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lizzieraindrops · 2 years

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Chapters: 4/4 Fandom: Destiny (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eris Morn/Ikora Rey Characters: Eris Morn, Ikora Rey Additional Tags: Season of the Haunted, the BIG themes of processing and healing and making new choices this season..., Recovery, the long process, Healing, it’s about the GROWTH, Solstice of Heroes 2022

Summary:

For so long, I believed peace was beyond my reach. No more. I have found it in guiding others down the same path that saved me.

But… I might allow myself to want more than peace. What, I am not certain. Is joy the word? Might I find that again?

— Eris' radio dialogue from the end of Season of the Haunted

Chapter 4: I might allow myself to want — | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

Eris and Ikora go for a walk in the EAZ, then sit down for a heart-to-heart.

Eris and Ikora walked together in silence among the outer islands of the EAZ. In the distance, in the center of the largest landmass, Eris could see the smoldering silver remains of yesterday's deserted Solstice bonfire, burned down to cinders. As such, no Taken disturbed it except the occasional errant Thrall, prodding morosely at the embers, before collapsing back into whatever singularity it had crawled out of.

Ikora led them toward one of the larger satellite islands on the eastern edge of the Aerial Zone. Wherever the gap between islands stretched too far, she took Eris by the hand or arm once again and Blinked them through the Void to the next landing. Each time, when their feet touched ground once more, Ikora let go, but she did not pull away quickly.

A handful of spindly old pines dotted the island where they stopped, enough to dapple the ground with bands of shade. The miniature bluff that divided the island in two broke the worst bluster of the high-altitude winds if they sat close to its shelter. Right next to the bluff, a huge and ancient overgrown stump half-walled in a perfect little resting place lined with moss and ferns and tall, fragile wildflowers that bowed in the breeze. Above, through the tree branches, and below, through the roots that laced together the gaps between pieces of earth like a web, the two of them had a broader-than-usual view of the endless sky.

Eris took a draught from her waterskin after the mild hike. Ikora offered her the leftover tea snacks that Devrim had insisted upon plying her with. They both removed their gauntlets to pick at the grapes and biscuits.

"What was it you wished to discuss?" Ikora asked, her expression open and expectant.

Now that she was before her, however, all the words that Eris had held prepared suddenly vanished, leaving her throat quiet and empty. Silence spread hushed wings between them. The wind shouldered softly through pine needles and a few distant birds called. Ikora bent forward where she sat, looking concerned. "...Eris? Are you sure you're well?"

Eris nodded in reassurance. Though her brows still bowed beneath her worry, Ikora sat back and settled herself to wait. That act itself, that familiar, unquestioning patience, unspooled whatever tightness held Eris' voice tied down in her chest, and words flowed back to her lips.

"Thank you, Ikora," she said in a soft voice. "Your patience and kindness are never taken for granted."

"You needn't thank me for showing you basic respect."

Eris' lips twitched. "Nonetheless."

"...You said you wanted my opinion on something personal?"

"Not an opinion. Merely your thoughts, regarding mine."

Ikora turned a look of curiosity on her, but said nothing.

"I have been thinking, since the Leviathan," Eris said. She spread out her hands in the warmth of the sunlight. Pale, raised scars picked their way across her skin in highlight and shadow. "Much has changed. Even as the horizon darkens ever further, my mind feels lighter, clearer than it has in a very long time. I am...doing better, I think."

"That's wonderful, Eris. I'm glad for you. I do worry about you, you know."

"I do know. You have always cared, and I have always been grateful."

Something dissatisfied flickered across Ikora's face. "I wish something so simple did not merit gratitude."

Eris waved it aside. "It is how things are, at present. I do not regret my choices, nor how they have made others view me with suspicion. In any case, they do so less often, these days."

Ikora looked at her with an odd intensity. "I hope you know that you still have my trust, even after everything on Europa."

Eris set her Ahamkara talisman aside and conjured a spindle of Stasis crystal above her empty palm. "Even after this?"

The sliver of ice merited only a glance. Holding Eris' gaze, Ikora gave a firm nod. "Yes."

A last small, uncertain knot of doubt deep within Eris eased. She let the indigo shard sublimate and vanish into the warm air. "I am glad to know it now in words, and not only guesses."

"I'm sorry I took so long to tell you. What you discovered... It gave us all a great deal to think about. But I understand, now, why you chose what you did. I have made my own peace with a kind of balance, even if I still use only Light."

Eris nodded, accepting the apology with grace. "I thought you must have, the way you took to the use of the Relic, and the Guardian's use of Deepsight," Eris said. "We have all had much to consider, lately."

"I have many thoughts on the matter that I’d like to share with you in time. But is the Darkness what you wanted to discuss with me today?"

