Chapter 2 - Parvenu
He awoke again with dry lips and a parched throat, his head aching softly and his muscles stiff. He felt a thin layer of sand and dust in his hair, and the sleeping bag bunched into a small pile underneath him. As he tried to go back to sleep, he heard a faint scratching sound behind him, sending his heart racing. No further sound followed, so he slowly calmed his pulse and began to doze. He didn't know how long he slept in, but eventually, he brought himself to wakefulness. A soreness in his shoulder quickly mended itself as a small robot materialized into the air. His tired mind took a few moments to catch up with himself, but he soon recognized Ashe, remembered his name, and slowly began to recall the previous day's events. The weight of what he did crashed into him like a blast from a grenade, and all he wanted to do was go back to sleep. Still, he forced himself to stay awake, knowing that every moment he sat still where he was was another moment that the Fallen had to catch him. His companion said something, but still too tired to register it, he rubbed his eyes with his gloved palms and asked her to repeat herself.
"I said good morning, sleepyhead!" Ashe replied through a bubbly laugh. Phoenix grunted his reply as he slowly stood, stretching stiff muscles, a slight bit of sand tumbling from his armor. Soreness and stiffness from a night spent on the rough ground slowly faded as his Ghost's Light washed through him. He stretched a little to awaken further, reaching down to replace his helmet before putting away his sleeping bag. "First item of the day," mused Ashe in the meantime, "should be food and water. I can still revive you if you do, but I'd imagine dying of thirst or hunger is pretty rough." The roughness in his throat led Phoenix to agree with the assessment.
"Alright," he said, gathering the weapons strewn about the room, "Where can we get those?"
"Hmm…" said Ashe, her segments rotating rapidly as she thought, data flashing across her iris. Silence pervaded the trashed space for several long moments. As Phoenix opened his mouth to reply, she finally spoke, exclaiming, "North! A human settlement a couple hours North of here."
Phoenix nodded as he started for the door. Ashe shut the lights off behind them and transmatted the sleeping bag, rocket launcher, shotgun, and marksman rifle while saying, "Supposedly, it's really nice up there this time of year. First spring blooms, snow melts, and super green trees. Definitely a welcome break from this desert I've been stuck in."
"How long were you looking for me here?" Phoenix queried while picking through the rubble, a cone of light over his shoulder from Ashe helping to guide his way.
"Eh," Ashe replied readily, "About a week. It wasn't the longest time I've spent in one place, but 7 million people lived here before the Collapse, so there was a lot to pick through." Stumbling over a chunk of concrete, he asked, "Then what was the place you searched for me the longest?"
"That was…" her voice hung on the vowel sound in the last word as she contemplated the question, and after a few more steps, finished, "Houston, a little over a thousand miles Southeast of here. I picked through that place for over a month; it had almost twice as many people as here. That was a long time ago, though…"
"How long did you spend looking for me in all?"
"Oh, that I have no idea. I lost count sometime after the first century."
He stumbled again, his concentration broken by the sudden revelation. A century spent looking for him? From how she said it, the little machine had taken much longer than that to find him. He could hardly even fathom that span of time. He tried to swallow, but his dry throat made the action tedious. "More than a century…" he repeated in a hoarse voice, tinged with sympathy and awe, "How old are you, even?"
His Ghost feigned indignation as best she could with her featureless shell. "Come now," she playfully chided, "Don't you know it's rude to ask a woman her age? I would think the Traveler would leave you with that much." She laughed, and Phoenix favored her with a small, slightly confused smile under his full helm. "Now, let's keep going," she encouraged, "You probably scared the Fallen off for a while, but I wouldn't count on it lasting too much longer. No more questions until we stop for the night." Phoenix dutifully returned to navigating through the rubble and dust, redoubling his efforts.
The sun was poking just above the scarred monoliths of scratched glass and corroded steel that made up the skyline of the ruined city by the time Phoenix and Ashe exited onto the sandy street. Distant warbling echoed across the empty pavement. "That's probably a skiff out looking for us," Ashe murmured before transmatting herself out of the scorching air, "It'd be best if we stay off the Sparrow until we've got some distance between us and the Fallen."
Creeping between pieces of rubble and rusted-out vehicles, his attention split between the ground at his feet and the sky between the towering buildings, Phoenix quietly muttered, "I don't think you need to be so quiet when you're transmatted. It's not like they can hear you when you're like that, can they?"
