Minerva fumbled with the sudden dead-weight in her arms. The weight itself was negligible, but a sudden war was being fought within Min's own reflexes. She wanted to recoil and drop the thing as she might a snake that had turned in her hand to bite her, and her very skin seemed to be crawling back from it in a similar, visceral reaction. At the same time, she recognized that this creature was suffering- had suffered a great deal. She felt an odd pity and compassion toward it and didn't want to cause it more pain by dropping it.

Whatever this thing- no, this woman- had been through, Minerva was certain it was a nightmare of the kind that she herself would never be able to endure. She didn't know how she knew it, and perhaps it wasn't true, but there it was.

"We need to get her isolated and to medical attention," said the woman with the neat, short hair. Without hesitation or seeming repulsion, she helped lift the creature into Minerva's arms. Min noted with dull and somewhat shameful resentment that she didn't actually take her from Minerva, though she appeared quite capable of doing so if she had desired.

"Get this ship quarantined and inspected," Zavala said to the blond woman wielding the spanner. When she grimaced he said, "Use your droids, you don't have to board it yourself."

"I'd rather shoot it into the sun," the woman said in a mumble. She snapped her fingers and a pair of rather crude and rough looking synths came toward her.

Min was now holding the unconscious woman in her arms like one would a sleeping child. The smell hit her then, and it wasn't the body odor of someone who hadn't been able to bathe or shower in a long time. It was a layered odor that seemed a mix of old and well-dried mildew with a cinnamon, almost powdery sweet-rot smell beneath it.

She smells like a mummified corpse.

The woman with the neat hair touched Minerva's elbow with authority, turning her and drawing her along with nothing more than that touch, leading the way to the door of the hanger. With a moment's pause of seeming reluctance, Cayde followed them.

"Hell of a first day," he said to Minerva. "It's not far. She still breathing?"

"I think so," Minerva replied. It was hard to tell for certain but she thought she could feel the faint tidal motions of expanding ribs against her stomach and chest.

"Which one is she?" the woman with the neat hair asked. Min glanced at her blankly, then realized she hadn't been the target of the question.

"Eris Morn…I think," Cayde said hesitantly. "It's hard to tell. What have the Hive done to her?"

"Dark work," the woman said dismally. Cayde glanced at her.

"Ikora, I do love how you state the obvious," he said cheerfully. She gave him a baleful look in return.

They arrived at their destination quickly. Passing through a battered steel door they were met so swiftly by an Awoken man that he seemed to materialize beside them. He said no word, only gestured them through what looked like a small and mostly disused infirmary-

What use would most Guardians have for an infirmary? Min realized. Their Ghosts already handle that work.

-and to another door at the far end. This seemed to be a private room, but the thickness and general 'keep away' ness of the door suggested it moonlighted as a prison cell.

The doctor pulled what looked like a padded bench away from one wall and 'floated' it to the middle of the small room. Apparently it had some sort of anti-gravity properties. Min didn't waste time wondering about it- there was artificial life and digital transference and space ships for God's sake; a floating bench seemed mundane after all that. Instead, she hurried over and laid her burden down upon it, resisting a shudder of relief to have the unconscious woman out of her arms.

The doctor seemed just as reluctant to touch her, peering down at her through squinting eyes with his lips tight and his hands hovering uncertainly.

"She is…a Guardian?" he asked, half glancing at the woman who had been called Ikora.

"She is. One who has been missing for five years."

"Where's her Ghost?"

Cayde and Ikora exchanged a look. "Didn't that signal come through from a Ghost? She has to have had it with her," Cayde said. Ikora, who seemed less loathe to touch the patient than everyone else, examined her a moment.

"I believe her tag is gone. Perhaps the Ghost is still aboard the ship?"

"Holliday is having her droids go over every inch of that ship," Zavala said, suddenly darkening the small doorway. Behind him a cluster of three or four looky-loos seemed to have followed him from the flight deck. "If the Ghost is there they will find it."

The doctor, looking frustrated and still repulsed, brought out long and thin device, and began to pass it over the woman. Data and information that Min could not read began to splash itself over the walls.

"I am not entirely sure how she is injured- it is possible she is merely exhausted, dehydrated…malnourished? It's going to take time-"

"Any pathogens or sign of disease?" Zavala asked.

"Because black misty weird pouring out of her eyes- her three eyes, by the way- clearly isn't a sign of anything," Cayde said. Zavala ignored him.

"I don't know. I don't think so…" the doctor said, then impatiently waved at them. "I'll find and treat what I can."

"Keep her in here until we're certain she's not a threat," Zavala told him. "When she wakes up call us."

He gestured at Minerva to follow him, then stepped back out of the doorway. Min, Ikora, and Cayde quickly exited the small cell-room. With an impatient glare, Zavala dismissed those few folk who had wandered into the infirmary after them. They hurried out, whispering to each other.

Zavala, however, did not leave after them. Nearly to the door he turned and regarded the other two Vanguard seriously, ignoring Min.

