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thedistantstorm · 5 years

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Keep On Rising (Until The Sky Knows Your Name) 19

A story about how an orphaned Amanda Holliday comes to belong in the Last Safe City and the family she finds along the way.

(Or, the story of how Commander Zavala finds himself responsible for one Amanda Holliday.)

Chapters: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 [end]

This time: A new beginning.

They are an inconspicuous combination, the Commander in slacks and a tunic, scarf over his head in accordance with city fashion, and the child in a t-shirt with matching sweatpants - something comfortable enough to move in, picked by Eva. Instead of his usual gait, Zavala walks far slower, knowing it would take three steps with her crutches to match his usual pace.

"The terrain changes ahead," He informs her in his calmest of tones. "The brick will be uneven. Let me know if you need a break."

She hums her acknowledgement, focused on getting herself to make as far as she can on foot, and Zavala, though noticing her discomfort, knows this is a lesson she’ll learn the hard way. When he sees the crutches quake he pauses, watching her wince as she continues, stubborn.

"We still have a bit to go," He tells her.

Ignoring that, he watches her take another handful of steps, stumble, and moves to save her from the pavement. If it were grass, and she were a bit more recovered, he’d have let her fall, but he does not want to take the chance with her so close to being cleared to come home. Shiori makes the child-sized crutches disappear before they hit the ground. The therapists had warned him before clearing her to go on this afternoon trip - a trial run, they called it - that she did not know her limitations, or if she did, she was purposefully ignoring them in lieu of pushing herself.

She sighs into his shirt, angry.

"You'll likely have blisters on your arms."

"Yeah," She grumbles.

"Part of recovering is learning your limits and respecting them," He advises, far more incognito with a child on his hip than walking beside her. It's clear she's frustrated with herself, though she eventually releases her tight grip on his clothes and rests her head against his shoulder. "You will learn when to push, and when to ease back. It will take time."

"'m not real patient," She admits in another exasperated huff.

He chuckles, smooth and low against her hair. "No, you're not," He agrees.

Zavala almost expects that she's fallen asleep after a few minutes of carrying her; he can feel her slight weight incrementally increase. Instead, she's simply relaxed, looking out at the Traveler looming in the distance where the sky meets the walls and the City. He turns, noticing when she starts craning her neck.

She drawls, "Can we watch the ships a while?"

Indulgently, he hums into her hair, "You are not in pain right now?"

"A li'l," She supposes. "But I'm usually sore."

"We'll go the long way back," He decides, a compromise for them both.

"Y'don' mind?" She asks, bashful, resting her head on his shoulder once more.

"I don't get outside much," He admits. "I think we could both stand to see the sky."

It is strange to be in the Tower without being in full armor, or in charge of one small child instead of the entirety of its affairs. He feels almost like a voyeur, watching Guardians run about around the small influx of civilians who sell their wares or have a food-stand nearby.

It feels even stranger when a shadow looms over them from behind, eclipsing Zavala completely. Amanda curls into him, fight or flight senses triggered into something more like a freeze when her new guardian stops walking. He puts a hand on her crown, silently willing her to believe her that all is well before turning back toward his fellow Titan, careful to lead with the hip opposite the one he is carrying her on.

"Step back, Shaxx."

The shadow recedes. "You know word travels," He informs Zavala loudly. "Though half these miscreants wouldn't give you a second glance without the regalia."

Zavala releases Amanda's head, though he lowers his hand to her back. He can feel her heart thundering through the back of her ribcage. "That's the point," He tells the armor-wearing Crucible handler. "Is there something you need?"

"Not at all," He says. "Is this the girl?"

Said girl is clearly shy, wrapping her arms around Zavala's neck, breathing harshly against his collar. "Amanda, this is Shaxx."

She murmurs to Zavala, wary, "He's big," And Shaxx laughs, hearty and boisterous.

"He will not hurt you. He's a Guardian, too. And an old friend."

That spurs Amanda to act. The mop of blonde hair moves, the child leaning up and away from Zavala, brave but not about to let go. "Hi," She greets, looking up into an impassive helm.

Shaxx tilts his head. "Hello, Amanda," He returns, hands on his hips, loud enough that it forces a tremor through the girl.

"Can he not hear very good? People yell when they have trouble hearing," She asks Zavala, not quite whispering herself.

Zavala laughs, carefully readjusting his hold on her. "No, Amanda, his hearing is perfectly fine. His listening skills are another thing entirely," He deadpans, quirking an eyebrow with a little dip of his eyes to the top of the child’s head. A reminder not to say anything inappropriate for little ears.

Amanda giggles at that, girlish and unbidden. It sounds like something the Matrons would say.

The one-horned Titan tilts his head to the side. "Oh, this is trouble," He says, but there's no malice in his tone, only glee. "You understand his sense of humor."

"Do people not?" Amanda's nose scrunches up in her confusion. "He's funny."

Shaxx chuckles. "Most, sadly, do not. But you are not most." He eyes the duo carefully - more enthusiastic than anything - before stepping back and waving toward the hall of Guardians. Of course, Zavala thinks. The Crucible could not go more than a match without him. “It was a pleasure meeting you, little lion,” Shaxx says to the child. “Make sure he brings you around.”

“Why a lion?” Amanda asks.

Shiori flits into the space in front of them. “That sentimental beast,” She chirps sharply, but it sounds more affectionate than anything. “A lion is-”

Zavala shakes his head. “She’ll figure it out on her own.”

Just shy of two months to the day of the incident, Amanda is discharged from the hospital. She has a wealth of plans and treatments - almost as many as Zavala himself has meetings and engagements of his own. Recovery will be hard work. Supporting her in it, just as much. No matter. Zavala is committed to this. He will not shy away from his duty, both to the City and to his ward.

She refuses the wheelchair outright, intent on making it out of the hospital on crutches. Zavala appreciates her spirit and especially praises her for asking for help, a block later, when the walking becomes just a bit too much. She’s a quick learner, though he will have to watch. He does not want his every word to be law, well meaning though he is. She should learn and make her own decisions, to some extent.

"Home sweet home," Shiori calls as Zavala closes the door and lets it lock behind them. She transmats the tiny crutches back into being, propping them against the couch in a flicker of Light.

"Yeah," The child says thickly in reply, allowing Zavala to set her down and hand them to her one at a time.

"Let's have a look around, hm?"

She nods. Zavala shows her the kitchen stocked with food - her tummy rumbles at the sight and she flushes, the little nook that was a dining area but has now become an office, the living room that houses a comfortable couch, modest screen and his knitting supplies in the corner. The washroom is next, down the hall, followed by a room he skips in lieu of showing her his own: full of deep, dark, soothing blues and yet spartan, save for a bookshelf.

Lastly, he lets her into her own room, lingering in the doorway when she carefully hobbles in.

Eva has outdone herself, it's clear by the awed expression Amanda wears, the tightness of her shoulders as she comes into the room. The once bare walls have pictures of different class ships with stylized shaders, the bed a subtle compliment with its themed sheets and comforter. Across the bottom half of the bed is her freshly laundered red blanket, ready and waiting for use.

"Do you like it?" He can't help but ask.

The girl takes a deep breath, hinging on a sob. "It's real nice," She says, overwhelmed. "Thank you."

"I would not thank me," He tells her, placing a palm between her shoulder blades to steady her. "My sense of style is a bit more minimalistic, as I'm sure you can tell. Eva had a field day designing this."

"Will she come 'n visit?” She asks, voice thick and eyes watery. “I gotta thank her, too, then."

"Don't worry. You will see her plenty. Why don't you investigate your desk and dresser? Eva guessed at much of it, but anything you need, we'll figure out together."

Together. Amanda likes the sound of that.

end.

. . .

. .

PS: be on the look out for the sequel for this next month (Nov. 2019)! Thanks so much for reading!

