We used to talk so much, about everything and nothing. We were always together, be it work or play. Inseparable. Practically brothers. It feels like that was years ago -- and at the same time, like it was only yesterday. What happened, Carro? After you and those Steel Meridian soldiers chased off the Grineer invaders from our home, you no longer cared for the peaceful life that the rest of us wanted. You left to join the resistance. You... became obsessed with it. And it seems like, now that we don’t have much in common anymore, it’s not worth your time to speak to me. You’ve stopped visiting the colony and you hardly reply to my messages. Maybe my existence doesn’t even really register in your mind anymore, because you’ve moved on to other things and other people. You’ve forgotten me.
So that Tenno gunsmith -- Neshe was her name, if I’m not mistaken -- was right, after all. I remember the conversation clearly, though, that I had gone to pick up the gun I had commissioned. She had just finished test-firing it and it was resting on the workbench between us, all sleek, elegant lines, gleaming beautifully despite the harsh lighting above. I told her it was a send-off gift for my forever friend -- for you -- and she scolded me brusquely for it, saying that nothing lasts forever. “Nothing does. Not even a well-crafted rifle like this one will last forever. If you take good care of it, it might last you the rest of your life,” she told me, holding up the weapon in question, “but no friendship will make it anywhere close to even that.” And for a moment so brief that I thought I’d imagined it, the anger in her eyes became sadness. “So don’t kid yourself.” With that, she’d shoved the gun into my hands and shooed me out of her domain.
It’s a common saying, one older than asteroid dust, that nothing lasts forever, but I never really believed it, not for some things. I didn’t want to believe it, and I still don’t. When I met Neshe back then, she was by far the angriest person I had ever encountered. I thought that it was simply war that had made her cynical, but that wasn’t the case, was it? Something had happened to her to make her so jaded and bitter, maybe even exactly what’s happening between us now. Maybe she, too, had a close friend that she cherished with all her heart, who didn’t feel nearly as strongly about her.
There isn’t much I can do about what’s left of our friendship except let it die. It’s a two-way thing, after all; if one doesn’t care for it, then the other becomes annoying -- and I don’t want to be annoying, least of all to you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not angry that you left me behind, only a little sad. Just...
...Just please, take good care of the rifle, will you? Maybe it’ll last you longer than I did.