No one knows how the Awoken survived the Collapse. All we know is they did. They are spectres walking amongst the slain. What they call home, we call a graveyard. My Guardian won't talk completely about her past. She was an assassin for Prince Uldren Sov during Awoken Queen Mara Sov's rise to power in the Reef. More importantly, she is the half sister of the Queen. You would think being a princess would have exempted her from such work but, as it turns out, the Awoken don't have a very high regard for bastards. She won't talk about her time in the Reef beyond her love and respect for her sister and her never ending hatred for her brother. She has spoken about one of her targets but only to explain how she died. I am the only one she's told I think. I suppose what she has revealed is enough to grasp what her time in the Reef was like and why she won't return for more than a moment's time. Our story begins roughly five hundred years ago…

The cell was dark save for the light shining down on a lone, naked figure chained spread-eagled to the ceiling and floor. She was ghost white pale with long red hair, blood dripping from dozens of wounds covering her lithe body, bruises painting large portions of her abdomen and face. One of her eyes was swollen shut, the other glued shut by a large amount of dried blood. She was sure she had at least two broken ribs as it hurt to breathe but she did not know for sure. How long had she been in this cell? Was it days or weeks? For all she knew it could have been a few hours or a few months. What was important was she was getting out or at least die trying. The door opened and the woman tried unsuccessfully to raise her head and open her eyes to see who her tormenter was today. Three men entered the room, cracking their knuckles as the approached the woman.

"I don't know why we keep having to come in here lady. You could end the beatings if you just told the L.T. what he wants to know," one of the men said. "He's right ya know. Not that we don't enjoy using you like a punching bag but it used to be more fun. You used to not make a sound. Now it's all screams and coughing up your own blood. It really is quite messy, loud and, to be quite frank, your blood is hard to wash out," another quipped.

"All he asks is my name. He knows my name," the woman rasped, her voice hardly above a whisper.

"Lady, that doesn't sound like our problem."

The woman shook her head. "No, I don't suppose it is. Before you start, could you clean the blood off my eye please? I'd like to be able to see."

The men looked at each other. "Eh, sure. Dunno why you want to see the hits comin' but what the hell." One approached and pulled a rag from his pocket. He wiped none to gently at her eye until her fiery red eye stared back at him.

"Thank you. Please-," she pleaded, voice quivering. "Oh you hear that guys, she's begging. Haha, little missy, you know the rules. Soon as you start begging, we gotta kill ya. Orders is orders. Go on ask. We'll write it on your body bag," another of the men guffawed as he leaned in close.

"Well what is it?" The woman released her hold on the chains holding her wrists and dropped to her feet, her hands sliding out of the broken shackles.

"Die," she said, voice hard as steel, as she grabbed the man closest to her by the head and twisted with all her might. She grabbed the baton at the dead man's waist as he fell and swung it at the second man, his mouth agape. The strike caught him in the throat and smashed his jugular. As she went to follow up with another swing, the third man lashed out with three rapid and vicious kicks to her groin. The woman grunted in pain as she fell to her knees. The man kept throwing kicks, hitting her shoulders, arms and battered ribs. The man threw another kick but the woman caught his leg and elbowed his other leg in the knee. The knee gave a sickening crack and the man howled in pain and rage. As he fell to the ground the woman picked up the baton again and started battering his face. She stopped only when she was sure he was dead. She fumbled around with his pockets until she found the keys to her ankle restraints.

"H-how? How did you get out?" The woman turned. The man whose jugular she hit was struggling to stand.

"How you ask. Simple, you fucked up. Maybe not you but one of you shits did when you undid my restraints and took me to the showers. My hands were not bound during the trip. I nabbed the keys off of you and palmed them." She picked her way around the bodies of the others and snatched a knife from one. "Now I do believe my last request was for you to die."