#destiny fanfiction #amanda holliday #commander zavala #zavala is tower dad #lord shaxx #destiny #destiny stories

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khaosgaming22 · 5 years

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Foxtrot- A Destiny Short Story

“Tell us the story about how you and Zoro met Khaos.” Rieka said petting Alastair.

“Alright then.” I said clearing my throat. “Grab some popcorn and get comfy everyone, here we go....”

I walked out of the Tower on my 3rd mission ever and towards the hangar bay to grab the courtesy ship Amanda Holliday gifted me. I looked around at the multitude of Guardians in clothing that looked otherworldly, knowing Guardians it probably was. When the Vanguard asked me what class of Guardian I would pursue I said Warlock. Titan was a no, too brutish and headfirst for me, Hunter cloaks looked nice as well but the Warlock dusters, libraries and paths I could choose eventually won me over. Scout figured I would choose Warlock, I have no idea how she guessed correctly but I guess she has had more time as a Guardian than I have.

“Mornin newbie!” Amanda waved to me as I entered and I waved back. My duster blew in the wind as a ship was leaving.

“Hello Amanda.” I said back, she stopped for a second to set down a tool and faced my way.

“Where are you goin first Khaos? Moon? Titan? I’ve heard Io is pretty peaceful.” I shook my head.

“Just around the European Dead Zone for now. It’ll be a while before I decide to travel off-world.” She nodded.

“Welp, have fun!” I said thanks and jumped up into my ship. The controls were foreign but I noticed there was a sticky note on the dash, I pulled it off and read it.

“Just click the map, tell it where you wanna go and turn on autopilot bud! Much easier. -Amanda ❤️”

I smiled, put in the coordinates and the ship lifted off and toward the EDZ. The trees became a blur of green as I quickly approached the zone and the ship set down next to an abandoned city square. There was a church in the center and an old courtyard in front of it, I opened the cockpit and jumped out to walk around.

“Not a bad place to start I suppose.” I looked up to find a sniper barrel pointed in my direction. I started to reach for my weapon but the person behind the rifle smiled and waved. I walked over to the church and found him standing next to a couch with some tea.

“Hello there sir, are you Devrim I presume?” He nodded.

“That I am, and who might you be Warlock?” He took a sip of his tea.

“My name... well I don’t really remember my real name but I guess everyone calls me Khaos.” He motioned to sit down on the couch and I did.

“So you’re the new Guardian they found in a storage closet! That must’ve been quite the awakening.”

“Yeah it was interesting that’s for sure. Luckily I had a Ghost to help me understand everything until I met the Vanguard.” Cooper floated out of my trench coat and bobbed in place.

“I am very thankful for that.... I’ve never heard of a Guardian so utterly confused about the Light and being revived.” Devrim laughed a bit and I rolled my eyes.

“Well I have to say that’s not the strangest place I’ve heard Guardians being revived. But yes it can raise quite a few questions.” I nodded.

“So where are you going first?” I thought for a minute but in reality I had no clue. He must’ve sensed this because he shrugged it off.

“Just walk around here a bit and I’m sure you’ll figure everything out. Exploring is half the fun of being a Guardian after all!” I smiled and said goodbye after grabbing a biscuit.

“He was nice.” I said to Coop walking towards more old buildings.

“Oh trust me Khaos, there is a reason you see Guardians in tons of armor and weapons...” I shrugged and he transmatted my Sparrow, it was also a loan from Amanda. I wonder if she does this for all Guardians or if she likes me, hopefully it’s door number one because I wouldn’t know how to feel...

I eventually made my way to a part of the EDZ that was much... darker. I hadn’t run into anything yet but I could tell that something was off. Devrim said I should explore so I pushed forward through the rock tunnel and tree canopy but I kept my Auto Rifle loaded. As I made my way through the area I noticed a bush moving and went to investigate. I pushed the leaves out of the way and found a small animal, I couldn’t tell what it was exactly until it shifted out of it’s hole and looked at me. It was a small baby red fox and it looked like it was in pain.

“Coop? Scan please.” Cooper bobbed and ran a scanning light over the fox.

“She’s in bad shape... I don’t know if she’s going to make it....” Not on my watch, I thought. I went to pick her up and she yelled in a high pitch, after some amount of struggling I was able to get her into my arms.

“Coop, can you transmat us to my ship?” He bobbed in place nodding and in no time flat we were back in orbit. I put the coordinates in for the Tower, following the sticky note Amanda left again and the ship did a nose dive toward the Last City. The ship set down in the hangar and I jumped out carefully making sure not to escalate the fox’s pain any more.

“Back so soon? What, were the Fallen too much for ya-“ She noticed the fox in my arms. “Oh no! What happened to them?”

“Not sure, found this little girl hiding in a bush near her hole in a dark area of the EDZ, Coop said she wouldn’t make it so I had to do something.” She nodded and grabbed a few bandages from a toolbox.

“Wait... you said dark area of the EDZ right?” She said giving the roll of bandages to me, I nodded. “Doggone it, Devrim!” I looked at her confused while wrapping up the fox’s leg.

“What’s the problem, I didn’t do something wrong did I?” She shook her head.

“No honey, you’re just fine, Devrim forgot to warn you about the forest didn’t he?” The fox stopped shaking so much after I applied the bandages.

“Dark forest?” I asked petting the fox to calm her down.

“When the Traveler was captured by the Red Legion, a guardian went into there and found a shard that had broken off. He ended up discovering a way to win the war but ever since then it’s been overrun by Taken.” Taken? Those were the souls of the enemy races that had become something else. Hungry for the Light, and bad news.

“Jeez... I’m lucky I didn’t run into any.” I shook my head. “Never mind me, I have to help her!” She nodded and I thanked her before taking my leave.

“Alright Coop, analysis if you please.” Cooper scanned the fox once I got her to lay down on the table in the Last City Hospital. I got a few scratches from her but even my starter armor gave me protection from her claws. Whatever I could do for her I would, I was determined to save her.

“Seems like she has a broken leg, her jaw is a little banged up and she’s missing patches of fur in places.” I nodded and tried to figure out what I could do. Ghosts could only heal Guardians so that was a no. Maybe I could make her a splint or cast for her leg, her fur would grow back eventually, as for her jaw I wasn’t sure.

“Coop, do you know anyone who could make something for her leg?” He thought for a minute and responded.

“Well... Banshee has a 3D printer for weapon parts. Perhaps it could make a cast.” I nodded, that seemed like the only option at the time, but I couldn’t leave the poor baby here.

“Guess you’re comin with us girl.” She stepped back on the table and looked in fear. “I’m sorry baby but we can’t just leave you.” I picked her up before she could run away and Coop transmatted us to Banshee.

“Hey there Warlock, how’s it goin.” He said while holding an auto rifle in his hands. He always held it apparently, I’ve heard he has memory problems so I wonder if he forgets he holds it so much.

“Can I use your 3D printer? I have to make a cast for this fox I found, she has a broken leg.” He just stood there for a minute, probably trying to process what I had just said, then moved to the printer and tapped a few buttons.

“All yours.” He said going back to working on something to his left. I selected the dimensions that I figured would work and the machine spat out a small sock looking object. I fit it onto her carefully and she calmed down a little. First step was down, now to fix up her jaw. Unfortunately all I could do was let it heal by itself and give her some painkillers.

“Thanks Banshee.” He turned around after a minute and waved, then Coop transmatted me back to the Hospital. I found a bottle of medicine that seemed like it would work and gave them to her with some food. They must’ve had drowsiness as a side effect because she was out like a light.

Over the past few weeks her jaw healed with help from the pain medications and after a slow process I was able to take the cast off. Her patches of fun had grown back and she was beginning to run around and eat more. I also noticed one day she was born with two tails instead of one and at some point I gave her the name Zoro, Spanish for fox. Call me uncreative but I think it fits her.

