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Nyx eyed the Fatebringer in his hand, turning it over a few times for good measure. The wind atop Felwinter Peak howled, casting a ghostly dusting of snow across the two men where they met between the raging beacon fires. Saladin Forge reached to scratch the tips of his armoured fingers behind the ears of one of the wolves that had come to investigate their arrival, but his attention, Nyx could see, never left the weapon held in the Hunter’s hand.
“Let me ask you something, Saldin,” the Hunter said, his voice hushed, despite the privacy of their meeting. “When things are looking hopeless or your mind takes you to dark places and you start feeling that pressure to just…” Nyx flipped the safety off and then back on again idly, finding himself unable to say the words. “Have you ever thought about--”
“Pulling the trigger?”
Nyx was relieved to hear Saladin’s craggy voice finish the sentence for him. The Awoken man nodded, looking up from the weapon to the Iron Lord.
Saladin’s dark eyes were encased in an unreadable narrow, creased by pre-resurrection age and stoic contemplation. Nyx was used to it, but something twisted in his stomach as if not hearing him answer was something to feel anxious over. “You don’t fear death, Nyxian. None as old as we are do. But death is different when we are the ones bringing it upon ourselves.”
“Even if we just...get right back up afterwards?”
Nyx watched the subtle journey of Saladin’s brows as they narrated his thoughts. The Iron Lord folded his arms, curling a fist against his dried lips. “What do you remember of your first death?”
Nyx didn’t have to think overlong on it. The benefits of being long lived means having an equally long memory. “It was about two minutes after Dixie got me up. Whoever I was had crash landed in what was left of a battlefield. Germaine saw it and tried to guide me out from about fifty yards off.”
Saladin’s brows tightened in thought before his eyes looked up from beneath them. “A mine field.”
Nyx nodded. “The resurrection haze had me pretty good. Morning fog mixed with smoke from dying fires didn’t help. My ship was making this whining sound like the metal was being split apart and there were still gunshots in the distance. Germaine even tried to shuffle forward through the field to get to me--I don’t think he realised I was Risen yet. I made a wrong step, planted a heel right on an IED and the whole world went red.”
“And your second and third deaths,” Saladin said after a moment of consideration. “Do you remember them?”
“Two more IEDs before I managed to get out of the field,” Nyx wore a wry smirk, but there was nothing amusing about it. “Nothing like rising from the dead only to have your body blown to pieces three times before you even have a chance to gain your bearings. Two out of five stars. Would not recommend.” Before the time of the tower, there were nights where his atoms hurt. It sounded insane, but he could feel the deconstruction of his body down to the very bits of matter that made him up. Could feel the reverberations from the explosions in his bones like echoes down hollow halls. He subconsciously threaded his own fingers between one another to grip the spaces behind his knuckles with his fingertips, as if trying to wring the resurfacing sensations out of his flesh.
Saladin must’ve noticed the moment of discomfort as he waited before continuing. “Centuries have passed and countless deaths have followed--yet you still remember them. Even your first. It is the same for all Lights; young and old. But when your death comes at your own hands--when it is your finger that pulls the trigger, even if you’re back before the smoke in the barrel clears, it stays with you differently. It clings to you like a film; the memory of anticipation, the knowledge of pain, the understanding of the silence that follows, all knowing that it was done without a noble purpose.” Saladin resumed full posture, letting his gauntleted fingertips fall away from his lips. “The war some fight within themselves is nothing to be diminished. It is often more brutal and merciless than any we face outside of our waking mind. But there are other means of releasing the frustration from that battle, Nyxian.”
Nyx huffed a breath of amusement. A deflection. Or at least as much of one as he could muster, what with Saladin being so genuine. “You know if you’d had said something a hundred or so years ago I might’ve taken you up on that, but I kinda already have eyes for someone.”
Saladin’s brows flattened into heavy lines above his eyes.
A real chuckle this time found its way out of Nyx’s lungs. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I mean...I’m not, but I know what you’re trying to say.”
“Then what am I trying to say?” Saladin asked, a sternness having found its way back into his tone again.
“That we have our Light for a purpose,” Nyx began, “And that purpose doesn’t incl--”
“--you have your light because you were chosen, Nyxian. What you do with it is up to you,” Saladin cut in sharply, causing Nyx’s words to die on his tongue. The just-slightly-older light narrowed a stare of dark, earthy eyes at him. “What I’m saying is,” the Hunter saw something old and unfamiliar in the Iron Lord’s face then--a softness. An understanding. An empathy. “I will not stop you if you feel it will bring you some level of relief. But that relief will be fleeting. The memory will be forever.”
