They found him in his quarters, the Wraith perched by his side, whispering and muttering into his ear. The Frost didn't seem to notice their unwelcome arrival at first, but Thanatos certainly did.
"Intrigued. Our lost sheep find their way home, it seems." He lowered his tone, perhaps out of regret, or even fear. He looked, of course, to Orion. "And this one still lives."
"Indeed they have." The Frost ignored Orion's presence in the room, purposely not offering him the satisfaction of being noticed. He knew how to play him.
"And here they stand, with such audacity," he rose from his kneeling to face them, "as if nothing has happened, as if they haven't abandoned their brothers and sisters in such a dire time, as if they could all not have perished with him." He pointed his gloved finger at Orion, one Orion had come to long recognise.
"You left me to die!" Ash exploded, instantly grabbing his sword. The icy air flew around the scythe which came to meet him and rested gently beneath his jaw. The others didn't dare intervene.
"That would be most unwise." A human voice stated from under the hood, through the amber eye. Ash relaxed his grip, but his hand did not stray too far.
"This is not over." His words stabbed daggers at the Nekros, dripping with poisonous loathing. He would find somewhere for their eventual 'discussion', but here was not the place, now not the time.
The Ember showed genuine humility and knelt down on one knee, too which the others did the same, apart from Ash, which surprised no one. "We apologise, Clan General., but it was a mission we had to take. We needed-"
"I don't need your petty apologies. What is done is done." He looked pitifully down at the Ember with those icy grey eyes. Air hissed through his teeth as he exhaled. "And what of the Nephthys? She was just cleared as a Silver Initiate! I would expect you as her sister, Nyx," he swept his steely gaze to her, "to think more sensibly than this. Evidently my trust was misplaced in you. In everyone in front of me."
They dared not answer back to him. Silence hung like a noose under their throats. The Wraith took his leave, scythe held at his side.
The Frost turned back to the icy altar, which glistened and sparkled in the White Sun's light. It lit up the room, shining against various battleaxes and war hammers that hung in ceremonial wraps of dark blue and painted with words of ancient tongue. The stars which they had come from not so long ago twinkled outside the viewing gallery.
"I have no time to speak on this matter any longer. Prepare your arms and your warframes, and give anything you may need repaired to the Vauban. The Grineer come in their thousands to this sector, led by General Vay Hek. The tracker that was implanted in Ash must have sent out a signal to them, and now they swarm us like hornets." His anger was already quelled, and now his face looked of nothing but pity.
"You may have brought about our destruction, Ash. I surely hope you can help us avert it." He shook his head as he knelt back down.
"Now go. I must pray for His blessing; maybe then we may see tomorrow."
Umbra wanted nothing more than sleep. But sleep would never come until she saw her sister safe. She couldn't even look upon her when she first brought her into the medical bay and lay her down on the linen sheets. When she couldn't hold back the tears, she had gone outside and let them flood through. Her hand still hurt from hitting it against the wall in a small fit of anger; anything to let the pain out. Then waves of sorrow racked her body, destroying any defences she might have had. After what seemed like eons later, once she composed herself and her eyes were dry, she approached the Trinity and Vauban with a meek smile, as if she had left her terrible bereavement outside the door.
"Will she wake up?" She asked the dreaded question.
The Vauban spoke first, gruff as ever. "Of course she will, nothing to worry about. Her body has simply gone into shock. However, whether she wakes up the same, whichis another question entirely."
"The same?"
"Whoever – or whatever – grabbed her through that portal destroyed her psynaptic link. Her brain has suffered no lasting damage, but she will not be able to wield a Nyx, Nepthys or any other psynapse-based warframe again."
His words were fists, hitting her harder into the wall with every passing second. She felt her face flare up again, and the waves of grief started to crash against her, like the sea throwing itself at her high cliffs, chipping away a bit at a time. She covered her face with her hands and sank into the wall.
"I'm sorry, Umbra." The Trinity softly placed her metal hand onto Umbra's shoulder, barely whispering.
