Chapter 6: Stood and puffed your chest out like you'd never lost a war

"When we lost Europa, we lost the war. No, that's not right - when War took Europa, we lost all hope of winning. Conflict is Her domain." - Dunraven-9, City Pilot

"Europa was my folly - twice over. I will wear this shame forever." - Grayris, the Time-Stalker


Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. There was glass in his mouth, flames licking his back and ash in his eyes. Gaelin dragged a hand forward, to the thin rays of light piercing through the shattered nose of the upturned Bandwagon and-

And he stopped, his audials picking up on another sound - one cutting under the distant roars and cries beyond the wrecked jumpship's hellish confines. Something... familiar. Haunting. The near-silent hissing of efficient pistons, the click-click-clicking of steady clockwork, the crack of more glass shattering underfoot and... the tapping of claws on metal flooring. The light spilling into the remains of the cockpit, running along the floor, briefly disappeared. Something was moving ahead, passing by.

Gaelin imagined himself holding his nonexistent breath and willed himself to stay perfectly still. He was in no position to fight any... well, he had a fair suspicion as to what it was, but he still wasn't entirely sure. Didn't matter; bad news regardless. He heard something else. A coughing growl - the noise of something that wanted to snarl, to seethe, to make all sorts of sounds and found its chassis incapable of doing so. A struggle he was well-acquainted with - at least in dreams and fragmented memories, painting half-forgotten scenes from so long ago.

The claws tapped away, fading to silence. He waited and waited - and then decided it was gone.

"I don't feel anything," Clip whispered, directly into his neural processor. "It's clear. Get out, now."

"Therin-"

"He's to your left, making his own way."

Gaelin glanced to the side, cautiously increased the luminosity of his optics, but found a part of the Bandwagon's flooring had ruptured and cut through the cockpit, separating him from the other Hunter. There was some... blood on the ground, mixed in with the oil fast catching fire. Fingers must have gotten caught in between. Or maybe more - hand, forearm, shoulder. Causal damage, though. Nothing Smudge couldn't deal with.

He dragged himself and the other body - the one they'd found aboard the Persephone - forward, towards the tiny crack leading out into the hangar, and forced an arm through. Something grasped him - and Gaelin forced himself to relax, because the grip was firm but lacking talons. He kicked his way out, allowing Therin to pull him from the wreckage and all too quickly stood up to get a bearing, almost losing his balance in the process.

The hangar was... well, not entirely in shambles, but it looked like a newly minted warzone. A cracking-chiming sound reverberated through the chamber, in the direction of Nor's Crypt Hammer. Stasis. Which meant Grayris. Probably.

Hopefully.

"'Spur?" Gaelin asked.

Therin nodded. He was already on the move, Solar running down his arm. Gaelin grasped his Transfiguration out of transmat, shoved it over his shoulder and pulled a flickering Void arrow from his Orpheus Rig's quiver and flicked it up, reforming it into a blade of pure antimatter. It thrummed and hungered.

Odds were he was going to feed it real soon.

Gaelin-4 looked behind him, doused the building inferno threatening to tear the jumpship apart with a wave of his Void, shifted the immobile Exo onto his shoulders and took off after Therin. They could review the damage later; saving lives took priority.


Gaelin-4 slid around the broken mess that used to be the Crypt Hammer just as Grayris crushed the head of the frozen Darkspur in her dominant hands, shards of shimmering Stasis crunching between her fingers and decaying into glittering dust. Another 'Spur lay prone a stone toss away, slagged to hell and back. The thing looked half-melted, as if someone had gone at it with a Hammer of Sol - but that was impossible. They had no Titans aboard.

No Titans armed with Light, anyways.

Speaking of their Titan, she was drawn across the hangar floor looking for all the world like a twitching corpse. There was a javelin in her shoulder, her arm and leg were a mess, and her nose was broken. Blood was... was everywhere. Far too much blood. It couldn't have been healthy.

Grayris's shout grabbed his attention - wordless, primal, horrified and furious. The Baroness took two long strides over to Norovoi, went to remove the Spur-spike in her shoulder and then stopped - her shoulders hunched, tense, great helm sweeping this way and that. She spotted Gaelin, then Therin who was moving up on the Crypt Hammer's other side with a Golden Gun drawn, and growled, "There is another."

