Chapter 1: Winter's Fury
The blizzard raged on in the cold, frigid night, through the outskirts of the ruined city in northern half of Old Russia. Snow and ice pelted down from the sky in sharpened, icy shards, and the wind blew it with a strong enough force to flay an improperly-dressed man alive, assuming the fourty-below temperature didn't freeze him to death first. The ground, once littered with rusted, old cars, dirt, small trees, and rubble, was now covered in an almost seven-foot layer of snow and frost and ice.
Winter had come in full force upon the continent, and with it, nature had assured that there was no room for stragglers in her frozen domain. But, through this wasteland, a single, four-armed figure suddenly appeared, braving through the self-made tundra's battlefield.
Through this blinding storm, a Fallen captain, clad in fleeces, furs, and light blue captain's armor, trudged forward. He wore a thick cloak of a dark, blue color that swayed in the powerful wind on his back, and a white-lined symbol of the House of Wolves showed on it. The dark, gray-colored fur that lined the back collar of it was completely crusted with ice and snow, and two, large, curved horns adorned it, sticking up from his shoulders, and into the air behind the Fallen's armored head, an intimidating trophy from a hunt long past, as a newer trophy, one made of the fangs of some creature, hung in a necklace around his neck.
In the Fallen's upper, three-fingered forehands was a shrapnel launcher, its barrel lit with a fiery red light, and above it, around his chest, but partially hidden underneath where the cape's front draped, was a single scabbard, containing a large shock dagger. His lower pair of hands remained drooped, rubbing one another in an attempt to make heat.
Every step he took crunched through the ground, leaving footprints that were immediately covered back up by the snow that fell. Breath exited where the front of his mouth's steel, light blue, mask-like respirator was, forming a cloud in front of his equally covered face. His four, glowing blue eyes, in their wrinkled and grayish-brown sockets, the only part of his real face sticking out in the storm, blinked, and looked ahead, to the rapidly growing orange dot that appeared through the blizzard.
Getting closer, anyone could see it was a fire he had spotted, burning in an iron oil drum, and it was lit underneath the remains of a concrete building's doorway. The construct, having formerly been a museum, or something of that like, was one of the largest structures in the abandoned city, and one of the few ones not completely engulfed in snow.
Another figure stood by it in the doorway, all four arms folded, body shivering from the cold. It was a vandal of the House of Devils, as seen by his red cloak, and pieces of white-and-red armor. He didn't appear to be enjoying his position, judging by how fast his teeth chattered from behind his mask.
"Wh-who g-g-goes there?" the vandal suddenly asked, finally catching eye of the fellow Fallen, once he was close enough to let his camouflaged armor stick out enough from the storm to tell the difference. He raised his wire rifle, and pointed it at the intruder in haste.
"It is Pharrik the Hoarfrost" the newcomer revealed in his dry-sounding voice, his weapon still held down in an unoffensive way.
"Ph-Pharrik? Oh... I-I thought i-i-it was you..." the vandal sighed in relief, lowering his rifle from his slightly larger-sized ally. "Anything t-to rep-p-port?"
"The outer perimeter is secured" he responded. "No humans, Exos, Guardians or Ghosts to be spied... As if any would be sane enough to try to travel here at this time. Cold would kill them dead before three miles of walking."
"B-baroness Sifaxis Wolf's Eye is w-waiting inside" he said again, opening the old, dented metal door that lead inside the building.
Without a word, Pharrik rubbed past the soldier, and entered, while the vandal put the fire in the barrel out, before joining him inside, his job thankfully, and finally finished.
"D-damn c-cold..." the vandal muttered under his breath, as he closed the door behind himself and the captain.
Pharrik walked through the dark building, adjusting to the heat, feeling as the ice began to melt from his cape and armor. He watched as a Servitor flew by in the air, its purple light illuminating the darkness from its eye, and followed it, eventually coming into the large living area, where dozens of other vandals and two-armed dregs stood or sat, talking with each other, and socializing, showing off what they managed to scavenge during the daytime, and the like. Some looked at Pharrik, but not for too long, and others immediately got out of his way if he was moving toward them, knowing of what kinds of penalties would follow if they so much as bugged such a high-ranking individual.
