The light of the sun danced across the Traveller’s surface, distorted by rushing clouds like the light reflected from rippling water. It drifted like an aurora above the golden lights of the inner city, threads of green and blue-tinged light, altered by the passing storm in the west.
Distant thunder rumbled through the sky, and Rohan’s eyes were drawn for a moment to the churning clouds over the mountains. The thunder sounded like barely a grumble, like a sleeping titan. They felt a shudder run through their body as the thunder brought a memory of haunting words, a conversation with their mentor…
But soft music drifted from the Speaker’s Observatory, a warm woodwind melody, and it washed the worries from Rohan’s brow.
They stepped into the Speaker’s office, their fingernails tapping nervously on the neck of the bottle in their hands. The divining machine stood still, resting in its pit for the night, and its absence made the observatory’s size all the more apparent.
Rohan felt very small, and they walked the long way around to the silhouettes perched at the great window.
They stepped purposefully louder than usual, not wanting to sneak up on the pair as the beautiful lights drifted across the Traveller like some kind of show.
Willow was the one to look up as Rohan approached. She lifted her head from Jem’s shoulder, her hair slightly ruffled by being beneath a hood all day, and the reflected light on the Traveller made her skin shine with the setting sun. Her smile was soft and warm… motherly.
Rohan let Estë take their coat, and perched on the edge of the balcony with their friends. “Hey,” the mumbled through an uneasy smile, “sorry I’m late.”
Willow and Jem both smiled, and Rohan looked down at the bottle in their hands. “You know,” Rohan said, frowning at the bottle. “Now that I think about it, wine was not the best choice of gifts…”
Willow giggled, one hand automatically falling to her belly, and the sound set Rohan at ease. “Next time I’ll bring orange juice.”
“Don’t forget to bring extra,” Jem said, “it’ll be a bigger party when you get back.”
Rohan didn’t even bother popping the cork of the bottle. They placed it on the floor behind them, and scooched closer to Willow and Jem. Jem placed one hand over Willow’s on her belly, then lifted her hand to his lips.
The small radio beside Jem crackled, the music from it distorting a little before clearing. It was quiet, simple songs for a Sunday evening, and as Rohan leaned close to Willow’s side and wrapped their arm around their shoulders, they almost felt like they sat back in the Golden Age.
Willow took Rohan’s hand and pressed it against the mound of they belly. Willow had cast aside her robes for the evening, and the shirt she wore was thin enough for Rohan to feel the cool of her skin, and as they kept their hand there, they felt the tiny bumps of movement.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you grin like that,” Jem said, and Rohan looked up, their mouth slightly agape.
“It’s amazing,” Rohan mumbled, looking down at Willow’s belly. They rubbed their hand softly back and forth. Willow began to blush a deeper blue, and she brushed her hair behind her ear absently. “They’re amazing.
“You’ll have to introduce me when I get back,” Rohan said, squeezing Willow’s shoulder fondly. She hummed in return, resting her head on Jem’s shoulder once more.
Rohan stayed there for a time, hugging close to Willow’s side and watching the lights playing on the surface of the Traveller. The storm was brewing in the mountains, but it would not reach the City for some time yet, and even as the sun sunk down below the horizon and the City fell into twinkling lights amidst the purple of dusk.
Estë summoned Rohan’s coat, but they draped it across Willow’s shoulders like a blanket, to keep her warm.
After a time, Estë nudged Rohan’s shoulder, and they rose.
“You’re leaving?” Willow asked, looking up. Rohan could see the concern in her eyes – she knew all the details of Rohan’s mission, knew how dangerous it was, knew how long it would take, and how much she would likely be up against.
Rohan nodded. “Gotta keep the City safe if we’re bringing new life into it.”
Willow nodded softly, but the tinge of sadness was still in her eye. Rohan knelt down behind her and Jem, wrapping them both in a big hug. They turned to Jem and pressed their lips to his for a moment as they came away from the hug. “One for you,” Rohan hummed, turning then to Willow. They placed a hand on Willow’s belly and leaned down, kissing it very softly. “One in advance for you,” they whispered.
“And one for the mother to be,” Rohan smiled, cupping Willow’s face in their hands. They pressed their lips to Willow’s, kissing her slightly longer.
Then Rohan rose. They lifted a hand as Willow went to hand their coat to them, urging her to keep it. “I’ll see the three of you when I get back.” Rohan winked, then left their friends to their observatory, the bottle of wine still sitting unopened beside them.
As Rohan reached the door of the observatory, they looked back, feeling the chill run down their spine with the distant rumbling of the storm. They heard a whisper as Willow spoke to Jem.
“We’ll open the bottle when they come home, celebrate as a family.”
Naoko bowed her head as she entered the folds of the tent, her helmet clasped underarm and breathing deeply in the fresh air with it removed. She closed her eye for one breath and let Mushi take the helmet, dematerialising it into their inventory. “The storm’s lightening up, coast looks clear all the way to Singapore.”
Rohan looked up as she entered, then nodded at the news. They beckoned Naoko over to kneel with the rest of the team around Estë’s holographic model of the city.
“We were just discussing how to get to the bunker,” Rohan explained. “Judging from what Vanir encountered with Yuenu’s backup bunker in Hong Kong, it shouldn’t prove difficult to get inside once we get there.
“The difference this time is that the Fallen don’t seem to have noticed its existence; they don’t know we’re coming, so we have the chance to sneak in with a small force.”
Zatrix sat cross-legged like a monk at Rohan’s side, Red Death resting across his lap. His hood was still damp from the rain, but he left it pulled over his head. Naoko twisted her fingers together, trying not to look at his unreadable expression and the cold glow of his eye. Helina spoke up instead.
“We thought if we can sneak inside the city border undetected we could avoid any Fallen patrols all the way to the harbour. The entire mission could go without bloodshed.”
Naoko pursed her lips and examined the projected skyline of Singapore. “It’s not our original plan,” she said, looking up at Rohan.
Rohan nodded. “You’re right, it’s not. But we can pull it off with the five of us.”
“Vanir?” Naoko asked, turning to her fellow Titan. “You went to the Hong Kong bunker, what do you think?”
Vanir shrugged. “Hong Kong was different. The House of Kings was entrenched like termites there. Here it’s just a skeleton crew of Devils… it’s up to you.”
Naoko knelt softly before the hologram, joining the others on the floor. The cover they had taken – a half formed tent attached to the collapsed form of a crashed Skiff for cover from the elements – left them without any furniture or proper room.
“What about the Wolves?” she asked. “Skolas may be dead but the rest of the House has scattered. Are we sure there aren’t any that fled here and joined the Devils?”
“If they have,” Zatrix said, and Naoko almost jumped at the sudden grinding voice, “they wont be welcomed openly. If anything they would be distracting the Devils further.”
Naoko swallowed. “Okay then, lets go with your plan then, Rohan.”
Rohan nodded. “Naoko, you’ll lead the Exos through the City on the ground while I provide sniper cover from the rooftops. I’ll find pathways for you, and we’ll work our way to the harbour entrance. With luck, the Fallen wont even catch a whisper of us being there.”
Zatrix was the first to hit the ground, and he moved like a flowing river of shadow. Naoko couldn’t tell where his arc and shadow ended and his body began, but he slid to the ground in smoke and rolled back into form with a puff and an eerie hollow sound. He didn’t leave a trace.
Helina floated in just as softly, drifting on the contrails of Zatrix’s smoke, and the tendrils of dissipating Void she left behind brushed over Naoko’s shoulders when she launched down in a missile of Light.
Vanir had taught her the technique, before her… accident. They hit the ground together with full force that dissipated into the ground around them on a sheet of void.