I also learned to use that printer of Banshee’s and developed a weapon around my fluffy new friend. A little rocket launcher I like to call the Two Tailed Fox, I sold the idea to Daito and they mass produced them for Guardians to use. I didn’t need the recognition, but I do get a royalty for each one of them sold every month. Basic idea behind it was that it fired two shells, one Void, one Solar that track whatever you aim at. Who needs accuracy when your weapon aims for you? Plus, I created the original so if you ever see me in Crucible watch out, because this thing has two rockets, they’re locked on, and despite how cute the picture of Zoro may be, don’t be fooled. She will scratch if you’re on the enemy team.

#destiny #destiny 2 #destiny headcanon #destiny warlock #me as a guardian

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scarletrebel · 5 years

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oh god okay alright

so this is an au ive been thinking about for A While Now, cause im a dramatic fuck who cant finish anything and is living in wip city right now.

rook (@mrpinstripesuit‘s boy because of course) somewhat reluctantly and through ~plot~ that i do have in mind actually turning into the next dredgen yor because in a small twist of events killing just one guardian in crucible wasnt enough for him.

cue avia being sent to hunt him down and getting marked down as scared and horny when she meets him for the first time

i do have a whole story planned for this and ive been thinking about this au a lot, i bashed this out in about three hours so there might be little errors here and there and critically i think it moves way too fast but hey i havent uploaded in so long so shrug emoji i hope its at least readable aha

When Ikora calls her to the Vanguard chambers, Avia is expecting Cayde’s presence too. Her Hunter Vanguard will do all he can to remind her of her class, even butting into mission briefings with Ikora.

So it comes as a shock to see him not present at the table when she walks in. Ikora turns to greet her, and Avia casts a glance over her shoulder at Zavala.

“Don’t tell me you finally let Cayde out of the Tower?”

Zavala throws her a grim look, mouth set into a line and Avia meets it with a morbid confusion.

“What’s his problem?” She asks Ikora, whose face is set in an equally grim measure.

“Cayde left for a brief scouting mission, it was only supposed to take him a few hours,” Ikora reaches down to her holopad, and from its screen rises a map of an area of Earth Avia has never heard before. “This is the European Dead Zone. It’s highly off limits to Guardians due to the fluxuating levels of both Darkness and Light.”

“Why’s that?”

“A shard of the Traveler exists in that region, cast off from the Collapse.”

Avia watches the images cycle in front of her. A giant cascading shard towers over a forest, buildings rusted and decaying sit in its shadow. Lightning bounces off of the shard, storm clouds gathering around it.

“Looks suitably ominous,” Avia mutters, quickly realising that now is not the time.

Ikora simmers. Avia’s come to notice this in the Warlock Vanguard, when something is wrong and pressing up against her mind but she must remain calm and composed in the face of it all. Avia recognises it well, a quiet storm betrayed by only the smallest of movements.

Ikora places a hand down on the table, her fingers trembling.

“Cayde left two days ago. He hasn’t returned.��

Avia allows her mind to wander as Ikora’s words hit her. Cayde, bold and brass finding his way through this forest as easy as walking through the Tower. Enemies of the Light crowding him, surrounding him, and whilst he doesn’t go down without a fight it’s that one mistake that could cost him.

“You want me to find him.”

Ikora thins her lips into a line, looking from the holo pad and down to Zavala. Avia misses the minute way they communicate to each other, and when Ikora turns to her she can tell the Warlock is somehow sadder.

“Bring him home, however that may be.”

She has to receive the highest clearance from Zavala, Ikora, and the Speaker in order to fly into the Dead Zone. She was advised by Zavala to touch down on the outside of the forest and make her way in. His monotone suggestion didn’t exactly inspire confidence, and it left her riddled with annoyance that she couldn’t shake.

“Levi?” She calls for her Ghost, and they materialise with a whirl.

“Are you afraid?” They ask, and Avia scoffs.

“No. I just… Feel like I’m not getting the full picture.”

“How do you mean?” They ask as Avia looks down the scope of her sniper rifle. She spots the forest a breath away, the trees thick and coarse. No hostiles as she scans the horizon, and answers her Ghost.

“There’s something Ikora wasn’t telling me.”

“You always think that,” Levi floats in front of her scope, making her lower it with a sigh. “She has no reason to lie to you.”

“Lying by omission is still lying.” Avia says.

“You’re not in the Reef anymore.” Levi’s voice is soft, a comfort.

“I’m not sure sometimes.”

She starts to walk, making her way down a cliff face and landing as quietly as she can on the ground. She walks towards a gathering of buildings, the same rusted ones Ikora showed her. The air is still and quiet. As she climbs the structure, the echo of her movements starts to set her on edge.

“What was Cayde scouting?” She wonders out loud. Levi hesitates next to her. Then he whirls his shell once, twice, and answers.

“I think… ‘Scouting’ might have been a loose term for whatever he was actually looking for out here.”

Avia smiles under her helmet. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“With the language in his recent reports, if you could even call them that, I think he was looking for something.”

“Like what?” Avia asks, moving through an empty room and shimmying through a grated wall. She jumps down and out of the building on the other side, trees at her left and right. She pushes in.

“Something he lost, I think.”

Avia hums, sticking close to the trees, trying to watch and be careful of the way her feet brush against the dead leaves and twigs on the ground. It’s not an environment she’s used to for stealth, but the same rules apply – stay close to the ground and keep your eyes open.

“Let me know when you detect anything.” She tells Levi.

“Aside from the insurmountable Darkness surrounding us alongside a general feeling of dread?” Levi asks, to which Avia laughs. “Can do.”

He was dangerously close to growing bored.

He sits with his back to the wall, flicking a knife up and down. In the cave system, dingy orange lights bounced off the walls. The Dredgen’s chattered around him, keeping to themselves mostly. He still didn’t understand what they wanted from him, what they expected from an exiled Guardian.

He’d told them as much, but still, they followed.

Some of their Ghost’s pitter around their heads, cowardly, having conversations they don’t want him to hear. He catches a glowing orb with his eyes more than once and it dissipates, causing the Hunter with his legs crossed to cast a glance over his shoulder. The Human stills the hand in her book, the scattered pieces of the scout rifle she’s trying to infuse into darkness around his feet.

“What?” He spits. The Guardian doesn’t cower, just tries to hide her smile as she begins to draw something in the soil between them.

“My Ghost thinks you’re dangerous.”

“Your Ghost is right,” he replies. He watches the gloved hand trace a pattern, and it takes him longer than he’d like to admit to recognise it as something Hive.

The Guardian places the main skeleton of her gun over the rune, speaking as she draws an intricate circle around it. “I think she doesn’t get it. I think the Light makes us blind, but I don’t think it’s our enemy either.”

“Aint that poetic.”

“You don’t want to lead us,” the Guardian starts. He stills his motions with the knife, catching it blade side, the metal biting into his skin. “But you could be the start.”

“The start of what, kid?”

The Guardian mutters something under her breath, and they both watch the runes on the floor glow a sickly green, a plume of smoke rising to intwine itself in the metal above it. The others around them stop to stare. When the spell finishes, the exo skeleton breathes with that same sickly energy, something black like ichor peeling off of it.

“I guess that’s up to you.”

A Warlock peels around the corner, harried, breathing hard.

“He’s gone.”

“What?” He asks, a quiet intensity in the way he tenses but doesn’t move.

The Warlock stutters, tries to find his voice. “He overpowered us. His Ghost did something, got herself out of her cage and then freed him. He subdued everyone so he could--”

He flings the knife between the Warlocks feet, a centimetre away from his foot. He stands and takes the hand canon off his hip, once laced in gold and now dark and peeling at the edges. With his fury it starts to feel warm in his hands, putting the scout rifle on the floor to shame. The young Guardian looks at it in awe, seeing the same runes she carved transcribed on the sides.

“Tell me which way he went and then get the hell out of here. Everyone.”

The Hunter pipes up from the floor as he walks towards the mouth of the cave system; “And then what? How will we find you?”

