Chapter Text
The dull drone of Fallen music pours out of the speakers, the shank bouncer is raining showers of sparks, the drink in Jolyon’s hand has a suspicious neon glow, and he is half-certain the translucent cube within it isn’t ice any more than Solar flame is actual fire. All in all, hanging around this dingy bar at the edges of the Tangled Shore seems like a terrible idea.
Jolyon doesn’t leave. He considers the glass and downs half of it.
In all honesty, he shouldn't even be out on the Reef in the first place. Petra has forced him into rest and recuperation after learning that he hasn’t had a single day off in the past two years. Either you take a week off on your own volition, or I lock you in a cell for a month. Though Jolyon was reasonably sure she wouldn’t actually follow up on the threat – they were far too short-handed to lose one of their best snipers for a month – when he stood up to protest, he swayed on his feet. That was the final straw for Petra: Jolyon was getting his vacation whether he wanted it or not. The only question was what he would do with it.
He had an apartment in the Dreaming City once, back in the past, back in another age before the Taken and the Scorn and Uldren staring at him with those empty eyes devoid of any recognition – Jolyon shakes his head, taking another heavy swing of his drink. Whatever is actually in it, it’s not doing its job well enough.
Anyway, the apartment wasn’t an option. Neither were the Crow barracks – the constant trickle of people going in and out was making Jolyon feel utterly useless. Petra offered a room at her place, but she was so awkward about it, Jolyon knew he could not suffer it for more than a day. And so he left for the Tangled Shore, hoping to find some measure of peace and quiet, certain that the Dreaming City will be exactly as he left it once he returns.
That is its curse, after all.
Jolyon finishes the drink, then lays his head down on the sticky counter, staring absently at the blue gleam in the supposed ice. The bar is nearly empty, and no wonder – few remain to hang out at bars since the Spider’s House fled for parts unknown last month. Besides, it’s so late, it’s practically early by the Shore’s arbitrary clock.
Aside from Jolyon, the only people within the round room are the Fallen barkeep, busy cleaning up the desk, and a trio of Guardians huddled in the corner, talking to each other in hushed whispers. Hunters, if the hoods they’re all wearing are any indication.
They’ve been chatting for hours. From the moment Jolyon spotted them, he’s been considering walking up to them and asking about Uldren – no, what did Petra say he went by now? Crow, that's it. Whatever; Uldren or Crow, Jolyon knows better than to ask. So far, at least. Who knows how he’ll feel a few drinks from now.
He should really stop for the night.
When the barkeep glances at him, Jolyon slides the glass closer to her.
“Another,” he says. The Eliksni shakes her head.
“I think you’ve had enough.”
Jolyon scoffs.
“I can barely feel the buzz.”
“All the more reason you should stop.” She sighs, puffs of ether coming out either side of her rebreather. “Just looking out for you, Awoken. Even without Baron Spider around, the Shore’s not a safe place to be drunk alone.”
Jolyon wants to start arguing when a sudden burst of laughing explodes from the Guardians. He looks to them to see two of them chuckling as the third catches his breath. Then that third Hunter speaks and-
“No.” The laughter. Jolyon knows this laughter. “Really?”
“Swear on my gun!” Someone else is speaking, someone he doesn’t know, and Jolyon wants them to shut up and let that familiar voice speak, but he’s also dreading it- “A whole-ass jump-ship engine strapped to a Sparrow!”
The cowled figure – and damn it and bless it, he has his back to Jolyon – leans in closer.
“How did the test run go, then?”
It is him, it has to be him, yet he sounds like a phantom from decades ago, from before the Garden and everything going wrong. Jolyon tries to sit up straighter, then quickly turns his head away just as the cowled figure looks back.
“Three more, Imiks?”
“Last ones,” the barkeep replies. “I’ll be closing up shortly.”
“Is it that late?” The man seems surprised. One of his companions chuckles.
Jolyon almost shakes – with terror or joy, he can’t tell. A part of him wants to turn around and meet the, the- the Guardian’s – eyes, seek any sign of recognition. Another part realizes that the barkeep was right. Jolyon is far too drunk right now if he’s even considering this in the first place.
Petra has told him in no uncertain terms to not get close to Uldren – to Crow. Jolyon accepted it. Or so he thought. Now that Uldre- Crow is this close, Jolyon finds his patience and self-restraint and everything else fraying.
“Someone you know?”
He blinks. The barkeeps is leaning on the counter beside him, keeping her voice low and her head close to his. The stench of ether around her is heady.