The Nyx shook off the futile considerations with a shrug of her arm. She mumbled another useless question through her fingers.
"What about her legs?"
The Trinity immediately looked away and walked back to the machine threaded into Ilene. Vulcan also averted his gaze, evidently made uncomfortable by the subject. And he had every right to be; her legs were severed from the waist down, cauterised by the maw of the Void.
"I have a few ideas, of course, but nothing right now, nothing that would work, unless..." The Vauban let his thoughts spill from his mouth. It was a horrible habit he had and one Umbra detested.
"Unless what? Can you just tell me without blathering on about it, Vulcan?" She snapped, perhaps too harshly.
"Right, right." He scratched the iron grey stubble salted on his chin as he keyed in glyphs on a control panel, built next to a large empty frame imbedded in the wall. "Here," he paused as the outlet came forward and whirred round, revealing a Warframe coloured in streaks of pure white, and a small slivers of sky blue peeking from in between, and proud red banners adorned down the sides and across the front. A beak with a slight crook at the end was crowned on its head, and graceful wings unfurled at the arms and legs. "is our latest creation. The 'Zephyr'. Lighter than air, fully operational and combat ready. All we need now is someone to pilot it."
Despite the grand entrance, and the 'stylish' colour choices, Umbra was left unimpressed and with a near frown on her lips.
"Tell me how this will help her. I'm not interested in your new toys, Vulcan." She grumbled.
"Well, Eir and I have been running a few tests and scans, and Ilene should be a perfect fit. She's in a good shape, so to speak," He got a sharp glare from Umbra with that, but she didn't interrupt, "and the suit will not require much movement with the legs, as you may imagine. Besides, we can fit prosthetics in place, and then she'll be ready to go back into the field in no time at all."
"I don't want her in the field, alright? I want her safe." Umbra ordered, not sparing the Trinity any spite. Eir wrinkled her nose and went back to her incessant tapping at the keyboard next to Ilene. She slept so peacefully, it was almost alien to her. Umbra looked down and shook her head, once again burying her head in her hands.
"Give her legs again, but I don't want her near the fighting. She isn't ready. Keep her down here, or in the Mechanicus, or even in the Dead Hallways, I don't care; as long as she isn't harmed. I can't see her hurt again."
She felt her face grow hot again, and her vision blurred from the tears welling up inside her red eyes. Umbra closed her helmet and headed towards the door, pausing only to force herself to look at her sister. She couldn't do it, she realised, as her face crumpled and she fled the room a sobbing mess.
The ravens were restless. Their unwelcome screeches pierced his eardrums. They flew round the room, sometimes perching on the dead trees, or they swooped through the metal catacombs under his feet, but their songs – if you could call them that – never stopped. Any normal Tenno wouldn't last it in this chamber two days. But Thanatos was not a Tenno. No more.
"Request. Brothers of the Wraithguard, share with me your omens. My Eye does not see in this realm."
They kept to the shadows, cowering behind the ravens that circled him.
"Order. Do not hide, brothers. I do not come to harm." He began to pace round the candle-lit room, looking to the flickering shadows. There, it moved. A serpentine form, one of many, flitted in-between the shadows like a puppet behind a screen.
"Noszh ret'kire sak'erdosz." They spoke in a cursed tongue, forgotten to many, and for good reason. The ravens fell unerringly silent.
"Accepted."
His hand was a snake itself, shooting out and back in within an instant. In its skeletal grasp returned one of the ravens. He drew a dagger with his other hand and plunged it into the wretched thing. The blade went through his hand, but he paid it no mind; he was beyond feeling pain in this body. Its cries died with it, but the few of its brethren that defiantly remained perched in the trees chorused even louder. The blood of the raven trickled through the gaps between his fingers and dripped onto the floor, drip-dripping out the seconds before the others' reply.
"Ka'vel tak arsine. Esch ma'lek naves, Thanatos. Voszh izch bet'ikraser." They hissed like snakes, slithering in the shadows of the shrine.