“I guess that’s up to you.”

“I don’t like this.”

“You’ve said that five times already, Levi.” Avia says, though her voice betrays her own unease.

They’ve been walking for what feels like hours. As they traversed deeper, the forest became darker, blocking out all sunlight. Levi told her a ways back that the influence of the shard was heaviest here, but what Avia didn’t mention was the solar flames beneath her skin, an ache to act. Something was coming, her gut felt out of sorts.

“Any sign of him?” Avia asks. Levi extends his shell and scans as far as he can.

“No, I – wait!” Avia perks up as her Ghost scans once more, pulling their shell back to themselves with an excited whir. “Cayde’s Ghost, she’s near!”

“Lead the way,” Avia says, following her marker and picking up the pace.

She breaks into a run as she gets closer, nearing a large tree trunk on its side.

“Wait!” Levi yells into her comm. She slides to take cover by the tree, her mouth opening to ask what’s wrong.

She hears two shots, the way they ring through the air all too familiar. Cayde yells, goes down, and the person wielding Thorn catches up to him.

She pops her head up and over the tree, looking into a circular clearing. Her Vanguard lies on his side, his Ghost fussing over him tirelessly. She watches another man move closer, black armour from head to toe, and she sees that his gun isn’t the hand canon she wields. No, it’s similar in nature, but corrupted in a completely different way.

“Is that a Guardian?” She whispers, as the man in question walks lazily over to where Cayde rights himself onto his back. Her Vanguard is hurt, his Exo plating damaged beyond recognition.

“No,” Levi answers. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“Aint this a little too – ahh, god – easy for you?” Cayde asks, pulling his Ghost to his chest. She gets the message and dissipates as the man stands over him.

“You made it hard enough when you ran the first time,” he says, pulling his helmet off. Ebony hair falls out around his shoulders, dark brown eyes boring holes into the Exo below him. Avia holds a breath. He’s human. But there’s something about him that isn’t. “I’m starting to think you just enjoy this.”

“I’m not the sicko running around like the next Dredgen Yor,” Cayde spits back. There’s a venom that Avia can’t place.

“Then why did you even try to find me?” The man asks, kneeling down, regarding Cayde like he’s playing with his food. “Trying to save my sorry soul?”

“Well, that’s real dramatic Rook, maybe those Dredgens have finally – ahh!”

The man, whose name is apparently Rook, fires a round into Cayde’s chest.

“He’s running on auxiliary power already Avia, we have to get in there.” Levi’s voice is small and strained.

“Wait,” she finds herself saying.

Cayde coughs and splutters, the machines where his lungs would be whirring in protest. “I’m sorry, Rook. But I know you -- you don’t -- you don’t want to be this.”

Rook stands, aiming his gun down and Avia sees the sightline – right between Cayde’s eyes.

“It’s too late to give me that choice.”

Avia hops over the tree and summons her Golden Gun, using the first blast to knock the gun from Rook’s hand. The Darkness around it absorbs the blast but knocks it off centre, and his eyes find her immediately. She aims the second for his chest, which causes him to stutter back, and she takes the opening to run forward and place herself over Cayde.

The man in black rights himself and they aim their guns at each other, Avia still engulfed in solar flame as something darker roils off of Rook’s body. When her Light runs its course, the solar light makes way for the Thorn in her hands to make itself known.

Rook looks her in the eyes, down to the gun in her hands, and then laughs.

“Oh you are a bunch of hypocrites, aren’t you Cayde?”

“Get out of here,” Avia warns. Levi scans Cayde’s body, coaxing his own Ghost forward so they can make enough repairs to keep Cayde stable for now. “Last chance.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea what this is, do you?” A wicked smile curls up Rook’s face as he lowers his own gun, taking a few steps forward.

“Shut up.” Avia spits back.

“Nah, I’d rather tell you all about how you’ve got a Guardian killer in your hands there. One that your Vanguard keep around for god knows what reason.” He inches closer, and Avia steps forward to meet him. His hands come up in mock surrender, and she ignores how her stomach curls at his easy smile. It’s infuriating, to some degree.

“The only Guardian killer I see is you,” she starts. “Go. Now.”

“Or else what?” He asks. He moves forward once again, and Avia misses the time in between him feeling like he was a mile away and being pressed up against the Thorn. She can practically feel his heartbeat through the gun.

Thank the Traveler she’s wearing her helmet.

“Avia,” Cayde rasps below her. He sounds better, and she hears the soft dissipation of a Ghost that must be his. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“That is rich coming from you.” She mutters, and the man in front of her has the audacity to laugh as if they’ve known each other for years.

“Avia,” he says, his eyes raking down her body. “Pretty name.”

“I am seconds away from putting you down for good.” She bites back. He smiles at her reaction and it sends a wave of embarrassment through her.

“But you won’t. Killing Guardians is bad, remember?”

“You’re not a Guardian.”

Rook’s face falls, impassive and unreadable as the darkness rolls off him, still steady.

In a flash he grabs Avia’s wrist, and places the Thorn underneath his chin, his other hand on her waist as he looks at her and says; “I’m the same kinda Guardian that you are, sweetheart.”

She’s caught off guard, a steady and aggravating heat pooling in her chest. She doesn’t realise when his finger curls around hers on the trigger, squeezing it.

She pulls back as quick as she can, the bullet sounding off between them. She makes to reach for a knife, throw it at his chest and make some space but then she’s back on her ship, Cayde still on the floor below her.

Levi whirls in front of her; “Are you alright?”

“I…” She starts, shaking herself and taking her helmet off. Cayde groans behind her, and she turns and kneels at his side.

“Nice one, hot shot.” He splutters. Avia rolls her eyes, hooking an arm around his back and moving him into the co-pilot chair.

“Who was he?” She asks once he’s sat down, still clutching his chest as though some parts will fall out of him.

“That’s a long story.”

Avia set’s a course for the Tower, plotting the longest route she can find without raising suspicion.

“You’ve got time.”

#wips #wip #BIG SHRUG EMOJI #god i wish i could Finish something #or at least not seek instant gratification from my first drafts #other ocs: rook

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oldguard-nighthawk-blog · 7 years

Text

Recollections

Accessing database...

Username: Password:

Requesting authorisation... Confirmed.

The following is a list of Guardians that were confirmed to have taken part in the battle for the Last City. Select a Guardian.

Accessing: Vega-5... download complete.

Name: Vega-5 Class: Hunter Subclass: Gunslinger Arrival at City: 12:37 P.M.

Status: MIA

She had a front row seat when it happened.

It was her six month check-in with the Vanguard. After a lengthy mission in the European Dead Zone Vega-5 was more than ready to collapse onto her own bed and get some much needed sleep. Then as soon as that was done, she’d be off out again. She never did like staying still for too long, after all.

Her feet barely made a sound as she walked down the steps into the Hall of Guardians, passed the brief flicker of lingering darkness that was Eris. Her volatile Light flinched at the contact, and the other Hunter raised her head briefly, to which Vega gave a respectful nod. Shaxx barely noticed her, in deep conversation with two Titans clad in Crucible armor, whilst his Quartermaster busied himself with the maintenance of the various weapons that lay around him.

She wasn’t seeing any of them today. Once at the doorway to the Vanguard’s hall she leaned against the frame, arms folded and waiting for her cue to approach. They seemed far more occupied than usual - something was up.

“Nothing.” Ikora said suddenly, answering a question she hadn’t been around to hear.

“That’s good, right?” Came the voice of Cayde, the epitome of calm as always. A small smirk caught at the edge of Vega’s mouth. As if sensing her presence, he looked back, and raised his hand ever so slightly to tell her to wait. That was fine, this seemed important.

“No.” The Warlock Vanguard spoke again, her voice now distressed. “I mean they’re not there. There are no satellites.”

“And that’s... not good.”