"Thoughts?"

"Oh, I have a lot of thoughts," Cayde said. "Most disturbing."

"The Hive have clearly done something to her," Ikora said in a low voice. "Torture, or experimentation. If she is infected with anything, it's the essence of the Hive; part of their odd Darkness. It may have consumed her Light."

"If they've made her part of the Darkness then she is no longer a Guardian," Zavala said. "She's a Thrall, and a threat."

"Hang on there," Cayde said, suddenly defensive. "We've never seen a Thrall- hell, we've never seen anything- that looks like that. She escaped-"

"Or was sent-" Zavala began.

"She escaped until we have proof otherwise," Cayde said. "C'mon, Zavala. If we devolve to 'guilty until proven innocent' we're no better than the Fallen. She went up to the Moon in service to the City, the Traveler, and to the Guardians. Who knows what happened to her up there, what she's been through or what she's seen. Now, against all odds, she's finally managed to get home. What kind of welcome do you want to give her? What kind of message do you want to send other Guardians?"

"Cayde is right," Ikora said. "We can make no assumptions now. Precautions until we can be sure she's not corrupted by the Hive to be one of them. Think of Nara."

Min scowled silently at that. Until that moment the Vanguard had been talking as if she weren't there, but for some reason the moment she scowled their eyes were upon her as if she'd shouted in their faces.

"Thoughts, Guardian?" Zavala asked. Min stared in surprise a moment at the sudden reaction.

"You want my thoughts?" she asked.

"They're as valuable as anyone's," Ikora said. "Perhaps more. Eris saw none of us; it was as if we were not even present. She walked to you. She spoke to you. I wonder why that is? You have had no interaction with Eris? Did you know her before she left for the Moon?"

"Nah, Min's a newborn," Cayde said. "Had her first Crucible today. It's just not possible."

"That makes it even more intriguing," Ikora said, looking at Minerva with a renewed scrutiny.

"From what I hear there are more than a few things intriguing about you," Zavala now said to Min, folding his arms. Then his eyes moved up to the little bot hovering and translating over her shoulder. "Ghost, you are one of the Wanderers are you not? You were searching for your Guardian for a long time; longer than is usual."

The Ghost drifted back a hair, seeming surprised at being addressed. "Y-yes."

"How long until you found her?" Ikora asked.

"Six years."

The three exchanged unreadable looks.

"And Cayde tells me that you remembered your full name," Zavala said, now looking at Min again. "First and last."

Min said nothing. It was more a statement, not a question that needed response. None of them seemed interested in waiting for a response anyway.

"That's usually the hallmark of a Warlock," Ikora said.

"It's happened with others before," Cayde told her.

"True, but it is incredibly rare. However, she's not a Warlock-"

"No. Yet a third oddity about our new Guardian," Zavala said. "She was identified almost immediately by the Hunter who found her as a Titan- an identity that was verified in her very first Crucible match just hours ago by Lord Shaxx himself. He is never mistaken."

"These could merely be coincidences," Ikora said, with the air of someone trying to calm down hysteria or adulation. It seemed out of place, because Zavala and even Cayde had been speaking very calmly and matter-of-factly. "We cannot read too much into them."

"It's a lot of coincidence," Cayde said, rubbing his chin, then making a dismissive gesture. "But you're right. Even if it's not, we have no idea what any of it might mean."

Zavala nodded. "We can't be fanciful. Though I am curious. Minerva, this is far outside of protocol, but with your permission I am going to have your past looked into. With a first and a last name, and with the location that you were found, we may be able to identify who you were before you died and were chosen by your Ghost."

Min wasn't sure how to respond to that. From what she understood this was very unusual indeed-Guardians were encouraged to only worry about who they were now; who and what they were before was irrelevant and would only possibly cause stress and grief if it were known. Even if she couldn't remember anything, how would she feel if they discovered she was a mass-murderer? Or had family, friends, children…all of whom would be centuries dead? Hearing of their fate, knowing they were once important to her but being unable to remember them- how would that feel?

Even worse still, what if learning of them made her remember them? That would be even more exquisitely torturous.

Correctly reading her pause, Ikora said, "It is a very slim chance, Minerva. Next to impossible. I doubt any fruit will be born from it, but I agree with Zavala. Right now, any information we can glean might be helpful. There may be nothing at all to this- in fact, there probably isn't. However we can afford to overlook nothing."

"Hell, we don't even have to tell her, do we?" Cayde said. "If she doesn't want to know, but we manage to find the information, why tell her?"

"It is all her choice," Zavala replied. "Minerva, I mean that. It is your choice if you want us to look, and it is your choice if we do as to whether you want to know the information we find. What say you?"

Minerva looked at her Ghost and suddenly wished Kalina were there. She didn't think the Hunter would have any advice or further insight, but just having someone she knew a bit better there with her, she felt might have helped.