"No."

"Then forget it for now. What's on your mind, Eris?"

"You," Eris said truthfully.

"Pardon?"

Eris closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "Ikora. In these past months, I have grown to feel more alive than I have in years, and I find it strange. I don't quite know how to live beyond just surviving. But I want to learn now. Even if it's too late. Even as midnight falls over us, I can't help but choose to believe it still matters. And I can't help but think that you would have much to teach me."

"Me? I don't know that I'm quite following what you..."

On impulse, Eris eased one hand across the gap between them. In the absence of reproach or retreat, she gently tucked her hand under Ikora's palm and gathered it into her own.

Staring at their linked hands, Ikora neither resisted nor responded.

Eris' stomach dropped in dismay at her own careless audacity. What was she thinking, to act with such unprecedented directness?

But as she began to withdraw, her motion was halted by Ikora's long fingers tightening about hers by the smallest increment.

Eris looked up into her face with soft surprise.

Though she would not meet Eris' eyes, Ikora held on. Once again, she did not let go.

Gently — so gently — Eris pressed the pad of her thumb into the give between Ikora's thumb and pointer finger.

Ikora shivered.

Well, then.

Eris shifted to kneel before her without releasing her hand. She caught up Ikora's other hand as well, to hold both cupped in her own like precious water. Eris moved by instinct, by impulse, following whatever this was.

With her thumbs, she traced small circles on the dark backs of Ikora's hands several times. Then she turned them over to repeat the figure in the lighter pink-brown of her palms.

Ikora's eyes fluttered closed in a shimmer of dusty gold eyeshadow. Her ever-lined brow relaxed into a subtly serene face.

Gently setting one of Ikora's hands down on her own knee, Eris took the other by the fine-boned wrist and pressed their palms together. When they both stretched them out to their full length, Ikora's slender fingers were a little longer than her own. The pads of her fingers pressed into Ikora's just above their smallest joint.

With a slight twist of her palm, Eris curled her rough, pale fingers between those unscarred digits. In response, they mirrored her motion in the same clasp.

The two of them simply sat like that for a time, Ikora with eyes closed in blissful relaxation, Eris watching entranced. She squeezed Eris' hand a little when she opened them again, but still did not let go.

Instead, she raised her other hand to touch Eris' wrist just below where their hands met. With the tip of her thumb, she traced the tendons on the underside of Eris' wrist until they vanished into the flesh of her forearm. Her hand came to rest in the bend of Eris' elbow. Through the sleeve, she carefully outlined the bicep and then the deltoid muscle emerging just beneath Eris' shoulder guard.

From there, she lifted her hand hesitantly to Eris' face. She skimmed her cheek with the smooth backs of her evenly trimmed nails. She did not shy away from the smoky seep of evaporating ichor that leaked from Eris' bandaged eyes.

Eris held very still. She clasped Ikora's hand tighter. Was this truly happening? Could she let herself believe it?

Ikora kept up those gentle motions, now stroking the rise of Eris' cheekbone with her thumb, now lifting the line of her jaw with a single finger, now cupping the hollow of her cheek in her warm, soft palm.

Involuntarily, Eris leaned into the curve of her hand with a deep, relaxed inhale. Her eyes drifted closed. Such a simple touch had no right to feel so...good.

Eris could stay here for a very, very long time.

For so long, Eris had feared such care and closeness, knowing it would change her irrevocably. It was already doing so with the mere touch of hand to hand, hand to face. In her long and turbulent life, change had often been profound and violent and unavoidable. But this...who would she be, if she stayed here for as many years as she had been lost under Luna?

Not so long ago, to even consider being where she was now would have been unimaginable.

Eris' eyes cracked open again. Her filtered gaze was met and held with an exquisite soft intensity that mirrored her own mélange of uncertainty and yearning.

For Eris, at least, the last traces of fear and doubt were fast fading. She did want this, completely.

But she wasn't the only one who needed to be sure.

With great reluctance, Eris released Ikora's hand and withdrew from that sunlight-warm touch. "A moment, Ikora. We should discuss this, before anything further." They could both use a moment to process this sudden intensity.

Ikora blinked several times, as if coming out of a daze after the rush of throwing a Nova Bomb. "Okay."

As she came back to herself, Ikora's eyes widened as if in delayed shock. They flitted from Eris' hands to her face to her own palms. Eris edged further back to give her space, but stopped when that only compounded Ikora's subtle distress.

"I should tell you...I know I have hurt you in the past, and for that I am sorry."

