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Ór danced amidst the rubble, jumping between pools of radiolaria and flinging shards of ice like tiny deadly frisbees that clinked when they met with stone. The Vex were like an ocean, sweeping though Botza wave after wave and flooding everything with the sick blue light, and in the centre the portal stood, gaping, distorting the space around it. She hadn’t engaged in this whole Splicer business Mithrax had going on. He’d asked—and it had made her heart flutter just a bit, the sensation of being recognised—but she had enough of her own troubles already, and the Vex terrified her, and the new residents of Botza could really use some help from a Guadian whose reputation didn’t make them go running for the hills just at the sight of her. But now her and five other Guardians had been directed to evacuate the Quarter and she didn’t know any of them, nor she did she how to handle Vex rifts or gates or self-encrypting confluxes. She just shot, round after round after round, eye at the scopes and palms pulsing with Stasis. And Ikora screamed in her comms, and Mithrax screamed too, and Ór prayed through gritted teeth Eido had been smart enough to have made it out of the ruins.
Botza had enraptured her from the very beginning. Ór would look at it and see a flower blooming on a wreckage, a spark of life amidst the decay left by the Pyramids’ precise strike. She had been so worn out by death—after Europa, after the Glykon—and this was something else, something gentle and innocent and safe. It was easier to nurture her own wounds here, those not yet old enough to scar and too old to be bleeding-fresh, though still aching persistently.
And now the Vex were here, and amid the debris and radiolaria she could discern Eliksni bodies, and struggled to shove away the sudden urge to vomit.
There was a perfect sniping spot on one of the platforms, guarded by nothing but two Hobgoblins she disposed of with ease. Then she noticed the Harpy – hidden behind some crates, spikes folded, beeping softly. She raised her sidearm.
“No, wait!” Runi shouted, “Look…”
Ór stopped. The Harpy turned towards her and hovered motionless in one spot, as if passing her a long glance with its single blue eye.
She approached it, and then it began to beep again. Ór could swear the eye followed her as she walked, and it sent a shiver down her spine of both intrigue and uneasiness.
“It is… speaking,” Runi whispered, just above the din of battle. “I can translate it. It’s saying…”
The Pyramids’ strike had been so precise Ór sometimes still marvelled over it – like a surgeon’s scalpel. Or maybe it had just been her first goodbye, the first ruthless finality she had to come to terms with; or maybe she truly did have a talent for seeking mentors in all the wrong places.
Her vision was blurry through the tears as her old-fresh wounds opened again and lay there, gaping, large enough to stick both her hands inside until they were soaking radiolaria and warm with blood.