Sand and Sun

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

He smiled slightly, slowly nodding. "Okay, but hold still."

There was a way to do this without a knife, one just had a move a little bit more carefully. Munin slowly stood up from the ground, sweeping sand away from himself and taking careful note not to get any in Spark's face. He moved around her slowly, looking and assessing as to where the rope actually was. There were a few tangled bits, bu the net was actually very simplistic in structure, not to mention how it was made in the first place. In truth it looked to be cobbled out of old bits of string which had simply been spliced together.

"Okay." He slowly went to work unwinding Spark from everything, gently sliding bits of the net off her and undoing a few knots. "You're lucky you're cute."

Munin joked as he pulled free some of the rope from her leg. The Net half came apart as he did so, the knot that. "We'll need to leave, I don't want to run into the people who set up this trap. I'm not risking your life like that, even if you can beat them up."

He gave her a small wink, but when it came down to it Munin wasn't willing to risk any run ins at this point.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

"Wait," she found she could move her arms now. "You think I'm cute?" Her embarrassed and hurt-pride blush deepened into something else. Reaching above her head, she pulled off the netting around her face, then pushed some pieces down her hips. She sat up in the cooling sand, hand coming up to adjust her lopsided glasses.

"And remember, I'm risking my own life, Sawyer. I could've handled this." Fingers motioned to the discarded net.

#hopefullyprobably #aslongasIhadtheforce

"I'm pretty sure I got us out of the Senator's house." Freckled-nose scrunched up as her lips twitched into a temporary smile.

"But if we leave, what about the sandstorms?" And there was something else. How did Munin get to her so fast? She could've sworn she sensed...something. But she wasn't so sure. With the adrenaline and everything happening...she'd have to see if it happened again.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

"I thought that would have been obvious by now." He said as he offered her a hand to help her get up from the sand.

He perked an eyebrow. Perhaps she could have gotten out, probably, but there might have been more waiting. These traps were designed to capture scrappers and junkers, those that tried to loot these massive ships for anything and everything they could. He imagined that whomever set the trap was likely a slaver or raider of some sort, someone that took the unsuspecting, but not entirely innocent and sold them into servitude somewhere. Not pleasant, but not the most evil thing Munin had ever heard of either.

She was of course right. It was her own life that she was risking, but still he'd rather not have both of them get trapped by slavers. If they were going to stay here, then they certainly weren't going to be anywhere near the trap. He looked at her for a moment, then back into the deep darkness of the Lucrehulks hangar bay. "I seem to recall me doing most of the running at the good Senators home."

Munin teased with a smile.

"The Storms..." Munin said quietly. "If we stay here..." He began quietly. "Then we move further into the Hangars. I doubt they'll come looking far, and if we hide the speeder and set up a few alarms of our own...I think we'll be okay."

She was right. If a bad storm hit them, better to have some durasteel around rather than just the tent.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

"For a non-runner, you do a decent job," she smiled back and took his hand, popping to her feet. #Imissmyconverse Fingers tightened around his own as she looked beyond his shoulders and deeper into the mysterious black depths of the lucrehulk hangar.

"Okay," she breathed. She could do this. #don'tbescared "Any scavengers or slavers, or whoever set this trap, I think we can handle them. Together. Unless they're sith lords. Then I'll handle them and you run. Since you're a natural."

She tried to joke around and she wasn't sure if she was any good at it. Really, she was just trying to distract herself and keep any nightmarish memories away. The netting and being temporarily entrapped hadn't helped things.

"Do you want to get the speeder and I can scout ahead?"

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

He thought about that for a moment, looking at her, then at the darkness, then back towards the speeder, then quickly towards the ground where the remnants of the net lay strewn about all over the place. He gave her a pensive look, then smiled. "Why don't we go together."

The suggestion was met with half amusement in his tone.

"Wouldn't want you to get trapped in another net." He joked, but in truth it was a very real concern. Together they could face any obstacle, like she herself had said. Raiders, traps, whatever, it could all be overcome if they worked together, but if they split up...well then they were weaker. It was better that they stick together and grab the speeder together, that way they could move more slowly and more carefully into the hangar of the lucrehulk.

"Better not to take chances." Munin said more seriously. "Slow and steady wins the race."

They could gamble on other things.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

"Okay. We can go together." She was relieved. Her logical mind was just trying to be efficient at that suggestion. But it wouldn't have been her preferred choice. Fingers gradually went to slip from his hand.

Glasses were adjusted.

Squaring her shoulders, she took one last glance into the gloomy darkness, reminding herself that several scout droids were already back there - somewhere. #technosoldiers It was already dark outside. Only a deep purple painted the horizon of the sky.

