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Dry your smoke-stung eyes
So you can see the light
You’re staring at the sky
Watching stars collide
Watching stars
When Zavala calls in all fireteams, Ór is on Nessus sniping Vex. Settled on a large tree with only her bow and a vacuum flask with coffee, she watches Runi’s bright blue eye dim as he receives the message. It’s bad, the way his shell stops mid-spin tells her, and a tendril of fear creeps into her throat.
The flight back to the City is hasty. Runi keeps talking, faster and higher with every sentence, as she tortures the throttle and watches stars hurtle past. The hangar is oddly empty when she lands, just a few other Guardians jumping out from their ships and running towards the courtyard. She barely has the time to look around when suddenly a hand wraps tightly around her wrist and pulls.
“Come!” It’s Cyle, her hair and clothes a mess, probably right back from the Crucible. “Everyone’s down in the City.”
She drags Ór down corridors and staircases, jumping three steps at a time, and Ór cannot tell whether she is excited or terrified.
City streets are filled with people packed shoulder to shoulder and staring at the sky. They have to squeeze through, shortcutting via back alleys, past the chaos and noise and fear tangible like a taste in the wind. There is Light in the air, shimmering, prickling against Ór’s skin.
Shinon is waving at them wildly from one of the rooftops where a bunch of both civilians and Guardians have gathered already. They climb the scaffolding sticking to the outer wall, and Ór feels the people’s stares on her. Their eyes mirror her own apprehension, and they look to her for comfort but her mouth is empty of words.
“The Traveler…” There is both awe and dread in Shinon’s voice. “It’s doing something. Healing itself, I think.”
“It can do that?” Runi spins in the air like a whirligig toy. “And why now? Do you think the Darkness—”
He cuts off. The civilians murmur in fear.
For the first time, Ór is afraid of dying.
*
Eris Morn watches the end of times from a rooftop tucked under the City’s inner wall, with a group of ragtags and businessmen and trembling mothers and a Drifter all huddled together looking up. There is glitter in the air, and she watches it swirl—captivated, terrified, marvelling at the wonder in her coming up louder than the fear. For a moment she feels guilty about being able to die surrounded by such beauty while Eriana perished down in the cold darkness.
The Drifter feigns aloofness but doesn’t pull his eyes away from the Traveler. He doesn’t seem fully aware of the surroundings, barely reacting when the passing people block his view or brush against him. Eris sees him in profile—jaw tense, frowning slightly, chapped lips forming a thin line. He hasn’t said a word since she joined him on the rooftop.
One thing has been intriguing her.
“You have spent all this time talking about running away. You almost did.” She turns the ahamkara bone in her hands, thinking back to their meeting on the Derelict the night the first pyramid arrived. “Yet here you are.”
“While we’re at that, you still owe me-” he points a finger at her “-unless we die on this rooftop, in which case I can write it off.”
Eris closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. “The enemy is closing in… I can feel it. But I can feel the Light too.”
For the first time in years, perhaps—and oh, the air is so full of it. Not diverted into elemental energy or a physical entity, but almost bare, closest to its purest form.
The familiarity of this sensation is surprising to her, like finding an old favourite sweater in the closet and discovering it still fits. She has not felt it in so long, yet her instincts are unerring and she has known, from the first moment she has known the Traveler was acting. She thinks about Brya, but this is oddly serene grief, as if the ever-present brightness prevented the sorrow from reaching her.
“Are you afraid this is the calamity you’ve been prophesising?” Her eyes sweep across him, and she cannot help but notice how stiff his hands are, clasped together tightly on his lap.
Drifter raises an eyebrow, trying to seem condescending but failing. “And you’re not?”
“A surprising response for someone who once called himself Dredgen Hope.”
He gives her a crooked, tense not-smile. “Knew you were gonna dig that one up.”
Eris watches the specks of light drift through the air, like dust dancing in the sunlight. It is beautiful and terrifying, and reminds her of dying in vast majestic spaces, throwing herself off cliffs and waterfalls back when death was but a blink between the jump and waking up ashore.
“It is drawing power.” Her words and thoughts and Light all mingle. “Could it be enough to drive the Darkness away from us?”
“Don’t know ‘bout now, but the last time didn’t go so smoothly.”
Eris looks at him, then up, then closes her eyes.
“This world will not end in such beauty,” she says.
Somewhere deep down, she almost wants it to.
*
The crowd seems to occupy every square meter of the Courtyard, but there is an empty circle around Zavala’s usual spot, as if to keep reverent distance from him and Ikora as they are watching the City flooded with Light. The air is electric with anxious chatter, and from her position she can see so many pairs of Guardian eyes wide with both fear and awe. Zavala is quiet; jaw set and brow furrowed, his face is inscrutable as he gazes at the Traveler and rarely even blinks.
