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Chapter Text

A blinding flash pushed into his eyes. The pain was instant.

It overwhelmed his entire body to the point of fainting. He struggled to stay on his feet.

Hot blood streamed down his face as he wailed. He flailed his arms, to push away the pain, or to grab hold of someone for help, but there was nothing. No one within reach.

The noises flared all around him. Vague sounds of the howling wind and the sand battering tall structures. He went down to his knees and heard sizzling and mechanical ticks and clicks.

On the floor, with his face covered and unable to stop bleeding, he could no longer see. He dropped to the ground and felt sand on his face. It hadn’t been there before.

A haunting song played in the distance, through the sand and the wind, the pitch spiralling downwards as a warning. 

In complete confusion, tears mixed with blood and desperate cries for help, Vance lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

Vance woke up in a bed that smelled of fresh cleaning. Disoriented, with a headache, he tried his hardest to open his eyes and see his surroundings, but he could not. Stinging flared inside of his head, causing him to curse. He touched his forehead and found the rough and tightened bandages. Panic set deep in his heart, his breath quickening.

As if a lightning bolt had struck him, he jolted up in bed, breathing heavily. What happened? He remembered the pain. Only pain and then darkness. Everything shut down in an instant. The world ended.

And now he is in bed. I must’ve died. This must be what death felt like. He read many a thanatonautic experience and this matched all of them. I must’ve died and I was resurrected by a Ghost.

He swung his arm and hit something on the side of the bed. Sound of plastic hitting the floor, and of liquid spilling. He pulled the sheets trying to slide out of the bed, trying to find the edge and the floor, trying to stand and walk. But his Ghost should be by his side. That’s how it goes. His Ghost should be here to tell him everything.

His Ghost should be here to heal him.

Pain pierced his head as he tried to move. Vance abandoned the attempt to leave the bed, at least for now. He had to wait. His Ghost will show up. It mustn’t be too far. Perhaps it is talking to a doctor. Perhaps there was something that the Ghost didn’t want to mess with. Perhaps…

The Vex. Of course. His memory unwound through the pain and darkness. One of the last sounds he heard was mechanical ticking; he must’ve been hurt by the Vex. A Ghost may be afraid to get in contact with the radiolaria. Vance knew of the stories. Radiolaria remained one of the few substances that could harm Lightbearers. It was a good choice by his Ghost, to check its chosen for radiolaria before coming in further contact.

A door opening. “Hello?” Vance tried.

“You’re awake! Please lay back down,” a female voice replied. Sound of a slipper stepping in water. Plastic clattering across the floor. “Oh, you’ve tried moving. Please stand still.”

“Who brought me here?”

A person nearby started fussing with equipment next to him. He could hear indecipherable clinking, buttons and switches. A datapad chime. Vance startled from the telltale sensation of a needle entering the skin of his forearm.

“Two people brought you in. I need to put you back under for an additional surgery.”

“Two… people?” Vance was already groggy. “Where’s my… My Ghost?”

Silence. Footsteps. A voice further away. “Just relax now, okay?”

***

Vance woke up in a bed that smelled of fresh cleaning. His head was heavy. He lifted his arm except his arm didn’t move. There were voices nearby.

He was still groggy and disoriented. The voices merged together. Something about injury and additional surgery. Something about scarring. He tried to reach out but could not actually move. He was thirsty but could not find water, or speak.

He fell under again.

***

Vance woke up in a bed that smelled of fresh cleaning. Surprisingly clear-minded, he immediately reached out to the side and hit something with his fingers. Plastic clattered onto the floor, liquid spilling.

His Ghost should’ve showed up by now. “Hello?”

No reply. Worry settled in his chest. What about at least the people that brought him in? He remembered being told there were two of them. Did someone else get hurt as well?

A door opening. Footsteps coming closer. Vance instinctively turned his head towards the noise. “Lay back down, please. Oh you spilled it again. Never mind, don’t worry about it.”

“Where are the people who brought me here?” Vance asked. His voice was hoarse.

Brief silence. “They’ve left.”

“Left?”

“Yes. They dropped you off and left. We tried asking them for their names and contacts, but they refused.”

Vance sank into the bed. “Was anyone else brought with me?”

“I’m afraid not,” the woman, who he assumed was a doctor, answered. “I would like to know more about the nature of your injury.”

Vance barely heard the question. Anxiety washed over him, his chest beating with shallow breaths as he tried to understand. “My Ghost?”

“I’m sorry?”

His voice cracked as he asked again. “My Ghost?”

Longer silence. Datapad chime. Buttons. “I’m afraid I’ve not seen a Ghost around you.” Plastic picked up, liquid being mopped. “Has your Ghost been in an accident as well?”