Another Darkspur.

Gaelin-4 twisted around, looked behind him and across the hangar. "Where?"

He turned back around, met Grayris's stare - her helm's eight orange optics were so bland, betraying nothing - and almost crumpled under the blame. "We didn't know. We didn't. Didn't see them, didn't-"

"No time," Grayris snapped. She took Norovoi up, looked towards where the hangar narrowed into a corridor to reach the rest of the ship, and said, "Senator."

A presence crashed against Gaelin's self, pulling the Praxic-grade mental blocks surrounding his consciousness apart and planting itself inside. He momentarily panicked - but then Otzot's flanged voice boomed, "It is loose. Vynriis and Klyfiks have lost it; it tracks them no longer. It presently prowls the Ketch." Her voice invaded Gaelin's every thought. A pit of nausea built up on his proverbial stomach, pounding against his processors. "We must leave."

Gaelin's radio flickered on. Dunraven-9's voice hissed through, "Yeah, already on it. We've got... shit, one of them must have gotten a howl out. I'm picking up on Hive signatures. Tombships - too many. And... fuck, a carrier. Full Tombcarrier. Warping now."

The Ketch around them rocked and thrummed.

"Cannot allow it to howl again," Grayris growled. She stood up, strode over to Gaelin and pushed Norovoi to him. He had to let his Spectral Blade evaporate before grabbing hold of the Titan. "Take them both, find medbay, gather others, lock the door. Guard them." She looked at Therin. "Take the bridge. Lock the elevator. Guard Dunraven. Do not let it inside."

"On it," Therin grimly affirmed. He shot away. Grayris spared Gaelin another look before she took off as well.

To hunt down the last 'Spur.

Alone.

If it had been anyone else, he would have called it suicide.

Clip activated his radio for him. Gaelin tried his best to gather Norovoi up with his remaining free arm, half-worried she was going to literally fall apart at seams, and hastily made his way to the hangar's exit - all his artificial nerves on fire. "Vyn, Klyf, where are you?"

"-alive, alive!" Vynriis frantically chattered back. It sounded like she was running.

"Make your way to the medbay, ASAP. Norovoi's in critical condition, and we've got a... survivor, just as bad. Tell everyone to get to the bridge or medbay or lock themselves in their rooms if they can't."


Gaelin had never seen the medbay so hectic before.

He'd also never actually seen the inside of the actual medbay before, but that wasn't immediately pressing. Or maybe it was - he didn't know where any of the things people demanded of him were. Vynriis or Nivviks fetched most of them, or pointed and shouted when their hands were full. Two people down on the surgery tables; yeah, it was all hands on deck.

"She saved us," Vynriis kept repeating, kept telling him, kept chirping into his audio-receptor as he pulled her in for a relieved embrace. "She distracted the Wormbeast. She saved us."

"Nor's brave," Gaelin-4 muttered back, glancing at the Titan over and over again. Gruff? Yeah. Mean? Ho yeah. Disinclined to being nice? Certainly. But she was a Titan - even unwilling, she was a protector. It was in her blood. Yes, that same blood dripping onto the floor by their feet. That blood.

Or that's what he liked to think.

Hard to pin anything on her. Nor didn't like talking. Didn't like revealing anything. Didn't like-

"Hurry," Otzot urged him, "or you will never get those chances again."

He almost snapped at her to stop looking inside his mind, but she looked stressed enough as it was - pressing her hands over the soaked rag that kept Norovoi from bleeding her heart out over the previously pristine table. Instead, he disengaged from Vyn and asked, "What can I do?"

-X-

She had its scent - like the Alkahest-blood of Exominds crossed with the sickly sweet ash taste of soulfire. Not like true radiolaria, thank the Great Machine. The Husk-Beasts weren't that destructive. Hunters, yes, seekers of runaway things, assuredly, but destroyers of worlds? No - though allowing one to run loose within the Ketch's innards was surely going to end in the destruction of their world. The Kaliks-Fel was difficult enough to run as it was, what with all its old battlescars and almost archaic operating systems. They didn't need a reactor meltdown or broken shield generator as well.