“Why do you ask?” Jolyon whispers.
“Seen it happen to a few Awoken. Someone gets brought back by the Great Machine, then their old buddies catch wind of it and nobody knows what to do about it.”
‘Buddies’ is such an innocent word for whatever was there between Jolyon and Uldren once. But… then again, it’s not as if Jolyon ever let things go beyond friends. Back then, it felt irresponsible. Right now, Jolyon’s not quite sure if he wants to scream at his past self, or praise him.
The barkeep keeps staring at him. The ether smoke is making his head swim. Jolyon winces.
“I think I did have too much,” he sighs.
The barkeep chitters sympathetically.
“There’s a motel across the street if you need someplace to sober up. The mattresses have suspicious stains on them and the walls let every single sound through, but the locks on the door work properly, and that’s not as common around here as you’d hope.”
“Thanks,” Jolyon mutters, not entirely reassured by the recommendation. The barkeep nods and withdraws out of Jolyon’s view. Going by the sounds, she’s doing something with the malfunctioning shank.
Behind Jolyon, the Hunters have returned to their conversation. He tries to listen it, to catch more of Uldren’s voice, but they’re whispering again. A hazy eternity passes before the Guardians pay for their drinks and depart. He’s leaving, a part of Jolyon’s mind whispers with dread. You might never see him again.
Following that small part’s urging, Jolyon gathers himself to his feet and heads to the door. When he says his goodbyes to the barkeep, her alien expression is unreadable, but something about her pose is chastising.
He looks across the street to the flickering motel sign. Looks to the side and spots the three Hunters departing the small safe harbour for the chain-linked wilds. He takes a step.
It’s a terrible idea. Jolyon goes with it anyway.
***
As he walks down the street of the small, ungainly settlement of Scraptown, Crow can’t shake the feeling of being watched. He doesn’t turn around to look, of course; the year he spent in Spider’s service has taught him better than to let his suspicions be seen. And in truth, there may well be an innocuous reason he’s being stared at. It’s not often this small outpost sees a Guardian, let alone three of them at once.
Speaking of which. Beside Crow, one of the other Hunters is talking.
“Anyway, the whole Eramis business is so sudden.” Nat gesticulates wildly as they speak; since meeting them, Crow has learned to keep his distance lest he wanted a hand in his face. “Crews missing their deadlines for pay and resupply, promising new riches all of a sudden, calling off raids… Everyone’s saying the haul is good, but it’s preeetty clear people are scared of defying her. Guess that’s what reputation gives you.”
Nat shrugs, splaying their hands out. Beside them, their companion hums in agreement. Satin is the quieter of the duo, only speaking when Nat misses something. Now, it seems she has nothing to add.
“No sign of dissent, then?” Crow asks. Nat shakes their head.
“Heard our great hero and her crew have been putting the fear of Traveller in them, though. Time might come they figure crossing the Vanguard is worse than crossing Eramis.” They throw their head back with a laugh. “Let you know if that happens.”
“Thanks.”
Crow very much means this. He’s spent the last month trying to get in contact with the various Hunters who’ve scattered across the system in the wake of Cayde-6’s death. He’s been hoping to… maybe not get them organized, not yet, but at least start sending what they know back to the Tower.
Alas, the response so far has been less than enthused. That Nat and Satin – who have spent the past year prowling the Reef and the Tangled Shore – are willing to share all they’ve seen with Crow is a welcome surprise, and more than Crow’s been hoping for.
It does help that neither of them are old enough to remember Cayde-6; both are less than three years Risen. It’s a common thread among the Hunters who do answer Crow’s entreaties and agree to actually meet with him – they’re the young ones, those who remember Crow not as the man who murdered their beloved Vanguard, but who saved the Commander from Psion assassins. The praise he gets for the latter is ever so slightly embarrassing, but Crow is willing to take it if it means they’ll talk to him.
It's better than the responses he’s been getting from the senior and respected Hunters, that much is certain. Those have ranged from silence to death threats.
Crow sighs, and realizes the three of them have made their way to the ramshackle landing pad, where Nat’s ship sits besides Crow’s own Accipiter. A pair of dregs scurries away, spray cans in hand; there’s a beginning of an Eliksni glyph on one of the ship’s extended legs, though it’ll probably soon be lost among the atrocity of a paint job covering the rest of it. Nat has… some sense of aesthetics.
As Nat approaches, the ship’s door drops open. Crow remains at a safe distance from the engines.
“Thanks for speaking with me,” he says. “I’ll let you know if I find anything that could be of interest to you.”
