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The Eliksni have done wonders with the Botza District. The ruins have been transformed, buildings repaired, and others left open to the air to form welcoming communal spaces. Fabric awnings strung between buildings provide shade and cover from rain, and there are bright pennants and banners everywhere. They seem to have discovered a love of plants too; the gardens are wide and plentiful, though less regimented than many in the rest of the City, and they grow a mixture of native plants, and those few that had been saved from Riis after the Whirlwind.
It’s a thriving, vibrant place. From his seat on a rug in one of the communal spaces overlooking the area, Osiris can hear voices from the market, human and Eliksni, and it is incredible to hear no anger there, or fear.
Nearby, Saint dozes in the sunlight, unarmed and unarmoured, something that Osiris would once have believed unthinkable. And here he is, utterly at ease. His size, or maybe the magnificent machinery of him, or the warmth that the metal of his body has absorbed, seems to attract the Eliksni hatchlings as surely as it attracts the human and awoken children of the City. The older ones use him as a playground, clambering over him. Osiris watches, a small, fond smile on his face, as an Eliksni caretaker sets their swaddled hatchling down against the warmth of Saint’s side while they talk to someone for a moment.
A shadow falls over him, and Osiris looks up to see the imposing figure of the Kell of the House of Light. Misraaks gives a polite nod and then folds himself down to the ground next to Osiris.
“Misraaks-Kell,” Osiris greets him. There’s a flare of frustration at the concentration it takes to manage the pronunciation; languages have sometimes been difficult since he escaped the Hive dream Savathûn had held him in. Days when he finds himself slipping into Arabic or Hebrew without realising, or struggling to remember any at all. Neither are as bad as the days when he wakes with Hive, or some other dead language from a long-destroyed world on his lips. It’s manageable though. After all, he’d been resurrected with no memory of whether that original human’s first language had been Hebrew or Arabic or English, or whether it had all been artifice of the Light. This is not so different.
Saint is teaching him Russian. He’s a terrible teacher, but his enthusiasm and joy make up for it.
“Osiris,” Misraaks greets in return. He looks over at where an intrepid young hatchling has perched itself on Saint’s chest. “Never did I believe I would see the day when our children would look at the Saint without fear.”
“I doubt anyone ever expected them to use him as a climbing frame, either,” Osiris says, amusement clear in his voice. “I’m glad of it though. It’s good for him. He was never meant to be a monster.” And Osiris’s bitterness towards the Speaker may not be as bright as it had been, but it is still a low-burning ember in his heart. How the man had pushed Saint into crusading against the Eliksni is no small part of that, possibly even more than the bitterness over his own exile by someone he had considered a mentor.
“Conflict and survival have made monsters of many of us,” Misraaks replies. “I do not think any of us were meant to be so.”
“Depending on who in the City you ask, I am either a power-hungry tyrant who seduced people of the City with my honeyed words, or a soulless Golden Age experiment built for war.”
Misraaks looks perplexed. “That does not seem like you.”
“It’s a poor tyrant who would rather people not blindly follow his words and elevate him to the status of some flawless idol,” Osiris says dryly. His cult had been useful at times, but frustrating, taking as literal gospel truth his writings, rather than seeing them as the result of research and study, to be debated and refined so they could bring understanding. “And as for being an experiment… there’s no way to tell. Perhaps I should have asked the Warmind when he was present.”
He is fairly certain that if he was some Golden Age monstrosity, Rasputin would have made sure that Osiris was aware of it. Loudly and violently. Though perhaps that had become less true over time. He is still coming to terms with Rasputin having taken on the memories of Felwinter, even now, weeks after the Warmind’s sacrifice. He is not sure that he ever will, but he does know that he wishes there had been more time to speak together, even if it may not have resolved anything.
“The Warmind… even though it–” Misraaks breaks off, and Osiris watches his face crease with an expression of dissatisfaction. He continues, substituting ‘it’ with an Eliksni word that Osiris recognises: a pronoun most commonly used towards Servitors in the older, more formal versions of their language, a term of great respect, something akin to ‘child of the Great Machine’, though he is not an expert on the nuances. “–(it) was not a friend to our people, the loss of such a creation is a grievous blow. (Its) sacrifice will be remembered by our people, as will the fact that the Great Machine recognised that sacrifice.”
