Quote of the Day: "100,000 trees a day are cut to make examination papers. SAY NO TO EXAMS! SAVE THE TREES!"
At first she wondered why she woke up on the floor. She had gotten used to it in the early days, before Variks had stumbled in on her whilst gripped by an episode. She had never come out any worse for it, but it had made her rather sore. It was after Variks and Faroth got clued in to her secret that she'd started waking up in bed, with warm food waiting for her. She'd gotten used to that, afterwards.
But now she was on the floor again, and it took a few moments for Petra to remember why; Variks wouldn't so much as acknowledge her presence in a hallway(why would he, after what she had done to Martin), and Faroth...
Faroth was a patient in his own infirmary; well, not his, actually. Lyse had turned his infirmary to a melted mass of scorched rubble, he and several others were now being tended to in a temporary facility. He would be scarred for life, and they had already gone through the first round of surgeries to prepare him for the eventual installment of a cybernetic exoskeleton to assist his severely damaged arm. The whole process would be incredibly agonizing, from what she heard, and it made her feel even more miserable-
Wait. Why was there a blanket over her? She blinked open her eye, and realized she was in recovery position. She groaned internally, throwing the blanket off of herself with a flash of irritation. Oh, tell me he didn't!
She stormed into her living room to find him sitting on the couch. He did!
"You idiot!" she admonished, hands on her hips. Faroth looked up at her from the book he'd been reading, his remaining eyebrow raised.
"Good morning to you, as well." he drawled sarcastically. His arm was in a sling, just visible under the night robes he'd likely stolen from the rude doctor that had taken his place as the Outpost's head physician, and the left half of his face and the side of his neck was covered in a gauze patch, the edges of the burns slightly visible. There was one cut on his other cheek that had been stitched shut, and though smoke inhalation would have normally been a problem for most fire victims, keeping him safe in sound in his bed where breathing assistance was available, Aur's healing abilities had rendered such care unneeded, though it had been unable to save him from most of the burns.
"You should be in the infirmary! You certainly wouldn't let me run around with burns like that!" she snapped. He didn't look too much worse than usually, a little more pale, though, likely from exerting himself.
"You are afflicted with an unknown neurological phenomenon, one that nearly sends you into cardiac arrest every other day, and I am the only one who knows about it." he reasoned, with that horrible, smug, good reasoning he was so damned gifted with. " Would you like me to tell our esteemed guest doctor about this?"
"No." she sighed, rubbing her forehead with one hand. She looked back up at him. "Are you okay? How did you get out of there, anyway?"
"Miss Roger's Ghost was quite eager to distract the staff with an inappropriate serenade, I believe he's dreadfully bored down there, judging by the lyrics. Here's to hoping Sierra's back on her feet soon, his ins and outs are rather off putting." he waved his good hand. "And yes, I fell the same as usual; no better, no worse. I'm fine. I'd have fixed you breakfast, but I'm afraid I'm down one arm."
She didn't stop looking at him, frowning. His bedside smile was entirely forced, and wavered as he answered. He had served as one of their unit's medics during the Reef wars; one of the first males to achieve the position. He'd seen injuries big and small, he'd sat at the bedsides of people who had been gored by shock blades and ripped apart by arc grenades, and never once through it all had she seen him break. She herself had never broken at the sight of wounds; it had always only driven her to get at the enemy more.
Until it was her lying on the ground covered in blood. Until she'd woken up and looked in the mirror for the first time, until she'd run her fingers over the scars, until her own unseeing eye had blinked sightless back at her. Then, she'd learned something; it was different when it was you. Letting out a breath, she sat down next to him, leaning her head back against the leather. They sat in silence for several long moments, during which she heard his breathing hitch once or twice.
"I...I'm not fine." he murmured. "At all, Petra."
She laid one hand on his shoulder, and she saw him shut his eyes.
"Do you remember what you told me?" She asked. "After I lost my eye, and the Queen sent me to the city?"
He stayed silent.
"You have a life. Live it." She squeezed his shoulder. "It still belongs to you, no matter how hurt you are, no matter what you lose."
"And what have you lost recently, Petra?" he asked suddenly. When he met her gaze it was hard but soft. "What happened between you three?"
"What?" she blinked with confusion. How could he possibly know about that!? She clenched her fist. Variks.