Vance felt an increase in stinging behind the bandage. He could not stop trying to blink tears away, but instead of tears, there was just pain. “N-no… No. I don’t think… I didn’t have one. Before. But I should…”

Even longer silence. Various sounds of the garbage bin. New plastic unpacked and liquid being poured. A hand reaching out for his. Vance flinched.

“I’m sorry but I have not seen a Ghost. If you’re sure about it, I could ask around. For now, take some water,” the doctor said.

She found his hand again, slower this time. She placed a cup into his palm and helped him with the grip. Vance moved it closer, bumped it into his nose and spilled a few drops. The doctor reached out again and guided the cup to his mouth.

Vance drank, his breath slowing down as he leaned back into the bed. He fell asleep in the dark.

Chapter Text

Dola San was in orbit of Mercury when the Light went out. A blast from within expunged a small, simple particle that engulfed the cockpit of her ship. She briefly lost her breath and watched a puff of translucent gas evaporate around her.

She retained enough sense of self to pull on the brakes and slow down, settling in the orbit of the planet beneath her. Only white noise and the emptiness of space surrounded her. She knew instinctively what had happened, but could not bear to say it. Or to think it. And yet, her body understood. The weight of mortality recognisable even to those that knew nothing of it.

“The Light. It’s gone,” she heard her Ghost, Mora.

“The Traveler?”

“I’m trying to patch into the Ghost network. It’s not working,” Mora replied. “Neither is the Vanguard network. Whatever happened, it’s bad.”

Dola considered her position. Whatever went down on Earth, she was almost 50 million miles away. There were no other ships in her vicinity. Perhaps she could land on Mercury, hide, and attempt to establish communication with someone. Find out what happened. 

But first, running full diagnostics on the ship and perhaps even on herself. It took several hours to wrestle with all systems in the small cockpit to make sure nothing got damaged. And to make absolutely sure that the Light is truly gone. Dola tried conjuring a small grenade. Nothing happened.

Two smaller ships zipped to Mercury, at least according to her sensors. The planet was a natural choice to hide on. It motivated her to get down there as soon as possible.

“Ready to land?” Mora asked.

“We’ll land. If nothing else, the Cult has a settlement down there.”

“If you could call it that.”

Dola got the engines back up. “Better than nothing.”

As the engines roared back to life, a shadow appeared. The ship’s instruments flared with nonsensical readings. Outside of the window, it was darker than it used to be. A sudden gravitational pull yanked the ship out of its planned course. Its engines rendered useless as they no longer propelled forward. 

Something was pulling the ship. Something big. Except nothing that big could’ve suddenly appeared in the orbit of Mercury.

Dola tried to see from her cockpit window, struggling with the controls to keep her ship steady, but it wouldn’t budge. It entered a gravity well of an object big enough to have its own. A large shadow grew bigger.

“Hold the controls!” Dola yelled at her Ghost and squeezed out of her seat.

“That’s not safe and you know it!”

Mora obeyed as always and Dola donned her helmet, pressurised her suit and opened the hatch on her ship. She had to see what was pulling her. She had to know how she would die her final death.

An enormous sphere was the only thing in her field of vision. It eclipsed the Sun. Dola peeked further out of the hatch and saw long horizontal structures attached to the sphere in the middle. The gargantuan object was a ship, that much she could tell, but its size was incomparable to anything she’d ever seen. Except perhaps the monster lingering in Saturn’s rings. Dola could not make that judgement in the moment; the massive ship was her entire world.

“It’s still pulling us in!” Mora reminded her Guardian.

Dola struggled to return to the ship, fiddling with the hatch, still stuck on the outside.

And then the intruder fired.

A beam of blinding plasma shot directly into the Sun. On the other side of the sphere, a massive machine turned on in perfect silence. When the first piece of debris spiralled from Mercury towards the machine, Dola stood and watched, petrified.

When more pieces followed, she finally returned to the ship and re-established the life support system. Mercury was in the process of being ground into pieces of rock, syphoned into the monster so large that it distorted gravity with its arrival and her ship was now a part of Mercury’s orbit. She will be pulled into the machine and she will become a tiny speck of fuel for the monstrosity that is shooting the Sun. 

“We have to get out of here,” Dola said upon her return.

As much as a Ghost can sigh in exasperation, Mora did. “This is very much not news to me! But we’re stuck! We don’t have enough power!”

“NLS jump?”

“If any of the systems worked, I would have tried already. Something is frying all our electronics. They’re in and out. If I try and we lose power mid-jump, I genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen. What is going on out there?”

“That thing is eating the whole planet. We need to leave.”

The systems began blaring all sorts of alarms; the last thing they needed in this panic. Dola tried wrestling with any of the controls that might still work to get them out of there. NLS signalled an alarming note telling her it's fried. The engine’s core dropped another tone, and then another for proximity warning.