“Got it, boss,” Nat grins. Crow feels a shiver run down his spine.
“I’m hardly…”
“Yeah, yeah,” they wave as they get aboard. Crow takes a deep breath, turns, and startles to see Satin still standing on the landing pad, almost in his face.
“You are being followed,” she says in a low voice. Her accent is so thick, it puts Saint’s to shame. “An Awoken man from the bar. Looks drunk. Maybe he’s into you.”
Crow nods, dubious. He can think of half a dozen other reasons an Awoken would be trailing him, and none of them quite so light-hearted, but they don’t bear saying.
“Thanks for letting me know.”
Satin nods and gives him a pat on the arm before joining Nat aboard. A moment later, Crow steps back as the small ship takes off with a burst of hot air.
As Crow lets out a long breath and brushes stray strand of hair out of his eye, Glint appears over his arm.
“That went well!”
“That it did.” Crow lets himself smile a little.
“Did you have fun? You looked like you were having fun.”
He considers it for a moment and… Huh. Glint isn’t wrong. When they were hanging out at the bar, exchanging rumours and stories, he was actually having fun. He almost forgot he was back in the same strip of space where Spider made his life hell not too long ago.
Now that he’s on his own, however, that sense of fun is fading quickly. Crow rolls his shoulders, surreptitiously checking Hawkmoon on his hip. Tangled Shore is not kind to the incautious – and to those who do not check over their shoulder.
He does exactly that, easily finding the man Satin mentioned. An Awoken for sure, with long, shockingly white hair bound carelessly; it seems familiar, frustratingly so. The man is making some effort to hide behind a lamppost; that effort is only slightly ruined by the lamppost in question being perhaps three fingers thick.
“Think Satin’s right?” Glint whispers. “That he’s gonna start flirting with you? Should I go away?”
“I appreciate the offer,” Crow whispers, “but I think he’s more here for Uldren. And rightfully so.”
“Crow…”
He shakes his head.
“I know I’m not Uldren anymore. But it’s not gonna be very comforting to the victims in the Dreaming City.”
Crow takes a deep breath to steady himself. Better get this out of the way before the man gets any ideas. Crow begins to approach him – but he only manages three steps before Glint vanishes in flash of data and cries out,
“Behind you!”
Crow dodges just as shots pepper concrete beneath his feet. The man…? No, wrong direction. Crow spins to see an Eliksni rifle poking from behind a wall. A hail of bullets responds to his gaze. He ducks again, runs as a few shots graze off his armour, slides behind the Accipiter; before he can quite make it, a lucky shot takes him in the arm. He hisses, waiting for Glint’s healing, and looks back.
His stalker has dropped to the ground, behind a concrete barrier, and is fumbling with… a rifle? Isn’t he drunk? Before Crow can consider that, the man has the gun up on the barrier and is firing repeatedly. Peering under the ship, Crow sees none of the shots hit. But… it does make the attackers hide.
As good a suppressing fire as he’ll get. Crow gets up, rounds the ship, calls upon the Void to coat him in the phantom layer of invisibility. Sounds dull; his feet whisper along the ground, devouring the distance. The rifle shots have stopped; the stalker has to reload, most likely. Just as the attackers start peering out, Crow leaps over the barrier, Solar grenade forming in his hands.
Void slips him, and he reappears above a trio of Eliksni. One manages to look up and see Crow as he throws the grenade and boosts himself away. He turns mid-air to see the results, Hawkmoon in hand. The Eliksni try to flee; the grenade splits, the fragments chasing the attackers. When they explode, two Eliksni fall dead.
Crow’s shot takes the third in the head. It hits the ground with a dull thud.
Silence falls, save for the sizzling of two corpses. Crow looks around and scans his surroundings. Though uneven, the flat asteroids that surround Scraptown don’t offer much in the way of cover, and there’s no people in the windows. Nothing on his radar, either. Was this all?
Far ahead, the other Awoken stands up, swings his rifle over his back. He too is looking around, unsteady. Crow eyes him, then holsters Hawkmoon again, confident the man isn’t about to put a bullet in his head. Even if he intends to kill Crow, he doesn’t seem able to hit the broad side of a barn at the moment, let alone a human head.
Crow turns his attention to the dead Eliksni. Who was this? Spider’s people? An attack of opportunity from local Dusks? Surely anyone who’d attack a Guardian would know better than to send just three Vandals after him?
“I don’t think we can ask them anymore,” Glint whispers in his head. Crow chuckles grimly.
“Let’s take a look at them.”
