❝Strange to say, 

the luminous world is the invisible world; 

the luminous world is that which we do not see. 

Our eyes of flesh see only night.❞

- VICTOR HUGO

❈⋆⋯ SUMMARY ⋯⋆❈

XAELI SOREN can talk to ghosts. 

The iridescent world of moonlit phantoms and illusions swirls at her fingertips, blurring the line between the dead and the living. With power unforeseen in generations, spirits surround her with their candescent voices and eyes encrusted in salt, and yet, though her heart is bursting with the thrills and demise of a thousand broken souls, for the longest of times her own story remained confined to the most remote planet in the galaxy. 

 No one goes looking for an orphaned girl raised by the very Tusken Raiders who found her when her limbs were still small and frail, perhaps only sparing her life for they recognized the strength within her before all else. Secluded away from the harsh desert sun, the years have passed with little more company than blue-tinged spirits and Xaeli has remained the Sand People's beloved secret, knowing nothing of fear and war that ravages the rest of the galaxy. But everything changes when she is discovered by a wide-eyed boy haunted by delicate dreams full of hidden regrets, and realizes that there could be something alive worth fighting for.

LUKE SKYWALKER is bathed in sunlight and hope.

Eyes perpetually set on the horizon, he wishes for all that is beyond Tatooine's endless sand, treacherous stone, and melancholy binary sunsets. Little does he know that his far greater destiny is already written in the stars, forged through a celestial path which crosses with that of a shrouded, enigmatic girl, one who has phantoms in her eyes not unlike his own. For as one might expect, the young farmer's gaze is filled with longing, adventure, the golden light of heroism that so many seek, yet deep in those oceanic irises also lie the secret shadows of ghosts who have yet to emerge. 

War cannot stay away from his home planet for long, and soon death will be unleashed across Tatooine's once peaceful lands, leaving a macabre path of charring bones, rust-tinged sky, and more questions than answers.  And so, while others are afraid of one with a gift so terrifying as that of Xaeli Soren, Luke only sees beauty in the intensity of her stare and the liquid moon dust alight in her veins, for she is a mystery pleading to be solved, a mystery that could tie in with his own.

Even trapped beneath the Empire's blood-tinged shadow, the universe isn't ready for two so young to be haunted. The bluest eyes in the entire galaxy should not be brimming with ghosts when all they have ever seen is hidden under the light of twin suns. A little girl who was sent out into the desert to die as the last of her family name should not have survived, and ability to speak to the dead should have died with her. And yet, though neither of them know their own greater truth, they are more alike than they realize for each of them feel those who are torn away from life itself in phantoms and whispers, calling to them like a distant escape.

The dueling forces inside of them are mysteriously twisted; one is that of a moon, riddled with craters which mesmerizingly dance between the light and the dark, the other is that of a blinding sun which cannot help but to rise. In each of their cores there lies something so incandescently raw that it screams of impending peril to all that catch a glimpse of it, but perhaps their own curiosity, their own wonderment will dissolve all fear and doubt between two people who are more afraid of life's suffering than death's ever-prevailing mystery. And even one as reluctant as Xaeli Soren may soon find herself looking to the stars in her new companion's gaze instead of the translucent emptiness of spirits long passed, because if there's one thing an echoing soul of the dead cannot understand, it's love.

❈⋆⋯ STARRING ⋯⋆❈

Liu Yifei as XAELI SOREN

the haunted

❛Sometimes I feel like the dead are more alive than the living.❜

Mark Hamill as LUKE SKYWALKER

the dreamer

❛Don't you ever wonder if there's something out there, something better than all this?❜

❈⋆⋯ ✤ ⋯⋆❈

In which a haunted girl will become

the secret love of a boy who is darkness' son

Yet no matter hard far and how fast they both try to run,

the truth of the dead will not be undone,

for there is no sacrifice too great when a war is to be won

❈⋆⋯ AUTHOR'S NOTE ⋯⋆❈

Or, in which I try to prove to myself that I can willingly write something not featuring poe dameron or cassian andor, and am still not sure I'm capable.

Anyways lol, Xaeli is pronounced Zay-lee, and her character kind of built itself in my head a few days ago so as usual i jumped on a chance to procrastinate online school and voila, i now present phantom whispers. not much more to say yet so thanks for joining me :)

- J