Walking deeper into the old building's very large, and now empty hallways, he passed several more dregs, working in the ruined and bare rafters above him, and heard a few sifting inside the panel-less walls beside him, making chittering and hissing noises, and generally quite a clatter as they burrowed and fixed. There were also a few vandals, patrolling past him.
It was a good fifteen minutes before he finally reached the metal stair railing that lead to the room he was looking for. Upon reaching the rusted, but still somewhat green door, with the human word "curator" still, mostly, on the front of it, he opened it quietly, and spotted four figures inside.
There were two vandals, standing in front of a shoddy, wooden desk, each sporting the colors of House Devils, and past them, he saw the familiar shape of the baroness, in her white-and-blue colors of House Wolves. While she wore her helmet, her respirator was down, revealing her sharp, jagged teeth, and exposing much of her wrinkled, gray-and-brown face.
Pharrik also saw one Devils captain as well, sitting down on an empty booth nearby, polishing his shock rifle with a discarded rag, as he apparently listened to what the baroness had to say. He glared at Pharrik as he passed by, before returning to his work.
"...Search the upper levels, and you two, tell the other vandals and dregs to scrounge in the cellar" she was saying to them, pointing at paper of the building's layout that laid on the desk. "Inform me of whatever you find, keep what scrap you salvage, and..."
She caught sight of Pharrik standing behind the vandals as she turned her head up, and became quiet.
"And... You know what must be done. You may all go now, yes?" she finished, putting her forehand up to shoo them away. Obediently, the vandals left, and, with a huff, the captain got up as well, and went with them, brushing past Pharrik, and hurrying the two vandals further with a hard shove aimed at the backs of their necks.
As they closed the door behind themselves, Pharrik calmly walked up to Sifaxis, and placed his shrapnel launcher on the desk, on top of the paper with the map of the building's interior.
"Wolf's Eye" he greeted to his mate, referring to the baroness's surname.
"Hoarfrost" she replied, referring to his own. "Have you spotted anything on your rounds?"
"Snow, ice, wind. Nothing else" he responded. "The storm, as thick as it appeared to be, was easy to wade through. From what I saw when I returned, though, these pups can't handle it. You were wise to send me to the outer perimeter."
As soon as they were both within arm's reach of each other, they embraced, and butted their helmeted foreheads together, affectionately.
"I missed you" he said, chittering his teeth with happiness. "How have these Devils been treating you?"
"With respect, as they have been, since I was granted leadership over them by the Archon of their House" she said. "Even that captain you saw's arrogance dims when I give him orders."
After a few more passionate seconds, Sifaxis let a sigh escape her mouth, and Pharrik could immediately sense that something was on his mate's mind, and was giving her distress.
"What troubles you?" he decided to ask. Her four eyes opened, and looked into his, before she sighed again.
"Three more dregs have gone missing since you left this morning. It's why I sent those three to look for them again" she spoke again, their embrace slowly breaking off. "Gone like candles in the darkness. No trace. Do you think they deserted?"
"It would be mad to attempt so here, and even so, your leadership is much... "Gentler," than some of the other captains and barons" He said.
Sifaxis chuckled lightly as she heard him say that.
"They would have no reason to leave" Pharrik continued. "I also have doubts any Guardian picked them off. Only a Guardian could be hardy enough to venture out here, and snipers leave bodies, but, as you said, they're missing, and the snowstorm is too thick to see through. They might have tried killing up close, but there was no gunfire, and a knife fight would have been noticed too easily..."
"My guess is they went outside for a breath of air, and were swallowed up by the storm" she said. "It is most unnerving to me, though. The third time in the last few days, it is just so odd... So queer..."
"Do not let it bother you, my beloved" Pharrik said, reassuringly. "I've seen many a fellow Eliksni get buried alive by a hidden snow trap-pit before. I am thinking that that's what had happened."
"...That may be, but, either way, I think I should have security boosted for a few days until it stops" she responded again.
"That sounds most wise" Pharrik agreed. "I swear to the Prime Servitor, you could make a good Kell."