It was a lot louder than Zatrix. The ground tore and cracked from the blast, and Naoko’s armour vented hot air from its silver plating as she stood in the small crater of their arrival.
“Subtle.” Helina tilted her helmet with a sly dig, checking her rifle’s safety quickly as they settled into formation.
“Start moving.” Rohan’s voice crackled through their radios. “The faster you get away from that landing the less chance there is of it giving you away.”
Naoko scanned the nearby rooftops. She could barely see in the darkness of the night and the rain, even as her night-vision filter gradually came into effect. Rohan’s cloaked ship hummed and shifted, coursing back across the black water and out of sight and sound. “Where are you?” Naoko asked.
“Eleven o’clock,” came Rohan’s reply. Naoko caught the red glint as the Hunter signalled to them. “Now get moving, I’ll be your eyes.”
Naoko nodded and focused, orienting herself within the city quickly. She motioned to the team to follow her, and set out quickly. They darted through the streets, their feet a quiet tapping beneath the sound of the rain as they rushed from cover to cover amidst wrecks of cars and slabs of shattered concrete from broken buildings.
At each intersection, Naoko paused and looked to the sky. Subtle flashes of purple marked Rohan tearing portals between rooftops each time and they waited with bated breath for the word of where to go.
“West,” Rohan whispered at the third intersection, changing their direction. Naoko waved Zatrix to lead, and he drifted through puffs of smoke around the corner and down the street.
“Hold position,” he hissed.
Rohan raised their voice slightly. “Patrol is closing in from the North, there’s no time to hold.”
“There’s something out there…”
“I’m not seeing anything,” Rohan said, and Naoko watched, mechanical heart hammering in her chest as Rohan scouted down the street with their rifle. Lightning flashed behind them, and the thunder crackled in a deep, long rumble. “Are you sure? West is the only clear way unless you retreat.”
“I’m telling you Rohan, there’s something out there!” Zatrix hissed again, and Naoko could swear there was fear in his voice.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, but we need to go north.”
“The Fallen are north!”
Naoko’s grip tightened on her rifle, steadying it on a concrete block and aiming to the northern road.
“Rohan… Tamara’s telling me we have to go north.” Zatrix’s voice was scarcely a whisper. Naoko looked at Vanir and Helina. She could not see their eyes, but in the tightness of their hands and the shrugging shoulders, Naoko could tell then were as tense and uncertain as she.
Lightning struck in the distance again, and the thunder rumbled deep, closer. It crackled twice, and Naoko felt it in the earth. “Rohan?” she whispered hurriedly as it subsided, “where are we going?”
There was a moment, and Naoko felt like her heart had stopped.
“North. I’ll cover you.”
Zatrix’s smoke billowed across the intersection as he moved, and Naoko dashed after him. Vanir’s footsteps pounded beside her, and she heard her cocking a shotgun, ready for combat.
Mushi’s voice came through her helmet. “Everything’s charged. I’m ready for a fight if you are.”
Naoko nodded and breathed deeply, following Zatrix’s smoke trail towards a small nook hidden from most of the street. Vanir slid in before her, and Helina paused at her side, grabbing her arm nervously.
“Who’s Tamara?” Helina asked. Naoko didn’t know.
But the whites of Fallen eyes glinted in the darkness. She grabbed Helina and pulled her down into the hollow. They practically fell on one another, and Naoko flushed bright red beneath her armour as Helina’s steadying hand touched her chest. She adjusted quickly, and they both prepared their weapons.
Fallen voices called in the darkness, their guttural language haunting in the rumbling of the building storm.
“They know you’re here,” Rohan said over the radio. “They’re combing the street.”
Vanir rose slightly at Naoko’s side, one fist crackling with lightning. “We can take them.”
“No!” Rohan whispered. “Stay there.”
Naoko obeyed, and pressed Vanir back with one hand. She heard the rippling tear of one of Rohan’s portals echo slightly. Fallen snarls grew louder, closer, and she heard the low whine of wire rifles heating up.
Then one fired. A wire rifle crackled through the air, and the white arc trail of its bolt lit the air as it fired the way the team had come.
A voice boomed in the sky, enhanced mechanically to be heard through the street. “Vash nar ruul! Sarga thuun!”
The Fallen echoed the yell to one another, rushing through the street. Naoko pushed back into the hollow, keeping the rest of her team behind her, as she felt was her responsibility, as the Fallen dashed by.
A Captain paused, sniffing at the air, but a second shot of superheated arc from the rooftop into the distance prompted him to move.
Naoko breathed again, and a sudden rippling cut through the air before them.
Rohan emerged from the void before Naoko’s eyes, purple fireflies dancing about their shoulders. They dropped the wire rifle at their feet and it clattered rough on the asphalt. “That wont fool them for long. We have to move.”
They spared not a second for the team to breathe, and sprinted down the street, heading for the harbour. Vanir was the first one after them, while Naoko shook the adrenaline from her system and stood from their corner.
Once Naoko started running, she didn’t stop to look back until they reached the harbour.
By then they knew the Fallen locals would be on alert, hunting for Guardians or Wolves or something hostile. But the Warmind bunker was supposedly undiscovered. Once they were inside, they could hide there as long as they needed.
Assuming they could get inside.
The coordinates they had pulled from Yuenu’s backup shelter in Hong Kong had been vague, and coordinates alone weren’t enough to locate something as well hidden as a Warmind bunker. It took them nearly two hours of searching before they found anything.
The storm had lifted to a light drizzle, though the dead of night still hung and the dark would last a few hours more.
Naoko stood on the edge of the harbour, staring out across the water. In the distance she could see the islands on the other side of the Singapore straight. She tugged her helmet off again, and Mushi took it as they had with her weapons. The rain was warmer than Naoko expected; the kind of lukewarm rains of a summer monsoon. They made her shiver, thinking back to a typhoon that she had weathered as a child, huddled in the dark of a basement with cold arms around her…
A gloved hand slipped into hers and squeezed. “Hey,” Helina whispered, resting her head on Naoko’s shoulder.
Naoko pressed her lips to Helina’s forehead. “Hey,” she mumbled.
They stood in silence for a time, resting their heads together. Naoko’s thumb brushed back and forth across Helina’s fingertips. The rain pattered against them, soft pats on Helina’s robes and tinkling on Naoko’s armour.
Zatrix popped in through a cloud of smoke several feet away from them – enough not to scare them, and waved for their attention. Naoko looked up. “Come on,” he said, beckoning. “Rohan found the bunker. We need your help getting in.”
Rohan stepped down the steps of the Vanguard Hall as quietly as a mouse and feeling just as small. Outside, rain poured down in the darkness, hammering against the large window at the far end of the room and throwing the hall into a sullen mood.
They walked down the stairs towards the Vanguard themselves as they gathered around a holographic projection, muttering to one another quietly. Rohan tried not to fidget as they walked, and tried to keep their posture tall and confident. Their new fieldweave armour felt strange and the weight of the pistol at their hip tugged at them with discomfort like a fishhook on their lungs.
It was hard, trying not to be too stiff or formal while the nervousness and paranoia of an entirely new world hummed all around them. It was difficult for Rohan, given the circumstances.
One of the Vanguard met Rohan’s eye through their small meeting. He appeared to be of east-Asian descent and his eyes were kind, soft as he smiled at them over his fellow Vanguard’s shoulder.
The hooded Vanguard turned to follow his eye. “Ah,” he said, his voice booming through the hall, “this must be the ‘anomaly’ the Speaker told us about, huh?”
He beckoned Rohan closer, walking around the side of the table. “About time we met her.”
