I knew that look dear
Eyes always seeking
Was there in someone
That dug long ago
So I will not ask you
Why you were creeping
In some sad way I already know

Like Real People Do – Hozier

March 20, 2961, 20:30; The Last City, Earth

The mood in the air was tense and somber. It was after-hours in the City: the sky the deep vibrant blue of just after sunset, the electric lights twinkling in the dimness. Azra could see it all through the picture windows in Zavala's office.

There was a circle of chairs arranged in the space. Azra sat, back to the door, staring out at the picturesque City skyline. She was flanked by her pack- Cayde to her right, Shiro to her left. Their presence was still a delirious relief. Beyond Shiro to her left was Veera, who still looked distraught- then Sylas-4, sitting stiff in his chair. Next to him sat the stony-faced Vanguard Commander Zavala. Azra couldn't look at him.

Next to Zavala was the Warlock Vanguard Ikora. Her face was smoothed into a serene expression, but Azra still winced at the horror that welled around her when their eyes met. Next to Ikora was sat Praedyth, looking rather confused. Azra hadn't specifically invited him, or Lord Shaxx next to him, but she wasn't going to complain. She hadn't spoken to either of them yet and they would need to know the details.

Azra repressed the urge to fidget, letting her eyes flit back around the circle. She was out of her element in the worst way. Speeches? Storytelling? The weight of all of the attention was suffocating. But unless she wanted to have this conversation a dozen different times with a dozen different people, this was the best option. No matter how much it made her itch to sit here with everyone staring at her.

She took a deep breath. "I think I finally put together what's happened." She looked at Ikora, at Praedyth and Shaxx. "It's more than you think."

"Start from the beginning," Ikora said soothingly.

In an earlier time, Azra would have leaned back and started cheekily regaling them the story of the birth of the Universe. Now, she hunched and rested her elbows on her knees. The beginning? "June fourth, twenty-nine sixty," she decided. "Petra Venj requested help quelling a riot in the Prison of Elders. Unknown to any of us, the riot was just a cover for the escape of Prince Uldren and his Scorn Barons." She saw a few nodding heads around the circle; this wasn't news to anyone here. "Cayde-6 and I went. I helped him sneak out of the Tower. And it was easy- it was supposed to be. But Cayde ran ahead. It was a trap. I… I didn't catch up in time."

Cayde silently reached over and grabbed her wrist. It was grounding. Azra had never quite gotten over it; even though Cayde himself had absolved her of any guilt, once Uldren was dead she hadn't been left with anyone else to blame.

She sighed. Her hands were trembling, but she could do this. "When I got there he was in bad shape, and his Ghost was gone, and he just… wasn't going to make it. So I put the final bullet in him myself. Mercy. He asked. And when I got back to the City, because I had technically been the one to kill him…"

"The Dare," Ikora said gravely. Azra nodded.

Cayde interjected. "It shouldn't have happened." The eyes moved to him, now, and he settled himself in his chair like a cat ready to pounce. "I wrote her out of my Dare. Secret-like. But I left notes, caches…"

"Sabotaged," Azra said. "Deliberately, I think."

"But how?" Shiro asked. "I've checked, I don't think the net failures could be deliberately caused."

"I'll get to that," Azra assured. "But first-"

Shiro and Cayde sat back in their chairs. Azra continued. "But first, Uldren was running rampant on the Tangled Shore- a scrap of Reef Space that's usually… overlooked by Corsair patrols."

"We are familiar," Zavala said shortly.

"Right." Azra's eyes went back to the floor. She fiddled with the hem of her cloak as she continued. "We didn't want like half of the Tower storming the Reef, and I called dibs on revenge. So I went alone."

Veera made some noise of disapproval. Azra shook her head. "Eventually, Veera and Shiro-4 joined me," she assured. "We killed all of the Scorn Barons, and then Uldren himself. Not before he opened the door to the Dreaming City, but-"

Ikora raised a hand, stopping Azra in her verbal tracks. The Warlock Vanguard looked guilty, at least, as she asked her question. "How did Uldren open the door? It requires both Light and Darkness to unlock."

"Cayde's gun- the Ace of Spades- and a chunk from a shard of the Traveler," Azra answered. "He had the Darkness part of it covered himself." That left the obvious question on her part: "How did he open it this time?"

There was a beat of awkward silence. Zavala cleared his throat and then spoke. "You."

"You don't remember," Ikora said, not really asking.

Cayde's grip on her wrist tightened in warning. Azra took a deep, shaky breath and very purposefully did not try to remember. "After the… kidnapping?" That word was awkward in her mouth- "Nothing. Except a few… flashbacks."

"Let's move on," Cayde said. "I don't feel like getting kicked across the room again." It was a joke, halfway, and Azra grabbed onto it gratefully. She could plumb the depths of her memory later.

