#atsuko 5

[deathsdeserters]

”I miss my Strength of the Pack.”

[deathsdeserters]

Feeling Lonely

from here

Now usually, when Cayde found that he was lonely, which was fairly often when he went about ten or so minutes without anyone to talk to, he would get out there and find someone to talk to. But this time was different. This late-night loneliness was something that changed the definition of lonely for Cayde.

This was something that spending some time with friends might not be able to fix. Tonight, Cayde decided he might not want to reach out. He never really does when he gets like this.

It’s his own problem that he doesn’t want to deal with.

So he sits there in the dark, a little, empty glass in his fist, leaning heavily on the table he sits at with his other hand against his forehead to prop his head up. His eyes are dark, “closed” for an exo, and he’s very, very quiet.

The door’s been left open just an unfortunate crack, enough for an unexpected passerby to peer into the dimly lit room. The only real light comes from the Traveler through the window, washes over the Hunter Vanguard sitting alone in the dark. One might think he’d fallen asleep there doing something else.

Atsuko-5 doesn't operate on superstition.

She’s not a religious person. She was before she was remade into machine parts and electronics. She hasn’t been that person in a very, very long time.

She does have a gut feeling that she listens to, even if she doesn’t have a gut per se. Exominds have been created to emulate humans in many ways, but this is something that has been developed independently of Clovis Bray and their exoscience division.

Something tells her to make a detour on her way back to her quarters. Something very strongly tells her to stop by to see the Hunter Vanguard. She knows that he’s off duty and he’s not in any of his usual haunts, so she stop by his place.

The door is open. She undoes the buckle on her thigh holster and takes a look inside, her optics easily adjusting for the low light levels.

When she spies Cayde sitting with an empty glass in one hand, his head in the other, Atsuko swears she can feel a tightening in her chest. Psychosomatic, the brain jockeys in white coats would say at Clovis Bray. Operant conditioning surfacing as near autonomic reflex due to subconscious memories from the original subject’s imprint.

Bullshit. She knows what she feels. She knows, in the very least she thinks she knows what he feels. Or that he is feeling. He’s feeling too much, so much that he can scarcely move.

Atsuko carefully enters, quietly closing the door behind her. “Cayde.” She speaks softly, but clearly. “It’s Atsuko. I’m coming in, okay?” It’s not so much a question but an advanced warning. She doesn’t want to surprise him.

She takes even steps over to him and stops next to Cayde. She rubs his back with her right hand, slipping it beneath his cloak to make gentle circles against the soft leather armor, while her left hand rests on his bicep. She lays her cheek upon his shoulder and closes her eyes, the metal plating of her faux eyelids blocking out the white light from her optics. “I’m right here, Cayde. You’re not alone. Not any more.”

@gunslingiing

[deathsdeserters]

nightfall for the prompts? Any muse

He had, of course, heard the term nightfall before, but had not known the true sense of the term until he had actually been on one.

His first nightfall was...par for the course, his commanding officer would later report.

“FUCK!”

“Yep,” said the aforementioned commanding officer, a Captain Yue Qiangshuang.

He turned to glare at her, the effect severely lessened due to his wearing a helmet.

“Hurts, don’t it.” That statement of the obvious came from Yue’s second in command, an Exo Hunter named Atsuko-5.

“Yes, a little bit,” he snapped back at her, shaking his hand vigorously in an attempt to return feeling to it. His Ghost, renamed Aier from his ridiculous former nickname of Pulled Pork, was already healing him.

“You don’t have to keep shaking it,” the purple Ghost told him in a cheery voice. “I’ll have it feeling better soon, I promise!”

Uldren Sov managed a smile despite his annoyance and discomfort at being hit with an arc bolt. “I know, Aier. I’ll stop, then.” The Ghost had its moments of insanely perky behavior, but he had won Uldren over with his good nature, disposition, and overall sweetness.

The little ball of Light genuinely cared for him in a way that made him want to shelter Aier from all of the bad in the world, just so that he could retain that sweet innocence for a moment longer.

He blinked and shook his head, turning to face his fellow Awoken teammate, the medic, Jonathan Martin Severin. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked if it felt better.” Though it was unnecessary for him to do, Severin took Uldren’s hand into his and made a cursory inspection. In doing so, the younger man slowly stroked his thumb along the inside of Uldren’s wrist.

Oh, you little shit. Though it was through glove and gauntlet, Uldren could still feel the touch. You’re seriously doing that while we’re on my first nightfall. Right then. I’m going to team kill you.

“I’m fine,” he said, pulling his hand away. He swore he could hear Severin grinning behind his helmet.

Yue sighed and motioned for them to get into formation. “Once more, with feeling.”

Uldren got back into position and readied himself for another try at completing his first nightfall mission...and team kill of one frisky Severin.

[deathsdeserters]

Yes. I did it. I took a selfie with Cayde. Mostly because no one thought I would.

[deathsdeserters]

💐 - Favorite type of flower (for everyoonnee)

💐 —Favorite Type Of Flower: Another of Yue’s favorite flowers is the 富贵花 or the peony. She is particularly fond of the Da Fu Gui variant as it resembles the English rose with its double flowering.

💐 — Favorite Type Of Flower: Atsuko’s favorite type of flower is the 雛芥子 or the red poppy. The flower is meant to symbolize being fun-loving, but Atsuko simply enjoys the bright red coloring with the black center as well as the paper-like quality of the petals.