"What? Eris, you don't need to —"

"Yes, I do," Eris cut her off gently. She would never forget the wounded look Ikora had given her when she had left the City after Oryx's fall, many years ago now. Even back then, the pleasure and pain of this potentiality between them had existed, even if they had both turned away from it. "Because I know how it hurt you when I left before. But I cannot guarantee it will not happen again, that I must go where you wish I would not."

Ikora sighed and flexed her hands in her lap. "Eris, I know that now. I came to terms with that on my own a long time ago. You need your freedom."

Eris' hands twitched. She stilled them. "Yes. But that does not mean I do not wish to return."

Ikora's brow wrinkled in confusion. "I thought you still disliked living in the City?"

How could such a brilliant, insightful woman still be so truly dense? As ever, even with the way they had just touched, she was too willing to leave herself out of the picture.

"Ikora." Eris clutched her own hands to keep herself from reaching out. But she leaned closer to make sure she had Ikora's full attention. "I do. I am talking about you."

"...Oh."

As if weighted by all the years of unspoken words between them, her gaze fell to Ikora's lips, the way they parted for her short intake of breath, then pressed together again to stifle their minute quiver.

A mere hand's breadth of space separated them. But with the way Ikora was almost invisibly trembling, Eris would die before she touched her.

"Ikora. I refuse to hurt you any more than I already have," she said hoarsely. "I shall not touch you unless you desire it. But if you want this too..." Her voice cracked. She shut her eyes tight. "Please."

Suspended silence hung between them like a held breath, broken only by the heavy thud of Eris' stumbling heart.

Then hands touched her chin, folding around her face like the sepals of an unopened flower. By the odd wetness of one finger against her cheek, Eris discovered that she was silently weeping. The true tears caught in the place where their skin met even as the dissipating black ichor spilled over Ikora's hands like mist above a waterfall.

She opened all three of her eyes.

Ikora stared right back at her, her own eyes shining. Her head bobbed in a helpless little nod.

"Yes, Eris, yes," she said in a thick, choked voice. "I want — this, you, I — I shouldn't, I can't, but I —"

The press of Eris' lips silenced her. Her mouth softened like spring beneath them. Eris drew back to speak, but could hardly do so for the way Ikora followed her.

"You can. You can want. You can have." The wind of Eris' speech returned to her in that infinitesimal space between them. "Please," she repeated, "Please —"

Ikora took her by the arms and obliged.

Her touch was sweet and brilliant, her lips exquisite. She peppered Eris' face with small kisses in between the long, slow ones they shared, learning each other in new ways they never had before in all their long years of knowing each other. In her touch, Eris could feel all the care and consideration Ikora had always lavished upon her from a distance, now mixed with something new and needing and immediate.

Eris wrapped her hands about Ikora's waist and pulled her closer. Ikora curled her arms around Eris' neck and kissed her deeper.

The sun hung near its zenith by the time they parted. Cloak askew, Eris laid back against the soft moss and looked to the sky. Ikora did the same by her side.

Their hands still lay intertwined on the ground between them.

"Is this what we are doing, then?" Eris asked as the shadows of leaves danced across their faces in the rising wind. In needless demonstration, she lifted the hand that Ikora still held tightly. She wriggled her fingers in Ikora's grip, to rather comical effect.

"Is this what you want?"

"Yes."

"...Why?"

Eris looked at her in surprise. Without letting go of Ikora's hand, she sat up and leaned over where she lay to look into her face. It was still shadowed with self-doubt. That wouldn’t do.

"Because I have decided I want to taste joy among all the sorrow. And you make me happy."

Ikora's expression gentled. She lifted a hand to touch Eris' face once more, and let it linger there. "You make me happy too, Eris."

Eris laid her hand over Ikora's to hold it against her face. How long had it been since either of them had been touched lovingly? She would rather neither of them had to wonder.

"Good," Eris said. "I want you to be happy, too."

Ikora looked so soft, then, as they existed there in each other's hands. This rare tenderness was precious, was worth fighting to carve out a place for amidst the desolate hostility of their broken world.

This was something they could lose, yes. But it was also a sacred sliver of something beautiful that they could choose to hold and cherish despite that.

It would not undo any of the terrible things that had happened, nor prevent those impending ills that bore down upon them yet.

However, if they created a space for it to exist as they moved forward…it would go a long way to begin balancing all the pain of the past with joy.

#eris morn #ikora rey #destiny 2 #destiny the game #erikora #eris/ikora #ikoris #destiny fanfiction #season of the haunted #european aerial zone #solstice of heroes #this season really just came out here and gave me everything huh #eris' long story arc really is about healing and i'm so glad to finally see her realizing that #anyway i couldn't Not run with that dialogue like??? who do you think i am #lizzie taking up space #lizzie's adventures in writing #fic

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