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protezioni · 5 years

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⚑ for Sepheir and Zuro... and how about an unexpected crossover duo with ☂️ Shima And Yarohe :3 (yes this is Bc of the BQ Thieves)

Of course !! I love these duos with my whole heart!! Also omg, yes the BQ Thieves is a great squad!!

SHIMA IS A CHARACTER FROM ZETA, STAN @zetacomic !!

Zuro/Sepheir

…seeing someone else getting too close to your muse = ⚑

A mission for her and Zuro alone was something that wasn't rare. Her team usually works by their own individual missions, but these two went together a lot. The reason for this was because Zuro may have been strong, but he always wanted Sepheir by his side. After the whole incident... They promised they wouldn't leave each other, no matter what the consequence... and that promise will be kept. Right? "Sephie, something off?" He was confused for a moment, his hands still in his pocket. He stopped walking, his eyes just focused on hers. "Were you thinking of something negative again? Should I fight your bitch of a brain?" He removed his right hand from his pocket to cup her face. "Listen up, brainy bitch boo, stop making Sephie-"

She blinked a couple of times before smiling a bit. "Zuro, quit acting like that. I am fine." She held his hand and placed it away from her face. "We should focus on the mission at hand." She began walking ahead of him and he only grinned as he followed behind her. She sometimes wondered if he ever got tired of walking around, just following her pace... She wasn't even someone who was that interesting, but she admitted that she always felt relieved that he stayed with her. The whole world can be crumbling down, but he would still be a person who'd reach down to save her... But no one really saw that side of his except for her. "Zuro." She called out to him, and his head perked up. "Thank you for giving me special rights."

"Fuck yeah! You better be thankful, no ordinary person will get such treatment from this bitch!" He ran next to her before sticking his tongue out. "Only the best people can gain such a privelege from me, yeah?" He grinned as he began nudging Sepheir, who only began rolling her eyes but it soon became reslly silent laughs. "There we go, now we've got that smile showing! Fucking bless, that's some good shit. Mhmm." He might have a bad reputation, being a well known rule breaker and liar--- but this never changed the fact that he was someone who was actually the closest to her. Well... she was one of the people who saw his best sides. "I miss that smile of yours."

"You saw it a week ago."

"Still doesn't change the fact that I missed it."

"Despite being a bad boy as you call yourself, you're really sweet." She commented, before poking his cheek. "You're surprisingly considerate to the people you love, and you try your best to cheer them up. You always call yourself the personfied version of the devil, but yor actions say differently. You're no angel, you're no demon... But if you were any different creature, you'd be... probably a reaper. You take lives at your will, but you never do unless the time is right." She tried to make up words in her head, and she believed she sounded reslly stupid but she did not even look at Zuro to see how wide his smile was, his hand running through his hair.

"Well that's---" He stopped talking and coughed loudly. "Sephie, I think our targets are nearby." He whispered before bringing out his usual atmosphere. "Mafia drunkards, what bastards. They focus on human trafficking and smuggling those goods." It was good he remembered what they were known for, and she only nodded her head- her expression getting serious again. "As far as personality goes, there is no information. But as far as what they did it for, it was plainly for money. They joined the famiglia to gain access to that, and also for power. They don't have any family members... But they killed several. What has the leaders chosen, huh?"

"Unanimous decision of death." She replied before hiding her weapon. "You should be the one to hit them. As far as I know, they aim for women." She states this and Zuro twitched slightly. "They wouldn't have interest in a guy, but they would be interested in having a woman who they can sell." Without any sort of resistance, she removed her hair tie and her bag, handing it to him. "Be quick, you should be the one to kill them. I will only act as bait." She began using her position as a capo to make him obey, and he only sighed loudly before a scoff came from him. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. Just follow the plan. Kill them once they're distracted enough."

"Understood, Sephie." He clenched his fists. "I swear to god, I'll kill them. Even before they touch you." No other words from him, he quickly went into hiding as she stayed in place. Messing up her hair, removing her suit, and unbutton some parts of her shirt. It was late at night, and it was easy to attract some men who were drunk. Skin usually gets them... They're digusting. She tied her blazer around her waist and only waited for them to come closer. Smell of alcohol and cigarettes, sight of bastards and drunkards... Whispering to each other as they eyed her... Then they moved closer. "These fuckers."