Aside from its stench, there was little sign of the Husk-Beast's passing. Subtle creatures, they were, and possessing of a keen animal intelligence. They knew not to leave tracks - for humans and Cabal relied on such to chase down their prey.

Not her, though. She was Eliksni. Her senses were blade unto themselves, molecular-sharp knives that never dulled. The Husk-Beast could not escape her.

She was not going to allow it.

"It is within the habitation deck," Grayris hissed into her comlink. She crawled up the elevator shaft and entered the aforementioned deck, the doors having been pulled ajar before she'd even arrived, marked with claws longer than her own. "It is heading towards Norovoi's chambers. Is anyone nearby?"

"Affirmative," Ueru'uxo growled in reply. "I am approaching from prow-side, Winter-Potentate. Permission to engage?"

"Denied. If you find it, hold your ground, keep it in place - but do not fight it if you can. I will finish it."

"Understood." Her comlink went silent.

Grayris tasted the air, she splayed out her hands full of unnatural power and grasped at the beast's decaying scent. It was... close. Making haste. It had a destination in mind - one she'd already narrowed down.

She had a fair inkling as to why it had chosen its heading as well.


Grayris found the Husk-Beast outside the door to Norovoi's cabin, barred from the chamber by a massive wildcat with a pelt reminiscent of a purplish-black night sky, four eyes twinkling like yellow stars. Its tail was two-pronged, long and waving in a rippling fashion. It resembled a Venusian panther, not unlike the ones she'd once tracked and hunted through the tropical jungle-forests of Ishtar, but it was larger - larger even than the greatest of Earthborn bears. Its claws were iron barbs and its fangs were sabers of glittering steel. It hissed and swiped and gnashed its teeth - keeping the Darkspur from its unholy prize.

Past the two, appearing at the other end of the corridor, Ueru'uxo arrived with both a Solar-edged cleaver and a Phalanx shield in his hands, gladiatorial helm locked around his head. An Uluru warrior, the last perhaps, but certainly not the least. Even unto the edge of extinction, the true Imperials held firm to their honour and calibre as born warriors.

"Guard yourselves," Grayris snapped.

The Darkspur and Ahamkara separated, glancing her way - and the latter pressed against the wall, perhaps tasting her intent. Past them, Ueru'uxo raised his shield and held it firm. Grayris aimed her shotgun and held down the trigger. Arc energy blazed down the corridor, shredding across the Husk-Beast's metallic hide. The Darkspur lowered its head over its chest to guard both its fragile optics and vulnerable core, while the rest of its chassis took the brunt of the unceasing firepower.

Eventually, though, after a grand total of two humans second, her shotgun's reloaded battery emptied - trigger clicking uselessly. With a snarl, Grayris tossed it aside and pulled her forbidden power to her grasping hands, her talons curling around dirks of jagged Stasis. The Darkspur noticed, felt it, and the damned creature stood up to howl at her.

Ueru'uxo crashed into it from behind, more a charging Earth-bull than Uluru. His shield smacked against its slender exoskeleton, tossing it forth, and the oversized sabre-toothed panther lashed at it as it went. The Darkspur tumbled, found its footing and shrieked at them - claws folding out, elongating. Grayris stalked behind it, her shoulders bunched and power freely frosting across her age-old ivory armour. The Husk-Beast noticed, swiftly turned and fired both tusk-javelins.

Grayris raised up a wall of Stasis, catching the two missiles, and slammed an upper fist against it - sending a squall of frozen shards and shrapnel the monster's way. It weathered the storm, shook out its nicked arms and shoulders and charged. Grayris ran at it in turn and met it halfway. It pounced, claws aimed for her neck. She slapped it aside, froze its barbed hands against the wall with a lob of Stasis and slammed it bodily against the side of the corridor. Grayris drove a knee up against its abdomen, hard, and when it pushed back she steadied herself with her lower arms, bracing them against the opposite wall.

