Lyanna didn't tell anyone she was leaving.
She simply rose into the sky one morning, just after the dew had dried from the grass and the sun was beginning to edge out from the clouds. There was no dramatic farewell. No speech. No ceremony. The others barely noticed her absence at first. She often vanished for days to walk mountain ridges or chart wind currents.
But this time, she went further.
Far above the stratosphere. Beyond the moon. Beyond the pull of Earth's breath.
Into the silence.
There were no battle plans in her head. No coordinates. No targets. Just stars — cold and vast and alive in ways she couldn't explain.
She moved between them like wind over ice. Watching them shift. Watching them burn.
She cataloged their dance with nothing more than memory.
She stayed in motion for what felt like months.
Not lost.
Not hunting.
Just searching for something she couldn't name.
When Lyanna returned, she didn't speak for three days.
She arrived just after twilight, barefoot, clothes barely singed, hair pulled into a braid of starlight and soot. No one had seen her approach.
She walked into the valley, nodded once to Merrick — who grunted in response — and sat by the old fire circle where they used to gather.
It was Alexandra who noticed the marks first.
Under the flicker of a nearby flame, they shimmered — pale, geometric shapes etched across Lyanna's shoulders and spine. At first they seemed like soot, or scars. But when Lyanna moved, they shimmered like constellations reflected on black water.
They weren't drawn.
They weren't inked.
They were part of her.
Lyanna caught Alexandra staring and tilted her head.
"They're not tattoos," she said, her voice soft.
Alexandra blinked. "Then what are they?"
Lyanna looked up toward the stars.
"I don't know."
She never spoke about them again.
Not to the others. Not to Nolan. Not even to Gabe — who understood the stars like she did, who had also gone further than most, though in quieter ways.
The markings didn't spread. They didn't hurt. But under certain light — moonlight, starlight, or deep ultraviolet — they pulsed gently, like a heartbeat echoing through time.
Daniel, ever curious, once asked to sketch them.
She allowed it, but only once.
The sketch never matched what he saw. It was always missing something. A dimension. A pulse. A truth.
So he never asked again.
Lyanna returned to her cave carvings.
But this time, she added nothing.
She just sat, and looked, and waited.
For what — even she wasn't sure.
Elsewhere, the world turned.
The Legion remained scattered, keeping their pact. Some among them traveled off-world occasionally — Nolan more than most. Vela nearly as much. Sometimes alone, sometimes together.
Today, it was together.
Not for duty. Not for strategy.
Simply to breathe air that wasn't Earth's.
They left at dusk.
The valley was quiet. Nira and Fimmel were gone. Gabe was in the mountains. Luke and Daniel had taken a boat west. Alexandra stood beside a fire, watching the two ascend.
"You think they'll be gone long?" she asked without looking.
Merrick snorted. "They always say no. And they're always wrong."
She gave a soft chuckle. "Think they'll bring back trouble?"
Merrick tapped the side of his hammer against a stone. "Or worse. Curiosity."
Then the flames caught the edge of Lyanna's shoulders as she walked past, and Alexandra forgot what she was going to say.
Nolan and Vela broke the atmosphere in silence.
The stars were clearer here, but less alive than when seen from Earth. No filter of ozone, no distortion from air — just clarity. Stillness.
Nolan floated backward slowly, arms folded behind his head. His beard had grown longer again. He didn't seem to mind.
Vela remained upright, unmoving, like a statue carved from gravity.
They rarely spoke when they left the Earth. Neither of them were talkers by nature. But the silence between them wasn't tense.
It was shared.
Old.
Understood.
After a while, Nolan turned toward her.
"You ever think about going further?" he asked.
Vela didn't turn her head. "Further than this?"
"Further than exploration," he said. "Further than this planet. Further than peace."
She was quiet for a time.
"I used to," she admitted. "Back when I thought we could burn away what the Empire did by doing something louder. Something stronger."
"And now?"
"Now," she said, "I think silence is louder."
He watched her a while longer.
Then turned away, and drifted.
They traveled for several days.
Past the edge of the solar system. Past broken moons and asteroid fields. Through pockets of minor anomalies and sleeping stellar masses. They kept to uninhabited zones, letting the silence stitch between them.
It wasn't until the seventh day that something changed.
Nolan saw the flare first.
A pulse of violet energy, quick and subtle, blinking from the surface of a small planetoid orbiting a dead star.
He stopped.
Vela slowed beside him.
They said nothing — only exchanged a look, and began to descend.
The planet was hollowed out by time. No atmosphere. No tectonic pulse. No sound.
But something moved.
Slowly. Elegantly.
A figure.
Standing beside what looked like the husk of a collapsed structure. Alone. Back turned.
At first, Nolan thought she was another species entirely.
But as they got closer — cautiously, slowly — he could see her form.
Humanoid.
Tall. Lithe.
Her skin shimmered faintly, gold and silver beneath faint red glow. Not armor. Not plating. Something else. Her hair, long and loose, moved without wind.
Vela extended a hand to stop Nolan from moving further.
"Wait."
"She hasn't noticed us," Nolan whispered.
Vela didn't look convinced.
"She's not just standing," she said. "She's… singing."
Nolan listened.
There was no sound. No vibration. But something in his mind pulled — a thread of longing, as if remembering a lullaby that never existed.
"Do we approach?" he asked.
Vela didn't answer.
The figure turned slightly, not all the way — just enough for the light to catch the edge of her face.
Eyes not glowing, but deep — as if galaxies folded into them.
She looked toward the ruin beside her, then placed her palm flat against it.
The structure flared briefly with energy.
Symbols lit along the wall.
She didn't speak.
Then, just as quickly, she stepped backward and vanished into thin space.
No flare. No boom.
Just gone.
Vela exhaled slowly.
Nolan blinked. "Did you—?"
"She wasn't Kryptonian."
"No."
"Not Atlantean."
"No."
"Not us."
"Definitely not."
They floated in silence for a moment.
"Then what?" Nolan asked.
Vela looked down at the spot where the woman had stood.
"I don't know," she said. "But I want to."
They didn't pursue her.
Not that day.
They lingered near the ruined planet for another hour, but the woman didn't return. The structure dimmed, and eventually went dark.
Nolan traced the strange sensation in his mind — a low, resonant hum he couldn't shake.
A presence that hadn't spoken.
But had still reached.
They returned to Earth in silence.
Back to the valley. Back to the green hills and shallow rivers.
Neither of them said anything for hours.
But that night, while lying in the tall grass, Nolan stared at the stars a little longer than usual.
And when he blinked, he thought — just for a moment — that one of them pulsed violet.
She didn't have a name yet.
Not to them.
Not to this universe.
But far across the void of stars, in the shadows between galaxies, the one who would one day be called Celestine walked among the ruins of a world long dead.
She did not remember why she still sang.
But she sang anyway.