Nyx rubbed his face with his hands, letting the Fatebringer fall between his feet where he sat. It was a long moment before either of them spoke again. The two men didn’t move, remaining silent companions amidst the wind and moonlight. “I hate this,” Nyx said, finally, his voice partially muffled by his palms. “Like…rational thoughts are still in there. I know that, light, what did you used to say? ‘This, too shall pass’?. But it’s just…” he trailed off for a moment, searching the clutter of his mind for the right words. “It’s a lot. The rest of the Iron Lords. Andal. Cho, Tyrone-3, and Firna during the Red War. Cayde. All those guardians I couldn’t bring back from the Glycon. Crow is pissed and hurt and, complicated fucking emotions aside with that whole thing, I don’t want to lose another friend. Eris and I had a,” Nyx gesticulated--there wasn’t a good word for it, “she said she needed time. What with me being immortal, and her, I mean her next death is gonna be her last and…well. And I respect that, I do, it just doesn’t make it hurt any less? And time, I mean…we don’t have an endless amount of it, and then I feel terrible for thinking that because I don’t want her to feel like she h as to be with me if that’s not what she wants. I just want her to be happy and…,” Nyx felt the nagging sensation like he was rambling, but his words had too much momentum to stop them now. “Everything just keeps fucking up, man. I keep fucking up. And I have been slowly, but steadily, losing every single thing I love. And you’re right, our memories are like fucking sponges, Sal. We remember. And I keep asking myself, like…how is this gonna feel in 50 years? In 100? How is it gonna feel when, eventually, one way or another, I do lose Eris? How is it gonna feel to carry that for the rest of eternity?”
Saladin had been silent, head bowed in thought and introspection while Nyx spoke. Even the wolves had come to lay down around them, sensing the weight of their discussion. “It is the price we must pay for the powers we have--for our ability to protect what remains of humanity.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” Nyx said, cursing under his breath in regret for ever having said it.
“And yet it is the mantle we must wear as Iron Lords.” Saladin’s words were so…thoughtful. Slowly spoken and genuine. “We will live. We will lose. And we will do it all so that humanity doesn’t have to.”
“How do you fucking do it?” Nyx looked up, his hair a mess and tossed to one side. “How do you just wear it and not miss a step.”
Saladin turned from his post to regard the hunter. “I have missed many over the years,” he said, his voice low. “I just don’t let others see it.”
“Well that’s not healthy, my man,” Nyx said, latching onto a deflection and redirection as soon as he saw one, but the look in Saladin’s face said he wasn’t going to bite.
“There is no shame in feeling what you feel,” said Saladin. “There is no shame in whatever action you take because of them--so long as, when the dust settles, you get back up.”
“Yeah, why do I feel like that’s a bit far from the truth?” said Nyx, mostly to himself.
“If you’re looking for permission, you won’t get it from me,” Saladin said, turning to regard Nyx fully.
“No I…I know.” Nyx’s head fell, hanging between his hands. What a thing that he could even be having this conversation. If he was lightless, he wouldn’t have the option of just ‘getting back up’ when the dust settled. It’d be lights out permanently. Maybe that would be better, he thought briefly before rubbing the palms of his hands across his face.
“Have you made your decision?” Saladin’s voice interrupted Nyx’s thoughts like a gavel in a court room.
“Ha…maybe this is lame of me to ask, but…” Nyx rubbed the back of his head, “will you judge me based on my answer?”
“Despite our differences, Nyxian,” said Saladin as he rested a giant hand on the awoken man’s shoulder. “You have always been a friend. Even if you choose a path I wouldn’t take, that friendship will still be there.”
Nyx reached up and clasped a hand over Saladin’s. It anchored him for a moment. Tethered him to that time and that place. Eventually, though, he released it and let his arm fall back into his lap. “Hey, ah…why don’t you take the pups inside.”
Nyx heard a sigh exhale through Saladin’s nostrils and felt the man’s hand squeeze briefly. “I’ll be here until you rise again.”
“Thanks, Sal,” was all Nyx could muster.
The Iron Lord climbed the last few steps to the landing of the temple, beckoning the two wolves to follow. The titan’s footsteps eventually faded into the distance, leaving Nyx alone beneath the light of the moon.
“Dixie,” he said, once he was sure he was alone.
His hatted ghost materialised in the air, her wings lax from the weight of what she knew was to come. <”Yeah, partner?”>
Nyx’s thumb flipped across the safety one last time. “Don’t raise me until the morning.”