...in the Aftermath
She ran out of ammunition for Ada’s rifle. Star could not scavenge her more, Star was a dormant and heavy weight in her scarf. By then, there was nothing she could do but hide.
The civilians had fled or died. The Guardians had fought and died. She was alone in the wreckage, hadn’t seen another soul in hours. Maybe all night? The sky was so choked with smoke it was impossible to tell. There was a persistent orange glow on the horizon that could be the breaking of dawn over the obscured mountains, or could simply be the light of the blockade of Cabal ships.
It was a wordless, mournful hour. The City’s lights were all out for the first time since the arc grids had gone in, and that had been centuries ago. If she stood stock still and pulled her mind backwards, further and further, she could pretend for a fleeting moment that the firelights flickering in the streets were made by people, to keep warm in the cold autumn air. She would imagine she could feel a breeze and think for a moment it was all okay. But then a patrol ship would thunder by and she would become aware of the sticky sweat lining her bodysuit, the heavy smell of smoke leaking through her overtaxed filter.
She found her first place to hide, in a bakery. It was a large stonework oven, perhaps older than her even. It hadn’t been tended in a long time, and conversely was cooler inside than out. She climbed inside, pulled her helmet off and drank the air. It was smoky still but a comforting sort, the kind that spoke of bread and food and humanity, not of cabal munitions and death. Would it ever find use again?
Eyahn slunk along the dark hall, red wiring pulsing like veins around her. Shouts of Splicers rang out in the distance. She forced her breathing to slow inside her helmet. Many, many Splicers between her and her exit. No way to know if her signal had gone through, if anyone had heard the SOS. She had to be slow, cautious, take no risks. She had not died on this mission, and no one yet knew what dying beside SIVA would do to a Ghost. She wouldn’t risk that.
It had only been a simple reconnaissance mission. The Vanguard wanted to know what the Fallen Splicers were building in the Plaguelands, and she was small enough to slip inside unnoticed. But inside... there had been a machine priest, SIVA swarms. Much too much to handle, a threat too great for a simple strike force.
Now, she had to get out, whether or not anyone was coming to get her.
Eyahn took a calm breath, slipped into invisibility, and kept moving.
Found and finished a WIP of Eyahn reuniting with another gentle giant. The taller the Titan the more likely she will befriend them.
---
Eyahn does not believe in ghosts. Little-letter ghosts, the nouns. Specters of the truly dead that return to haunt the land of the living. The phantoms on Luna are something else, they are darkness.
Yet dead things keep returning. Eris Morn. Ana Bray. Osiris. And now, Saint-14, the greatest Titan who ever lived, save her Lini, and her Auburn, of course.
She remembers when they lost him. She’s heard his whispered name for centuries, always with a reverence. She imagines it must be dreadfully annoying to come back to that, and hopes she will never have to endure the burden of notoriety.
He has set up in the hangar, far but not too far from Amanda Holiday. It is a location she frequents, there are spiderwebs of catwalks and vents and pipes above his ghost-ship. She is surprised it still functions, after sitting dead in Mercury’s orbit for decades.
And so it is only a matter of time before her wandering took her by his corner. Most Guardians ignore her as she lurks, her demeanor unobtrusive and her Light tightly wound. But Saint-14 turns to her with immediate interest and curiosity.
“You are so smol, Hunter. And quiet enough to not scare the bords.” He rumbles.
She brushes a stray hair behind her ear, she had not expected that as a greeting and falters on what to say. Saint peers at her again, tilting his glowing crest towards her, leaning close.
“No, you, I know you.” He wags a finger near her chest, and she leans away slow and deliberate rather than flincing. “You are Redjack, the first Redjack! Ha! Shaxx’s little wraith, that’s you is it not?”
She nods, and he laughs, deep and hearty. “So quiet, always quiet. It has been long time, good to know some things have not changed. You must be very good Hunter by now. If you learned to speak you could be Vanguard.”
“That is not for me.” She replies, and he swings a huge hand to clap her ever so gently on the shoulder.
