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dredgencull · 2 years

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“Pity is… hard to find, days like this.” Saint-14’s voice is a cacophony of sound, that, perhaps, one might fear. But not to Misraaks, and not to Misraak’s House, who know the Saint as an ally as real as their own feet touching soil. “Osiris is still sleeping, we’ve tried every medicine we can find to wake him. But Savathun might have destroyed him, and that frightens me.”

“It’s not pity I offer you,” Misraaks says. “But my condolences, and my help. We are still on frighteningly new terms, Saintkel, but new, comforting ones. Osiris is your family, and I would do anything to help your family.”

“Osiris is more than family, Osiris is my half. You have four arms, I have two. Osiris is my other set. Osiris is the air I breathe, Misraaks. Er, hah! Misraakskel, getting used to these new terms.”

“I understand, I didn’t mean to insinuate…” Misraaks pauses. “Allow me into your home, if just to see his condition. My daughter and I, we can help you. Ever since the Whirlwind, there’s been many Eliksni who have fallen asleep and look like they’ll never wake up. We’ve helped them, and we’ll help Osiris.”

“You are like,” Saint-14 pauses. “Flower, in dead of winter, beneath the snow. I was wrong about you, Misraakskel. And I was wrong about your kind. I thought. Mm. Worth saying? Old memories, old thoughts to go along with them.”

“Worth saying, Saintkel,” Misraaks encourages softly. “Please, continue.”

“Thought Eliksni were all ruthless. Many, many tales, long before Twilight Gap, of Eliksni killing entire hunting parties. Innocent civilians, without Light, slaughtered within hours in the middle of the night. Terrifying stories that I now see as faceless fearmongering. But you? Misraakskel, you have shown Light I have not seen in very long time. The Guardian, they shine brightly down onto the Last City, and all new frontiers. But you, you are a Light coming from inside our home. You are our home, beneath the Traveler. I truly believed that I would never face Eliksni again without them being lifeless in my hand. But Osiris told me once, about my perceptions of life, and who deserves it.”

“He did?” Misraaks says, perking up slightly. “I didn’t know Osiris spoke about us.”

“Late-night talks, full of night terrors. Osiris would calm the entire room. He would tell me, ‘Saint,’ with the voice I now realize was different between him and Savathun, ‘Don’t you think the Eliksni were afraid, too?’ Yes! I said, every right to be! I will kill them, for what they’ve done. If I am the monster, then so be it. ‘No,’ Osiris would say. ‘Afraid of living?’ I would look at him, asking him why with just my eyes. He would continue. ‘Night terrors come from fear of life, and reliving what you’ve done. The terror strikes new, like wave, and when it crashes upon you, you’re afraid. Eliksni are alive, just like us; chosen, by the Traveler, just like us. You are afraid of reliving your worst moments, and so are they. Yes, we’re at odds, but they are alive. Fighting back against everything, they are alive. And so are you.’”

“That’s right,” Misraaks says. “After the Whirlwind, every day became a fight not only against humans, and Guardians, but also against time. If we weren’t careful, we would run out of Ether, and we’d suffocate. It was terrifying, to live. But it was worth it, it had to be worth it.”

“I thought of that, often, when I met you. It became somewhat of a mantra. Afraid to live. Afraid more to die. I remember the fear of death, but I know the fear of living today, without Osiris by my side. You became a brother. You are a brother to me, Misraakskel. You are my equal. You are what the Light gave, on purpose. Sagira would say that. ‘The Light sometimes bears you misfortune, and pain. But sometimes it gives you love.’ She meant it for Osiris and I, but if she were here, she would mean that for you, too.”

“Thank you,” Misraaks says quietly. “That means a precious amount to me, to hear you say that about your loved ones.”

