Help Wanted
"You remember then. Your first life. Earth before the Traveler, before the Golden Age. You remember all of it."
Ikora set the words down on the ancient coffee table between them. Not as a question that pressed to be answered, but as something of great importance in need of acknowledgement by the one person who hadn't yet weighed in on the subject: The one who lived it.
Nicole nodded.
She sat half-hunched over the table, idly tracing a finger over the rough grain of age-old wood, and tried very hard not to, well, dwell. On anything.
It was quiet in here. Which was nice. Quiet and private. And now that she'd had a while to sit stewing in her own silence on some old leather cushions (that seemed adamant to try and swallow her) and the buzz of the Tower and City alike had stayed outside the door, she felt like maybe — just maybe — she'd find some words. Something to contribute past shrugs and nods and a deep-seated desire not to be here.
Not that here was bad. Not in the grand scheme of things. Here was alright. Better than back at the Speaker's… whatever that'd been. His lab? His office? Observatory?
For observing.
Nicole leaned her head to the side a little, her thoughts wandering off. She didn't even know who she ought to be thanking for the change of scenery. Who'd noticed how something-something-light-frequencies meant a whole lot of nothing to her.
That… Guardians? Speakers? It didn't matter what you called them, they were all the same to her: impossible and absurd.
So while Ghost and Darrow had bickered and the Speaker had stood with Ikora over a large datapad looking thing exchange words that went right over her head, Nicole had felt lost at sea with no shoreline in sight. Ever outwards she'd drifted. And drifted. And drifted. Any questions levelled at her she'd answered with a blank stare and a shrug — still drifting. And drifting.
John had been the only one not engaged in picking at the seams of her story. He'd stood off to the side with his shoulder against a wall. His expression had been unreadable, offering up nothing.
But then a bunch of Guardians had shown up at the bottom of the stairs, their chins wagging something fierce. Six of them. All sorts of shapes and sizes and all decked out in weapons and armour. It'd been a sight.
They'd begun climbing the steps — and Nicole had gotten ready to do some climbing of her own. Up the nearest wall, preferably. The entire Wall if she'd had to. The real big one.
Which had been when someone had decided she didn't need to be here. All of a sudden she'd been walking down the stairs, the small crowd of Guardians parting around John and Ikora like a school of small fish avoiding sharks while she'd shuffled along behind them. The Speaker they'd left behind to receive his audience and her they'd taken back on another wander through the City.
Ghost and Darrow had kept arguing on and off. A snipe here, a jab there, their inside voices forgotten. John and Ikora though? No arguing. No loud words. They'd talked in soft, kind voices, exchanging even kinder words of which she only caught snatches off here and there. Friends then, she figured. Talking about nothing and everything at once while they had an odd duck glued to their heels.
Quack.
Once they'd reached their destination — a small, narrow coffee shop with an old, rusty sign above the door reading Daily Revive — John had propped the door open for them and then left them to find somewhere to sit while he'd gone to fetch drinks.
So. Yeah. That'd been her since then. Sitting on that sofa, trying to find words which she ought to have while Ikora looked at her. She'd obviously hadn't had any luck. With the words, that is. Sighing, Nicole leaned back and shoved her hands between her thighs.
All she'd had luck with was making this more awkward. Like an interview from hell for a job she neither wanted nor needed. Let alone knew the acceptable interview answers for.
Was Ikora going to ask her how well she coped with stress?
Was John going to join her over there and ask if she was a team player?
Awkward.
Ghost wasn't being much help either. He hovered off by her shoulder, his eye swinging back and forth between her and the walls. Walls lined with shelves all weighed down by old, broken things.
No. That detail hadn't escaped her. She'd noticed right when walking through the door. This place? Full of things from an age gone by and then some.
Guess whose.
Yeah. Her's.
"It makes sense," Ikora said, reeling her thoughts back before they got sucked into comparing herself to that traffic light hung by the door with one of its bulbs missing.
"What does?" John appeared from her left, Darrow close behind. He came equipped not only with the question she ought to have asked but also with a loaded tray. It was full of steaming mugs, a pitcher of water, some empty glasses, and spoons and sugar cubes stacked on a tiny plate. He set the tray down before handing Ikora one of the mugs.
Because apparently Nicole was terrified of a gentleman. The sort that held open doors, gave away dinner and breakfast and borrowed you his clothes when yours were soaked/scorched/torn/fucked.
Figures.
"That she can't use her Light like other Guardians after they've been raised," Ikora said, trading the answer for the mug. "Thank you, John."
"Mhm," John hummed back.
Nicole squeezed her knees together. She glanced between them. John was giving her a thoughtful look, though not because of what Ikora had said, she wagered. He was trying to decide where to sit. His eyes went back and forth between the empty seat next to Ikora and the spot next to her. Eventually, he decided to sink into the sofa on her side. The cushions under her immediately tilted and Nicole struggled to sit somewhat straight. If sitting straight included hunched shoulders and a morose little curl with her hands still stuck between her thighs and her elbows jammed into her sides.
And that's how she sat there while John put one of the mugs in front of her and then proceeded to dump sugar cube after sugar cube into the last one.