Part of him, that cynical part, wonders how long that memory will exist now that the Witness has communed with the Veil. How long will they survive? But another part, the part that has been growing since he went to Neomuna, finds the idea of being remembered far more comforting. For all of his issues with the Warmind, he is glad that Rasputin will be remembered in many different ways, from Ana’s love, to the Eliksni’s respect, to his own complicated feelings.
“Rasputin made his choice,” Osiris says, “and he chose his people. He chose to be a shield over being a blade. And that was never a certain thing.” The timelines that he had seen, so many of them had led to ruin, and the Warmind had turned on humanity in more than one of those futures.
Misraaks makes a rumbling noise of agreement. “Our choices are a gift of the Light, one that the Darkness cuts away until we are trapped.”
“Eramis.” He can tell what is on the mind of the Kell of Light.
“She cleaved to the Witness, and in doing so, the Witness has itself cleaved away her ability to change.” There is a great regret in Misraaks’ voice, an ache for lost opportunity, lost camaraderie, and Osiris remembers how very young Misraaks is by the standards of his people.
“I spoke to her,” Osiris says. “Briefly, while the Guardian was investigating the Seraph bunker on Luna.”
“What were her words?”
“She spoke of her comrade. Her sister of battle,” Osiris says. He doubts that ‘sister of battle’ truly conveys the depth of the relationship, but he does not know the correct word in Eliksni, and it was the way that Eramis had referred to Phyris. He will not cheapen it by changing what Eramis had said. “The Witness had raised Captain Phyris as Scorn, a puppet to fight eternally. Without choice.” The Scorn, the Taken, the Wrathborn, all of them denied the ability to choose, their very selves carved away. “I hope that she and Eramis can find a measure of peace one day.”
A peace that he had been blind to for so long. Is obsession not another kind of cleaving? A severing of extraneous interests until only that one bright point remains?
He thinks that he sees the shape of things more clearly now, after Neomuna, Rohan’s sacrifice, the logs left behind by Chioma Esi which still chill him with how easily he can see himself walking that same path to destruction.
There are reasons why he had seldom followed his own paths through the Infinite Forest.
“She wavers in her loyalty,” Misraaks says, “I know that she does, and yet… she will not give up her stance, even when it destroys her people.”
“Sunk cost fallacy,” Osiris says. Misraaks tilts his head to peer at him, a questioning look. He continues. “It is a phrase from before our Golden Age. It is a cognitive bias that makes people more likely to continue along a course of action if they have already invested much into it, be it glimmer or time or effort. Even if that course is likely to lead to ruin.”
“Ah!” Misraaks brightens, and says a phrase in Eliksni that Osiris does not recognise. He asks Misraaks to repeat it, and the Kell does so more slowly, allowing Osiris to pick out the gist of the phrase. Something like ‘adding a new engine to your family’s ketch despite the failing ether systems’ he thinks, with the language mostly the much less formal ship-speak. The translation is far from elegant, but he grasps the general idea.
“Indeed! She has invested much of herself in this path and the impression I got from her brief interactions with the Guardians and Elsie Bray and myself, was that she feels that abandoning her path now would be hopeless. And a betrayal of those whom the Witness and Xivu Arath have harmed while they were her responsibility.”
“It is hard to give up a path that one has walked for many years,” Misraaks says, with all of the solemnity of one who has first-hand experience.
“It is,” Osiris agrees. Even now, he sometimes finds it difficult to exist in the City, to remember that he is no longer an exile and walks freely through the streets. That he is not a pariah and not everyone looks at him with mistrust or misplaced awe. Perhaps it is no wonder that he has spent more time in the Eliksni Quarter since he had awoken; they see a man, one worthy of respect but not reverence, or suspicion.
Saint stirs, carefully catching the hatchling that had been perching on his chest. He passes the younger ones back to their caretaker, and then begins to stand and turn towards Osiris, only to be stopped by another hatching, old enough to be free of swaddling, who tugs at Saint’s hand and points with excitement. Saint crouches to listen to them, and Osiris hears something about birds.
Saint gives him a brief, helpless smile and wave, before he allows himself to be pulled away by the young Eliksni towards a small group of their friends.
“They probably wish for Saint to show them how to feed and hold the pigeons,” Misraaks says, the fondness in his voice tinged with embarrassment. “They are presumptuous.”
Osiris smiles. “It is something that Saint takes great joy in. He would not change it for the world.”
