Planned Absence

"Fancy meeting you here, Dede."

"Haha- don't call me that, sista." He makes a mock angry look. "Unless you're here lookin' for trouble."

"Oh, please." She scoffs, planting herself next to the bar stool occupying the universe's most... interesting Lightbearer. At least that she knows of. Probably. They're currently in - probably - the least dangerous bar on the Tangled Shore, some place that she can't be bothered to remember the name of. The place is simultaneously quiet and rambunctious, with some sort of tense mutual agreement to do business in here, and to not screw that up. The mix of ex-Corsairs and Spider's ilk helps with that image a bit, if only to make sure this isn't a true anarchy. The Shore's only law knows how to run a business, and bad business never looks good to future associates. "With you around, you've got all the trouble handled."

The barhand, a Vandal that most definitely has an assortment of weapons just hidden from view behind the counter, walks over. She mutter an order in their language - something that doesn't translate to anything Human, but had it once and has been ruined for any other drink - and place a few cubes of glimmer in front of the barhand. They nod, voice tinged with a feminine lit underneath the distortion of the mask's vocabulator telling her to ask for a Skekis if she needs anything, and goes off to deal with an argument further down the bar. She keeps an ear out when she notices the lower pair of arms are placed below the countertop.

She looks back to The Drifter, where he sees his patented smile glued onto his face. She raises an eyebrow. "What?"

The argument behind her continues, something that sounds awful if her small knowledge of Ulurant means anything.

He smiles. "Oh, you know; Ol' Drifter here was out on a bit of business, bit of pleasure, enjoying the sights..."

Skekis joins into the argument, barking something along the lines of "If you psesiskars keep making noise, you die." Or something. They stop, but only for the Uluru and Eliksni to move their 'business' far enough away to be out of stabbing distance of the bartender. Too bad for them that she has a wire rifle under that counter, if the telltale whine means anything.

"Oh. Cool. I'm not going to even try to guess what kind of business your up to-"

"Smart move."

"-thank you, but I've come to understand with our time together that you are a knower of things."

When she doesn't elaborate, his expression twitches slightly. "Right. Yes, I know a lot of things. So do some of the other Guardians that have an ear pointed in your direction. Why talk to some-" He moves into a cautious pose. "-Shady drifter."

She snorts. "Well yeah, but..." She takes off her helmet, setting it on the bar's counter between them. She blows an errant brown lock from her left eye and continues in Eliksni. "I need what a Risen knows, yes?"

"Ha!" The man slaps his leg with way too much exaggeration. His laugh drew the eyes of a few other at various tables. Some stay on him, other look back to their own drinks. One stays on her, a Psion of all things.

She tugs at her Solar and pulls it over her thoughts, for a split second inducing rageragerage into every fabric of her mind. The Psion flinches as if struck, then snaps it's head back to watching the other patrons. She smirks, glancing at Drifter to give him a wink.

His smile comes back, this time tinted with something genuine: curiosity. "Now where did you learn to do that trick?"

"Oh gosh, that's a whole story right there..." She leans her back against the bar, just far enough so that her brown hair dusts the counter. Then she turns her body just as exaggerated, clapping her hands together, and giving a wide grin. "Wanna hear it?"

"Oh, ho hell yeah I want to hear it! Now spill, sista."

She raises her brow again. "Don't you have business to do, brotha?" She adds that bit to the end mockingly.

"Ah, that can wait; apparently it's all the rage to think we have all the time in the universe to do things, nowadays."

She shrugs. Well, speaking of time to do things... She turns, watching the bartender return with a few items in hands.

Skekis sets down a bottle of what smells like a cider, a cup, and a flask with a glowing vapor coming out of the top. From what she can tell, the extra set of arms really come into use for mundane things like mixing drinks. She already had too many lessons on how deadly they are, however, and that's admittedly much more formidable, but it's... civil? Domestic? Yeah, small, domestic things like making a drink and seeing an alien do it is much more memorable. Much quicker and that much more skilled than any human could, Skekis finishes making the concoction, and places it in front of her.

When the Vandal sees her eyes, however, she flinches.

The Guardian ignores it and gives a thankful nod, muttering an Eliksni thanks, and turning back to the Drifter. "Well, time is relative, and it's the Vex's plaything, so maybe we're taking one out of the murder robot's books. Or data-fluid? Forbidden Milk? Whichever place they decide to keep that idea going. So..."

She takes a drink, feeling the fruity taste of the cider and the sharp sweetness of low-grade Ether suffuse her taste buds. The chill paradoxically stokes the Solar within, if only slightly. "So, uh- right. There was this Warlock a while back that I was told to go to if I wanted more lessons on the Void, 'cause I just found out the abilities of a Nightstalker. So I went to this guy, and he was one of the older ones; not as old as you, but enough to have been around in the Dark ages, and he gave me a bit more to work on with working Void Light into my everyday fights. But then he started talking about more advanced tactics and other applications of what the Void is capable of, most of it went over my head, and then he told me about how there were beings out there who are capable of looking into your thoughts, and can then predict your next move because you were thinking of doing it. So I didn't want any part of that, and wanted in on that trick."

She starts rolling her free hand's wrist in the air. "But my grasp on Void is more like... teeth. I bite with it, I don't make shields with it. So I took the next closest thing, which was just cleansing any presence of anything other in my mind, and Solar turns out to be a great way to get anyone out of your head. A literal mental firewall." She gives him a look. "And something tells me that you, brother, already know this."