#saint-14 #mithrax #misraaks #destiny 2 #purple bros #my writing #jaycull.txt #ofc ofc ofc ofc the second a new season drops i have brainrot #idk how to write his speech ??? i feel like this is how everyone writes russian speakers #is this how they speak #when speaking english #idk

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dredgencull · 2 years

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i know d2 is like post-modern so would guardians find out / use neopronouns. and i mean this MOST sincerely that i can im asking if ppls guardians would use guardianself or ze or xe or weaponself. i am ONE HUNDRED percent asking if people’s guardians would use aceself.

personally my guardian talos would use lunself and would’ve probably used swordself at some point

#pls i really wanna know LMAO #other guardians #d2 #jaycull.txt

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dredgencull · 2 years

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Scream (1996)

#not destiny #scream (og) is too good to pass up #zee tag #<333

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dredgencull · 2 years

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Sympathy is a foreign creature even to our own eyes.

And with Savathûn in the helm, sympathy became Talos’ Book of Revelation.

There’s always been this connection, that Talos has noticed. We, Talos believes, we connect Darkness as the antithesis to sympathy. Darkness is hollow and treacherous even to its own kind and its hostile, it bears its teeth even to its own kin. The Light gave us something we’d never known we’d be lost without. The Darkness gave us fear. It gave us borne rows of teeth like Dredgen Yor; it gave us death.

And Talos knows this intimately, as anyone would, a Guardian with any knowledge of history. Which makes Savathûn such an obviously traitorous case to the Darkness. She wants her worm out — isn’t that right? She wants her worm out, so she’s sought out the Guardians and Mara, she wants her worm out, so she’s betrayed her sister for the final time; she wants her worm out, so she exposes herself to the Light. The Light that she betrayed from the beginning, in her search for knowledge, for cleverness, for power — we’ve all read that story. But aren’t we a little sympathetic to Savathûn? Doesn’t something in this case make us want to be sympathetic?

What is it, then, if not for the Light? But she’s frightened, say, she’s angry at what this worm could’ve taken from her. Her worship has long gone into something much more poisonous. And doesn’t that make her truer, not only to herself to realize, but to us? Not an adversary, but a common street-rat, just like every Guardian tempted? Does Talos covet cruelty against Guardians with Stasis, with Thorn, because they were tempted? Does he believe that these people are any less sympathetic, because some facet of Darkness has become known to them?

No. Darkness was as much Savathûn’s saboteur as her sole companion. And would you have it? That’s what it wants from you, a bud to grow only to wilt, the cycle of things.

The Helm has become its own fourth dimension, in recent months. One side to the Eliksni and Misraaks’ Servitor, and on the other, Mara. Queen Mara of the Awoken. Who would’ve thought she would’ve ever shared air space with the Vanguard and their soldiers? Talos would’ve never expected it, surely, and neither would have any one else. Maybe a few hopeful Awoken Guardians, hoping to reach back into their past lives, see her again, hear her voice. Talos had no such commitment to Queen Mara.

And then Savathûn. The Witch Queen! Oryx and Xivu Arath’s sister, god forbid. We’ve already slaughtered one God, what’s the next? And she’s in our clutches, we could have had her dead a million times, and she knows that. Talos knows that. Queen Mara knows that. This may be Mara’s domain that she’s caged in, but it’s with the Vanguard’s protection that she sees to the end of this mission with her congregation of Techeuns. God! Maybe Sword Logic does work out, maybe the final shape will be the one who outsmarts us all.

It’s been several times that Talos has spoken to Savathûn in Mara’s quarters. And she’s as looming as he imagines her to be, even in her chrysalis of spun sugar. Inheritance, Talos’ ghost, has remarked on this several times. In her usual chirpy voice, much like chimes in the wind, she has said, “she could get out if she wanted to. She’s spun this web of lies and sugar. Mara is right, we shouldn’t trust her, even talking to her feels like she’s leading us on.”

Talos has replied, “She seems so helpless like this, caged like a songbird. Part of me feels sorry for her.”

Inheritance wiggles her shell, she didn’t like Talos’ perspective on this. “It’s a countdown. Not to a bomb, but a grandmaster. She’s had millenia to devise this. We’re only a step until entropy.”

And that’s where we left it, then. Before Talos had met her, of course. We had our doubts and our suspicions about Savathûn’s true intentions in wanting to betray the Deep, but who were we exactly to judge? The Darkness had given Savathûn her longevity, and all of this strength. In a mirror pool, isn’t that what the Traveler has done for Talos himself? And why shouldn’t he be sympathetic, to this strange, foreign creature, with a soul, with a mind? Was she not our friend, as we were hers, when she wore the skin of another? We’d known him to be a friend, and Talos none different, so clearly she’s capable of it. Is this not sympathy, that we felt for Osiris, and this her, too? Do we not feel connected, along the betrayal, where does the line we draw cross for the people we hate the most?

