Once More Unto the Breach III

Tomorrow. They were to leave tomorrow. Morning, as to not draw too much attention.

Daniel was at home, as he always was before embarking on any mission so…"important" felt wrong. "Dangerous" felt like an understatement. Kayla was at the Tower. Erek was elsewhere. Maybe the Crucible, maybe the Tower, most likely the cemetery, as he always did before missions such as this. They all had their rituals. Daniel was always here, after all, just rarely without them. Or without…

"Maya!" Caesar suddenly calls out, interrupting his thoughts. His sister's hesitant reply came a few seconds later. "No Light inside the house...thank you."

Daniel hummed in amusement. "She likes to practice."

"Especially when she shouldn't," his Ghost says, "AJ should be watching her but he seems to have developed a habit of being her enabler rather than her voice of reason."

"Sounds familiar…"

"In what way?"

"Headbutting a Minotaur through the chest?"

The Ghost turned on him, offense in the brightness of his eye. "That is not even remotely-"

"Caesar. Yes, it is."

Caesar sniffed, turning away. "Well, no one made you do it."

Daniel's grin drops slightly when he picks up his father's watch. With a sigh, he tosses it into his bag, not wanting to risk leaving it behind. "What are the others up to? Packing?"

"Sixx says Kayla's in the labs. Erek's in the Crucible. Presumably until Shaxx kicks him out again."

While he speaks, Daniel steps over to the small desk in his room near the window. His fingers ghost over the leather of the old journal sitting alone at the center of it. "And Aro?"

"Tower."

"Doing?"

"Not sure." Caesar glides to hang over his shoulder. "Kain's been cutting off contact after a certain time, without Aro's knowledge or prompting. Can't say I blame him."

"Could you give him the time we plan to leave tomorrow?" Daniels asked, lifting the journal.

"He has it." Caesar pauses to let his eye rove over his lowered expression, then adds, "And he'll be there to see you off."

Daniel gives no response but a hum. He seals the bag and tosses it off his bed and into a corner, where he's likely to see it as he's leaving. He steps out of his room, intent on seeing what everyone else was up to and, if he was lucky, find some way to distract himself from the dark turn his thoughts were taking.

Maya, he didn't bother with. There was no need to look in on her, so as he passed by, Daniel knocked on the door, hard and sudden. He smiles when he hears the surprised springing of the bed, the sound of someone in it being startled out of her skin.

"Yes?" She again answers haltingly.

"Never mind!" Daniel responds, grinning wider when he hears here quietly suck her teeth. He starts walking again but barely makes it halfway down the hall before twisting around and padding back to her door as quietly as he could manage for someone his size to slam his fist against it again. This time, she starts so hard, he can hear her tumble out of the bed to the floor. By the time she rights herself and rips the door open to confront him, he's halfway down the hall again.

A short turn of the corner puts him before the closed door of Tarlowe's office. Finding it locked, Daniel opens the hand reaching for the door and lets Caesar out to work on breaking it; they were old hat at this by now.

"What's the holdup?" he murmurs after a few minutes. It didn't always take this long.

"Sorry, just...a sec…" The Ghost tries for a few seconds more then stops and draws back. The light of the door had turned red. "Well, that's new."

"Really, Tarlowe?!" Daniel says loudly.

The response was immediate. "You'll learn one way or another."

The lock disengages and the door slides open. Tarlowe was at his usual place, three screens floating in the air before his eyes and his fingers running over the keyboard on his desk. "Maybe I'll make the next one explode."

"What if I lose a finger? Or an arm?"

"Walk it off."

Daniel chuckles and steps through the open path. "You lock the door a lot, you know that?"

"I like my privacy." His eyes flick away from the computer to meet his but only for a second. The fingers never stop or lose their stride. "And my quiet."

"One would start to wonder what you'd need all that privacy and quiet for.."

Tarlowe wasn't having it. "I'm not doing this with you."

"And you caught on to my point so quickly. What does that say?" The glower Daniel's older brother affixed him with would've been intimidating if Daniel were capable of taking him seriously. Instead, he made his way over to one of the ornate, wooden cabinets lining the wall. "What are you working on anyway?" He turned back to Tarlowe, who had already thrown himself back into his project. From where he was standing, Daniel could see images on the screens of things that didn't look as if they belonged in weapons. A mess of servos, strange, flat interfaces and other things that would usually have him bothering Aro or Kayla for an explanation.

"Stuff."

"Just stuff?"

"Just stuff," Tarlowe repeated. He knocked one of the screens away. "Occasionally, I switch gears and start working on some 'things' as well.

"Fuck off," Daniel muttered, knowing he had been heard. He turned back to the wooden cabinets. Picking up a small plaque, off in the corner and covered in a thin but obscuring layer of dust. He wipes off just enough to learn the owner. Daniel sees the name of his father and immediately places it back down again. "From where I'm standing," he says, "It doesn't look much like new weapons."