“Them,” the robed man with the kind eyes interrupted, moving along to other side of the table. He looked at Rohan, “it is them, is it not?”
Rohan’s words caught slightly in their throat and they felt flustered, surprised that the man could know their identity from scarcely a glance. They nodded awkwardly. “Either is fine,” they managed, bowing their head respectfully, “but they is preferred, thank you.”
He gave them a warm, welcoming smile, extending a hand. “I had a feeling,” he said. “Osiris.” He introduced himself as Rohan clasped his hand and shook it.
“Rohan,” they said. Osiris grinned, flashing beautifully white teeth. His fringe flipped slightly as he turned his head, and he scratched briefly at the scraggly stubble across his chin.
“This is-“ he began.
The hooded man stepped forward. “Andal Brask,” he introduced himself with a slight bow of the head, then pushed his hood back as he came close.
Andal was a rugged looking man, slightly older and more weathered than Osiris. His face was tanned by the sun and framed by a beard that was trimmed the perfect amount to say ‘I don’t care’ while being stylish. Rohan couldn’t help a slight smirk at the irony of such effort going into looking effortless. “I’m the Hunter Vanguard. ‘Siri’s is our resident Warlock,”
He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the third man who stayed at the head of the table, turning off the hologram and peering down at his work with militant stiffness. “The statue’s Zavala, our Titan.”
“So, Rohan,” Andal asked. He slapped their arm like they were old friends. “Relax Rookie,” he laughed lightly. “Speaker says you’ve got a new trick, show us what you’ve got.”
“You want me to-“
“Any Void you can,” Andal said, sitting nonchalantly back against the table.
Rohan nodded and breathed deeply. They focused on the well of strength in their gut, feeling the air around them prickling and letting the strange, almost haunting sense of nothingness build in their chest before they let it flow through their arm.
Rohan lifted their right hand before their face, and purple wisps like dancing flames wandered across their forearm and fingers, letting tiny embers of purple light flicker into the smokeless air.
“All right!” Andal laughed and clapped, the sound echoing in the mostly-empty hall. He slapped Rohan’s arm in a friendly manner again, “been a while since we’ve seen a Hunter with Void powers, eh?”
Rohan looked at Osiris and he nodded, raising an eyebrow but saying nothing.
“Walk with me, kiddo,” Andal said, sliding up beside Rohan and draping his arm over their shoulders. “I’ll fill you in on how this is gonna work.”
He led Rohan down the hall towards the massive windows. As they passed the Titan Vanguard, Zavala, Andal snapped his fingers and made a pistol shape at the man, clicking his tongue.
Zavala glanced up and looked at Andal expressionlessly, unamused. His mouth did not waver beneath the bushy brown moustache, but his face seemed to be restingly grim, as if carved from stone.
They passed a large spherical sculpture at the top of the stairs and reached the window. The rain pounded against the thick glass, but it was muffled and sounded almost distant. Andal leaned nonchalantly against the glass, folding his arms across his chest.
“Listen, Rohan, I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “You’re an outlier. There are three elements we Guardians use; Solar, Arc, and Void.” He checked them off on his fingers as he spoke. “Using each of these elements is an art of its own, and well… some of those arts have been lost over the years.
“You’ve been designated as a Hunter – one of my troops – but you’re a natural with the Void. Thing is, Void Hunters haven’t been around for decades, and there’s nobody to teach you those skills properly.”
Rohan chewed their lip slowly, wringing their hands as Andal spoke.
“That’s where Osiris is gonna come in.” Andal looked over Rohan’s shoulder and made a quick beckoning gesture. “You see, even though you’re technically one of my Hunters, I can’t teach you to use the Void, and I can’t supply another Hunter to do it either. But Osiris? That man is a master of the Void, he makes it a goddamn art.”
“So I will be your mentor,” Osiris said, appearing at Rohan’s side faster than Rohan had expected. She hadn’t even heard him approach. “Technically, you’re one of Andal’s troops-“
“So you’ll answer to me before him,” Andal cut in.
Osiris gave an amused smirk. “Indeed. But I will be your personal mentor. We haven’t had cross-class work like this in quite a few years, so it should prove interesting, a Warlock teaching a Hunter to master their elements…
“But I see some great things in our future, Rohan,” he grinned. The orange blinking lights outside the tower window glowed and illuminated his face from the side like fire, or the glow of a cigar in a dark room. “Great things.”
Andal laughed, patting Osiris’ shoulder and walking past them both back to his maps spread out across the table. “Sure thing, ‘Siri, you’re just saying that ‘cause you’ve got money riding on it.”
Vanir stood in a field of gold. The sun shone warm upon her back, a gentle breeze wafting by. Her memory was fuzzy, and she blinked rapidly, looking down at her hands as she felt warmth prickling in her palms.
She stood naked in the field, and the stalks of golden grain reached up to her hips. She brushed her fingertips over their ends and the blades of grass danced in response, brushed by the warm wind that moved over the field from behind Vanir.
Vanir stepped forward, watching the grains move beneath her fingers. They tickled along her thighs as she walked, and the breeze cradled her like a blanket. She lifted her head, blinked once, and stopped in her tracks.
A great tower rose ahead. It stood at the mouth of two meeting mountains, its otherworldly stone glittering in the light of the rising sun. The jagged mountains cast harsh black shapes across the horizon, cutting into a cloudless pink sky. The tower’s shape shifted, sections moving of their own accord and revealing small square gaps through which the light would flow at sunset. The tower stood stark against the soft colour of the sky. Vanir knew it instantly. Any Exo would.
Vanir turned, gazing all around her slowly. She took in all the jagged, blackened mountains, like the teeth of some gaping maw that rose in a cage around the valley of golden fields. There were no other figures in the valley; not a single shadow, not one familiar face. Vanir stood alone in the light of a rising sun.
She turned her gaze back to the Deep Stone Crypt.
She took a tentative step forward. Her hands whispered across the buds of the golden grain at her sides. It tickled her legs playfully, but her presence in the valley set her ill at ease.
Vanir had visited the fields in the valley of death before. That was what they were then: the fields of the dead, filled with the sullen, haunted faces of everyone she had ever known and could not remember, marching to stop her path.
The few times she had been here before, Vanir had arrived ready for war, armoured and armed in a dead field of blackened grass to fight her way through an army…
But Vanir saw no weapons, she bore no armour or even clothes, and the sun warmed her plates like the light of a golden summer.
Despite there being no army, she coiled her fists warily. She tried to snap Arc Light between her knuckles and charge her fist with crackling lightning, but none came at her command.
Vanir looked down at her hands. They were hers and not at once.
Blood dripped from her fingers and smeared across palms of torn tan flesh, split to reveal the metallic shapes of Vanir’s real exoskeleton.
She felt a tremor in her chest, and stared down at the bloody wound in smooth skin that lay across her torso. Blood seeped down across the dark skin bright and warm as the wind. It dripped down her legs and sullied the buds of the grain around her.
Then fire rose from her fingertips, burning brighter and warmer and stronger. It evaporated the blood like wisps of water, and the flesh burned away in an instant of ash to reveal her real body, the metal burning softly with lapping lickings of flame. It devoured the blood and flesh but left her plates and muscle warm and strong, untouched.
A grinding noise rose through the valley, deep and strong as an earthquake but steady. It reverberated through her legs and up her spine, and it felt like listening to the core of the Earth speak, or the mantle grinding its jaws. She curled her flaming fists and looked up.
The Deep Stone Crypt was shifting more. Its shape was fluid and changing as blocks and sections split and moved. Some pounded down to the ground and rose again as if on invisible strings. Their fall caused the heartbeat of the Earth that rumbled through to Vanir’s feet.
