On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter LXX

Luna stifled a scream as she came to, pain streaking up her left leg as something moved it. She moved to sit up, only to realize one of her arms was pinned down. Thankfully, whatever had been moving her immediately stopped upon realizing that she was indeed alive and breathing and not at all happy.

The girl let out a breath, waiting for the pain to subside before she once again opened her eyes to the darkness to get a read on her situation—mostly with the Force as it was darker than space wherever she was.

Memories trickled back into her mind as she recalled what had happened for her to end up in her current state. She had caused the ceiling to collapse and had miscalculated the structural integrity of the tomb's corridor. Luna had managed to outrun the collapse for the most part, though the limbless tuk'ata had managed to bite her leg in the girl's rush to get away which had led to her leg giving out and her rolling like one of NASCAR's greatest crashes further down the hall from the left over momentum—knocking herself out on a rock before she could do anything or really process what had happened. Certainly not one of her finer moments.

All things considered, one armed pinned wasn't all that bad. Could have been worse. A lot worse.

Still, she had a mountain of ancient stone to one side and an arm trapped under it and had no idea how stable what hadn't collapsed was. For the moment, Luna decided to wait on freeing herself and instead see what in the galaxy had prompted her to awareness in the first place.

Considering she was A: on Moraband; B: inside a long dead Sith's tomb; and C: pinned down for the foreseeable future, Luna had a pretty good feeling she wouldn't like the answer regardless of what it was.

All the same she repositioned her free arm—still clutching her currently deactivated lightsaber because apparently if there was one thing she'd learned from her years of training was to never let go of the blasted thing even when she was unconscious—so the blade would be pointed upwards, much to the complaints of her injured arm, before she reativated it.

Luna stifled a shriek, jerking away and likely further damaging something considering the reaction of her pain receptors.

But in God's name, how else was a girl supposed to react when she turned on a light to find two larger than human eyes glowing in some evil looking monster's face as they stared at her from the darkness a few yards away. How. Kriffin. Else?

And one of the eyes was red! The other white! Like that blasted Edgar Allen Poe story—reasonable cause for muder if that's what you see when you turn on a light in a tomb!

The creature at least appeared to be on the same wavelength for a different reason as it too darted back noticeably, though it's movements were odd, lopsided—perhaps it had been inching forward after she had first notified it of her wakefulness. Thank the Force she had the presence of mind to activate her lightsaber when she did.

Luna took a deep breath, feeding on her pain and fear as she peered into the darkness to get a better description than freaky as hell eyes. It was a tuk'ata, from what she could tell, but an injured one. The white eye was—as one could assume should one stop to think—likely blind. There was an old wound that had left a scar running over that part of the creature's face—like Scar from the Lion King but deeper and three of varying length instead of one—it was likely the cause of blindness in that eye. The lopsided movements Luna had noted earlier were a result of a lost limb, one that was still bleeding, blood dripping to the floor in a rather steady stream. What the girl could make out of the rest of the tuk'ata's body appeared just as bloody.

I'm not responsible for that. Can't be, it'd be buried in the collapsed part of the hallway if it got caught up in it, right? And if it had shifted rocks to escape, I would have woken up. Did the corridor collapse further in? Am I trapped in both directions?

Even as Luna ran through possible causes, she didn't take her eyes off of the creature. The tuk'ata pinned it's ears and growled low and deep, baring its teeth. She met it's stare head on, not allowing the fear to take control.

"Do you wish to meet the fate of the rest of your pack so badly?" Luna questioned in Sith, the only hint of her unease being in the fact the grip on her lightsaber tightened. The hound cut off it's growl. "I suggest you learn fear and leave. It would have saved them."

The tuk'ata stared at her for a moment longer before, as well as it could with the recently lost limb, slunk back into the darkness of the tomb, disappearing in a matter of moments.

Relieved, Luna let her hand fall limp, saber deactivating and resting loosely in the palm of her hand. Well, uncollapsed part of the hall was clear of monsters and Sith hounds for the moment. Time to focus on getting free before anything else came upon her while she was still trapped.

Or that tuk'ata found more friends.

Next time she was hiring Aphra to risk her kiffin' life. Playing Indiana Jones was seriously overrated.

....But if the legends of Sith tombs were up to—well, less than legends in some cases as Luna well knew—it was unwise to send anyone who wasn't capable of dealing with curtain things, like cursed objects. And Force only knew the reliability and likelihood of someone taking something for themselves, not to mention the fact that there were about half a dozen old Sith related areas on Moraband alone that could result in possession—the not so fun kind of possession that brings a long dead Sith Lord back to life because their ghost kicks out your soul or something of that nature and not the coming into possession of priceless artifacts that may or may not be cursed.

Yeah, no. Luna wouldn't trust anyone but herself when it came to treasure hunting on Moraband.

The ex-Shadow looked up towards the ceiling lost in the darkness, using the Force to map out the stone beside her. Thankfully it appeared as though the rocks pinning her were not key in keeping the rest of the corridor from collapsing, meaning she could easily escape without endangering the integrity of the rest of the tomb. Which Luna did in a matter of moments.

With her good arm now free, Luna treated the wound on her arm and leg with the supplies in her bag. Supplies her usually over prepared self had most certainly not put in there.

"I'll have to thank Ahsoka for sneaking in the medkit," Luna mumbled to herself as she worked. It was something the girl usually didn't worry about besides a handful of bandages for emergencies—she could usually heal herself during down time after all. A full on medkit was usually nothing more than extra weight, especially if she was carrying rations and some camping supplies.

Upon finishing, Luna hauled herself to her feet and lit her lightsaber, allowing the blade's light to fall on the rocks blocking the hall.

No time like the present to figure out if it's possible to shift the rock and form an opening. Better to see if I need to find another way out sooner rather than later.