Merry Krillmas
Written for @wonderwafles as a part of a small yearly exchange.
Also on AO3
"If we can survive this, we can survive anything," said young Xi Ro as she and her siblings strolled dark passages illuminated in blue glow lamplight. They'd ventured deep enough that the architecture of the Osmium Palace had given way to untouched stone, heavy carved columns replaced with stalagmites, the decorative vaulted ceilings replaced with sharp outlines of stalactites. "At least that's what Father says."
Fundament had entered its Long Winter, a time when axial tilt combined with orbital irregularities plunged the world into a particularly bitter period of cold and darkness. The conjugation occurred infrequently enough that many krill lived without experiencing it.
It was a time when the Osmium Court battened hatches and external life waned, thoughts turned from external threats inward to stockpiles and crops that flourished in fertile cavern soil. The castle was permeable, built into the porous rock of the alien continental shelf. Instead of fishermen braving ice encrusted seas, they dove into twisting natural tunnels to the deep unfrozen ocean to cast their nets on the schools of arthropods who flocked around the light of their eyes, and fish lured away from rough seas into the safety of the crags beneath the castle.
With the cold and the dark came celebration too. Each new moon, a feast marked the passage of time, the largest happening on the nadir of their journey. It was this celebration the princesses had snuck away from — while the court was lost in the revelries of good food, strong drink, and conviviality, the workers drawn from the tunnels to the celebration and the guards consolidated to the main hall, they disappeared out a utility hallway into the undercroft. Royal finery had been cast off for waterproof skins and insulating furs, a stolen hand torch — and the traverse-line planted by navigators — guided them through the darkness.
Aurash was thrilled to explore parts of the castle that children were banned from, while Xi Ro was excited to see what monsters lurked below. Sathona felt a pang of annoyance missing the party, but the opportunity for mischief compelled her to join. Besides, three was the luckiest number, forming an indivisible whole. To split would invite disaster.
"Taox says living through it is auspicious," Aurash added, looking back at her sisters from the lead. "Anyone who does is destined for greatness."
"It's a trial," Sathona offered. "A time when new champions for krillkind are chosen by the old . . .”
Xi Ro tilted her head, urging her sister to continue.
Sathona's eyes narrowed in a mischievous smile. "I can't tell you. You will be frightened by the stories."
Xi Ro flared with indignity. "I will not! Tell me, sister!"
"You know she's winding you up," sighed Aurash. "Don't give her what she wants."
"Tell me!" Xi Ro scuttled for her older sister's back, throwing her off balance for a step until she adjusted to the new equilibrium. She clung tight to Sathona's neck, face against the hood of her cloak. "I'll make you carry me until you do!"
"That sounds good to me," Sathona played along, locking her forearms under Xi Ro's legs for support. "You overestimate your might, little sister. I could carry you to the end of the tunnels and back without getting winded."
Xi Ro made a frustrated noise, legs kicking to and fro in agitation. "You're so mean!"
"Mean? Me?" She intoned in mock hurt, "I'm giving you a sedan ride worthy of the King’s procession. We only lack the servants to carry your parasols and fans, not that we need them down here . . ."
Xi Ro slid petulantly down her elder sister's back, making herself as inconvenient as possible to carry.
"Fine, I'll tell you." Sathona dropped her, Xi Ro scrambling to her feet effortlessly. "But you can't blame me if you get nightmares."
The trio came to rest next to one of the openings in the cave floor, the kind that would be bustling with divers during work hours. Atmospheric pressure kept the water from flooding in, forming a perfectly still, dark mirror.
“The fall of the Osmium homeworld into the seas of Fundament marked the first of the Long Winters. The krill who survived found themselves beset not only by an inhospitable environment, but the slavering jaws of every creature on this world. Emboldened by darkness and frenzied by scarcity, beast and barbarian alike crept forth from the far north, throats parched for the ichor of the krill."
Xi Ro watched, transfixed, hanging off her sister’s every word. Aurash looked less impressed, but nonetheless held her tongue for her little sister's sake.
