Sylvanni came to as she rolled roughly to a stop against the floor of her cell. The Vandal guards who'd tossed her in cackled and clicked in amusement at her weakened state. She just tried to tune it out.

Those distant little wisps of Light got to work healing the scrapes she'd just incurred, but they did little to fill that gaping hole within her. Her Light, all of her reserves, torn from her in an instant. She wouldn't have thought it were possible, and yet the House of Kings continued to show far greater proficiency in understanding Guardians than she could have imagined.

She'd been harvested. That was why they kept her. It wasn't for information or entertainment, though she had little doubt they'd try to wring those from her eventually too. But her true purpose, it seemed, was to be little more than an unwilling Servitor, dispensing this Light-derived ether for those Erxaris deemed worthy.

She simply let herself lay on the ground as the cuts on her skin mended, unable to summon the will to even push herself up to sit. What was the point? There in the arena, she'd started to entertain ideas about saving her Light up until she had enough to break herself free, but now they could drain her of that power whenever they liked, and she had no doubt Erxaris would never let her get close enough to a Light level where she could actually pose a threat.

"It appears I was right. You are less glib about our situation. How fortunate."

Uldren's voice echoing from the other cell actually did pull a reaction from her: simmering annoyance. She'd almost forgotten he was there, but now she forced herself to sit up if only to retain some small dignity against him and what was certain to be an unpleasant conversation.

"You are the last person I want to speak to right now," she said coldly. She couldn't see him from this angle, but that suited her fine. She could imagine the smug smile without having to subject herself to it.

"At last count, I was the only person here," Uldren said, his tone infuriatingly mild, "so I'd say you've reached the end of your list."

"Jump in the Hellmouth."

"Ah you are in a bad mood. What did the Kings do that was so terrible? I wonder if I can guess."

They tore my soul out of me, that's what they did. She covered her face with her hands, trying to drown him out. "Please, just shut up. I'm not going to talk about this."

"Well, if you insist."

"I do."

Hoping that he would actually stay quiet, Sylvanni started to summon up her composure once more. She sat up fully, crossing her legs and settling in to meditate. Her Light may have been distant and faint, but it was still there, and she could still use it. She pulled her senses inward, and in doing so, quested out beyond herself. After a moment, her concentration allowed her to float a few feet off the floor. She hovered there, starting to drift through her thoughts, trying to focus on feelings of freedom. The Light could lead her memories back to her in the right direction.

Those little wisps of Light did pull her, but into a memory she hadn't expected. In hindsight, though, she really should have. The last time she truly felt free? The meditation conjured up her earliest days as a Guardian, when the world had been mysterious and full of quests and questions, and she'd met them with steel and a confident smile. She'd once been full of that same reckless abandon that all new immortals felt, the world at her fingertips, if only she would reach out and grab it.

She found herself in the memory of an old battle, one that had lasted for hours. She hadn't known her fireteam very well, but they'd found a rhythm together in the fight. The Ahamkara was throwing every trick it could summon, taking every cheap attack to try to get them down, but Sylvanni had danced amidst its destruction, laughing all the while. She'd been so new to the world back then, she hadn't really understood the larger implications of the Great Hunt, she'd simply exulted in the challenge of each new fight.

The person she was today—the stoic and focused woman who felt the weight of duty and the dignity of her station too strongly for such recklessness—felt uncomfortable remembering the immaturity of her younger self. As the meditation continued, however, she found herself taking solace in that unbridled joy she'd once had. How long had it been since she'd felt excited like that?

A clacking hiss pulled her from the memories roughly. She managed to keep control enough that she didn't topple out of her levitation, but the memories fled as her focus was broken. A Kings Vandal stood on the other side of the bars, making noises at her.

She lowered herself back to the floor, turning away from it. If the Fallen wished to gawk at her like she was a menagerie creature, the least she could do was not give them a show. She closed her eyes again and resolved to put the cacophonous speech out of her mind and ignore it as best she could.

At least, until Uldren started hissing and clacking from the neighboring cell.

As she turned sharply, the Vandal noticeably perked up, focusing in on Uldren and saying something in response. Sylvanni couldn't help herself; she stood until she could see both Uldren and this Vandal inexplicably… converse.

"You speak Fallen?" Her disbelief was clear.

Uldren eyed her, with a little smile on his face like he'd won something by making her ask the question. "It's rude to interrupt. And the language is Eliksni, not 'Fallen.'"

The Vandal paused as the two Awoken started to talk to one another, watching them both curiously. Sylvanni was unsettled by its gaze.

"But yes," Uldren continued after an unnecessarily dramatic pause, "I do speak Eliksni."

"I… didn't take you for the type," Sylvanni admitted, her shock prompting frankness.

"My Queen was Kell of the House of Wolves and its members served as her closest guards for years. Do you think I never bothered to learn what they were saying? To be honest, I'm surprised you can't speak it. Aren't you one of the Traveler's witches, devoted to learning and scholarship?"

