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「... What was their name?」
Edri turned to face the odd Fallen she’d been calling a traveling companion as of late. Sariisk could tell she was taken off guard, to say the least. Cleaning the rifle, taken from the Titan’s corpse after his repairs had failed to save them, he hunched over against a barricade, doing his best to ignore the sounds of the Spider’s gang patrolling nearby, the occasional gargled swishing of corrupted ether, and subsequent firefights as power shifted back and forth, as ever as of late, across the Tangled Shore. He and the Ghost across from him were low enough that a passing glance wouldn’t reveal them, at least.
「Why does that matter now?」
Sariisk’s answer wasn’t immediate. He had to think about the wording. Think hard. He hadn’t been much of a conversationalist even among his own people. And now he was talking to a Ghost, one of the Great Machine’s offspring… and atop that, now not entirely dissimilar from a Servitor. Even if the latter modifications were his doing, he couldn’t help but still feel awed by her very presence. So he thought on how he could possibly respond. The Ghost turned back to the tech she was examining, eventually, though just as her attention properly shifted, she was interrupted by the Eliksni’s reply.
「I had to watch them die… tried to save them. I do not know how to heal other Eliksni, let alone Earth-Guardians. So I had to try and fix you. And while I did… it wasn’t enough. I did not do enough. And now you are without your Guardian. Your friend, yes?」
Edri took her turn to think, turning away from Sariisk again and apparently busying herself looking over the earlier object of her curiosity. Sariisk waited, quietly. He had at least always been patient, and could find something for himself to be busy with. In this case, it was the rifle he’d been cleaning. He had no oil, no real tools for cleaning weaponry specifically. But he did have as many of his tools as he’d been able to carry when he fled the Archon he was working under, and it was enough to repair a dying Ghost, albeit with improvised Servitor mechanisms. He could do the basic disassembly necessary to wipe grime out of the gun where it needed it most.
「... He was my friend, yes. My best, closest friend. And when you took me away from him, I wanted nothing more than to to burn you away.」
It stung. But he couldn’t blame her at all.
「... I wanted to save you both. You were trying to do good things. Good for us all. Not being able to save him has been pulling on me like an event horizon. I want to know who you lost. The way you knew them. So that he can live through my memories too. So you can remember him yourself, so neither of us forget.」
He watched Edri impassively, his mask thankfully hiding the effort he had to make to not break down halfway through all of that. It was true, every word. That didn’t make it easy to say. Especially not to the Ghost whose Guardian he couldn’t save. Who had watched him take her Guardian’s rifle, who had to watch him approaching while she was furiously trying just to save her dying friend, despite her own wounds. Without knowing his intentions. No, Sariisk could not find it in himself to fault her even a little bit. It was only recently he had started referring to himself as Eliksni again. Felt pride in what he was doing when he left, through all the fear. The Fallen truly were, at the end of the day.
「... Noah. His name was Noah-3… but… just Noah, really.」
Sariisk couldn’t quite place how long it took her to reply. It was the longest yet they’d paused, at least in this conversation, possibly in any other. But she’d answered him. His outer eyes closed halfway, something Edri should’ve recognized by now as the Fallen equivalent of a smile. He couldn’t tell if she did or not, this time. But hopefully his expression wouldn’t quite matter.
「No-ah...」 He sounded out the syllables slowly, confirming he had them right. Edri “nodded” slowly. His outer eyes closed entirely, if only for a moment. 「Thank you. … If it doesn’t hurt too much… what was he like? I never got the chance to actually know him… Even if it is late-」
「You want to remember him too.」
Sariisk’s outer eyes opened up just a little, while the inner pair closed to match them. 「Yes… please.」
「... You’d never meet a Titan more afraid of what they had to do… but so unfaltering when it came time to actually do it. He was… he was a better friend than most will ever get.」
Setting his rifle aside as Edri began, Sariisk tuned out the world around them, his focus entirely on the Little Light before him. She wove the tail of a frightened Exo, awakened in the bowels of a lab, who held her so tightly she feared her shell would shatter when she told him he was a friend. Of an Exo who would come to make many good friends, who he’d help, who’d help him… who’d stand between them and their enemies, absolutely not fearless, and no less brave for it. Who stood between her and those who sought to hurt her. Who knew a brief, well-deserved peace, before finally being allowed to rest. As she spoke, she came to rest on Sariisk’s head. He was careful not to disturb her. He had never lost someone… not really. It all felt… so strange, to him, hearing the affectations in her voice as she went on. The Fallen had different ways of expressing such feelings… but it didn’t matter, because he felt them anyways. He wasn’t sure why, or how. Nor did he much care. He knew, as she finally seemed to get too weary for her stories, exactly what Noah’s passing had meant. And as Edri struggled to compose herself, Sariisk pulled her gently from his head, and held her closely against his chest.
「... Thank you, Edri.」
The Ghost didn’t respond. Nor did she try to move free, as he’d half expected. Instead, she nestled into the collar of his robes… and began to twitch. The sounds of simulated, hitching breath left her shell. Sariisk had heard the sound before… heard it from Guardians, from Awoken… from those amongst the Solarian, who knew pain, knew sadness, far more intimately than any should have to
But Sariisk had never known a Ghost, too, could cry.