“It was a time of complete darkness,” she continued, extinguishing the torch so that they were plunged instantly into pitch black. Xi Ro jumped and Sathona chuckled low to herself. “Of despair. But not total hopelessness, for a champion arose.”
Slowly their eyes acclimated. As they did, detail emerged around them. The gentle bioluminescence of the lichens that covered the slick cave walls, and the mats of moss crowned with glistening dew. In the moon pool, the outlines of schools of fish — as delicately frilled as the lepidoptera who fluttered around the hanging gardens under hazy summer skies, surfacing to pick at the algae growing on the smooth stone. Sathona thought it more beautiful than the phosphor chandeliers of the palace or the auroras that hung perpetual in the dark skies, the gentle lapping of water and rock settling more enchanting than all the song and revelry of the great hall.
"Her name is lost to time. She is called Ûtun — The Indomitable, in the old language. The exception that proves the Timid Truth. It's not unusual to find a krill who is formidable, or courageous," she looked first to Aurash, then Xi Ro, whose eyes brightened, ". . . or smart. We live and die by these traits. But no one who has lived since has exemplified all three to such great degree . . . "
Sathona went on to describe (with a child's fancifully gorey embellishment) how in the first of the Long Winters, Ûtun single-handedly fought a rampaging icewyrm who threatened the nascent settlement that grew into the Osmium Court. She recounted the legend of her second Winter, a thrilling war caper involving a months-long siege of the Osmium Palace against the cannibal Helium Drinkers, and her army's eventual triumph against the invaders. Sathona especially brightened when she recounted the third story — Ûtun using her wisdom, wits and charm to survive the inhospitable wilderness, delivering supplies to a distant outpost cut off by endless blizzard.
"What happened to her?" Xi Ro asked, when Sathona got to the end of the third tale, and paused for a long while.
"Well, she lived longer than a krill ought to, much longer. Rumors swirled that she was deathless. Others said she was mortal, but bound to this world by her mission. Whatever the case, one day she was gone. Disappeared without a trace. Everyone feared for the next time of darkness, without her strength, her courage, her intelligence.
"But when the sun set on the last day, and krill retreated to these very tunnels, three loyal disciples beseeched her for protection. For guidance. They looked into the dark waters, and called out to her."
Sathona rested on her belly, gazing into the moon pool. Xi Ro excitedly followed, while Aurash paused before rearranging herself to mimic her sisters.
"It's true that no one will ever match her. This is why she chooses a trio to carry her mantle. One for strength. One for courage. One for wits."
"I wish she would choose faster," Aurash groused, out of patience for Sathona's antics. "We came here to explore."
"You can't hurry Ûtun," Sathona sighed matter-of-factly. "She appears when she's needed, and only then."
"What happened next?" pleaded Xi Ro.
"From the water she came to them. She deemed them worthy, and commanded them to prove themselves as her champions. And with their combined powers they were able to keep the krill safe for another cycle. When they met their end, she chose a new set of exemplars. And this is why the krill will always survive the Long Winter, no matter how harsh."
Xi Ro leaned so close that the tips of her mandibles almost broke the still water. Aurash fidgeted. Sathona smiled.
". . . can we leave now?" Aurash asked.
"No!" Xi Ro objected. "We have to wait for Ûtun."
Aurash groaned. "We're going to be here for a long time, then. Little sister . . . do you really believe all this?"
"There's no need to 'believe'," Sathona lied, "it's all true."
"It is not —"
" — It is! I swear on my third eye!"
"It's another of your stories —"
Xi Ro screeched, scrabbling for both her sisters' arms. At once, the elder siblings looked down and jumped nearly out of their shells at the sight of a fourth set of eyes set in the dark outline of a crested head. Aurash startled so violently that she slipped face-first into the pool before recovering her balance, while a split-second roil of panic welled in Sathona —
"Princesses."