The line between the light and the dark is so very thin.

Savathûn’s voice would be a cacophony feeding a stadium to the brim. She would speak like a God, and Talos would make the connection to her siblings; her brother as the King of the Taken, and Xivu Arath, warmonger. Her eyes would train into the ceiling of Mara’s quarters, but he would feel the height of the heat just the same as if he were physically under her thumb. “Guardian,” she would say.

“Savathûn, Witch Queen,” Talos would reply.

“Talos, Guardian,” Savathûn would say, with no less or more amount of humor. “I’ve heard about you. Your cooperation with Mithrax was most enthusiastic, even from where I stood. I watched you very carefully, perhaps the most out of all of them.”

And Talos would feel grateful as much as he would dread, because who isn’t dreading the moment that Savathûn notices you? “And your work with the Techeuns. The Queen’s covenant is almost complete.”

“Are you in anticipation, Savathûn?” Talos would say because he wants the bragging rights of having a conversation with her. And because he’s curious. The Hive and their Deep and their paracausal religion has dipped and soaked into everything that Talos now knows as truth. And to completely separate one’s self from that is to remove one’s identity by peeling it off of your face. “For Ur to be gone.”

“What an interesting question,” she would say. “Do you, Guardian mine, feel anticipation when removing a heavy fungus that’s implanted into part of your brain? A co-consciousness that you know will kill you if you are not in active control and under complete obedience to that crown. What do you feel when the Darkness lifts? When the Endless Night lifted, when the Vex were destroyed? Did you feel anticipation, relief? Or did you feel dread, grief, knowing what you’ve already lost to them?”

“Do you feel dread?” Talos would say.

“I do.” Savathûn would say, not indignantly, but also not pleased where this conversation has gone. “There is no ethical way to grieve, Guardian. You suffer and you sorrow and you lose. There is no love saved for those who keep living.”

“No sisters and no men,” Talos would say. “Isn’t that right?”

Savathûn would not say anything, but we would already know the answer: she’d driven Crow into self-induced exile, much like Mara had given to his past self. A disgrace, maybe, something bad and rotten soaking into the pores of the Helm. He was brought into suffering through a liar. And his sister suffers her loss of a brother, and her loss of his presence. Savathûn suffers just the same, after Xivu Arath ate Oryx’s legacy whole.

There is always a world, Talos supposes, where every sister has caused the apocalypse.

And that would be the end of their conversation. That is, until Inheritance speaks. “She’s not going to answer like you think, you know. She’s going to be Savathûn, Witch Queen, Sword-Breaker, not Savathûn, the Hive goddess Talos made up in his head.”

“Is there any reason you’re saying that?” Talos asks quietly. The trek from the front of Mara’s quarters, beyond her covenant, and into Savathûn’s cage isn’t a long walk, but he makes it look intentional. Meaningfully slow.

“I just don’t want you to be disappointed, is all. She’s beyond what we can understand. Just remember that, when she speaks our language.”

Here is the thing about darkness, and also universally about mathematics, and about space: it is beyond our comprehension. We cannot wrap our minds about trillions of lightyears, or the endless galaxies far beyond even what we’ve traveled. We can’t conceptualize how damaging infinite knowledge is. Some of us, though not all, can’t comprehend God, and the rest that can have only defeated the knowledge that their comprehension has limits. We, as Guardians, cannot comprehend the Light. We also cannot comprehend the Darkness. It’s through no fault of our own, but these paracausal forces are so beyond us and everything we’ll ever be that it’s like looking directly into the sun and ignoring the fact that we’re crying.

It’s not evil to be beyond comprehension. Some Guardians are scared of the dark, that is, the beyond. Stasis is some of our beyond. Thorn and the Dredgens and Rezyl Azzir’s descent into Yor is some of our beyond. The Black Garden is our space, infinite and terrifying; the Vault of Glass is our lightyears, both moving backwards and forwards longer than we could ever know to acknowledge; we’ve spoken to lifeforms that have been older than our entire lives.