"I don't know that woman in there," she said at last, her words thoughtful and as careful as she could make them. "I don't know why she came to me or talked to me. I don't know anything of what's going on. I don't know why I remembered my full name or why my Ghost looked so long, or what any of it means. I'm still trying to make sense of what anything here means-what my life and purpose now actually means. I just don't know enough to say you should look, but I don't know enough to say you shouldn't- so…I suppose if you think it might be helpful at all, you should probably look. If you do end up finding anything…I guess I'll make a decision then as to whether or not I want to know it."

"Fair," Ikora said approvingly. "And wise. Zavala?"

"Agreed. In the meantime it's business as usual, until we learn more from Morn and what happened to her. I'll speak with the Twins- they deserve to know we found one of the Vanished, at any rate. Minerva, come with me please. I will speak with the two of you again later."

Minerva followed Zavala out of the infirmary and into the wide corridor. It was similar to the corridor in which she'd met Kalina that morning, but the sunlight wasn't streaming in the windows in broad, bright, morning beams. Pale blue shadows filled them now, and the light that could be seen had the well-set quality of an early overcast afternoon. Robbed of their basking spots, there were fewer cats to be seen, but they weren't completely absent.

As they moved down the corridor and away from the infirmary, Zavala looked at her. Tall as Minerva was, the Awoken man was a good head taller again. It seemed Min was actually a dwarf among Titans, if he and Shaxx were any indication of the norm.

"Minerva, I know that Shaxx has already declared you a Titan, however there is much to do before you will be field ready. I'm sure you already suspected that this morning cannot be your only time spent in the Crucible."

"I did," she said.

"Good. You will still be spending the majority of your time down there. We do not and will not send a Guardian into the field that we feel is not adequately prepared for it. There is much work to be done to get you to that point. I'm curious to see how you performed. Lord Shaxx should be sending me a recording later this afternoon."

Min looked at the man. "A recording?"

"All Crucible bouts are recorded," Zavala said. "You will have full access to any recording of any Crucible bout, whether you were involved or not. It is an excellent way to help improve your own combat skills. Guardians can analyze not only their own strengths and weaknesses but also those of their compatriots. Once analyzed you can work on eliminating the weaknesses and enhancing the strengths, and learn new techniques or how to adapt to new strategies."

She realized then that Zavala didn't know what had happened that morning in the Crucible, and then wondered why she thought he would have. Cayde had known- but only because Kalina had told him. She supposed Zavala better hear it from her, since he was going to find out any way.

"Sir, I should probably tell you what happened this morning."

He looked askance at her. "What happened?"

Trying to remain as matter-of-fact as the three Vanguard had just moments ago, she quickly related the experience of the Crucible; the way Nara had behaved, the way Kalina had intervened and her subsequent banishment; what Shaxx had told her afterward in the atrium.

He listened closely, but his expression didn't as much as flicker throughout. When she finished he said, "You have concerns about Nara."

"I do," she said.

"Good. So do I. However, what Lord Shaxx told you is correct. Nara is a juggernaut in the field and has not comported herself inappropriately when out of it. In the Tower and the City there are three kinds of people, Minerva. Those who are Guardians, those who have been Guardians, such as myself and the others of the Vanguard; and those that rely on the Guardians for their very survival. The latter two groups are very careful when it comes to the Guardians themselves. We respect not only what they do, but what they go through. They are fighting a Darkness and horrors out in the field that few who have not experienced it directly can understand. That affords them respect and every consideration we can manage when they are home. Nara is a well-respected Guardian, and she has done much to keep the safety of this City and the Traveler. Whatever happened to her, whatever may be happening to her, we cannot and will not forget that. However that does not mean we will be foolish. She is closely watched, as Eris Morn will be if she proves she is not a threat or a plant. If it comes to it we will do whatever we must to protect the security of this Tower and this City- even if the threat to it comes from within. Do you understand?"

For some reason, Zavala saying it made her feel better than she had when Shaxx had said it. Perhaps it was due to no other reason than she could see Zavala's face, instead of an implacable helmet. Regardless, Minerva had little choice but to nod. Like it or not this was the situation as it was, and she had to trust they knew far more about it than she did. These men and women had been dealing with this world and its horrifying situation far longer than she had and understood it in ways that it would take her years to accomplish. She could either trust them or…

or what? Leave? What option was that?

"I trust that, despite your concerns regarding Nara, you can comport yourself in her company with decorum? We are on our way to speak with the Twins now."

She blinked. He had mentioned informing the Twins about that creature in the infirmary, but she had not realized he intended to do so right now, with her along for the ride.

What would he do if I said no? she wondered. His tone had been non-optional; he wasn't really asking her if she could, he was telling her that she simply would- that she was expected to behave like a Guardian, even if she was not yet fully cognizant of what that truly meant.

It didn't matter, she supposed. In truth the answer was of course that she would behave herself. She had no desire to go toe to toe with another Guardian- at least, not outside the Crucible where it was expected. Pissing contests held no interest to her, not even against Nara. She had no desire to be the woman's bosom buddy, but cordial…she could do cordial if she had too.

Just so long as Nara can do the same.