"I don't want to know what sort of secrets were on that data drive, and Variks has assured me it wouldn't endanger the Reef... but that was out of line, out of hand, and... quite frankly, not like you at all." he said. His next words were clinical in their entirety, but managed to send something boiling through her blood all the same, and she wasn't sure if it was shame, or guilt, or anger that he was even talking about this. "Considering the damage done by the initial injury-and I should know because I'm the one who treated it-and the notes the Tower doctor and I had been sharing in the initial days, what you did may have just set Martin's recovery back days, maybe even weeks. That is why Variks told me, and he was completely right to do so."
"Did Variks tell you what Martin did?" She snapped. "What he did to get that data?"
"Yes, and he also told me that it was done to save a little girl." Faroth shot back. "Something about an incurable medical condition."
"He bargained with my life!" she couldn't keep it in any longer. "I trusted him, I thought I felt something for him, and he used the cure as a bargaining chip for data about some... some thing that I'm not even sure I trust him to be around, it's so dangerous."
She still hadn't settled on which feeling overrode her more; her anger at Martin... or the fear that came with knowing he was living with someone who killed by touching. Why should I even care anymore? A bridge had been burned and it couldn't be re-built.
"Petra..." Faroth sighed. He took her face with his good hand. "When will you realize that some people have sacrificed more than what you think you've lost? When will you learn... it hurt him, too, when he did that?"
She jerked awake. It was wishful thinking, from her subconscious. It was the part of her that hoped it had been hard for him to do it, but the Martin Variks had described making the deal didn't sound like Martin at all. It sounded like an ice cold Hidden or Crow making bargaining with death, but yet part of her still hoped.
Stop hoping, Petra. Stop dreaming of something that isn't. She blinked open her eye when she realized the dream was repeating itself; she was on the floor, in recovery position, though a little sloppier, and there was a blanket over her. She heaved a breath. She really didn't feel like repeating her conversation with Faroth with some other figment of her mind. Maybe this time it would Rogers and her Ghost, or perhaps Prince Uldren would be the one who confronted her.
She slowly pushed herself to her feet, sore all over from a night spent lying on the floor instead of on a mattress. She left the room, not to see another dream figure sitting on the couch, but Faroth for real. He wasn't sitting up, reading, like he had been int he dream. He was in the chair instead of the couch, with the same night robes on, but he was a great deal paler, and his eyes were closed as he rested, shivering slightly. This was how she knew it wasn't a dream; in the dream, there'd been no sign of pain in his eyes, but when he looked up as she entered the room now, they were full of pain, pain caused by the effort of just getting here on his own.
But the fact he was here, that she'd seen what might have been a possible future, and still remembered it...
"You know, you ought to be back in the infirmary." she tried to smile, but she couldn't. Faroth shook his head.
"And if these visions actually managed to kill you someday?" he asked weakly. "I couldn't forgive myself, all things considering. I don't know what happened between you and Variks, but I'd prefer it if you put things back to normal."
"I can't." She whispered. "This is a bridge that will burn forever, Faroth. More than one."
There was a question in his gaze, but both to her relief and disappointment, he didn't voice it. Part of her wanted him to ask the questions, wanted him to force her to look at herself, wanted him to tell her she was wrong but it would be alright if she just listened. Instead, after several moments he shut his eyes with a tired nod, resting his head back against the seat. She took a deep breath. If he was stronger, if Variks had gone to him, the conversation could have gone the same way as it had in her dream.
But it hadn't. She wasn't sure if that was assuring, or frightening. She would have to look back at her list. Was that a dream or a vision? If the latter, why can I still remember it, why was it different and too accurate at the same time? Were the visions starting to leak through into pieces she could remember? If she had more of them, she ought to compare them to what she wrote on the list, thought the list was vague at best. She'd gone over the set of warnings from just before being hit by the sickness; a bunch of nonsense she could only now understand, and even then.
Killing 'Raven'wood made sense, but letting her live? And beware the return of what, exactly? The Disease? And an obvious warning for Faroth, so obvious that it hurt, and she felt so stupid that she'd been so caught up with the whole 'Martin drama' that she'd forgotten to tell him about it.
What else had she written that was so obvious, so dangerous? She would have to study the list again, mark off everything she was certain had already happened. She had yet to actually accomplish changing any of the terrible futures she'd written about, but it was damn well worth trying, if only to avoid another Faroth.