"It isn't."

"Haven't you been at odds with members of the foundry?" Daniel gestured to the screen, "How could this be helping?"

"It won't help," There was an edge growing in his voice. He's had this conversation, or better yet, this argument before. "It still needs to be done."

Tarlowe's eyes shift away from Daniel to the open door. "Christine," he calls out, stopping her on her way past. "The books you requested, have they come in?"

Still off to the side, Daniel could not see her until she leaned slightly into the doorway. She perched against the frame, her hands busy tying the black hair that stretched nearly half the length of her back out of her eyes. Their mother's pendant was where it always was, hanging around her neck. She was always much better at remembering to keep it on her, even after Daniel starting actually trying to do the same. Their mother's ring was in the same place around Tarlowe's and it made him remember her bracelet with Maya. The fact that Daniel himself was the only one without some kind of memento of the mother they lost when he was so young made his chest tighten just a bit. Maybe he'd take something with him from the house, he decided. Just to keep.

"Kayla sent them over this morning," Christine answered. She sounded tired. She didn't look it, she never looked it but anyone familiar enough with the normal tones and inflections of her voice would've been able to tell. Less energy, less variation, more monotone and deeper. It was hard to blame her, given the amount of studying and working she'd been doing the past few weeks though Daniel suspected she had slowed down some, just to spend time with him before he left for the Reef. She still managed a small smile for him, just as she always did.

Another screen blinked into view in front of Tarlowe. "What kinds?"

"Anatomy, neurology for the most part. It's the topic I need the most help on. Kayla also told me that Sora was the one who recommended them, so she's sure they'll be useful."

"Wait, you're working on this...thing too?" Daniel steps away from the cabinet and starts approaching her.

"Yes?"

"So then will you tell me what it is?"

"No?" The twist of her face showed her amusement, as if the thought of doing so was so ridiculous, she found it funny he thought it worth asking. Then the look turned to exasperation. "Don't give me that look, Daniel, you're far too old."

Daniel opened his mouth, preparing to defend himself or demand an explanation as to why but Tarlowe cut him off from the other side of the room. "Danny, do you mind? The adults need to talk."

Daniel turned on him then back to Christine, who just shrugged and stepped out of the doorway to let him through.

"Thanks, Danny!" Tarlowe crowed.

"Don't call me, Danny."

"Love you, little brother!" He called again. Daniel loudly elbows the wall, no doubt rocking the things on the other side of it. He earns another laugh for his trouble. The door seals shut, leaving him in silence once again.

Caesar appeared before him. "Can't believe how different Tarlowe seems," he says, moving beside Daniel as he made his way to the stairs. "Especially from when I first met him. He was always so angry. You two would fight all the time, go weeks without speaking to each other."

"Lot's happened since then," Daniel replies, "We've both had to grow up. And quicker than we would've liked."

Nearly losing him demanded it. Christine had covered Maya's eyes when it had happened and refused to uncover them until she had been removed from the scene. Tarlowe on the ground, his life's blood spreading in a puddle around his unmoving body. Christine saw it, he saw it and they remembered, regardless of how little they wanted to.

Daniel's early life was defined by pillars; ones he thought towering, all-powerful and everlasting. Growing up was watching those pillars fall. His mother, his father, his uncle, Eris and Toland. Then one more very nearly did. Given this way of thinking, he couldn't imagine how Maya felt. She'd never gotten to meet their mother. She barely remembered her father or uncle.

He couldn't imagine how she would feel, given how, in some far away time, all of their names would be added to that list. She'd be a woman almost alone in the world, fighting a losing war against the monster that had enslaved her people. A monster she never would've met if he had never brought him into her home.

Daniel is distracted when Maya sprints past him for the kitchen, just a flash of black hair trailing her, no doubt using her Light to bolster her speed. He enters and makes his way over to the kitchen sink just in time to see her rip open the fridge, grab a bottle and kick it shut with enough force to shake it. She begins her run out of the kitchen and back up the stairs but pauses just as she gets behind him. Before he can turn to face her though, her foot shoots out, catching Daniel in the back of his knee.

The Titan buckles and claws for her as he does but the little Warlock is already off, her cackling echoing off the giant walls of their house. Daniel is up and giving chase within a second, her laughter turning to shrieks. Maya jumps forward and glides toward the wall. As soon as she makes contact, she kicks off it, propelling her even higher into the air and dropping her safely on the second floor.

They both turn at the sound of a door opening. "Who's screaming?" Christine called out.

Maya is responding before he can. "Danny tripped and fell!"

"No, I-"

"Daniel, are you alright?"

"But I didn't-"

"Tell Danny to be more careful!" They hear Tarlowe yell out.