"Yeah, just wanna hear the ex-mute talk. It's a novelty." Drifter grins.

She snickers. "Alright, you ass."

"Language, young lady."

"Psesiskar."

"Bitch."

"That's Wolf to you." She points, the grin pulling her face being genuine. "At least I didn't give you the real bad one. Then you'd be in trouble."

"Alright, alright, I back down before the Wolf bites."

"Good." She sups again from her cup, taking the time to savor the Ether and cider mix. She looked down at the drink. "Has anyone ever tried to give this an English name? Or something in a Human language? Because this thing deserves-"

"You can stop stalling, Wolfie."

She stops.

"Listen, kid."

"This... this ain't on you."

The Guardian's free hand balls into a fist. Their grin falls flat. The solar behind their eyes burn.

The Drifter just raises a brow, waiting for their response. The Guardian doesn't miss his hand twitching closer to his cannon-

The Guardian closes their eyes, taking in a breath, and after that not cooling the Solar within, downing the rest of the drink. The freezing shock to their system eases the pyre, and the burning rageragerage simmers to a more smooth passion...

She can hear Skekis set back down her wire rifle, along with a half dozen other weapons around various places in the bar get re-holstered or wind down. Business continues. The Drifter stays tense; she can smell a hint of Voidsmoke coming from his direction, along with something other. Something they made together, so that they won't be hunted down.

And the Young Wolf sinks into her bar stool, leaning on the counter. She sighs. "I need a vacation." She gently places the cup back onto the counter, along with a bit more glimmer. She mutters to Skekis that she's done drinking for the night, and that she'll be leaving within a few minutes.

She looks back to the Drifter. "I was planning on taking a recon mission; might be an extended one, last me a month or so if I can bullshit it enough. A friend of mine mentioned that there was a suspicious amount of water missing from Earth, and that lead to a old Braytech facility. Apparently there was a notable project there that had a decent amount of funding back in the Golden Age, and got an early launch off into the cosmos."

Here, she gives Drifter a look. "And you're the only other person who I know of that mentioned the Luvial Crux, which just so happened to be the name of the project launched into a direction that was too full of rust to be recorded."

Discovering that little tidbit was a bit of an experience. One drowned in Hive, and way too much ice, all for a bunch of corrupted files. Turns out that a surprising number of water went over to Mars because of a clerical error, which led to some interesting (read: hilarious) messages as to how that much water is going to get transported, and it had to lead to someone, somewhere getting fired, but it ended up showing something about comparing different waters - technically ice, but whatever, who's counting - and then Europa's weird ice (?) got brought up-

It was a mess, and half of it went over her head. But then there was a mention of asking the crew and scientists of the Luvial Crux for their samples... and that's it. She asked Ghost if there was any mention of a vessel like that, and he came up empty, then she went to Chrys to ask his contacts in the Cryptarchy. Then they came up empty...

She even braved asking Ikora if any of her Hidden knew something, and she was almost bored to death when she was handed a data-pad and had to read for hours on end- because having Ghost look at it would be a 'severe breech of protocol and safety' or something. Hours of nothing useful, and now she knows a few dozen more uses for relic iron that Ghost already knew.

Except for the mention of Drifter, where in a report he bragged about going to a load of places and seen a bunch of things. One, singular mention of a Luvial Crux.

The Drifter's carefree smile becomes a bit strained. "Now where did you get the idea of hunting down some Golden Age stuff from?"

The Wolf shrugged. "Seemed like the best way to distract myself. Knowing my luck, it's less if I find it, but more of a 'how long is it going to keep me occupied' sort of thing." She lets out a sigh. "Look, after dealing with the Vex last time, I had to go in deep, and I mean deep, in order to make sure Saint made it through alright. The Vex knew that, and they tried their damnedest to make sure that I wouldn't find... something."

She looked down at where her glass used to be, the ring of frozen condensation from the ether beginning to melt once again. Ether tends to do that when it comes to drink mixing; as fun as it tastes, it tends to freeze things if it's too fresh.

"I'm guessing you found it, and it had you shaking in your boots?" Drifter tried to make it sounds like a joke, but the silence that followed it was stinging enough to make him wince. "Can't blame you; even I have a limit when it comes to those brass junkers."

The silence stretches on. Some patrons leave, other come in. Skekis is giving her looks, as if wondering if she really does want to leave soon or not.

"They called her Crota's End. The Hivebane. Kingslayer. The Young Wolf. Hero of the Red War. The woman who avenged Cayde-6."

"Alright." The Drifter says, and when she looks back she notices that she missed... something. His expression is more focused now, smile still in place. "I'll tell you, but not here." He drops a reef silver onto the counter, standing up from his bar stool.

Wolf smiled. "Guess the puppy-dog eyes worked, for once."

Drifter barked out a laugh.

Haha wouldn't it be funny if I posted another chapter right after the first one whoops there it is.

But seriously, I went and listened to a podcast, did some Iron Banner, and then came back to people viewing the first chapter and thought "Hm, feel like they need to see more... some more, you know?" And behold, a second chapter appears!

Also, remember when I recommended 'Stargazer' by Keltoi? Because seriously, that's a damn good read, and I can't get over how much I love it. Even if I'm too much of a nervous person to review stories.