Something was there, she realised. Out in the storm. Vega stood straight, her hands by her sides in fists. A silhouette in the storm. No, multiple silhouettes, heading straight for them.

Ships. Dozens of them.

“Battle stations!” Zavala yelled over the thunder. In a blur, she watched the many attending civilians and frames dart around the room, until the Titan Vanguard’s Defender shield came into view and they all rushed to it. Missiles were fast approaching the window, and she realised not everyone was going to make it into that bubble. Certainly not the ones that were standing nearer to her.

The last thing Vega saw was the bright Solar Light of Cayde’s Super activating before she slammed her fist onto the emergency seal of the Vanguard Hall’s doors, prompting them to shut swiftly.

“Everyone out! Now!” She snapped loudly, before the entire building shook violently. Many fell to their hands and knees, but Shaxx and the few Guardians in the room with her were quick to assist. They had to get out of here. The Crucible Overseer quickly too charge, taking point and barking orders, guiding everyone back to the stairs.

She turned back briefly to look at the sealed door. It had a large dent now, expanding out towards her. In a small gap in the door, she could just make out Zavala on one knee, with Ikora leaning over him. Turning again to the exit, she locked eyes with Eris - or at least believed she did - and watched as the Hunter muttered to herself and disappeared in a flash of green.

As helpful as expected.

No matter. Vega picked the rifle off her back and guarded the rear of the fleeing civilians outside, where missiles were flying passed the Tower and impacting in the City below. She could already hear screaming. Flashes of memory plagued her; Fallen breaching the Walls, cutting down Guardians left and right, an Archon piercing-

“Hey!” The flashback was cut short by a hand slamming on her shoulder. A Titan had lingered behind and was stood close, his auto rifle held firmly in his grasp. “We gotta get going!”

Right, the civilians. She nodded and they both set off, watching behind them as the group moved. With each impact the building shook even more, debris flying off the roof and down onto the courtyard below. Another Titan in front raised his Arc-fueled fist and slammed into an approaching steel beam, vaporising it before it could hit any of the evacuating party.

They moved through the passage into the Tower’s Northern courtyard. Vega split from the group and moved down the right side of the area into the small enclosed area that still held a cowering Eva Levante.

“Eva, come with me!” She told the older woman, reaching out with her left hand to guide her by the arm.

“What’s happening?!” Eva exclaimed, wincing at each vibration of the Tower.

“I don’t know, but we need to leave.”

The Titan she’d met earlier had opened the door to the inside market, and was guiding everyone through. Vega let go of Eva and lightly pushed her to the other side, before holding both rifle with both hands once more and keeping an eye out for any intruders. New Monarchy members, including the Executor, filtered through soon after.

Where was the Speaker?

Before she could look, something loud rumbled overhead, causing her to look up. A large structure, shaped like a six point star, was slowly making its way straight for the Traveller. What the hell was it? A question for later, she noted as the last civilian went through and she and the Titan followed, closing the door swiftly behind them and taking a moment to breathe. Shaxx and the others would be fine from here, she hoped.

“We need to figure out what the Hell’s going on here.” The Titan breathed out. “Where did all these ships come from?!”

No answer came to her mind - but something else did. Deep down in the Tower itself, where the Guardians resided and rested. Something she had forgotten in the midst of the panic.

Her room.

The cloak.

Ana.

“Make sure no one follows.” Vega ordered. “I need to get something.”

Without waiting for the Titan to respond, she darted off towards a side door, throwing it open and slamming it shut behind her. She descended down a large staircase, going for several flights before she arrived at the floor she wanted. At full sprint she raced through the halls, passed various doors with numbers on, until she hit her room.

Church appeared beside her, looking bewildered. “Are you serious?! Do you have to do it now?!”

“I can’t leave her.” The Hunter spoke with desperation in her voice as her Ghost unlocked the door and she burst through.

There, sitting on her drawers, was a white and gold cloak, burnt and tattered but still in one piece. Vega went over and snatched it up, holding it out to Church for him to transmat.

Except it never happened. The Tower shook even more violently than previous and the floor gave out beneath her. She let out a yell as she tumbled through the other living space floors, one room after the other, fragments both above and below her room littering the open air around her.

Vega’s helm impacted on something and the world went dark.

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When she awoke, she was cold. Far colder than she had ever been before. Orange light shone through cracks in the wall, exposing the outside world. It was deathly quiet. There was no gunfire as she would’ve expected.

Something was very wrong. But she was so tired. And so cold.

When Vega tried to lift herself to her feet, she let out a pained cry, falling back onto the pile of roof and floor debris that she had come to rest on. It was only then that she noticed the large gaping hole in her helmet, which presumably exposed her left eye to the world. Upon closer inspection of herself, she found that her armor was wrecked - the tougher parts ripped away, the cloth torn. Traveller knew what her cloak looked like.

And there was the matter of the large spiked pole sticking out of her abdomen.

With a gasp she fumbled for grip on the pole. There was only one way she was getting out of this and she didn’t much like it. Breathing in an unnecessary breath she pulled herself up, her vocal processor letting out an ungodly screech as she yanked herself free and tumbled down the incline, hitting the wall and causing it to crumble, revealing the City for the first time.

Everything... everything had been hit in some way. No mercy. Walls were crumbled, windows were smashed, scorch marks littered the area. The destruction... this was far too extensive for the Fallen, certainly not green and putrid enough for the Hive, and to be honest she expected them to not even witness a Vex invasion until it had been completed right under their noses. Which left one last possibility.

Cabal.

Church... where was Church? Vega looked back from where she’d come from and saw the inactive black shell that was her partner, a long crack down his single optic. She heaved herself to her hands and knees and crawled to him, picking him up gingerly in her hands.

Was he dead? She couldn’t tell.

She didn’t have time to consider, either. Who knew where the Cabal were. She carefully sat down on her rear, ripped a thin strip from her cloak, and tied him tightly to her belt. She would fix him later, if she could.

With one hand holding her open wound, and another reaching to grab Ana’s cloak and hold it close to her chest, Vega stumbled away into the City.

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She walked for miles. Hid within alleys to avoid Cabal patrols, squeezed her way through the now damaged Walls, and shambled her way across snow covered wastelands. The storm had developed out here into a thick blizzard, but she knew where she was going. Hunters never forgot a spot. Especially not one as important as the one she was heading to.

Day became night. Night became day. Temperatures rose and fell but the cold never left her. Vega had tried feebly to summon her Light in an effort to warm herself, but to no avail. They had done something to the Traveller. She had seen that star machine with a sickly orange-yellow glow that made her angry just looking at it.

The snow lessened, and she saw what she was looking for - the large mountain in the distance, where she heard the echoing of howls. Felwinter’s Peak, calling lost Guardians to safety.

It was nightfall by the time Vega reached its base, and began the slow climb to its summit. Each step was painful but she could not stop. Not now. As soon as she was up there, she could rest, but not now. The gondola was no longer an option - she and Eyahn had seen to that - so she took a longer path, up towards the metal buildings and eventually onwards to where they had faced Sepiks.

There were no Splicers, fortunately. But her strength was wearing thin and she came to a slow stop, before eventually collapsing to her knees. She dared to pull her hand away from her wound and could only watch as fluid continued its steady leak. The snow blew at the open gap in her helmet and her joints whirred louder than they had any right to.

Traveller, she was old. Older than she’d cared to remember. Vega only reflected on that now, as she potentially reached the end of her existence. Not how she intended to go out, but it was what it was.

Someone would find Ana’s cloak. Someone would remember them both.

She moved slowly to lay down in the whitened surface, holding the cloak tightly with both hands, shuttering her optics.

Moments passed, her consciousness not fading, before a noise sounded in front of her. Vega opened her optics once more to find a snout shoved in her face, the nose sniffing furiously. The large furred creature let out a soft whine and nudged her head gently, as if willing her to move. She slowly reached out to run a hand across the side of his neck.