Taox's voice was as cool and hard as the stone below. All three scrambled to their feet, facing their tutor — still wearing a partygoer's ceremonial mantle and sashes and jewels upon her horns and neck — with stiff backs and guilty consciences.
"This area is not safe, no matter how good you are at escaping the consequences of your mischief. Come along now, children, before your Father sobers enough to notice your absence."
All three knew better than to argue with the Taox, especially when she was saving them from the ire of the King. They fell in line behind her like three hatchlings following a mother bird, setting forth to the surface.
Sometimes the tower rests on a dark plain at the foot of the mountains. Sometimes, it rises from the rubble of the destroyed Last City, the debris fields of the Reef, or the Golden Age ruins of Venus, or a hundred other locations throughout time, real or imagined.
Today the tower cracks through the fields of Rathmore Chaos, ice sheets upturned to it from its violent eruption. The Pyramid hovers above, basking it in coils of red-orange energy, the darkened outline of Juptier behind.
Elsie is opposed by an army of three. The Guardian is flashy in their use of stasis, but she is able to parry their verglas daggers, evade their rime-encrusted fists, getting the upper hand with a foot sweep that drops them to the ground and allows her to drive an icy polearm straight through their chestplate. She lodges a knife into the eye of their Ghost when it arrives for the rez.
No sooner than, the Drifter flanks her from a distance, pistol aimed. Tumbling, she dodges his shots before drawing her own rifle from a kneeling stance, a burst of rounds dropping him on the spot. His ghost attempts to change her, but she catches it midair, its sharp flanges thrashing against her until its eye gives way under the pressure of her fist. Metal crumples and glass shatters and she throws it aside.
When Eris Morn arrives she's more human than Elsie has ever seen her, two dark eyes exposed, full lips bent into an almost-smile. Elsie thinks of negotiating but the thought disappears when Eris attacks, first with the Light, then soulfire to stasis to resonance. As she does, she physically transforms — from human to what most people would recognize her as, to something like a hive knight as chitin engulfs her body. She grows in size and ferocity as she takes on her hive-god form, before chitin peels away revealing the sleek blood-slick body of a Disciple, three eyes like spotlights beating down on Elsie as she runs from beams of resonance that crater the ice like shells on the battlefield.
One hits her arm, ripping it off, another tears through her side, throwing her off balance without downing her. Rolling into one of the impromptu foxholes she fires off a barrage of stasis that encases her legs, toppling her with a monumental shudder across the ice. Before she can regain her footing, Elsie draws forth a gelid sword, leaping for Eris' mouthless face and driving it to the hilt through one of those bio-mechanical eyes —
Elsie wakes with a violent start, jolting onto her side and almost off the bed completely.
Disoriented, she takes stock of herself and her surroundings. The hum of the heater, the whistle of the wind outside the yurt, the myriad lights from the gadgets within the outpost, her cooling fans rattling her frame as they buzz as maximum capacity.
A half-arm away from her on the bunk lay Eris Morn, straight-armed and open-eyed in the darkness.
"Sorry for waking you. I had a — a nightmare."
"There's no need to apologize," Eris replies. Before they agreed to share the cot, they'd both discussed the lightness of their sleep, their tendencies toward night-terrors, so perhaps it was unfounded.
"I dreamt I killed you."
"Unforgivable." There's a wryness in her voice, a slight upturn in her mouth that eases a bit of the heaviness in Elsie's chest. This Eris is not the Eris of her nightmares, or the corrupted Eris of any of her countless timelines. This Eris is her confidante, and comrade against the Darkness.
"I saw the tower . . . the deep stone crypt. Not the Deep Stone Crypt, the one from our dreams."
"Eriana spoke of it." Sadness in her voice, but tenderness too. "May your next dream be of elysian fields. Of gentle passage to the tower."
Elsie rolls onto her back and rests her head against the pillow, fans powering down as her heatsinks dissipate built-up warmth. Powering off her optics, she settles in for what she prays will be a peaceful rest. "Thank you Eris. I hope so too."