"Well, no, they can't, really," Ashe conceded, a little bit louder, "but it's the principle of it, you know?."
Phoenix did his best to continue to move between the ancient rubble, and Ashe gave him directions to make it out of the city proper and hopefully out of earshot of the patrolling Fallen. Far in the distance, the warbling of Skiff engines echoed across the barren surface of the concrete jungle. Though the distance from the sounds tended to increase, Phoenix had no opportunity to relax, as just when he thought the sounds were far enough away that no man or alien could hear, he would pick up on the sound of engines or Fallen screeches too close for comfort, or see a blip on his radar for a fraction of a second, causing his heart to leap into his throat. He took each step deliberately to ensure that no sound would echo along the silent streets and alert his pursuers. His breaths sounded cacophonous in his ears, his heartbeat a pounding staccato, and all the while, Ashe continued to direct him in her same, unflappable way. It would have been something for him to admire had it not frustrated him to no end.
After a time, the skyscrapers began to fade away into commercial and industrial buildings. With less chance of a stray sound alerting every alien invader for miles around, he began to trade silence for swiftness. His heartbeat began to return to a more manageable level. Ashe's cheery directions grated on him a little less with each step, and he no longer froze, frantically searching the landscape after every kicked rock or scuffed step. The buildings slowly became smaller as the distant, hazy mountains grew with the plodding miles he made, alongside his thirst and hunger and the ubiquitous piles of dirt, dust, and sand. Debris and long ruined vehicles littered the streets alongside ancient, broken skeletons, bleached to a blinding white by the ever-vigilant sun.
As they approached the distant suburbs that hugged the foothills of the mountains, Phoenix's fear had long since passed, replaced by a growing sense of isolation and loneliness. Sure, he had Ashe with him, but there was no other being around he had seen alive. The only exception to that was the homicidal Fallen. It seemed to him that all that remained of humanity was the bones at his feet and the towering monoliths of long-abandoned civilization above his head. Still, he pressed onward, holding onto the hope that Ashe's claim of a human settlement gave him. Time wore on, the sun passing the tips of the buildings in its long, eternal arc, each step slowly becoming more labored than the last as his muscles began to ache. Ashe could heal the ache for a time, but she could only do so much. Eventually, he would have to rest, and he took an opportunity to do so by slipping inside a large building that seemed in good enough shape that it wouldn't collapse over his head.
Inside, he saw racks of shelves, corroded data pads, and yellow papers scattered across the stained carpet, turned brown and ruddy from the dust seeping into its fibers over the numberless years. A chunk of the ceiling was missing, casting a wide sunbeam through which motes of dust and sand flitted and flicked. A slight breeze passed through the shattered windows. Phoenix trudged up to the circular front desk and slumped down next to a yellowed, ancient skeleton with its jawbone missing. He panted, each breath stinging his parched throat, and his stomach growled. His legs were sore, and the soles of his feet agonized him. Nine unbroken hours of walking had taken a toll on his reborn body. His Ghost had done what she could to help, but after a certain point, there was little that Light could do to compensate for no rest. Ashe materialized in a blue-white mist, cheerily stating, "I'll look around and see if there's anything safe to eat or drink still left here."
Phoenix nodded, still trying to catch his breath. Ashe raced off, her iris flickering and scanning all the information she could about the place as Phoenix leaned forward, removed his helmet, and slumped back against the desk hard, jarring his head against the material. He greedily took in the cool air that permeated the space. At the very least, he was grateful that the late winter was so mild, the cool air preventing him from overheating but not so cold that it caused discomfort on his march. By the time the soreness in his feet abated, Ashe returned and transmatted two water bottles onto the floor beside him.
Ashe flitted about the desk her lightbearer laid against, taking in all the information she could as she mused, "These were the two best ones I could find. All the other ones were either empty, stagnant or only partially full. There's definitely some microplastics in them, but I don't think you'll be keeping this specific body long enough to worry about it." Phoenix did not hear her. As soon as the bottles had finished materializing, he twisted off the first cap and began to drain it. The water was warm and tasted strange, but he didn't care; he was just grateful to have some relief for his dry throat. Dropping the first bottle to his opposite side, he reached down and grabbed the second, drained half of it in a few seconds, and then took his time nursing the remaining water. With the second bottle empty, he dropped it beside the first with a hollow thump. He stretched, finally able to be at peace, however uneasily, for the first time that day. He sighed, long and deep, feeling the air rush soothingly along his quenched throat.