“Hello, Canis.” She greeted, quiet and weak. The wolf stuck his tongue out and panted, his eyes shining with a new found happiness as he proceeded to lick what remained of her helmet and she let out a laugh.

Canis backed up as she finally began heaving herself to her feet again. He moved to her side, sticking close as she laid a hand on his shoulders to steady herself. Vega eyed the buildings in front of her, and could just about make out the shapes of the Iron Temple, and the sound of distant voices.

“Okay, buddy.” She whispered to her new partner. “I’ll follow you.”

The wolf let out a grunt, and the two shuffled towards safety.

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EDIT: Revised status: Currently located at Felwinter’s Peak.

#destiny 2 #destiny 2 spoilers #((others are welcome to use this format if they want to write about their OCs during this time!))#drabble

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eri-223 · 7 years

Note

Okay, if you want an Eris/Toland prompt: their first meeting in the class swap AU. Perhaps it's enough of a swap that Toland is Eriana's friend, and Eris is the Hive expert they call in to help defeat Crota?

When Eris Morn learned the eighth sigil, she sighed as loud as she dared in the close tunnel. Eight were too many to make up the chord-locks of the Hive’s patron beasts. Eight was easy. Eight signified nothing except she had not found enough characters to read their alphabet.

How reassuring.

It had been three days since her Fireteam had scattered. Eris had done strange cold work among her fellow Guardians on Earth, but the pits beneath the Moon were stranger and more cold. Warlocks tended to forget that they lived in a half-dead world, Eris realized after that. She had expected to have a place to return to after all her wandering.

Now she buried her chin against the collar of her cloak and kept reading the runes. Her vision was spotty, from hunger or strain. It became difficult to tell how far away the wall was, whether the light of the bond on her arm or the light from the runes on the gate was brighter. She had worked her way up through two locked doors so far. Many more and she would know the language well enough to speak it.

Hive-pidgen, she thought of it as. Some was understandable enough in context, but other words had gaps in them, filled by what she supposed was a cultural assumption about the Light.

The cloak on her back was weighted badly, bunched up around her collar. She adjusted it, abhorring the wet dust that had gathered. By now it all smelled like moon-dust and old rot and the colors of the cloak were camouflaged with blood and ichor. When she had been given it she had chuckled at how conspicuous the bright green was, scowled at how gaudy the pattern reminiscent of the gateway into the Hellmouth. The last-minute tactic had seemed ridiculous in the face of six healthy Guardians on their way to kill a prince.

“They’ll believe you are one of their own. And that is the only way.”

—

Toland the Vitreous, Eriana-3 thought, would have been much more dangerous if he had known how to be charming.

Maybe that was why he, unlike Osiris or Dredgen Yor, had never gathered a cult to himself. Instead, she thought that he gave the the impression of hardly believing his own ideas. They were fancies, and he loved them all the more for it.

“Lord Shaxx is right about one thing,” he said lightly, before the Crucible match started. “Win and loss are the only really fundamental states of matter.”

“Poetic,” Eriana had said. Maybe if he had inherited a bit more science from his cryptarch mentor, he would have made a heretic Warlock. As it was, he presented as a Hunter who ranged far enough to pull at the invisible, elastic strings of the wolfpack. His Vanguard had warned him.

And Eriana, who could see right through him, had befriended him.

He didn’t take her up on her offer of the Crucible often. There had been whispers while the team assembled - what was this lone buzzard, this particular strange Hunter, brought to the Crucible? Toland the Vitreous, they called him, burnt out by his own dark work until there was nothing left but glass.

As soon as the team started running - it was a match for kills in vine-covered ruins - he switched guns. The one he held was sleek and golden, and quickly caught fire as he called the Sun. An animal’s spine wrapped around the barrel, the beaked skull pointing at the front. She had thought she might start to teach him some of the more applicable aspects of the Praxic Fire, but the weapon he held was half Golden Gun, parts manifesting from the Light itself.

He shot one of his teammates in the head three times. The other Warlock slipped backwards, helmet burning, and their Ghost flared out before they hit the ground. They would wake up furious and confused, Eriana thought.

“Toland, no!” Eriana yelled. He was running an experiment - she had done enough of her own to know.

A few of the fighters stopped, presumably wondering why two Guardians on the same team were fighting with no objective in sight. Others ignored them, blasting across the Cosmodrome ruins they had drawn in the Crucible rotation lottery.

Toland had always been a bit Warlockish.

Eriana could sense the strange energies within the gun, the way it seemed to want to kill again. Toland seemed almost tugged as he knelt down beside the working Ghost, disinterested in the Guardians around him. He checked the clip, then turned to her.

“Ah, it works,“ he said, then leaned in to the urgeful light of that Sun and shot the Ghost.

—

Shaxx pulled him out of the match and gave him to Cayde, but Eriana kept watch.

“Why? Let go of that,” Eriana said, and took the gun from him. It fell in half, the Sun-stuff disappearing between her fingers and leaving her holding the precarious pieces of the hollow gun. Cayde had told them to wait on the Tower watch, above the Vanguard hall. The trickle of the water in the human-made streams seemed like a blaring distraction when Eriana was trying so hard to watch out for anyone who might walk in. Toland gave no impression of wanting to attack anyone again, but Eriana wanted to avoid any altercations. Toland’s experiment had been interesting, indeed. The gun had reacted to something, to its own mindless perception of having won a tiny part of the match. Win and lose are the only really fundamental states …

Cayde-6 and Andal Brask walked onto the Tower watch with one bowl of ramen and one neon-green drink between them.

“What have we here?” Cayde was the louder one, always at Andal’s elbow, but Andal was the Vanguard. Toland looked at him.

“Golden Gun draws from the Sun, and the Sun from the Light and the Light from the body,” Toland said. “That cycle can be picked apart and rearranged. I’ve made a golden gun that does not run out of shots.”

“It feeds on dead Guardians,” Eriana said, still holding the pieces of Bad Juju stacked between her hands. The interiors were alarmingly organic-looking, with stringy support structures like in a bird’s hollow bones.

Andal looked at Cayde, then back at Toland. “You brought that artifact back before, that strange cube. Is this related?”

Toland held his hands out in front of him as if ready to be shackled. He wore the close-fitting Hunter garb in a green that looked not martial but simply as if it was rotting off of him. Eriana looked down at her own Praxic uniform as if expecting some sort of stain.

“Don’t delay your sentence,” Toland said. “My experiment is done. We can threaten the very cage around our world with this.”

“The Vanguard have already covered your view of the Warminds,” Andal answered quickly. This surprised Eriana; she hadn’t known he held such a view.

“And your discussion will cease when the world falls down around your ears,” Toland said.

“You killed a Guardian,” Cayde enunciated slowly. The word he used indicated permanent death; it was beginning to be used in reference to Hive magic as well, sometimes ironically. It had been rare before the Hive incursion. Eriana was starting to miss those times. “Maybe we should get back to that?”

“Things are piling up,” Andal said. “You leave your teammates behind to go off looking for ruins - and you’ve pestered the Vanguard about Rasputin more than Cayde has.”

Cayde shrugged.

“This has gone on long enough,” Andal said. His voice turned stentorian; he could act when he wanted to. “I will bring you before the Vanguard.”

The silence stretched out, offering a hand and an ace up the sleeve; Toland could go politely or he could be removed in whatever unpleasant manner Andal thought fit.

Eriana interrupted.

“Let me talk to him first,” she said. She found authority in her voice by reminding herself that she was not under the Hunters’ jurisdiction. “I’m interested in the way he used Golden Gun. I study the Praxic Fire. This could be of use to us.”

Although Eriana was not a senior member of her order, the followers of the Praxic Creed were well known for being practical - for Warlocks. Hunters joked that this meant decisions required only two days of meditative contemplation. It helped that Eriana was known for being solidly personable. She watched Andal decide how much she knew about what was likely to happen if Toland saw all three Vanguard. Exile could be as formal as an appearance from the Speaker or as informal as a quick and impermanent death.