There was no sensory perception here, barely awareness of herself as a discrete unit of consciousness amidst the flow of everything else. She felt Bahaghari searching for her in the way all Ghosts separated by death from their Guardians do, and carefully suppressed the primordial urge to respond. Were she practicing thanatonautics, she would attempt to fly far enough away from the veil of the living world to connect to some higher truth. But today she rested on the membrane between life and death, singing.
From the other side, approaching Light, Darkness-tinged and tumultuous.
She carried the notes of the sun's song to its spectacular crescendo. Solar Light welled within her, reconnecting soul and body. She awoke on fire, comfortable heat in the cask of her chest, the licks of flame pleasant through and on her skin. A moment of enjoyment ruined when the man standing above her turned away from his examination of the decoy ghost, revealing his identity.
Backdraft-quick she gripped Dredgen Hope by his thick, leather-clad ankle. He yowled hideously, doubling over reflexively before he regained control of himself, lifting his leg to stomp at her arm. Letting go she rolled away from him, dodging his boot and propelling herself to her feet, preparing a gout of flame in her hand as the Shadows poured out from hiding and bullets began to fly.
With an entrance that blackened the floor and set the apartment's sparse furnishings smoldering, the Praxic Warlocks Taeko-3 and Lyra-4 blinked into the room, alight with radiance as they joined the brawl.
Hot energy arced between Taeko's hands before she unleashed a volley of plasma upon the group who charged her, instantly dispatching both the attackers and a structural beam, the ceiling sagging threateningly where it gave out. Lyra meanwhile fought off a group with searing fists and feet, igniting her opponents wherever she struck and sending them staggering dazedly as their Ghosts fought to heal without being caught in the crossfire.
As her companions handled the others, Aunor focused on Hope. She threw a spray of flame from her hands, but he leapt behind an overturned table before it could hit. Peeking out, he fired several Thorn rounds. Two whizzed by her shoulder, but the third grazed with a sickening sting, breaking her candescent armor with a black-green bruise of hive corruption. In the split-second it took her to assess her injury, Hope had already scrambled to his feet — and toward a hive artifact piled unceremoniously among weapons and other loot in the corner of the room.
Aunor recognized it instantly. An item of both academic significance and destructive potential, it was the object with which she and her squad had been tasked to recover.
She braced for him to pick it up and make for the exit. She didn't expect him to summon his own solar light and set it ablaze.
As she sprinted for it, he dashed away. She ripped down one of the dusty curtains that darkened the windows and dropped it on the object. Taking a glance over her shoulder, she saw that Hope was prying open the sash, shoulder wedged beneath it as he gauged whether he'd fit.
"Stop him!" She cried to her fellow Praxics as she attempted to extinguish the artifact. They disengaged from their fights and turned toward the escaping Dredgen, but it was too late — he'd already snaked out the window.
Throwing the artifact in her satchel, she sprinted over. Peering down several stories to the broken stone below, she found that he'd vanished.
Tension hung noxious as the corruption from the Shadow's drawn Thorns in their darkened hideout. While the Shadows of Yor might've been the most prominent criminal lightbearer organization, they weren't the only, and the whole of the underworld of the Last City was abuzz with chatter of a Praxic Order raid. The word of an informant had confirmed they were the target.
And so a trap was set in the little apartment in the City outskirts. They would suppress their own light to go undetected. Lure the agents in deep, make them think the safehouse had been abandoned. Then they would cut off the exit, and strike.
Dredgen Vale, stupid, sweet, idealistic Vale, had ordered a non-lethal ambush. 'We'll capture their ghosts,' he'd said, 'With the threat of death hangin' over 'em, they won't dare bother us again. We'll have free rein.'
But Dredgen Vale wasn't here.
Who was here was Dredgen Hope, and he had a different plan. The moment he saw their ghosts pop up for the rez, it was on-sight. The Praxics were getting a little too feisty to ignore, and the fewer of them he had to deal with — permanently — the better. Hell, he hoped the whole squad would show up if it meant knocking them all out at once, never having another sweat-soaked night terror of waking up in his bed with a sword of fire through his chest and the work he started on his ghost finally finished.