"Well, this place looks like a bad scene." Trip commented as they came up the ridge. Martin swallowed, trying not to let his face pale as he remembered what had happened here three years ago, as well as three centuries ago. Here was the place his sister had been tortured for half her childhood, a place of pain he'd had, unpleasantly, witnessed firsthand.
"Yeah." he simply agreed, looking up at the faded lettering.
"Hold up, specs; Certech?" the large Titan raised an eyebrow. "I remember correctly, Vanguard sent out a notice to blast any of their facilities to pieces if they were found."
"Don't worry; they know about this place. It's one of the oldest Certech buildings, and it had some pretty nasty security on it. Vanguard uses it sometimes to teach other Guardians what to expect when busting into these places, but I've never been through it." it wasn't entirely a lie; he and Cayde had gone over some of the old protocols in this place, though they'd all been deactivated, as if Certech had left in a hurry. It had been invaluable in providing guidelines for safety in old labs.
But Ikora and Zavala had no idea this place existed. He was surprised no-one from the City had ever found this place before, it wasn't that well hidden. He looked back up at Trip.
Before, he'd figured the dark-skinned man was a force on the battlefield, but in a full set of the latest Raku gear, he looked like a beast of a man that would have made any sensible Fallen Captain wet themselves. He could only imagine what it would look like to have a Guardian like this running down the Darkness with Light crackling, and he was a prime example of his Class.
"Worse comes to worst, we could always scream for help." He suggested helpfully. Trip shook his head with an amused huff.
"No way anyone'd here us out here." he said.
"Well, the Mistbirds might here us. They're helpful." Martin pointed out.
"No way one of them'd fit through that door." he walked up to the rusted entrance, and kicked a piece of debris in. "Ugh, what a mess."
"This place is centuries old, from the Collapse." Trips Ghost flashed into existence, her shell a shining copper color. "Buildings back then were built to last, and very well hidden. I'm surprised this one it so run-down."
"Maybe they were attacked." Martin suggested. I can easily imagine the early Iron Lords busting a place like this if they ever got wind of what was happening here. He shuddered slightly as he passed through the door, as memories from his last visit washed over him. "Wheatly, lights?"
"I don't want to!" his own Ghost whined form inside his pocket. He peeked out a little to look up at Martin. "I hate this place!"
"So do I, but I don't want to go in blind!" he huffed.
"Make Trip's Ghost do it!"
Martin let out a sigh and looked at the other two. "Sorry."
"Tourmaline?" Trip shrugged and looked at his copper companion.
"I can do that rude Ghost of yours one better." she cast a pointed one-eyed look at his pocket, and zipped over to a nearby computer on a wall. She scanned it, and the lights sputtered to life, dull and flickering on occasion. Tourmaline spun with a flourish, and flew back to her Guardian." Ta-da!"
"Okay, you go that way," he pointed at the hall he knew led to the white room. He needed Trip here, in case something went wrong. This wasn't a place you wanted to get trapped in, but he didn't want the Titan to notice he was looking for something specific. "And I'll go down that other way. We're looking for the bio-labs, I want to see if there's anything dangerous in there that should be contained. Keep an eye on the floor, it's been known to collapse, and don't mess with any consoles. We don't know what they might trigger."
The last time he had been here, the floor to white room control center had collapsed under the weight of a shrimpy teenager; how could it possible hold up against a fully-armored Titan? Here's to hoping nothing goes wrong... Trip nodded.
"Cool. I'll keep contact with your Ghost." with that, the larger man set off down the hall, which Martin knew lead nowhere near the bio-labs, leaving the young Warlock to briefly seethe in his own guilt. Lies, lies, lies... and all this snooping and sneaking around behind peoples backs... How much more of it will I have to do before I get the cure?
Hopefully, not a lot. He set off down the other hall, taking out his holomap. Cayde had, after the ridge incident, scouted out the whole place, and Martin had had Wheatly get it off the Exo's terminal while he was busy. Cayde was lax with the rules, but if he knew Martin was planning to come down here, even for a reason like this, he would have stopped him and gone himself under the basis of the possible danger involved. Just another moment he'd gone behind someone's back... but he had to do this himself. For Heather.