One.
Two.
Three.
Nicole blinked lamely, all thought of Light and such forgotten, because Dear God.
He added a fourth one. A fourth one. Plop the cube went, sinking into a black over-sugared abyss while a small spoon clinked about valiantly. And clink-clink-clink it kept on going as John stirred while he leaned back into the puffy cushions. He swung his legs up on the table, one booted foot stacked over the other.
"She can though," Ghost protested. Like that mattered. At all. "You can," he added, shimmying into her field of vision. "You did. More than once."
Nicole shrugged. She really, really didn't care.
"But not on purpose," Ikora said. "She has no way of knowing how to." Her eyes fixed squarely on Nicole — and it didn't take a second for her to feel like a blob of slime mould stuck under a microscope. Though then Ikora glanced at John, who promptly cleared his throat and moved his boots off the table. He gave a small rueful smile, half-hidden behind his coffee flavoured sugar, and Nicole thought that maybe Ikora had that effect on everyone.
The slime mould bit.
"When we're raised," she continued, "we wake with a set of instructions that let us understand what our Light can do. What we can channel it into. And while we won't master it without extensive training, at least we're given a blueprint to follow. Something to build on. It's how a Warlock knows their dawnblade. A Titan their shield. A Hunter their golden gun."
She paused long enough to take a sip from her drink. Tea. Golden and rich looking, though no telling what sort. But no bells and no whistles added from what she could see. Certainly no sugar.
"You weren't given that. When you were brought back, there was no room for instructions. You weren't a half-empty cup your Ghost could fill. But, regardless of that, your Light tries to manifest. Tries to be what you need it to be. Not what you know it can be."
"That's why you blinked across the shipwreck when you wanted to get away," Ghost said. He swung his eye to Ikora. "Right?"
"Void-walked. But, yes. I'd think so."
Ghost looked back at Nicole, his shell carried away by all the excitement that kept coming and going. "Then, when you got surrounded, you made a bubble." He swung his eye to John. Then to Ikora. "That makes sense, yeah?"
"Mhm," John added. "And when you got on her nerves she almost torched you."
Nicole blushed. Again. God, she hated it.
Ghost sunk lower and huffed.
"Turning to Solar fire in moments of heightened emotional turmoil is common enough." Ikora shrugged a regal sorts of shrug. Regal. Yeah. That was a good word for the whole of her. "And how you favour Void Light for protection may mean it's what comes to you with more ease than Solar. Or Arc, for that matter."
"Arc," Nicole repeated.
Ikora's exchanged a look with John, who lazily lifted a hand to point a finger at Ghost.
In return, Ghost's shell squeezed together. "Hey, why me? Why not Darrow?"
"Because you're her little trooper, that's why."
"I'm— I'm not a little anything."
Zap.
A thin, near-invisible, white-blue spark jumped from John's finger. It arced through the air with a muted crackle and connected with Ghost's nearest fin so quickly, Nicole barely had time to jolt on the spot.
Her skin tightened. Like she'd cosied up to a power line, its current running at odds with her blood. A sensation that came and went as quickly as the spark.
Ghost shook himself out like a dog might after its fur had got wet, but he didn't seem overly bothered. If anything, the look he threw her after he'd sorted himself back together had Ta-da! written all over it.
Did anything dampen that little guy's spirits for long?
"Arc Light," he said. Cheerfully.
"I see." Literally. To be fair, she'd have probably not believed it if all they'd done was told her. No matter the things she'd already witnessed. "So it's like— electricity."
"Electromagnetism." Ghost's shell ticked. "Uh. Sort of."
"And Solar, that's, what, fire?"
He hesitated.
"Think hotter," John put in.
"Right. Solar. Sunnish. Like, fusion hot?"
"Ding ding ding." John's lips quirked up into a grin.
Nearby, Ghost whispered: "Sort of."
Her hand inched to her chest where it gave her shirt a soft tug. It was hard not to be reminded of the tight ball of heat under her heart. The one she'd woken to when Ghost had pulled her from her grave. The one that'd tugged and tugged and tugged relentlessly all the way to the City. To the Traveler. Now it lay dormant.
Sort of.
"And what's Void Light?"
"Complicated," Ikora said before anyone else could put an answer forward. "Like I imagine all of this—" She spread her arms a little, indicating… well… everything. "—is for you right now. And no one will fault you for not wanting to be a part of it."
No kidding.
"But you are," she continued.
Nicole slipped her tongue between her teeth.
"And you've been given something that, once word gets out, will have a lot of people asking questions."
"What? Like, my remembering things?"
"That too," John said over the rim of his mug, implying that wasn't quite it.
"The Speaker thing?"
John's head did a little left and right wobble. "That too."
"Your connection to the Traveler," Ikora finally said. "Your Light. This—" She gestured to Ghost. "Replay the ketch recording."
Ghost zipped closer to the table. And printed a picture in thin air, one made of strands of pale holographic light that showed… grass? Why was he showing them grass? A perfect circle of it, no less. Thick and stubby and surrounded by gnarly ground covered in thin, tall weeds.
"What's that?" Nicole asked. Because honestly? She had no idea what she was looking at.