"We ought to get going again," said Ashe as she returned, "Another mile or so, and I think you should be good to use your Sparrow." Phoenix's calves and heels throbbed at the thought of another mile, but he sighed and forced himself to his feet. She was right, and one more mile couldn't hurt. He clawed onto whining feet and stretched a stiff back before heading out for the outside world again. After over 20 miles of marching, the last stretch seemed blissfully short. Ashe rematerialized over his shoulder. "Well, it ended up being a little over a mile and a half," she announced, "but this road will take us all the way to the northern settlement." They stood just before a bridge that crossed over an enormous four-lane road. The pavement, stained black with age and littered with old vehicles, dust, rubble, and bones, stretched ahead of him to the north, past what appeared to be an old prison on his left, and behind him to the south, cutting through a vast commercial area. Signs long left decrepit towered over the ground alongside massive, sprawling buildings, mulling across the broad road in various states of disrepair. The only sign of life in the concrete graveyard was a distant bird's long, moaning cry echoing across the barren walls.
As the sorrowful birdcall touched his ears, Phoenix felt something stir inside him. A pressure in his chest materialized from nothing as he felt a strange and distant longing transfix him. The pressure made his chest hot and formed a lump in his throat, centering his focus on only the landscape before him. He gazed over the ruins, realizing that he felt nostalgia. He whispered to himself, his voice small, soft, and timid, "Have I… been here before?" He racked his mind, grasping at memories that died with his past life.
"What's up?" asked Ashe, turning to face her lightbearer. The bird cried again, the melancholy song causing inexplicable emotion to swell inside him. He could almost see the cars racing back and forth along the massive road before him, to whatever busy lives were cut short by the Collapse. He thought he remembered something, almost like a static-laced whisper of a dream teasing at the back of his mind. "You… want to go out and hunt that bird?" his Ghost guessed, wrenching him from his ruminations. Unexpectedly, this caused him to laugh, coming out sounding closer to a choked sob as a lone pair of tears wet his cheeks. "I didn't think it was that funny," Ashe observed teasingly, then added more sincerely, "Are you alright?"
"I… don't know…" he responded. His voice trembled, sounding strange to his own ears. He took deep, shaky breaths as he tried to calm himself, the unexpected emotions overwhelming his sense of reason. It felt like an eternity before he could get control of himself again, and he sniffled. The nostalgia had passed on, with the peculiar mix of emotions that made it difficult for him to breathe following beside it. A faint sense of longing remained, but after he took a deep breath, it too was gone. He turned to his Ghost, trying on a reassuring smile under his helmet that never reached his eyes. "It's nothing," he said more confidently, "Besides, we'd have to look through a lot of ground to find it, and I'm not that hungry just yet."
His Ghost bobbed up and down in an affirmative nod, though her enthusiastic voice still held a note of tenderness as she spoke again. "Then let's get going!" Ashe announced, "Northward bound!" With that, she transmatted her lightbearer's Sparrow back into physical matter. She disappeared as he mounted it and began speeding along the massive road leading to the horizon before him. The whine of the hoverbike's engine drowned out all the noise around him, though his helmet filtered out the worst so that it wouldn't damage his ears. He was grateful for the cacophony of raucous wind and engine noises, as it prevented him from hearing that strange bird call again.
He said nothing for the first half hour, allowing the wind and whine to fill his mind. Commercial buildings faded to industrial buildings, and industrial sprawls gave way to the dusty green-brown desert plants scattered across slowly growing hills and mountains. They passed a long-abandoned mall, a few small clusters of tarnished homes, and rank after rank of rusting automobiles and aged skeletons. After passing between two sides of a hill through which the road cut, Ashe finally broke Phoenix's brooding silence. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. Her voice was quiet and gentle, but the sound in his helmet overpowered the muted noises of the air rushing by and the engine underneath.
Phoenix replied quietly but trusted that Ashe would hear him through their radio, "Not exactly. Just something about that bird call made me… almost remember something."
"Like, from your past life?" his Ghost curiously asked.
"Where else from?" Phoenix asked in answer, trying unsuccessfully to add a bit of dry levity to his voice.
His Ghost conceded him a small, polite laugh before explaining, "It's just odd. I've never heard of any other Lightbearer having memories of their past. Besides Exos, at least."
"Well, I'm a little too fleshy to be an Exo," Phoenix replied, his voice a little stronger.
