"You all look the same sometimes, but your smell I know." —Variks
It was painfully early, but Meren hadn't been able to sleep. Not after what had happened yesterday. She sat idly at her desk as she tried to pull together something for a lecture. Still a few months off, her teaching duties wouldn't resume until next semester. But Meren had always liked to be prepared. It wasn't like she had anything better to be doing.
A knock to the door shattered her focus. Who could possibly come calling at this hour? Meren opened the door in her robe. It was Yasmin.
"Variks is asking after you," Yasmin said coolly.
The Corsair's words came as a surprise to Meren. Memories of the previous day came to the forefront of her mind.
After their visit to the maxsec wing, Variks had been true to his word. They had had things to discuss. He had told her quite a bit, in fact.
Variks had told her about Skolas. The Wolves' clash with the Awoken. The Siege of Pallas. The Fortuna Plummet. None of it had come as news to Meren. Her connections to the Vanguard had allowed her a rudimentary understanding of what had unfolded in the Reef over the past century.
Meren had listened quietly, confident in her own understanding. But then he had told her about the Uprising on Cybele. He had told her what really happened. It was then that Meren had realized just how woefully wrong she had been.
Variks had been practically shaking with anger as he spoke. He had betrayed Skolas. Declared the Awoken Queen the new Wolf Kell. The Wolves had knelt, and the Reef Wars had effectively come to an end. For a time.
Meren had sat in stunned silence. They called him Variks, the Betrayer. Variks, the Traitor. Meren had suddenly understood why his own people hated him. Maybe it was rightly deserved. He had sworn himself to the Queen - remained loyal to her. And for what? A chance to sit down here, rotting away in the Prison?
Variks had managed to continue. The uneasy peace between the Wolves and the Awoken hadn't lasted. The Eliksni had tried to assassinate the Queen. Skolas had escaped. Or had he been set free? And after one of the biggest breakouts in the Prison's history, the Wolves had set themselves to ravaging the Reef once again.
The Awoken forces had found themselves overwhelmed. In a desperate bid to save the Reef, the Queen had reached out to the Vanguard. And, in the end, the Guardians had been called in to clean up this whole mess.
At that the story had been over, and Variks hadn't wanted to talk anymore. It had put him in a foul mood and he had sent Meren on her way.
Now, less than twelve hours later, Yasmin was waiting on her doorstep, with Variks apparently asking after her. After what had happened last night, Meren felt justifiably hesitant.
"Tell Variks it's too early." Meren grumbled.
"He said it was urgent," Yasmin didn't miss a beat.
He would, Meren thought.
She sighed and looked down at her robe.
"I certainly hope you're not planning on wearing that," the other woman commented.
"No," Meren reassured, "Give me a minute."
She went to change into something suitable, curious about Variks' request. Pulling her pants on, she considered. She wasn't intruding on him today. This time he was asking for her.
Variks was waiting when she arrived.
Not sure what to expect, she didn't bother to greet him. "It's the middle of the night."
"More to discuss," he practically chirped.
That immediately perked her up. Variks seemed in a much better mood than on the previous day. He stood there, eyes barely blinking. Something was different. Had he gotten into the Ether she had given him?
"Like what?" She asked, hesitant.
"You want to see the prison," Variks replied, "and I will show you."
That wasn't exactly what she had been hoping for. The cryo cells down in the maxsec wing had more than satisfied her curiosity. If only to appease her Eliksni host, Meren nodded.
Variks crossed the room and plucked something from one of the room's workstations. It was a piece of Eliksni tech, but Meren couldn't make out what it was before he tucked it away in his robes. She waited for him near the door. Variks joined her and they set off together.
They didn't take the lift this time. Instead, Variks navigated them through winding corridors, towards the Prison's interior. How did he not get lost in here? Meren supposed that, after all these years, the Warden knew the Prison's layout by heart.
When the passageway came to an end, Variks stopped. They were at another set of doors.
"Access code is 7Æ13-B," he advised, as his claws moved across the door's entry panel, "If you get lost."
She committed the sequence to memory. It would be just like him to ditch her in here. But Variks hadn't abandoned her yet, and the doors opened before them.
