Welcome to my big treat for N7 day, the start of the new and improved To Trails End! This is not a complete rewrite, it's more of a massive renovation built around the old stuff. I'm kind of just going through it and bringing it up to my current standards. The old version will stay up as a comparison between were I was when I started this as an exercise, and where I am now. Stat bluffs include but are not limited to:
*Word count. It will be more than just a snack now.
*Grammar, punctuation, spelling. All the good stuff that slipped past me the first time around.
*Set up for future plot. This was a writing exercise and I had no solid plans for it. After two years of thinking, and getting new potential material from the game, I now have some idea for what comes after The Long, Long Walk, and some of it would make no sense without an overhauled version of this fic to set a few things up. Little clues and details that go miles when it comes to storytelling.
*More detail. There were sections that just could have had more, they were sparse, and needed more detail.
Without further ado, welcome to the freaking third version of chapter one.
Crow stood in a field of flowers; small scattering of forget-me-nots mixed with amaryllis, stout cacti scattered singularly and in small clumps. Holly grew in abundance alongside calla lilies and snap dragons. There was large swath of orange blossoms that seemed to be at odds with the yellow zinnia. He could make out a large fir tree surrounded by narcissus in his peripheral, but he couldn't turn his head or angle his body to look. Begonias crept towards the field from across the hill, and far above, mangled, bird-like shapes began to scatter what looked like dead leaves to the wind. Withered nasturtium, or broken stalks of it, littered the field like corpses on a battlefield, still visible despite the new growth. He could only make out a few that were still alive.
The shadows of the birds grew larger, but they were still pinpricks in the sky. Ice ran up Crow's spine, and dread pumped through his veins. Something awful was coming, he could hear it, banging louder, and louder-
Something metal hit him in the jaw, tearing Crow painfully out of his dream and startling Glint into phasing away from his usual resting place. The pipes screamed, and the tang of ether mixed with the scent of rust and the perpetual, musty almost-petrichor that always permeated the asteroids the Reefborn had installed artificial atmospheres on.
"Up, little bird!" Arrha cackled, already retreating back down the hall. Glint cautiously rematerialized, and Crow gave him a brief pat, as much to reassure himself as his Ghost. Glint let off a small, comforting pulse of Light in response.
This was Arrha's way of letting them know Spider was requesting their presence. Taking a deep breath, he stood, straightening his cloak as his Ghost used Light to sooth away the aches of sleeping on the floor, Crow strode away from the screaming pipes, trying to shake away the sense of dread he had felt in his dream. It was only a nightmare, and he had plenty of those... except those nightmares always involved obvious violence, noticeable threats. This one had been practically been peaceful, yet his mind had labeled it as a nightmare the moment he regained lucidity.
Yes, for all it had been peaceful, he felt like he had been standing over his own grave in that field.
As he rested before landing on the moon, the dream returned. This time, he soared down twisting, lightless passageways to get to the field. The 'stepping over his grave' feeling persisted.
Things on the moon went south quickly; of course they did, just walking up to Osiris and asking him to come to the Shore would be too simple, and while Crow's life has been many things, simple has never been one of them. When he gets there, the Celebrant is out in the open, and he can't help but feel a little excited; he knows an opportunity when he sees one. He could end the Celebrant right here, maybe Spider would even be pleased with him for once!
But it was not to be. The Celebrant had killed Osiris' Ghost and taken his Light with a ritual; the old Warlock, powerless, Ghostless, pursued the massive Knight with reckless abandon, making it so that Crow instead had to focus on getting the man out alive. He soon saved a life for the first time. As Glint chided Osiris in that caring way of his, Crow felt like he'd finally done something worthwhile in his life. Then the Young Wolf and his Ghost, who had also come to rescue Osiris, glared and stared at him in shock and he felt dread at the familiar expressions of recognition and resentment.
Later, when he told Glint about the field, as he did for all his other dreams, his Ghost assured him that this one, at least, was normal for an Awoken. Metaphorical precognitive visions were common for Reefborn; common enough that most either didn't pursue the meanings, or didn't have to because it was a common pattern of the universe, such as babies being born or an animal going extinct.
