[spoiler]my first fanfic guys, lets see how I do[/spoiler] I was asked recently by a friend, “how long have you known about variks and shadow?” I thought for a bit and this is me writing down my thoughts. I think I, either consciously or not, kind of knew from the start. She was always at the reef, either in the vestian outpost or the prison of elders. I won’t lie, she was pretty damn good in the prison. I probably had it smack me in the face when I found shadow blasted out of her mind mass-texting variks. I still didn’t really care, I don’t worry to much as it it now either. I go from the belief of, “to each their own,” and this was no exception. I mean, we have Osiris with his vex fetish and Toland with his hive fetish, so this is much more tame and rational than those two. I just made their relationship a fact of this reality, just as I accept the vex are neutral in the conflict between light and dark. I will say that the relationship did make me think about if a fallen house made up of people like variks could peacefully integrate with the city. I threw up the idea of that to cayde once or twice in the old tower, to which he responded, “I dunno, maybe there are other fallen like variks out there, maybe a whole house of fallen like-minded to variks. Maybe if more people in the city knew that there are fallen looking out for more than just their own survival, they’d welcome the idea. There are still people suffering with the aftermath of twilight gap, and a few who aren’t guardians and remember the battle of six fronts. Those people might never forgive the fallen, even if we put it into the perspective of their fighting for survival just like us.” So, I decided something after that conversation, guardians can’t help the city by staying up in the tower and leaving to kill the bad guys who really want us dead. I started going down to the city streets and helping people out in general. Eventually I made a trip on behalf of the iron lords that I haven’t yet returned from, nor do I plan to. But let’s just say that where I’m at, things like variks and shadow’s relationship is not only openly accepted, but it’s somewhat common and considered normal. The city may not be ready for this kind of stuff, but the people I’m protecting right now are ready, and they have been apparently since before six fronts. All of this stuff with me only happened because variks and shadow became a thing, and I openly accepted it as part of life. So if you see this shadow, or variks, know that you inspired me to protect those who truly are worth protecting. In short, thanks for changing my world view. -log of a lone spartan, transmitted by his ghost into space with mixed human-eliksni encryptions. If you have successfully decoded this, please accept this motivational note that many eliksni-specialists within the cryptarchy struggled with the encryption. [spoiler]if anyone could give constructive criticism that would be great, and I mean actual constructive criticism.[/spoiler]