He stepped back and allowed Meren to cross the threshold. The room before her housed a massive cylindrical spire at the Prison's core. It stretched endlessly upward. Open to the sky above, Meren could just make out the stars beyond.
A complex network of catwalks crisscrossed the spire's empty space. A security hub of sorts was suspended at its center, above the void. Meren took a step inside before she let her hands fall to the guardrails and looked straight down.
"Careful," Variks teased, "Long way down."
It was a long way down. Meren's stomach churned. Her knuckles turned white as she tightened her grip on the railing.
"How many levels…?" She wondered aloud.
Variks joined her. "Fifty-six."
Meren looked back up, fighting her nausea.
"I take it you're not afraid of heights."
His reply was flat. "No."
"You can't possibly manage all this yourself…"
But he hadn't heard her. Variks was already crossing the catwalk to the spire's control hub.
Meren mustered some fleeting amount of courage. After a moment's hesitation, she followed him, trying not to peer through the mesh grate below her feet.
When she reached him, Variks was already at the hub's workstation. His hands flew effortlessly over the controls.
"What are we doing out here?"
"Need to recall Servitor," he explained.
Of course the Prison - and Variks by association - would have its own Servitor. After all those countless hours of searching Hiro's maps, there had been one right here the whole time. I should have stolen this one, Meren thought darkly, And the Spider would have considered my debt paid.
But any notions of that vanished as the Servitor entered the central chamber. Meren knew Servitors, but had never actually seen one in person before. As soon as she caught a glimpse of the machine she balked - it was all wrong.
The shell that should have housed its inner workings had been stripped away. Conduits and metal gaskets stuck out in every direction. An eerie radiance emitted from ports that littered its core. At the center of it all, the Servitor's spherical sensor burned unusually bright.
Meren could feel Variks' eyes on her. He was expecting a reaction. She gave none, and turned to look at the Eliksni.
"What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing is wrong," he bristled, "It is the Warden Servitor. Manages prison sub routines."
Meren had never heard of a Servitor doing any such thing, and she was left skeptical.
"It doesn't synthesize Ether?" She questioned.
"No."
Meren watched the machine for a moment before gazing back at Variks.
"Did you do this?"
He looked at her, eyes glittering. He didn't even need to reply - Meren already knew the answer.
The Warden Servitor had silently joined them - beckoned by its master. Variks pulled something from his robes. It was the device he had stowed away earlier. Twisting it in his hands, he pressed a few buttons. The Servitor's sensor began to blink. Whatever Variks was holding seemed to be communicating with the Servitor.
"Servitor needs regular reconfiguration and update," Variks offered.
He probably knew Meren was bound to ask, and he volunteered the information freely.
She furrowed her brow. "What would happen if you didn't?"
Variks chuckled at that. "I suspect it would go quite mad."
Mad? When had a machine ever gone mad? it made no sense. Her attention was drawn back to the device the Eliksni clutched in his claws.
"Variks," she tried to keep her voice even, "what is that thing?"
At the mention of his name, Variks looked at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the Servitor move. Meren felt the hair rise on her arms. She could have sworn it had turned toward her too.
The Eliksni turned the device over in his hands, while he considered his answer. He shook his head, and reached for his mask. Deactivating the vocal synth, he spoke - in Eliksni, this time.
Meren had never heard him speak in his own language before. But as he grated out the words, she found every one completely foreign to her.
"I...I don't understand," she said slowly.
He touched his mask again before speaking in her tongue. "You humans have no word for it."
That was unhelpful, at best. But Variks had paused for a moment and seemed to be considering a translation.
"Perhaps 'neural sync' is closest." He imparted.
Variks' translation seemed to imply some type of sentience. Meren mentally put the pieces together and thought she had it figured out. "So, you reconfigured the Servitor with some sort of AI?"
"Not precisely," Variks replied coolly.
She tried again. "It's like an Exo, then."
"Closer," he purred, "but still wrong."
The Servitor's sensor stopped blinking, then. Variks tucked the device back into his robes. Meren was befuddled. And then the machine spoke.
