9th of April, 3742
Ovda Regio, Aphrodite Terra, Venus
Lightning flashed through the toxic clouds above. The air stank of sulfur. Rocks of the newly-revealed shore sizzled with briny water and angry radiolaria pools.
"Tide won't be out forever. We have a couple of hours at best."
"That's long enough."
"Is it? These guys can get tricky. It'll lead you on a wild goose chase."
"I know where to go. I know what to ask. I know when to leave."
"If you're sure..."
Aartoc was more than sure. His conviction had been hammered into his mind with ancestor-strength. It glared out of his eye and razed the rocks before him, lighting the way and banishing overly-ambitious tendrils of Vex milk from his path with flashes of psychokinetic energy.
He wasn't supposed to be here. His posting in Meridian Bay was left vacant. His place in the glorious metaconcert lay empty. And he didn't regret leaving it all behind. Not yet. There would be plenty of time for retrospective thinking later.
Maybe.
He followed the path outlined by the fingers of his descendants and found a washed-out cave. It was too dark inside to make out whatever lurked within. Even his mind couldn't breach the gloom. With a steady breath, Aartoc knelt down and set his longbow across mucky ground. It gleamed a deep metallic-blue; twin horns gleaned from a Hobgoblin husk, wrapped in titanium wire and strands of datalattice. The string was formed of shavings he'd shorn from ship hulls over centuries of service, and it was thin enough to cut through bare skin and flesh.
He fitted an arrow of solid Arc-thought into the bow and left it be, undrawn. His present was too precarious to not take precautions.
Aartoc waited. He listened to the distant waves of the Venusian sea. He heard the calls of faraway leather-winged birds searching for stranded fish. He felt the earth below tremble as yet another volcano, some thousand miles away, belched a great column of ash and smoke.
The world around him was volatile. It was no Brand. But he was at peace nonetheless. After a short time of no change in the cave, he carefully removed his halo-crested helmet and set it down beside his bow. Aartoc raised his head and let his Y-pupil shine into the shadows.
"I am here," he said softly. "And there is much I wish to know."
"Wish?" The cave unfurled like a collapsing tent. The massive, rickety wings folded up and slowly, with sickening cracks, pulled against a most unnatural body. The dragon was mottled bronze, and five eyes stared back at him over a needle-thin beak. It stalked forward on six long legs, little more than spider-like stilts tipped with blunted claws. "You wish?"
Aartoc closed his eye, briefly, and called on his ancestors for guidance. "I want."
"To want is to wish." The dragon became a rainbow-feathered serpent. It slithered forward. There was a rustle from where its scaly belly crawled over rocks and mud. "What do you desire, o aspirant mine? Freedom? Power? A goblet in which to pour out your most treasured thoughts?"
Aartoc laughed softly. He held up a broken binding clamp, stained with old blood. "Here is my freedom." His eye flashed as he brought up his hands to cradle his head. "Here is my power." Finally, he brushed his fingers over his longbow, still armed with a crackling spike of Arc. "Here is my Y-goblet."
The serpent became a lithe beast covered in gleaming white keratin. A bladed snout hovered over him. Jagged fangs jutted out on either side of the narrow jaws. "A threatened freedom. A lonesome power. An insult to goblets everywhere."
"The goblets were stripped from my ancestors. We found solace in the bow."
"A violent solace."
"A necessary solace."
"Is it your bow that is restrained by wires or is it your mind? Ask, o Flayer mine, and receive your answers."
Aartoc took a deep breath. He rubbed his arms in a vain attempt to coax the tension out of them, but his body still feared the dragon's bite. "My question is this: where next?"
The dragon tilted its head. "Where do you wish to be next?"
Brand. "I do not know."
Thunder roared. The dragon stretched a dark wing out over Aartoc. A hissing rain fell. Rocks sizzled and melted around them. "You do, but you hesitate to say it."
"To say it would be to invite your hunger."
"My hunger was already invited. No, it is my fangs you fear." The dragon chuckled. "What both of you fear."
There was no hiding it, yet that was no surprise. Aartoc's helmet wobbled. A small metal orb swam out from beneath it and blinked at the both of them with a single blue eye. "You knew I was there," it said to the dragon. The beast, for its part, pulled back its lips in a dreadful smile.
"Indeed I did."
"Are you going to eat me?"
"Are you going to make a wish?"
"I... no. But I have a question of my own."
"Speak it."
Tresk paused. Aartoc could feel his nervousness keenly. The Ghost gathered his confidence together. It was a writhing, unwilling thing. Fear suited him more naturally. "How do I bring my Guardian back?"
"She has fallen," the dragon observed.
Little Tresk took a mock-breath. "Nothing I do works! She's... She's lost to me, but it can't be, I'm still here! I should be able to bring her back!"
"Do you wish to bring her back?"
The Ghost balked. "N-no. I..." He turned to Aartoc. "This is dangerous. It's obviously not going to help us."
A melodic hum emanated from the dragon's chest. It swiveled its neck and prodded Aartoc's side with its nose. "Will you strike a bargain?"
He lifted his head. "I am prepared, yes."
"Make your wish."
"I wish to have the power to undo a curse."
"You are accursed."
"The Garden speaks to my mind, but it cannot give. Only take. And it has taken too much."
"I wish I knew how to bring back my Guardian," Tresk miserably added.
The dragon laughed. Then it burned away, flesh becoming golden flames. Aartoc hastily put his helmet back on and Tresk disappeared in a flash of Light. The dying dragon collapsed into the mud and convulsed once, twice, never again. Aartoc reached into its ribcage and removed a tiny bone about the length and width of a finger.
It whispered: I will show you where this curse ends. Follow my voice, o couriers mine.
Aartoc packed the bone away into a pocket. He lifted his bow, scanned the horizon, and noted, "The tide is coming in."
"We shouldn't be here when it does." Tresk's voice was scarce more than a whisper, though his troubled thoughts were loud enough. Aartoc stilled them with a gentle mental caress.
He marched back the way he'd come.
AN: I like longfics, but this ain't one. It's more of a collection of one-shots based on whatever prompts I think up and like enough to write about in what spare time I have to burn. There's likely going to be a lot of different perspectives, from Guardians to alien races to (maybe) eldritch Hive gods.
It might, might, be a companion piece to my Eliksni-centred fic Winter, but there's not going to be anything that necessitates reading it. Probably.