"Warlock," she snapped, knowing he used the wrong word only to get a rise out of her. "You Reefborn are the only ones who have witches, unless you count the Hive." He did have somewhat of a point, though she'd never admit it. Decades ago, she'd studied Eliksni orthography, and she could read their writing decently well, but she'd never bothered to study the spoken form of the language. Unlike the Reef, the Tower had not had any allied Eliksni to teach it.

When Uldren didn't respond immediately, the Vandal started chittering again, to Sylvanni's displeasure. She eyed it warily. "What's it saying?"

"He," Uldren said pointedly, "is asking if I'm translating for you. Which, as of now, I suppose I am."

"For me? What do I have to do with this?"

Uldren paused to listen to the Fallen a little while longer, who gestured with his upper arms as he spoke. Sylvanni watched Uldren's expression as it moved from curiosity to surprise, trying to decipher what that meant.

"Isn't that interesting?" Uldren mused. Sylvanni assumed his phrasing was specifically intended to frustrate her. "It seems he's here to bestow an honor."

"Excuse me?" Her eyes narrowed, certain he was trying to trick her.

"Ah, yes, it's a custom among the Houses which is likely odd to an outsider. Eliksni society is so cutthroat, it is extremely taboo to show weakness. Admitting you've wronged someone could get you docked, either in ether rations if you're lucky, in arms if you're not. But, like any group, people are bound to upset each other. Instead of apologizing and asking for forgiveness—an action of weakness—the Eliksni in the wrong will instead 'bestow an honor' to the one they've wronged, praising them for dealing with a more difficult situation or something similar. Then the conflict can be amended between the two."

Sylvanni crossed her arms, annoyed to find the explanation more confusing than the original conflict. "That doesn't answer what I have to do with this. You're telling me this Fallen thinks he's wronged me somehow?" All of the Kings had wronged her, as far as she was concerned, but she didn't see their barons and Kell lining up to apologize to her.

Uldren turned back the the Vandal, and it chattered at him for a short time while he nodded along. "Hmm, he's saying something about a fight, but there was interference. It seems he believes you should have been the victor had the match been fair. He feels he must honor that deserved victory."

A spike of adrenaline rushed through the Warlock, and her head turned sharply to look at the Fallen outside the arc mesh. He was the stealthed Vandal from the arena, the one who'd killed her. Her initial reaction was hostility, hatred. The trauma and horror she'd felt, dying without her Ghost, that awful pain as the arc swords had run her through.

But, she pushed that emotional reaction down and tried to examine this logically instead. If what Uldren translated was true, this Vandal was trying to express... remorse, or at least the Fallen equivalent of it. That was worth investigating, if only because it was so unexpected.

She eyed Uldren. "What would the wronged person usually do in return, after having an honor bestowed?"

A smile played at the edges of the battered prince's lips. "How Fallen of you, Guardian. If you wish to acknowledge, you can sweep your arm out in front of you, palm down, and pull it to your chest. A gesture of accepting tribute. He'll know what it means."

Sylvanni hesitated initially, fearing that Uldren was trying to trick or embarrass her, but she looked at the Vandal and executed the gesture as she understood it, watching carefully for a reaction. The Vandal made a kind of twitching motion with a vocal trill. Sylvanni couldn't have guessed what it meant.

"He's pleased you accept," Uldren said, amused by the exchange. "He wasn't expecting you to know their gestures."

"I didn't."

"Well he doesn't know that. I think part of why he came was that he was curious to see if you were actually alive again. Your kind are almost mythical monsters to the Eliksni. It's rare for them to get to see the proof of your ability to cheat death like this up close."

Mythical monsters, hmm? She supposed she couldn't be surprised. Many times when Fallen and Guardianas clashed, it was the Guardian who walked away to tell the tale. She was struck for the first time by how humanity and the Guardians must be seen by their enemies.

The Vandal inspected her through the screen for an uncomfortably long time after that, until Sylvanni wanted to squirm, but finally some other Fallen called out in the hallway, and her surprisingly polite murderer finally left. Sylvanni watched it walk away until she was certain they were alone again, then she turned back to Uldren.

"Teach me to speak Eliksni."

He raised an eyebrow. "Was that a request or an order?"

"Please." She had to force herself not to grit her teeth through it.

Apparently the fact that it grated against her pride to ask him was enough to satisfy the still-smug prince. He cocked his head, considering. "I'm not much of a teacher, especially not of inhuman tongues.I probably won't be much help at all."

"I'm sorry, did you have something more important to do while locked in your cell between torture sessions?"

He chuckled. "A valid point. What would you like to know?"

She thought of the alien chittering of the guards, of the crowds in her fight, of all of her captors. She thought of her first assessment, waking up disoriented in this cell for the first time. That initial conclusion was still valid, she realized: Above all, information would be her most valuable commodity.

She met Uldren's eyes through the cracked wall between their cells. "Everything."