Rock bottom's where we live
And still we dig these trenches
To bury ourselves in them
Backs breaking under tension
For far too long these voices
Muffled by distances
It's time to come to our senses
Up from the dirt

Give It All – Rise Against

July 19, 2960; The Last City, Earth

Azra sat down on the futon. And for a while, she just… sat there. She was still numb with shock. Sylas was dead. He'd died right there as she was watching the feed.

She would have just curled up there in misery, but Spark was stubborn. He didn't relent his mental pestering until Azra had removed every piece of armor, taken off her boots, and draped her cloak (Cayde's cloak, really) over the chair. He was still reeling himself- he and Sylas's Ghost Aine had been very close. And now here he was mourning his own loss, but Azra needed him to be the responsible one.

Azra flopped down on top of the covers. The raid team wasn't even back yet with Sylas's body. She wanted to run out there to meet them and hold Veera close- or at least find somewhere to be alone where there weren't goddamn cars and trains and people around with their noises and their stale air.

She didn't want to be here. Two weeks in and she was sick of being told where she needed to be, of only catching glimpses of shade in tiny gardens, of never being able to truly relax and never being able to truly cut loose for fear of hurting someone. If this were a hand Cayde had dealt her in poker, she'd accuse him of stacking the deck.

For just a moment, Azra daydreamed of giving it up, abandoning it all and running away. Living wild on the edge, with no City and no Vanguard policy to tie her down. But that would be leaving behind Shiro and Veera, throwing the rest of the Hunters to the wolves. Besides, she'd promised she'd do this. That was one of the rules she lived by: you give your word, you keep it. She didn't break her promises.

Azra rolled on her side, feeling numb and hollow. Spark pulled the blanket up to cover her shoulder and settled on the bed next to her.

Azra didn't sleep well that night. In fact, she didn't sleep at all.

July 21, 2960; The Last City, Earth

"He was a good man," Azra said. "He was always focused on here. Today, tomorrow. In a world with Hive Gods and ontological threats, it was a blessing. He never lost sight of this."

It was well past dusk now. The light from the fire cast a warm glow on the faces gathered. It was a large crowd. Sylas had been well-known- after Atheon and Crota and Oryx, after the Red War, he'd been as famous as any of them. The light from the flames was too bright, too white; a gas fire, not true wood. There wasn't much point in building a funeral pyre for a metal body. This was more a formality than anything else- a Titan's funeral, where people read passages and made salutes and paid their due to the dead. Tomorrow they'd hang his Mark from the wall as a reminder of what he'd fought for. They'd bury him in a cemetery near the Tower. Azra could go visit his grave whenever she wanted- it's not like she had anywhere else to be.

Azra longed for the chaos of a Hunter's wake- storytelling and alcohol, a celebration of life, a promise to not forget. She hadn't been able to go to Cayde's funeral. This rigid structure here didn't give her room to breathe. It was all a choreographed dance, reading the rites and walking the labyrinth until you found yourself back exactly where you started.

Veera was there, on her left, eyes dim and full of tears. They hadn't talked about it much, but Azra knew they were both thinking about how it would have gone had Azra been there. She could run faster than any of them- she could have bought them the extra seconds they'd needed. She could have found a shortcut through the Keep. She could have taken the Heart and bloody teleported it back to the Techeuns and made sure there was no risk at all.

It was far, far too late to go back now. Azra squeezed Veera's hand. Veera, suppressing a sniffle, didn't squeeze back.

Azra didn't sleep that night, either. Or the next. She was a Guardian, superhuman, so long past the point where a normal mortal would begin to hallucinate and break down, she was still functioning. But although her Ghost could stave off the effects of sleep deprivation, he couldn't stop it forever.

"It's partly how your brain works and partly because of your mind," he explained apologetically. "Sleep helps refresh your sensitivity to neurotransmitters. I can help with that. But it's also how your brain is designed to process your memories. And besides, your mind isn't built for long stretches of consciousness. You're not an AI."

Azra solved the problem on the fifth day by forcing a rez. The room had begun to swim and she was having trouble focusing on her (seemingly endless) paperwork. She'd died plenty of times in the field in service of some Vanguard mission- this wasn't much different, was it?

She figured the insomnia was caused by the lights in the City, the noise, the stress. Eventually she'd get used to it.

(She didn't.)

August 08, 2960; The Last City, Earth

Azra spun a pen idly between her fingers as she scanned another report. Fallen movement in the Plaguelands down even further. Maybe they should reduce their patrols there- there was still the threat of some cache of SIVA being found, but with the lack of Fallen interest, the Iron Lords could handle whatever problems might surface.

Zavala cleared his throat expectantly. Azra glanced up from her work, but remained leaning back in her chair.

"What is the latest news from our allies at the Reef?" Zavala asked.

Azra tabbed over to that section of her database, but she was already well read of the situation. "The Awoken are working on returning some of their citizenry to the Dreaming City," she reported. "Now that we've cleared it out of its big Taken Ahamkara threat, Petra seems eager to get people moved back in."