Is Savathûn evil because she is beyond comprehension?

Savathûn is evil because of her actions, we cry! I hear you, I see you, Guardians — brothers and sisters of our resurrection! But this exercising of Ur, wouldn’t you say this is redemption? Her path into getting from her dark path, into a more grey area? Wouldn’t we say that this is just proof of her conscience, her ability to grow, just as we have that growth potential? Wouldn’t you say that, this now, this present, this experience and want from Savathûn, is her growing in front of our very eyes? Is this not an apocalypse, Guardian ours, a Revelation that even the most infected of us can change?

Does our descent mean we must lie down and take our decisions, when we made them, searching for power? For a way to overpower grief? For a way to console our identity, that even if we peel ourselves apart, we remain whole?

“There she is,” Inheritance says, a whisper. “Savathûn.”

“There I am.” Savathûn says.

She’s in her cocoon, just as Talos had expected. Her crystal cage, both metaphorically and literally. She’s massive, just not as massive as her brother. She ties her hands around her chest like a straitjacket, and Talos watches the way that the light reflects off of her gem-like skin, now. And for the reason that she’s caged unnerves him, the way that she looks like she’s in metamorphosis unnerves him.

“Guardian,” Savathûn says. Maybe he wasn’t so wrong, her voice of tar cloaking ice. Talos feels a shiver go through him, and Inheritance wiggles unpleasantly. “This was the inevitable, was it not? I see you… you’re not angry like the others.”

Talos’ fist clenches. This, somehow, upsets him more than being noticed by her in the first place. But to be noticed in a whole: an angry ocean, with a few ripples of difference. “So I’ve heard.”

Savathûn laughs. It’s such a slow, slick sound, that Talos wants to laugh with her. There’s a rhythm in her syllables, let alone her breaths. When she talks, she’s singing a thousand songs. You can’t — ever — disable the first knife and its teachings can you? “You’ve waited for this day, haven’t you? For the chance to speak to me, not our final time, but one of the last ones. You build Mara Sov’s coven one corrupted soul at a time, and the ritual grows closer. But the ritual is not truly what draws you in.”

It’s a leading question. “What draws me in is you.” Talos says.

Savathûn hums. “You’ve become a leader in this army against the Darkness. But you know what comes at a price, and it’s not war, it’s not family, that comes at a price, Guardian. It’s victory; you seek out the knowledge of the fall. What happens when everything goes wrong.”

When everything goes wrong. Inheritance shivers with an electric brrr.

“Have you believed you’ve seen the final shape of Guardians, and the Reef, and your own Vanguard? Surely, death after death, you’d acknowledge the fact that there is a rite of passage to living. And that, you and I know well. And the question is, Guardian. Will I hold out?”

“You’re not being very relatable,” Inheritance snips.

Savathûn does not reply. The looming silence causes Inheritance to withdraw to behind Talos’ back. But Talos keeps looking, thunderstruck.“I think you’ll go far beyond holding out.”

“You’re very sympathetic to me, Guardian.” Savathûn says, a small laugh, a thorn prick of a comment she chose not to say. “I wonder how that will work out for your endeavors.”

When Talos looks into the mirror pool of her gem skin, he only sees himself, distorted.

“You’re making this sound really nice, Savathûn.”

Silence is the only thing that answers him.

#savathun #original guardian #destiny 2 #d2 #destiny #witch queen #kind of #my writing #i seem to have an obsession with savathun LMAOOO #this is one of my guardian ocs! talos & inheritance #i just wrote this on a kind of whim but it's taken a couple of days #im proud of it #if u like. thank my bf #he encouraged me<33

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dredgencull · 3 years

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Her body is his.

He was easy enough to replicate. His movements were meticulous and his joints didn’t ache as he walked like they did. He stays in his corner, and so she does as well. There’s new commotion she had planned for, and his participation was as meager as she had hoped. His hostility. His fascination. Vex were always fascinating to him, and so her fascination grew. She let herself feel. Her fingertips through his, over radiolarian fluid canisters. Metal casings.