"Hmhmhm..." she hummed. "Shall you continue your flattery over some ether? I'm sure those rations you brought with you have run out."
"Of course" he replied, turning to the door, and holding open to let her out first. After she exited, he went out as well, and closed the door behind himself.
The morning had arrived quickly, and with it, the storm had abated, leaving a bright, cloudless blue sky above the land.
Across the wasteland of fallen snow, three, irregularly-shaped piles of snow sat next to an old tree, deep in the wilderness. Without warning, one of them, the one furthest on the left, suddenly moved, and broke open, revealing a humanoid shape underneath.
As he stretched, yawned, and pushed the snow off of himself, the human, wearing hunter armor and helmet, and a light, brown cloak and hood, looked around at the stillness, admiring the beauty of the sun shining off of the ice crystals in the surrounding trees that survived the night's winds.
It wasn't long before the Guardian turned to the other two snow piles, and decided it was time to move them.
"Hey, you guys awake?" he asked, looking to his right. "Vara-twelve, you there?"
"I'm always awake before you, Draid" a feminine voice replied, as a female Exo, painted a white-and-steel color, and wearing a dark brown cowl, dug herself out of the bank. The warlock turned, and looked at the hunter, a smile on her metallic face, and blue eyes focussed on him. "I was just waiting for you two to show your faces. And, speaking of which..."
They both turned to the last snow pile, which wasn't moving. With a punch from Vara, the occupant inside, a human titan named Geryl, let out a grunt of discomfort as some of the snow caved in on him, waking him up with a start.
"Pfft, ack, grr... I'm up! I'm up!" the titan growled, bursting out of the snow, wiping most of it off of his pale face. "Ah, damn it, guys... You could've just yelled, or something!"
"I'm not one for yelling" Vara shrugged, with a smirk.
"...And we hunters can't make a lot of noise. We like stealth" Draid finished, sarcastically.
"Oh, ha, ha, ha..." Geryl laughed dryly, as he put his large, black-visored helmet on over his head, and adjusted his black cape. The moment he did, Draid's Ghost suddenly materialized in front of them all.
"Good morning, you three" the little, white-colored construct spoke to them in its monotonous voice, looking at them each with his eye. "I trust you all had a pleasant night?"
"If by "pleasant" you mean "utterly frozen," then yes, I did" Geryl scoffed.
"Yes, well, frigid nights and powerful snowstorms are to be expected in this part of the world" the Ghost continued. "I didn't say it would be easy reaching where we're headed."
"Well, are we close to the place?" Geryl asked again.
"Yes, we are" he replied. "The old "abandoned" museum of the History of Spaceflight is only eight more miles from here. If my calculations are correct, the Fallen Archon should be there."
"...And, as you said, by killing him, we'll cripple the Devils up here?" Draid guessed.
"Yes" the Ghost responded. "With another Archon dead, the Fallen up here will most likely retreat back down into the southern part of Old Russia again, leaving them with with much less territory to keep, and making them barely a threat."
"Think it might be another decoy base?" Draid inquired, inspecting his knife, before sheathing it again. "Ya'know, like the last three we shot up?"
"I don't think so, but if it were, he would have only two other locations to hide in up in this region, none of them very well fortified, or pleasant, for that matter" the ghost said again.
"Well, Fallen can be quite hardy, I don't know..." Vara chuckled.
"You may want to hurry..." the construct said once more. "It may look pretty now, but that storm is going return by noontime. Just as a heads-up."
"Well, in that case, let's wake up faster then, ladies" Geryl mocked with a competitive laugh, toward his teammates. "Let's get on our Sparrows and get out of here."
"Already on it" Vara and Draid spoke at the same time, as all three of them stood up. After brushing off the last snow off of themselves, and stretching their frozen joints out, they activated their Sparrows, and the small crafts appeared out of thin air.
The Ghost dissipated as they hopped onto their vehicles, and the three sped off, trying to beat the coming storm.
Author's notes: I don't play Destiny, I admit it, but from what I've read online so far, their lore, especially what they've centered around the Fallen, is very intriguing, despite what it lacks in the "story" part. That's why I'm writing this, and sorry if I screw up a little on a few parts, due to my lack of knowledge on certain things.