Vanir glanced back over her shoulder, out across the vast ocean of golden grain. The sun rose over the mountains, cresting their jagged peaks and baring down on Vanir’s eyes.
She tightened her fists, set her jaw tight, and walked towards the Deep Stone Crypt. Her eyes locked to the shifting pillars of stone around it as they swirled and reflected the light with their dull, dark stone. The grain scratched at her legs as she strode forward, and it snagged against her feet when she pushed through it.
Something changed.
Vanir felt a great weight upon her chest, like a giant viper coiling around her torso and squeezing, suffocating her. The pressure crushed her chest, ripping into her, and she fell to her knees, trying to cry out from the pain, but the pressure stole her voice and cut into her mind.
Her fingers curled in the soil. The wind picked up, swirling the grain angrily around her like the churning waves of the ocean in the storm. She gasped, and a spark ignited deep in her chest.
She watched the soil in her fingers turn to ash, watched the grain around her shoulder wither. The light dimmed, dark clouds covering the sky in an instant.
But the fire burst forth from her heart.
Fire roared into life across her body, burning away the smothering pressure that had built on her chest. It rose, igniting the field around her, and the flames quickly soared into a tower of swirling fury, burning brighter and brighter and burning right from Vanir herself.
The fires grew white with light, their sound drowning away, until all that surrounded Vanir was the white and the silence that fell away into unconsciousness…
Jem stepped into the Vault of Glass warily. The massive door still groaned above and behind him, echoing with strange clockwork mechanics. He had watched teams walk beyond this point before, but never like this, and he had never gone inside himself.
He knelt down, pressing Bad Juju’s barrel against a Fallen Captain. The corpse moved with the pressure, his broken face illuminated by the green flame on Jem’s gun. He was definitely dead. He eyed the Wolf banner from the Captain’s neck, and his hands tightened around Bad Juju.
“Captain.” Uaithne placed a hand on Jem’s shoulder. Jem nodded, standing up to his full height.
“Vanir,” Jem called over his shoulder, waving her forward.
She stepped through the ranks of Fireteam Apollo, clad in pure clean-cut black armour. Jem’s team gave her a moderate berth of space as she walked down the steps into the Vault towards their captain, her high tech assault rifle resting casually over her shoulder. Jem figured it was the helmet that unnerved them.
Baz was the only one shorter than her, but they all had a slight deference to her as she walked by.
Vanir stood at Jem’s side and looked up at him, but all Jem could see was the reflections of the cave around them in her golden visor, licked by the blue wisps of flaming light.
“You’ve been in the Vault twice,” Jem said, “we’re going to need some guidance in here from you.”
Vanir nodded. “Understood. We should get down there as fast as we can. Whatever Skolas is doing in the Vault…” Vanir stared down into the dark caves that led further in. She synthesised an inward breath, drawing her shoulders back and setting her gun’s stock into her shoulder. “It can’t be good.”
Jem swallowed and tightened his grip on Bad Juju.
“Listen up, Apollo!” he shouted up the stairs. With the mouth of the Vault showing the sky behind them, Fireteam Apollo stood as six silhouettes against the golden light of Venus’ churning skies. He saw the atmospheric storm rippling into life behind them, and tried to pay it no mind.
“Vanir’s our resident Vault expert; she’s in command from here on out. Understood?”
A resounding chorus of “Sir!” came back, and Fireteam Apollo prepped their weapons, falling into line behind them. Jem turned to Vanir, who was already marching down into the caves.
She waved a hand stiffly over her shoulder without looking back, indicating for them to follow.
The caves were dark and dull, lit by the odd stream of light that bled through cracks in the mountain of Venus. Tufts of vegetation pushed through the floor, and Jem paused at a section of stunning glittering crystals that coated the corner of one wall.
Water trickled down the walls of the caves in sections, dripping from the corners and feeding a few poisonous looking flowers.
Vanir marched with a steady pace, and the team followed her lead through into the Vault.
“This is the Trial of Kabr,” Blaine whispered over the team’s communications. “The cave system that leads into the Vault. They named it after Kabr, the Legionless; he was the one who cracked the Vault, and gave us a way to defeat the Vex inside.”
Jem stuck to Vanir’s side, wary eyes scanning the darkness and fog. His fingertips would be sweaty on Bad Juju’s grip were it not for the absorbent layer of his gloves keeping his grip crisp. He heard Baz’s voice quiet behind him.
“Why’d they call him ‘the Legionless’?” he asked.
“Because the rest of his team were wiped from existence,” Blaine said. “The Vex in here have absolute power over time. They made it so Kabr’s fireteam never existed.”
“Great,” Illara snorted. “Sounds like a cheery place.”
Vanir held up one hand again, and beckoned before breaking into a run. Jem kept right on her tail, with the rhythmic clumping of a dozen feet behind him. They emerged from the caves into a hollow of Vex stone, worn away into the black computational rock like the Citadel that hovered hauntingly through the Venutian sky.
But there was no time to look around.
A bolt of liquid lightning shot off at Vanir, skimming over her shoulder by a hair as she ducked the perfect amount to avoid it. Then she was on the Fallen, her glowing shotgun ripping into their scavenged armour easily.
Jem slid to a crouch and fired Bad Juju, clipping the skulls of two Dregs as Vanir decimated their Vandal leader.
The hollow fell into an echoing silence as smoke drifted from Vanir’s fists and she rose from the tackled body of the Vandal. “They’ll be at the Templar’s Well by now,” she said, looking up at Jem as he and his team quickly moved closer. She stood and pumped her shotgun. “We have to move quickly.”
She waved them through a gap in the Vex structure that Jem had missed beyond the Fallen. The passage was too narrow for them to move easily with two side-by-side, so they ran through in single file, hands tight and eyes wary.
“When we get to the Well, we need to split into three teams to cover the area,” Vanir explained over the radio. Her voice was crackling, distorted slightly by the influence of the Vex in the area, and she quickly switched it off in favour of them hearing her actual voice.
“Vadim, you designate teams, three groups of three. Each of the teams will take a side of the Well, and mine will carve through the centre.”
As Vanir explained, they emerged into a massive cave hollow. Eerie blue mists drifted through the air, masking the distance to wherever the eventual wall must lie. Jem swallowed dryly, leaning over the edge of the Vex stone platforms to peer down.
The cave walls descended deep into the abyss, fading through the fog into unknown depths.
Vanir took a step back, and leapt into the air with a glow of Light.
Jem’s heart leapt to his throat, and he nearly stepped over the edge as he watched her glide through the air and roll to break her impact on a floating Vex structure below.
Jem glanced at Uaithne, and then nodded.
He took several steps back, then sprinted and leapt after Vanir. They each made their way down, following Vanir through several further jumps, rounding the cliffside of the Vault’s giant cave and descending a cliff of square Vex stone to a vantage platform.
Jem separated the teams as they jumped, calling them out and making them sound off to confirm.
When they reached the platform, Vanir was waiting at the edge, her high-tech assault rifle ready in hand. She knelt at the edge, staring down at the strange arena-like area before them.
Golden light bathed the stage, split by pillars of towering black Vex computers, and the Fallen House of Wolves moved about, setting up pieces of tapping technology that Jem vaguely recognised from years gone by in the Reef. He knelt at Vanir’s side. “What are they doing?” he asked.
Vanir shook her head once. “I don’t know,” she said. “But we need to stop whatever it is.”
She checked the magazine of her rifle. Jem placed a hand on her shoulder, meeting the solemn gaze of her helmet. She nodded, then leapt into the air.
Arc rippled around her as she crested her jump, and she shot forth into the arena cased in a lightning bolt.
