Petra was eating lunch. She had just finished reading another letter from Uldren, and was enjoying a bowl of spicy ramen- real spicy ramen, thanks to Uldren's gift. She'd had a rather good day. Kiren was on vacation and so she hadn't had to fight her to get her letter from the postmaster. That horribly nosy woman always tried to steal the letters and read them, since she thought getting letters was very suspicious. Kiren was not happy to be living next to the freak guardian-murderer. Petra had learned to keep her windows closed so Kiren wouldn't try to look through them. She liked to keep them open and let sunlight in but she'd gotten sick of seeing Kiren's pinched face staring through the blinds.

She'd felt a lot better since she started working out again. At first, it had been discouraging to realize how out of shape she had gotten, but it had given her something tangible to work for. Something she knew how to do by herself. Now she was as strong and healthy as ever and she felt like she was doing something productive.

"Why d'you always put more spice in your spicy ramen?" That hunter, Kenzie, sat down on the concrete in front of Petra with a friendly smile. "That stuff is already insane. I'd choke."

It could have been mean if she had said it any different, but somehow it seemed like a normal way to open a conversation. Petra swallowed her mouthful. "We have a different taste in the Reef. If you come, you should probably bring your own food. I thought this was very bland by itself."

"Wow. Reef food must be really spicy."

Petra laughed. "Yeah."

Kenzie cleared her throat. "Well, I just want you to know, I've been researching what happened to those strike teams. I've read a couple different reports. The city reports say the guardians were 'assaulted without warning' and the official Reef report made by the paladins is the same, but a secondary report made by your Prince says that you did send a warning. You're... acquainted.. with him, aren't you?"

"I-I did send a warning. I'm really sorry. I don't know what happened."

Kenzie scrutinized her. "Yeah, you seem like the honest type. I thought your message could've been intercepted by an unfriendlier signal, and they sent the response and made it look like it was from the guardians. So me and the boys looked into it and we found out that Veleniks actually survived and escaped. The corpse you brought back was a fake."

"What?!"

"Yeah, I picked up his trail at the wreckage. Don't feel bad. Only a hunter could've found him after that."

Petra frowned. Guardians had such an attitude. Uldren could easily have found the trail if he hadn't been preoccupied with saving her and he probably had been too distracted by them confessing their love and her recovery to go back afterwards and make a thorough check. But that wasn't important. "You mean... it wasn't my fault?"

"Possibly. We couldn't get anything out of him before we had to kill him. He was insane, wouldn't stop talking about Skolas. We can't prove anything besides the fact that he survived, since I recorded the whole thing, but the implications are huge and they're in your favor. I plan on taking what I've found to the vanguard. Don't know if I'll be able to change the popular mind, but the truth is always worth finding, and you deserve it as much as those guardians and their ghosts do. Bull-9 and Tartar, Sarah Flinn and-"

"-and Dragon," Petra finished wearily. "And Kjel Zaahl and Stardust. Fireteam Red. I know Fireteam Knights and Fireteam Goliath, too. I know all their names; I've been told them all many times."

"I'm sorry. Guardians can be very unforgiving. The young ones aren't used to final deaths and they don't take it very well."

"People die every day in the Reef," Petra said softly, looking away. The names of the guardians she'd killed were replaced by the names of her sisters and the corsairs she'd fought alongside before the Hildean Campaign, before they were all slaughtered.

"I know. I try to remember that when I fight. The fear, the need to stay alive. I've seen plenty of guardians die the second they lose their ghosts. I can't imagine living without Cap, but... I know it can happen."

"Aren't Ghosts, like, their guardian's best friend?"

"Yeah. I do have other good friends, especially my fireteam, but I've found that it's easier to talk about everything with someone I can't get away from."

Petra laughed, wishing she could spend more time with Uldren. They already liked to tell each other everything.

"Of course, I'm sure everyone a friend like that. It's just so easy for us to talk to our Ghosts because they're always with us, all the time."

"Well, of course, that makes sense. Time is the most important part of getting to know someone," Petra agreed, thinking of all the hours she'd spent talking to Uldren before she got banished.

"Especially since Ghosts are with their guardians from the very beginning of their lives. Cap helped me figure out who I was in a world where the strong took everything and the weak perished, and I was born one of the strong. He helped me to become a different kind of strong, though. Without his guidance, I would've been just like all the rest." She smiled. "I ran with a bunch of other hunters for a while until all of us who wanted to fight the Warlords joined under the Iron Lords and our order grew until there were more of us than them, because we protected each other and fought for each other while they just fought for themselves. Guardians are stronger together. That's when I met my fireteam, too. Our warlock is still a member of the Praxic Order and our Titan was part of the Pilgrim Guard. I'm still friends with those hunters, at least the ones that are alive. They call our little group the 'Vanguard Lineup' cause we've been through quite a few... Tallulah Fairwind, Caliban-8, and Andal Brask were all with us. Anyways, we built the City from humanity's rubble and even though Rasputin wiped out most of the Iron Lords, the strongest of us remain and the Traveler has raised up plenty more guardians to defend our people. None of us could've done any of it without our Ghosts, though. Sorry, I sometimes go off my main point, and I talked a lot more than I meant to."