"STOP CALLING ME-"

"He also said to tell you that he was starting on dinner," Maya said, never breaking eye contact as she cracked open the bottle. He was being ganged upon. "Said not to worry about it tonight."

On instinct and habit, Daniel opened his mouth to speak up. But Christine was already thanking him. Tarlowe was proclaiming loudly to have already lost his appetite and Maya, satisfied with herself, waved her fingers at him as she started for her room.

Her slow walk became a hard and panicked dash when Daniel suddenly launched himself upwards, latching onto the railing that overlooked the first floor and making as if he was about to cross it and finish hunting her down. She was out of sight within a moment, diving nearly headfirst back into her bedroom.

Daniel glared at the spot she had escaped to for as long as the facade could hold. Then he broke and devolved into quiet laughter. He let himself drop from the railing, back down to the first floor and made his way to the kitchen to uphold the promise he never made.

The core tumbled from Kayla's fingers, clattering to the table and it was taking what little self-control she could manage to not crush it with the Void.

She was angry at herself mostly. This core was a more recent one, collected by another team not part of their clan. She thought, she hoped, that maybe if the unit hadn't been dead as long, it would still be somewhat viable. But dead cores were dead, useless. She just couldn't bring herself to accept it.

"Maybe if we went to Venus or Mars," Sixx suggested, "A unit we kill ourselves…"

"No. I'm sick of doing this," she said, falling back in her chair and pushing her palms into her eyes. "It isn't working. And I know what would but.."

"It would be a very bad idea," the Ghost finished.

"I'm sick of doing this," she says again, flicking the core and sending the thing sliding away.

Sixx catches it before it could fall. "Rasputin could help you, I'm sure of it but you still can't make contact, can you?"

She couldn't. The AI spoke but his talking is quiet, jilted and broken. She couldn't even understand him anymore. Envy was involved in it, she was sure, disrupting their bond, halting his attempts to talk to her and possibly pulling information out of him. Info they could use against the Guardians.

It was smart, from a tactical standpoint because there was precedent for it. Rasputin led the Vanguard to the Devils' Prime Servitor. He had them send over Aro, Crona and Asura, Guardians greener than any should've been for a job like that. They would not have survived the fight. Not without some kind of interference. And in their attempt to keep the Gate safe, the Heralds were forced to reveal themselves. Just as the Warmind had planned. Now Aro knew of their existence. Now the Vanguard knew. The people best equipped to end their threat now knew and could prepare.

So they muzzled the Warmind, a feat Kayla never thought capable for one as terrifyingly powerful as Rasputin was reputed to be. But the fact that he still so clearly tried to reach out to her scared Kayla. If he was so willing to fight such a losing battle, what did the Heralds have in store for them?"

Rasputin discovered the Heralds long before the Vanguard," she said, "And he seemed to know enough about them to purposely manipulate them into revealing themselves."

"To this day, I still wonder if they knew."

"Not sure it mattered. If they didn't interfere, Aro would die and everything they planned would fail before it could begin." Kayla leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table and her chin atop her hands. "He still has his connection to Envy, even after her own connection to the Traveler had been severed and he took advantage of that. Studied the Heralds through her eyes."

"Recruiting her was Pride's mistake," Sixx said, taking the core and placing it back into storage.

But now Envy can use that connection to do to him what she's doing now." A leash can be pulled...or yanked, from either end.

Ikora's spoken to her about Eriana-3. Not very often, understandably. But whenever she did, she spoke of a woman who was driven but collected. Full of energy and vitality that was covered in a layer of calmness. Like the sunfire she wielded, she was never very bright and flashy. Just a constant presence.

Once, Kayla had asked about her fall. How someone like that could fall so deep into Darkness.

"Between me, The Speaker, Zavala, Cayde and even Shaxx, we've asked that question well over a hundred times. For all of them," she had answered, "None of it makes any sort of sense."

"All of them? Even Dredgen Yor?" And at this, Ikora would grow so quiet.

"That isn't his name, you know," she told her, "It's the one he took on after rejecting the Light and forsaking humanity. Dredgen Yor was the name we put out and we never told anyone otherwise." Her eyes had been on her book but her gaze was years in the past. "I knew…" Ikora stopped and then sighed, muttering to herself, "I guess it doesn't matter what or who I knew. But he was a good man once, I assure you of that. As were Vell and Andal. As were Kabr and even Toland. As was Eriana. Grief can make monsters out of anyone, this much is true but even I thought Eriana was different."

Grief. Kayla spoke up, "Sixx, start combing the Tower archives, public and private. Find anything you can related to Eriana-3."

"Anything I should focus on?"

"No. Every little mention." It was long overdue. The first time they had met, Envy called her sister. Kayla hadn't had the time to think of it then but after the Vault, it sent question after question racing through her head. Sometimes, she even wondered if there were others like them. Branches of Rasputin made into Exos and sent out into the world were a possibility but how many were really like them? Killed during the Collapse, found by Ghosts and made into Guardians.