"Annoyance. You know I do not speak that tongue here. You know the consequences of those not of Nyktagün to hear such words."
"Very well. We will share with you what we see, but expect nothing more."
"Accepted."
"Heed." They ordered. "Darkness comes to this place. With it rides corruption, decay and death. There will be many who will fall, most insignificant, most unimportant. Your fellow Tenno will be among them." Their sinister voices clambered on one another, but they all spoke the same, ominous words.
"Warning. You are not to disregard my kin as insignificant. Know this." The Wraith's voice showed a flare of anger to it. This was new to them.
"Unimportant. They will die, like the rest. Among them: a phoenix, a wolf, a jester, a mother."
"Confusion. A mother? I do not understand." A stray raven swooped down to perch on his shoulder, digging its cold claws into his armour. It did not bother him as he stared quizzically at the loudest voice which stalked him round the room.
"Advised. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Thanatos. Know this." They cackled at that, jeering at him from all sides.
"Demand. I wish to know more." He stopped his pacing and tried to find them again through his Eye. They evaded him, but didn't stop their intrepid taunting.
"Denied. Seek your own knowledge, for you will not find it from us."
"Unacceptable. There must be a way to averting this."
"Laughable. Your search for salvation is futile. We have been curious, brother. Why did you leave us? It puzzles us still."
"Answer. I have my reasons. I was... bored."
"Query. Was her embrace not enough?" Snake eyes narrowed behind him.
"Agreement. It was not. My death was not the end for me. It was a beginning. This body is a vessel of my journey. Easily replaceable. My soul is not." A dull tinge of emotion flashed in his eye before being lost to the ever-present darkness of the mist swirling in his hood.
"Pity. The mortal coil does not show promise to us. Your potential is limited. We prefer a life of consideration, and thought."
"Disregard. I show no care for your selfish desires. Your pity is misplaced; you should bear its shame for such cowardice."
"Denial. You swim in a black sea of ignorance, only saved by the beacon of knowledge that we behold. We waste our time. Trouble us no more."
"Curse. You shall rue this day, Arta'kas. This is unacceptable."
A snake's hiss and a diseased cackle was all that answered the Wraith before the candles were snuffed out by a single hand of shadow.
The air had become notably thicker and more humid, and reeked with the smell of the blood. Thanatos held the bird's corpse a lot more gently now, holding it close to his chest. A few uttered words escaped the black confines of his hood as he strengthened his grip. Black energy trailed from his arms and ran like blood across his fingers into the gaping wound in the bird's chest. He spoke the final rites as he drew its wings over its ruined body like black feathery curtains. A moment passed as he finished, but it had worked.
A weak caw rattled from its chest as Thanatos felt its tiny heart beat in his hands. Before long it could flap its wings, and then it was all too eager to escape his hands and to join its friends, seemingly ungrateful and unknowing of its recent trip to whatever raven hell it had been damned to.
"Apologies. They will not join you just yet, Arta'kas. Not until I will it." Thanatos stared up to the flickering candles. Under the hood, he would quite probably have smiled.
The past few days had not been kind. He'd lost more blood than he could think of, spilled even more, and seen a thousand living nightmares he never should have. Exhaustion did not come often, but he was starting to feel its effects. He wiped some of the tiredness off his face with his hand and yawned a rare yawn.
He was sat on a crudely built bench, nailed together with several stray planks of oak from the main training platforms around the room. He wasn't one for the art of carpentry. He was made for something different. The split Nikana was held loosely with his fingertips, the point of the blade touching lightly on the stone floor. He spun it slightly and caught it again when it started to teeter and fall. With it he spun the web of his thoughts, trying to unmake the mess of memories spread across his mind like spilled cans of paint. Red was a most prominent colour, one of blood, one of rage, one of flame. It spoke of past regrets and memories he wished he'd forget. Then, of course, there were the fires. He couldn't rip them from his mind. Again and again he would see the red-haired woman dead on the ground and the Stalker and Father and the killing and th-
"Ash? May I come in?" She startled him. He snapped out of his hypnotic spinning of the sword and sheathed it again behind him. She invited herself, followed by the clicking of her heels. Her helmetless face hid some personal intent. He eyed her suspiciously.