"Why, hello there, Miss~! Aren't you a pretty one? Would you want to-"

Sepheir's eyes widened as she noticed that their death was instant. Zuro has used her tonfas to bang the back of their heads, cracking their skull open in just a split second. "I told you to do it when they're distracted... You do know they would have a chance to counter. They're people from the mafia and---" She noticed how he didn't talk at all, he just began buttoning her shirt with a rather pissed off expression. "... You seem rather... You know what- nevermind. Thank you for ending this really quick... But be more careful." She continued talking, yet there was still no response. "Are you mad?" No answer... Until she was all buttoned up.

She felt his arms wrap around her and she began patting his head... "Not at you, but at them... Anyway, can we clean them up now?"

She only nodded her head, realizing that Zuro's protective side showed up just for her again.

Yarohe/Shima

…sharing an umbrella with your muse = ☂

The rain was only getting stronger as the minutes passed by. The rain drops was loud, the trees were swaying. Fuck. Why the hell did he not bring an umbrella? Of course he fucking didn't! There was no hint of rain when he went out of the damn academy, and weather decided to be a bitch and let this happen. He didn't voice out his complains, he only stayed under the shed with one word escaping his mouth... "Fuck." POP! Goddamn it, Ren isn't even fucking around! Great. A storm happening and now a flower on his head. This day was going horribly, and all he wanted to do was play his games. If only he-

"Shima?" Huh? "Shima? Shima! Yeah, it is you!" Someone began running next to him. She was soaking wet but she also had a bag with her. "Didn't expect to see you outside! But hey there!" He did not know how to feel about how radiative the positivity of this person was, but then... she was someone who was part of the BQ Thieves... Something established about a week ago. Or two. And well, she was one of the members and he compared her to the tea-loving chick. She only smiled brightly at him and he could definitely see why the Protezioni referred to her as one of the sunshine trios. "Do you want to come with me?" She blinked innocently and he only raised an eyebrow.

"Come with you? How would I come with you if you only have a rain coat? I'd get soaked." He brought this up and she only began fiddling with bag to find something... Then she pulled out an umbrella. What the fuck? "If you had an umbrella like this, why aren't you using it in the first place?!" He began to question her and he only sighed when she began laughing nervously. "Sure, whatever, let's go." He prepared the umbrella and began looking at her... She was someone who was described as selfless, but he still didn't like the fact she got wet even if she had a damn umbrella prepared. "Are you going or not?" He began questioning. "I won't get you wetter than you already fucking are. You're fucking soaked."

She began laughing before going under the umbrella with him. "I enjoy the rain!" She replied to him. "I remember when I was younger my family... Well, my biological family... Would play under the rain." She explained. "So when I get the chance, I do that a lot too and I don't care about the rain... but for now... I don't mind being under an umbrella with you." She quickly changed the topic so she wouldn't make herself sad. "I should probably get my jacket dry anyway, so I will end up squeezing the water out of it as we walk!" She brought up the yappy atmosphere again and Shima only muttered some inaudible things. "What was that?"

"I said that you don't always need to act so happy. Even compared to Namito, you show sadness less." He had to admit the truth. "It is weird to remain happy all the time, and I'm surprised you can actually fucking do that." He gave his opinion to her and Yarohe only tilted her head. "What I mean is- it is okay to be sad. Even for a little while. You can't always be this positive shit even when bad things happen. Or you'll end up masking yourself for the rest of your life." Fuck. Did he say too much? "But whatever, you decide with want you want to do with that. You can remain yourself, I don't really care." He shrugged.

There was silence in between them before he felt her pluck off a flower off his head. "You really are nicer than you act like you are." She brought the flower close to her face. "I wouldn't say you're the sweetest or nicest, but you are one of those people who I see as nice and sweet... And I really want to thank you for being such!" She plucked another flower off his head and he only uttered the words ow as she did. "But don't worry, I don't hide it all the time. I vent to people time-to-time. The other capos know how I truly feel, and so does my crew. Now, you do too! So does Ren! BQ Thieves, you know? Oh and Care Bear too! You guys know me well." She named people as she continued to pluck the flowers off his head.