"I guess I'll even let you drive the speeder again to move it." She nudged him lightly with her bony-shoulder as she walked past.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

He smiled, then quickly trailed after her. The speeder was predictably where they had left it, though it was now outlined by the glow of the setting sun. The odd desert haze added a red hue to the setting star, his eyes adjusting as he stepped out onto the sands. A frown pulled at his lips, hand coming up above his eyes so that he could peer towards the distance for a few moment. He saw no raising dust clouds, no specks of speeders, nothing.

It seemed that for now at least they were safe. "Here."

Munin said as he walked passed her and pulled the datapad off of the speeders end, tucking his blaster back into the pack he had pulled it from earlier. He offered the datapad to Spark as she made her way back towards the speeder.

"You read where the probes have gone." They had made a neat little map by now. "Guide us through the hangar to somewhere we can stop."

Lucrehulks were massive ships, they could probably spend a good twenty minutes just driving around in the circular hangar bay. It was best that they found a small alcove of sub-hangar to spend the night in though, something that was hidden away but not too far away from a way out. Of course it would have to be big enough to fit the speeder, but Munin wasn't particularly worried about finding something like that in a place that once housed entire starships.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

"Got it," taking the datapad, she thought about being super fly and hopping over the closed speeder door. #thatshowweendupwithbrokennoses Instead, she fumbled with the handle and slid in. Fingers swept through the datapad, the screen reflecting a soft glow on her skin in the dusk air. This time, she kept her mind out of the device.

#natural #oldschool

And she chose not to comment on the blaster she saw. She wasn't judging. She had her own. But her setting was set on stun. She had no idea what Munin's was set on.

"Looks like they mapped most of the ship. At least, the parts above ground. At the back of the hangar, I think there's a cluster of cargo holds we could house up in for the night. I'll show you the way."

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

"Okay." Munin said as he climbed into the speeder and quickly flipped on the Repulsor lifts.

There was a quiet whir, then a jump forward as the vehicle sprang to life.

The headlights flickered to life a second later, and with just another moment passing Munin began to press them forward into the hangar bay of the Lucrehulk. They moved slowly, at a crawl compared to the speed that they had used to rocket through the sand dunes. He didn't really fancy ending up squashed against one of the walls of the hangar, and thus he decided that it would be best to take their time. The hangar bay proved to be about as boring as one would expect.

Parts of the ceiling were completely torn away, half the walls were covered with graffiti, and of course the actual deck of the hangar was buried in several dozen feet of sand. Everything within the first few hundred meters looked as though it had been completely stripped of anything of value, though most of the doors were surprisingly closed. He frowned for a second as he guided the speeder deeper into the hangar bay, watching carefully for any signs of movement.

"I've never really liked starships." He confessed to her. "No good memories on them."

Just ones of being moved from orphanage to orphanage, traveling from planet to planet in miserable half broken down freighters. Even now he preferred to keep his feet on solid earth, part of the reason why he and Huginn generally tended to stay planetside.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

"Turn right in about two meters." #metricsystem "then we'll take a left." Blue eyes beneath glass lenses finally broke from the screen's glow. She looked at Munin's profile.

"I'd like to hear more about it, Sawyer," she prodded quietly. Sand still fell from her hair as she shook her head from the earlier netting. Huge sections of the ship above allowed a filtering of the twinkling stars to peak through into them. Thin-lips frowned. They'd have to go a bit further in if they wanted more protection for a possible storm.

Unlike her companion, she loved starships. #usually They were her playground. Unless, she was bound, gagged and forceless.

"And then two more lefts," she added quietly. They'd be coming up to the cargo hold soon. Looked like the scout droids picked up on chunks of old star fighters in there too. A round bulb of an old TIE. Half something that looked like an x-wing on the scans and a few she didn't recognize.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

It was clear that whomever had last owned this ship hadn't exactly held any particular loyalties. He spotted half a dozen different ships from half a dozen different factions, and from the way Spark was gazing around she saw the same thing. Briefly he wondered how this thing had crashed here in the first place.

His lips thinned as he followed her directions, controls held gently in his hands. "The first time I ever went on a starship was when I left Coruscant."

His head began to hurt as he spoke, a dull stabbing ache.

"I remember...being told that no one on Coruscant wanted me." The Mistress of the House had never minced words when it came to him. "So they were moving me to another Planet. Anaxes I think. I didn't stay there long either."

