Ghost and Maria didn't see Osiris for nearly a month, but Maria didn't appear to take that as anything other than normal. She worked to diligently learn from Amanda Holiday all of the secrets to repairing, and, to Ghost's horror, flying a ship. The first lesson didn't go well, and Ghost quickly regretting his decision to follow them aboard. They had nearly landed in the heart of the Last City, gave Zavala a heart attack by nearly crashing into the Tower, and, after quickly hacking the system, Ghost finally refused Maria any access to the controls, forcing Amanda to finally take control of the system and land them back safely at the Hangar. After that he preferred to watch from the Tower's hangar. She improved quickly, but not quickly enough.
"It wasn't that bad," Maria whispered as they once again snuck into Ikora's office. She was scarily good at picking the lock, finding just the right tumblers, and coaxing them in just the right place. She grabbed several books on Eliksni, and decided to look through the desk for any books on the Hive that she possibly didn't read, but found nothing.
"It was pretty bad." He followed her out with her hands full of books that she read in the darkest corner she could find, somewhere Ikora wouldn't look…yet.
"You're dramatic. I only lost power once and I got it going again in no time." She bit into an apple she had hidden in the jacket she always wore, the one from her life before her time travel, with the words Arizona inscribed in bright blue letters. The jacket did little to hide her.
She scanned the pages as she ate the apple, she must've read at five hundred words per minute! She was halfway through the first book when Ikora cleared her throat. Ghost's panels whirred nervously for his friend.
Maria looked up and smiled sheepishly. "Eliksni." She said, holding up the book's cover to show her.
Ikora rolled her eyes and sighed, snatching the books from her hands. "I thought I told you to ask."
"A year ago, you did." Ghost said matter-of-fact.
"Come on, Ikora, I can never find you."
"Do you try?" Ikora walked away and Maria followed close behind, and Ghost followed the two of them.
"I did when I first got to the Tower."
"How did you even get inside?" She unlocked the door.
"I can…pick locks. Look, it was a useful skill back in like 2010 when I always lost my house keys and kept getting locked out. Came in handy to break into my own house." She followed Ikora.
"Well, we aren't in your era anymore. If a door is locked it's for a reason. Are we clear?"
Maria sighed and nodded, pushing her hands into her jacket pocket. "Fine."
Ikora smirked and handed her one of the books she had stolen. "Here, if you can accurately translate this I'll think about moving you from Amanda. Deal?"
Maria had never been so quick to snatch a book out of someone's hands, jumping up and down as she held it. "Deal." She turned to the door, but paused.
"Is…there anything else?"
She turned back to Ikora, and Ghost could almost feel the worry coming off of her. "Osiris…"
Ikora smiled, "Should be coming home today, Maria."
"How is he?" She hugged the book to her chest.
Ikora's smile disappeared. "Honestly, Saint-14 is the one you should be asking."
"He won't answer me. He just keeps saying," Maria did her best Saint impression, " 'Is fine. Osiris will be fine. You will see, he is fine.' But…he isn't fine, not the last time I saw."
Ikora led them out, and led them to the Bazaar, her eyes staying above everyone, level with the Traveler, and then she said, "A Guardian's relationship to their ghost is a complicated one, Maria. We are connected and we are separate. In a way, no one knows us better than our ghosts, because they're there for everything. They know our greatest fears, our hopes, our dreams, sometimes it feels like they know what we're thinking before we've even begun to share the thought aloud. And…sometimes a guardian and their ghost don't see eye-to-eye, and we fight…even stay silent for a time, but regardless, they are always there." She finally looked down at Maria. "Losing that can be…maddening for some Guardians, to the point that even the thought will drive them over the edge."
"And…where does Osiris stand on this edge?"
Ikora sighed. "I do not know, Maria. Perhaps closer than we'd like to think."
Ghost could see the color drain from Maria. Her body began to shake, and she held the book tighter and tighter.
"But Osiris has many people looking out for him." Ikora reassured.
Maria smiled but didn't seem to believe her words as she walked away.
After another day of working hard and late for Amanda, Maria got to work right away with transcribing the book, using the notes she had copied from her previous times borrowing a book, all of the characters crudely drawn with the corresponding sounds they made.
"Interesting," she said finally after hours of staring at the same page with little to show for it.
"What?" Ghost floated over to stare at the page.
"This here," she pointed at a symbol, "It doesn't match up to what I have, and the longer I stare at it…the more it looks like Saint-14."
"It would make sense. He's killed more Fallen than anyone else."
"That's what makes this section here so interesting. From the words I know, this looks to be a…almost like a legend. It says: Be wary, my child, of the night for that is when the wolves prowl, but even the wolves will hide when he arrives. He'll snatch you from your bed, carry you into the night, I dunno what this word here means, but the rest goes on to say that, should the Saint catch you in his grasp, he'll never let you go. They paint these on their nurseries, a kind of ward to keep away Saint-14." She shook her head. "That's…horrible." She thought she would be sick. She slammed the book shut. "I can't imagine, I mean in my time we had our own share of legends, sure, but…nothing like this. Nothing that could've been true."
Ghost blinked, his panels twisting around like they always did.
"Are you really not as horrified?"
"Well…no. The Fallen have killed just as many-"
"How many of the people in this city are putting up wards, praying that they'll keep away the Eliksni?"
Ghost stayed quiet.
Maria shook her head. "I get it, I get why you wouldn't be as...sympathetic, but I've never had to live any of these horrors myself, I only read about them...and something about reading what the other side goes through humanizes them. Or at least, it does for me." She sighed. "I should get to bed."
Sleep never came for her. She kept thinking about the contents of the book. Even as she worked through the laborious task of welding her mind kept wandering back toward the book. Even as Zavala and Osiris returned from some mission, her mind continued to wander.
She sat in the Bazaar with her sandwich, and continued to read it as she ate.
Light footsteps stopped near her. "How's the reading?"
Maria looked up at Ikora. "Horribly." She stood and followed Ikora to the edge, where the guard rail kept everyone from falling over the edge. "Why do you want this transcribed, Ikora?"
Ikora smirked. "I don't. I already know what the pages say."
"Then why are you making me do such a useless task?"
"Something in there bothered you."
"Well, yeah. You guys paint Eliksni in such a bad light but…the few pages I've been able to transcribe says otherwise."
Ikora nodded and plucked the book out of her hands, and somehow her smile made her glow. "Come," she turned and walked away. Maria followed close at her heels, to a part of the Tower she'd never seen before. The inside was huge, with machines she'd never seen and a table with a hologram of a man she'd only heard of and seen in the picture of books. The hologram quickly went away as they approached. Ikora tucked the book under her arm when Zavala turned to them, Osiris at his right side, and a masked man standing next to Osiris. "She's passed, Zavala. According to Amanda, she can't fly a ship but…I think with Osiris watching her she'll be fine."
Zavala nodded with some hesitation. "I see…" he looked to Osiris. "Then it appears we have our crew."
Ikora walked out, but Maria stayed, unsure of whether to stay or follow.
Osiris nodded. "I suppose we do, Zavala. I'll brief her."
Zavala nodded and left them at the table.