In the end, the expression Eriana saw in Andal’s eyes was a deep sympathy for her and Toland’s friendship.

“In ten minutes I’ll send Shaxx back up here,” Andal said, and left.

Eriana caught Cayde lifting the green drink in a salute to his mentor’s back as he followed.

Toland tried to slide away; Eriana caught him by the shoulders. “Don’t say a word,” she said, then shook her head. He wouldn’t manage it. “I’m going to hide you before they can exile you,” she said, and for a moment he looked surprised at her apparent clairvoyance.

She was right that he couldn’t manage to be quiet, but chattiness itself was not suspicious. They took the elevator down, and worked on a cover story.

—

When Eris heard Eriana’s name around the Tower more often, she felt a mix of jealousy and pride.

They had been friends early in their new lives, two Warlocks with the same wry sense of humor and a comfort with sitting beside one another and studying in silence for hours. Their own ascensions had helped drive them apart, though; as Eriana became more dedicated to the Praxic Creed and Eris to the more esoteric work favored by Ikora their missions took them to far-off places. When Eris was inducted into the Hidden after a particularly spectacular stealth mission against the Hive incursion, her friendship with Eris faded quietly like the colors on an old cloak. If they had skipped time and seen the change, it would have been shocking, but because time progressed the normal way the transition into almost complete silence was itself unnoticed.

The Hidden had offered prime opportunities for a Voidwalker, and so Eris had become used to conspiring and spying, to seeing in Ikora’s eyes the secrets that they shared.

Now, Ikora was keeping her comm open while Eris trailed a Hive commander in the Cosmodrome. There had been reports of an unusually organized swarm, of a towering Knight with a sword that made a name for itself among younger Guardians.

“Find out at least where they’re based. Maybe what they call themselves,” Ikora said.

“Their names are fascinating, actually. Did I mention to you that they seem to have no names distinguished by gender?” Eris always felt a bit hesitant talking to someone as accomplished and brilliant as the Vanguard, but she also knew that Ikora shared her interest in ephemera. Eris was not a magpie of a Warlock, the sort that coveted their own personal library; instead she gathered facts, ideas she could carry around without adding any weight to her blue robes.

“You hadn’t,” Ikora said.

Eris continued walking along the hillside, avoiding snowy patches that might be slippery. She had not tried to disguise herself and instead walked openly, passively monitoring the emanations of Darkness she could feel from the other side.

“I’m almost at the site,” Eris said.

“Good.”

Eris wanted to say something else, some formality or pleasantry for closure, but Ikora’s voice had closed off in that authoritative way that she had, and Eris knew that if she herself spoke now she would tend to babble. So instead she remained quiet as she walked around the sharp cliff of rock that made up the oceanward side of the hill. In front of her now the grassland sloped down to the sluggish water. To her left was the gash in the hill that lead to the cave.

Eris readied the gun in her hand as the Hive sniffed her out, but she didn’t expect to have to use it.

First the eyes appeared in threes and sixes in the cave, then the thralls lurched themselves out of the darkness with their sideways gait and screamed toward her. Eris Morn waited. Not exactly covert work, this, but there were more difficult ways to study them, and Osiris had suggested that she couldn’t capture an entire pack of Hive at once on her own, so she had just had to —

Ah, there, the traps. Eris had formed them out of the Hive’s own filaments, the metal pieces they tended to drive into the Earth. Ikora permitted this as long as it remained in the realms of linguistics and engineering and did not turn into magic, and Eris was equally committed to upholding that separation.

Thrall zig-zagged forward and the Knights followed, lumbering, and Eris ducked as blasts from energy weapons splashed past her. She knew though —

The traps snapped upward out of the ground, green fire burning on the edges of the metal ribs. The one holding the sword-bearer worked too well. The Hive commander dissolved into dust, shrieking. Eris could not tell whether it had dashed itself against the bars with its momentum or not. The Hive seemed to glory in killing others, but not necessarily in mindless loss; Eris thought for a moment that the Knight must have been disappointed in itself. Then she put one hand over the bottom of her helmet, wanting to cover her mouth. She still stood in front of a pack of trapped thrall, and the relief at her plan working was slowly draining away and leaving fear in its wake.

There were some garbled noises on the comm, and Eris felt her heart sink. “Are you okay?”

Quickly, the signal stabilized. “Thank you for trapping that brood, Eris,” Ikora said.

“It didn’t work. I’m sorry. The sword bearer …” Eris wrinkled her nose in embarrassed amusement at her own overkill. “Disintegrated.”

“No matter. It’s time to come back,” Ikora said kindly, and quickly enough that Eris only had time to open her mouth in shock. “It’s time to send our armies to the Moon.”

—

For a while, Toland’s most pressing concern was the war.

Eriana had gathered her troops in a small apartment in the City, kitted out for a short-term stay and taken by Toland for a longer one. The fireteam loved her, and gathered around her in a flock when she announced that their last team member would be coming soon. Eris Morn was a quietly competent Warlock known mostly for being a closed-mouthed confidante of Ikora Rey, Eriana had said. Later she had added that she and Eris had once been friends, but that their respective work with the Praxic Warlocks, and, supposedly, with Ikora’s Hidden had pulled them apart. Perhaps this was why she was nervous, or because the team hadn’t yet cohered. Vell Tarlowe, the Titan from the Pilgrim Guard, seemed to suffer from a mild claustrophobia in the City and so tended to puff up like a pigeon to show his strength.

“Don’t fret,” Toland whispered to Eriana. She was running hot, not the Sun but her servos heating up the edge of his sleeve. “Your pets won’t hurt the spy.”

“Between your fascination and her experience we have all the Hive expertise we need.” Eriana’s tone was strong, as if she were addressing the Vanguard. Later, Toland thought that she might regret such conviction. She had already framed him and Eris as complementary, as a likely pair of researchers.

Now, Eriana waited with the group for the Hidden Warlock to arrive. Toland began to feel impatient, standing in formation like this as if they were petitioners at the Vanguard’s beckon call instead of a rogue fireteam breaking the Lunar Interdict.

When Eris arrived there was no fanfare, no sneaking. She did not appear out of thin air or in a cloud of Voidlight. She walked in through the door, wearing bronze-plated Voidfang Vestments and with her helmet tucked under her arm. Perhaps there was a hint of clandestine energy in the way she edged over to Eriana, who quickly and unreservedly clasped her elbow.

“Thank you for coming,” Eriana said. Her lights blinked sincere acknowledgement, doubling the thanks for those who could read Exo expressions.

Eris surveyed the group, full lips slightly open. “The opportunity to study the Hive is incredible, but the, uh, cause is more worthy.”

Her voice hesitated a bit over the formal words, becoming more resonant as she faltered. Toland found himself wondering whether there was a pattern in that he could predict if he listened long enough.

Eriana continued the formality with a bow of her head, but when she started to introduce the group members individually she made it almost immediately clear that theirs was not a strict affect to go with the deadly serious mission. Omar joked that Eris had probably forgotten more about the Hive than he ever knew, and her response was gracious and wry. Eriana brought her to Toland last.

“Our other Hunter,” Eriana said softly. “Toland the Vitreous, the weaponsmith.” She looked at Eris to see her reaction. “He was exiled.”

Eris equally softly pulled a breath in.

Toland perceived the Darkness on Eris as a gauzy cloak over her clothing. Peel the surface away and you would have a sheet of Hive-stuff, likely to sprout signal towers and green crystals. It would come off clean, though. Eris was not herself corrupted.

“I hear you are exceptionally familiar with our enemy,” he said. It was an expression of curiosity, but, he admitted to himself, also a challenge. She too immersed herself in studies that could easily cause Guardians on her team to die, even if it was not on purpose.

“I study them.” She said, sharp eyes glinting in a sharp face. “That does not mean I love them.”