Ashe's laugh this time was much more genuine. "Well, it doesn't exactly explain how you had a memory of your past. Maybe it had something to do with how recently you were rezzed?"
Phoenix shrugged and returned to his silence, now in a slightly better mood. They crested a hill, finding themselves atop a plateau covered in overgrown grains and grasses that flanked the road. "How about some music?" Ashe's electronic voice queried over the comm. She didn't wait for Phoenix's response before Ashe filled their channel with upbeat pop tunes. Her lightbearer was a little puzzled for a moment. It seemed a little unlike her to not wait for his response, but he quickly put the thought out of his mind. After all, he had only known her for a day, and she probably hoped the music would cheer him up. To her credit, it did. The music's high energy helped take his mind off his brooding and lift his spirits further, thanks in no small part to Ashe's singing along with the songs, which varied wildly in quality. Unkempt hills roll by as Phoenix drives and Ashe sings, the scenery only interrupted by occasional runaway truck ramps and a dilapidated rest stop. Phoenix even found himself humming along with the chorus of a few especially catchy songs, the dour mood and strange bird call a distant memory.
Gradually, the hills elongated into mountains, and scruffy desert shrubs filled out to temperate brush as the sun slowly crept down to the western horizon. Rockslides littered the road in places, forcing Phoenix to drift dangerously close to the steep mountainside on his right or almost brush against the sheer cliff face on his left. Some piled so high that Phoenix was forced to stop and climb or jump over them. Still, he pressed onward, and Ashe's music blared over their radio. When the scrubs began to reach up into thick-trunked pines, Ashe ordered her lightbearer to stop for the day. "It's getting late," she said, "and if there's any more debris in our way, we won't be able to see it until we're right on top of it." Phoenix nodded and dismounted, the sparrow disappearing into a blue mesh as Ashe transmatted it. He began to march into the forest of sparse pines, the air and sky darkening around him. The few birds that rested amidst the branches took off in fear at the trudging steps of the intruder. He found a patch of pine needles beneath a thick tree and sat down to rest.
The forest was silent, except for his breaths echoing in his helmet. That, and his stomach groaning. He hugged his knees to his chest, closing his eyes, gritting his teeth, and silently praying to whatever the Traveler was that the pain in his abdomen would subside even a little. As though in answer to his plea, something rustled in the sparse underbrush to his right. His whining stomach sank into his toes as his gaze flitted to the trembling plants. He stood slowly, as silently as he could, drawing his sidearm and taking aim. With a quiet coo, it emerged: a large, plump bird with a single curved feather curling from its head like an unruly hair. It looked at him with a single black eye, flecked with light from the moon and starlight above and filled with nervous curiosity. His grip loosened, and his pulse slowed as he took a deep breath to calm himself. "Wow, the mighty lightbearer jumping at a little quail," Ashe teased as she materialized. The quail looked at the construct with the same overwrought interest it regarded Phoenix with, and the lightbearer's cheeks turned red and grew hot. His stomach growled painfully again, and he looked again at the quail. It was innocent and defenseless, likely only allowed to grow as large as it had due to an utter absence of predators in the area. He thought it was the exact sort of being that Ashe said she revived him to defend.
Nevertheless, his stomach growled for a third time. With the few animals he saw around, he doubted there would be a better chance of getting a hearty meal than this. The quail began to wander away, cooing softly as it slowly passed the lightbearer and Ghost by. Rather than allow the opportunity to pass, he made a decision. Carefully, he aimed and squeezed the trigger.
Avokos crouched in the brush, his twin pairs of eyes narrowed into slits to reduce their glow. His slightly infrared vision caused the Machine-spawn and his fire to stand out like a sun in the cold night. He had stalked him since the ruined human city and was astonished at being able to remain undiscovered for so long. Of course, even if he had been, he would not have been able to return to his House. After the death of so many at the hands of the Machine-spawn, to even suggest asking him for help, as desperately as they needed it, would be tantamount to treason. His punishment would not be death; too few Eliksni of his House remaining could fight as it was. However, being beaten and assigned to Spider Walker maintenance would have been a fate worse than death for him. His House remembered and still told the old legends, ones of heroes from the days under Riis's roseate skies, legends of conquerors and saviors among the old Houses that inspired him since he was a hatchling. With every inch of flesh and exoskeleton, he knew that his House needed a hero as of old. He knew that he could make a difference. However, the current problem with his plan was that he had no idea how he could convince this Machine-spawn to help him. So, he sat, watching from the bush as the Machine-spawn roasted the flesh of the dead avian over the small fire he made with the Great Machine's Light. The Eliksni's Great Machine. Their stolen Great Machine.