The woman eased herself around the door frame and scanned the hallway. She popped back into her cell, counted to ten and then scanned the hallway again to be sure she was alone. First order of business, find a first aid kit and get patched up. Next, find my effects. Using the wall as support, she moved as fast and silent as her aching body would allow. Ah, well that is convenient. Almost too much so, she thought as she spotted a confiscations room and a medbay further down. She eased the door open and peeked inside. There was one person in the room, their back to her. The woman slipped silently inside the room and approached the sole occupant. In one swift motion she slipped her hand over the person's mouth and stabbed them at the base of the skull with her stolen knife. She caught the body and almost fell to the floor with it. As she eased the body the rest of the way to the floor, she scanned the rest of the room. A medkit lay on a table to her right and her effects were to her left.

An itch began in the back of her mind. This was too easy. Why would a medkit be in this room? She'd spotted a medbay door further up the hall. Surely a medkit in here was an unnecessary redundancy. She opened the medkit and set to work dressing her wounds. Once complete she went to her effects and dressed. She pulled her guns and holsters off of the wall and strapped them in place over her tank top and cargo pants. Before she could don her armor, she heard voices at the door. She quickly nabbed her own personal knives and slipped them into place and then drew her pistols. She took cover, aimed at the door and waited.

It felt like an eternity but eventually the voices faded into the distance. She moved to the door and pressed her ear to it. When she was satisfied with the silence, she opened the door and checked the hall. Clear. She contemplated donning her armor but decided against it. Her armor was unmarked, nothing to tie her back to those who had sent her and it would take time she did not have to put on. She moved down the hall towards the medbay. She stopped long enough to glance in and check the occupancy of the room and saw it was empty. She made her way past the medbay to an intersection in the hall and took a right. If she remembered correctly, this was the way to the docking bay and she desperately needed a ship. She move quickly and quietly down the corridor, taking detours to dodge patrols but always coming back to the corridor that lead to freedom. Some time later she saw the door to the hanger and she breathed a sigh of relief. Another twenty yards or so and she'd be free. As she broke out into a sprint toward the door, it opened revealing the beaming face of the Awoken man who'd captured her.

"Ah, our guest has finally escaped. Is the mercenary assassin, the Vestian, trying to fly the coop? You didn't think we wouldn't know did you? You aren't as subtle as you think you are, Vestian," he said as he walked slowly toward her.

"Or should I say Canaan Sov. Yes, I have friends in high places. I know who you are and was alerted the moment they sent you to kill me," he halved the distance between them and stopped.

Canaan struggled to keep her face passive. How had he known? The only two who had knowledge of her mission outside of the Crows were her siblings. Uldren watched his Crows so closely this kind of security breach would be unheard of and Mara would never betray her. She scanned the corridor ahead of her trying to find a way out. She was in no shape to fight. She had her pistols and the man appeared unarmed however she noticed the air shimmering around him. He was wearing the energy shield that had foiled her when she initially tried to assassinate him.

"I am genuinely impressed, Colonel," she finally responded. "To have a mole in the Crows is no small feat. You should be proud."

The Colonel shook his head as he chuckled. "You couldn't be more wrong." Canaan's one good eye narrowed. "What do you mean," she asked.

"I have a better question, my Lady, why is a princess masquerading as a mercenary assassin," the Colonel sneered. "It seems a waste of your womanly talents. In any case, I cannot permit you to leave. You are guilty of at least four hundred-eighteen counts of first degree murder, o73 counts of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of attempted murder. I sentence you to death."

Canaan giggled, confusing the Colonel.

"Why are you laughing? I'm about to kill you!" Canaan gathered herself, bringing her mirth under control. "I'm sorry. It's just…do you have any idea how corny that sounded? Seriously? I've heard better dialogue from a porno."

