7. In which the warlock is a man-child with a plan

The warlock was completely still beside her, his whole body tense as a drawn bow. Nicole climbed to her feet slowly, trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened, and more importantly, what they were going to do next.

She looked away from the warlock and back to the barrier. Translucent white, it glowed just a little brighter when she reached out to touch it, but it didn't hurt her. It felt like ice beneath her glove. Cold and slick and impossibly solid. She frowned beneath her mask. They had to do something. They needed to take it down… They needed heavy artillery. They could get that at their ships. She turned and looked back at the jungle behind them.

That was a long walk back, especially without their sparrows. At least a three day trek. And they had no rations. Well, Nicole had a few, but not enough for three days. She doubted the warlock had any at all. So between the two of them, she had enough for a single meal. Most of her supplies were with the ghost. That included canteens and ammo, food rations, and her sniper. She had traded it out for the rocket launcher after she had finished with the hobgoblins on their watch towers. She still had her scout rifle at least.

Another terrible thought occurred to her then. Without their ghosts, any injury they sustained on the trip back they would just have to deal with. And if they died… She paled at the thought.

She heard the warlock move behind her, and she turned to look at him, remembering that he was there again. He was digging at the ground against the barrier and Nicole resisted the urge to snort. Did he think they could dig underneath it? These kind of barriers sealed over any open air.

She tapped his shoulder and suddenly he was standing and looking directly at her. "Can you sign?"

She shook her head. She didn't talk to enough people to justify learning. And besides, she had her ghost for that sort of thing. She kind of regretted it now, but it was too late to beat herself up over it.

"That's inconvenient," he muttered and was back to messing with something on the ground the next moment.

If this was his version of honestly freaking out, then she could deal with this. He wasn't talking, just digging, from what she could tell. But digging was going to be useless so when she tapped on his shoulder this time, she tugged him a little in the direction they needed to go.

He looked over his shoulder at her and she gestured to the jungle behind them. He didn't acknowledge her right away, instead going back to whatever he was doing, which Nicole realized was not in fact digging. He was trying to free a Vex head that had been severed from the body and was slowly being reclaimed by the jungle trees. It had been there for so long, its plating was nearly completely green with moss.

What is he doing…? It came out as a clearly exasperated sigh that actually got the warlock's attention.

He swiveled his helmeted head at her and she got the impression he was glaring. "This thing might have useful information on it," he defended, sounding irritated.

They seriously had better things to do than argue with each other. Not that Nicole was really capable of arguing back. So she just walked away. They had a long walk ahead of them, after all.


The warlock followed her at a distance, insisting on carrying that stupid head with them. Occasionally she would lose him and have to loop back to find him starting to curve back the way they had come. Stupid warlock had no sense of direction. He was far too distracted by whatever was going on in his head to pay attention, and that irritated Nicole probably the most. She wanted to yell at him and tell the exact course of action they were taking so that he would just leave that dead weight thing behind and at least try to keep up with her.

By the fourth time she had to go find him she was ready to give up for the day. The shadows through the trees were starting to get long and gold as the afternoon waned and she couldn't tell how far they had made it, but it didn't seem all that far. She could still hear the barrier in the distance, a humming gentler than the gate, but still like a persistent itch in the back of her head.

Her lamp was with her ghost and she wasn't in the mood to play charades with the warlock to try to tell him they needed light. So she found a shallow cave made by a rock and hanging lichen. It wasn't the most protected place but it would do for the night.

The warlock walked past where she had stopped and would have kept right on going if she hadn't grabbed the back of his armor and drug him back. She pointed to the little cave and pushed him inside. She pressed on his shoulders once they were both in, him having to stoop in the small space. He got the hint after a second and sat down on the moist ground, crossing his legs and still holding that damn head in his lap like a kid with toy.

She wanted to take it away from him just to spite his immature little ass, but decided that it was probably best to just let him keep it. If it was helping to keep him this obedient and quiet, then she could swallow her irritation.

She spent the next several moments trying to tell him that she needed him to set up a camp while she went looking for food. The jungle was filled with Venusian wildlife and she wanted to try and save her rations if she could, just in case they needed them in a pinch.

He still had his helmet on, irritatingly, and she couldn't tell if his blank stare was because he really wasn't paying attention or because Nicole was bad at charades. She ended up handing him a stick and making sparkly hand motions over it, and that was the point when Nicole gave up and left. He was a warlock, for Travellers sake. If he couldn't figure that out then Light help him.

She returned an hour later, kill in hand. Darkness was settling over the jungle again, and Nicole felt blind without even her ghost to keep her calm. She felt exposed out here. She almost walked past the cave in the near darkness. She stopped outside the hanging lichen that created a door, and sighed heavily. There was no light inside, which meant the warlock probably hadn't done anything.

She stomped into the cave, ripping the lichen aside harshly. There was just enough light to see the warlock in the back of the cave look up at her. The vex head he had insisted on dragging with them was in a hundred pieces around him, pieces of it hooked to wires that connected to his helmet. He recognized her then went back to whatever it was he was doing.

