I will probably only be posting once a week from now on with school starting, fyi. Enjoy. ~Predatorage I couldn’t sleep through this flight, I sat in the hold of the ship between a large container of water and a crate of spinmetal. I held the knife Variks had given me, and ran a gloved finger along the dented and notched edge. I let my anger simmer and cool into ice. Toland would pay. He led us right into Oryx’s hand, he killed Ren, and he let hundreds of Awoken die in the Reef. The ship lurched as we decelerated, coming into Earth’s atmosphere. Sierra and I dropped side by side in the Tower, she gave me a look that spoke her fury before we set off for vengeance. As we made our way up the stairs I saw a group of people gathered around the entrance to Tower North. There were gasp and whispers from the crowd as two warlocks began to run towards the Hall of Guardians. I slowed my walk and grabbed Sierra’s arm to get her attention. We walked up to the edge of the group, but there were too many curious heads waving about to try and get a view to see anything. We started weaving our way through the crowd, carefully pushing past other onlookers trying to get a glimpse at whatever had unfolded here. I slipped past one last Awoken standing in the front, and my heart stopped. There, on the ground before me lay Eris’ lifeless corpse. Her body sat in a crimson pool, blood smeared across the ground beside her. Her three glowing eyes had faded, leaving her face empty and pale. The wound was just under her ribcage , almost an inch wide and three long, the surrounding flesh had turned black, like a poison seeping into her stagnant veins. Toland’s broken sword lay at her side, tainting the pool of vibrant red with drops of black, slowly dripping from the blade. On the wall above her, one sentence was written in blood for all to see. “Oryx will burn you all” I fell to my knees. Inside of me there was no sadness, no anger, only shock. The world fell away from me as I sat, staring at those words. How could this happen? How could he do this? How could a guardian fall so far? A single tear that bore the weight of a thousand ran down my cheek and I could feel a lump begin to form in my throat as the emotions set in. I will kill him, I thought. He’ll get what’s coming for him, for this, for everything he has and hasn’t done, I’ll kill him. How could I let this happen. Another tear. Why? Why even continue? Everything I do, it just leads to more people dying. What’s the point of trying to chase down a god? All of these conflicting emotions, the anxiety, the anger at myself, all of these things that I didn’t even realise I was holding in for so long had all surfaced again. There in front of that crowd, I broke down. More tears began to stream down my face, crashing into a puddle of rage and self-doubt beneath me. Between my heavy breaths, I heard no voices, I lifted my head to see no one else around me. I looked again at the body of my friend and made no attempt to stop yet another wave of tears. Eventually the tears stopped and as my demons began to bury themselves again, I felt a hand on my shoulder. “We need to talk.” Said Cayde. I sat in the lounge under the Tower hangar, leaning forward with my head in my hands. “Grant,” Cayde said, he sounded genuinely concerned, out of character for someone who usually brings some comedy to the table. “I know you’re going through a lot, and trust me, I know what the stress of everyone’s hopes riding on you is like. But right now, it’s more important than ever that we keep up the pressure.” I pulled my face out of my hands, and set my elbows on my knees. Still looking down at the dusty metal floor, I quietly said, "Yeah. Yeah, I know.” “The worst things happen to the best people. You know that.” I brought my head up to look at him. He was right. “The strongest are the hardest off, but that’s no reason to lay down and die. You pick yourself up and keep going.” I took a deep breath and sat up, “There he is.” Cayde smiled, falling back into his usual self “Right then, to business. Toland is gone, didn’t leave a trace. I figure that’s why he killed Eris. Orek, the messenger from the Nine, decided to show his… nonexistent face again. He has an offer for you, but we’ll get to that later.” The hunter paused, looking around at the other guardians in the mostly deserted lounge. “On a slightly more important note, the Speaker called the Consensus together to discuss our whole “being invaded by a dark god” issue. Normally this type of thing would be left to the Vanguards, but our mysterious masked