"But it's only been two weeks."

"Four months!"

"FOUR FUCKING MONTHS?!"

"FLOWER!"

"Ow." He held the part of his hair where she plucked out the flower "I didn't know it was that long already." He didn't count the days after the collision happened, and he didn't count the days ever since the BQ Thieves happened, but he guessed that everyone else but Izami did... He was surprised by the fact it has been that long, but a part of him didn't mind at all. "Shit, did I actually lose the tract of time? I have just been playing different videogames for four months." He mumbled and she only continued walking next to him. "Anyway, where the fuck are we going? To the Protezioni House or Zygos Academy? This is your umbrella, so it's proper if you decide."

"Why don't we go to the arcade... It is the nearest place here and we could wait until the rain gets weaker... We could play a couple of games too!" She raised both of her arms in celebration. "You VS Me! In Arcade games! Since I offered it, it could be my treat! Then we can go to Zygos Academy, and I can bring my umbrella home and go back to my place! Does that seem fair enough?" She finally placed her arms down and Shima began thinking about it... Hell, it's her treat and playing games could be fun... "So what do you say?" She waited for his answer and he nodded his head.

"I'm down to do that." He agreed with her plan, knowing there was no reason for him to deny it. "Can we eat in Burger Queen after that?" It was part of the routine for them to eat there every time they went to a mall for whatever reason--- but he didn't really know if eating together was something that applies if only a part of the team was there.

"Of course we can!" She grabbed his arm and began pulling him to the direction of the arcade as he tried his best to hold unto the umbrella. What the fuck was she on? She was much stronger than she looked- what the fuck, she dragged him like a stroller bag... "FORWARD MARCH!"

"Fuck."

#ask #sepheir #zuro #yarohe #protezioni #shima #zeta comic #STAN ZETA

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eri-223 · 7 years

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Okay, if you want an Eris/Toland prompt: their first meeting in the class swap AU. Perhaps it's enough of a swap that Toland is Eriana's friend, and Eris is the Hive expert they call in to help defeat Crota?

When Eris Morn learned the eighth sigil, she sighed as loud as she dared in the close tunnel. Eight were too many to make up the chord-locks of the Hive’s patron beasts. Eight was easy. Eight signified nothing except she had not found enough characters to read their alphabet.

How reassuring.

It had been three days since her Fireteam had scattered. Eris had done strange cold work among her fellow Guardians on Earth, but the pits beneath the Moon were stranger and more cold. Warlocks tended to forget that they lived in a half-dead world, Eris realized after that. She had expected to have a place to return to after all her wandering.

Now she buried her chin against the collar of her cloak and kept reading the runes. Her vision was spotty, from hunger or strain. It became difficult to tell how far away the wall was, whether the light of the bond on her arm or the light from the runes on the gate was brighter. She had worked her way up through two locked doors so far. Many more and she would know the language well enough to speak it.

Hive-pidgen, she thought of it as. Some was understandable enough in context, but other words had gaps in them, filled by what she supposed was a cultural assumption about the Light.

The cloak on her back was weighted badly, bunched up around her collar. She adjusted it, abhorring the wet dust that had gathered. By now it all smelled like moon-dust and old rot and the colors of the cloak were camouflaged with blood and ichor. When she had been given it she had chuckled at how conspicuous the bright green was, scowled at how gaudy the pattern reminiscent of the gateway into the Hellmouth. The last-minute tactic had seemed ridiculous in the face of six healthy Guardians on their way to kill a prince.

“They’ll believe you are one of their own. And that is the only way.”

—

Toland the Vitreous, Eriana-3 thought, would have been much more dangerous if he had known how to be charming.

Maybe that was why he, unlike Osiris or Dredgen Yor, had never gathered a cult to himself. Instead, she thought that he gave the the impression of hardly believing his own ideas. They were fancies, and he loved them all the more for it.

“Lord Shaxx is right about one thing,” he said lightly, before the Crucible match started. “Win and loss are the only really fundamental states of matter.”

“Poetic,” Eriana had said. Maybe if he had inherited a bit more science from his cryptarch mentor, he would have made a heretic Warlock. As it was, he presented as a Hunter who ranged far enough to pull at the invisible, elastic strings of the wolfpack. His Vanguard had warned him.

