“Masks are meant to conceal, but they reveal more about us than we realize.” —Eva Levante
Read on Ao3
Enina and her Ghost sat on the patio of a small café in the Riverside district, watching the evening lights of the City flicker on the water. It was a picturesque spot: the river coiled here around a small peninsula, barely large enough for a few buildings stuck closely together, and two bridges reached out from it diagonally in opposite directions. The venue was almost empty this late into the evening, and nobody but them braved to sit outside in the damp October chill, but far out on the other bank silhouettes of people still moved against the pale lights of shopping windows.
A gust of wind tugged at Enina’s hair, blowing some of them into her face. She was a beautiful woman, with dark skin, full lips and green eyes framed by sharp, regal features. Black curls spilled freely over the scarf around her neck and the suede coat underneath. The hands she was warming around a mug of mulled wine were slender and long-fingered, several rings shimmering on them in the lanternlight. She looked just on the right side of unapproachable—like someone who could lounge on a divan in a dark corner, observing the party with sharp eyes, and nobody would dare to come up and bother her for the extent for the night, even if only to offer champagne.
All of this made her a perfect disguise.
“‘Remembering the dead’ my ass” Immaru said. “It’s not like Guardians need an excuse to shoot at things. It’s fucking stupid.”
Savathûn looked at him with amusement.
“Don’t you find it even a little fascinating how similar their views on mortality are to ours?”
“Duh, where?” He sneered, his (stolen) Almost Mighty Shell tilting to one side. “I don’t recall the Hive runnin’ around firing guns at pumpkins.”
“I’ve told you before about how the Hive see death.” She gently rocked the mug and watched a slice of orange rise to the surface and ruin the image of the Traveler-less sky reflected in it. “Our mythoi are not so different, at the heart of it. The Hive believe soulfire is the immortal part of a person, the connection to the Sea of Screams, but unlike one’s Ascendant form, it can’t be destroyed so easily. Death is only and forever an ending, but the essence persists… Funny, when you think about it, that something endowed to us by the worm gods is at the core of our faith in the afterlife.”
“Isn’t that heresy?”
“Don’t underestimate the Hive’s proficiency in warping the tenets of the sword logic to accommodate our existential fears,” her mouth quirked. “How different is our faith in one’s continued existence through their legacy from the Human beliefs in remembering as a way to keep the dead living on? The Unseen Sister is a comforting alternative to perpetual oblivion.”
“So you’re saying that Oryx’s soul, or whatever, is still somewhere out there?” Immaru said incredulously.
“Perhaps.” Savathûn raised the mug to her lips. “That is my sister’s copium of choice, anyhow.”
The Ghost rolled his eye.
“From what these two nerds have gathered, either Human myths are stupid as fuck, or they are stupid as fuck. Did you know they believe it’s Hive magic that’s creating those… Headless Ones? I don’t think that Fallen’s ever seen a Hive in her entire life.”
Savathûn cocked an eyebrow at him. “Well, dear. What can we learn from that?”
“That Guardians are only interested in loot and candy?” Immaru sneered.
“A culture’s ghost stories can tell us much about its people’s fears.”
“Yeah, and they’re afraid of four meters tall ghouls with flaming pumpkins for heads.”
“And Hive bodies,” she pointed out.
“...Fair point,” he acquiesced.
“I expected you to feel flattered by this,” Savathûn’s smile flickered deep in her eyes. “They’re afraid of us. What an advantage that is!”
Immaru grumbled, and there was the smallest hint of fluster in it. “Yeah, well. That was pretty obvious, wasn’t it.”
“Oh, my love,” she crooned in a honey-sweet voice, and reached for him. It felt strange—five soft fingers wrapping around his core, a small hand cupping his shell. Immaru let her stroke his spikes for a while, some very Hive emotion on her face that the Human features struggled to convey. He freed himself when he could no longer stand her piercing gaze.