Should be over here... The lights were even worse down here, barely giving enough illumination for him to see where he was going.
"Hey, found some kind of room down here. Got some weird material for walls...looks like someone ate it here a long time ago, beats me. Lots of dried blood." Martin suppressed a shudder. My blood.
"Any signs of a weapon being used?" he had to ask normal questions, even if he did know what had happened here.
"No... I'm gonna double back, look at some of these other doors." Martin nodded, before remembering Trip couldn't see him.
"'kay." he map beeped, and he felt excitement fizz in his blood. This was it.
He opened the door. The room was dimly lit like the rest of the base, but it was much more intact. Because they probably do keep dangerous stuff in here. There were test boxes, old mas-spectrometers, microscopes, other instruments he would normally have killed for to have in such great condition. but he could never use Certech technology, especially not the very instruments used to study Silverhawk. It would be treachery.
They would keep the cure in one of those coolers... The syringe he'd seen in the security footage had been loaded with something in a bottle with a red label. The resolution hadn't been good enough for him to see the exact name of the substance, but he would take ever red-labeled bottle in the cooler if he had to.
"Oh, dang... Martin, I think I found something." He had to force Wheatly out of his pocket a little brutally to get him to hack the old cooler padlock. Dejectedly, his Ghost set to the task.
"Yeah? What is it?" he asked.
"Not exactly sure... but it looks like a kid's room." he felt his blood run cold. "Bed's too small for any adult I know, there's old blouses in here, too. Hairbrush, a couple of ribbons. A little girl, perhaps? Peg her around ten or so?"
Twelve. Five years of torture. Family dead. Murdered, to wait three centuries for her second chance.
"Beats me how anyone could keep a kid in this kind of environment." Martin clenched his fists.
"Certech, were a cruel and disgusting organization. They were behind the disease; they engineered it to wipe out the Awoken, so they would die in agony. Imprisoning, torturing a child? They probably 'did it for science'." he said through grit teeth, voice seething.
"Who said anything about torture?" The Titan asked.
"Why else would there be blood?" he reasoned, realizing his slip-up. That was close.
The cooler beeped, and the door popped open. Martin pulled it back... and felt his face pale. Oh, sweet mother of Crota...
Inside the whole top rack, were at least thirty red-labeled bottles.
"So... there." Silverhawk finished, laying upside down in one of the chairs in Tevis' living room. The Nightstalker was looking down at her from where he sat on his couch. Tirtha and Andal were out at the markets, and Tevis hadn't left the Tower since the Tay scare. Cayde was still on edge, and was currently reading and re-reading Ryan's letter like the paper would set on fire if he failed to take in the words properly, pacing up and down the room and nearly tripping on furniture a number of times.
"So this guy's serious? Really serious?" the Exo flipped the paper upside-down as if it would reveal more. "Sunbreaker with the New Monarchy, right? How big's his fireteam? What sort are they?"
"Um, Ryan want's to date me, what's his fireteam got to do with this?" she asked, confused. Cayde was acting weird... well, weird-er.
"Well, I d- well you don't want to wind up dating a fellow who hangs out with people in the wrong crowd, now do you? What if his fireteam are a bunch of pervs? Pervs that outnumber you?" he huffed, waving the letter around carelessly as if it were the most obvious logic in the world.
"Who's says I'm going to date him, anyway!" Silverhawk exclaimed indignantly. "That's what this conversation is supposed to be about, I don't know what to do because who knows what could happened, because there are SO many things that could go wrong if I go through with this, but I kinda really want it anyway."
The other two Hunter just stared at her, then glanced at each other.
"And by the way, his fireteam aren't pervs, and it's just two other people." she added as an afterthought.
"I think you should talk this through with him." Tevis finally spoke. "The kid obviously knows what he wants, and he seems genuine about it."
Cayde made an odd thoughtful noise, and looked harder at the letter, as if he were trying to shoot lasers out his eyes at it. For some reason, Tevis rolled his eyes at this. Silverhawk awkwardly scooted out of her upside-down position, and curled up with her head on the armrest, one leg swinging off lazily.
"But what if it's wrong? What if 'sure, it makes us happy, but it's just too dangerous to continue'? What if he forgets? I mean, he's not Martin, he hasn't spent half his life with me, he could forget to be careful, and then it'll all be too terrible!" she sighed. "I'm not sure if I could live with myself if there were an accident..."