"Syn-chron-ization complete. Resuming Warden subroutine." It was Variks' voice.
Meren stared, wide-eyed, and Variks chucked again.
"I thought you were a professor," he taunted.
During their own Golden Age, the Eliksni had made twice the technological advancements of humanity. Even after the Collapse of both of their civilizations, the Eliksni had the upper edge. They had arrived in the Sol system with warp drives, transmat systems, and cloaking tech. Meren understood how none of these things worked. And she sure as hell didn't understand what was happening with the Servitor in front of her now.
"I don't know everything," she snapped, "That's why I'm here. To learn."
Variks and the Servitor seemed to regard her for a moment.
"The Warden Servitor knows what I know," he elaborated cryptically.
It wasn't artificially intelligent. It didn't house a long-departed consciousness like an Exo. There was something completely alien going on between Variks and the Servitor. Meren made the best sense of it she could, and the words tumbled out of her mouth in surprise.
"It's... you."
Variks gave her an appraising look, but didn't respond. When he wouldn't say more, Meren let the matter drop. She knew better than to press him.
With a wave of his hand, Variks dismissed the Servitor. It left just as quietly as it had come, retreating into the depths of the Prison. Meren wasn't certain who was running this place anymore.
She followed Variks quietly back across the catwalk. Why did he have to be so cryptic? Would it hurt him to be forthcoming for once? Meren was never going to learn anything out here in the Reef at this rate.
He took her through the rest of his rounds, then. They visited the Prison's D-Block, tested security systems, and signed off on the daily roster rotations. It took all day. Variks said no more about the Servitor, and Meren didn't ask. By the end of his tour, she had decided to let it go. For now.
When they finally returned to the control center, Meren's feet were aching. "You do this every day?"
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
"Some days," Variks replied absently.
"And others-?"
"Have you not already asked enough questions?" This time there was a hint of irritation in his voice.
It was her cue to exit. After spending most of the day with the Eliksni, they both probably needed some space. If the past was any indication, it wouldn't be long before they were bickering like children.
Meren turned for the door. She had some research to do, anyway. Thoughts of the Warden Servitor nagged at her again, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. Perhaps the Vanguard would know something.
From somewhere behind her, Variks spoke up unexpectedly. "You will come back tomorrow?"
She looked over her shoulder at him. He was fidgeting with his staff. Variks had asked to see her today, and now he was asking again.
"If you will have me," she replied slowly.
He closed his outer eyes politely. "Only if you do not ask so many questions."
She couldn't help but smile at that.
When she rejoined him the next day, she found the scribe fiddling with something on one of the control room's many displays. Eliksni text cascaded across the screen, but she couldn't make it out from where she stood. Certainly he had heard her come in, but he made no move to acknowledge her presence.
Meren wondered if he had extended yesterday's invitation as a courtesy, and he hadn't really wanted to see her at all. He seemed to be irritable half the time. She wasn't sure if that was her fault, or if it was merely him behaving like an Eliksni.
Idly she wondered if she was spending too much time with Variks, now. The Corsairs didn't seem to care, content to ferry her to and from the Prison, but she didn't want them getting the wrong impression, either.
Through his preoccupation, he finally grumbled out her name. "Meren."
"Variks," she said his name with the same enthusiasm he had given hers, "What are you going to show me in the Prison today? Something horrible, I expect."
Their eyes met as he turned his head to acknowledge her.
"No," he said slowly, "Not showing. Want to hear about your Academy."
That was the last thing she expected. What she really wanted was to know more about Variks' Servitor. But that was on the back burner for now. They were going to talk about whatever Variks wanted to talk about. That was just the way of it.
"Alright," Meren replied hesitantly.
There was a lot to be said about the Academy. This was not going to be a short conversation. She went to one of the room's low tables and helped herself to a seat. Pulling her datapad from her bag, she set it on the table. It would be easier, in this case, to show than to tell.
Apparently finished with whatever he had been doing, Variks finally came to join her. Standing alongside her to peer at the screen, he suddenly squinted. The light emanating from the piece of human tech seemed to hurt his eyes. Meren took note and lowered the display's brightness.