Jem leapt after her, Bai at his side. They hit the ground running, weapons lighting up the Fallen immediately in the beginning of their ambush. He heard the pounding of boots on stone and the crackling machine gun fire that marked the other teams on either side – Illara leading Baz and Zyduras to his left, and Uaithne leading Blaine and Shani to his right.
His radio flared with static the second he touched down, and Jem grit his teeth against the sound as he fought the Wolves down into the stone stairwell before them.
He passed a piece of their technology set up in the arena and dropped to use it for cover as he switched to a heavier weapon. Chips of stone and slivers of arc ripped through the air around him as Apollo tore into the Fallen defences with the fury of a full-blown Titan assault.
Just ahead of Jem, Vanir slammed her fist into the chest of a Wolf Captain, caving in his armour and bones like foil beneath a blinding blast of arc in her fist.
He fired at the Fallen around Vanir, suppressing them with supporting fire and keeping an open eye on the battlefield’s whole. In the corner of his eye, he saw both side teams pushing through the columns of dark stone and setting up what cover they could.
Lightning ripped across the gaps in the Templar’s Well between bullets and the explosions of grenades.
“Snipers! Platforms on the side!” Jem heard Illara yell, just as a bolt from a wire rifle glanced off the pillar beside him. He shouted the order to take cover to the rest of the team, and fired off a scattered series of bursts at the sniper on the right to force him into cover.
Bai and Vanir skidded into cover beside him, and his radio’s static hissed violently.
“-em? If you can hear-“ a voice broke through the heavy static, and Jem signalled for Bai to cover him while he adjusted the radio. “-ease respond!”
He summoned Circe in his right hand, and the Ghost fed a surge of Light into the equipment to steady its receiver, and the message became clear.
“This is Rohan Nuha attempting to contact Fireteam Apollo in the Vault of Glass. This is an emergency. Captain Vadim, if you can hear me, please respond. Repeat, Jem, if you can-“
“Rohan?” he asked, his voice straining over the blaring of gunfire. “Rohan, I hear you.” As he finished the message, Jem glanced over at the left side time just in time to see an ether supply beside their sniper explode and send his burning body flying into the abyssal depths of the Vault floor.
The Fallen were beginning to regroup and fight back with greater coordination. “Jem we’ve intercepted Fallen communications. Variks and I have been translating; apparently they’re trying to tap into-“
A melodic chime rang through the Vault, sinking the sounds of gunfire to a whisper in its wake. Jem’s breath vanished in his throat with the sound, and he found himself standing up despite the battle raging around them. The chime rang through him like a note of Circe’s Deathsong, harrowing yet beautiful.
Vanir whirled at the sound, turning wide-eyed and fearful to look at Anya. Her partner seemed oblivious, her shoulder pressed against a stump of an ancient column as she fired a cool, precise round into the core of a distant hobgoblin.
The bullet seemed to travel in slow motion, rippling through time-distorted air, and Vanir had the time to gather herself and, shakingly, stare in wonder around the arena of the Templar’s Well.
Tetra grappled with a headless Minotaur, her powerful arms rippling with purple void wisps as she tore the Vex’s cannon from its grip and forced it back, away from her injured partner. Zatrix, popping through a cloud of electricity and forming from thick black smoke, fired his sinister weapon into another hobgoblin, cracking it open.
Vanir watched, motionless, as the Hobgoblin’s core split open, and its contents laced through the air. She watched the light of its eye turn dead and the shells of its body crumple against the stone behind it, now painted glowing white.
Then the world rushed back into chaos. Sparks flew from Vanir’s shoulder as a narrowly-missed shot grazed her armour, and Anya instinctively snapped her sights to the culprit and tore them open with a precise round to their eye.
Vanir heard the melodic chime again – a slight pitch higher – and she felt a chill running through her spine as she turned around.
Something bright formed before her, lacing barbs of pure golden light rippling into existence a mere meter from her. They formed in a second, dozens of the bars of light that formed a structural scaffold. Then they burned with bright light. The cube shone with a blinding flash, and Vanir heard Novella yelling through her helmet’s comms, a warning about the ‘Oracles’.
But Vanir was frozen with fear, her eyes locked to the cube before her and her body shivering with its presence. Her gun dropped to the floor, and she felt Anya stealing to her side, swiping the sidearm from her hip and hammering rounds into the cube, her other hand gripping Vanir’s arm.
And all she could do was watch, her body locked and overwhelmed by fear.
Vanir’s screaming voice snapped Jem back to the present. “Oracles!” her cry rang through the Well, a splitting fear and anger in her voice.
Another musical chime rang out after her shout, and she started sprinting towards the left side of the Well. “The golden lights!” she yelled, pointing wildly with one hand and swiping the shotgun from her back with the other, “target the Oracles!”
Jem stared for a moment as a cube of golden light formed in the distance of the Well, and flared into life. He hesitated only for a split-second as he tried to make sense of what was happening, then he followed Vanir’s command without question.
Bad Juju cracked the core of the Oracle before him, and Jem shrugged off a Dreg’s attempted tackle with a fistful of Circe’s Light blaring out and evaporating him effortlessly.
“They’re attempting to use the Oracles to tap into the Vex network,” Rohan explained in his ear, as the Oracle buckled beneath their concentrated gunfire and imploded into a singularity of yellow light before dissipating. “You can’t let them succeed, you have to stop them Jem. Destroy those Oracles as quickly as possible!”
“Understood,” Jem said, dropping the magazine from his weapon. Circe materialised a new one in the air for him, and he slid it into place with a precise sweep of his hand. “Central Oracle is down,” he called to the team.
A third chime, one pitch higher, rang out, and Jem spied the Oracle materialising on the right side of the Well, far from his range.
Uaithne and Shani worked in a perfect tag team of explosive power, clearing a path through the now-reinforced Fallen lines for Blaine to destroy the Oracle quickly.
They fought on against the Fallen, pushing them back into the dark hallways of the Vault, and destroying more Oracles as they appeared. Seven Titans and a Hunter were more than a usual raid team for the Vault of Glass, and despite the bolstered numbers of the Wolves that seemed to pour endlessly from hallways and climb stealthily from the stony cliffs, they held the Darkness back.
With their third round of Oracles appearing, Jem felt the ground shudder, and heard the cry of the Vex.
“Jem,” Rohan’s voice filtered through his helmet as Circe filled his fist with too much light and he felled a Captain. His arm burned painfully as the Light dissipated, and he hissed through his teeth. “Petra is picking up a massive increase in Vex activity across the sink. Be prepared for them to join the battle.”
Jem nodded, then remembered Rohan couldn’t see him and acknowledged the information properly. “Apollo!” he shouted, and his voice boomed through the Well. “We’ve got Vex incoming, ready up!”
But it seemed the Wolves were prepared for their arrival as well.
As the red eyes of Vex units appeared in the dark tunnels of the far wall and the central pit of the Templar’s Well, the Fallen spurred into hurried motion. Spheres and crates of explosive munitions were dragged from a series of nets and quickly rolled and dropped to the doors. Jem recognised the tactic from long-pitted memories of another war.
As the Vex forces marched from their hallways, the Fallen overloaded their explosive deployments, and the resulting explosion rippled through the air with a deafening roar and a force of great wind.
Jem was lifted from his feet and thrown backwards against a pillar. He felt his armour slam brutally against the stone, and even with the protection of his helmet he lay dazed by the blow, watching the smoke dissipate into the ceiling of the cave.
A Captain loomed over Jem like a dark shadow, and he felt Circe pulse a burning beat of Light through his veins like adrenaline.