The Darkspur broke free of the unnatural rime, but Grayris had already circled behind it, grabbing it by the nape of its thin, ribbed neck and slamming it down on the metal floor. She grabbed hold of its shoulders with her lower hands, held it down and froze its claws against the ground all over again - and pulled on the power holding them down, shattering the frozen metal into a million disintegrating pieces with little effort. The Husk-Beast was not to be deterred, however, and swung its stumps up towards her armoured face. Grayris growled and pressed her talons into its right shoulder, dragging the socket out and ripping it from its torso without ceremony. The beast screamed - without thought, without feeling, simply shrieked for the sake of shrieking.

Her claws moved on, curling under where its neck met head, and she forced them into the more fragile metal hidden beneath its protective frill. Stasis spread from the incision points, tearing through the inside of its skull, freezing everything solid and converting all that the malign power touched to pure, fragile crystal. With a roar, Grayris dragged her hands away and brought one down as a fist - smashing the Husk-Beast's head apart.

Still it struggled.

Still it lived.

"Enough of this!" Grayris bellowed. Swords of glittering Darkness formed in each of her four hands, and she dragged them all across the Darkspur's back - flaying the protective shell from its curving torso. At last, its Alkahest-drowned core revealed itself through the mess of ragged brass and steel, and Grayris reformed her swords into a single long spear, bringing it down with all the strength she could muster. The Stasis implement pierced through the glassy casing, through the Exo-blood and tore apart the half-dead Worm within.

With a single reluctant shudder, the Darkspur died.

Grayris raised herself up, Stasis dissipating around her. She glanced back - to Ueru'uxo, who stood at the door with his shield in place, and to the massive panther, prowling left and right with its eyes trained on the motionless Husk-Beast. Blood coated its pelt, streaming from numerous shallow incisions drawn across its flanks. The Uluru saluted her. The Ahamkara growled.

"Dunraven?" Grayris asked, after quickly switching her comlinks on. "Can you detect others?"

"I... don't think so," the Exo uncertainly replied. "No breaches, so I don't think there's any on the hull outside, but the prow's still a blind spot. Sensors there are... uh, spotty, remember?"

"I remember. Keep us moving. We will see to it when we have time."

"We'll be burning into our energy reserves, y'know. Need to make a pitstop somewhere soon."

"Plenty of asteroids," Grayris said. "We will find a way."

"Yeah. Yeah, we will."

"Has everyone checked in?"

"Uh... is Uxo there with you?"

Grayris looked at the Uluru again. "He is. Alive. Intact."

"Good, good, but... yeah, the guys in the medbay don't sound optimistic."

"I will see to it." Grayris clicked her radio off. She sighed, eyes falling on the dead Darkspur - and she cursed explosively, kicking the metal thing as hard as she could. It hit the wall with a hollow, ringing bang.

"Are they all dead?" Ueru'uxo gruffly inquired.

"Eia," Grayris panted. "Eia, they are dead."

"Why-"

"Dragon." She stepped forth, towards the panther. "You… assisted."

The dragon stopped, looked up at her and said nothing - just pointedly glanced at Norovoi's room. At what was hidden within.

"So be it," Grayris grunted. "I..." she closed her four eyes and pulled at the thing Otzot had planted within her mind with surgical ease. "I... wish you will guard this room."

The panther purred, the sound at odds with its snarling from mere seconds earlier, and its fur rippled - hairs briefly standing on end. The blood on its fur peeled away and crumbled away as fading dust, and its wounds scabbed over, then healed altogether, as if touched by a Guardian Sunsinger.

A pity the rest of them couldn't recover so easily.

Grayris bared her teeth at the dragon, unseen beneath her helm's confines, and gradually dragged herself and Ueru'uxo away. She didn't like the smile she saw in the desire-drake's eyes as she left - but there was naught to do. The wounded - and the dying - took predecent.


Norovoi, she found upon arriving at the medical wing, was decidedly more in line with the category of dying than wounded.

"She's bleeding out," Gaelin-4 grimly explained. "Therin's en route, agreed to give blood transfusions - but it won't matter if she bleeds it all out all over again. Otzot's barely holding her together as is."

