Envy the Sunsinger I
With minimal effort, Eriana-3 pulled herself from sleep. Or at least, something akin to it. Something that involved closing her eyes and keeping her face pointed at the dark ceiling, her back stretched across the hard, cold floor.
Whatever it was, Eriana stirred herself out of it. Crumbled rocks and frigid stone were her only pillow and bedding, her sleeping bag still wrapped up with the rest of her things against the wall where she had laid it when she had first taken shelter. Her ship continued to drift in orbit, as it had for…a month now, she guessed. She could barely remember now.
Her arrival and her joining the battle had come a month after the rest of her fireteam. The war was in full swing when she landed and the fighting raged just as strongly now as it did then. The Moon; the closest celestial stronghold to Earth and the Last City. All across the Ocean of Storms, the forces of the Light fought the swarms of the Dark. Guardians of all stripes made desperate war against the endless horde of Hive for the land upon which they stood.
And here she was. "Sleeping". Numbly lying on her back and closing her eyes until she could remain motionless no longer.
Her first thought after several hours of not doing so was predictable. It was a memory only days old. Of Sai Mota bringing her the news. Eriana remembered everything about that moment; where she was, what she was doing. Even the exact inflections and tone Sai used to inform her of Wei-Ning's fate. Slightly trembling with an emphasis on strength. She was standing before Eriana, helmet in hands, face covered with dust and sweat and blood. She had been trying not to cry. The streaks that cut through the dust layer showed her failure.
"Brave," was all Sai could bring herself to say, "She had been so brave."
Mare Imbrium was where it happened. Where Eriana's world was ripped out from beneath her. She couldn't even be there for it. A massive Hive Knight had been the one to do it. One that shone with green soulfire and wielded a sword three times as long as Kabr had been tall. Guardian weapons and power did little to stop or slow him. Wei-Ning had charged to meet him, to try and halt his advance. Take him down and if not, give the others time to get away.
Sai Mota had been there to see it. See the Light ripped from Wei's impaled body. See the Knight grab it in his hands and devour it ravenously. See him turn his attention back to the other Guardians still present and begin doing it to many, many others.
All across the Ocean of Storms, the forces of the Light, her fellow Guardians, fought the swarms of the Dark. And the Guardians were losing. The Light was being snuffed out. The Ocean of Storms was becoming a mass grave of her people. And she was here instead of out there, fighting for the Moon, avenging the fallen. Her fallen.
Because fighting was pointless. Guardians throwing themselves over and over onto the blades of the Hive in the hopes of stemming the tide was pointless. Only one sword needed to be broken. And the arm that held it and the skull that commanded it.
Eriana rose to her feet in one fluid motion, almost drifting into the air. Ever since learning of Wei's death, her Light seemed to remain just under the surface of her frame, refusing to be quelled. From it, she felt a subtle heat, like glowing coals from a dying fire. Her reaction to the news surprised Sai, Eris, Ikora and even her. No overwhelming rush of grief and pain threatening to drag her beneath and drown her. Nothing as would have been expected of anyone receiving such news. Just this numbing heat so far away from the forefront of her mind, she could almost believe that this was all a dream. That at any time, she'd wake up in her bed to rumbling snores and a thick, gentle arm wrapped tightly around her bare waist.
Eriana made her way in the dark towards the stairs, located in the back corner of the room that would take her downwards. On a table nearby, a radio buzzed with muffled and static voices. SOS signals, position indications, requests for backup or resupply, queries on the whereabouts of missing comrades, last goodbyes to friends and loved ones.
More sickly warmth. The sensation reminded her of those fevers Humans and Awoken were prone to. She paused on the stairs until the feeling died back down. Then, she moved on. A thought to Jax and immediately, he reported on Sai Mota. Still alive. Still fighting.
Minutes of silence passed, filled with nothing but the falls of her boots on the metal stairs. When her feet landed back on stone, she kept forward through the quiet dark until she entered a smaller room, sequestered from the rest of the compound by broken bay doors though a makeshift one had been put into place for her purposes. Eriana had known of the K1 facilities dotting the Moon for years but never felt the desire to explore them. She still didn't. What the K1 researchers had built a containment room for, she did not know. She did not care to find out. Even now, without any power or ability to be properly secured, it served her purposes. She had a guest. An unwilling one, dragged from the Hellmouth into the first place Eriana could find that would hold it.
A Hive Wizard, bound to a metal table and suppressed by dampeners she had set up all over the cell. The creature stirred as soon as Eriana rounded the corner and laid her eyes upon it. It must have sensed her Light. Eriana knew that it couldn't see her. A sharp rock and Solar Light had made sure of that just the day before.
Eriana walked past it with barely a glance in its direction. Instead, she went into the darker corners of the cell and grabbed a chair. She brought it back, dragging it noisily across the ground. The Wizard's head had followed her as she passed and was now following back. Eriana stopped when she was standing directly before it, her eyes level with its chest, looking at the creature but not truly.
Then, she sat down. She returned her eyes to her prisoner and this time, truly took in the sight. The creature looked haggard and mangled, even for a dead thing. One of the Guardians who had helped bring it in told Eriana that he had beaten it as close to death as he could get away with. He had recognized the Wizard as one of those trailing the Knight as he laid waste to the battlefield. He had been there, on Mare Imbrium, when the Knight appeared. He had been one of those for whom Wei…
Vell Tarlowe, Eriana sluggishly remembered. Dark-skinned man and a typical Titan. Tall and broad with a shaved head, stubbled face and a deep old sadness to his eyes, even when he was enraged. She understood. She had known Toland well. Or at least, she had thought she had.