"What happened to inhospitable?" Orion inquired.
"I might have gotten used to it." She had changed the paint on her Saryn warframe, he noticed. A shade darker on the cream, and now her apple red ripened into a bold vermillion, complimented by deep shades of purple that drank in the light and let the rest of her colours bloom. She hopped up to sit above him on one of the lower scaffoldings. She was hiding something behind her back.
He grew tired of asking the same question. "Why are you here, Antheia?"
"I brought something else to cheer you up. It's been a hard few days; I'd imagine they aren't over, so why not celebrate the moment while it lasts?" She suggested.
"I'd be amazed if you could lift my spirits. I guess it's no worth being a miser for my last hours, is it?"
"That's exactly what we don't want. Here, take this." She held out a bottle with strange writing on it, marked with a black label. Oak brown liquid sloshed around inside as she gave it a small jiggle along with a pearly smile.
"I'm not interested in whatever biological horror you've made this time, Antheia. You'd better take your 'gift' to someone deserving of it. Maybe the Vauban might like it."
She chuckled at that. The smile stayed on her lips as she unscrewed it and brought it to her nose, to which she wrinkled her nose in a marvelled type of disgust and amazement. She held out the open bottle to him. He took it unsurely.
"Don't be daft. It's alcohol. 'Visky', I think it's called. I certainly haven't tried it yet, but I'm curious. Anything's better than the factory standard ethanol they serve to the Lancers on Ceres, surely?"
"Right. Where did you get this from, may I ask?"
"Not from the Lancers on Ceres, I can tell you that much."
"I guess that's good enough then, hm?"
She giggled adorably at that. He loved it when she did, it was a shame he couldn't hear it more often. Recent times didn't allow for such things.
"Very well. I'll try it."
She held a light smirk as he held the bottle to his lips, swishing it around for a bit and letting the sharp smell of the liquid rush through his nostrils. It was quite refreshing, but not like a dive into a lake, or a cool drink from the fontis in the shrine; this was a more savage, raw type of refreshment, like electricity jolting through his veins. He took a daring mouthful down, cautious but intrigued. It burned his throat like acid and tasted venomous, but there was a dim, buzzing pleasure to it afterward. He found himself smirking with this pleasure, which encouraged Antheia all the more.
She grimaced as she took her mouthful down, but eventually they both got used to the taste. They shared another two or three awkward sips, accompanied by vulgar coughing and hushed giggling, mostly on Antheia's part. Orion kept his composure and denied the bottle when she offered it back to him. They had barely gotten through a quarter of it. He set it down by his leg, where Dust lay in a worn leather scabbard.
"You know, Ash, you aren't so bad when you aren't out in the field. You become somewhat bearable." She offered the comment with less tact than she usually did; the alcohol may have been stronger than she thought. Nevertheless, she came down with that heavenly grace that preceded her, feet barely making a sound as she landed on her delicate soles.
"What's your point?"
"I'm saying that you should try and get out of this shell you keep yourself in. Start fighting for what is right, you know? Be more like... this."
He didn't answer.
"And maybe then, who knows, you could do something good for once." She gently laid her hand on his shoulder. He twitched slightly but didn't shrug her off.
"For once?"
"You know what I mean."
Her rose-scented hair enveloped him for a moment as she leaned in and pecked him on the cheek. He didn't quite know how to react, but she didn't need a reaction, for she was already gone and making her way towards the door.
"Antheia, your 'gift'? I don't think I'll-"
"Keep it. We'll finish it sometime, ok? After all this is over."
She left him with a playful wink and the same hiss of the doors. His head bowed to stare at the floor.
"Of course."