It is the sort of activity that Saint has always fought to give people the space to engage in. To feed birds, to play games in the streets, to sit and nap in the sunlight. Around them, the sounds of the market are soothing in a way that Osiris had never truly appreciated before. Before his exile he had often found the busier parts of the City… unpleasant. Too loud, too hectic, a million and one things fighting to catch his attention and little way of picking out the most important stimuli. They are still not his favourite places, but he feels more able to let things flow over and around him now, instead of trying to hold on to everything at once. He can sit here and savour the sounds of the life that they fight to protect, enjoy the warmth of the sun on his skin.
“Has Eido contacted you?” Misraaks asks eventually. He sounds wary, Osiris thinks, worried perhaps.
“Not since I returned from Neptune, though she sent her regards and hopes for hearing my stories first-hand when the existence of Neomuna became known.” It had been written with a scholarly formality, and Osiris had replied in kind, despite having met her while she still studied with Mara’s Techeuns.
Misraaks is silent for a few moments more, and Osiris gives him that time, where once he might have pushed for a quicker response in his impatience. Finally, the Kell sighs. “She wishes to speak with you about this City and about the Darkness, this ‘Strand’ that has been discovered. Every day, more Guardians seem to make use of it, and she sees it as her duty to learn and record that information.”
“And you have concerns about this,” Osiris guesses. Even for him, Misraaks’ discomfort is obvious. Osiris has heard from Saint that relations are still strained between Misraaks and his daughter, and he can empathise with that pain. The breaking of his relationship with Ikora when he had been exiled had been painful, and the loss of her trust after he had awoken from Savathûn’s prison-dream had only brought those feelings back to the surface.
Misraaks ducks his head in agreement. “She is clever and devoted to our people. But I fear that her need for knowledge in the service of our people may lead her down darker roads.”
“You believe that I may be a bad influence,” Osiris says, carefully neutral, though something in his chest tightens at the thought.
“No,” Misraaks replies quickly, earnestly. “You have been a friend to House Light since its inception. If Eido is to learn about the Darkness, I believe there can be no better teacher. But I recall the power of the Darkness, its whispers. I remember how easy it was to take that offered power and let it rule me. It has not been so long since Eramis took Stasis as her own and let it lead her to her current situation. The Darkness magnified and fed off our worse impulses and desires. I do not wish to give it a chance to do the same with Eido.”
There is a world of care and concern in Misraaks’ words, and deep grief for acts long past. It finds an answering ache in Osiris’ own chest, the pain of time and companionship lost to obsession. It had taken losing to free himself from its talons.
“Those impulses that the Witness uses as lures to manipulate people can be fed as surely by forbidding them as by seeking them out,” Osiris says carefully. “My works and writings being banned here did not loosen their grip on me. It merely pushed me further away from those I cared for. Those who were the best chance of drawing me out of those dangerous spirals.” He does not regret his work studying the Vex and the Darkness; they are a threat, and the flexibility to see the Darkness as a neutral force rather than an inherent evil has been useful. But now that he knows better what to look for, he can see a hundred paths where he faltered and allowed that obsession to destroy far more than himself. Far more than Sagira.
He leans over to place a hand on Misraak’s arm lightly, and meets the Kell’s eyes. “I am far from being a man with the greatest understanding of emotions and relationships with others,” he admits, and it is still uncomfortable to do so, but he is trying to be more open about these things, to better understand people, and allow them to understand him in turn, “but I do know that in the days preceding my exile, it was the lack of trust which truly drove me to anger.”
He is not certain if it is merely memory, or his new connection to the weave which allows him to recall those feelings so vividly. The bitterness that he had felt when his City, the place that he had given up so much to protect, had turned on him. The sick betrayal when the Speaker had ordered his writings destroyed, as if the time that they had spent together as mentor and student had meant nothing. It was the feeling of being suddenly… unknown. Misunderstood. Having motives and emotions assigned to him that were not his.
Another of those silences, and then Misraaks mutters something in Eliksni and shakes his head. “Trust. That lack seems to be much of what has caused this wedge between myself and Eido.”
“I have seen many futures in my time, and heard of others from friends, and in many of them, the factor that led to our downfall was lack of trust.” The dark futures that Elsie Bray had lived, and that Osiris had glimpsed in the Infinite Forest; the corruption of Ana Bray, the ascension of Eris to a force capable of controlling Savathûn, the countless fractal realities where Mara, or Ikora, or Rasputin fell to the influence of that insidious whisper, all had seemed to be at least hastened by a lack of trust.
He has no doubt that in the futures of his own that he had avoided, there is more than one where he faced the same fate. He is not so arrogant as to believe himself entirely beyond the influence of an entity which has had countless billions of years to hone its craft. But in this timeline at least he has evaded its notice. For the most part at least.