But Bai was there in a heartbeat. He kicked the shrapnel launcher from the Captain’s hands and smoothly ducked the countering lash of twin arms. Bai wove beneath the Captain’s attack, his arms coiled close to his chest like a boxer, and delivered two quick blows – one to the sternum and one to the then-exposed throat – that sent the Captain onto his back and opened him for a killing shot.
Bai helped his leader to his feet as, behind him, Vanir fought off a dozen Fallen at once. She moved with the grace and ferocity of a storm, lightning blaring from her knuckles and whirling with perfect awareness and form. Jem had seen Vanir fight many times before, but he had only heard of her capabilities when she ‘fused’ with her Ghost.
It was awe-inspiring.
He did not stop to admire it though, instead charging in to assist. They decimated the Fallen, and once more Jem heard the musical gong-like signal of the Oracles’ arrival.
He shared a glance with Vanir. Her golden helmet stared back with burning blue fire and she nodded. “Final round of Oracles,” he heard her say.
The Fallen were growing desperate; Jem could see it in their attacks, the wildness of their eyes and the ferocity of their charge against them as the Oracles blinked into existence over their carefully placed machinery. He spotted only three remaining Captains to lead their troops, and their numbers dwindled as Apollo destroyed the series of Oracles.
He heard the final chime, the seventh Oracle, and glimpsed the flare of golden light at the bottom of the stairs in the centre of the Well’s arena.
A bolt of arc from a stealth Vandal’s wire rifle cracked against Jem’s shoulder and he grunted as he fall back against a wall with the impact of it. Circe’s shielding held, and the Vandal was quickly slain by a fast eye and a faster trigger finger from Bai.
Vanir ran by them, sliding her assault rifle to the magnetic holster on her back and drawing in Light from an orb at the top of the staircase. “I’ve got the Oracle!” she yelled, leaping into the air.
Lightning crackled behind her like a static connection from the stone, and her body burst with Arc Light as she leapt. She coiled a fist back, and it became blindingly bright with the light of her super. Then Vanir fired forward like a comet.
She disappeared from view, but Jem heard the burst of her landing and saw the flashes across the dark stone all around from her Fist of Havoc. Jem breathed. The Oracles were gone.
Another sound echoed out from the Well, and it froze Jem’s breath in his throat. A massive explosive charge – one he recognised all too well – a Scorch Cannon.
He moved to rush to the Well, but before he could even stand, Vanir came flying out of the pit.
Her body was limp, wreathed in black smoke and burning. She flew out of the pit back towards them, bright embers flaking from her amidst the swirling smoke and trail of fire. Jem dropped Bad Juju as he watched, and Vanir’s body flew overhead to the right.
She slammed against the towering conflux of jagged black stone on the side of the Templar’s Well. He heard the crack of her impact, and then she fell, limp, to the stone floor.
Vanir lay in blackness, suspended. The void around her cradled her like a child and she lay soft and limp. She imagined this was what it felt like for humans to float on the surface of a lake, softly bobbing in the warmth of the water.
She could hear the ocean waves lapping all around her. The soft sound of waves rolling against a shore was soothing, calm and constant. She could not see a beach or a coast. All she saw was black, even as she turned her head about her; all was solid blackness, as if she had gone blind.
But she could smell the ocean and hear the heartbeat of its waves.
Vanir had been here many times before. Some called it Limbo – the place between lives, but that was not truly accurate. She lay in the nothing, letting it hold her like the ocean, and felt Fuse’s Light in her chest. This was the place Ghosts pulled them from, to bring them back to the Light from the brink.
But Fuse is here.
The thought was fleeting, but enravelled around Vanir clean and clear as the crashing of the waves. She felt fear boil in her throat, sparks coiling in her fingertips and her whole body shivered.
There was a deep, burning pain in her chest, and a pressure that threatened to crush her like a gargantuan vice.
Vanir whirled in the void, her fingers clawing at her chest but feeling nothing.
Above her, a point of light poked through the darkness. It was blinding, though it seemed scarcely a flicker in the darkness. It hummed and sang to her, growing and falling towards her like a slow-motion drop of rain from the unseen sky.
It was warm and orange, and as Vanir reached out she glimpsed the shadow of her fingers over it’s form. It swirled, taking shape in an orb of fire the size of a baseball, and it continued to sink towards her.
Vanir let it fall to her hands, and it floated just above her palms. It numbed the pain that threatened to tear her nerves apart, and she held it to her chest. Vanir let the fire tear through her body like a shot of adrenaline through blood, and every fibre of her being flared with her Light. She opened her mouth, tossed back her head as her body tensed with the feeling like being bathed in thermite…
and she screamed.
“Illara!” Jem yelled, sprinting over to Vanir. “Ward!”
Illara’s head snapped to look, and she tore across the battlefield in a flash, Baz and Zyduras carving through the Fallen at her side with ferocious arc blades and fists. They willed points of Light into focus with their supers as they went, charging Illara’s arms with glittering light.
She slid across the stone, kicking up pebbles and the dust left by their battle with her boots, then slammed her feet down.
Jem felt the soothing purple light of her Ward of Dawn form around him. It muffled the gunfire outside, washing over his hands with a subtle blessing glow. He lifted Vanir from the ground. Her weapon was smashed, Hard Light’s casing cracked and rent and the pieces clattered to the ground as he turned her over.
Vanir’s chest was smoking, and even through his gloves, Jem felt the smouldering heat from where she had been shot.
Her helmet’s blue flames flickered, and Jem tugged it free. As he waved the smoke free and placed her helmet aside, Jem’s heart leapt into his throat.
Her face was fractured; the plates across the left side of her face cracked and broken. Her eyes were shut, with only a faint ring of orange light against their black surface. Her plate across the side of her mouth and her jaw was shattered, the orange painted pieces scattered across her cheek.
But her chest was where the real damage lay.
Jem’s hands shook as he looked at the gaping, jagged hole in Vanir’s torso that left her core exposed. Soft lights pulsed inside of her, with the armour blown clean away.
“Shani!” Jem yelled without looking up, propping Vanir into a better position in the centre of the Ward while the rest of the team defended them against the remainder of the Fallen. “I need help!”
Shani slid to his side quickly, stowing his weapons and tugging his helmet off as the Ward wafted protective Light around him. He knelt at Vanir’s side.
His mouth glowed softly, but the words died in his mouth. “Where’s her Ghost…” he whispered, glancing at Jem with fearful eyes.
Then Vanir burned.
Her chest ignited with a great flame that spread across her body in an instant. Her chest convulsed and she arched her back from the stone, writhing for a moment as if taking a great breath after nearly drowning.
Jem and Shani shuffled back with surprise at the leaping flames, and Vanir burst with power like a Sunsinger willing themselves back from death with their Radiance. She pulsed off the ground for a moment, her flames leaping from her fingertips and rippling from her body like solar radiation.
She screamed, her voice splitting with agony for a moment and tearing into Jem’s ears like a knife.
Vanir fell to the stone again, her fire dying down, but still burning across her body with Light and strength and warmth. Her scream had lasted only a second, and as Jem scrambled back to her side, he saw her helmet and shattered gun dissipate with her Ghost’s Light.
But even as Fuse’s core appeared, shimmering with fire and a closed eye in the cavity of Vanir’s chest, her wound did not heal. The fire continued to lick across her entire body, fuelling her with life but not enough to heal her.
Shani’s hand on Jem’s wrist shook him back into thinking properly. His eyes met Jem’s sharply once he had his attention. “Vanir needs to get out of here,” he said, and Jem could tell he was trying not to panic at what was going on, “out of the Vault. She needs medical attention.”
Jem nodded, swallowing and grabbing his radio.
“Rohan?” he called, praying beneath his breath. “Rohan are you there?”