From the back room, Hope heard the entryway lock jiggling. With a wave of his hand the low murmur of voices silenced as the latch came undone and the door opened, next, soft footsteps on creaky floorboard. Through a crack of visibility in the ajar door, he caught a glimpse of shadow — then the warlock crossed into view.
With a shaking hand he leveled his Thorn on the visor of the guardian's helmet, and fired. In an instant the figure collapsed into a heap.
With held breath, the Dredgens waited for backup to arrive. Restless shuffling and chatter arose as the minutes ticked on with nothing.
Then, a ghost transmatted in. It bobbed above the body for a moment — and fell to the ground beside its guardian when Hope put a round through it.
The hushed voices grew raucous.
"Vale said take them alive—!"
"This wasn't the plan —"
"If Vale wanted to see this through his way, he shouldn't've left me in charge," Hope hissed. "Now shut up."
"No one detected in the perimeter," whispered some ghost from somewhere.
Hope sidled out the door, and went to tally his kill.
He would have recognized that face anywhere, in any condition. Bloodied and half shrouded by a destroyed helm, Praxic Agent Aunor Mahal looked up at him with eyes only a little deader than usual.
The smile spread from his soul to his lips. He hadn't expected to bag the head honcho, the chief pain in his ass, the subject of most of his nightmares. He can't help but laugh despite his caution. If it was anyone else, he would've thought this bait — that a counter-ambush was around the corner. But Mahal was insane enough to think she could take out a building full of Dredgens single-handed. Arrogant enough to think it was not only possible, but preferable. Or rather she had been, Hope corrects himself, nudging her slain ghost with the toe of his boot.
Suddenly his heart dropped.
Hope had seen, and made, enough dead ghosts to know what they look like with their guts spilled out. Whatever this was looked like a ghost — but didn't have the right innards to be one.
He's gathering the air in his lungs to bellow 'this is a setup' when light like the sun from Mercury orbit blinds him, and a hand wraps around his ankle burning him to the bone.
In the restricted archives of the Reef Cryptarchy, Adonna plays an audio file extracted from a slain ghost found in a hive ritual site. The recording is static punctuated by indecipherable sounds and mic peaks, terminated by a muffled thump. A low buzz, and then recording ends.
A spectrogram revealed hidden signals in the noise. Filtering it, Adonna hears what she thinks are words, though she doesn't recognize them. A new dialect perhaps?
Adonna skims through the Cryptarchy file on the ghost again. It's designated unpartnered, but she wonders if it has a guardian who never came forward out of grief or guilt. What business would a lone ghost have had that deep in the sublunar tunnels?
She flips to the laboratory analysis. Adonna's not a materials engineer, but she understands the gist of it — the ghost has severe structural abnormalities in the composition of its shell. Whatever trauma it'd suffered had fragmented it on a molecular level, damage so profound it was inconsistent with the laws of physics, let alone any documented conventional or paracausal weaponry.
The key word is documented. Rumors abound that the hive are in possession of words that kill. Tales exist of whole worlds torn apart with vocal weaponry. The stories are regarded as legend, the very concept a crackpot theory. But if there's even a chance of it being true … why wouldn't the Awoken want to find out? They could be at risk of disaster greater than even the Reef Wars. If they figure out how to reverse engineer it, they could have the power to never be at risk again.
Adonna leans back in her chair, and replays the tape. Ur . . . Eir . . . Yûl. She whispers the syllables, and feels her hair stand on end.
Pulled Pork arrived at Nkechi-32's ship, not-atypically, with a glint in his optic and a bounce in his shell.
"Nkechi! Agu!" he nodded at the Titan and her Ghost, "I've come to say goodbye . . . "
"If you didn't like visiting, you could've said." Nkechi deadpanned.