So Grayris saw. The Senator hovered by the head of the prone Titan, hands held out and tendrils of psychokinetic energy snaking from her fingertips, affixing to the open wounds and trying in vain to stem the worst of the bleeding. Nivviks dabbed at the skin around where the javelin was still embedded within Norovoi's shoulder, the cloth soaked through with red. The floor around the surgical table was already slick, grey flooring stained crimson.

The other patient, in almost the same critical condition, helpfully bled less. Granted, they were an Exo and thus a touch more resilient, and their lifeblood was the much thicker, slower-to-flow Alkahest, but their physical state was no less dire. On the verge of dying. Vynriis tended to the stranger, oddly at ease - but then she was familiar with Exos, wasn't she? And not the only one either.

"Go," Grayris said to Gaelin, gesturing to the unfamiliar Exo. "Help them. I will save Norovoi."

"Thank you." Gaelin rushed to assist Vynriis, moving with purpose.

"How?" Otzot asked once they were alone - with Nivviks, though he was in a subdued, quiet mood. The Psion looked up at her. "Do you have a solution in mind?"

"Eia." Grayris crouched down beside the table. "Which injuries will kill her?"

"All of them," Otzot reported. "Arteries on both her leg and arm were severed. I haven't checked her shoulder yet; I fear the tusk is the only thing keeping her alive right now."

"Then we will mend the rest. Are you familiar with human anatomy?"

"It's not dissimilar to my own. What do you intend, Grayris-Mrelliks?"

Grayris answered not with words, but with a hand full of crackling Stasis.


At last, many hours later, she staggered away exhausted and shaken. The task of poring over every tear within the Awoken's flesh, skin, internal organs - it had worked in conjunction with the receding adrenaline of combat to drain her of all her energy. Her hands were red, soaked through, and all she could smell was the coppery taste of human blood.

But Norovoi was alive.

She was not going to die.

Grayris had ensured it.

"She will live," Otzot assured Vynriis and Klyfiks - as well as the watching Therin and Gaelin-4. Nivviks stood to the side, upper arms crossed and eyes shadowed over. He looked as tired as Grayris felt, and far less relieved. At least their Titan had stabilized. Her life was now entirely in her own hands.

The Exo, though, was not so fortunate.

"Heuristics are corrupted, through and through," Gaelin-4 grimly reported. "She's... she's gone, or as good as."

"Will she reset?" Therin asked.

Gaelin shook his head. "No, you don't understand - she's gone. It's like... it's like Exomind necrosis. This isn't just her memories; the data that make her an Exo is rotted to the core. She's well and truly dead."

Therin scowled. "So who's to blame? Aphelion or Darkspur?"

Gaelin shrugged. "I dunno. Blame both if you want. Won't change a damn thing."

Grayris trudged over. The Exo's face was... different to Gaelin's and Dunraven's - lacking a mouth, less humanlike. Much of her body was the same; where Exos took on attributes reminiscent of their human selves, including muscle density and elements of sexual dimorphism, this one was just the basic frame - like a half-covered skeleton, only partially finished. "What is this one's name?"

Gaelin grimaced. "Ada-1."

Grayris looked at him, sharply. "The Forgemaster?"

"Yeah."

"She perished in the Fall."

"Apparently not. Guess Dead Orbit managed to grab her..." Gaelin sighed. "All dead now, though. Traveler above, we... we could've used her, help us fix up all our messes..."

"Is she still online?" Therin asked softly.

Gaelin clenched his jaw, reached in under the dead Exo's neck and tugged on something. Ada-1's body tensed and stilled. "Not anymore."

"Fuck..." Therin bowed his head.

Grayris inhaled deeply. She pulled her great helm up and dragged in huge lungfuls of air. She looked between the two, waited for them to come to terms, and asked, "What happened?"

"On the Persephone?" Therin guessed. Grayris nodded. "What's there to tell? We picked up on Ada's signal after picking up the flight recorder, went for her and hightailed it out. We... didn't see the 'Spurs. Must have been hiding in the debris around the breach. Couldn't pick them up on sensors. Couldn't even feel them. None of us did. I'm... I'm sorry."