If this Wizard was from Mare Imbrium, it would know who that Knight was, that one who devoured their Light and tore through them like a child over a panicking army of ants. And if it knew, Eriana would find out. By any means necessary.
"Start recording, Jax." Her voice was quiet but clear and almost echoed off the walls. Jax indicated that he was set.
"My name is Eriana-3, disciple of the Praxic Warlocks, marked by the Cormorant Seal. We came here under one banner, united in a host of thousands, to claim the Moon," she said, starting her documentations as she always did. "But the battle goes against us. I have taken a prisoner and this is the record of its interrogation. If I transgress in your eyes I ask for your forgiveness."
It is a lie, that last part. She asked as much forgiveness as she did permission.
Eriana could feel the Wizard pushing against her mind, probing with long, spindly, metaphysical fingers. Eriana let her defenses down just enough to grant it egress but only where she wished it to go. She called upon the memory of the Knight she had seen in the footage, rampaging across the Moon. Then, she asked, "Who is this?"
Eriana doesn't receive a response, only the subtle twinge of amusement from the Wizard. She tried again. "What is he? How does he take the Light?"
More amusement. Stronger now. Eriana could almost hear something akin to laughter.
She stood, continuing her questioning despite the uselessness of it. "Are there others like him? How do I find him? How do we…" she paused to slow herself, "How do I kill him?" she pressed, "Does he feel pain like you do?"
The mirth blinked from Eriana's mind. Something more solid replaced it. The Knight. She could tell by its size, its ghostly glow, the massive blade in its hand. In her mind's eye, she was on Mare Imbrium. Guardians scattered left and right, fled the monster that had just arrived. All except one. One who stood her ground. One who ran past Eriana and towards it. Eriana could only watch, as she already had possibly hundreds of times, as the Knight brought a sword down on the singular Titan. The sound of the stone splitting pierced Eriana's ears. That was the strength behind that first and final blow.
It would end with the sound of the stone. Then, it would repeat. Over and over. A few days prior, Eriana had let her defenses slip while interrogating the Wizard. Let it see more than she had wanted it to. The memory of Wei-Ning's death had been at the forefront, still fresh in her mind. Now, the Wizard believed it had ammunition against her. Trying to throw back, in some way, what Eriana was making her endure. The pain of torture, the greater shame of imprisonment and failure. Most of the time, the victim was Wei-Ning. Sometimes, Sai Mota was substituted. Sometimes, Sai Mota received her own gruesome death, her screams echoing across the Ocean of Storms as the Light was flayed from her body like skin. Other times, it was Eris Morn, Ikora Rey, even Toland who she had renounced but never truly stopped caring about. It would force Eriana to witness the death of anyone she felt even a base attachment to as it searched her mind further for victims.
Eriana let her, even as it revolted her to have the Wizard shifting through her memories. This was bravado. This was desperation. Maybe even a sign that she was close to breaking under Eriana's…attempts at persuasion. A sign that she should push.
So she did. The sight of Wei-Ning's impaled corpse flashed over and over in her head until the Wizard began to howl and fight against her restraints. Eriana watched unblinkingly, with neither sympathy nor morbid enjoyment as the Wizard's skin steamed and flaked with Solar fire.
She was unaware of how long she went on, cooking the creature from the inside out with her Light, listening to its screaming. Close enough that by the time she had finally deigned to stop, the Wizard looked as close to death as when Vell and the other Guardians helping him had dragged it down here.
When Eriana finally ceased, the shrieks tumbled down to ragged whines. When those go quiet, Eriana started from the beginning. "The Knight. Who is he?"
The cycle repeats. She questions, she gets only non-answers and mockery, she cooks her subject alive, she questions again. Hours in and the Wizard's screaming was all that echoed through her mind. She wondered how the Knight would sound when she turned this fire on him.
"Prince," she corrected herself. On the fourth cycle, the Wizard, in the middle of threatening her with the worst fates it could imagine, had referred to the Knight as "her Prince."
Eriana stood, took the chair by its back and returned it to the corner in the back of the room. The Wizard stank of something akin to burnt hair and even in the dim light, she could see the blackened flakes that had fallen to the ground, shed from her body with her thrashing.
She left the room, sealing it with a makeshift barrier. She could feel the Wizard still reaching out to her mind but her guard had been put back in place. They'd continue another time.
She knew she had made it to the top of the stairs when she began hearing the radio again. She still felt nothing, even as she noted the increased frequency of last goodbyes.
Nothing but the burning beneath her frame. A dull, painless version of what the Wizard had and would continue to endure until she got what she wanted. She ignored it and turned her attention to other matters of the war. Without her asking, Jax told her again of Eriana. Still alive. Still fighting.
She found herself back in her resting place, her eyes on the same black spot on the ceiling.
She closed them. In the last vestiges of consciousness, the stone turned soft and warm beneath her. The shadows brightened with dawn's first light and the sound of birds chirping blended seamlessly into the quiet of an early morning.
Then, Eriana felt a warm hand against her cheek, enveloping half her face. A strong and gentle voice murmured her name into the air of the silent bedroom as the strong and gentle hand turned her head towards the owner.
"Any day I can begin looking into your eyes will be a good day. No matter what comes after."
She shut the memory and herself down before she could see the owner's face. With her last thoughts, she decided it was for the best.
Short one, especially for a Herald backstory. Let me know what you think