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Asher Mir was... confused. Befuddled. Bewildered. He was dealing with an unknown variable, and he could not account for the discrepancy in the algorithm. Vesper Tan was supposed to be a predetermined constant in a static equation. She was the damnable Vanguard's personal savior in Warlock robes. And now, since the tower halls were so much rubble in the wind, Vesper Tan had taken it upon herself -- again -- to "fix it."
He certainly didn't live under a rock, but before today, Asher had given legendary heroes as much thought as an elephant gives to the flies on its back. Heroes were not relevant to research. He was beginning to regret his lack of attention to this area of study, since it was now his responsibility to explain, in words as small as possible, how he could prevent the total annihilation of the solar system, despite the basic ineptitude of everyone else around him.
Asking her for help in return may have been his first mistake.
"Since you are here, I refuse to squander a valuable research opportunity. Therefore, you shall be my assistant," he said. This would be his his petty revenge against the Vanguard. Gleefully, he imagined how they would seethe when he made their precious pet guardian run his errands. "Go! Shoo!"
He waved his hand at her, making it clear he wanted her to leave. She did not budge. Instead, Vesper Tan looked, if anything, amused. It was perplexing. Asher knew he was rude -- deliberately so -- and he was often cruel and bitter. He did not expect pleasantries.
“Asher, I’m happy to help," she said. His eyes were drawn to her slender gloved fingers tugging at the edges of her sleeve as she said this. She shifted, as if uncomfortable in her own skin. "If you give me your notes, I can check and see if I already have anything you need.”
Her smile faltered for a moment... She looked at him with those fire-orange eyes, bit her lip, and something in his stomach flared. He swallowed, digesting his vitriol, and nodded.
His task anchored her, and there was a subtle shift in her posture, from nervous to purposeful. Smiling once more, she had summoned her Ghost, who pulled up her materials inventory. “Do you need Phaseglass needles? I had put together a few samples to bring back to the tower, but there’s so much around us, I can spare pretty much all I’ve collected.”
"Fine. Yes. That will do," he snapped. This was familiar ground — he could handle an anxious student. He gestured to the station he had set up for his radiolaria experiments. "You may leave your samples there, Assistant, and I shall review your inventory in a moment. I'm sure you can see that I am very busy and would like to be left in peace."
But she continued to smile at him, the corners of her lips quirking up in a small laugh. He blamed the beat his heart skipped on the stutter of the Vex milk his veins.
"Asher, I'm not going to displace all your data collection. You obviously have something set up that I shouldn't disturb. May I...?" And with that brief excuse, she waltzed past him into the modest shelter he had made out of the cave behind him.
Shocked, Asher stood frozen for half a second, trying to decide whether he should remove her by force. He had planned to be cold to her, and she would just... walk away. Impossible! How had she just waltzed in? Asher let out a long-suffering sigh as he trailed after her.
Inside, she threw her helmet on a table next to the makeshift door and dropped her gauntlets inside as if she owned the small hovel he called home. She then asked him to show her what he'd been working on. He felt like she had cheated with this tack, buttering him up for some nefarious purpose. But he couldn't help the swell of ego, and he had proceeded to give her a simplified version of the research he had been doing on the Vex.
She listened through his overwrought monologue, remaining quiet but nodding when appropriate. When he stopped for breath, she asked him for his notes again, and he handed them over without a second thought before he could realize what he'd done. When he did, he could only make his hasty retreat outside, where he could sulk and see to his experiment in peace.
He lost track of time as he stared at the ionic netting he'd set up in the pool of radiolaria. He spent the better part of the afternoon consumed with his failure to remove Vesper from his home. Finally, he gave up on the lines of data that swam in front of his eyes and joined her inside.
He found her sitting in a dusty chair he had stowed in a corner, previously forgotten, and she blended seamlessly into his home as if she belonged there. She had tucked her knees under her thighs, making her appear small in the chair and crushing the deceptively soft fabric of her robes. At her elbow was a stack of notebooks containing his research on the local Vex presence, and it looked like she was flipping through his collected information on the Cabal and the unexpected Taken anomalies. Vesper had become engrossed by his notes and, as he shifted past to see what she mess she had left in his library of books, she paid him no mind whatsoever.
He tried to resist hovering at her elbow. Her silent focus only left him to study her with the same intensity he turned toward the Vex. He had not expected a single guardian could be such a thorn in his side or a puzzle to solve. He started to regret providing his help to Ikora on this ridiculous mission. Except that if he hadn't, they would likely all be dead by now.
Asher Mir had met his doom, and it was not, as he previously thought, the Vex.
Despite not having taken any interest in her exploits before, he was unsurprised she was the first to bring her light back. She has brought that light here, for better or ill. It pressed heavily on him, radiating a steady buzz that he didn’t realize he had missed.
The Traveler's cage didn't affect him quite as much as her compatriots, since Asher knew his last death was not in the hands of the false machine god. Even before the Red Legion had stomped through the solar system, he left the Tower expecting to die sooner rather than later. Each day, The Arm had taken more and more, and the darkness pressed further in to his mind. But despite the darkness, there had been some well of light still in him that he had pushed into the cobwebs of his heart, so deep that the Vex could not find it.
Now, there was nothing, just a cold and empty shell.
He looked at his Ghost, who sat on the corner of his writing desk with her strange, red eye forever fixed on him.
"My friend, this could finally be the beginning of our end," he whispered roughly to her, but his Ghost remained silent. He leaned over and ran a finger down her shell. Her single, red eye twisted upward, and her tiny plates shuddered. "You'd like her, I think." He couldn't decide to who, exactly, he was talking.
Behind him, Vesper made a sharp exclamation. She grabbed the notepad she was reading and waved it at him. “Asher, you’ve got it right here.”
