And here's part two: A sigh escaped his lips and he asked, “Do you know how many hundreds… thousands of guardians I have directed to battle back against the Darkness?” There was a whir as the Ghost prepared to respond, but he interrupted, “No, I do not need to hear the full number.” The Ghost flew above its companion, blocking his vision of the ceiling and looking him directly in the eye. “There was a time when you cherished every Light-born that walked through those doors; you used to walk with them through the Tower, showing all the splendor that still existed even after the Collapse.” “And I have been here for almost a century now.” The Speaker flicked his wrist at the machine, shooing it away as he sat up and gazed at the EPR. He continued as if he were talking to himself, “A century of staring at this machine, waiting for nine particles buried deep in our broken salvation to turn, watching their entangled particles spin these beams, and watching the hadronic hologram flicker every day.” He peered into the faintly glowing, green sphere at the center of the massive device. “A nanometer’s change could warn us of a Fallen attack, could tell us how to restart the Golden Age, could tell me all the ways I’ve misheard the Traveler.” “I have taken volumes of notes trying to decipher the Traveler. I have stained countless gloves with ink trying to condense a medium of information that contains a few googolplexes of possible iterations down to a legible two dimensional representation.” With a brief pause, the Speaker picked up one of numerous pieces of parchment that were scattered across his desk and the floor. He stared at the colored sphere with intersecting lines, reading vague themes like reading a poem in a foreign language. He tossed the paper aside, letting it drift down and join its brethren on the floor as he continued, “I have held microcosms of the Darkness, stared into them, and have been duly judged in the same manner by our enemy.” The Ghost hovered down to just above the desk’s surface to look up at his face, trying to seem sympathetic as it said, “But the guardians-” “The guardians have been dying the whole time!” His shout echoed through the massive room, once, twice, thrice back to them. Each time his voice sounded weaker, closer to how tired he truly felt. “I sit in this room, this cell, every day and night. Meals are brought to me; I no longer sleep; I take three walks along the Tower a day. Beyond that, I listen to the Traveler, I attempt to give discernable directions, guardians come, and guardians die… yet you expect me to learn each of their names?” “Wouldn’t it be a way to honor each of their deaths?” The Ghost’s voice seemed softer and hesitant, looking down now. The Speaker’s voice calmed again and he lifted his mask back up from the desk as he replied, “To what end? Each was already dead. Each was lifted from the grave, pointed in my direction, and told to walk. I then point each in the direction of the enemy and tell them to kill.” He placed that mask back on his face and felt its security and its strength. It was the power of anonymity and of false, rumored power that straightened his back and held his head higher. He slid his chair over to stare into a circle of relic iron built with sliders and extensions to cover what the viewer sees; it was the Traveler-made compatriot of the EPR, a measuring device, the Viewer. As he peered through to focus on the hadron particles coalescing in the Traveler’s endless song, he felt his only self-admitted gift return; he felt his walls strengthen again. “I point them and tell them to kill just like a gun in the hands of a guardian. Do you think any Titan has ever stopped to tell his auto rifle why it was shooting the life form in front of it? No, it would be meaningless for the gun and, in short time, the gun will be replaced. Ghost, they are more weapons than soldiers; they see others like them performing the same action as they have been instructed, so they follow. They fight because they know nothing else.” He looked down to grab a pen and start sketching the form playing before his eyes. As he worked diligently, he added, “No one asks a gun what its name is; no one names a gun.” There was a long silence between them as the Speaker continued to work. The EPR continued its spinning and the Ghost whirred, flittering here and there, trying to get a good view of the paper. Meanwhile, he continued to work while staring into the green glow. Sol fell from the sky and Luna, scarred and infested, limped into its celestial place. Finally, he set his pen down to look at his finalized work, but the Ghost saw its chance, “Cayde-6 names his guns.” The Speaker’s impassive mask turned to stare at the little machine; he avoided his own reactions though and replied, “Speaking of the Vanguard, unseal the room and call for them. If this is right, something has attracted the Fallen’s attention to the Skywatch in Old Russia.” The two stared at one another for another moment before the Ghost wordlessly flew away to follow the orders given to it. Thank you again for reading. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time you've given me. Edit: One Night Out has been posted an is my next piece