“You do speak! But only when you must, good, good. That is better than talking all the time about nothing like a silly old Titan. Like me. I think the bords would like you. Would you like to hold one?”
She hesitates. When she was young and new, she tested the limits of her Light infused body by catching sparrows nesting in the branches of the trees near where she was born. There was a day she grabbed too hard and fast and broke a wing, and despite her attempts to nurse it back to health, the fragile bird died. She always left the birds alone after that.
It is this memory that makes her shrink away, but Shaxx has already selected a plump pigeon, and lifted it gently like a small sack of grain. He deposits it in her arms, she raises them to hold it on instinct. It fluffs itself but holds still, coos a few times, and sits patiently. Eyahn stands stock-still, frozen in place by responsibility.
“You are natural.” Saint proclaims. “Little Wolf, ha! Little bord girl I say.”
Eyahn shifts one tentative arm, to curl around and stroke the pigeon’s head with her thumb. It shivers and darts it’s head, searching for the source of the pressure, but not fearful enough to try to escape. Up close, it reminds her of a dove, birds painted as signs of peace. She thinks she understands why.
The bird seems unbothered by the arrangement and she stands still for a long time, holding it, until a cadre of boisterous Guardians approaches and frightens it with the rest of the flock. Eyahn too coils to flee.
“Come back any time smol one.” Saint says, and does not stop her. The look cast behind her is grateful, and she does return, many quiet mornings.
Eyahn’s mouth tastes like bile, but she holds her cold gaze firm. Drifter twirls a locket, fused shut, the green of deep old growth forests, and wound with a snake. She watches it like a raptor, does not worry about the ferocity in her eyes. He thinks it is charming. He thinks it is in line with his.
If there is one thing Eyahn knows, it's the secrets within the walls.
Eyahn does not like the Tower at first glance. Does not like that it is smooth and sloped and utterly unfit for climbing. After years alone in the wilds, the City is a shock, and this monolith of symmetry is even worse. Its bright too, lit with bounce light glancing off painted-white walls and ceilings and floors.
Spitefully, she takes to finding every possible way to climb into its shadows.
It’s after the Gap, after Lini and Seph die, that she sets to work on the innards. She finds things in the Tower, in the walls. Liminal spaces between drywall and linoleum and concrete. Places untouched for nearly a millennium.
(Eventually, decades later, this is in part why Andal made her a Shadowsmith. No one was supposed to find the hidden rooms tucked into the vast network of halls and janitorial closets.)
She finds vents, finds ducts. Settles in them for the secrecy, explores them for the curiosity. Eyahn has always been tiny, always able to worm her way around caves and through brush. The cavities of the Tower’s shell are no different. If anything, they’re often larger.
She grows very used to her journeys. In the beginning she gets a little lost, but no one misses one tiny huntress among the rest. Soon she knows the i-beams and rivets like she knows the branches of a familiar forest. She maps these routes, where no one could follow but herself.
To the credit of the armory, it is well hidden.
To the credit of the hunter, she is tenacious.
It appears as an odd light. A particular blend of hue and intensity she has not seen before. She can predict her surroundings by now, the older lights have a specific flicker, maintained ones a more constant gleam. This is neither, nor any of the others she’s passed. There is a low din of hushed voices, and the vent ahead of her is long and unbroken till it’s end. The metal has changed too, thicker, stronger, stranger.
Curious little Eyahn presses forward.
She peers down through the vent, past lazily spinning fan blades, and the mesh below. The room has a purple tint, like seen through dark glass. Everything in sight is polished to pristine perfection. Someone paces on glass floor, boots clacking with a soft rubbery echo. Someone with a smooth porcelain skin. Painted with blue flowers...
Someone else -out of view- reads off reports. Weapon accuracy, durability, makes and models and efficiency of construction.
“Yeah, could kill a Lightbearer. Easy.” They toss out, an offhand comment that catches Eyahn by surprise, spurs a light intake of breath.