"Here." Pulling up some images on the display, she wondered where she should begin. "This is the Academy on Earth."
Variks interrupted. "It is small."
"We're not exactly in the Golden Age, anymore. The Ishtar Academy on Venus was much bigger. But that's long gone."
Variks gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"We teach two semesters in an Earth year. There are, I don't know, maybe fifteen hundred students. Give or take." Meren continued.
She pulled up an image of one of the Academy's many lecture halls. "In three years, students can graduate with a degree in general studies."
"Why?" Variks interrupted again.
Why what? Meren thought.
"It can help them get a job." She tried.
"Studying Eliksni gets them a job?" He sounded incredulous.
"What? No." Meren wasn't sure he understood. "I mean...there's more to it than that. The Academy teaches dozens of subjects - history, philosophy, chemistry, physics. I'm not the only professor, you know."
Variks hummed. "Are the others more qualified?"
Had he seriously just implied that she was incompetent?
Meren glowered. "What are you saying?"
"You claim to be an expert, yet ask so many stupid questions."
"I never said I was an expert," she snapped back, "Obviously I'm not as qualified as you. But I'm all the City has. How many humans do you know that can speak Eliksni?"
He didn't need to respond. The answer was zero, she was sure.
Meren went on. "Do the Guardians understand anything about House politics? Does Petra even know what a traditional display of armistice should look like?"
Variks growled, but she ignored him and continued. "Now, do you want to hear about the Academy or not?"
"Yes," the Eliksni sounded almost sheepish.
"As I was saying," Meren resumed her previous train of thought, "The students take a variety of classes across a multitude of disciplines. Having a well-rounded education makes you more competitive. Hence, better jobs."
Though the rest of it would have been long and boring to most people, Variks seemed to listen with interest. Meren talked about lectures, exams, and research projects. She touched briefly on academic consortiums over the years. Explained how the Academy sponsored archaeological field work. All were good things about the Academy, and she painted them in a rosy light.
Eventually she pivoted to the unfortunate events that had befallen the Academy. She talked about the woeful lack of funding - no thanks to the Consensus. The grinding halt that had been brought to the ideal of scientific pursuit. Meren bemoaned the downturn over the last few years. She doubted that the Academy would ever be returned to its former glory.
Variks had sat through it all without comment. In the end all he said was, "You have been there a long time."
How long had it been?
"Fifteen years," Meren calculated. That wouldn't seem long to Variks at all.
"And before?" he inquired.
Before the Academy? Meren hesitated. Most days it was all she thought about. That and the Eliksni. She didn't often try to think about growing up in the City. When she tried to pull an anecdote from her childhood, nothing came to mind. She searched for a memory long repressed. For anything.
Variks was looking at her curiously. She could feel his eyes burning into her. She needed to say something.
"I grew up in the City…that's all," she hesitated, "Not much to tell."
"That's all," he repeated slowly.
It was a lame answer, and Meren knew it. But Variks didn't press her. He regarded her for a long moment, eyes trailing slowly down her body. Meren didn't like that one bit, but his next words seemed to justify his actions.
"This is what a professor wears?"
Meren looked down at her tunic and pants. "Sometimes. I wear something different every day."
"Why?"
The question seemed ridiculous to Meren. But maybe it wasn't so absurd to Variks. Now that she thought about it, she had never seen Petra wear anything other than her purple uniform. The Guardians tended to stick with their favorite armor. Even Variks himself wore the exact same thing every time she saw him - green robes, furred collar. Eliksni didn't seem to have the need to change their garments very often - if at all.
She felt silly saying it, but it was the truth she offered him. "Because otherwise I would smell."
"You smell now," he replied without missing a beat.
Meren was taken aback. Their conversation about the Academy had veered wildly off course.
"That's not very nice," she tried her best to sound offended.
"It is true."
This is what you wanted, she told herself, to talk with the Eliksni. And if that meant being told that she stank, she was just going to have to take it. It came with the territory, after all.
"Fine," she couldn't help but ask, "What do I smell like?"