Jealousy, bitterness, and resentment welled up within him, both at the Great Machine and this being blessed of its Light. How was it fair that the humans were allowed to be raised in its Light and saved by its grace, but the Eliksni were to be abandoned? A slight wind blew, sending the smell of cooking meat in his direction. The scent caused the digestive glands in his sharp-toothed mouth to begin secreting juices, a vestige of the carnivorous origins of his people, and threw off his train of thought. He took a short draw of life-giving Ether, letting the blue-white gas suffuse his body and rejuvenate him, quelling the primal hunger the meat caused him to feel. His mind cleared. He rubbed the sleep from his auxiliary pair of eyes, then his central pair. He sighed, returning to his brooding, watching the Machine-spawn, ruminating on how he might convince this Machine-spawn to help his House.
Phoenix wiped the grease from his lips and relaxed against the tree at his back, listening to the crackling of the large branches he had placed into the raging fire. Its warmth and light bathed over him, dispelling the day's stresses on his mind and body. Scarce night insects chirped in a few spots among the nearby trees, and he placed his hands behind his head, taking a deep breath of the forest air. A branch snapped nearby, and, assuming it was a curious animal coming to find what was making the strange light and delicious scent of quail, he turned lazily to face it. He saw, faint in the uneven light, orange cloth, dark body armor, and four glowing blue eyes piercing him with their gaze from the darkness. Phoenix quickly scrambled for his pistol, but the Dreg was nowhere in sight by the time he was on his feet and had his weapon in hand.
He stood stock still, watching and listening for many long moments to see where the Dreg may have disappeared. Several tense minutes passed, and he sighed, holstering the pistol and sitting down heavily, fatigue washing over him. "Seems like we didn't make it out of Phoenix as cleanly as we thought," Ashe commented dryly, "doesn't it, Nix?" Phoenix grunted in acknowledgment, closing his eyes and resting his head against the tree behind him. It was another quarter second before he realized what Ashe called him.
"'Nix'?" he asked bewilderedly through his exhaustion.
"Yeah, 'Nix'!" she repeated, "You could use a nickname, so why not 'Nix'?"
"I dunno…" he replied after a yawn, "Just feels a little wrong… sounds familiar… on the tip of my tongue…"
Ashe made a motion that Phoenix assumed was the equivalent of a shrug. "Have you got any better ideas?" she questioned.
He pursed his lips, trying his best to come up with something but drawing a blank. "Not really."
"Then we'll stick with 'Nix.'" Ashe looked at her half-asleep lightbearer curiously. "Are you really gonna go to sleep with that Dreg around?"
Now Phoenix shrugged and stated matter-of-factly, "He'd have taken a shot while I was eating if he wanted to kill me."
"That's a good point… But why'd the Dreg be following us if not to attack us?"
Phoenix shrugged again, the motion notably reduced, and yawned again, his eyes slowly shutting as he folded his hands over his stomach.
"Well, we'll find out eventually, I guess," Ashe said, more to herself than to her lightbearer, "'Night, Nix." She floated over to the campfire and the remnants of the quail on a spit over it. A drop of fat fell sizzling into the flames, and she scanned it again to be sure that Phoenix hadn't eaten anything that would result in adverse effects. For the third time, the results returned negative for every fungus, bacteria, and toxin in her database. She sighed and transmatted the meat, saving it for a later meal. Perhaps once it was brighter, she could look around to see if there were any wild herbs, vegetables, or berries to add to Phoenix's diet. That, and find him some water, preferably with less microplastics than the one she had found earlier that day. But that was for the morning. For now, she had to keep watch; she did not have Phoenix's same confidence that the Dreg wasn't intending anything malicious. She transmatted her lightbearer's helmet back onto his head. She made a general scan of the area, paying close attention to non-plant life. She disappeared in the blue digital mist when the scans returned nothing significant. Warily, she began watching through Phoenix's helmet to make sure the Dreg didn't try to attack in his sleep, settling in for the long night.