His flanges flared apart and spun. "No no no — ! It's not you, it's — I feel something," his voice softened as he leaned in furtively. "I think I know where my Guardian is!"
"Ah-ha," Nkechi replied, trying, and failing, to not sound skeptical. "I — uh, how do you know?"
"I . . . I don't know, strictly speaking. I just have a sense, right down to my core. I can't describe it. I've never felt this way before."
He spoke with such sincerity that Nkechi couldn't help but be a little swayed toward believing.
"You'll be too good to hang out with us when you've got a Lightbearer?" Agu's voice took a tone of lighthearted ribbing, but his narrowed optic belies some hurt.
"No, not that . . . it's just, I'll be really busy. I've never had a Guardian before. I've never had to care for another living being . . . teach them how to survive, how to wield the Light, everything they've missed . . . on top of traveling around the system, keeping humanity safe —"
His optic contracted to a point as his flanges sank with dread. "Oh, Traveler, how am I supposed to do it all!?"
"Relax! It'll come natural." Agu cleared his nonexistent throat. "Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds fake, but I swear it's true."
"Really?"
Agu bobs. "When I found Nkechi rusting in a heap in the Cosmodrome I didn't know what to do either. But I revived her, and suddenly everything was clear. It's instinctual."
Pulled Pork's flanges perked up.
"Once the two of you get settled, you'll have to visit us." Nkechi's faceplates rearranged into a smile. "I want to meet the Guardian that took lifetimes to find."
"Yes, of course!" He bumped softly against Agu, then Nkechi, in a Ghostly hug. "Thank you for everything. You made my life a little less lonely all these years."
Fall air filters into the sunroom through open windows, cool enough to chill metal and send a comfortable shiver through Eriana-3's sensors. She curls silicone fingertips around the hot mug, gathers her legs beneath her to capture more of hers' and Wei's body heat.
The titan lays across Eriana's lap, head on her robed thighs, one leg crossed at the ankle over her knee, scrolling idly through her data pad. Eriana takes a sip of tea and sets it down on the arm of the couch, hand free to comb through Wei's short hair.
"Mm, right there," Wei says as Eriana fingers over the crown of her head. She scratches a little more, until Wei gives a rumble of contented approval, one hand raised to caress across Eriana's side.
The moment is mundane enough to be boring, but Eriana-3 clutches it to her heart as she would a priceless treasure. The memory of the Great Disaster haunts her — the mad panic in the trenches, the sulfurous stench of soulfire over top of smoke and ozone and gunpowder and death. So many dead strewn across the battlefields of Mare Imbrium, Wei Ning almost among them. She'd landed a near-killing blow on the Hive Prince, and he'd returned in kind, almost cleaving the Light from her injured body. But she, and Eris, managed the rescue in time. Wei escaped with only the loss of an eye. More scars, and more stories, to add to her collection.
She didn't think anyone would get out that day. Instead, all three of them and their Ghosts returned home. Battered, scarred in ways the Light cannot heal, but alive.
How close she was to not having the privilege of an uninteresting life. Her hand clenches on Wei's shoulder.
"You okay babe?" Her eye is wide, brow furrowed with worry.
"— Yes. Sorry. Just thinking."
She takes a gulp of tea, and stock of the room, grounding herself. Hers and Wei's house was the hangout for their friend group, and today is different only in the addition of newer faces. Eris and Sai would often gather around the breakfast table, working together on beadwork and leather-craft for hours on off-days. Today they are joined by Omar, a colleague of Eriana's, and Vell, an old friend of Eris', in a lively game of cards.
Eriana hasn't been paying attention to their chatter, but can tell from Eris' sudden departure from the table — dramatically folding in mock-affront to a good natured round of laughs and jests from the others — who isn't winning. She struts away to Toland, hunched in the corner with a pile of books, crouching down to join him in quiet conversation.
