First fiction written for Destiny. The telling tale of a rather curious individual unlike any other in the Destiny Universe. Enjoy.
Now listen closely, my sweet child.
For this story is not one of honour and glory.
This is not a story of brave heroes, of slain monsters or of damsels in distress. No, my son; this is the story of the survivor.
This is the tale of the Snake in the Grass.
Terrible danger lurks on every world we know of. The wastelands of Earth, the desolate Moonscape, the dense jungles of Venus and the arid deserts of Mars - all are home to the vicious monsters from the deepest, darkest depths of the void.
Beyond the safety of those ancient Titan walls, my boy, lies the wilderness. That which is the realm of the creatures of the night.
Prowling in the darkness. On every planet they stalk and creep through murky shadows, hunting each other - and us.
Wolves. Tigers. Crows. Dragons.
All shall devour the fool who disturbs their domain. He who walks into the wilderness shall not see the light again.
Yet the myths live on.
Stories of a nomad, wandering silently through the wilderness unscathed with a trail of corpses left in his wake.
The Snake enters the wicked night, and exits with breath in his lungs.
Wolves and tigers and crows and dragons - all must die one day. All must succumb to the darkness they so willingly inhabited.
But the Snake slithers on.
Many who hear of his tale ask the same question, but few ever discover the answer that lies right before them.
What does the Snake want?
Should I tell you?
It is simple.
The Snake wants everything. And I shall tell you how that Snake came to be.
Legends say he was once a Guardian, forged in light like the rest. A Hunter, but mysterious even to his peers.
One day, he vanished without uttering a word.
Few noticed his disappearance. Even fewer bothered to question his abandoning of the Vanguard order.
The Hunter traveled to the red planet, trekking across a thousand iron dunes in search of something very precious belonging to the Vex. His journey soon brought him into a Vex lair, where he slowly destroyed every infernal machine present, one by one - like a venomous bite dragging its prey into the hands of Death itself.
That fabled Vex relic was soon in the Hunter's pocket.
But he did not care for its value or its function. Wealth meant nothing to him.
The Hunter was no fool. Claws and teeth were not among his tools of war; for the Hunter knew he was not a wolf or a tiger. He possessed a weapon far more insidious.
Cunning.
He walked across the sands of Meridian Bay for a hundred more days, through the ruins of Freehold and the Dust Palace seeking what no human had ever sought.
Counsel with the Cabal.
The Hunter finally made his demands heard deep in the Exclusion Zone, where he showed the Vex relic to the Legionaries of the Sand Eaters before him - daring them to try take it from him.
The immense monsters chose to lower their guns and bring the Hunter to their leader in the fabled Sanguine Castle - a Cabal castle towering over the surface and touching the clouds, turned deep red by the iron dust swept onto its great bannered walls.
The Hunter was brought to the throne room in the highest tower, to their leader sat upon the massive throne. A Colossus.
The Colossus was a beast so huge it loomed over even its fellow Cabal subordinates. It barked a deep, trembling bellow and pointed a fist at the Hunter. It wanted the relic. And it had no intention of bartering for this Vex treasure which could decisively alter the Cabal-Vex war in their favour.
But the Hunter simply smiled, waiting for the sounds of Vex teleportation to arrive.
The machines had tracked him across Mars for some time now, coming to reclaim their property. Only now, he had allowed them to find him - right at the heart of the Cabal's power.
Upon the instant he heard the screeching robots materialise into the room, the Hunter merely vanished from sight into invisibility, slithering into the corner of the throne room and patiently watching the massacre unfold before him.
It was seldom long before every Vex and every Cabal had slaughtered each other. The stench of death hung thick in the air, a silent and desolate throne room awaiting the Hunter.
This was how the Snake was born.
With each step of his boot came the crunch of broken bones and metallic limbs, blood and oil drowning the floor in sickly black. The Snake slithered through it all, every step taking him closer to his goal.
Finally, the Snake sat calmly upon the throne of the Sanguine Castle, looking over the carnage he had created. And he saw that it was good.
The castle was only his first claim of many which followed and many to come.
For the Snake is neither light nor darkness, neither hero nor villain.
The Snake will wait as the wolves and tigers fight, the crows and dragons tearing each other asunder. He will watch as the creatures of the darkness and even the heroes of the light wipe each other from existence.
And the Snake will be the king of all that is left. King of the ashes and the ruins and the ghosts.
More than anything, the Snake in the Grass will survive.
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