There was slaughter in metal bones. She knew this. He knew this. And their fascination melded where he lay still. He knows something is wrong, but there is nothing he can do. The Guardian acts as fast as they can. There is not enough time. This is by design.

His body is hers.

And his body also belongs to the Saint in ways that she is not familiar with. The Saint’s touches linger on his back. And so she leans, just enough, into the warmth. A slight bend to his back. His arms stay crossed. His eyes are vigilant. It would take more work to get him relaxed than to let him stay collected, hyper aware of his surroundings. The death of everything looming overhead keeps him deceptively calm.

The Saint tells him, “Osiris, it’s time you rest.” At first, he had said ‘we.’ And this we was a lie, whether or not he knew it. The Eliksni called for the Saint often. They called for the body as well, but the Saint was the Eliksni monster. The body was a soldier, but the body was not the slaughterhouse.

The body says, “No, there’s still work to do.” This is an even response. It’s common. It’s predictable. The body is overworked. The body is always tired. She knows this. She has adapted to work in smaller amounts over longer periods. The body does not rest, even when the body is tired. It would be more work to rest.

The Saint knows this, but still says “Osiris,” in a small voice where it’s both soft and firm. The Saint is relentless. But not in the way that others know. The body relaxes. She lets it. “I will be with you until you’re sleeping.”

“And what then? After?” The body is distrusting. Her questions are his. The Saint takes no offense.

“Negotiations with Mithrax. The investigation is going slow.” She knows who did it. The Saint knows who did it. Fear is the hilt of all swords. Blood corrupts all it touches. “I am to warn the Quarter that the investigation has led to nothing.”

She knows the order comes from the Warlock Ikora. The body knows this as well. “There is gossip, in the city,” The body says. “About the perpetrator.”

“I am aware,” The Saint says, and that’s all. The body relaxes further. The conversation is over. The Saint knows what the body does. She knows more. But perhaps not more than the Saint, about this.

“Saint,” The body says. The Saint gives the body all of the attention he is capable of while he unfastens his helmet. “I devote myself to this for you.” For the cause. For each other. The body’s purpose constantly shifts, but it reverts back to the Saint at the end.

“I devote myself to this for you, Osiris,” The Saint says. The body leans forward and the Saint grabs his spine much gentler than she could’ve ever expected. They connect. The body’s eyes flutter shut. Muscle memory is powerful, and she lets it take hold. Their ribcages fit together in a harmony, a melody. The Saint wraps around the body to protect him.

She is left wanting.

#(savathun controlling osiris’ body ficlet)#osiris #saint-14 #o14 #my writing #season of the splicer spoilers //#i may delete this #but it was fun! :)#if anythings wrong in lore don't look at Me

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dredgencull · 3 years

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“Perhaps you are still out there. If this reaches you, I would very much like to speak with you, to hear your theories in your own words.” - The Speaker

#this is making me become an insane person thank you #osiris #this is SO COOL!!!!

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dredgencull · 3 years

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so you’re telling me the robot man who loves birds gets to feed pigeons all day, and is also married to the bird guy? saint is winning

#o14 #saint-14 #osiris #I LOVE THEM. I LOVE THEM

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dredgencull · 3 years

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mutuals? friends?

Hello! not sure what i am doing but! i would like some friends. i was told by my more tumblr savvy older sibling to make a post. so ! Hi! I’m Zwei (z-why). Currently Six the musical and Destiny 2 are my main interests but i have other smaller ones! so like,, just intact with this if you have similar interests in the tags so ik who to like,, follow

#hi hi hi!!#rbing this from my boyfriend #im jeremy!#ive only heard like two songs from Six but this is my destiny blog!#my other main one is jerebearcat #nice to meet u!

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dredgencull · 3 years

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✧ DREDGEN.

#YESSS MY MANS #always in my head space lovebug<3 #i love him so much #listen ain't nobody said they had to design the pants like that until jason-9 existed #ok #listen #he's so hot #babe you gotta make a gifset of him without his helmet #I NEED PEOPLE TO SEE #jason-9 #other guardians #MY BOY!!!!!!!!!! MY LOVER!!!!!!!!#bf gifs

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dredgencull · 3 years

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He breathed out, in, out, hot air starting to fog his visor. The snow gave him some cover, but they also obscured where his enemies were, and he was already struggling to make out the figures of smaller eliksni running at him. Salvation troops tried to distract him from escaping, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t the target they should’ve been going for.