Grayris huffed. "Get out."

"Gray-"

"Get out. Tend to yourselves, to the others, to the ships the beasts damaged. Keep yourselves busy. Do that for me, and I will forget how you erred here. Yes?"

"Yes." Therin nodded quickly, Gaelin only a moment later. The Exo glanced Norovoi's way. "What about-"

"I will watch her," Grayris told them with a sigh. "Iirsoveks, your ship, Therin!"

"Right, yeah!" The Hunter ran past, ran out the medbay and disappeared from sight. Gaelin stopped by Vynriis, checked that she was alright, then followed his compatriot out. His hound, Castus, watched him go and lowered his head on his front paws, curled up by the foot of the table on which Norovoi lay.

"Valiant beast," she murmured as she approached. "Your loyalty is undeserved, unwarranted - but welcome."

Castus chuffed like an Earthborn wildcat.

It was good to have an animal aboard, Grayris mused. Sometimes it was hard to remember the little things in life, like how to take things easy, how to care without adding complicated notions to it, and how to hold the people around her together in one piece. Castus understood that. Not the higher complexities of extinction or burning an escape path across the stars, perhaps, or what waited for them on their old dead worlds, maybe, but he understood the more immediate things - the people, the life.

He was her favourite, even in a crew where she wasn't supposed to have favourites.

Gaelin-4 had done well to bring the war beast along.

-X-

She missed the ease of getting rezzed. Norovoi hated the slow, achy recovery that came hand-in-hand with Lightless mortality. Obvious as it was, the perks of being a deathless demigod had been a luxury - particularly in a world where the common understanding of luxuries were nonexistent. She missed it; missed just waking up from death, just like that, shake out the tingling sensation of sudden revival and leave it there.

She missed...

She missed Erratz.

She missed her old life, horrible as it was.

She missed being a pariah - because pariah insinuated there was a society that had labeled her an outcast, that there was something she could watch from a distance and think I wish I had that.

The present had none of it. None of the pointed, exhausted, accusing looks Erratz would give her. None of the sympathy what few acquaintances of hers had survived into the 'modern' age the moment they caught sight of her and remembered. None of the lonely pain, weighing her down, twisting her gut with anger and loathing.

Now all she had to loathe was herself, for all the wrongs, for all the missed chances, for all the failings she'd let slip by - and was continuing to do so.

Norovoi woke up to pain and stiffness and cold, cold, cold both inside and out. She couldn't help it; she whimpered as the memories of what had happened flashed by, her eyes growing wet. She never... wanted that.

Why her?

Why was the universe dragging it out?

"I should be dead," she whispered to nothing and everything at once.

"Yes," someone agreed - voice crackling courtesy of Eliksni mouthparts, deep enough to indicate significant size, light enough to betray gender. Grayris, then. Vynriis was the only other female Eliksni aboard, and she was only a little over human-sized. Sweet-voiced too, for an Eliksni. Soft words only. A tendency to say whatever needed to be said in order to lift spirits. Never agreeing to something pessimistic. Not like this.

Yeah, definitely Grayris.

"But you are not. None of us are. We have survived - again."

Okay, the Baroness wasn't a total downer, but she was still pretty mean all considered. Brutally honest and seemingly proud of it. In short: a real joy to hang out with. Someone grimly compatible with herself - and even so Norovoi was fast finding chances to screw it up.

"I don't know if I like that," Norovoi admitted. She trembled - partially for the pure emotion eating at her, partially for the alien sensation holding her down, keeping her still. "I... I feel like... like you patched me up with glass."

"Close, wen'thirvaar," Grayris informed her. "With Dark crystal."

"It-"

"Hurts?"

"I... don't know." Norovoi moved her own - oh, it felt so weird - and pushed herself up, slowly, into a sitting position. "I don't like it."

"It is all that is keeping you from dying," Grayris murmured. The Baroness was to her side, crouching down in that weird position only Eliksni seemed to find comfortable for any length of time - because, for some reason, the universe had decided to pass them over for all rickety pains in the knee areas. There was a body on the other table past Gray. Exo. Not Dunraven or Gaelin though. That was a relief. But who... Ah well; that was their misfortune, not hers. No point bothering herself over a stranger's fate. "The Senator assisted me."