For Phoenix, in his dreamless rest, it took no time at all for the sun to rise again, bringing with it a morning chill that caused his knuckles, ankles, and wrists to ache. With a little bit of Light and another small fire, the problem was fixed. Warming his hands over the fire, he looked up at the clouds. What he could see through the trees and cast against the dawn light did not seem exceptionally promising, but, by the same token, not especially bad either. He'd just have to play it by ear. He reached up to rub his eyes, only for his hand to come up against his helmet. At first, he was confused, but then he realized it was probably his Ghost's doing it. He set his helmet on the ground beside his feet with a smile. He straightened, rubbing bleariness from his eyes, then his hands together, cupping them in one another and letting his Light warm his palms, then his fingers. "Ashe?" he called out. He'd been awake for several minutes now, with no sign of iris or shell of her. It seemed unlike her not to pop in for a remark, and a more unreasonable part of him became increasingly worried as his thoughts raced faster than the seconds could pass. Did the Dreg get to her? Did she run off without him? Was she destroyed? Was she in danger? Where was she? His heart raced, his breathing becoming frantic. He felt terrified and alone in a hostile world, stranded without his guide. Where in the world was she?
"Morning!" she chirped from a bush nearby. She emerged, shaking off some dew and pine needles from her shell. Phoenix's cheeks flushed with embarrassment and self-reproach at the sudden way he had overreacted. He would have known that Ashe was in perfect health if he had waited a few seconds longer. He'd have to learn to trust her more; she knew more about the world than he did. Distantly, Phoenix realized Ashe had asked him a question, and he had wholly zoned it out. His cheeks grew even warmer, and he asked her to repeat it. "I asked how you slept," she teased, "but clearly, it was pretty good since you're still dozing. Hold out your hand for me." He did so, and she transmatted an assortment of berries covered by a thin layer of frost into his hand. "Breakfast," she elaborated, "Gotta have a diverse diet." Phoenix shrugged, picked one of them up, the frost melting from the heat of his palm and fingers, and popped it into his mouth. The berry crunched between his teeth, releasing a burst of flesh and juices onto his tongue that tasted heavily of mint. The flavor surprised him; he had assumed that berries of a red so vibrant as these would taste bitter or sweet. The next berry did not disappoint in that regard, the cool mint flavor of the first still lingering on his tongue and emphasizing the second's tartness.
"Is this where you ran off to?" he asked around a third berry.
Ashe nodded. "Yup! It took a while to find everything I did. It ought to last you at least for today."
Phoenix nodded and thanked her, then extinguished the meager campfire with his free hand. By the time he completed the task, he had also finished the light breakfast that Ashe had brought. He stood, brushing the dirt off his palms and stretching momentarily. He shot a glance around the thin trees and brush around them before finally turning to Ashe. He asked in a low voice, "Did that Dreg ever turn back up?"
"Nope, it was nice and quiet all last night," she relayed back to him, "Minus the crickets, anyway." Phoenix chuckled, glancing around again at their surroundings before beginning his short return to the road. Just then, the sharp crack of a snapping branch resounded through the forest behind him.
He whipped around, his rifle materializing in his hands faster than Ashe could say, "Eyes up, Nix!" The cracked holographic sight alighted on the head of the Dreg, and his trigger finger twitched, beginning to squeeze.
"Peace!" it said in a distinctly male voice. He threw his hands up to block his face and stumbled backward, cowering away from the line of the weapon's fire. "Peace, Machine-spawn!" he said in choppy English, "Avokos asks parley!"
Hesitantly, Phoenix pointed the rifle away from the Dreg and released the trigger. He stood at the ready, however, tensely waiting for the trick the Dreg was bound to be playing. The Dreg seemed to physically melt with relief, chittering as his upper arms and lower stumps fell to his orange-cloaked sides. "Avokos thanks the Machine-spawn," he said, relief apparent. He held his palms outwards to show that he was no threat and that nothing was concealed in them, and then he took a tentative step forward. Phoenix didn't react, and so he took another.
"Keep an eye out, Nix…" Ashe mumbled, throwing an obvious glance around at the trees.
"No need to tell me," he responded, his voice barely above a whisper. He kept his eyes focused unwaveringly, unblinkingly on the Dreg as it inched closer and stopped a few feet away. Despite the Dreg's utterly alien features, Phoenix could read his nervousness. Then, the alien knelt in the dirt, inviting Phoenix to do the same across from him. The lightbearer cautiously took the invitation, leaving the rifle in his hands across his lap. The Dreg exaggeratedly removed a dagger from under his cloak, raising it to the sky in both palms, muttering an invocation in a chittering language to the sky before laying the knife on the ground between himself and the lightbearer, then repeating the supplication with a pistol concealed at his hip. After the ritual finished, he looked expectantly at Phoenix.
