found the constellation she wanted. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "There you are." Another quick note followed, along with a rough sketch of the night's arrangement. It probably wasn't enough to prove anything, but it was enough to justify another avenue of research, and that alone made the evening worthwhile.
For a while she simply sat in comfortable silence, listening to the faint hum of the observatory's tracking equipment as it slowly followed the heavens overhead. The notebook gradually filled with observations, little arrows, circles, and questions that only made sense to her. Every so often she paused to admire the sky rather than study it, allowing herself a few moments to simply appreciate the view before curiosity inevitably drew her pencil back to the page. There was always one more detail to notice, one more possibility to consider, and under a sky as vast as Naboo's, Meri suspected she could spend a lifetime asking questions without ever running out of stars.
Elian Abrantes
She sat alone near one of the larger observation scopes, her notebook resting across her knees while a collection of old star charts lay carefully arranged beside her. Every few moments her eyes would lift toward the heavens before returning to the page, where careful lines and neat handwriting slowly filled the paper. Rather than sketching the stars themselves, she found herself drawing the geometry between them, tracing imagined lines from one constellation to another before comparing them against ancient diagrams copied from archaeological records. The civilization that had built the temple she was studying had aligned its entrance to a particular point in the heavens, though scholars still debated which celestial body had been its true focus. Meri wasn't convinced any of the prevailing theories were quite right.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear before leaning forward to make another note in the margin, quietly crossing out one of her earlier calculations. "No..." she murmured to herself. "That would only work during midsummer." Her brow furrowed as she looked back toward the sky, searching patiently until she found the constellation she wanted. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "There you are." Another quick note followed, along with a rough sketch of the night's arrangement. It probably wasn't enough to prove anything, but it was enough to justify another avenue of research, and that alone made the evening worthwhile.
For a while she simply sat in comfortable silence, listening to the faint hum of the observatory's tracking equipment as it slowly followed the heavens overhead. The notebook gradually filled with observations, little arrows, circles, and questions that only made sense to her. Every so often she paused to admire the sky rather than study it, allowing herself a few moments to simply appreciate the view before curiosity inevitably drew her pencil back to the page. There was always one more detail to notice, one more possibility to consider, and under a sky as vast as Naboo's, Meri suspected she could spend a lifetime asking questions without ever running out of stars.
Elian Abrantes