"You'll forgive me for not thanking you."

"No, I won't." Grayris leaned in, one hand resting at the table's edge. Her head was bare, purplish flesh and dark brown exoskeleton in the open air. Her plumage tied back into a simple stiff tail was a pale vibrant cyan, almost turquoise, and her eyes were the customary Eliksni ice-blue - glowing in full, no discernable sclera or irises or pupils. Just... bright light. "We worked to the best of our abilities to keep you alive."

"Shouldn't have wasted your time."

"Do you hate yourself?" Grayris asked with a snap.

Norovoi didn't answer. She simply looked away. "I can't live like this," she whispered. "I can't."

"Lightbearer-"

"I'm not. I'm... I'm not." Norovoi pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them - and oh, the sensations, the glass crinkling in her flesh, below her skin. "I'm not a Lightbearer. No Light. No... no Ghost. No Ghost..." She paused. "I... I don't have my Ghost. I don't have him anymore. He's gone. I should be too. It isn't right." She glanced at Grayris. "Do you know what that's like? To have your soul split apart? To die in one half and keep on living on the other?"

Grayris gave her a stony look. "Some."

"Do you?"

"Eia. I am Riisborn."

Norovoi shook her head. "A planet's-"

"Riis was all I knew," Grayris snarled. Her voice then softened, pain filling in the vacuum left in the wake of righteous anger. "I was young, but watching my world quake, burn, sunder... die... It broke my heart."

"That's all well and good, but home isn't the soul."

Grayris growled. She lowered her head down to eye-level with Norovoi and hissed, "Do you want to live?"

She thought about it. Actually gave it some thought. The best Norovoi could manage, though, was, "I don't know. Not like this, at least."

"Like what? Alone?"

"Helpless." Norovoi lifted her chin, rebellious to the end. "You know as well as I do that real power means killing your enemies before they tear your head of. I can't do that anymore."

"You slew a Darkspur."

"And I almost died."

Grayris clicked the ends of her mandibles together. "What are you really asking?"

"Power. Give me power. I'll be useful the-"

"I am not asking you to be useful. I am asking whether you want to live."

Norovoi laughed bitterly. "I don't see a point in living. Not unless I'm doing something. Not unless you give me a way to forget about... about Erratz."

"The Dark..." Grayris chittered unhappily. "The Dark is not a gift easily given."

"It has to be taken."

"No, that is... not what I meant." Grayris straightened up and took to pacing alongside the table. "The Dark whispers. It slithers into your insecurities, speaks into your ear and offers you riches and dreams beyond imagining - and it will drag you down to the Hive's dreaded Deep."

"I know that-" Norovoi started to say, but a fierce look from Grayris cut her off.

"Yes, but you have not felt it. Weakness will be your downfall."

"I'm a killer," Norovoi admitted. "I know what it's like. The Light wasn't all that different. Kinder, sometimes, but just as oppressive in every other way."

"You are a killer," Grayris agreed, "and if you fall, you will slay us in our sleep."

"You can't just-"

"I will speak with Otzot," Grayris snapped, lifting a hand for silence. "What happened was... what do you humans call it, a freak accident? Eia, that. We will be more careful in future."

"But we'll still have to fight. I know that. You know that. We all know that." Norovoi shook her head and closed her eyes. She huffed, "Either cut me loose or give a weapon. I'll take this into my own hands if you have to."

Grayris gave her a lingering, stern look. "You are persistent. Obstinate. A psesiskar in the making."

"I'm a Titan."

"Yes, I know. I am aware of what you used to be."

"Then you know I can be useful," Norovoi pressed. "You know."

Grayris snarled. "I will speak with Otzot, I said!" She paused and exhaled - slowly, hissing all the while. "Cease your... trysts with the dragon. Then - then - we will see."

Norovoi reluctantly nodded, acquiescing. Grayris seemed to accept it without issue.

They both knew it was a lie.


AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!