On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter LIX

"Well, there's the hut," Luna noted to herself as she peered through a dark window to find it rather abandoned looking. She stood up, glancing at the wilderness around her. "Now where's the owner?"

Animals moved in the underbrush, but there was no answer to her quarry.

Well, Yoda's bound to show up eventually. Maybe I should lay out a tray of rations and see if it convinces him that I'm friendly...

I just decided to treat a Jedi Master like a stray dog, didn't I?

Whatever, same general principle: Food rules most creatures.

Sighing, Luna found a rock to lay out one of her ration kits—standard Imperial rather than Rebel though the differences were marginable. It was doubtful Yoda would like it considering his reaction when he stoll Luke's food, but free food was free food.

She then proceeded to choose a place to set up her tent and cot what she considered a respectable distance from Yoda's hut and a couple meters or so from the rock she had laid the rations kit out on. Luna hummed to herself as she worked, singing a lyric or two under her breath of a song she half remembered from Earth, sometimes commenting on something or other to the forest around her.

"Excuse me, Mister Snake, but I'm afraid the ground isn't a good place of residence at the moment," the girl stated as she nearly stepped on the reptile for a second time. She reached out a hand, using the Force to impress her friendliness on the creature. "How do you like trees?"

The snake moved to wind up her outstretched hand. Luna temporarily felt her breath catch in her throat—she didn't know what species it was or whether on not it was venomous—but shook off her fear, reaching out with her other hand to pick up the other half of its body before moving over to a nearby tree.

"Off you go," she said, draping part of the snake on a tree branch before unwinding the creature off of her arm. As soon as it started slithering around the tree limb, Luna returned to pitching her tent. "Feels rather lonely around here, though I guess it's nice there are critters around for company. Much friendlier than other planets, though a whole lot more humid. Reminds me of Michigan—the humidity and mists of course, not the forest.

"Not that anyone would care what I think. What matters is what the residents think. Besides, what do I know anyways—I've spent the past few years in near constant transit surrounded by metal walls.... I miss nature. The things I took for granted on Earth." Luna sighed as she finished pitching the tent, feeling a light drizzle begin. She began picking up everything and moving it under cover so it wouldn't get too wet. "If you aren't going to eat anything, could you please close the kit? I'm going to have to eat it eventually, and I don't want the food to go bad."

"Bad food, it is. Tasteless. Survives off it, how anything does, a mystery to me, it is."

"I've never had the luxury to give the taste of food a high priority in my life. Keeps me from starving to death, that is the extent of the relationship," Luna answered, unsurprised as she turned to find none other than Yoda had appeared standing next to the rock the rations were resting on at some unknown moment—she had sensed him show up, though she knew that the Jedi had likely only allowed her to sense him when he wanted her to, probably waiting to see what she was up to so close to his home. The wise Jedi Master looked like a near stranger when compared to the Grand Master she had met with in the Temple all those years ago. His robes looked more like rags than anything else, and the intervening years had clearly been a tad less kind than the movies had portrayed.

Not that the years had been kind to anyone on this side of the universe while Palpatine ruled.

"A sad relationship, it is. Good food tonight, you will have, yes," Yoda stated with a deciding nod as he used his stick to slam the rations kit shut. He didn't even give the Imperial etching on the lid the satisfaction of a glance as he began to hobble towards his hut.