"That's okay. It was a cool story. And I agree, no one can do anything alone." She'd lived most of her life alone and she hadn't lived it well at all. She'd had no real purpose other than to be successful and now she aw how empty that was. She was happier now, even though she was exiled, just from knowing that Uldren was out there somewhere, thinking about her. "It's the same way in the Reef," she said, "The Reef could never have become such a powerful matriarchy without the thousands of brave awoken who left Distributary to come here with Mara."

"Did you ever live in Distributary?"

"No, sadly. I am a young awoken. But I've learned much about it in the history I've studied and Uldr- Prince Uldren- has told me some stories of it."

"Do you talk to him often?"

"Yeah. Well, before I was banished, at least." She amended quickly. Then she remembered that Kenzie had seen them together, and added, "But he does come to check up on my progress occasionally. Do you ever work with him?"

"Not often, if I can help it. He isn't very nice to my friends." She tilted her head, staring at Petra in a strange way. "Actually, he can be really rude."

Petra swallowed. "Uh, I'm sorry to hear that." She already knew about that. He'd admitted that he was often very passive-aggressive in his interactions with guardians, that he didn't have much patience with them and that he was trying to get better about it and he'd begged her not to judge him for it. He hadn't even been as bad as he'd made it sound like when she'd seen him with a particularly slow team of guardians, so he must have already been improving. Guardians were so dramatic. "He's really nice when you get to know him."

Kenzie raised an eyebrow, and politely said, "I'm sure you would know that better than me. Things in the Reef are very different than in the City, and my friends don't always understand or remember. But he acts like they're stupid, and they aren't. He shouldn't treat them that way."

Petra decided it was time to change the subject. They didn't know him the way she did, and they'd never understand. They wouldn't understand how much he valued efficiency and time and how frustrating it was for him to have to explain simple things multiple times. They wouldn't understand how their ability to walk between life and death without needing to care about the world made him angry when they acted like they were better for it, and they'd never understand how he'd had even less patience than normal because he'd been stressed and lonely and how he couldn't sleep at night because he had terrible nightmares and because he was afraid that something would happen while he was asleep and that he'd wake up and everything would be gone. They'd never understand that kind of fear the way Petra could since they weren't used to having everything ripped away from them in the blink of an eye. They didn't have a horde of dark memories parading through their minds every time they closed their eyes. Petra had spent years trying to stay awake at night because of Pinar, her own sister, who would take over her dreams and torture her with them. They'd never experience something like that. All of the trauma of their pasts had been erased from them. She cleared her throat. "Is that why you left the Reef, then? You just couldn't put up with him?" She knew that wasn't why, but she needed to change the topic to helping the Reef.

"No. The withdrawal from the Reef was Vanguard orders, after all those guardians got killed. They decided that it was no longer wise to work with Mara Sov since it seemed that their operatives had no respect for guardian lives. That's what I'm trying to prove is wrong so that we can go back. Your Queen is... interesting, to say the least, but a wise alliance, I think."

"Yes, she's incredible, isn't she?" Petra eagerly jumped onto this idea. "Things may be quiet in the Reef now, but there's another war coming, and she already knows all about it. The techeuns have seen it in the Oracle Engine. That's a prediction device she designed, not like the vex prediction engine, but it shows what's actually meant to happen. They say she can speak to our minds, too. She knows everything!"

"You sound like you admire her quite a bit," Kenzie noted, "Do you not hold any bitterness over your exile?"

"No, not for her. I made a mistake. There must be a lesson I need to learn that I can only learn by being here."

"Wow, okay."

"What?"

"Is that what everyone in the Reef would think?"

"Probably?"

"But how could she always know what's best?"

"She knows everything."

"There's a difference between knowing everything and knowing what's right. How is it possible for her to always choose what's best and never once choose something she wants? It isn't humanly possible."

"She's not a normal being. What we want isn't always what's best for us. I want to be in the Reef, but I know I'm going to go home a better person and I'm going to learn something I'll need for the future. I just can't see it. She can see it. She can see how what she wants won't result in what's best for her or everyone else. She can see the endgame. She can see exactly what she needs to do to achieve what's best for as many people as possible, including your City. It's best for me to be here right now and I'll come home as soon as it's best for me and everyone else for me to come home."

"But would she choose what's best for everyone if it wasn't what was best for herself and the people she cared about?"

"Yes! She already has, plenty of times! She's left everything behind plenty of times, to come and help your people, your city, for humanity to survive. For all of us!"

"I don't understand."