She wanted to yell. She wanted to slap him again. Instead she took a calming breath and left the cave again. She returned a while later with enough dead foliage and twigs to hopefully start a fire. If the warlock was going to make her do everything, then fine. He wasn't going to get dinner then.

Everything was wet, of course, and that made fire making difficult at best. Just because they didn't feel the rain so much down beneath the canopy, did not mean the ground was exactly dry. It leaked down the trees and pooled in wide fern leaves. It covered everything in a thick layer of moisture and it was making Nicole's frustration even worse. She spent awhile trying to zap the moisture from the bigger pieces she had brought in, but then even the kindling wouldn't light, no matter how hard she tried to electrocute it. She had done this before, she had done this hundreds of times. Davion had been a gunslinger, but he had still taught her how to use her own light to keep her alive. You didn't need solar to create fire. You just needed energy of any kind. Even void Light wielders could start fires if they were so inclined.

But she was just so frustrated. Frustrated and angry, and scared. She felt empty without her ghost, blind without his guidance, exposed without his light near hers. They were nearly stranded out here in the total darkness, and if something happened to her, that would be it. There would be no one to save her. No one was coming for her this time. If she got lost in the dark… she wouldn't be coming out this time.

She threw the stick against the wall, curling up her knees and hiding her face. She wanted to go home. She wanted all of this to be over. She wanted her ghost back.

There was a soft whooshing noise that caught her attention. She looked up, smelling something burning. It wasn't the ozone smell of her arc this time, but a warm wood burning smell. One of the logs she had brought in was burning gently, small flames flickering over the top surface. The warlock's hand was still outstretched over it when she looked. He retreated back to the vex head careful of the spool of wires still connected to his head. He looked like he was a part of some bizarre experiment and it was kind of weird. She wanted to know what he was hoping to achieve but at the same time, she really didn't want to know.

"If you wanted a fire, you could've just said something."

Aaaand that momentary gratitude she had for the light was gone in a flash. Dumb, stupid, selfish warlock. She gave him a look, trying to bottle all her frustration up in a single glare.

She still couldn't see his face but his shoulders did a little twitch. "That was a poor choice of words," he muttered, then returned his focus to the head again.

Again, Nicole had the distinct urge to slap him. But she figured that if he could make the fire then he could probably take it away again and she was too frustrated to make her own. So she let him go. Swallowing her anger was not something new to her, she just hated how often she had to do it for this idiot.

She built a proper fire after that, using the task to help keep herself calm. The busy work was a nice change, and it kept the doom and gloom hanging at her shoulder at bay for while. She cleaned the little Venusian bird, skinning the colorful scales and cutting it in half down the spine so it would fit on two stakes.

Night had fully set in by the time they were done cooking and Nicole was so hungry she ate the first one without even waiting for it to cool. The warlock was focused on his stupid head still. She waited a little while before deciding he didn't want it and she ate the second half too.

Suddenly he ripped the cables off his helmet and took the thing off for the first time in nearly two days. She was still working on the second half when he seemingly came back to land of the living. He looked at the fire, then her, then the half eaten bird in her hand.

"Any left?"

She couldn't help the little smirk. She made a point of taking a slow bite. He hardly helped her set up camp, didn't help her get any food for them, he wasn't doing anything but playing with a stupid dead vex head. He wasn't helping them get their ghosts back; in fact, he was slowing them down with that stupid thing. He had been nothing but a pain in her ass this whole time. She was going to enjoy her bird and if he wanted food, he could go out and find it himself.

He glared at her for a second then put his helmet back on. It looked like he was going to go pout in his corner of the cave, gathering up the mess he had created and curling up in his corner. Nicole was happy he wasn't planning to annoy her, even if she feel just a little bad about denying him dinner. He would be fine. She would help him find some fruit in the morning, she decided. She finished her food and smothered some of the fire so that nothing was left but small flames.

She curled in her own corner and tried to get some rest.


She wasn't sure when she fell asleep, but something woke her up. Her first instinct was to request a status report from her ghost, but was met with only that aching silence. She glanced around the small cave. The fire was nothing but a few smoldering embers, darkness still clung to the walls even as the pre-dawn grey began to chase it away. The warlock was gone.

She leapt up and bolted from the cave. The jungle was far too quiet for this time in the morning. There was no rustling in the underbrush, no birdsong in the trees. Which meant something was going down nearby.

Then she heard it. An angry minotaur sound in the near distance, but no answering gunfire or explosions. She was moving without thinking. That stupid, idiot warlock! Why had he left the cave? Why did he go out without her? If he died out here, she was going to be alone again. She would have to return to the Tower and tell the vanguard by herself that she had lost another guardian. That was even if she managed to get the ghosts back by herself.

She couldn't be left alone again. Even if he was annoying and selfish and so, so stupid, she refused to let him die out here. She refused to have more blood on her hands.