friend seems to think everyone should have a say in how we respond. Understandable I guess. But Ikora and I seem to be the only ones in favor of taking the offensive. Rest of the council is at odds.” I raised an eyebrow, “Well what do they suggest we do? Wait for Oryx to come to us? Cause he will.” “Well, Dead Orbit thinks we should flee.” I nodded, as usual. “Zvalla thinks we should shore up the defenses and wait for the right moment. And the Speaker… He seems to think that if we ignore the problem, it’ll just go away.” “So what’s our move?” “Officially,” Cayde said rolling his eyes in obvious frustration with the Last City’s painfully slow politics, “we don’t make one. Not until the Consensus agrees on a solution. But… being the senior Vanguard, I alone am in charge of special ops.” A grin spread wide across my face, “Breaking the rules a little?” “Bending them, maybe.” He replied, returning the smile. He stood, brushing some dust off his cape and said, “You take the rest of the day off with Sierra. We’ll talk more with tomorrow, in the meantime, I’ve got another fireteam making sure Oryx doesn’t cause too much trouble.” “Where is she, do you know?” I asked before he made to leave the lounge. “Ikora took her down to your new shared dorm when we cleared out the commons to take the body away.” I stood too, “New?” “Oh, right,” he turned back to face me, “You’ve both been accepted for an advisory role as Vanguards. Congratulations, enjoy the perks.” He gave me another grin before leaving me in the lounge, shocked, honored, and stunned. I opened the door to the room at the end of the hall on floor 236. Seeing the dorm only added to my shock. To my left, a double bed and two closets sunk into the wall, along with a private bathroom and shower. I grinned, no more sharing showers with the Titans. On the right of the room, there was a small kitchen and a holotable with two couches. A set of stairs along the right wall led to a partial second story over the kitchen. I walked to the back wall, it was made entirely out of three huge panes of glass. The window looked out to a stunning view. You could see the City wall and the vast forests, the mountains reaching high above and the rivers sprawling below. A noise behind me caught my attention, I hadn’t even noticed Sierra sitting on one of the couches at the holotable. “Quite an upgrade over standard dorms isn’t it?” she asked. She smiled, but I could hear the solemnness in her voice. I sat down beside her and she rested her head on my shoulder. “You holding up ok?” I asked, putting an arm around her. “I feel like I should be asking you that.” She replied, “I knew Eris before any of this happened. Never liked her, but it still hurts to see someone go. I think you were right though. I just miss Fynn. I looked down at the holotable, she had been reading the reports on the raid on Crota’s fortress, more specifically, the death of a guardian by the name of Flynt Haywood. Exos couldn’t cry, but if they could, I knew Sierra would be. Fynn had been through a lot with us, and it was our ignorance, our “we’ve got the night off. Might as well enjoy the time we get to spend in the City.” We spent the night walking through the City, through the parks and along the streets lined with shops. We fit in with the civilians, it was nice to spend time out of armor and in normal clothes sometimes. This. This is what we fought for. So that one day, we could all live out our lives without worry. Fighting for the survival of humanity, you need this sometimes. You need time to unwind and remember what it’s all for. After a few hours we stopped in a bar on our way back to the Tower. We found our way to a booth in the back where we were joined by a few other guardians we knew, Navek, Mordai, and Dawn. We exchanged hugs and hellos and ordered drinks. For hours, we talked and shared memories of old times, we laughed and shed a few tears for the dead. After a few too many rounds of drinks, Sierra and I made our leave. Outside, the sky was dark, but the streets were still lit and a few people still wandered the empty roads. She laughed as I walked in a semi straight line, and offered her shoulder to lean on, I gladly accepted it as we slowly laughed our way back to our dorm. We both climbed into the bed and I draped one arm over her. So much more comfortable than the cockpit, I thought, as I watched Sierra drift to sleep. “I love you.” I whispered to the sleeping Exo before I fell asleep myself. Prologue/directory [url]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/139146382/0/0[/url]