And Eriana, who could see right through him, had befriended him.

He didn’t take her up on her offer of the Crucible often. There had been whispers while the team assembled - what was this lone buzzard, this particular strange Hunter, brought to the Crucible? Toland the Vitreous, they called him, burnt out by his own dark work until there was nothing left but glass.

As soon as the team started running - it was a match for kills in vine-covered ruins - he switched guns. The one he held was sleek and golden, and quickly caught fire as he called the Sun. An animal’s spine wrapped around the barrel, the beaked skull pointing at the front. She had thought she might start to teach him some of the more applicable aspects of the Praxic Fire, but the weapon he held was half Golden Gun, parts manifesting from the Light itself.

He shot one of his teammates in the head three times. The other Warlock slipped backwards, helmet burning, and their Ghost flared out before they hit the ground. They would wake up furious and confused, Eriana thought.

“Toland, no!” Eriana yelled. He was running an experiment - she had done enough of her own to know.

A few of the fighters stopped, presumably wondering why two Guardians on the same team were fighting with no objective in sight. Others ignored them, blasting across the Cosmodrome ruins they had drawn in the Crucible rotation lottery.

Toland had always been a bit Warlockish.

Eriana could sense the strange energies within the gun, the way it seemed to want to kill again. Toland seemed almost tugged as he knelt down beside the working Ghost, disinterested in the Guardians around him. He checked the clip, then turned to her.

“Ah, it works,“ he said, then leaned in to the urgeful light of that Sun and shot the Ghost.

—

Shaxx pulled him out of the match and gave him to Cayde, but Eriana kept watch.

“Why? Let go of that,” Eriana said, and took the gun from him. It fell in half, the Sun-stuff disappearing between her fingers and leaving her holding the precarious pieces of the hollow gun. Cayde had told them to wait on the Tower watch, above the Vanguard hall. The trickle of the water in the human-made streams seemed like a blaring distraction when Eriana was trying so hard to watch out for anyone who might walk in. Toland gave no impression of wanting to attack anyone again, but Eriana wanted to avoid any altercations. Toland’s experiment had been interesting, indeed. The gun had reacted to something, to its own mindless perception of having won a tiny part of the match. Win and lose are the only really fundamental states …

Cayde-6 and Andal Brask walked onto the Tower watch with one bowl of ramen and one neon-green drink between them.

“What have we here?” Cayde was the louder one, always at Andal’s elbow, but Andal was the Vanguard. Toland looked at him.

“Golden Gun draws from the Sun, and the Sun from the Light and the Light from the body,” Toland said. “That cycle can be picked apart and rearranged. I’ve made a golden gun that does not run out of shots.”

“It feeds on dead Guardians,” Eriana said, still holding the pieces of Bad Juju stacked between her hands. The interiors were alarmingly organic-looking, with stringy support structures like in a bird’s hollow bones.

Andal looked at Cayde, then back at Toland. “You brought that artifact back before, that strange cube. Is this related?”

Toland held his hands out in front of him as if ready to be shackled. He wore the close-fitting Hunter garb in a green that looked not martial but simply as if it was rotting off of him. Eriana looked down at her own Praxic uniform as if expecting some sort of stain.

“Don’t delay your sentence,” Toland said. “My experiment is done. We can threaten the very cage around our world with this.”

“The Vanguard have already covered your view of the Warminds,” Andal answered quickly. This surprised Eriana; she hadn’t known he held such a view.

“And your discussion will cease when the world falls down around your ears,” Toland said.

“You killed a Guardian,” Cayde enunciated slowly. The word he used indicated permanent death; it was beginning to be used in reference to Hive magic as well, sometimes ironically. It had been rare before the Hive incursion. Eriana was starting to miss those times. “Maybe we should get back to that?”

“Things are piling up,” Andal said. “You leave your teammates behind to go off looking for ruins - and you’ve pestered the Vanguard about Rasputin more than Cayde has.”

Cayde shrugged.

“This has gone on long enough,” Andal said. His voice turned stentorian; he could act when he wanted to. “I will bring you before the Vanguard.”