Toland had been Wei's idea. He was an old teammate of hers with whom she bonded through a shared love of hurdling headlong into danger. Yes, their fireteam was already full, but six to a team was just convention. And to Wei, "convention" is a place where fans of the crucible gather to dress up as their favorite players. She correctly pointed out that the teams who'd tried, and failed, to kill Crota had all lacked a hive expert. They'd also uniformly been six-stacks.
And so the rest had relented, and accepted the exiled Warlock into their fold.
The presence of the notorious Toland the Shattered did cause complications when they went to the Vanguard to ask permission to break Lunar Interdict. Zavala threatened to exile them all on the spot, but Ikora and Andal were willing to hear their case. The Vanguard was compelled by their plan, and the team was granted a never-before-issued, one-time permit to enter.
And so the date was set.
Eriana knows life will not stay boring for long, at least for a while. She holds onto this moment of happiness. Tries to imprint the sounds and sensations and pictures in her mind.
Despite the hardships ahead, she has an overwhelming sense of inner tranquility. Her fireteam is not desperate and reckless, hungry for vengeance. They will use their collective expertise and the data gathered by those who have gone before them to end the ailing Prince once and for all. To finally secure justice for all the Lights extinguished in the Disaster.
Gently, she rests her arm across Wei's chest. Wei responds by lacing her fingers through Eriana's, giving her hand a soft, encouraging squeeze.
There will be peaceful moments together after this. She knows it.
Joining Eris for lessons on stasis has become a ritual for Zavala, one he looks forward to each week despite both the physical strain on his once-light enhanced body and the emotions their lines of discussion typically invoke.
"I'd thought about life without Targe, more often than I want to admit." Zavala says when they take a break from sparring and the conversation turns to loss and moving forward. "When I begged him to bring Hakim back; when he said no, that he couldn't, that he wouldn't even if he could . . . I fantasized about killing him. Ending all of this, living out my days as a mortal. It's foolhardy to say, but I thought I would feel free. Instead I feel —"
He grasps in the dark for the right words to describe the indescribable, and comes up empty handed.
"Empty?" Eris offers, gently.
Zavala thinks about it. After a moment, he agrees: "Yes."
"To lose your Light is to suffer an amputation. To have a piece of yourself torn away in such an unexpected manner is a trauma both physical and emotional. A shock to the very core of your being."
Zavala glances at the soulfire beneath Eris' veil. He no longer heeds the rumors that she made a deal with Crota's brood, that her face is the manifestation of irrevocable corruption; he hasn't for a very long time, and is embarrassed he ever entertained the idea. But he thinks about being tempted by The Witness, and somehow the other, whispered, story — that Eris cut out her human eyes and replaced them with those of the hive — becomes more frightening. How easy it'd been to be swayed by temptation in a moment of desperation. How hard it must have been for Eris to lose another part of herself, at her own hands, after the deaths of her Ghost and Fireteam.
"Although the phantom pains will persist, the wounds will close. You will learn to adapt to it. Life can never be exactly the same as it was before, but it can be good. Some of the greatest joys — certainly, my proudest accomplishments — have happened since losing my Light. There is no reason to expect different from you."
He lifts his gloved hand to her right gauntlet, with an experimental pat. Rests it there when she doesn't move away. "I appreciate that, Eris."
The corners of her mouth upturn ever so slightly. The ghost of a smile disappears almost as quickly.
"Even though you get used to lightlessness … I fear you'll never stop missing your Ghost. They are a part of us, yes, and the place where they are ripped away will heal with time. But as our companions, our soul-mates —" her voice, usually so composed, quavers enough to send a spike of alarm through Zavala, "— there will always be a hollow in our heart in their shape."
Zavala thinks about how fraught his relationship with Targe was. How, even after every pain, every betrayal, he was willing to sacrifice himself for his Guardian's life.
He simply says, "I only wish I'd told him how much I cared about him."
"Neither Brya nor Targe would have laid down their lives for us if they hadn't known."
He wipes the tears away from the corners of his eyes. She clasps his hand, a gesture he reciprocates.
"The pain, the questions, and the doubts will always be there. But you will grow around it, and I'll be here as you do."