"You," Ikora said at length and making absolutely no sense.
The picture zoomed in and pulled the circle into focus. At its centre stood a dozen or so flowers. Tiny ones. White ones. Daisies, probably.
"Your Light did this when you fled the ketch crash site. Or, rather, the Traveler's Light did. Not a Guardian's."
"There's a difference?" she asked, not looking up from the hologram. Which, admittedly, was pretty neat. Still staring, Nicole mouthed Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, a tickle of amusement blooming briefly. Ghost's shell gave a little twitch.
"There is," Ikora continued. "A Guardian's Light is a weapon, one given to us so we can defend what's left of humanity. And defend the Traveler if we must. But the Traveler's Light? That's life. Creation. Not destruction. It made barren planets habitable for us. Brought them water. Plants. An ecosystem. It rushed aeons of evolution so we could strike out and colonise beyond the moon. And that, my young Guardian, is the Light clings to you more so than it does to any of us."
Nicole stopped staring at the hologram only to look dumbly between Ikora and John.
"Right. So. What does that mean? Because I'm not following."
Ikora leaned back. "I don't know. Maybe it's a byproduct of a light-bearing Speaker. If that's even what you are. For all we know, your connection to the Traveler is incidental and not the point of all of this. Whatever this is."
"Great. That… that's helpful. Really." Nicole clenched her jaw.
"I know this is frustrating."
"No. I don't think you do." Aaaaand that'd come out harsher than she'd wanted it to. So she added a hurried "Sorry," at the end and went back to shoving her hands between her thighs.
"No, you're correct. I don't. But if you'll let me, I'll help you find whatever path you've been sent on. Or at the least teach you how not to set your Ghost on fire."
Said Ghost's shell perked up and his eye widened to form an almost perfect circle. Like a child that'd just heard they were going to Disney World — and somehow Nicole doubted it had anything to do with not being set on fire. And everything with who'd made the offer.
"What if I don't want to?"
Ghost promptly deflated. The hologram he'd been holding up winked out. "Guar—"
Ikora held up a finger. His voicebox fell silent.
"No one will make you. This is your choice." She leaned forward, folding her hands in front of her and looking up to Nicole. Like an adult coming down to a child's height. "But those visions you've had? They're given to you by the Traveler. The Traveler. I don't know how much your Ghost told you already about it. How it... gave itself up to create them. We thought it died then. That all that's left of it are its Ghosts. And us."
A shiver snuck down Nicole's spine. She recalled how she'd felt staring at it from her window in her flat. Like standing at a stranger's grave, the one she ought to remember in life and didn't know had ever died.
"Yet here you are. Right in front of me. Maybe you're a Guardian raised just a little closer to the Traveler, or a Speaker gifted with its Light. Whichever it is — and whatever you choose to do with it — it won't change that you've been given something extraordinary."
"I didn't want anything extraordinary. I didn't want—" Nicole gestured lamely. "—death visions while dead. They freak me out." An understatement, that. "It's not... I don't... it's not even like they make sense. Nothing does."
Ikora's brow furrowed. "They don't follow you when you're awake," she half asked, half guessed.
Nicole shook her head.
"No waking visions at all?"
Another slight shake of her head.
"What about… dreams?"
"Nightmares," Nicole admitted. Her eyes flicked to Ghost — and looked right through him to stare at John long enough for anxiety to well from her chest again. "Really arse nightmares, but just nightmares," she added quickly.
She wasn't about to start raving about wolves. She'd look like a loony.
Ikora sat back, a quiet "Hm," trailing her.
"What did you do back when?" John asked when no one else offered to fill the silence.
The question caught her off guard. Nicole stared at her hands for a moment, the ones still buried between her thighs. "Stuff," she said.
"Exciting. What sort of stuff?"
"Technical writing, I guess?" She pulled her hands out and wrung them on her knees instead. Was that what he'd meant? Work? She glanced up and found him watching her with a go on sort of look. So she got on. "I was rubbish at it though? Fair though, because I was generally rubbish at doing the whole work thing. Tried a lot of jobs but nothing ever stuck." Least that was one way to go about not saying how it was hard to hold on to work when you got anxiety eating you from the heels up every day. She tried not to think of that and reached for her mug of coffee to lift it under her chin. "Even did a wee bit of barista work once. Suppose I wasn't all bad at that."
"Aha," John went and suddenly he was up and headed for the counter.
"What are you doing—" Darrow piped behind him, zipping along.
Nicole took a deep breath and tried her hardest to generally unclench. Though the moment she did that, her right knee started bouncing. That awful, cursed thing. She set a hand down on it and grimaced.
"My offer stands, regardless," Ikora said. If Nicole's lukewarm reaction to that extraordinary gift had disappointed her, she didn't let it show. "And if only to give you a little certainty by teaching you what you weren't given. A little reassurance."
And while Nicole mustered up the courage for a nod, John made it back to the sofa and dropped himself into it with a content sigh. Then he flipped a piece of paper down on the table in front of her, twisted it with a flick of his wrist, and slid it under her nose.
Help Wanted, it read.
Funny, that.
It was exactly what she thought she ought to be wearing on her forehead.