“The pyramids on Io and Titan don’t seem to be reacting in any way,” Ikora says, “yet.”
A small nod answers her. She doesn’t have to see his eyes—the tension in his shoulders tells her enough, the protective stance and the grip of both his hands on the railing as if he were preparing to cast a Ward of Dawn around the entire City. When he speaks, his voice is just as tense, almost to the point of shaking.
“The walls will hold.”
“They won’t need to.” Ikora watches a shard complete its spiral orbit around the Traveler and slowly lock itself in place, the seams glowing bright silver.
Zavala turns and finally properly looks at her. His face is a mask of stern concentration, but she can read the fear underneath, betrayed in details anyone who hasn’t spent the better part of the century working so closely with him would be able to notice. The crinkle between his brows. The minuscule quiver of lips pressed tightly together. In the strange brightness from overhead he is even paler, the luminescent patterns on his skin all the starker and seeming to pulsate in time with the Traveler’s Light.
“Do you think it will—” he breaks off, the tension in his features subsiding for a moment until his eyes look almost pleading.
“Yes. Yes,” Ikora reaches for his hand clenched tightly around the railing and knits their fingers together. “Whatever happens, it… Yes.”
“How can you be sure?”
She closes her eyes. How can she be sure? Has it ever been anything but a gamble—the Light, her training, Osiris’ teachings, the Speaker’s visions always so cryptic and full of contradicting metaphors? Her own dreams she could never interpret fully, roses and candles turning into bonfires; the voice just underneath her consciousness, calling for her to trust. She can feel the tickle of Light on her skin, and that alone causes a lump to swell her throat, tears threatening to squeeze through her shut eyelids.
“I’m not sure,” she says softly, pushing the words through the tightness in her larynx. Her eyes sting when she opens them and stares straight at the Traveler. “But I trust it.”
*
Ór can feel their presence like a migraine swelling just underneath her skull, insistent and unignorable, and somehow it is even worse than on Io. Runi is twitching frantically, dashing in the air to and fro; she reaches for him and tries to pull him close, but he doesn’t stay still, slipping through her fingers and making another orbit around her head.
“I’m not worried. I’m not!” He protests, in a most definitely worried tone.
She knows he can feel it even more strongly than she does. Other Ghosts are restless as well, keeping close to their Guardians, a few unpaired ones zapping erratically over the crowd followed by the citizens’ worried gazes.
Shinon is in civilian clothes, a suede coat and high heels. Of course she would wear high heels, Ór thinks, given the rare opportunity of choosing the outfit she might die in. She doesn’t pull her eyes from the Traveler even for a second, her lips parted in awe.
To Ór’s right, Cyle is standing with her arms stretched out slightly, ready to cast her bubble, glancing sideways to check if the civilians behind her are within reach. There is something in those moments that makes one’s true nature surface; Ór wonders what it says about her, gaze drifting across the crowds gathered on the street below.
A split-second thought flashes in her mind that she didn’t say goodbye to Drifter.
The Collapse had been a process; she knows that from old books and records unearthed in ancient archives. But she cannot help but wonder if there was anything—any one grand, terrifying moment—that mirrored this fearful rebirth. Was it like this when Ghosts were created? Was the Traveler’s first sacrifice this profound and overwhelming, a shattering comparable to the mending she is now watching unfold? The burden of ages suddenly weighs heavy on her young shoulders. How many generations have passed under a silent god, only for her to witness this great awakening…
The Light grows brighter by the second; it is now difficult not to squint. Ór feels something grasp her shoulder and turns to find it’s Shinon, metal fingers digging into the leather of her armour.
“Runi,” she says in a small voice.
“I’m here.” The vibrant orb-shell of her Ghost tucks into her palm. He is warm and shimmering when the light flickers off of him, like her own tiny Traveler.
Her other hand finds Cyle’s and wraps around it, squeezes. They stay like this; spread out like a lifeline, hand in quivering hand and Ghosts close.
“I can die like this,” Shinon whispers, and there is a tremble in her voice. “It’s pretty enough. It’s good.”
*
They are close.
Eris feels it as a pressure on her temples, tingling static just under her skin slowly wrapping around her skull like a halo. They are so close now, a ring of hungry wolves closing in with their eyes fixed on the prey, closer still until it’s suffocating. The Traveler is a brilliant target mark upon the City; a lighthouse beam piercing through the storm; a bat’s cry navigating the darkness, shrill and desperate, thunderously defiant. Her eyes hurt from the bright light.
So close.
Drifter grabs her forearm, most likely involuntarily; his eyes are still fixed on the Traveler, and she can feel his hand shaking. She wonders if he can sense it too — the Darkness tugging at his core, reaching out with crimson tendrils to catch and devour him along with this dying world. She knows he’s been having dreams. Like her and Petra, and the Speaker before, and her Queen, and Cayde—they all knew.