As they hunted monstrosities, his more and more of his dreams consisted either of the field, or of the strange, possibly Traveler-related dreams.
The Young Wolf was downright icy inall their interactions, expression never straying very far from barely repressed resentment. On the upside, the man was a Hunter, and when he wasn't ignoring or glaring at Crow, he was sneering as he pointed out the things he did wrong with his Light. He soon figured out that doing stupid things with his Light was a way to get an insult-laced lesson in being a Hunter. It was painful, but it worked. Besides, Spider forbade any sort of reading material that might teach him, not that it had stopped Glint from educating him during their brief reprieves with the hoard of knowledge he had collected during his days as a stray in preparation for finding his Guardian.
Osiris was better. Distant, but not cruel. He could be snooty about things Crow did wrong, but the snootyness felt more like a character trait then a directed insult. Sometimes he snuck Crow food and other little things. It was... nice. He wondered if this was normal and tried not to get used to it. He couldn't miss what he never had, but now he's had a tase of decency and he sort of wishes he hadn't, so he couldn't miss it.
He still went to Osiris about his dreams eventually, having heard that Warlocks were experienced with visions and the like, and the older Ex-Lightbearer advised him to let the potential Traveler visions take him where they may- with backup, of course. He also advised against making said visions public knowledge, stating that Crow's face was known and hated, and if anyone found out the Traveler spoke to him, it would end badly for all involved.
So he followed the hawk made of Light. As he approached the Shard, it felt like something vast and alive was reaching out to touch him. The field briefly flickered across his vision and then there was a gun in his hand and Taken energy cutting off the connection with screams and chaos. He and the Wolf manage to clear out the Taken, long and hard as the fight was, and he swears the strange hand cannon sings in his hands. It feels like Light, like an old friend if he were ever to have such a thing, it feels... right. Good. And he normally doesn't like hand cannons, something about them just puts him on edge. When the fight is over, he learns it resembles a weapon that used to be an old favorite of the Vanguard Guardians, but this one was clearly forged by the Traveler itself.
The Young Wolf took it. Insisted that the Vanguard needed to examine it, as it was a message from the Traveler. Crow told himself he let it happen, but later admitted to himself that the Wolf wouldn't have given him a choice if he'd said no. It was okay. He was used to not having anything that was truly his... though this time it felt absolutely soul-crushing. His nights had been plagued by those dreams for months, and when he finally does as they ask, he loses what was clearly a gift intended for him. From the Traveler itself. That night the dream of the field was especially intense, and the shadows of the birds seemed to be changing.
When Osiris approached him, before the final hunt, he presented Crow with Hawkmoon silently. When he sputtered and asked the obvious 'what about the Vanguard', the Warlock told him that the Traveler had meant it for him, and that such a message was useless without the Guardian it was intended for. Crow barely resists the urge to cry. Hawkmoon's grip was warm in his hand, like a greeting and he quietly promised that nobody was taking it from him again, not even Spider.
As he entered the ascendant realm, he felt a strange pull, and after the Celebrant threw him into The Howling, a hawk made of Light drifted in the corner of his vision when he managed to latch on to a drifting boulder. He could sense it with his Light, like a compass drawn to north, and he struggled to stay on task. When the way out closed itself off, he became tempted by the pull.
After fleeing the realm, he used his Light to feel for rips in reality, like Osiris had taught him. He felt where the Celebrant was starting to tear, and he ignited his Light, scorching the way shut and trapping it with the Wolf. The plan worked, and the Celebrant died. Unable to contain his ecstasy, he made the mistake of smiling at the other Hunter and congratulating him.
The Young Wolf exploded, face twisted in viscous fury, and came at him in a fit of rage, screaming and pulsing with ice. Whatever feelings he's been keeping (rather poorly, Crow might add) in check erupt. Crow's usual routine was to brace himself and let whatever angry Guardian who attacked have their way with him. Glint would wait until he was certain they'd left, and then revive him. Not this time.
