On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter CXLIII

Luna's knees buckled, sending her to the bloody ground. She was on a battlefield surrounded by dead bodies. Her body was on fire, though she saw no flames. She couldn't think. Couldn't feel. Couldn't see.

And yet, she could still hear that blasted chant reverberating through her body, still see that gilded door with the stranger on the other side. The girl felt every fiber of her being become stretched to the limit, tearing into smithereens while that horrible sickening snakelike dread crawled through her body telling her there was more to this than what she was seeing.

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

For once, despite the reverberating words, all she could pay attention to was her internal agony and sense that something was horribly wrong. It was in equal parts desperation and the sense of unsettling fear of what her failing body meant that caused a single worded scream to leave her lips: "MASTER!"

~*~

Luna bolted up in a cold sweat, heart thrumming from panic to the point she almost thought the words were still shaking her. Her tired eyes snapped the world into focus, hurried along by the adrenaline pulsing through her system. But with that adrenaline came panic and while she no longer saw the girl and gilded door, Luna's mind conjured images from the shadows and furniture.

Thankfully, it took only a few moments for her brain to properly catch up with her suddenly alert state and connect enough dots for her to recognize her location: the foot of her bed aboard the Executor. The subsequent adrenaline crash left Luna flopping back down as all the bruises and other injuries she'd gained while the vision had held of her began to make themselves known. Lyrics filtered through her ears from the still playing music, but OneRepublic's "Rescue Me" was little more than background noise. Her mind was almost unable to even recognize the music for what it was.

After a moment of time devoted in the attempt to calm her still too quick heart, the girl pushed herself up from the floor with a groan. Upon sitting up, she felt something dripping down her forehead with the consistency of blood. A quick check with her fingers came back red. Grumbling a curse, Luna shoved herself to her feet and went to the 'freasure to check on the damage. It looked worse than it actually was of course, surface head wounds had that tendency, but the injury did exist and made a mess. With the help of the Force, Luna was able to stitch the minor cut closed, and then she set about cleaning the small pool of blood off the floor before taking a shower to get it off of herself.

After that, the girl didn't know what to do with herself. It was rather early in the morning and many of the Executor's systems had hours to go before they shifted from artificial night brought about by slightly dimmed hallway lights to the usual brightness.

But the night was just that, artificial. The Executor did not sleep.

With still wet hair, Luna moved to her office and set about the datawork. With a mixture of tricks and an extensive amount of tea, she was able to make it through several hours worth of datapads before the words started blurring together and her body was threatening to shut down on her from lack of stimulation. By that point, artificial night was minutes away from rolling over into artificial day. As it was no longer an unGodly hour, Luna exited her chambers and pressed the buzzer on the control panel of the door across from her own. What felt like a small eternity but could have only been a few minutes, the door slid open to reveal a newly awakened Luke.

"How are you settling in?" Luna questioned, noting in the back of her mind that at the very least the boy had managed to discover the closet and the clothes within as he was wearing nightclothes. It appeared the measurements still worked for him—Vader would be pleased, as that meant the armor he'd commissioned for the boy around the same time would still be of use.

"What time is it?" Luke asked.

"Oh-six-hundred. How is everything?"

"Been fine," he said, seemingly awakening more as each moment passed. "Only saw about half the ship. Aiolin said she'd show me the other half at some point today. What about you? You seemed pretty busy."

"There was a lot to catch up on, still is." Just recalling the mountain of yet to be done paperwork was almost enough to make Luna shudder. With luck, Vader would catch up to them before she'd finished it. At least then it'd be his problem like it was supposed to be. "Anyway, I was wondering if you were open to having breakfast and perhaps a spar afterwards."

"Sounds like fun."