The exo looks up, meets glowing eyes with glowing eyes.
“Dead one.” She rasps, an electronic hiss.
Eyahn bolts.
Her curiosity is insatiable, however, and it’s not many months before she returns from a different angle. It’s indirect enough that Star doesn’t realize what she’s up to until she pauses to pull off the grate before her and drop down from the duct.
“Eyahn…” She murmurs, but dematerializes again, to stay safe.
There is a frame guarding the not-door, what looks like a plain brick wall. The frame is is what sets Eyahn off guard. She thinks of Arcite and Delilah and the frame moves faster than she reacts, catches her jaw with the butt of it’s rifle. She rolls with it, then thinks of Arcite and Delilah again and quickly draws her red ribbon wrapped knife, slips behind the frame and cuts connections to it’s left arm. It drops half the weapon, then the rest, as it’s other hand reaches back to grab her. She skirts out of the way, braces her back against the wall-
And it falls away behind her, dissolving like a de-materialzing ether drill. She hits the floor with a hiss and rolls out of the way, anticipating another strike from the frame, but it remains immobile. There is a presence behind her, moving closer, boots on glass.
She tumbles into a hunter’s crouch, staring at the freshly formed doorway, and the sound of approaching footsteps. The frame snaps back into as good of a resting state it can manage with one arm hanging limp.
“You have been here before, dead one.” The porcelain exo from that day marches forward to meet her, cloak sweeping like the tail of a great cat, preparing to pounce.
“I am Ada-1. I guard this place. It is not for you-” She stumbles in her speech a bit, squints optics down at Eyahn.
The hunter narrows eyes back, wipes blue awoken blood from her lip with the back of her hand.
“How… old are you?” She accuses.
Eyahn doesn’t know what’s right to say, to lie here or to be truthful? And to lie in which direction? Older, younger? She looks to her shoulder for help.
Star forms, tines bowed in deference. “You’re alarming her. She is young of mind.”
Ada glares at the Ghost, then takes a long second look at Eyahn’s face, stares into every inch of her.
“A child.” She seethes. “The Risen allow the resurrection of children.”
“In my humble defense-” Star does not sound humble, she sounds even-keeled and calm. “I am not an expert on estimating age from human skeletal remains.”
“You are not an expert on a single matter of this planet. A child. They can’t send her to the battlefield!”
“She is one of the best snipers the Tower has.” Star counters, defensively. “She was instrumental to the end of the Battle of Twilight Gap-”
“The ethics of this are abysmal, and entirely on par with your wretched Traveler.”
“I take offense!”
“I do not care!” Ada snarls, leaning in. Eyahn can't parse conversations much but can sense when something is going poorly.
“I keep secrets.” She speaks up, at last, and it draws Ada’s gaze to her like a lazy predator. “It is what I do.”
“What secrets do you keep?” The exo pries, eyes flickering with intent.
Eyahn shakes her head, purses lips. Ada seems... appeased. She flickers one more angry glare at the Ghost.
“Ours?” She asks.
“Yours.” Eyahn confirms. “Among others.”
The City burns and even down here, Eyahn can hear it, smell it, feel it.
She stands before the false wall, where the faintest hum of the hologram projector can be heard. She stands firm and solid, helmet off and ragged face marked with soot. Her silence is a question.
Ada answers, stepping through the concealed doorway with a sniper rifle in her arms. “Return it when you are done. I expect not a scratch. And tell no one where you got it.”
Eyahn takes it, loads it, and folds it into her grasp, silently turning on her heel and striding off, numb and purposeful. Ada watches from amidst of the vibrating image of brick and pipes, judgemental and secretive.
Post-Towerfall snippit about Eyahn’s Towerfall shenanigans.
On A03 here
“Hunter.” Eyahn perked up, knowing there were only a couple other Warlocks in earshot. The call was for her. Cayde curled a finger, a subtle summons. She straightened her shoulders and approached.