“We devote ourselves to what we will,” he said, and took her hand. He knew from the weight of the word that he felt for her - to say devote in front of her felt suddenly personal and dangerous. And that, of course, made his words to her a tender and fascinating lie. There was no willpower left to him, now that he had felt this.

Eris Morn shook Toland’s hand, and he filed his own interest away.

Later he would catch her while he was reading in their fireteam’s hideaway, the place Eriana had set up for him before Crota was even a storm on the horizon. She would wait by the edge of the bookshelf and extend her awareness to him, a wash of Voidlight filled with patterns and mathematics he could not fathom, and he would glow with the Sun and light one of the pages of the books for her. He thought that she must be surprised to see a Hunter flitting around the shelves. She explained to him some of the Hive sigils that she recognized, and he just listened.

Even later, he noticed that she would find excuses to stay after the rest of the team had gone, and she would tell him about the terrors of the Hive, and the way they believed in wins and losses. It was after agreeing with one of these statements that he touched her hands again, play-fighting in jabs and bait-and-switches. When they paused with their fingers tangled, he stooped to kiss both of their hands. She smirked when his lips brushed his own knuckles.

For a while, Toland’s most pressing concerns were her and the war.

—

Some of the runes must have been missing. Eris had worked out what the sequence should be, but there was no sigil for the ninth character. She could keep working on them, driving herself to distraction, or she could turn around and find a more defensible spot. Soon, she thought, she would not have a choice.

She turned and saw another glow.

How far away? What letter did that represent? What sound did it make?

She wondered whether she might see a trio of green eyes in the dark, and be unsure whether it was an enemy or a delusion borne from hope. Toland, the Vitreous, had been wearing that mask before he disappeared.

Eris had thought once that she could fight the Hive using their own tools without becoming as evil as they were. Funny, how she had not entirely been wrong. She could keep her pure intent. What the Hive worshipped wasn’t about intent, really; the swordlogic was a physical law, and all along Eris had been following it like the ocean followed the Moon.

Toland, though, had dived right in. The last she had seen him alive he was fleeing down a tunnel, crying nonsense words, making sounds like might have been Hive names if he had ever learned them properly. After that, there had been the body and the Deathsinger she and Eriana fought. Both of them had looked for some trace of Hive magic and found none. Toland had not found the words to unlock his gate either.

She could imagine, though, that those were his false eyes. She could imagine eyes all around her, his face ghosting through the rock between her hands where she had crouched over in the tunnel. The deaths of her teammates felt like dreams now, and she supposed she should be thankful for it. Her brain was shifting these things into the category of nightmare so that she could keep going, so that the guilt and terror would stay distant until they leaked out somehow. She could not weep, except for the messy, tar-colored ichor that bled from the cracked skin around her eyes.

The Hive had been an abstraction to her for a little while, and now they were just a gate.

She turned back to the door and started working on a new idea about how to bypass the ninth sigil.

—

Once Illumynare suggested that Eris and Toland’s backgrounds should be swapped along with their classes, I had to figure out how that happened - and so it became part of what was supposed to be a thousand-word story. Well. The resulting timeline becomes kinder to its characters at the beginning and crueler by the end, I suppose. Eris is more accomplished at the beginning of this story than I imagine she was in canon, forced as she was out from under Eriana’s wing. She has the Warlock penchant for study but an emotional distance from the Hive that Toland never managed. Toland has only half of his canon obsessions - he’s desperately fearful and sees other Guardians as potential subjects for experimentation, but never researched the Hive enough to speak convincingly to Ir Yût. Therefore he never became quite as infamous as he was in canon, and was never technically “shattered” - although still more than willing to abandon his team. I tried to keep these differences in mind.

#the longest prompt answer #Destiny #Eris/Toland #Fireteam Heartbreak #illumynare #Eris Morn #Toland #Cayde-6 #Andal Brask #Ikora Rey #Eriana-3

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spartanw010 · 4 years

Text

A Cursed Titan

CHAPTER 1(part 2)

As we traveled through the hanger bay to go meet this Lord Quacks or whatever his name was they said, I could feel everyone's eyes on my back as I walked past them. Other Guardians seemed to whisper to others about me from what I could tell. Some showed off their weapons like they were expecting me to cause trouble. While others just stared at me watching me like I was cursed. Maybe I am i wondered as I continued to walk. Why did it matter I had these markings. It wasn't my choice. There's nothing I could do about it. But I realized that it didn't care. People were prejudice it didn't matter a lot to others about your personality. Just what they could see on the outside. I realized it wasn't going to get easier. The moment they saw those markings I was branded as an outcast even amongst my guardian brethren. I though society would've at least changed a bit. But I realized some have probably lost a lot of brethren to the hive so seeing me brought back plenty of horrible memories. I guess they had a reason. But did I deserve this harsh treatment?

We finally reached whoever the man my ghost wanted to see. When he turned around, I saw a big man covered in armor head to toe. All of it was orange and white. With the part that looked like fur? And then a horn on one side of his helmet. He had a pretty good voice I'd say kinda hard to describe it really. "AHHHHH One of my favorite ghosts has returned. How've you been little light?" The man says to Ruby

"Its been great Lord Shaxx. And the names Ruby now." My ghost replies

"RUBY?!?!?" he replies. Man sure seems he likes to yell a lot. "Wheres your guardian I gotta see this." He continues.

"Hes right here Shaxx, meet Wolf." She replies and I guess somehow points to me. "Ah well Wolf, its nice to meet you. Guessing your a new guardian ehh?" He says looking to me. Somewhat sizing me up. I just nod not sure what to say. "Ahh says here you registered to be a Titan and you want a hand cannon. Well my boy you seriously picked the right class I tell you that." As he begins to find armor for me I look at an old set up against the wall. It catches my eye. "Um Shaxx what's that set up on the wall right there" I ask pointing to the armor that caught my eye. "Oh that. That's an old piece of history. Called the SunBreakers Path. Probably wont do you much good in a fight. Plus it's a bit more than you'd think compared to starting gear." He says and starts laughing. But after seeing my eyes fixed on it, he replies "you know I like you Wolf you know what you want so it's on the house this time. Just know your gonna be repaying me in the crucible sometime soon understood?" He grabs the armor of the wall and hands me the set. "Shaxx I can't take this. I figured I would have to find my own stuff." "No no" he replies "Ruby's a good ghost and plus I think you'll may need it for your journey ahead. I've heard the rumors Wolf. You've got Hive ruins on your back. I know it isn't your fault, so imma help you out since no one seems to be acting friendly." He finishes

I can't tell if hes smiling or what. Wish he didn't have a helmet on so I can see his facial features.

"Welk thanks Shaxx, I'll take good care of it. And I promise I'll take you up on crucible whenever I can and whatever that is."

"Oh I know you will. Also here's your starter Hand Cannon. You'll have to find better ones and whatnot yourself sorry champ" he says with a short laugh afterwards. Honestly Shaxx is probably my favorite person so far. As I don the armor set and the hud and everything powers on I realize the sound of faint whispers. I look towards the sound to see a skull hanging up above Shaxx. I point to it saying "what's that skull from shaxx?" "That my friend is an Ahamkara bone." He replies his voice taking on the tone of sadness. As the name of the creature is said the whispers start getting a little louder. Welp great seems like they are reacting to whatever the heck it is. Not much I can do. So I grab my hand cannon and holster it. Shax proceeds to hand me an assault rifle for a backup and then a sword as my heavy. By my Ghosts request actually. "Thanks again a lot Shaxx. I'll be seeing you again eventually. Itll be nice to chat." I say as i wave goodbye. "Good hunting Guardian. Go towards the Hangar you can get your ship and sparrow there. Come back alive kid."

With my helmet in on hand, I start walking towards the hangar.

On my way back people still stare at me. Even if they can't see my scars they still remember my face.

#bungie #destiny titan #destiny the game

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