"How does your traveler choose what's best for all of you instead of what it wants? Do you not think that the Traveler might want something? Have you never thought about it that way, just because the Traveler is a planet and Mara seems more like a human? Do you not trust your Traveler?"

"The traveler is a god. Mara is a queen. That would be like worshipping Commander Zavala."

"But Commander Zavala is like the rest of you. Queen Mara has powers beyond any of our understanding, and she has far more control than your commander. The vanguard is representative leadership, but guardians are technically free to do whatever they like, right? Unless they have a contract with the Vanguard?"

"Right, but the Vanguard has all the resources."

"Not all of them. The factions have quite a bit of power, too, that they have to balance. In fact, the Vanguard isn't in charge of the City at all- the Factions are!"

"Right..."

"Well, the Reef is ruled by Mara Sov. End of story. There isn't a question to her power."

"But aren't the paladins-"

"They're under her, all of them, the paladins, techeuns, crows, corsairs. She has no equal. We are not divided between so many voices of power that we don't know who to look to. We follow Mara."

"That doesn't make her a god."

"It makes her like one." Petra shrugged, setting her now empty bowl of ramen aside. "If that's how we all see her, she's as good as. People make their own gods by worshipping them. Who says the Traveler is a god? Did it proclaim itself a god, or did the ones who use its power say so? It abandoned the Eliksni- the ones you call fallen. It brought them here, chasing it, same with the Darkness. Was that really the best? Would it not have been better for it to let itself be destroyed and spare humanity? Our enemies don't care about you. They're here for the Traveler."

"Who says the Darkness wouldn't have come for us anyways? Without the Traveler to stop it, we wouldn't stand a chance. The Darkness would've just taken the system freely. It's not here for the Traveler, it's here for control."

"And you wouldn't have survived without us. Remember Twilight Gap? You would've lost that battle without us."

"The Reef didn't participate in Twilight Gap!"

"No, but we stopped the worst of your enemies from ever getting there. The House of Wolves. They were the most powerful of all the houses and the fallen were depending on their leadership. They could've passed right by the Reef without ever knowing we existed. Before the Reef Wars, we'd been completely hidden from our enemies for five centuries. But Mara ordered our fleets to attack, and saved your city at the price of many awoken lives. So you see, she does not choose what she wants, but always, what is best for all."

"I see." Kenzie pushed her jagged bangs away from her face. "She's definitely a good leader, although I'm still not sure I like her much as a person.. she's a whole let better than her brother, though, that's for sure."

"What? I- What do you even have against him? You don't know him at all, I- He's so..." but she didn't know how to defend him without giving away their secret. How could she explain how thoughtful he was without telling her of how he had brought her those spicy packets for her ramen and she couldn't prove how sweet he was without describing her some of the things he'd said in his letters and she couldn't say how caring he was without mentioning all the time he'd spent writing her letters and she couldn't describe how loyal he was without explaining all the rules he broke to sneak out and visit her instead of giving up and moving on. Of course he had his flaws, no one was perfect, but it seemed like she was the only one who saw anything but his flaws. He'd always said she was the only one who understood him, but somehow she couldn't imagine it. It had been so easy to see who he really was underneath all the layers of doubt, fear, and anger that guarded his real feelings. It was true, though, that he did have a somewhat cold exterior and they couldn't love him the way she did because they hadn't felt his true warmth. It made her sad that over the years he had been so hurt and so afraid that he felt like he had to hide his true self and it made her angry when other people criticized him. They had no right to say such bad things about him when they didn't know him at all.

Kenzie probably thought she didn't have a real argument on his behalf. She probably just thought that Petra was obsessed with Mara and wasn't willing to hear a word against her or her brother, but didn't actually care about Uldren as a person. No, she admired Mara, but it was Uldren she lived for, it was Uldren she would've fought to the death for. She could've gone on for hours about how much she loved him, but that was a secret. Uldren wouldn't want her to give it away just to defend him against a guardian he didn't care about.

"Kenzie!"

The hunter turned as the titan and warlock that had been with her when Petra had seen them ran up, panting. The titan knelt next to her, saying, "Kenzie, Zavala just sent us here to find you. He's setting up a double strike with Fireteam Meteor. Our scouts have reported that the Kings are pushing the gap again."

"Kings?" Kenzie stood up, checking her guns. "Six guardians should be enough to handle them. They always underestimate. But just in case, tell Zavala to have Fireteams Sierra and Flapjack ready to provide backup." She picked up her own empty bowl and looked around for a trash can. "Nice talking to you. Sorry I have to leave so suddenly. If you ever want to talk again, I'll be around." As she hurried off, she called, "Oh, and by the way, Happy Dawning!"

As Petra threw away her empty bowl, her mind returned to the original point: There had been a mix-up. She wasn't responsible for all those deaths. Could the guardians forgive her? Could the alliance between the City and the Reef be fixed so easily? Would she be allowed to come back home and be with Uldren? She hurried back to her apartment, excited to write him a letter back and tell him the good news.