—
"Intruder bearing one-two-seven. You have crossed into the realm of the Awoken. State your business, or be fired upon by order of the Queen."
- Grimoire of the Reef
The fate of those escaping Earth during the Collapse was once unknown. But here drifts a graveyard of lost ships, and among them - the Realm of the Awoken. Ruled by a Queen few have seen, they have long avoided contact with the City.
—X—
The Javelin glided through the Reef, soaring through the purple and indigo dust that floated aimlessly throughout the asteroid belt. As they rounded the corner of a rather large chunk of frigate wreckage, Aria turned to Echo.
"Are we still on track?"
The Ghost checked his information. "Yes, we are. Odd; these coordinates are slightly different than the last ones we arrived at all this years ago; close, but different."
She didn't really know what to make of that. Did that mean that perhaps the Reef was bigger than they'd thought? Her parents being earth-born Awoken, all she'd really known was what her grandparents had told her about their exodus from the mysterious birthplace of the Awoken. She remembered hearing tales that though the inhabitants of the Reef liked to keep to themselves, they were a force to be reckoned with.
She recalled being frightened the first time that she'd approached the Reef looking for the Black Garden, and that was when she'd had Matt and Ash to back her up if things had gone south. The only one to back her up here was Echo, and unless the Ghost was hiding some laser eyes or something from her, she was pretty certain that she'd have to be the one playing defense if the situation went south.
She was about to ask him again if they were on track, before she looked over towards their flight direction and noticed a large anomaly.
"Whoa…"
"That almost looks like a docking hangar."
She rolled her eyes at the Ghost. "Maybe it is a docking hangar."
Echo nudged her teasingly. "Oh, now who's the echo? Huh?"
She laughed slightly. "Hopefully your charm will work on them, and they won't decide to hold a knife to my throat again." She remembered the Prince, with his greasy black hair covering half his face. She still believed that he was the one who had informed the Messenger of their position on Venus when they'd gone to kill the Gate Lord. He was not a person that she was looking forward to meeting again.
Surprisingly, a voice came through over the ship's comms. "Guardian?"
She opened the transmission signal. "Affirmative; this is Aria Sorentine, Guardian from Earth."
"Excellent. This is Petra Venj again. There is a space open near my position. Sending coordinates to your ship."
A light lit up on the display, and Echo moved forward to analyze it. "Marking the coordinates on your HUD."
She saw a grey marker appear over a spot near the docking hangar. Moving the Javelin closer, they finally were within a reasonable enough distance to see the hangar properly.
It was fairly decent size, more than enough area to accommodate large groups of people. Near the ceiling, and above the platforms that made up the majority of the hangar itself, Hilidian class ships were docked properly and vastly in position. As this 'Petra Venj' had pointed out, one space was available.
Echo gently guided the ship in, and tethered the ship down. After a moment or two, the engines shut off, and Aria looked over at the Ghost.
"You ready for this?"
He shuddered slightly. "I've never liked this place; but I'm ready if you are."
She gave a subtle nod, and within seconds she was surrounded by blue light. Bracing herself for the transmat, she moved her feet down and was prepared when they made contact with the metal platform beneath them.
"Interesting." Echo moved down to scan the metal. "There's artificial gravity present here, and a makeshift atmosphere. I wonder if it has anything to do with the Techuens…"
"The whats?" Aria asked, before she heard a voice cut across her thoughts.
"Guardian!"
She looked over towards the source of the noise, and saw an Awoken dressed in the signature gear of a royal guard, albeit with a few color modifications; there were some light blue accents that covered the forearms and shoulders of the uniform. Geez, she'd forgotten how much those skin-tight tight suits emphasized their… well, she decided to just look up and focus on her chaperone's face instead.
The woman calling her had a patch over her left eye in the shape of the Reef Paladins' insignia. Her remaining eye was an ice blue color, much like Aria's own. Her hair was a magenta color, and tied back in a bun for combat effectiveness. That was about all she could gather before the woman beckoned her over, and Aria complied.
"It's good to see you, Guardian." The Awoken woman was twirling a knife in her right hand absentmindedly, pausing only to transfer it to her left so she could shake Aria's hand. She was certainly… maybe not friendly, but definitely less hostile than the other reef-born Awoken she'd interacted with. "Petra Venj."
"I know that name," commented Echo, narrowing his eye at her. "You're the Queen's emissary, you've come to the tower several times to strengthen relationships between the Reef and the city."
She gave a slight smile. "Indeed."
"As far as I know, you were appointed to the position of emissary because of that reckless business you conducted during the Reef wars."
The smile disappeared from her face. "I have expressed regret towards my actions I carried out on that day; I would appreciate us not bringing it to mind."
Aria gave Echo a hard stare, one that said, Let's talk about this later, but not right in front of the person you're bad-mouthing.
Petra coughed. "Anyway, I'm glad you're here, Guardian. You said your name is Aria?"
She nodded. Petra gave a small smirk. "Good name. Well, Aria, I'm afraid that the news I bear is… tragic, to say the least. Very worrisome if I were to be detailed." Her mouth became a thin line, her lips pursed together.
"The House of Wolves has rebelled."
Echo muttered softly, "Yeah, didn't see that coming when you decided to keep a bunch of Fallen as pets-"
Aria reached out to grab the Ghost, gripped him in her palm, and then chucked him as far away from her and Petra as she could. He is going to get us killed, dammit.
She looked back at Petra, who was regarding the odd display with an amused look. "You were saying?"
"Right." She placed her hands on her hips. "Their attack came without warning, without any way for us to prepare. We were caught off-guard. Many of my sisters were…" She paused for a moment before continuing. "…were slaughtered, butchered by these traitorous Wolves. What we do know is what forced them into action."