Cayde strode over to her, and crouched with his hand on her shoulder. She leaned into him, and fought the instinct to pull back as she went through the rare experience of an actual hug. With most people that knew about her deathtouch, it was an awkward position, where they had to lean with their heads back to avoid touching her own. But Cayde was safe, and didn't have to take such measures. She flinched slightly as cold metal brushed her forehead.
"Give it a shot." he told her. "Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't... but give him a shot. Even if he is a meaty Titan."
Somehow, coming from her mentor, is sounded like a much better idea then it had previously. Like it could actually be possible. Like there might be hope for... whatever it was that had started between her and Ryan.
That, or this real hug was getting to her head.
Oh, boy, here it comes.
We're only a few days from launch, the hype train is about to crash gloriously when we finally get to stop wondering and start playing.
alienraptor: Wonder whatever happened to that fic... and no, Grayris isn't questioning the Darkness, per say, as she doesn't realize how integrated it is with her life, but she is asking some questions about things she's never considered.
Furious Titaness: Oh, I still haven't figured out how that conversation's going to go. Meh, Grayris is kind of a minor plot detail, but I though she should have more of a role. She didn't really get to far in life in the game, and I wanted to explore a little as to how and why she wanted to abandon whatever house it was she was in. Homecoming was AWESOME!
MaybeALittleBroken: *Gasp* YOU'RE ALIVE! WHERE WERE YOU FIVE CHAPTERS AGO I NEEDED SOMEONE TO FREAK OUT ENTHUSIASTICALLY ABOUT LYSE!
FanOfVariks: Eh, most of the Houses don't even think House Judgement is a thing anymore, they're supposedly extinct. I suppose the kings might, but not a lot of the others aside from the wolves.
This Is Sarcasm: I hoped she was. Yeah, Martin needed a buddy.
Man, it's been a busy summer. I played a lot of destiny for the most of it, I got writers block halfway through this chapter. I was re-inspired and wrote the second half... while crying, because I was up till two in the morning enjoying the final hours of the final Iron Banner, and the weekly reset killed me on the inside.
Then a week later, I went and broke my wrist. Seeing as half my hand was in a cast, my ability to write was limited to the point where it was so slow going I decided to wait until the cast was off to even attempt the next chapter after this one. That was roughly a few days ago, and I'll probably have a huge wave of inspiration once D2 drops, but I'll hold off on updating for a while because... when you have a new game installment out, nobody is reading fanfics. they're playing the game, as poor Amberstar learned when Mass Effect: Andromeda, dropped. So yeah, maybe expect chapter 26 when the new Iron Banner drops for the first time? That seems like an appropriate hour at which to celebrate with an overly-long Authors note, And I'll have had time to write some more chapters.
All that being said, it's good to be back, great to reach the coveted #25, and I can't wait to play some D2! The Arcstrider handles way better than the Bladedancer did, and I think I'm in love. Now to just see what they did to the Nightstalker...
Also, Amberstar has started her Twelve Days of Destiny 2 fic for those of you who haven't noticed. She'll be doing a one-shot a day up until D2 drops, so go check that out if you haven't. Just a warning; her obsession with the Iron Lords still hasn't been satiated, so expect some teary Saladin feels at some point, I don't know the details. I've been busy.
There's also one other thing; In a few chapters, maybe less, Uldren and Sierra are going to find themselves going on a rather nasty adventure. Now, for our little crew in the city, this presents a problem; in the meanwhile, when and if Silverhawk is cured, twenty or so chapters of her just being a normal person is going to get really old after a while. They need something... Guardian-y to do.
There's only one thing I can think of, and that's a Dysfunctional Vault of Glass. But I haven't really decided if that's what I'll do, it's just an option, one I haven't settled on. So, on the tenth, the Poll for naming Andal's sister is going to close, and I'll put up a new one; Dysfunctional VoG, Yes or No. That'll be it. if it's a no, suggestions are appreciated; I don't think you guys would like watching Silver do all that boring stuff for such a long time, anyway.
Next Time: Martin gets cracking, Siverhawk and Ryan attempt to have something called a 'civil conversation', and Cayde, being the responsible mentor that he is, investigates.
Cheers!^^