The minotaur was making all kinds of ruckus in a small clearing between tree trunks. It stomped around loudly, crushing ferns and bushes at it went. It spun when she came crashing out of the trees and immediately started firing on her. Nicole was far too quick for it, blinking out the way of its shots. She wove between the trees, taking shots at it every time it lost track of her. She whittled down the shield it had and eventually blew the head off.

Angry and confused, the giant crashed through the trees in the direction of her last known location, running headlong into a tree with enough force it fell over and didn't move again. Nicole finally let herself be still for a moment, holding her breath in case the minotaur did stand back up again. When it didn't, she let her cloak fade and she came back into the visible spectrum.

Then she was moving again, searching the bushes and trees for the warlock, the whole time a roaring mantra in her head. She was alone, she had failed him. He was dead somewhere and she would never find him and he would be claimed by the jungle and Nicole would have let another guardian die. She didn't have to look for very long. He came to her, calling out as he climbed down from the tree he had been hiding in. She leapt at him, never so happy to see his idiotic little mug.

She practically tackled him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a hug. He staggered backwards with her sudden weight, but didn't fall over.

"Uh…?" He didn't seem sure what to do with his hands for a moment, but eventually one came to rest on the small of her back and the other on her shoulder. He pushed her away after a second, looking down at her. "Are you okay?"

I thought I was going to lose you! I thought you were dead! I thought I was alone!

"Whoa, whoa hey, calm down lass, it's alright. I'm alright, you aren't alone."

She looked up at him in surprise, before realizing that she had been so caught up in her own head, she had actually mouthed the words. That realization made her feel even worse. She wanted to talk, every fiber of her being wanted to, but she was incapable of doing even that! She let her face drop into her hands. This was too stressful. She just wanted to go home. She was used to being in control. She was used to being the mentor, the guide. She was never afraid, she was never in any trouble herself. She forgot how terrifying it was to be in risk of dying. In true risk of never making it out.

The warlock led her to a rock she could sit on for a moment, crouching down in front of her and taking off his helmet. She couldn't even remember where her helmet was and for a moment she didn't care. She felt like she was dying. Something inside of her was screaming and she couldn't breathe.

There was a gentle touch on her cheek, warm and soft against her skin. She looked up to see the warlock very close to her. "Hey, listen to me." His voice was low and deep and Nicole was frozen in his gaze. "Everything is going to be okay," he told her gently. "We will get through this. We will survive. We will get our ghosts back."

She was enraptured, completely distracted. He said it all with such finality, such charismatic confidence that she couldn't help but believe him. He was so close to her now, their foreheads were practically touching, and Nicole felt like she should have been embarrassed by his gall. But all she could think about for a second was that his eyes were the most vibrant shade of green she had ever seen.

"Okay?" She nodded and he moved away. The spell was broken and she felt her face heat up. If he noticed he didn't say anything about it. "That barrier needs stabilizing conduits to keep it running, and those conduits need open air to stay cool. Which means they have to be outside the dome." He was standing again, pointing back toward the direction of the barrier. "I managed to pull the location of several off that vex head last night."

And Nicole was back to feeling a little stupid. Her immediate solution had been to get the heavy artillery. Aydin was thinking about a more technical approach. Of course, his plan did not require a three or four day hike through enemy territory. And this was why she was a hunter, and he was a warlock. It wasn't like she was incapable of coming up with intelligent plans. She just usually came to the conclusion that the simplest solutions were often the easiest.

He turned back to look at her and Nicole found herself frozen in his gaze again. His smile was gentle when he offered it to her, reassuring and confident. His eyes were warm and kind and Nicole felt it wash over her like a soothing breeze. She wasn't sure how he was doing that, but Nicole was so desperate for the comfort, for someone else to take responsibility and lead them, that she couldn't bring herself to care. As long as he kept smiling at her like that.

"In the meantime," he said, his voice breaking her trance. "I've found a place we can get breakfast and some fresh water. Maybe wash up a bit before we carry on." He stepped toward her and outstretched his hand. "You okay now?"

She nodded and took his hand, letting him lead her for once.


Afterword: I'm so sorry this chapter is short. I spent most of the week moving and not really writing. I didn't get nearly as far with this chapter as I wanted but I ran out of time and Fallout is calling my name. Haven't had a chance to play the new DLC and I'm itching to try it.

So a few things I forgot to mention last time that has been bugging me and I'm sure may bug any space nerd like me. Venusian days are about 166 earth days. Obviously if I wanted to play with Nicole's fear of the dark I had to pretend that wasn't a thing. Also, in the actual game, Venus has a day/night cycle that is fairly similar to Earth's day/night cycle. So I assumed that when the Traveler terraformed things, he sped up Venus's spin, which would change a lot of other things but I'm not going to get into any more science nerd bullshit because that isn't what y'all are here for. I'd also like to point out that Venus has no moons, so any night time light is ambient ground light being reflected off the clouds.

Anyway. A special thanks to F1REAT4R, spacedolphin3, and oozak12 for their reviews. They are very much appreciated guys! Thank you to everyone who faved and subbed, I hope you guys are enjoying the story.