"And that would be?"
Petra gave her a steely eye. "Skolas has returned."
Aria raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
Petra sighed. "Skolas was originally a captain in the House of Wolves, until their Kell was killed. He then fought for, and secured his position as the new Kell, until he was betrayed by- well, we'll get to him in a moment." She closed her eye tiredly. "We incarcerated him, and eventually sent him as a gift to the Nine, as an apology for one of our… intrusions into their territory."
Aria was hearing way too much exposition. An imprisoned Wolf Kell? The Nine?
"But he returned, though we have no idea how at this point. He promised to lead his House to salvation, or something along those lines. It was a bit difficult to hear over the sounds of dying Awoken." She spat the last sentence with venom in her voice, her hatred towards this particular Fallen all too apparent. Aria grimaced.
"In any matter," she continued, "the Queen is quite angry, understandably. And she would like to remind them of exactly why she won the Reef wars." She pointed at Aria. "The Wolves do not just concern the Reef; at this point, Skolas is a threat because he seeks to unify the Fallen Houses. That includes the Devils and Kings on Earth. Can you imagine the kind of threat that all of the Houses would pose if they banded together?"
She could. She remembered the battle for the Traveler quite clearly; how all of the armies of the Darkness had worked together to breach the city, each for their own reasons. It had been the Devils that had fought there with the Hive and Cabal, their only motivation unknown. But a unification of all the Fallen houses… that would be the first time since Twilight Gap, and that had been the bloodiest battle that the city had every fought and come out on top.
This wasn't just about her debt to the Queen anymore; this was something she had to do anyway, or risk yet another threat to the city.
"How do we stop them?"
—X—
Ash scrambled to around, he systems still warming up from being deactivated. She found her wrist interface which had been beeping with the sound of an urgent transmission, and opened up communications.
"Er, hello?"
"Ash, it's me."
"Aria?" Why was the Awoken girl contacting her via interface rather than just coming in here? Where was she? "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, everything's fine. I was just called back to the Reef to repay a debt."
Ash narrowed her eyes. "A debt? But we haven't- hang on, you mean that favor from nearly eight years ago?"
"Hey, it's only been almost four years our time. The Vault, and whatnot."
Ash sighed, placing her face in the palm of her hand. "Okay, okay. Whatever. Is there a reason why…" As Ash looked up, she began to trail off, realizing that something was up.
This was not her room.
She looked around, trying to see if she recognized her surroundings. When it clicked, she was shocked. She turned to look at the bed.
There was Matt, still asleep under the covers. Usually he would have been much more alert than this, but she supposed that after such a physically and mentally draining night of killing Crota, confessing their feelings for one another, and downing a few beers, he was sleeping much heavier than normal.
"Is there a reason why what?"
Ash jolted, having forgotten Aria on the line. "Uh, is there a reason you're, um, calling other than to let us know?" She made herself say, her words getting caught up in her mouth and tumbling over one another. She felt a slight draft from the vents above in the ceiling, and suddenly became very aware of the chill. She took a glance down at herself to notice that she had a very blatant lack of clothes on her body. She scanned through last night's memories, hoping to make some light of this and figure out exactly what had-
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD
"Yeah, I was just letting you know that I'm gonna be taking the Javelin for a while, if that's alright with-"
"YES, that's fine!" Ash said, a little bit more forcefully than she'd meant to. "You're good, just take it!"
"Uh, is everything alright Ash?"
She gave a loud fake laugh. "Whaaaaaat? Yes, of course! Everything is great, nothing's wrong! Gotta go, see you later!" She then ended the connection before the young Warlock could ask any other questions.
Sighing, she let her legs hang over the edge of the bed, and leaned forward to hold her head in her hands. She remembered last night now, and thought about how to react. Excitement? Embarrassment? Mostly, she felt a bit of confusion, but that couldn't stop a small part of her from being elated at what he'd told her near that bar.
All I c-care about… is you, Ash. I love you.
She felt a smile creep over her features. He did love her. Just knowing that made her feel giddy inside; she supposed keeping feelings like that bottled up for years was not the healthiest thing to do, but it looked like it had been worth it.
The bed began to shake slightly, and she looked over to Matt where he was beginning to stir. The Hunter first gained awareness of his surroundings, and then snapped his gaze to her. He looked surprised, shocked even. Then he grinned.
"Man, you're even more beautiful when I'm sober."
She sighed, but flashed him a smile nonetheless. "I think you're more charming when you're drunk. You tend to open up a bit more."
He shrugged. "Yeah. Liquid courage; sometimes, the last thing you need is proper judgement and inhibitions. Seemed to work out for us, anyway."
"Got that right."
He gave her another smirk. "You know, usually people date, express their love, and then get to where we were last night." He chuckled. "We seem to be doing things a bit out of order."
She sighed exasperatedly. "I forgot that if we're gonna be together, it means I have to deal with your jokes all the time."
"Part of the package deal, I'm afraid. Like I've told Eager, it's an occupational requirement."
"In that case I might just consider a refund."
"Oh, really?"
"Nah," she said playfully, hopping back into bed and pulling herself closer to him. "Too much effort."
Without warning, Whip materialized with a smug sounding tone. "Well, it's about time! The two of you-"
"GET OUT OF HERE, YOU POLYHEDRAL LOCK-PICK!" she screeched, grabbing a pillow, and throwing it at the blue eyed menace. Whip zipped away, and flew to the door before dematerializing.
Matt laughed. "That Ghost of yours sure knows how to kill the mood, huh?"
She groaned.