"So, they got Omnigul."
Holliday was used to silences that ate up time. Guardians would peruse her charts of available materials, heads down until they looked back at a friend or glanced over at her assistant Amelia organizing the schedules, or jabbed one another with elbows armored in steel and scale. Maybe they were talking helmet-to-helmet. Each spoke differently, some saying hello to her, but they didn't often ask after mortal health, and she was a businesswoman who had a lot on her mind anyway.
Eris, though, left the silence hanging.
Holliday rubbed her hands together, dust cascading onto the gray floor. She had already cleaned the oil off her hands with the rag hung on a hook behind her workbench, after checking out the NLS drive of a punchy antique. Crota's Bane held her hands loosely at her sides, arms occasionally swaying from the elbow.
"You looking for anything, ma'am?" Holliday finally said, after there was no response to her question about the rumored Hive witch. "There's a canteen one floor down."
"Your ships fly daily, and all return. Soon some will be empty."
"Sit on the northwest side and you won't be able to hear my mechanics on the other side of the wall."
Holliday half expected Eris to trail some sort of darkness, like Xur did. Instead, up close she was flesh and blood except for the Light she carried. Her robes gave an impression of tatteredness but were not tattered, an impression of age but were not bloodstained. She smelled faintly of orange and city-dust.
"You train others to follow and fall in your footsteps, just as Guardians do."
"Aw, it's not all bad," Holliday said.
Eris turned to look at her. Before, instead of meeting the mechanic's eyes she had been looking out beyond the mesh fence between the table and the hangar. "Before I left, there was someone else who worked here. A Titan. He left for reasons I cannot fathom, although perhaps he followed his Ghost away."
"I'd heard that I was taking a Guardian's spot, but you know, I never got anyone speaking bad about it. Like people knew he wasn't happy here." Eris was easy to talk to, Holliday thought. The conversation could have felt strange, could have felt like the words were being siphoned out of Holliday into a creature of the Darkness. But Holliday liked to talk, as long as she wasn't being distracted from work she needed to complete, and it was a pleasant surprise to have Eris, who offered a glimpse into what the Tower had been before Holliday arrived, as a conversation companion.
"I'm not the only one who does this job now," Holliday said. "I had to petition the Vanguard, prove myself in front of a committee. It wasn't easy. There's still hobbyists, raring to provide refuels to Guardians. I'm not about that, though. You've got the best supplies here, some of the only ships. You need it."
"If these great beasts are the only ships, where do these hobbyists get their equipment?"
"You can russle up parts in the Cosmodrome if you're crafty, grab a rocket tube or a heating coil before the Fallen get you." She shook her head. "It's dangerous and stupid brave. I tell Guardians to head anybody off if they see them. Not because of the competition, mind you."
"You do not believe in the Light as the Guardians do."
"Ghosts are my biggest suppliers. I envy those little guys for the way they can snap material up..."
"But you do not envy Guardians."
"Nah. Some people do. I'm not built like that. Would hate to lose my spot though. It's more lucrative than the city, and I'd lose my quarters. My friends are up here."
"Yes. I remember...but those days were Light and lightening, and still so frozen. We had been fighting the Hive for so long..." She began to wave her empty hands toward the ships. Holliday couldn't help but think she might put some sort of glamor on them, change one material to another.
"And people are still fighting them," Holliday said. Did Eris feel badly about sending other fireteams to do her work for her? That was what Holliday had been curious about all along. She would ask it straight if she had to, but she had a feeling that Eris was better at answering circuitous questions just like she was better at giving circuitous answers.
"Yes. The voices still cry out. Why can we not hear them?" She waved her hands again, black gloves leaving green trails in the air. Holliday had to blink spots out of her eyes after staring at the Jupiter storm swirls inside the ball of Light. "And they got Omnigul."
Eris hissed the name, and Holliday was taken aback at how quickly she had returned to the subject.
"Did they celebrate?" Eris asked, still looking out at the ships.
A Phaeton V 1.1 flew in with a recently repaired calibration box: Holliday could hear it rattling. Either the Ghost had done a patch job or the Guardian didn't know about the problem. She'd take a look at that one later, probably, when the Guardian came to ask her about it or when she wondered down herself to see whether she was right. A Guardian had brought a Phaeton schematic in yesterday. Perfect timing: she had planned to use the schematic to work on the engine she was building for herself, but it would be best to use it to help someone else first.
"Did they dance on her bones?" Eris said.
"Seemed pretty somber about it, most of them. But I don't really know. I didn't see anyone loudly celebrate out this way."
"The Vanguard said the same," said Eris.
So, you did care. So you might need help.
I wouldn't want someone else fighting my ancient battles, if I had any.
There had never really been any silence, even though Holliday was long used to the noise. The ships ripped the air they passed, Alicia re-organized tools that clacked against one another in the corner of the shop, and the green light in Eris' hands cracked and spat like fire. Holliday thought that she had received the answer to her question, and with the success there came disappointment: a little bit of Eris' mystery removed, a little bit of humanity unscrewed and pulled out into the open on a trolley.
A little more humanity, but she ran a little smoother.
"What do you think about that?" Holliday asked. A customer came calling, an Awoken who smiled at Eris and ordered a paint job for her jump ship. While Holliday and Amelia took the details, Eris kept speaking.
"The Tower keeps what it keeps. I have taken my lashes and give out hurts. What will we do, if the sun goes out? What do we do, if he comes here?" Her voice fell to a deep rattle.
"We'll ping your Ghost when it's done, ma'am," Holliday said, and the Awoken swept away. The shipwright turned to Eris. "Will Crota come here?"
Eris turned to look at her, meeting her eyes for the first time. Was that a rare thing, a privileged thing? Or was Holliday just another horizon? Too many flat green eyes stared above full lips, and the Hunter's cowl swept back like horns. "Weep if he comes here, child. We will all despair with great sounds. But there are some I trust among the Guardians. There are some I treasure."
"That same fireteam, the ones who came back?"
"Many, many." The green light disappeared. Eris wrapped her thin arms around herself, swaying and nodding. The sway that brought her forward also reminded Holliday that Eris was a Guardian: Ghost gone and maybe her power gone but still muscle that had once been immortal.
"Do your work and I'll do mine, I always tell them," Holliday said, because Eris was or had once been a Guardian just like the rest.
Eris nodded.
"If you need anything else, let me know."
"We all need," Eris said, voice deep and almost panicked. She needed the way a falling person needed wings, Holliday thought. "We all will return."
She walked away with as little explanation as she had arrived, with the same long steps and firm strides as the Awaken Guardian, her footfalls heavier. Holliday learned on the workbench, readjusted her shawl as it started to drift forward and unknot again.
Alicia just said "Huh," and followed Holliday's gaze. Another ship came in. Holliday thought about how if Eris was right, if Crota was coming to split the Earth, things weren't so different from any other day in the Tower. Holliday hadn't told Eris that part, about how some of the hobbyists wouldn't ever want her job because they said it made her a target. Holliday hadn't told Eris that the night they got Omnigul she and Alicia had toasted to that death and played football on the concourse, energized, relieved.