💐 — Favorite Type Of Flower: Severin’s favorite flower is the Eustoma. While the flower blooms in multiple colors including pink, white, and blue, the brilliant purple and indigo shades of the flower remind him of the amethyst crystals of the Dreaming City.

[deathsdeserters]

F

F: Fever

Guardians weren’t ones to get sick. It wasn’t something that usually occurred. That was why when something unusual cropped up, like the Dawn Calamity or the Transmission Incident, the Owl Sector became involved.

This…was different.

This was not being discussed with anyone. This was not being shown to any member of this Guardian’s fireteam, or to a member of the Vanguard, or to a Cryptarch, a member of the City’s Medical Response Team, no one.

This was being kept a secret.

Suffice to say that their Ghost was less than pleased with the situation.

“Let someone take a look at you.”

“No.”

“I don’t understand why you won’t.”

“It’s because I’m fine, that’s why. I’m okay.”

“For the millionth time, you’re not. You’ve been running a near constant temperature of one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. That is not normal for a human.”

“I’m a Sunbreaker.”

“That excuse got old a week ago.”

“A fever of a hundred is nothing. It’s barely a fever.”

“It’s fever enough to see someone.”

“Still not happening.”

“What about the headaches?”

“Everyone gets headaches, come on.”

“And the pain in your eye? Your left eye?”

“Still not seeing the big deal. Get it? Seeing the big deal?”

“Yeah, no. Those scars were there when I first resurrected you. Why would they start hurting now, hundreds of years later?”

“Delayed psychosomatic sympathy pains? I don’t know. You keep telling me I put myself under too much stress. Maybe this is all stress induced and all I need to do is sleep more.”

“…I don’t think a nap is going to help this.”

“Okay. Fine. I’ll bite. You seem to have formulated an idea as to what ‘this’ is. So?”

“Your eye…sometimes it doesn’t look right.”

“What does that mean?”

“When you’re sleeping, or when you’re focused on something, and the fever peaks, your eye almost looks like it has a…glow. It looks like it has a dark glow.”

“A dark glow.”

“Yes.”

“That sounds crazy.”

“I know, but I am telling you what I’ve seen.”

 “Constant fever, headaches, pain in my eye, dark glowyness in eye, is there anything else I should know? Have I grown horns? A tail?”

“Don’t mock me, I’m only trying to get you to get some help.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“I know. I’m sorry too.”

“Listen. I’ll…I’ll suck it up and have Sevvy give me a work-up tomorrow. I promise, Warren.”

“Thank you, Qiangshuang.”

The Ghost floated over to her and nuzzled into the crux of her neck. Yue cupped a hand around him and cuddled him there. “I’m sorry to have worried you, little Light,” she murmured to him.

Warren hummed in return and gently maneuvered away. “Get some rest, Qiangshuang,” he said softly, turning the interior lights of the Glass Minuet’s cockpit down to evening mode.

“Good night, Warren,” she said to him, easing herself back into the seat. She tilted the seat back, angling her view of the Earth down and away, and settled in to sleep in orbit high above the Traveler and the City.

While her Ghost rested in transmat space, Yue entered into a fitful slumber. It was one filled with dreams of the Hive, the Taken, the Dreaming City, the Dreadnaught, the Ascendant Plane, the Worm Gods, the Sister Queens, and an undying Ahamkara.

As her fever increased, the three scars on Yue’s left eye darkened, and a familiar ichor began to ooze down her cheek. A faint bluish-black glow illuminated the skin, and as her eyelid fluttered, the tails of an evil flame licked out briefly before being drawn back in.

@ghostwithoutguidance

[deathsdeserters]

gets Ghosty to play some sick beats then grabs atsuko's hands. "dance with me!"

“えーーー？！なんでー？“

Atsuko-5 doesn’t really dance. She’s never liked it. It’s always felt the opposite to her: loud, attention grabbing, demonstrative, expressive. She’s always preferred to hold up the wall or to hold down the bar instead of taking to the dance floor.

But there is no dance floor and there’s no bar or even a wall nearby for her to take refuge against, there’s just the wide open space of the Tower Courtyard and Sol’s Ghost playing music and the smaller Hunter gyrating madly in time to the beat.

Sol is still holding fast to the Exo’s hands and is using them as leverage for some of the more acrobatic moves she’s started to perform. Atsuko’s optical sensors scan the growing cluster of Guardians for a friendly face, someone who might save her.

She sees a flash of yellow in the background, near the hangar, and she swallows back a swear.

The yellow looks very much like the color of the House of Kings. Which would mean…

And if he was there then…

Atsuko spins around to leave but is spun around in place by Sol, who appears to be oblivious to any plans of escape. She tries to slip away again, and is pulled back again.

Her face plating slants so that her optics are narrowed into slits, frowning at Sol.

Soon her efforts to get away from Sol become a dance on their own. Pull, grab, duck, reach, step back, lunge, whirl, leap, and once Atsuko even had to blink in order to avoid falling over the railing down to the wall hundreds of feet below.

Mercifully, the song (an extended remix, Atsuko would later discover) eventually ends and the Exo makes her escape, sliding between legs and feet and booking it the opposite direction of the spitfire of a Hunter, the sounds of the laughing Vanguard Scout, Hunter Vanguard, and that damn twelve minute song ringing in her receivers.

@solshot

[deathsdeserters]

"Atsuko! When was the last time you had a bit of fun? Proper. Fun." 🍷

“どうしたのー？！ Oh. Oh. Sorry. My bad.”

“Uhhhhhhhhhh...”

“Ummmmmmm...”

“Prooooooobably the last time I, uh, hung out with Cayde-san