He nestled between her neck and the folds of her scarf instead, pressed against her pulse. It throbbed with the illusion of a human heartbeat, but underneath it he could sense the familiar rhythm of her Hive heart, growing louder and more defined the more he focused on it. Savathûn raised a hand and stroked the rim of his shell. He shuddered and bristled, at first, but then leaned into the touch and let it press him closer to her strange, warm, false skin.
He wasn’t jealous of what Runi had with Ór. He would die if his Lightbearer kept him around so close he might’ve as well been her extra body part, with no room to breathe. Did that guy even have hobbies? He seemed to be tied to her like algae in lichen, in something that was supposed to be symbiosis but turned out as him fretting and flying around after her to get her ass out of her own trouble. Immaru could never do that. He was self-sufficient, he’d been self-sufficient for centuries, and nothing about him had changed only because he’d finally found his chosen corpse. Savathûn could do whatever she wanted for all he cared, and the more space she left him to focus on his own thing, the better for them both. He was his own person, and he could very much fend for himself.
He’d also missed her.
He’d missed her laughter and her velvety voice, her songs and stories and the way she tipped her head back when she was amused. He’d missed not falling asleep alone. He’d missed her, and he was furious at Guardians for taking her from him so soon and leaving him to pick up the pieces, and he was furious at her for trading him away—because he could never have refused, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to refuse anything she’d ask of him, anything at all. He was furious at himself for feeling like this. He was more than a dog on her fancy leash; she could have everyone else wrapped around her talon, but she still needed him, and it had still been his decision—his own, he’d made this choice himself, and even if he’d done it for her sake... well, what gives?
He hated the thought that he needed her back. But she was supposed to be his.
Savathûn hummed, a sound from deep within her chest vibrating up her throat and through her skin. Immaru loathed how much it calmed him. If he closed his eye, he could almost pretend they were in the throne world, back in that first week, drunk on the chaos and victory and new purpose and their exquisite scheme ticking on towards resolution. He’d slept in the crook of her neck, and ordered the Brood around perched on her shoulder, and really, really believed they would win. Everything had been set up perfectly. He’d laughed at the contingencies, back then, no matter how serious Savathûn’s eyes had been when she’d made him listen to all of them.
There were so many things he wanted to say to her, most of them angry and jagged and pushing forth to the forefront of his mind with a scream, and the rest insignificant questions like Do you love me and When can I come home. He hadn’t been afraid of telling her anything, before, but now…
They sat in silence, watching the lights gradually go off in one storefront after the other.
“The last time I was here, you could barely see the stars,” Savathûn spoke. “The Sky obscured the sky, ironically enough.”
Immaru couldn’t tell if she expected him to chuckle or cringe, so he only gave an unidentified hum.
“You can’t see shit with all the city lights anyway,” he grumbled.
“Humans can’t, maybe.” There was a smile in her voice. She tilted her head up to look at the stars. “Terran constellations always struck me as exquisitely beautiful. Some part of me still marvels at a clear sky unclouded by a gaseous atmosphere.”
“What do you see, then?”
“A worm god,” she chuckled to herself. “Mmm… The stern of the Dreadnaught. And my siblings fighting. And, ah…” Another chuckle, softer this time. “If you asked a Hive to name any given constellation in any given sky, you can bet the first one they’d find would be Auryx defeating Akka.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“It is. But once again, such is the power of myths.”
“Boring,” Immaru said. “D’we have it in the sky at home, then?”
“That depends only on your interpretation.”
“You made that sky.”
“In that case,” she reached for the mug of her rapidly cooling wine, “we do.”
“Hey, and what about, hm, a Hive Knight biting off Ikora Rey’s head? Do we have that too?”
Savathûn laughed, her alien skin vibrating like the membrane of a drum. Immaru nuzzled into it.
“Perhaps,” she took a sip of the wine and looked up at the sky again. “Perhaps.”
15 notes
·
View notes