The silence stretched out, offering a hand and an ace up the sleeve; Toland could go politely or he could be removed in whatever unpleasant manner Andal thought fit.

Eriana interrupted.

“Let me talk to him first,” she said. She found authority in her voice by reminding herself that she was not under the Hunters’ jurisdiction. “I’m interested in the way he used Golden Gun. I study the Praxic Fire. This could be of use to us.”

Although Eriana was not a senior member of her order, the followers of the Praxic Creed were well known for being practical - for Warlocks. Hunters joked that this meant decisions required only two days of meditative contemplation. It helped that Eriana was known for being solidly personable. She watched Andal decide how much she knew about what was likely to happen if Toland saw all three Vanguard. Exile could be as formal as an appearance from the Speaker or as informal as a quick and impermanent death.

In the end, the expression Eriana saw in Andal’s eyes was a deep sympathy for her and Toland’s friendship.

“In ten minutes I’ll send Shaxx back up here,” Andal said, and left.

Eriana caught Cayde lifting the green drink in a salute to his mentor’s back as he followed.

Toland tried to slide away; Eriana caught him by the shoulders. “Don’t say a word,” she said, then shook her head. He wouldn’t manage it. “I’m going to hide you before they can exile you,” she said, and for a moment he looked surprised at her apparent clairvoyance.

She was right that he couldn’t manage to be quiet, but chattiness itself was not suspicious. They took the elevator down, and worked on a cover story.

—

When Eris heard Eriana’s name around the Tower more often, she felt a mix of jealousy and pride.

They had been friends early in their new lives, two Warlocks with the same wry sense of humor and a comfort with sitting beside one another and studying in silence for hours. Their own ascensions had helped drive them apart, though; as Eriana became more dedicated to the Praxic Creed and Eris to the more esoteric work favored by Ikora their missions took them to far-off places. When Eris was inducted into the Hidden after a particularly spectacular stealth mission against the Hive incursion, her friendship with Eris faded quietly like the colors on an old cloak. If they had skipped time and seen the change, it would have been shocking, but because time progressed the normal way the transition into almost complete silence was itself unnoticed.

The Hidden had offered prime opportunities for a Voidwalker, and so Eris had become used to conspiring and spying, to seeing in Ikora’s eyes the secrets that they shared.

Now, Ikora was keeping her comm open while Eris trailed a Hive commander in the Cosmodrome. There had been reports of an unusually organized swarm, of a towering Knight with a sword that made a name for itself among younger Guardians.

“Find out at least where they’re based. Maybe what they call themselves,” Ikora said.

“Their names are fascinating, actually. Did I mention to you that they seem to have no names distinguished by gender?” Eris always felt a bit hesitant talking to someone as accomplished and brilliant as the Vanguard, but she also knew that Ikora shared her interest in ephemera. Eris was not a magpie of a Warlock, the sort that coveted their own personal library; instead she gathered facts, ideas she could carry around without adding any weight to her blue robes.

“You hadn’t,” Ikora said.

Eris continued walking along the hillside, avoiding snowy patches that might be slippery. She had not tried to disguise herself and instead walked openly, passively monitoring the emanations of Darkness she could feel from the other side.

“I’m almost at the site,” Eris said.

“Good.”

Eris wanted to say something else, some formality or pleasantry for closure, but Ikora’s voice had closed off in that authoritative way that she had, and Eris knew that if she herself spoke now she would tend to babble. So instead she remained quiet as she walked around the sharp cliff of rock that made up the oceanward side of the hill. In front of her now the grassland sloped down to the sluggish water. To her left was the gash in the hill that lead to the cave.

Eris readied the gun in her hand as the Hive sniffed her out, but she didn’t expect to have to use it.

First the eyes appeared in threes and sixes in the cave, then the thralls lurched themselves out of the darkness with their sideways gait and screamed toward her. Eris Morn waited. Not exactly covert work, this, but there were more difficult ways to study them, and Osiris had suggested that she couldn’t capture an entire pack of Hive at once on her own, so she had just had to —

Ah, there, the traps. Eris had formed them out of the Hive’s own filaments, the metal pieces they tended to drive into the Earth. Ikora permitted this as long as it remained in the realms of linguistics and engineering and did not turn into magic, and Eris was equally committed to upholding that separation.