He tilted his head and continued. “I wanted to talk about the reports you sent during the occupation. They didn’t go through for a while but the timestamps remained.” He was walking away from her and the rest of the hangar’s business as he spoke. She followed, the pair of them backing to a bit of a corner, the closest thing to privacy you could get around this new Tower.
“They were accurate.” She insisted. Even in chaos she had followed protocol, sent daily reports on the encrypted channel. She wasn’t supposed to get a response until her operation was done, had assumed that was the reason for the silence.
“No no, they are. I know, I read them.” Cayde assured her. “What I want to know is, why you thought it was necessary to do them? Like, the world went kabooosh.” He made a funny gesture with his hands, and an odd sound with his vocal processor, a bit like sandpaper on steel, but louder. “Just, why?”
She cast half a glance away from them, at the hangar. His antics had been ignored, this time. “It is our job.”
“I mean, yeah….” Cayde put a hand on the side of his head. “Yeah it is, but like, everything was crazy. No one would have faulted you for trying to take care of yourself, or protecting civilians. You weren’t expected to treat this like every other battle.”
“Shaxx did.”
“Right, okay.” Cayde’s throat was blinking in rapidfire confusion and a little irritation. “But that’s Shaxx, like, you’re not some kind of crazy tiger man.” Eyahn blinked back at him, unmoved and quiet.
He tsked and reconsidered, folding his arms. “I mean… part of me wants to take that back, actually, seeing you tear through that big guy back that night. A personal thank you, for that, by the way.”
She remembered. When the Vanguard had stormed the City, Serac had dialed in on Cayde’s transmissions, and Selene’s location, and Eyahn had lept three stories into the back of a Colossus, dual wielding daggers of jagged metal scavenged from broken and charred scrap. She’d snarled as she raked both nasty chunks down it’s neck and back, rupturing helmet seals and fuel lines and piercing suit and muscle.
Cayde finally broke the stare between them and steepled his fingers, placing them just under his mouth and peering at her over their height. “Okay, obviously you are not on my page so… let's try this. You tell me what was going through your head when the Red Legion attacked.”
Eyahn nodded, and spoke slowly and deliberately, hands clasped behind her back “As… us, our standing directive is to eliminate threats within the walls before they can harm the Consensus, Tower, and City. We failed. I did what I could to halt further harm. I apologize that it was not enough.”
“What? No, it was plenty. You did more than you had to. If we had medals for this I would give you a medal. We should have medals for this… I need to talk to Zavala, Shaxx…” He shook his head.
“Look kid, you tried to take on an army by yourself. That’s not going to be as simple as a normal mission, you can’t treat it like one. It’s going to take-” He broke off, glanced to the side, like Selene did when processing something. “Huh. Help. It’s gonna take help. It took help, and time.” He nodded to himself.
“What is next?” She piped up, broke his train of thought. He tilted his head at her, crossed his arms.
“No more ‘smiths work for a while, okay? You won’t hear from me. Go out, do whatever you like, play with that big ol Titan of yours that’s about to get conscripted into Dead Orbit.”
Eyahn glanced across the way. Serac stood dutifully where she’d left him, doing his best to ignore summons from Arach Jalal.
“Take your break.” Cayde startled her with a slap of a hand on her shoulder. “A month. Do whatever you like. Call me if you want some easy patrols, or talk to Hawthorne, I think she’ll like you. I’ll have more official business for you after that, I’m sure, once this faction rally raises some sour thoughts among the people.” He whirred in annoyance, changed the shoulder pat to a push on her back. “Go on, there’s not supposed to be rest for the wicked but I’m carving some out for you. Use it.”
She nodded her thanks, let her hood fall back down around her shoulders.
“You’re one of my best Hunters.” Cayde said seriously, lowering his voice. “I know you can assume that much, being a Shadowsmith for this long and all, and I know I say that to a lot of people but for you, it’s true. Glad we still have you with us.”
Eyahn felt a swell of pride, raised her chin. She swallowed her shyness and grasped Cayde’s hand to shake. “Thank you. I am happy to be here too.”