As he waited for a response, he turned to his team. Baz and Blaine had cut through the last of the Fallen, and Baz’s Arc Blade was imbedded in the throat of the Baron that had shot Vanir. The Scorch Cannon sat in Uaithne’s arms, burning with charge.
The fight was over, and all of them had turned with concern after Vanir’s scream.
The Ward of Dawn dropped as Rohan’s signal reached Jem. “I hear you Jem, are the Oracles destroyed?”
“Yes, but Rohan…” he glanced at Vanir’s burning, quiet form, and swallowed. “We need a ship right now. Vanir’s in trouble, we need to get her back to the City-“
Jem heard movement from Rohan’s end of the transmission. “Alright, I’m on it, I’ll divert a ship from the-“
“No, Rohan,” Jem interrupted them. He tried to keep the fear and concern from cracking his voice, but his hands were shaking with uncertainty. “We need to get her to the City now, we need your ship.”
Apollo’s eyes flicked from Jem to Vanir as the emergency cry went out, wary and uncertain of what to do. Some moved closer to Vanir, stowing weapons and kneeling, while others checked the area to ensure it was secure now.
“Understood. I’ll be at the Vault door as soon as possible, you just get Vanir out of there.”
Jem turned to the others as the transmission ended. He glanced at Vanir. She still burned, her fire rising and falling like breath around her body. Tiny Vex fireflies – little cubes that blipped through the air around them – were moving towards her.
He hurried to her side and gently, slowly, he picked Vanir up in his arms. “Illara,” he said, looking to her as Circe appeared at his shoulder. “Can you keep Vanir protected with a barrier?”
She nodded, pulsing Void Light across her hands as she approached.
Jem grunted beneath the weight of Vanir’s body, but he started walking back towards the platform far above that had led them down to the Templar’s Well. “Shani, Zy, I need you to boost me. We’re climbing out, double time.”
The fireteam hurried from the Vault with Vanir. She burned constantly as they climbed, her Solar Light flowing across her in waves and breaths that warmed Jem’s arms and chest as he carried her. Illara’s dampening Void made the flames a soft bluish colour, and it kept the Vex motes at bay – those tiny firefly-like nanomachines that flitted through the air after her, eager to corrupt her by slipping inside.
Their climb was hurried but careful, scaling the cliffs of square stones and leaping with Lift between the eerie floating platforms.
Shadows waited amidst the bleary light when they passed through the Trial of Kabr and ascended the stairs to the Vault’s great door.
Jem gasped as they made it through the door, his breath coming slightly short from the hurried run while carrying Vanir. But his posture relaxed, a flow of warmth like Vanir’s fires drifting through him as he saw Rohan’s jumpship hovering amidst the Waking Ruins.
Rohan was waiting on the central sync plate, the reinforcements from the Venutian Garrison standing around them, ready to enter the Vault and destroy the Fallen’s technology inside.
He jogged to Rohan’s side, and even they could not mask the uncertainty and concern on their face as they looked at Vanir’s limp Radiance-warmed body.
Illara’s hand brushed his shoulder as Rohan opened their ship to load Vanir aboard. “Go with them,” she said as Jem looked down at her. “They’ll need all the details of what happened.
“I’ll keep the boys in order.”
Jem nodded thankfully, and marched up into Rohan’s ship. They loaded her into place and set a course for The City, leaving the Vault of Glass long behind them.
30.) How does your character smell? Do they wear perfume or cologne?
Vanir smells like clean metal, sanded wood, and storms. She smells warm and comforting, and full of life. She wears subtle perfume for New Monarchy balls.
Rohan smells like sawdust and nothingness. They smells like a gap in the air, and like the Earth. They don’t wear perfume or cologne.
Lo smells like sunlight, summer, fresh dirt, and hot steel. She borrows Selena’s perfume sometimes, but not often because she ends up using too much and smelling way too strongly.
Alli smells like steel, ash, fire, and smoke. He uses a little bit of cologne for formal events and the like, but they’re few and far between for him.
These are my two least favourite questions so far lmao
28.) Pick two songs that describe your character at two different points of their life, and explain why you chose them.
Warning I am shit at music choices tbh so some of these might be kinda rubbish and not fit terrible well
Vanir: King and Lionheart by Of Monsters and Men // Get Out Alive by Mel Parsons (this video is a live version because the studio version you can only listen to on the actual album/there’s no video of)
King and Lionheart BECAUSE VANIR AND ANYA LOVE EACH OTHER THIS MUCH OKAY.
Get Out Alive just reminds me of Vanir’s incident from the Vault, but more so of Anya after Vanir saved her from being Taken!Anya so... listen it’s just a lot about Vanir being Anya’s little Guardian Angel.
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Rohan: Once We Were from the Dragon Age Tavern Songs // I Don’t Know What The Weather Will Be by Laura Mvula // BUT ALSO Walking With A Ghost by Tegan and Sara
Once We Were has just always worked perfectly for the Destiny Universe for me, and I feel like it sums up Rohan’s way of remembering the Golden Age while also looking to the future? It works for Rohan at any point in their life reall, I think.
I Don’t Know What The Weather Will Be I always imagined as a lullaby Rohan sings to Jem & Willow’s twins. It plays out a little bit like a conversation between one of the twins and Rohan, and I really really really love it? It doesn’t sum up their character that much but it definitely reminds me of them every time.
Bonus! Walking With A Ghost just makes me think of Rohan & Osiris a lot that’s p much it
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Lo: More Than A Feeling by Boston // Someday Never Comes by Billy Valentine and the Forest Rangers
More Than A Feeling is the first time Lo was like shit Selena is beautiful and I want to kiss her but like I REALLY WANT TO KISS HER AND KISS HER FOREVER??
Someday Never Comes is Lo when Selena is dying and she doesn’t think there’s any way to make her better, because she doesn’t understand why the world is such a shitty place.
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Alli: False Knight on the Road by Fleet Foxes // I honestly can’t think of another good one for Alli sorry
False Knight on the Road makes me think of Alli going after the Nine. (Think of the Child as Alli and the Knight as the Tower? idk it’s hard to explain)
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28.) If your character’s life was a genre, what would it be?
VANIR WOULD BE A MAGICAL GIRL ANIME
Rohan would be a noire detective genre crossed with secret agent james bond/mission impossible type stuff
Lo would be... a romantic comedy??
Alli would be an action movie but one with the cheesiest angst-ridden romantic subplot but like? for some reason it’s not terrible?
27.) Describe one or two of your character’s favourite outfits
(I added this one myself because I wanted to do more detail of outfits!)
Vanir’s two favourite outfits are:
Outfit One:
Cute white and blue striped panties with frilly lacy edges and a tiny bow on the front of the waistband (her favourite pair) and a matching bra
Black short shorts
White thigh high socks and sporty shoes or tall boots (knee-high or possibly thigh-high)
A simple, loose white and orange patterned shirt
A long-sleeved sweater that’s a little too long, so it comes halfway down her hands and she can fiddle with the ends of the sleeves (thick black and white striped with one vertical orange stripe down the left side)
Outfit Two:
Fancy black and semi-see-through lacy lingerie (her “I know Yútú is coming over tonight” pair) (thanks Nova ;D)
A pleated skirt of soft material
Work boots
Nice flannel dressy shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows
A little black scarf if it’s cold
Formal Outfit: (because I decided that their formal outfit would be fun to do too!)