"All the good people we lost during the war, all the innocent people who have died since the beginning of time, and the Traveler chooses you." The slightly older Guardian snarls, dark ice crystallizing in his hands. "Everything you did to the Reef, to Cayde, those monstrosities you made out of the Fallen, and it chooses you. Uldren Sov gets the fucking second chance, gets to stand and fucking smile like he thinks he's one of us. Gets fucking Osiris on his side."
The words ring through Crow's skull like that time he got the bright idea to strike an ancient church bell as hard as he could because he wanted to see if it still worked. The Wolf laughs; it was a wet, broken laugh, even mad in a way, and he shakes his head slowly.
"Uldren Sov in the Tower? As a Guardian? No. Just no. It's. Not. Happening." The Wolf came at him with Darkness-forged picks, and the horror of the revelation was injected with a dose of mortal terror, the survival instinct jolting Crow out of the frozen state the other Hunter's words had left him in. Unable to see anywhere else to go, he ducked under the other Hunter as he lunged, fled into the portal the Wolf had come through without thinking, and left a burning grenade of Light in his wake to seal the tear shut.
Uldren Sov. Uldren Sov. I was Uldren Sov. It echoed against his skull, louder than the Taken he trampled or ran past, louder than Glint's pleading, louder than The Howling around him. I was Uldren Sov.
Butcher. A bullet grazed him, Taken and Hive shrieked at him. He leapt off one rock and onto another, dodging and ducking behind cover.
The Traitor Prince. More rocks. More pleading. Everywhere in the Ascendant Plane looked the same.
Murderer. He scrambled atop a geode, and realized he was finally alone. He couldn't see or hear anything coming after him, but then again this place made it so you could barely see or hear anything. Assuming he could stop for at least a little while, he finally let go of the scream that had been building in his chest and fell to his knees with a sob. He wonders how long he actually ran for; time could disappear in this place and his legs felt like jelly. Glint materialized, and Crow shut his eyes at the sight of him.
"Crow, listen to me, none of it matters. You aren't him." Spider's favorite hostage nudged his forehead, and he flinched.
"Why?" Crow snapped, the despair and anger eating away at his core bubbling to the surface. Something hot and wet streamed down his face, it had to be blood, he couldn't remember ever crying, not even during a beating. "Why choose me? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because of this." Glint answered calmly, guiltily. He ran a beam of Light over Crow, but the pain didn't stop. "It's hurting you, and I can't make it stop. I could ever do anything like that to you."
Crow knew this. He always had. But pain didn't care what you knew. He bit his knuckle, trying to stifle the wave of despair that made him want to scream again; he's already done that once, if he hadn't given away their position screaming again definitely would. Glint flew closer, wiggling into the hood of his cloak, radiating Light and warmth.
"I chose you because your Light was the brightest. I chose you because you sang with loyalty, unlike any other, and I could feel your compassion, your resilience, your kindness. I think, perhaps, you got everything he threw away." His Ghost said quietly, giving off small pulses of Light as he did so. "From what I heard, he threw away kindness. He stunted his compassion. He embraced cruelty. You, Crow, are my Guardian, and you are everything your old self wasn't. I would choose you again and again, and I will never regret it."
The wave broke through.
"It's okay to cry, Crow. It's okay to cry."
The changes in this one weren't too drastic, but I gave the Young Wolf an actual personality. Instead of coming off as a juvenile brat, he has adult emotions. He still treats Crow like trash, and still has a mental snap unlike in canon, but it's more realistic and I actually wrote the mental snap and Uldren reveal instead of summarizing it. Let me know what you guys think of this in comparison to the old one!
I will be updating this instead of The Long, Long Walk for the rest of the month, so I can focus on polishing it's upcoming chapter and build up more new ones. I might give some love to a side project or two while I'm at it. Speaking of, I also put up a new chapters of my crazy time traveler Javik fic for N7 day.
Fare Thee Well!