"Just to clarify," Shaxx said, "this happened. This is no mere story, this is history. Fact."

"As far as I am concerned," Azra said. "It can be hard to tell, with alternate timelines and such-"

"Alternate timelines?" Praedyth asked. "Such things have only been theorized. The implications-" He seemed unsure about it himself.

"You tell me," Azra said. "I don't have any physical proof, except the things I know that I shouldn't. It could have just been some falsified memories, I suppose. I'm not sure if there's much difference in the end."

Praedyth put a hand on his chin and narrowed his eyes at her. After a moment he frowned and reached to rifle through his pocket. He produced a set of lenses about the size of his thumb that glittered in the dim lighting. There was silence in the room as he flipped through them.

Praedyth's skin was too dark to show the blood leaving his face, but his shock rattled the Light in the room like a distant artillery strike. He lowered the lenses, looking at Azra with wide eyes, then put them back up and fiddled with them again.

After a long pause, he put them down again. "Real," he croaked, shoving the device back into his pocket. "Definitely real. Gods, Azra-"

"How?" Ikora asked. "As Praedyth already stated, time travel has been only theorized." She paused a moment, the wheels turning in her head. She looked at Azra, nervous and hunched in her chair, wearing guilt like a second cloak. "Did you do this?" Ikora asked, aghast.

Azra grimaced. "After a fashion."

"Azra… you know better than any of us how dangerous that is," Praedyth said.

Ikora's focus was like a searchlight. "She knows the danger. Something bad happened. Something bad enough to make this the best option."

Azra hunched her shoulders, staring at the floor. "It's more complicated than that."

"What of Riven?" Shaxx interrupted. Azra looked up at him, eyes narrowed. He was always unfairly clever.

"We still sent a raid to kill her," Azra supplied. "Fireteam Dauntless, minus me and add one Quantis Rhee. They got the job done, but Sylas-4 died securing her Heart." Sylas sat straighter in his chair at that (if that were physically possible.) "But also, importantly, Veera wished for something. I don't know if it was an accident, or on purpose-"

"The Curse on the Dreaming City," Praedyth guessed.

"No," Azra said. "My Dreaming City was never cursed." That caught everyone's interest. "This… it's tricky. There's no way to know exactly how things went- but, well-"

Veera saw her stumbling. "Azra has been an invaluable asset to the City and to my fireteam," she cut in. "But more than that, she has been… a friend. No, friend seems so pale a word in comparison to what she has meant to us. I care deeply for her. She has assisted us in our exploits because we asked her to. Because we needed her to. She has put such effort into it, taken such risk. I would have seen such a cruel twist of fate that she finally perhaps would get the reprieve she deserved- but in a manner that still caused her… pain. I just… I would have wanted her voice to mean something." Veera sat straight. "Had I wished for Azra to be heard as I was…"

"It'd explain a lot," Azra said. "I think… I wanted to run away. But I couldn't just abandon my friends and family like that. I had work to do. But…" Azra grimaced. "That might have been a Wish to have no friends or family left. To not be able to do any work. To have nothing tying me down."

"And Riven could hear you because I wished for it," Veera said.

Azra nodded.

Now for the hard part. Despite the air-conditioned room, there was a bead of sweat rolling down her back. She'd twisted her cloak into a knot. It would be so much easier if she could just leave things here.

But she didn't do things because they were easy. Fighting Atheon hadn't been easy. Neither had fighting Oryx or Ghaul. Even just living her life wasn't easy- it was good, and rewarding, but things were never just simple. She was telling this story because it was the best option.

Spark- she would never be able to deserve her Ghost. He lit down on her shoulder and hummed lightly, just enough to feel the vibration of it. In her mind he was stalwart, a wall at her back. Solid ground beneath her feet. A full magazine on a reliable gun.

Azra took a deep breath. "I didn't sleep for eight months," she began. "I was always awake, except for when I was dead. The only way I was able to function was by shooting myself and getting resurrected. At first every few days, but by the end there I was going every couple of hours, and it still wasn't fixing all that much. It got… bad." Understatement of understatements. But she was not here to wallow.

"Eight months?" Ikora asked. "Did nobody notice?"

"I told people," Azra said. "But you just didn't care. You might have even thought I deserved it. You never stopped blaming me for Cayde's death."

"For that long?" Zavala muttered in disbelief.

Azra threw up her hands. "It was a Curse, man, what do you want me to say?"

He looked at her, sharp-eyed, and Azra flinched first. She crossed her arms and stared off to the side, scanning the knickknacks on Zavala's bookshelves instead.