The pain went away as his story moved away from Coruscant. "They crammed twenty three of us into a freighter smaller than the VCX you and I stole. It was filthy and infested with womp rats. The trip took a week, the hyperdrive broke half way and we ran out of food...it wasn't pleasant."

The speeder slowly came to a stop as he finally found the sectioned off cargo holds.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

There it was again. Something she sensed? Eyes focused on Munin but just as quickly it was gone. "I think we'll be fine anywhere in here." Voice came out in a whisper. She didn't want the sound to carry, even though they were alone. She checked the reports in the datapad one more time until she was satisfied they were until she turned her entire attention on Sawyer.

"That sounds...horrible. And illegal." Legality didn't often matter. She too struggled with food, living on the streets. Sometimes. But she never came close to starving. She hadn't wandered the streets until she'd already honed her slicing skills. The rest of the time was spent in boarding schools after boarding schools. She always got kicked out for bad behavior even though they could never pin anything on her...exactly.

#goodatslicing #goodatstealing #denydenydeny

"Why didn't you stay long at Anaxes?"

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

Munin slipped from the Speeder and immediately headed around the back of it. The tent was buried under half a ton of stuff and he wanted to get it off before they found a place to settle for the night. He peered around momentarily and managed to pull the rolled up fabric off the back of the Speeder, quickly joining it with two sleeping bags.

"I'm certain it wasn't legal, but no one really cared." It was a sad reality, but Munin had long ago let the anger wash away. He pulled free a flashlight from the pack on front of him and turned it on, bringing the light towards a small doorway leading into an alcove. "There."

It was close to the speeder, out of the way, and large enough for the Tent.

He scooped up the rolled fabric and headed towards the alcove, stopping to wait for Spark and answer her question. He frowned slightly as that same pressure returned to his head, goosebumps trickling down his spine as he did so. "I...I think it was something to do with the government."

Munin winced slightly as a sharp needle like pain stabbed into his head.

"Either way..." He continued on, ignoring the pain and stepping into the alcove. "We went to Spira next. It was nice there, my favorite of the Orphanages and where I met..."

Munin stopped himself, dropping the tent in the alcove and realizing what he was about to say. Comically, almost as if trying to diffuse the situation, the tent popped open and immediately unfurled itself upright and into its completed form. "...My sister."

There it was, a truth he had never shared with anyone, a truth that showed just how much he trusted her, or at the very least wanted to trust her.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

She mirrored Munin's movements and stopped next to him, just outside the alcove. But she jumped back, clearly startled by the sudden expansion of the tent. #playitsmooth Pack slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor. #toolate

The slicer quickly knelt down, rummaging blindly inside.

"Your sister?" Hands continued to rummage but her blue eyes locked onto Munin's in the soft glow the flashlight had to offer. "What do you mean? You guys somehow get separated in the beginning, in the system?"

Hand enclosed around some snack bags and she offered one to Munin. She also unpacked a small chargeable lantern, flipping the switch on and setting it down at the entrance to the #their alcove.

#homey

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

He stopped for a moment. Did he tell her more? Should he tell her more? It wasn't like she could find Huginn anyway. His sister, like himself, had no name, no permanent identity, nothing. They were impossible to track down digitally, and even more so physically. Aside from that fact...he trusted Spark. He didn't know why, but they'd already shared so much with one another that this little detail hardly seemed to matter, and of course he'd not tell her everything.

Not yet.

"No." He said slowly as he took one of the snacks, almost hesitantly as if she was about to strike him. "She's not my blood relative."

Of course, if Spark ever met Huginn that much would become obvious in about half a second. The Besalisk couldn't really be mistaken as a relative, given that she was a head taller than him and had an extra pair of arms. The green skin also didn't help. "Not a lot of people get to choose their family. I did."

That was a small consolation.

Munin cast his glance down at Spark who seemed to be creating a small nest within their alcove. The lantern was popped on and her sleeping bag was tossed into the tent, he echoed the motion, though it was clear that he was still somewhat uncomfortable talking about Huginn. Spark wasn't even prying of course, not much anyway, but...well Munin never spoke about his sister, not with anyone. Many of their Little Birds didn't even know about both Huginn and Munin unless it was a special case.

"We've stuck together since Spira." He would offer that little detail. "Protected one another."

In truth, Huginn had done most of the protecting.