The first two bodies are far too burned to discern anything of interest – the Solar grenade may’ve been a bit of an overkill, in retrospect. The third corpse offers more information. It’s dressed in House of Dusk purple, though the rifle it holds, covered in curved spikes and crudely-rounded edges, is more reminiscent of the pirate weapons Nat showed him a few hours ago. Crow kneels by the corpse and looks through its pockets, locating a small box within the folds of the robe.
“A radio,” he says. “Glint, anything you can get out of this?”
The Ghost pops up besides him and immediately gets to scanning.
“Hm… There’s bits of a text transmission that’s been deleted, but it’s still held in recent memory. It’s gonna take a little bit to reconstruct. I’m on it, though!”
“Thanks.”
Nothing else of note; either his would-be killer was travelling light, or they didn’t have much in the first place. Crow stands up and looks across the parking lot. The other man is leaning on the lamppost, arms wrapped around the rifle. Crow can’t quite make out the details of him, but the silhouette seems familiar. And the gun…
Crow bites his lip, a sinking feeling growing in his gut, and starts walking towards him again.
As he crosses the plaza, more details come into view. The deep purple skin. A dark thread tying the brilliant white hair. The matching pale eyes that he remembers glowing so brightly. Now they are unfocused and tired, yet still bore into Crow, unflinching.
Jolyon Till the Rachis.
Crow stops some metre away, feeling himself shiver. Neither of them say anything. Jolyon seems like he wants to push himself off the lamppost, but he doesn’t seem to quite have command of his legs.
Crow doesn’t know what to say. He has not planned for this. He’s been not planning for this very deliberately.
“Crow!” Glint whispers urgently in his head, “I’ve reassembled the message in that Eliksni radio. It’s an order for FOUR killers to take out a whole hitlist of people!”
Relief and alarm mix in Crow as he looks around, trying to find wherever that fourth assassin is, scanning the buildings, the streets, the dark alleys; are they here? Have they fled?
“On the list,” Glint keeps talking. “Is you, Petra Venj, and… Jolyon Till.”
There, a flash of a rifle scope. And it’s not aimed at Crow.
Crow leaps at Jolyon, knocks him to the ground, Jolyon gasps, there’s a thunderous rattle of a gun, Crow’s head bursts with pain and everything goes dark.
***
Crow gasps in a long breath as Glint returns him to life. He’s on the ground, face-first. He pushes himself off and realizes there’s something on top of him.
“How long…?” he gasps out.
“Ten seconds!” Glint declares proudly. “The assassin’s dead already.”
Crow manages to turn around and slide whatever was on him off himself. It’s a body. It’s Jolyon.
For a moment, Crow’s heart stops. Then he hears Jolyon snore, and the fear dissolves into incredulity. He peers up to see Glint floating above them both.
“So, what exactly did I miss?”
“Jolyon – that’s Jolyon Till, right? – anyway, he rolled over you, took the shot and took the guy out! Aaand then he just, uh, fell asleep?”
“Makes sense.” Crow sits, and pulls Jolyon’s head off the concrete and into his lap. “That’s how he always was when drunk. Full capacity one moment, complete shutdown the next.”
“That’s… actually impressive.”
“Very.”
He looks around. The streets are still empty; the locals know better than to walk around right after a shootout. Before Crow can look for any movement in the windows, Jolyon’s snore brings his attention back down.
His old friend – no, Uldren’s old friend – looks… tired. Dishevelled. Sunken. Crow’s last memories of Jolyon are hazy and unfocused – with benefit of time and distance, he can recognize the influence of the Black Garden crawling under his skin and clouding his mind. Still, he’s pretty sure even in the last months of Uldren’s life, Jolyon never looked so… spent. He seems as though he’s aged a millennium in three years.
And whose fault is that?, a part of him asks. Crow swallows, feeling the old spectre of guilt at the back of his mind. It’s Uldren’s, he tells it, I will have to make up for it.
“Crow?” Glint’s voice is gentle; he’s floating in front of him. “Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah. Just… memories.”
“Bad ones?”
“I don’t know.” He sighs, looking back down to Jolyon. “We… we’ve got to do something with him. We can’t leave him in the street… There’s a motel in Scraptown, but bringing an unconscious man there is just asking for him to get robbed.”
“Yeah, that’d be bad, wouldn’t it? So what else can you do?”
Crow swallows heavily again, glancing around. The Radiant Accipiter stands out on the ruined parking lot like a pearl in the mud.
Its door opens in invitation, and Crow knows he’s already made his decision.