Thrall zig-zagged forward and the Knights followed, lumbering, and Eris ducked as blasts from energy weapons splashed past her. She knew though —

The traps snapped upward out of the ground, green fire burning on the edges of the metal ribs. The one holding the sword-bearer worked too well. The Hive commander dissolved into dust, shrieking. Eris could not tell whether it had dashed itself against the bars with its momentum or not. The Hive seemed to glory in killing others, but not necessarily in mindless loss; Eris thought for a moment that the Knight must have been disappointed in itself. Then she put one hand over the bottom of her helmet, wanting to cover her mouth. She still stood in front of a pack of trapped thrall, and the relief at her plan working was slowly draining away and leaving fear in its wake.

There were some garbled noises on the comm, and Eris felt her heart sink. “Are you okay?”

Quickly, the signal stabilized. “Thank you for trapping that brood, Eris,” Ikora said.

“It didn’t work. I’m sorry. The sword bearer …” Eris wrinkled her nose in embarrassed amusement at her own overkill. “Disintegrated.”

“No matter. It’s time to come back,” Ikora said kindly, and quickly enough that Eris only had time to open her mouth in shock. “It’s time to send our armies to the Moon.”

—

For a while, Toland’s most pressing concern was the war.

Eriana had gathered her troops in a small apartment in the City, kitted out for a short-term stay and taken by Toland for a longer one. The fireteam loved her, and gathered around her in a flock when she announced that their last team member would be coming soon. Eris Morn was a quietly competent Warlock known mostly for being a closed-mouthed confidante of Ikora Rey, Eriana had said. Later she had added that she and Eris had once been friends, but that their respective work with the Praxic Warlocks, and, supposedly, with Ikora’s Hidden had pulled them apart. Perhaps this was why she was nervous, or because the team hadn’t yet cohered. Vell Tarlowe, the Titan from the Pilgrim Guard, seemed to suffer from a mild claustrophobia in the City and so tended to puff up like a pigeon to show his strength.

“Don’t fret,” Toland whispered to Eriana. She was running hot, not the Sun but her servos heating up the edge of his sleeve. “Your pets won’t hurt the spy.”

“Between your fascination and her experience we have all the Hive expertise we need.” Eriana’s tone was strong, as if she were addressing the Vanguard. Later, Toland thought that she might regret such conviction. She had already framed him and Eris as complementary, as a likely pair of researchers.

Now, Eriana waited with the group for the Hidden Warlock to arrive. Toland began to feel impatient, standing in formation like this as if they were petitioners at the Vanguard’s beckon call instead of a rogue fireteam breaking the Lunar Interdict.

When Eris arrived there was no fanfare, no sneaking. She did not appear out of thin air or in a cloud of Voidlight. She walked in through the door, wearing bronze-plated Voidfang Vestments and with her helmet tucked under her arm. Perhaps there was a hint of clandestine energy in the way she edged over to Eriana, who quickly and unreservedly clasped her elbow.

“Thank you for coming,” Eriana said. Her lights blinked sincere acknowledgement, doubling the thanks for those who could read Exo expressions.

Eris surveyed the group, full lips slightly open. “The opportunity to study the Hive is incredible, but the, uh, cause is more worthy.”

Her voice hesitated a bit over the formal words, becoming more resonant as she faltered. Toland found himself wondering whether there was a pattern in that he could predict if he listened long enough.

Eriana continued the formality with a bow of her head, but when she started to introduce the group members individually she made it almost immediately clear that theirs was not a strict affect to go with the deadly serious mission. Omar joked that Eris had probably forgotten more about the Hive than he ever knew, and her response was gracious and wry. Eriana brought her to Toland last.

“Our other Hunter,” Eriana said softly. “Toland the Vitreous, the weaponsmith.” She looked at Eris to see her reaction. “He was exiled.”

Eris equally softly pulled a breath in.

Toland perceived the Darkness on Eris as a gauzy cloak over her clothing. Peel the surface away and you would have a sheet of Hive-stuff, likely to sprout signal towers and green crystals. It would come off clean, though. Eris was not herself corrupted.