The Colonel roared as he leapt towards her. Canaan turned, running as fast as she could. She remembered a power conduit back down the hallway. If she could manage to throw the Colonel into it, it should short out his shield. She raised her pistol and fired repeatedly as she ran until electricity started arcing violently from the conduit. Just as Canaan glanced over her shoulder, the Colonel pounced. As he tackled her, he wrenched one of her pistols from her grasp and fired twice into her right knee. She screamed in pain and folded, trying to protect her ruined joint. The Colonel stood and mercilessly kicked her in the face, breaking her cheekbone and eye socket, causing her head to snap back and bounce off of the deck plating. Disoriented and in excruciating pain, she was unprepared to fend him off as he grabbed her by the throat and threw her into the wall. She looked across the hall, vaguely aware of the pulsing conduit just feet from her.

"Let me tell you what is going to happen to you. I am going to fuck you. I am going to fuck in every hole you have and once I run out of holes I'm going to shoot you so I can have a new hole to fuck. Then, only once I am spent, I will kill you. Finally I will ship your raped and mutilated corpse to your sister to show that whore what happens when you try to fuck with me," the Colonel said as he tore her shirt from her. "Much better," he sneered as he stared at her bare chest.

He picked her up by the throat again and smashed her head against the bulkhead several times before dropping her. He knelt at her feet and admired her helplessness. "Now I do like it when they fight so please, for me, resist."

Canaan looked him in the eye. "With pleasure," she rasped as she kicked him in the face with her good leg. While her foot came into contact with the energy shield, preventing him from being hurt, it did have the desired effect of pushing him into the pulsing power conduit. The Colonel's shield fizzled and popped before finally short circuiting and exposing him to thousands of watts of electricity. Canaan pulled herself up onto her good leg. She held onto the bulkhead with one arm as she aimed her remaining pistol with the other. She fired into the Colonel's convulsing body three times, once in the head and twice in the heart. She looked toward the hanger bay door.

With only one usable leg, it looked like it was miles away. She hopped down the corridor, each jolt sending new waves of pain up and down her spine, amplifying the horrendous pain already in her head and knee. She almost fell. Almost gave up. After what felt like an eternity, she made it to a ship and crawled into the pilot's seat. She nearly passed out during her quick preflight check and undocking. She set the autopilot with her rendezvous coordinates and fell back into the seat. The ship slipped from its moorings and rocketed away from the hanger and into space. Canaan looked out the window. Good. Still in the Reef. Hopefully we're somewhat close to the Outpost. Uldren is not going to be happy when I get back. She needed to stay awake. She knew she had a concussion, several broken bones and was bleeding quite heavily from her right knee. She looked at the ETA before her on the screen. Three hours. She could stay awake for three hours.

Three Hours Later…

Canaan ship stopped at the rendezvous. She looked for her contact as best she could with her blurring vision. She saw a small ship like shape moving towards her. She opened hailing frequencies and broadcast a single word.

Vestian.

She prayed to whatever gods would listen that she would get back the friendly response. The seconds crawled by like hours. Her comms pinged with a single word response.

Destiny.

Canaan breathed a sigh of relief. "This is the Vestian, requesting permission to dock. I am critically wounded and in need of medical assistance," she rasped over the comm channel. A voice she did not expect came back.

"You're late. Docking permission granted. I will meet you in the airlock," and the channel went dead.

Canaan set the autopilot to dock with the shuttle. She hobbled over to the airlock and waited for the chamber to equalize the air pressure. Once the cycle completed, she palmed open the airlock door and saw that her ears did not deceive her. Prince Uldren Sov, her brother, had been the one waiting for her. The itch in the back of her mind started again. He was not supposed to be here. In the twenty-five years since their parents' death during the flight from Earth, he had never left Mara's side.

"What the happened to you," Uldren snapped, breaking her from her thoughts.

"My Lord, the Colonel knew you had dispatched an assassin. He had knowle-…" Uldren slapped Canaan across her broken face.

"I asked what happened to you, bitch, not about your assignment," he yelled as Canaan fell to the floor in pain.

He had never struck her before. He yelled before, downplayed her successes, bullied her mentally and emotionally but never hit her. His next words surprised her. "You can't rely on other people anymore these days, you have to do everything yourself," he said as he went back to his ship.