"Do they need more help?" Ikora asked.

Azra shook her head. "I already sent some. Petra asked for a few hands, making sure no more Scorn sneak in- though now the Corsairs have control of the Watchtower, it's mostly just doing regular sweeps of the City to clear out the last stragglers." She flipped the pen once, then set it down on the table. "But I hand-picked a few people. None of them are idiots. Far as I can tell they've been leaving decent impressions. If Petra needs more help I don't think she'll be afraid to ask."

"It's good to hear that the Awoken people have a path towards normalcy open to them," Ikora said.

Azra shrugged. "After what Uldren did to the Reef proper? I wouldn't blame people for wanting to go settle down somewhere more peaceful."

"Keep me appraised on the situation," Zavala commanded. "And tell Petra her people have our support in whatever they need. After what they did for us during the Battle of Saturn, we can spare them whatever forces they require to make sure they have a safe place to live."

September 14, 2960; The Last City, Earth

"I just got off the line with Payne Boyer," Zavala said.

The name was familiar, but Azra couldn't put a face to it. She met a lot of people these days- faction reps, cryptarchs, civilian suppliers and technicians- it all blurred together. (The sleep deprivation probably didn't help).

Thank the Traveler for Spark. He ran a quick search of his notes and found the relevant details. "The Omolon rep?"

Oh, right. She'd just had a meeting with him last night. She probably should have remembered the name.

"He had some interesting things to say about your conduct at your recent meeting," Zavala said. There was some emotion hidden behind the calm mask of his tone- anger? Annoyance?

Azra replayed the meeting in her mind. "The sniper rifle? They were looking for a Vanguard commission. I declined."

"He said you were extremely rude," Zavala explained. "Curt. Did you even listen to his pitch?"

She had, but Zavala wasn't just being accusatory- he was already upset. "I told them this- it was really fancy, impressive even, but it just had too many moving parts," Azra explained. "Vanguard stuff is supposed to be reliable over everything else. Any sort of electromagnetic interference would mess with the sights. Not saying a lot of people couldn't use it effectively, but the Vanguard doesn't deal in niche guns. That's what I told him."

Zavala just sighed like she'd knocked his favorite mug off the table. "You could have let him finish his presentation."

"He was finished," Azra said defensively. "He was trying to invite me to tour the workshop and stuff, but like I said the gun just wasn't in the Vanguard's wheelhouse."

"You could have let him show off a bit," Ikora interjected from the other side of the room. "The foundry representatives take their work very seriously."

"You wanted me to string him along and make him think we'd commission it?" Azra asked, incredulous.

"I wanted you to approach this with some tact," Zavala stated. "You shouldn't have dismissed him so easily."

"You wanted me to lie to him," Azra accused. "That doesn't help anybody." What was she supposed to do? Tell him they'd consider it? Let him invest resources with the promise of a payoff we all know wasn't coming?

Ikora set down her book and drifted over to break up the argument. "You have to be diplomatic with these things, Azra," she said. "Our relationship with the foundries is important."

"Wasn't aware I was being sent to kiss his ass," Azra muttered.

"You were sent to show Omolon that we are still interested in what they are producing," Zavala bit. "To maintain our standing with their leaders."

"Perhaps Azra wasn't the right person for this," Ikora said. "We're all used to Cayde-" She cut herself off with that thought, but the unspoken sentiment hung loud in the air.

The silence stretched for several seconds. Azra was the one to break it. "I'm sorry I'm not Cayde," she said, meaning every part of it in a painful way. She regretted the ways she was different from him, these days. He'd managed to take the chaos after Andal's death and sort it into order, and Azra was still scrambling to mop up prison runaways. He'd managed to adapt to life in the City, while she still lay awake at night listening to the trains rolling by. Cayde would have sent the rep home happy and whistling and not even realizing that he'd been shut out- he had a way of talking you into something while making it seem like it was your own idea. Meanwhile, Azra was here getting chastised about it.

"I'm sorry," Azra said again, quieter. "I'll call him up, sort it all out."

September 23, 2960; The Dreaming City, Awoken Space

"Something is wrong," Veera said. "Can you not feel it?"

Petra's eye was unfocused for a moment. She nodded, hesitantly, subtly, but then she turned away. "My focus has to stay on my people. On rebuilding. On returning our Queen to us." It was an apology.

Veera looked out a moment over the gardens. Awoken walked on the footpaths, whispering secrets to each other and laughing. Corsairs patrolled in intervals, almost prowling, noses turned up for even the slightest hint of Scorn. (The Guardians had done a thorough job in clearing them from the Dreaming City, but Veera understood their continued caution.) In the distance, a Techeun stood overseeing the repair of a rift generator.

It was all familiar, in an eerie way. From the moment Veera had first set foot in the Dreaming City, she had been struck by how unstriking it was. She remembered none of it, but nothing here felt new to her.