Either way, her concern now was this one. It was time she learned more. "Download and save, Sixx." Kayla gets to her feet. "We'll need it at the Reef."

She's barely able to push away from the table before she hears the entrance slide open. Kayla turns and doesn't bother to keep the surprise out of her voice. "Aashir?"

"Are you busy?" The towering, red and white Exo invites himself inside anyway and closes the door behind him. She hears the telltale hiss of the lock engaging. "There's something important we need to discuss."

Erek rose slowly out of the pilot's chair, rubbing his eyes as soon as his helmet was off. His last match before he left for the Reef. By Shaxx's order, of course. Even if he was exhausted, Erek doubted he would've stopped willingly. More than physically but too much so to care anymore. At this point, he just kept going, regardless of how he felt. He wasn't sure what else to do.

Amanda wasn't there to greet him as he stepped out, her attention taken up by something on the other side of the Hangar. Didn't matter, she would get to his ship before the day's end. In truth, he was glad for it. He didn't feel like talking.

Slowly, Erek made his way back to his quarters. He crossed the Tower plaza, emptying out at the end of the day as civilians returned to their homes and Guardians made their way into the lower levels. Under the Traveler, the City was beginning to brighten for the night. He assumed this, at least. Erek spared neither a look. His hands remained shoved in his pockets and his head remained down, his eyes on his feet.

Eren unlocked the door and it slid open for them to enter. She didn't bother closing it. Erek stepped over to the table at the center of his quarters and wrapped a hand around the stems of flowers. Red roses that had been sitting in cold water in a vase borrowed from Ikora, bought from the same flower shop he had always visited. He no longer cared that the owners, two Awoken men from the Reef, knew who he was but was glad they respected him enough to not go around announcing it. At least the former soldier of the pair had stopped bowing.

The door closes and seals when he leaves the dark of his room and steps back out into the light of the hall. Erek makes his way through the moving crowds and onto an elevator that takes him to the ground floor. He gave no indication to his Ghost to call down his Sparrow. The distance was a long one but he always preferred to walk rather than deal with traffic.

So walk he did. Before, he'd take his time, stopping and looking into various shops and talking to people along his way. He's even been pulled into a number of games in his time; children needing a referee or someone to even the odds just a bit.

Tonight, he'd still take his time but not to watch the stars, the transports flying past or the Traveler looming overhead. His eyes would stay forward and down, on his shoes, on the pavement. He looked at no one. He acknowledged no one. Regardless, many gave him a rather wide berth. What he was feeling must have been rolling off of him in waves. His Ghost has had to warn him multiple times that his Light was beginning to spill over onto the surface and that he should contain himself before he burns something. He wondered if this was how Aro felt all the time.

The cemetery was soon enough in sight. Eren materialized over his shoulder as soon as they reached her namesake's grave. Switching the flowers over from his left to his right, Erek slowly moved down to one knee, clasping the edge of the stone and digging his fingers in until it hurt. It was so cold. Eren had been the farthest thing in the world from cold.

Erek placed the flowers down and dropped to a sitting position. For how long he remained that way, he didn't know. What he spent the entire time thinking about as he stared at the engraving of her name, he didn't know; the first time they met, the secret meetings that followed, when they made the decision to leave together. The last time he had her on his chest, snoring as she swore she never did and drooling just slightly. The last time he got to hold her at all. As the cold winds blew, as the moon rose into the air, as the sounds of the city quieted, Erek remained as still as the stone he faced.

He'd take her with him, if he could. Take her home. She didn't deserve to be in the same place as her killer. Not the same planet, not the same system, not even the same plane of reality. He would take her to the Dreaming City. See her laid to rest among her people, not strangers in a land she never had the time to know.

"Erek." The Ghost drew his eyes to the horizon. Erek let the air slip through his nose as he saw the first glimmer of light crossing the horizon.

They were to leave early morning. He was to go back to the Reef and face his family again. He was to find a way into the Black Garden and face Eren's killer again. He dreaded one. The other left him buzzing again, an itch he tried and failed to scratch in the Crucible. "Catharsis", he had called it.

He was done with all that. There was no catharsis to be had, no resolution, no closure. Not while the man who took everything away from him still walked. Still breathed a breath that wasn't full of the pain he so thoroughly deserved.

Erek went back up to his knee, bent down and pressed his lips to the grave. When he pulled back and took in the sight of her name, his lips began to curl and it took all he had to not let everything he was holding back spill out. His hands were shaking. Beneath his fingers, the stone began to warm.

Erek clamped it back down, sealing his Light away once again. He rose to his full height, his eyes still on the grave before turning on his heels and beginning the long, silent walk back.