He mumbled something. Meren stared. It wasn't a hard question, but it seemed to make the Judgement scribe uncomfortable.
She was curious now. "Variks."
"There was a silver flower on Riis…" He shook his head as he let the words trail off.
So she smelled like a flower. But that wasn't what stood out to Meren. Variks was talking about Riis. About home. He had been there, she realized. Before the Whirlwind. Before the fall.
Tell me about it , she was about to say. This was finally her chance to segue away from the Academy and talk about the Eliksni.
On the table, her datapad lit up. She and Variks both looked down at it. Any opportunity of talking about Riis instantly evaporated. The moment was gone.
Meren picked the datapad up. If this was something from Cayde, she was going to be truly irate. But it wasn't. A message had come in through an encrypted channel and the device was busy unscrambling the text. Meren let her eyes fall closed. There was only one secure channel she had access to.
Variks watched her response calmly. The Spider's message finally came through.
/Bring me another book/
The request was straightened. There was no way Meren could misconstrue this one.
"What does Spider want?" Variks asked.
Meren hadn't thought Variks could see the screen in her hands, but somehow he knew. There was no point in lying. The scribe was far too clever for his own good.
"He wants a book."
"A book," Variks said, incredulous.
"I'd tell you the story," Meren offered, "but you probably already know."
As expected, Variks didn't verbally confirm her suspicions. But Meren caught a flash of something in his eyes as he gazed at her.
"Some advice," he chided, "Give him what he wants. It would be foolish to refuse."
"Do you think I'm stupid?"
"No," he purred, "You are not stupid, Meren. Stupid and foolish are not the same."
Meren sat back in her chair, crossing her arms. Somehow he was the one giving her a lesson on the nuances of English grammar. When she said nothing in reply, Variks plucked the datapad from her hands and looked at the Spider's message.
"You have managed to keep yourself alive this long. It would be a shame to die over a book," he noted, claws moving over the device's screen.
Whatever he was doing, Meren didn't like it at all. She stood up and grabbed her datapad back, eliciting a growl from the Eliksni.
"If I didn't know better, I would think that you were worried about my well-being," she teased.
His reaction was almost immediate. Variks pulled something from his hip and dropped it before Meren. The hand cannon hit the table with a thud.
Meren stared at it for a long moment before hesitantly picking the thing up. Did he mean for her to have it? Perhaps he was worried about her well-being, after all. She didn't think she had ever fired a gun. And why should she need to? The City was overall a safe place.
Turning it over in her hands, she studied it. It was Eliksni tech - efficient and deadly. Her finger brushed the trigger. Variks' hand reached out, lightning fast. His claws closed around the barrel of the gun and shoved it away. She had been pointing it directly at him.
"You are a menace," he hissed.
"You're the one who gave it to me," she said defensively.
Variks countered, blinking slowly. "Not to use on me."
Careful to keep it pointed away from the Eliksni this time, she looked it over once more. What was she supposed to do with it? Obviously she wasn't going to shoot the Spider, but maybe showing some mettle would make him take her more seriously.
Meren looked up from the gun at Variks. "Even if I wanted to go back to the Tangled Shore, I have no way to get out there. The Awoken are watching me too closely, now."
Meren sighed. She had gotten herself into more than enough trouble since coming to the Reef.
"You are more clever than that," he admonished.
Was she? Meren certainly had managed to overcome everything the Reef had thrown at her so far. Maybe Variks' sudden confidence in her was not misplaced.
"Perhaps," she spoke slowly as an idea formed, "If I use the Prison's loading dock as a rendezvous…"
Variks was suddenly very close as she spoke. He was making a quiet noise. Was he purring?
"...the Awoken would never know that I had left." she finished.
The Spider would get his stupid book. Petra would be none the wiser.
"See?" He purred in her ear.
Meren pulled away slightly. Seemingly unbothered, Variks straightened up in response.
"Come back in one piece," he growled softly, "Then we will talk about the Servitor…"
Meren met his gaze. He looked right back, eyes glittering.
"...and we will talk about Eliksni."
AN: Thank you to Keltoi for the edits!