“I hear you are exceptionally familiar with our enemy,” he said. It was an expression of curiosity, but, he admitted to himself, also a challenge. She too immersed herself in studies that could easily cause Guardians on her team to die, even if it was not on purpose.

“I study them.” She said, sharp eyes glinting in a sharp face. “That does not mean I love them.”

“We devote ourselves to what we will,” he said, and took her hand. He knew from the weight of the word that he felt for her - to say devote in front of her felt suddenly personal and dangerous. And that, of course, made his words to her a tender and fascinating lie. There was no willpower left to him, now that he had felt this.

Eris Morn shook Toland’s hand, and he filed his own interest away.

Later he would catch her while he was reading in their fireteam’s hideaway, the place Eriana had set up for him before Crota was even a storm on the horizon. She would wait by the edge of the bookshelf and extend her awareness to him, a wash of Voidlight filled with patterns and mathematics he could not fathom, and he would glow with the Sun and light one of the pages of the books for her. He thought that she must be surprised to see a Hunter flitting around the shelves. She explained to him some of the Hive sigils that she recognized, and he just listened.

Even later, he noticed that she would find excuses to stay after the rest of the team had gone, and she would tell him about the terrors of the Hive, and the way they believed in wins and losses. It was after agreeing with one of these statements that he touched her hands again, play-fighting in jabs and bait-and-switches. When they paused with their fingers tangled, he stooped to kiss both of their hands. She smirked when his lips brushed his own knuckles.

For a while, Toland’s most pressing concerns were her and the war.

—

Some of the runes must have been missing. Eris had worked out what the sequence should be, but there was no sigil for the ninth character. She could keep working on them, driving herself to distraction, or she could turn around and find a more defensible spot. Soon, she thought, she would not have a choice.

She turned and saw another glow.

How far away? What letter did that represent? What sound did it make?

She wondered whether she might see a trio of green eyes in the dark, and be unsure whether it was an enemy or a delusion borne from hope. Toland, the Vitreous, had been wearing that mask before he disappeared.

Eris had thought once that she could fight the Hive using their own tools without becoming as evil as they were. Funny, how she had not entirely been wrong. She could keep her pure intent. What the Hive worshipped wasn’t about intent, really; the swordlogic was a physical law, and all along Eris had been following it like the ocean followed the Moon.

Toland, though, had dived right in. The last she had seen him alive he was fleeing down a tunnel, crying nonsense words, making sounds like might have been Hive names if he had ever learned them properly. After that, there had been the body and the Deathsinger she and Eriana fought. Both of them had looked for some trace of Hive magic and found none. Toland had not found the words to unlock his gate either.

She could imagine, though, that those were his false eyes. She could imagine eyes all around her, his face ghosting through the rock between her hands where she had crouched over in the tunnel. The deaths of her teammates felt like dreams now, and she supposed she should be thankful for it. Her brain was shifting these things into the category of nightmare so that she could keep going, so that the guilt and terror would stay distant until they leaked out somehow. She could not weep, except for the messy, tar-colored ichor that bled from the cracked skin around her eyes.

The Hive had been an abstraction to her for a little while, and now they were just a gate.

She turned back to the door and started working on a new idea about how to bypass the ninth sigil.

—

Once Illumynare suggested that Eris and Toland’s backgrounds should be swapped along with their classes, I had to figure out how that happened - and so it became part of what was supposed to be a thousand-word story. Well. The resulting timeline becomes kinder to its characters at the beginning and crueler by the end, I suppose. Eris is more accomplished at the beginning of this story than I imagine she was in canon, forced as she was out from under Eriana’s wing. She has the Warlock penchant for study but an emotional distance from the Hive that Toland never managed. Toland has only half of his canon obsessions - he’s desperately fearful and sees other Guardians as potential subjects for experimentation, but never researched the Hive enough to speak convincingly to Ir Yût. Therefore he never became quite as infamous as he was in canon, and was never technically “shattered” - although still more than willing to abandon his team. I tried to keep these differences in mind.

#the longest prompt answer #Destiny #Eris/Toland #Fireteam Heartbreak #illumynare #Eris Morn #Toland #Cayde-6 #Andal Brask #Ikora Rey #Eriana-3

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