Her voice sounded dispassionate even in her ears. "Shiro-4 died in the attack on the Botza district. I'd been excluded from command decisions at that point, so I didn't learn about it until afterward. He'd been… distant, before. Zavala wouldn't even give me a few hours off to bury him- I had to sneak out." That got a grumble of anger from Cayde and a frown from Zavala. Azra shrugged. "But I didn't make it too long after that. Little over two months. Things kind of… got to a point. Where continuing wasn't an option." Some kind of icy composure had taken her. Her hands no longer shook, her voice no longer quavered. It was the same kind of coolness she could face down a swarm of Hive with. "I left. Abandoned my post. And I felt bad that I couldn't find someone else who would Dare with me-" another consequence of the Curse, perhaps, "- so I left a note and told you to scapegoat me, if it would help. Place the blame on personal failings, not the flaws of the system, you know?"

There was solid dread radiating from Ikora now. It slid over Azra like rain on a frozen lake. She looked the Warlock Vanguard straight in the eye as she laid out the torrid facts. "You made up a story about how I'd run off because I'd been found out for selling secrets to the Fallen. I was exiled in absentia."

The room was dead silent. Azra finally broke eye contact and leaned back, arms still crossed. "I fell asleep, finally, and by the time I woke up it was too late to do anything. I was never sure if the Curse had broken when I left, but if anyone realized the error of their ways, they certainly didn't show it. It was too dangerous to try and sit down to talk. I spent six-odd months just… running around, scouting, the occasional rescue mission. Just trying to do something. But things never really got better. In late August, my ship got shot down near Old Minsk. I went to try and get another one, but someone caught my tail. They caught up eventually. And they killed me."

Zavala was frowning deeply now, his forehead drawn into deep worry ridges.

Azra shrugged. "I goaded them into it. They shot Spark first. I let them. But right at the end, there… I wished for another chance. It had all gone wrong so fast. It's not like I knew Riven could hear me and made a bargain. I just… had regret, looking down the barrel of the gun. Next thing I know, I'm back in the Prison of Elders, and it's June fourth again."

"…And the rest kind of explains itself," Spark concluded.

Not to Azra. But answers could come later.

"I need time," Azra said to the shocked silence. She looked up, staring straight at Ikora- who now had anger and sadness flickering like gas fires at the edge of her horror- and at Zavala, who was still unreadable. "I don't think I'm ready to forgive you yet."

She saw it: Zavala's eyebrows went down, and his mouth opened, the instinctive argument forming: I did nothing wrong. It had been a bold move by Azra, assuming the unsaid apology. If he protested, Azra could not argue with him into remorse. He was too stubborn.

But she already had nothing. She could live without Zavala.

But, miraculously, he paused.

Zavala was about to argue. The tale so far had been a ridiculous one- unbelievable at points. If it weren't for the echoes of reality in it, the knowledge of the future she'd already shared with the Vanguard, he would have written it off as a mere hallucination. But it had rung so gut-twistingly true, and Ikora had reported the Hunter's intelligence as solid and useful. But this- doing everything but outright accusing him of a failure in leadership, of cruelty? A bridge too far.

Something stopped him from voicing his rebuttal, though. Perhaps it was that apprehension in her eyes, far too knowing. If her story was correct, they should be very familiar with each other indeed. Azra had worked with him for eight months- not happily, it would seem. But surely there had been some tolerable times, before the Curse? Strategy talks, weekly debriefs, Consensus meetings? She would have had time to learn his leadership style, his own idiosyncrasies, his scheduling preferences. Perhaps they had shared some connection over his abiding love of Old European cuisine or her opinions of Robert Frost. She looked at him like she knew him inside and out. He had none of that understanding to fall back on.

He suddenly wanted to ask her- how did she take her coffee? What did she think of the Consensus bylaws? What would she be like in a debate: would she be like Andal Brask, biding her time and formulating the perfect argument, or would she be like Cayde-6, blurting out her insights at inappropriate times, derailing everyone's planned talking points? He didn't know. From her perspective, he had, once. He understood, as a person of some fame, how precious all the small parts of yourself could become. When you had a public persona, the insignificant things became precious- how you spent your free time, your favorite games, the poetry you read. Apparently, she'd given it to him, once upon a time, only to see it wasted. Could he afford to be so callous to throw it away again on a technicality?

"I understand," Zavala said, even though he didn't, not in the way he should. His first instinct was to fall back on honor- how dare she demand, in so few words, an apology for a wrong he had never committed? But that was such a stale, dead meaning of justice- what point was there in justice if did not fix things, if it did not give them a path towards healthier relations and a more right future? What use had honor been to her, this Guardian who had given so much of herself- in ways that Zavala did not understand- if it had driven her to such desperation? She'd faced down Atheon without so much deliberation. She'd gone to kill Oryx with not a complaint voiced. Had he any right to rely on honor when it had done what gods and monsters had failed to do?

What kind of leader would Zavala be if he chose the letter of the law over the people it was supposed to protect?

"Hopefully we can prevent such things from happening again," he said. That wasn't quite enough. He added, "You don't deserve it. After the sacrifices you've made- it never should have been asked of you."