He grunted, throwing another soldier off him. “Euri.”

Her comms channel opened. “Everybody’s in. We’re good. Let’s go.”

“No.” Something shifted in the back of his mind. The Vex. He followed the sensation with his eyes. The faintest shuffle of metal, a red light in the dark. But it didn’t focus on him.

“What? Mith, get your ass in here.”

He followed its gaze to an oblong structure, and the corresponding figure. Marginally taller than the rest of them, but panicking. He could see it. Feel it. They fiddled mercilessly with the machine, and it took him too long to realize what for. A surge of power struck the skiff.

“Euri!” He drew his sword, marching towards the offender. A low growl echoed into her comms. “Is everyone okay?”

“We’re good. Are they trying to bring us down?” She had what he referred to as her Guardian voice. All focus, all facts. Forget consequence and fear. “Pinged the little bitch. Two identical signals. Switch me. I’ll take care of it.”

“No. Pilot.” More Vex shifted on the fabric of his mind. They were getting closer, and they would not make a distinction of who to kill. Not to mention the two signals she mentioned. He couldn’t destroy those in time. “They’re trying to hold you in place with a containment field.”

“Wh-? I can’t-?” Her voice wavered. “I don’t know how to fly a skiff! Just get in here!”

“You pilot your ship, no?”

“That’s not the same!”

“You are smart, Euri. Get away.”

“I’m not doing shit until you’re in here!” Her voice raised in pitch, something he’d learned to recognize as concern, no matter what words actually came out. He reloaded his gun, smiling a little. He enjoyed being worried over. Just a little bit.

“Don’t leave the moon without me.” He snickered. “Just get out of range.”

“Mith-rax!”

Ooh, full name. “I will survive without my guardian for - hmm - with how fast you fly? One minute?”

She held back a laugh. “So you agree I’m a shit pilot?”

“No. I trust no one more.” He wasn’t lying. She was a risk-taker, yes, but unlike the others he’d met, she could always handle it. “Euri. I enjoy your voice, but we are running out of time.” The Vex revealed the location of the second field emitter, but they’d also been revealing themselves.

“You are full of lies!” Her tone feigned offense. “Fine! I’ll try! But you’d better be fucking peachy when I get back.”

An odd phrase, but one she’d at least explained to him. He looked briefly up at the skiff. “I will come back to you.”

Ugh, sweet-talker. Unintentionally, which made it significantly worse. She clicked off the channel. “Okay. okay. I can do this. Mith thinks I can do this. He wouldn’t have asked if I couldn’t. Right? Leo, I need you.”

Galileo materialized over her shoulder. “He wouldn’t have trusted you with his people if you couldn’t be trusted.”

“Okay. That sounds logical. I like that. ‘Pilot the skiff, Euri. Just do it! Easy!’”She hummed to herself in panicked song. “It’s just a ship. It’s a ship.” Her expression shifted to wary confidence. “I can fly a ship. Okay. Cockpit.” She marched forward, choosing not to examine the actual control board. “Scan it. Which turns on the power?” He obeyed, highlighting the corresponding control. She sat in the hilariously large seat and pressed it. “I’ve got power, I need control. I’m assuming this thing is steering?” She veered to the left. “Okay! Okay, steering. EVERYBODY HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!”

“Language.”

She blinked, trying to remember the curse word she was being scolded for. Oh. She translated her command to the eliksni behind her. “Secure! Secure body.” They obeyed hesitantly.

Below, he grabbed the back of another soldiers neck, throwing them aside. The machine rumbled to life with whatever final action they’d done. Was he too late? His eyes snapped to the skiff. No, he wasn’t. Faster than he usually flew, and delightfully out of range. He grinned.

#mith 🥺#other writing #THIS IS SO GOOD OP #this is so good!!!!!#i really love the way you describe the vex through the eyes of a splicer #them fiddling with the machines kinda half-hazardly #this is excellent!!!!#i hope to see more!!

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