Eris forces her eyes to stay open despite the blinding brightness.
“This will not be the end,” she says firmly, and Drifter’s grip tightens around her arm. “It will be an escalation.”
There is a hum in the air now, growing, reverberating in her bones—driving out the noise around, flooding her head with a music she has never heard before but known since the beginning of time. She can feel the dark hands reaching. Like a convict watching the executioner’s axe swish through the air, she takes in the shimmering City like a final breath and allows it to burn into her eyes. People are screaming now, and she wonders if they hear it too: the sound of dying worlds booming in their ears as the shadows grow closer, closer, almost to the edges of her vision. The blade is ruthlessly measured; it flickers in the sunlight, taking a swing.
The universe is silent for one terrifying moment.
Then light flashes.
*
It’s white white white white white.
An avalanche, a thousand times stronger than the Traveler waking, overcomes Ikora and seeps through every particle of her body as if through a sieve. The molecules pull apart, screaming and exploding, fireworks of Light tearing out of her chest like a breath she has been holding for too long.
Reborn.
When the light fades, the first thing she sees is Zavala crying.
*
After just as long as it takes to breathe in, the City roars.
Thousands upon thousands of people, screaming on squares and rooftops and streets, singing, falling to their knees as the air around them shimmers and the Traveler above is whole.
Ór pulls Shinon and Cyle and they merge into a howling ball of arms and legs and heads. They yell until their throats bleed, and then they yell some more, tears streaming down Cyle’s cheeks and Shinon’s mouthlight flashing like disco lights. A wave of relief washes over the City, maybe even stronger than the wave of Light; an execution called off, a breath restored, a dwindling and fearful life granted one more fleeting second. The people cry and dance—dance the fright away, cough it out in sobs and laughter. Ór feels her shaky legs give in under her and leans on her friends’ shoulders, and yells and yells.
The Light flutters in her chest. Like a trapped bird, it fights to escape and comes out in tear streaks, and wraps around her because the air is so full of it she can almost taste the bright static. Cyle says something but she cannot make out the words, yet laughs anyway.
And suddenly, it is as if a box has been put over her head.
The voices grow distant and muffled, and Ór notices the change on Cyle’s face—features twisting from elation to surprised fear. She has but a second to register that, before a high-pitched shrill hits her ears.
*
Ikora shuts her eyes against the sound, covering her ears instinctively. But the ringing remains, as if her own thoughts were shrieking at her, sharp needles digging deep into her bones, marrow, her core.
---THE LIGHT CANNOT SAVE YOU.--- No voice says, just her mind wringing the words out against her will. ---SEEK US OUT ON EUROPA.---
For a second she struggles to breathe.
The shrill subsides, and Ikora opens her eyes. Zavala watches her with terror she has never seen him express, not even during the war.
“You heard it too?” His hushed voice rings unsettlingly loud in the City’s sudden quietness. Civilians are starting to notice, throwing confused looks at the Guardians beside them with their eyes wide in utter fear. It seems every single Lightbearer heard the message.
The Lightless lower their voices from scream to whisper, glancing around with bafflement growing anxious. The wave of panic starts building up, threatening to collapse.
As Zavala hisses into an open Vanguard channel, ushering all Guardians to keep their composure at any cost, a nervous technician holding a datapad approaches Ikora.
“Ma’am… Maybe it’s the sudden spike of energy, but we’ve lost contact with Mercury, Titan, Mars and—”
*
The Drifter is pale-faced and shaking, and does not try to conceal it, and maybe that is what horrifies Eris the most.
“Did you…” He mutters the useless question, because of course she did, every Lightbearer in this city did, and she cannot keep her hands from trembling despite her best attempts. One look at the faces around and all she can see is confusion and fear, the bright blaze of hope from just seconds ago snuffed out as if it never took place.
“Zavala must—” she starts, but is cut off by Zavala’s own voice in her comms begging the Guardians to keep calm. Good, she thinks, because the taste of panic in the air is becoming palpable. “Come. We need to go.”
She gestures at the Drifter, still pale with primordial horror like a wild animal in a cage. For a moment she wonders if he will break his word, and some generous, terrified part of her would understand if he did. But he nods and blinks away the darkness in his eyes, and his hand moves to hover over the holster as if to check if Trust is still there.
“Meet me in the Hangar, I gotta pack up.”
Eris watches him turn around and blend into the swirling crowd. The Traveler is hanging overhead, smooth and whole; the people around are staring up at it with fearful hope and do not even notice him leaving. The spikes of panic grow too loud for her liking, and she can feel her own terror stretching and yawning inside her like a hungry beast.
As she walks away, over the comms she hears Zavala addressing the people of the Last City. Do not panic, he says. The Traveler has saved us. The Guardians will keep you protected. There is no reason to fear.
Eris grits her teeth, and thinks of so many reasons to fear.