There was surprise on her face, before she managed to hide it. Surprise meant that she thought he'd argue- and he almost had. But if she thought she'd fail, why did she try?

"Trust," Targe whispered in his ear.

Zavala was not so foolish a leader to squander that.

It was Shiro's turn to put his hand up, it seemed. Azra raised an eyebrow at him. He cleared his throat. "You still didn't answer my question. How did someone sabotage Cayde's failsafe messages?"

"More importantly," Cayde interrupted. "Who?"

Azra sighed. This was the real sticking point. "So. Savathûn." Azra glanced around the circle and saw recognition in Praedyth's eyes, in Ikora's, but most people seemed confused. "Sister to Oryx," she explained. "The Hive God of Trickery. She masterminded this whole thing. Arranged for errors in the network so I would be the Vanguard, so I would be exiled, so I would let someone kill me and still regret it."

"So you could be Taken, in a fashion," Ikora mused. "So you could Curse the Dreaming City."

"But why," Zavala growled. "Why go to all of these lengths?"

"She's the God of Trickery," Azra said, shrugging. "Her whole shtick is being inscrutable. Maybe she doesn't need a purpose beyond being confusing."

'She feeds on speculation," Praedyth warned. "To question her motives is to make her stronger. This is concerning."

"How do you know this?" Ikora asked.

Azra grimaced. "I told you when I… when I was made to Curse the Dreaming City, I said-"

"'She made me do it,'" Ikora quoted. "Savathûn made you do it? You heard her?"

"I-"

"Little Guardian," the voice whispers, "So powerful, yet so weak. Tell me, why did your Traveler choose you?"

You cannot speak. Even if you knew the answer, they took your words when they took your will.

The voice continues. Its owner is not present, physicaly; the voice is just for you. It sounds only in your head. "Some would call you nothing more than a tool. A warrior. But we both know better than that, don't we?" You can't disagree. You can't want to disagree. Even your instincts are at her whim- your heartbeat is slow and steady, your body relaxed.

You can almost feel the bony finger on your chin, tilting your head upward. "I think I will enjoy wielding you. We have so much work to do."

"Back. Off."

The marble was cold and unyielding beneath Azra's face. There was a searing pain in her left temple. The Light was ringing with alarm- so much so that she placed her hands flat on the floor and made her arms push herself up, even though the motion made her dizzy.

She blinked the blood out of her eyes and found the scene of a standoff- Cayde stood between her and Lord Shaxx, hand on his gun. Shiro was similarly, if a bit less threateningly, handling Veera, blocking her path and speaking a low tone.

Zavala's office, with the lights of the City shining through the window and the air chill and dry in her nose. Shaxx was upset, Veera was upset, and Azra was lying in a small puddle of blood.

"I'm fine," Azra croaked. "I'm alright." Okay, maybe she had a head wound, but she wasn't about to start stabbing people. She still felt off-kilter.

"Everyone sit down," Zavala ordered.

Azar sat up, and Spark appeared to heal the cut on her forehead and clean the blood. Everyone seemed to take a collective breath, and the alarm melted into relief and confusion.

"You keeled over again," Cayde said helpfully, offering her a hand up.

Azra took the hand and let Cayde pull her to her feet. "Didn't pick that up," she said dryly.

"Are you alright," Shaxx said. He hadn't taken Zavala's advice about sitting, but at least he didn't look like he was about to charge in and shake Azra silly.

"Yeah." Azra straightened her cloak. "Guess that's a thing that's going to keep happening. Great." She looked around the faces in the circle and softened a bit. "Really, I'm fine. It's not… entirely unprecedented, unfortunately. Remember the Cradle, back during the Red War?" She saw nods from Ikora and Sylas. "I can manage."

"Okay, to recap," Cayde interrupted. "Shit got fucked, and then even more fucked, and now it at least appears to be less fucked, except for the Dreaming City, which is even more fucked. And somehow a Hive Trick Wizard is benefiting from all of this."

Azra opened her mouth to argue, but she couldn't find any major flaws with the summary. "… Basically," she admitted.

"A dark future," Zavala mused. "And a second chance, given by a god of trickery. I don't like it."

"What do we do now?" Shaxx asked.

Zavala inclined his head. "We do what we can. Together."

"I'll try to untangle this Curse on the Dreaming City," Azra offered. "I made it, kind of. Maybe I can figure out how it works." Azra, at least, had a to-do list a mile long.

"I will look into our resources on Savathûn," Ikora said. "Maybe there is information there that can explain what's happened."

"Eris Morn'd be useful on that front," Azra said.

Ikora nodded.

Cayde draped an arm around Azra's shoulders. "I've got a better idea: Ramen, and a couple of drinks, and then we get a good night's sleep and leave all of the planning for tomorrow."