Canaan dragged herself up and hobbled to Uldren's ship. "Uldren, what's wron-…"she went to ask but was interrupted by a gun firing. Canaan didn't register the pain. She looked down and saw her right leg had been blow off at the knee. She looked up. Uldren had donned his space suit and grabbed a shotgun. She opened her mouth to speak but was smashed in the face with the butt of the shotgun. She fell back, her left hand reaching out to grab the railing in the airlock chamber.

"No matter what I do, no matter who I send you after, no matter how dangerous the mission, you always come back alive. How? How do you do it? You are a liability that refuses to just go away. You won't die. Why won't you die? You are a hindrance to Mara and I's plans. Your existence is a threat to ours. I'd have killed you outright years ago if not for Mara's undying desire to have you around. She can't see how dangerous you are to have around. No more. I'm done trying to have you killed and this time I am going to just do it myself. I can't shoot you on my ship, that would look suspicious. I do need your leg though," he said as he walked into through the airlock and into her ships docking ring. He grabbed her severed leg and carried it into his ship and stowed it in a locker. Uldren activated the magnetic locks in his boots, gluing him to the deck. "Instead I'm going to space you."

Canaan looked up at Uldren, tears streaming down her face. "If you're going to kill me, please, knock me out or shoot me. Please." She had seen what happened to other who were spaced. It was an incredibly painful death.

"No," Uldren replied, his voice devoid of emotion. He hit several buttons on the console next to the airlock door as Canaan pleaded with him to just kill her quickly. He looked at her and grinned as he ejected the docking ring of his ship. Air rushed from his ship into space as Canaan held onto the railing with a death grip. Uldren sighed as he pointed the shotgun at the inside of her left elbow. She tried to beg him not to kill her, to help her but her words were lost in the rushing air. Uldren fired once and then Canaan was floating rapidly away, her hand still gripping the railing. Uldren activated the emergency airlock door and initiated the pressurization sequence for his ship. He stepped over to Canaan's severed forearm. He smashed the fingers with the butt of his weapon until he was able to break its grip. He collected the forearm and stored it with the severed leg and set course for home. Given sudden my decompression, there was no blood evidence he had shot his younger sister and he had all the evidence he needed to spin a story of Canaan's heroism and tragic death.

That was several centuries ago. Something about her physiology has granted her extremely long life. She hasn't aged physically in all the time I've know her. I found her corpse in orbit above Earth. From the scans I ran on her body, she had been floating for two years prior to her body settling in low Earth orbit where she stayed for close to a decade while I searched…other places. I was able to move her into a derelict ship still capable of flight. I was unable to repair all of the damage. I was able to heal her broken bones, internal injuries and repair her face but was unable to replace her arm and leg. Had she not been spaced I might have been able to repair the damage but exposed to the vacuum of space for so long left the option of complete organic regeneration out of the question. I fashioned two prosthetic limbs from the titanium plating on the ship. I am still quite proud of them. When the current Hunter Vanguard, Cayde-6, saw them he was immediately jealous. When I revived her, she was extremely hostile and confused. The last thing she remembered was her brother's smiling face as he gleefully pulled the trigger on the shot that sealed her fate. We spent a month on that ship, getting used to her new limbs, before she would even speak to me beyond yelling threats and curses. During our last week on that ship, she fell into a deep depression. She was essentially dead. Her sister had almost certainly been told of her demise. She couldn't go back to her home. When I went to inform her of the dwindling supplies, she was sobbing. She asked my name. I told her I was a Ghost created by the Traveller to find her. She said she didn't know what a Ghost was or who the Traveller was and she didn't care at the moment. She wanted to know my name. I told her I didn't have a name. She looked at me and said she no longer did either. She stood and stroked my shell with her hand and said, 'Since we're stuck with each other for the foreseeable future, you need a name. From here on out, your name is Nolan, and I guess I'm glad to have met you. My name is Ryuko. Ryuko Shepard. Now let's get this piece of shit on the ground.'