“You think that I should allow her to study the Darkness,” Misraaks says. He glances over towards another raised plaza, where his daughter sits, surrounded by many of the young Eliksni as she speaks.
“She is a Scribe,” Osiris says, following his gaze. “A scholar. I think that she will study what she wishes regardless of your blessing, but that blessing may go a way to restoring a portion of that trust between you.” The same way that Ikora’s recent visit to Neomuna, to study the Veil alongside him, has done much to mend their relationship, and he is glad for it.
“She has not needed my blessing for a long time,” Misraaks says. “She has grown up into herself and much of it has been her own work rather than my influence.”
“A thing can be desired, even if it is not necessary.”
“You are wise as ever,” Misraaks replies, and gives a huff of a laugh with it. “I would be honoured if you would teach her.”
“If she asks,” Osiris replies. Eido may not even seek tutelage. She is more than capable of studying on her own. “But it would also be my honour to teach her. I have rather discovered my taste for mentoring again recently.” He had forgotten how satisfying it can be. His exile and the misguided dedication of his cult had soured it for him for a long time. But now people seek him out once more to learn from him, not to obsessively take his words as objective truth. He thinks that Eido will be more than willing to challenge him, the same way that Ikora had been.
He hopes so.
“I have been speaking to Empress Caiatl’s people,” he adds, “teaching them about Stasis and Strand and the enemies that we face. It seems wise to ensure that the House of Light has access to such information as well. Eido is the person best set to ensure that information is preserved for the Eliksni.”
Misraaks nods, and gives another glance towards his daughter. “She will be the greatest of us, and our future. Even Eramis saw that, perhaps more clearly than I did. But I wish that I could have protected her for longer.”
“No mentor wishes for their student, their protégé, to bear such heavy burdens,” Osiris replies. Mara had said as much to him, had she not? Felwinter and Nirwen and the other Iron Lords who had taught him, they had hoped for a world of peace for him, as he had hoped that Ikora would never bear such burdens. Ana Bray had taught Rasputin so much in the hopes that he would outgrow his programming and have the opportunity to live as more than a weapon. Rohan had sacrificed himself, for Neomuna, yes, but also so that Nimbus might live on and have the opportunity to grow into their full potential. “I imagine it is much the same for a parent. But in the end, it is their choice what they choose to do, and who they become.”
And they do still have choices. They are not bound to the singular focus of the sword logic which carves away everything except itself. The Traveller had not raised unthinking weapons, but flawed individuals who might find their own paths.
Footsteps, familiar and well loved, and then another shadow falls over them for a second before Saint settles on the ground next to him. He takes Osiris’ hand in his own and where once Osiris would have pulled away out of some sense that he must keep this part of himself hidden, now instead he curls their fingers together. Saint beams at him.
“How do the pigeons fare, Saint?” Misraaks asks. “The hatchlings have become quite taken with them.”
“Very fat!” Saint says, and he sounds delighted. “They seem as taken by the children as the hatchlings are with them. It is good to see them thrive.”
“They are–” Misraaks grumbles in Eliksni and continues with a word that Osiris can only guess at a similar meaning for, “–(sacred) to the Saint. Some of the apprentices incorporate their patterns into their weaving.”
Osiris has seen some of the work, the way the banded patterns have started to show up.
“They are good birds,” Saint says, his optics flushing with a darker colour of gentle pleasure. “Very hardy. Good at surviving. They represent humans well, and now I think they represent Eliksni well.”
“They will be too fat to fly soon, with the rate at which they are being fed,” Osiris says dryly.
Saint snorts. “They have had hard lives. They deserve to be spoiled. To live comfortably. And to eat all the seeds they wish.”
“Will you eat with us today?” Misraaks asks. He gestures out to one of the communal spaces where more rugs and cloths are being laid out for the shared meal. It reminds Osiris of the early days of the City, when every space had been shared. Of the Iron Temple where meals had been taken in the hall, all of them together. Another thing that he had often found uncomfortable when he had been there, but now finds himself thinking on with wistful fondness.
Saint looks at him, knowing that he can find these things overwhelming, and he tires more easily now. He loves this man and his care, his consideration. Regrets the times when he had found it stifling, the time when he had run away. But that is in the past and now he savours these moments, their connection. Saint’s trust.
And it would be pleasant, he thinks, to take food with his people once more. “I would be honoured,” he says. “The Light provides.”