The lightbearer hesitated to relinquish his weapons but complied, laying his rifle, pistol, and knife on the ground between himself and the alien. "So your name is Avokos?" he asked, straightening.
The Dreg nodded, chittering before replying, "Yes, called Avokos. What is Machine-spawn called?"
It took Phoenix a second to parse the question. Gesturing to himself and his Ghost, he answered, "I'm Phoenix. This is Ashe."
"Hey there!" Ashe added cheerfully, though Phoenix could hear the tension in her voice.
Avokos bowed his head, "Avokos is honored, Machine-seed."
"Why do you call us that?" the lightbearer queried the alien.
"Machine-spawn and Machine-seed are children of Great Machine," the Dreg explained, seeming almost baffled by Phoenix's confusion.
"Ah!" Ashe exclaimed, "That must be what the Fallen call the Traveler!"
Avokos made a sound between a growl and a click, spitting something out in his language as his hands made claws on his knees, lifting his chin and making a face Phoenix assumed to mean disgust, teeth bared, inner eyes narrowed to angular slits and outer eyes wide. "Eliskni have fallen," he said pridefully, "but still Eliksni."
"We'll keep that in mind, Avokos," Phoenix said soothingly, holding his hands up and glancing at his Ghost. She looked curious, though not particularly apologetic for the confusion. "What did you want this parley for?" he asked the Dreg after a moment.
The Eliksni sighed, and his pride melted into the cold soil beneath him. He looked to Phoenix to be utterly exhausted, and the human began to notice how the alien's clothing hung loosely from his skin. "House of Avokos's people," the Dreg started, "House Scar… needs aid. Avokos wishes to ask it of Machine-spawn."
It was a long time before Phoenix spoke again. What was he supposed to say? Avokos was supposed to be a monster, but he was coming to him with a humble request for help. Avokos's people had tried, and succeeded, to kill him, but he'd taken his fair share of their lives in turn. He didn't know if he was supposed to feel outrage, pity, hatred, or sympathy, ultimately settling on tongue-tied befuddlement. Ashe took the chance to speak before he did.
"I don't know what kind of help you want us to give," she gently told Avokos. The Dreg bowed his head, and his shoulders sagged downward. Again, the Eliksni growled something to himself in his own language, his voice quiet and hollow.
"You could join us for a while and see," Phoenix suggested tentatively, "And tell us more about your people and their situation.
"Yes!" answered Avokos, immediately brightening again, "Avokos is glad to share!"
Ashe cleared her throat and spoke into her and Phoenix's comm channel, "Is this really a good idea, Phoenix?"
"A single Dreg isn't going to be a problem," he whispered reassuringly.
"What about his House?" Ashe countered, "What about that Archon that tailed us from the spaceport? What if he brings them all down on top of us?"
Phoenix paused to weigh his options for a moment. He glanced at Avokos, uncertainty gnawing at him. His Ghost had a point… "His House needs help," he muttered, "and as you said, I was resurrected to help people."
"You were resurrected to help humanity," she corrected.
"Do you trust me?" he asked quietly before she could add anything else. The question stopped her in her tracks, and he could see her weighing her answer for several long moments.
She sighed finally, the modulated sound crackling and warbling over their comms. "Implicitly," she said reluctantly but definitively, "Do what you think is best."
"Thanks, Ashe," he said with a smile, reaching to stroke her shell fondly. She floated swiftly away from his touch. "Not in front of the Dreg," Ashe chuckled.
Phoenix laughed softly and then returned to Avokos, saying to the Dreg, "Alright, Avokos. We're heading North if you want to join us."
Chittering happily, the Dreg bowed his head. He stood, retrieving his weapons from the ground between himself and the lightbearer, and Phoenix did the same."Avo- ah, I give thanks, Machine-spawn," he said to the human before turning to the construct and adding, "To you, also, Machine-seed."
"Just call us Phoenix and Ashe," the Ghost invited cheerily, "Or if you have to, Lightbearer and Ghost."
"Yes, apologies, Machi- ah, Ghost Ashe," Avokos corrected, punctuating the apology with an abashed chitter.
"That works," she replied with a polite laugh. With everything necessary said, Phoenix and Ashe set out again for the road north, now with their unusual new companion in tow.