Slowly, finally, Munin sat down just outside the tent in front of the little light, putting down his backpack and settling at Spark's side.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

"Oh," she said quietly. She wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and back. It was already getting a little chilly. With a snap-crackle, her bag of trail mix was pried open. A shoulder brushed against Munin's. She wasn't sure if she was gravitating toward him more because of the dark or cold. #maybeboth #maybesomethingelse

"It's not easy to find someone you can trust. And when they become like family," thoughts drifted to those at the homestead. Even Qun, which made her heart ache,"That's something really special." She wondered if a Jedi hadn't stumbled into that darknet cafe and never found her. Would she have ever found the friends she knew now that she counted as family? Or would she still be working alone?

Of course, she never would've had to deal with the sith. Or Coren. But maybe some pain was worth it for all the rest of the decent stuff that happened. The important stuff.

She was curious about Spira. But she wasn't going to pry. Not this time.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

He smiled slightly, feeling her press up against his shoulder for just half a second. For a moment Munin thought about the past, about how he and Huginn had grown up together and how everything had sort of folded into place. It seemed a tad odd to him even now that a small boy like him would end up befriending the largest and probably toughest kid in the orphanage, but perhaps it was the way of fate. He'd questioned it before of course, but in the end he had always assumed it came down to one thing, they had both been outcasts.

Huginn had been one of only five aliens in the orphanage, and the other four had all been Twi'leks. That naturally made it so the other kids pushed her away, and Munin? Well Munin had been the bottom of the barrel. Pint sized and hardly capable of defending himself. The others had spotted him as an easy target early on and they had taken advantage of that. Huginn never had, and eventually the two of them had grown into fast friends. Both of them had learned to slice, and together they had come up with all sorts of schemes and plots, things that eventually lead to them leaving the orphanage behind. He smiled for a second, caught up in nostalgia.

He was torn from those thoughts when Spark gently brushed up against him once more.

His eyes cast towards her, a light smile still touching his lips. The food in his left hand was left untouched, his right hand slowly snaking around her lower back. He wrapped his arm around her and gently tugged her closer. "Maybe."

Munin began quietly.

"Maybe sometimes." Part of him knew what he was about to say was stupid, but he couldn't help himself. "You just kind of stumble into those kinds people."

Those you could trust, those that you wanted to trust. After all he hadn't meant to find Huginn, he hadn't even been searching for friends, for family. Before Spira he'd never even considered that he could have something like that. The system had broken him down, beaten him, and yet, in the end he'd found something he'd never looked for.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

Cheeks flared as his arm found its way around her back and she was suddenly tugged much closer against his side. Slender neck turned and her blue-eyes found his face. "Yeah, maybe." She found the tension that came with any touch begin to melt from her shoulders. A moment more and she relaxed against his side.

She tried to quiet any lingering doubts she had about the man next to her. They still had a lot to learn about each other. #feelingitout

"And if by 'stumbling into,' you mean acting like a snooty-tooty party guest pointing blasters at everyone." She snorted next to him and munched on some more trial mix. "Would you have actually shot me?"

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

"Well." He began with a smile. "We can't all pretend to be from the worst tech service in the galaxy."

A part of Munin was still somewhat bummed that the identity he had used on Coruscant had been burned. The alias had been an effective one, he'd used it several times before. Now he didn't have a way to get into Coruscant high life if he needed to. That part was slightly depressing, and when he'd told Huginn she had yelled at him. It wasn't easy to make an Alias that had notoriety. It was simple to be just another guy on the street, but try to pass yourself off as someone important?

That was more difficult.

"It's a better story this way." He suggested with a smile.

The pale glow of the small light in front of them seemed to flicker slightly, the battery sending a small surge of power out. For a moment Munin wondered if it would have been nicer to have a fire, though the thought quickly went away as he realized that they were inside and that they had nothing to actually burn. There was a small heater in the speeder that he had packed in case it got extra cold within the desert, though he suspected they wouldn't quite need that tonight.

Munin turned to her at the last question, frowning slightly. "No, the blaster didn't have a powerpack in it."

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

"Hey," she nudged him slightly. "That tech service had excellent ratings." She finished off the trail mix. "So the blaster was just for show?" Blonde-brows lofted. #surprised

She held back a yawn. Any lingering light from the sunset was gone. The odds and ends of starfighters offered strange shadows along the floors and walls. #monsters The blonde slicer wasn't scared of things like that, though. Thin-lips pursed. She wasn't sure if this was the right time to bring something up.

"This is gonna sound weird but...when you ran to get me...I thought I sensed something in you. I dismissed it because I thought it was just my adrenaline and in the moment. But then when we were talking about Coruscant. I sensed it again. And again. It's tech-related. I mean...do you feel any different? I thought I saw you wince. And you acted weird back at the orphanage when you tried to remember...," voice trailed off, unsure of where to go or what further to say.