He wandered over so he could see her fingers pointing at a data set that was wedged in the margin of a diagram. It was one he had been working on in the wee hours of the previous night when The Arm would not let him sleep.
“Here —" she tapped at the numbers. "You’ve been monitoring the fissures of energy left by the Traveler. The energy collection stations also record seismic activity. The data corresponds to where Cabal troops have been drilling. There’s a spike in activity right here," she said, pointing at a table of numbers, "and then it stops completely.”
She was right. Her words were tumbling out in an excited rush, and he might admit, reluctantly, that she impressed him.
“Using these projections, it looks like the Cabal nearly drilled straight into the main vault. We can use the energy mining operations to slip in and bypass any possible defenses the Warmind might have set up.”
“Simplistic, but insightful.” He huffed at her. “You are not as hopeless as your Vanguard.”
Vesper gave him a look of wry amusement. “Why, thank you. You damn me with faint praise.”
“Ha. Don't thank me yet.” He sat down and slumped far into his own seat, frowning. “Haven’t you heard? The Cabal have damned us all."
Vesper rolled her eyes. "Asher Mir, you're as helpful as I imagined you would be."
"How, exactly, did you imagine I'd be?" he grumbled.
"Ornery. Cantankerous. Irascible. Cranky. Shorter." She smiled faintly at the shocked look on his face. "Sorry. Eris Morn mentioned you once or twice."
"You'll have to thank Eris for not setting you up for disappointment. I haven't spoken to her since she disappeared. I was told she visited me when I was returned to the tower after my...” He gestured at the Vex construct attached to his shoulder.
Following his motion, her eyes instinctively lowered to his arm. As her eyes looked down, her lashes were dark and long on her cheeks, and he felt a sudden urge of longing. He squashed it down and turned the feeling against her, as he could only bear her gaze for so long. “Don’t stare, it’s not polite,” he said, harshly.
He frowned at her as her eyes snapped up to meet his. “Sorry.” Her expression was genuinely apologetic, and a small part of his heart regretted his churlishness
“Why?” He asked, his acerbic tone cutting the tension. “Did you slice off my arm?” He curled the offending metal appendage to his chest, and if possible, frowned even deeper. He wanted to be off-putting. He hoped she would pity him or keep staring like he was a museum specimen, because then he could dismiss her as just another meddlesome guardian who would leave Io and never come back.
Instead, she laughed, the sound an undignified snort. “God, Asher, don’t try so hard. You might make an actual joke.” Suddenly, she was familiar, and warm, and he was so, so doomed.
He chuckled darkly and turned away to look at the wall to hide what might have been a quarter of a smile. Data forgotten, they were both silent for a moment, until a trill came from her comm. She pulled out her Ghost, and the tiny AI spun out of his shell in anticipation.
“Vesper, I sent the data to Ikora. She said she'll meet us in the Lost Oasis in the morning to go over the mission directives.” The Ghost twirled in her palm. “We may be able to get back to the others as soon as tomorrow.”
Asher thought he must have imagined the flash of disappointment that crossed her face.
“Sure.” She sighed. “I’ll sweep the area and eliminate any hostiles before Ikora arrives. And send Charlie and Alyce a message for them to meet me here tomorrow. I think they're both at the Farm still.”
The Ghost beeped an affirmative, and disappeared again. And she and Asher were alone together once more.
He cleared his throat, and grumbled at her. “You’re planning to stay to meet Ikora?”
She frowned in return. “It looks that way. It won’t do us any favors for us to delay." She sighed again, her face miserable. "I had hoped to rest, just a little." She paused, and pressed her palms against her eyelids. He hadn't noticed how tired she looked before. "I feel like we haven't stopped moving since we left Zavala on Titan."
He rolled his eyes at the mention of the idiot Commander. Of course that ineffectual man would see Vesper as only grist for the mill. "Hmpf. I’ll make room for you to stay then." He stood before he could think better of his offer.
Though, the surprise in her eyes was worth it. "Asher I couldn’t—"
"Nonsense. It’s illogical for you to leave now. It’s late, and I won't be held responsible for your tragic death by way of exposure." Stretching out the kinks in his muscles, his back and knees cracked after being still for so long. After a moment, he disappeared into the space he had partitioned off for his own bed and brought out one of his pillows and a blanket. "I don't have much in the way of creature comforts. I don't like visitors. But at least it will mean you won't have to sleep in your ship. I know I certainly never found sleeping in one of Holiday's Vector-class refits comfortable."
He thrust the bedding at her, and she stared at it a moment before taking it. Her fingers grazed his as she took the blanket, and it sent a shiver down his spine.
"Thank you. I'll just..." Clutching the bedding to her chest, she trailed off and gestured at the floor, a flush rising on her cheeks.
"Oh, for —“ He sighed heavenward and pointed at where he'd been sitting. "Vesper, there's a natural gap in the wall over there that I've been using as a couch all evening." He flailed his hand at the offending structure, cursing the Vex under his breath. "Honestly, I don't know how you missed it. We're Warlocks, not barbarians. I'm not going to make you sleep on the floor like a war hound."
She smiled as he realized his own contradiction -- he said her name, not “assistant”, the familiarity between them coming easily. Mentally, he cursed the Vanguard too. And the Cabal. And the Taken.
"I'm imposing." She stated the fact, and he deeply resented her pointing it out.
"Yes. Now, go!" He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her an almost-gentle push. "I can rescind the offer if it would make you more comfortable."
"No!" She yelped, stumbling forward with a small laugh and then a yawn. She tossed the blanket and pillow on the "couch", giving them a gentle nudge into place. "Asher, thank you." She did not turnaround to look at him, and he would be forever thankful.
"Never mention it." He retreated without another word, his cheeks burning and heart racing. There weren't enough words to describe how he felt, and he cursed them all.