Chapter Text
The Moon sang to her. Songs of the drowned and dead and damned that echoed mournfully over battlegrounds that too carried whispers of tragedies untold. There was a fire to them, dark and sickly and hollow, as if it was some gross facsimile meant to inspire wanderers astray. And yet there was some warmth from this fire, from the mouth of the Hellhole that spawned forth legions of Dread and Worm, from the three eyes that lay hidden behind shimmering, shifting cloth.
Was it hope that the Hive had? Did they dream of better tomorrows?
To ponder such thoughts would be adjacent to Heresy within the Vanguard, as resolute and steadfast in their goals of protection and shelter they were. And yet, isn’t it important to question, to understand your enemies? Did the Hive seek to understand them?
Eris Morn’s mind strayed far from her body, caught up in wonderments and thoughts. Imaginings of feelings once so close to her heart.
Was that the same Eris? The one who had delved too deep with naught but Light and Anger at her back, pushing her further down into the grime and dirt that became the graves of those she loved? (Excepting Toland, of course…)
Or when she Wished, without Light or Love, did she become something new?
Was there a knife in front of her?
It was shaped like-
Snap
Eris Morn’s mind was torn back to her, and then away. Across time and space and hope. Through a place that maybe, at some point, she had dared to call home, but was always and will always be the home of her Queen. Through a portal so elaborately and amazingly constructed of junk and refuse formed into near-perfection, towards a City that stood on the edge of a sea. Sand? Water? She might have known, once. Or maybe that was someone else.
The echoes and screams of drown’d souls were replaced, first by calmness of crystal chimes in treble, and the echoing of controlled, methodic gunshots in bass. Then secondly, suddenly, by screaming sensations of warmth, sharp, null.
Have you ever felt Light? Imagine, if you will, that you cut off the ichor and flow of life to your limb, or extremity or digit. It fades gently, but then there is numbness. Add a hint of dull, like a knife that is long since past its prime, enough to be almost imperceptible, followed by the constraint of duty and law, and you have Void. Then, when you start restoring blood to your numbed example, you feel a tingle, tiny sharp blades that dig deep and quick into your flesh. Add a flash of burning, but not from heat, and tiny muscle spasms throughout individual fibres. Arc. And lastly, as you let your blood fully recover, you feel this wave of warmth, as if part of you is becoming whole once more. If you mix in a fond memory and the bruising of exertion, you could almost feel Solar.
Except that Solar doesn’t stop heating. It gets hotter and hotter until you’re smouldering, scorching, burning from the inside out with no recourse. Arc doesn’t stop spasming, twitching until you find movement to be uncontrollable on the minutiae, and those minutiae affect everything above. Void doesn’t stop pulling, tugging, consuming, threatening to devour your whole if you give it even the slightest of chances.
To control these, to stop them with the sheer force of mind, to whittle them and maneuver them towards an outcome you desire is how Guardians bend Light to their will.
Eris Morn had not felt the Light in so very long, and now? It was unstoppable .
A hand came into her mind. Not a literal one, mind you. A metaphorical one. One of Will and Force and Control. This hand did not burn bright and subdue its light, nor did it quickly delve and sew the light together, but it weaved deftly, tugging and forming Light into self-perpetuation, currents that would store and prepare Light for its grand debut.
Her eyes opened. Her eyes were not her eyes, but they were the eyes she was using, and there were only two. They saw the same way her old eyes did, with the ever so slight aberration and sharpness that Awoken eyes saw. Navy hair hung behind a headband of tight leather, with only a few strands hanging down. Her body, but again not hers and simply the one she inhabited, was strong and lean, but did not have the mass of Titans or the litheness of Hunters, much like her own. A Warlock’s build.
It should be noted, as an aside, that these were not bodily requirements. Rather, these simply happened to be the stereotypes that most Guardians fell into after resurrection, depending on their profession in their class and their training regimen. There were, always, exceptions.
The armor this body wore was styled as an Old Earth military coat, emblazoned with ceremonial markings and medals that Eris was sure would mean something important. No helmet, and indeed, she felt this body breathing.
What the eyes saw was the most intriguing thing. A Wall, covered in blank, spherical plates that seemed to hang, free-form, in the air. The air stank of ozone and gunpowder. The smell of a Wish.
If Eris had control of this body, her low chuckle would have been echoed in the amethyst chamber around her. Instead it flowed through the mind of this Warlock like silk, perfectly intonating itself without disturbing the functions going on. Cohabiting, if you will.
The memories came soon after. Eris Morn did not pry, but merely scanned over the last few minutes of experience. Floating through a serene chamber, a cavern filled with ultramarine crystals that seemed to betray more space and dimensions inside than should have been possible. A side glance at a chamber filled with three-segmented metal plates, and in the centre three walls of doors, all facing inwards. The body’s owner had quickly moved on, gliding effortlessly up a hidden pathway and around small, grassy verges, towards this wall. Shots had been fired, and part way through the Wrath had chimed in. Simply watching.
The Wish had been completed, and she was here. Feeling something long forgotten. The vague concept of a smile and a gentle outreach of caution and concern drifted towards Eris Morn, navigating the labyrinth of Mind with ease. Eris replied, a reply of thanks and a request, with instructions. The voice hesitated, then held up their hand. The one Eris was inhabiting.
There was a subtle shift inside the mind, away from the tugging machinations of the Void and towards the shifting frivolities of Arc, its childish scattering making its way into patterns and shapes more comfortable. Yet they were held back by the hand, and expressed curiosity.
It’s quite something to use an energy source of paracausal power in a malleable way. It’s quite another to hear it asking you if you’re sure.
Arc energy ran down the arm in rivulets, pooling in the palm of the Awoken Warlock before carving out their nature onto reality. Shifting and forming into a slab, an approximation of metal, before more droplets left and reformed, forming an edge that became sharper and longer.
For the first time in years, Eris Morn held an Arc Blade in her hand. And even if she was really only inhabiting the body that possessed the hand, she was content as the sharp stinging and burning of the coursed its way into her mind.
She was not prepared, and with a simple and almost encouraging thrust, her mind was gently jettisoned from its temporary host, and in moments barely countable, found its way back to her own body.
She looked down, and remembered.
She held out her hand, the Pyramid deep below calling gently.
There is a knife in front of her.
It is shaped like [STASIS].
And it chilled her to her core.