"Sometimes, a person here will look at me, and it is like they recognize me," Veera said. She hadn't often pondered her previous life, her unknown past pre-Guardianhood. Now, standing here and tracing the architecture with her eyes, she couldn't help but ask a very dangerous question. "Do you recognize me?"

Petra looked at her, stunned and guilty in a way that answered Veera's question without words. But then Petra's expression shifted into something unidentifiable. "Not anymore," she said.

Veera turned away, regret tugging at her heart. She should not have asked that. She was a Guardian, and she would never be anything else to the people here. Their recognition would be a painful one, her face but a reminder of someone they'd lost and would never have back.

Petra put a hand on her shoulder, killing the apology on Veera's lips. "That's a good thing," the Queen's Regent said. "You've made your own mistakes. You've lived your own life." She cast a glance around them, voice suddenly quiet like she was telling a secret. "For a long time, I saw you Guardians as tools. Puppets. Even after becoming Liaison, I saw you as nothing more than soldiers. Mockeries of life wearing the faces of the dead."

"And now?" Ghost challenged.

"Now… I think you're just people. Living your own lives. If there is one thing the Light is good at, it is forgiveness. No more sins, no more regrets." Her voice was wistful in a way. Was she thinking of her Prince, how his connection to his past had led him down his dark path? "You live your life beholden to nobody but yourselves."

Veera took a deep breath of air, still feeling that slight sense of wrongness. Something had warped reality, just slightly. She felt it in the City, on patrol. Even here, in the peace and quiet, something chafed. Had it come from the Dreaming City, from a cast-off Wish? How long had it been there before she'd noticed it? Perhaps it wasn't real, just some psychosomatic effect of Veera's own regret. With Sylas dead and Azra locked up in the Tower, she was losing her friends at an alarming rate.

"My people have an opportunity for a fresh start," Petra said. "We can't maintain our isolationist policies anymore. We can wither away in obscurity, or we can accept the Guardians into our lives and work to build a better future together." Her eye was bright, eager, shining with a radical kind of hope. "Would you help?"

Veera just nodded.

October 10, 2960; The Last City, Earth

Shiro didn't knock before he entered the room. "I brought dinner," he announced.

Azra shrugged. "I'm not much hungry." The stir fry from the takeout container certainly smelled good, but her stomach turned at the thought of eating anything. Sleep deprivation always did that to her. She was finding herself skipping meals more often than not these days. (It was rare that she had the time to sit down and enjoy food in any case. With inmates from the Prison of Elders still running around the system, half of her day was taken up just posting bounties and paying them out).

Shiro paused at the door like he was going to say something. He even opened his mouth- but then he hesitated, and his optics hardened, and he closed it. He left and shut the door behind him.

?

"Miz Jax!"

Azra's eyes snapped up from the table (not exactly a table- a desk? A pew?).

She was in the Consensus Hall. There were hundreds of eyes on her- this was an open session. She didn't remember how she got there. She didn't remember what they were just talking about- though she'd been trying to pay attention before she'd zoned out.

There was adrenaline in her system, heart pounding in her ears, and the staring crowd was absolutely not helping calm her down. How long had it been since they'd called her name, now? A few milliseconds? A minute? She hadn't been doing anything wrong- had someone asked her a question?

"Excuse me," she said, voice sounding foreign in her own ears. She sounded so calm and bland, though every nerve in her body was zinging with tension. "I need to go to the bathroom."

She stood up, awkwardly scraping her chair against the ground, grimacing with tension as she painstakingly set it upright and walked out of the room. She could feel the eyes of the crowd setting her cloak on fire behind her.

TYPE: GUARDIAN CUSTOMS PROJECT
PARTIES: Two [2]. Two [2] Guardian-types, Class Hunter, designates Echo [e], Nadir [n]
ASSOCIATIONS: Cayde-6; Jax, Azra
CUSTOMS ASSOCIATIONS: Authority; Vanguard Dare [Hunters]
/AUDIO UNAVAILABLE/
/TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../

[e:01]: You talked to Jax lately?

[n:01]: Azra? A few days ago.

[e:02]: How's she doing?

[n:02]: Eh…

[e:03]: Eh?

[n:03]: Vanguard work isn't agreeing with her.

[e:04]: Can't imagine Vanguard work agreeing with anyone.

[n:04]: She's been acting pretty scatterbrained.

[e:05]: Azra Jax I knew could pick out a cloaked Marauder from a hundred paces.

[n:05]: Azra Jax you knew wasn't stuck in the Tower all day doing paperwork.

[e:06]: Still, it's that bad?

[n:06]: Honestly I wouldn't know. Wasn't a ten second conversation, just turned in a bounty.

[e:07]: She's the Vanguard now. She's got everyone on her line. If she needs help, she'll ask for it.

Note: Apologies for the unusually long wait for this chapter. This next bit of the story deals with some heavier stuff, and I wanted to have everything in order so we can keep moving at a clip. Life permitting, you'll be seeing the next update soon.