Underwear varying on whether Yútú is there (simple white panties and plain bra if she isn’t, sexy lingerie if she is)
A custom-made/tailored knee-length Chinese qipao dress, the same orange colour as her eyes, with swirling black detailing
Neat, loose black trousers underneath
Neat but simple dancing shoes
Rohan’s two favourite outfits are:
Outfit one:
Black boxer shorts, matching sports bra
Skinny jeans
Tough work boots
Loose white shirt
Outfit two:
Black boxer shorts, matching sports bra
Plain black trousers
Tough work boots
White work/suit shirt
Formal Outfit:
Black boxer shorts
Sleek dark trousers
Neat, slender black shoes (slightly raised heel)
A hidden leather holster around their right thigh, concealing a sidearm
A short, white robe-like shirt/coat that falls down to their knees on one side, and mid thigh on the other, forming an angled skirt over their legs, with loose sleeves and a cutoff back
A smooth satin sash embroidered with the designs of the consensus
Lo’s two favourite outfits are:
Outfit one:
Plain white panties and a supportive sports bra
Loose, tough work pants
Practical boots (not too tough and restricting though)
A junior warlock’s robe, with the sleeves cut off, so it is more of a sleeveless short-skirted dress than a robe (beige)
Belt for tools, with pouches for little bits and pieces (and maybe a piece of candy)
A simple warlock bond
Tough work gloves (tucked into the back of her belt when not in use)
Goggles
Outfit two:
White cotton boxer shorts, sports bra
Denim shorts (or a similar, durable material)
Practical boots
Plain white T-shirt or tank top with the Häkke logo across the chest
A red flannel shirt that’s one size too big for her, with the sleeves rolled up, left unbuttoned
Black fingerless gloves (if she’s driving)
Goggles
Formal Outfit:
The brightest hot pink pair of panties Lo owns, and a push-up bra
A far too-nice tailored dress commissioned by Selena. Form-fitting, with pleated skirts and a slit along her left leg, a low hem that brushes her ankles on the right side, and goes halfway down her calf on the left. The same metallic blue colour as her hair
Simple but nice blue shoes
A simple pendant with a little blue stone in it (it looks kind of like a sapphire but it’s just a blue stone)
Blue eyeshadow and subtle lipstick (with Selena’s help)
Clip-on earrings, partly hidden by her hair
Alli’s two favourite outfits are:
Outfit one:
Plain white women’s panties
Tight black pants or skinny jeans
Tough work boots
Plain crop top
Outfit two:
A pair of Kels’ panties
That’s it, just Kels’ panties
Maybe a shirt
Formal Outfit:
A pair of plain women’s panties (once they’re in a relationship, he will borrow Kels’)
Smooth, pressed black trousers
Neat black dress shoes
A neat, plain white dress shirt
Deep purple (looks black in dark lighting) suit jacket (also slightly too big for him so he usually takes it off and rolls up his shirt sleeves)
25.) Describe your character’s hands. Are they small, long, calloused, smooth, stubby?
Vanir’s hands are smooth metal over tough synthetic muscle. Her hands are extremely responsive and quite sensitive. Along her knuckles, the back of her hand, and around her fingers, she has clean white metal casing, scarred grey by arc-use along the knuckles. The pads of her fingers and thumb, and her palm, are all sensitive synthetic muscle, which is black in colour.
Her hands are smooth and sensitive, always clean, and gentle. But her fists are deadly.
Rohan’s hands are small and almost delicate. Their skin is dark and weathered, but their palms are light, and very soft. They have clean-cut nails that they never grow out. There are not many callouses on Rohan’s hands, but the skin is tough and weathered.
Lo’s hands are rough and dirty. Her nails are slightly jagged from biting their tips – she is trying to stop doing that, but it’s a hard habit to break. Her hands have many small burns and scars across them, and her palms are calloused and tough. She is missing two-thirds of her pinky finger and the end segment of her ring finger on her right hand, both of which have been replaced by small Exo-like prosthetics.
Her hands are almost always covered in dirt, grease, or metal flakes from working with mechanics and welding.
Alli’s hands are smooth and made of dense metal. Like Vanir’s hands, Allis are made up of synthetic muscle and mettal carapacing, but his have more metal and segments. Even across his palms there it is divided into small sections of carapacing that is semi-soft, like the pads of many animals’ paws. His hands, like the rest of his body, are designed so that their casing can all slot together seamlessly to lock them down with armour and make them impervious to their environment.
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26.) Second day of favorites! Favorite comfort food, favorite vice, favorite outfit, favorite hot drink, favorite time of year, and favorite holiday.
Note: I’m changing this one a little bit because I want to do a day of outfits, so I’m taking that bit out and making it the Day 27 question instead.
I’m also changing “favourite vice” to just their most present vice, because favourite doesn’t make sense to me there.
Vanir:
Exo’s don’t really have comfort foods since they don’t eat… but Vanir finds the act of baking stuff pretty comforting, usually chocolate brownies or cookies, that kind of thing.
I don’t know about favourite vice, but Vanir’s wrath is something to be reckoned with. She is incredibly difficult to anger, but when she is in a fury she can be incredibly destructive. Just ask that one hunter who called Anya a bitch.
Again, Exo’s don’t really have favourite drinks since they… don’t have drinks.
Vanir’s favourite time of year is autumn. She absolutely adores the colours of the landscape in autumn, loves watching the leaves fall from the trees in the tower and watching the valey beyond the City turn red and orange. She just really really loves how the season affects the landscape.
Vanir’s favourite holiday is the Chinese Lantern Festival. It lights up the City and she loves seeing how happy everyone is for the festival and how vibrant and alive the City can be. Plus she loves it as a piece of her cultural heritage.
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Rohan:
Rohan’s favourite comfort foods are savoury pastries and muffins.
Distrust and a lack of faith is probably Rohan’s most prominent vice. They struggle to trust and have faith in others, and even in the Traveller, which is seen to many to be a bad thing. Rohan doesn’t think it’s a bad thing at all, though.
Rohan’s favourite hot drink is herbal tea. It helps soothe and calm them and keeps their mind fresh and focused, and they love both the taste and the sort of ritual of tea drinking.
Rohan’s favourite time of year is summer. The summer temperature and climte reminds them most of their first life in Hawaii, and it has a special nostalgia for them.
Rohan’s favourite holiday, now that they have a family they found in Jem and Willow, is Christmas. They always spend it together as a family, and Rohan cherishes that dearly.
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Lo:
Lo’s favourite comfort food is cookies! She’s always a slut for chocolate chip cookies.
Lo’s greatest vice is definitely sloth. She could absolutely just say in the sun all day every day and do nothing whatsoever. She often needs quite a bit of encouragement to do work (even though she enjoys it when she is doing it) rather than to just lay around in bed or in a beam of sunlight all day.
Lo’s favourite hot drink is a milky coffee like a latte or a flate white. They’re not fussed, so long as it’s not too watery and not too bitter.
Lo’s favourite time of year is summer. Lo loves warmth and sunlight like crazy, so summer is absolutely her favourite time of year and the time when she is most active and excited.
Lo’s favourite holiday is Christmas. Because presents.
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Alli:
Alli’s an exo so he doesn’t have a favourite comfort food.
Alli has a few vices; he’s lustful for Kels, and he has pretty hurtful envy for the love she felt for Thalor. They’re both born out perversions of his love for her, and over time he has worked very hard to fight both and become a better person.
But his greatest vice is wrath. He still bares a deep and furious hatred for the Cabal, and harbours resentment for the Tower for abandoning him long ago. While he’s improved his character in terms of the first two, he’s still not great with his anger about these things.
Alli is an exo, so he doesn’t have a favourite hot drink.
Alli’s favourite time of year is winter. He likes it because he knows he can endure it incredibly well. He likes the harshness of the cold and loves seeing the snow and the ice, and he likes that it never reminds him of Mars, even the tinest bit.