When the next tone sounded off, Dola no longer looked at the panels. She no longer looked at anything. She no longer had the ability to look, but strangely she did not feel pain. There was another tone and then a drop. And after a drop there was a song; of metal and sand, of the past and future. Dola was in freefall and at the same time she floated in the eye of the storm. Beneath, there was a tower, flooding with a sizzling white liquid. The sound of waves crashing against the shores of silica followed the tune of the song.

Something within the song responded, |ancient| distant. Sorrowful, |vengeful| voices joined |the chorus of| the song. And that was the end |of all things|.

Chapter Text

People were still outside when an unknown vessel appeared in orbit. The sand kicked up into the air, the storm drowning other noises. Voices rushed people inside. Heavy protective panels began rising to shield the Lighthouse and the rooms inside from the damage. 

Brother Vance listened. For those stranded, for those that might be late. And for those that might've died. Large rocks were being detached from the ground, as if the whole planet had suddenly entered freefall. Even the Vex voiced their displeasure, ticking and beeping in confusion as radiolaria swirled nearby.  

Pieces of the earth slammed into each other and the storm raged on. Crashing noises overwhelmed Vance. Others have described the unknown vessel to him; if there'd been any ships in orbit when it appeared, they were either swept into the machine or they crashed. He listened for the latter; each crash could mean a new note in the song. 

He heard many disturbing sounds coming from the surface, one of which must’ve been a crash, but there was nothing to be done. Nothing he could do. They would look for survivors later, if there were any. The Lighthouse was almost sealed. Vance waited as the panels screeched against the winds and stone. Seconds passed.  

The Lighthouse played a tone of death. 

"Wait!" Vance exclaimed. 

There was a beep and a mechanical tick. Not Vex. Definitely not Exo. A telltale noise of a Ghost. 

The panels stopped as the storm pelted the structure, but Vance held out his hand and a Ghost landed into his palm. Surprisingly heavy. 

"Please, my Guardian's ship crashed! I think she's injured. I healed what I could but she's not responding!" 

Vance waved and heard footsteps rushing out. He wanted to follow but he would only slow them down. Instead, he moved further into the sanctuary, away from the door. Not thirty seconds later, footsteps returned, hurried, followed by voices whispering. Concerned. 

"The Light is gone,” the Ghost said. Vance tilted his head towards the voice of the little drone.  

“We will try to resuscitate the old-fashioned way, but if that doesn't work…" someone from the crowd said. 

"I am not losing my Guardian today!" the Ghost replied. 

Vance listened to the frantic sounds of armour unclasping and then the rhythmic pounding on a person's chest. The panels clicked in place, drowning out the noise of the rocks, debris and the sandstorm. He moved closer to where the crowd was trying to revive a Guardian. A Ghost hovered near his head. 

A sudden cough and gasp. Relief of the crowd. 

"Dola?! Can you hear me?" the Ghost zipped past Vance. 

"Where… What happened…" he heard a female voice respond, slurring words. 

"We crashed, but we're safe now."

Vance moved closer when he heard a person stumbling up from the floor. "Welcome to the Lighthouse. The followers of Osiris greet you."

Murmurs, then silence. A distinct digitised voice of a Ghost spoke first. 

"My Guardian needs some space."

"I heard it," the Guardian said. 

Silence. Vance instinctively turned towards the person who said that. The Guardian he heard called Dola, to his understanding, had died in the crash, but was brought back. Not by a Ghost, but by the quick actions of her rescuers who managed to restart her heart just in time. 

That explained it. 

The tone played by the Lighthouse. It was different again. A Guardian had died what had to have been a final death, but she was revived. Not with Light: the tone was sharp, longer. Vance could not record it nor could he log his findings, not right now, not immediately. It would have to wait and it pained him to postpone it. The tones were so much harder to describe and replicate the longer it passed before he could write them down. And without a recording… The tone would be lost forever. Forever a missing note. 

"I heard a song. I heard them," Dola added, alerting Vance back to her presence. 

"You should rest now first," the Ghost replied. 

Vance approached. "I apologise, but I must ask. What did you hear?" 

"The end of all things."

Chapter Text

Dola woke up from a restless, dreamless sleep. She was in a dimly lit room and all she could see were orange and brown hues of the bookshelves and rugs. The bed was hard and rough, made of the same materials as the shelves. A headache overwhelmed her when she moved and put her feet on the floor, sitting back. 

A crumpled piece of cloth with black-and-yellow insignia lingered nearby on the floor, as if it had fallen from the wall recently. An eye with resonant ellipses stared at her from the mess on the floor. She fixated on it for what seemed like an eternity. In her mind, a distorted song repeated over and over, growing fainter every time. 

“Mora?” she called for her Ghost.

The door flung open and her Ghost dashed towards her. A sense of relief flooded her body at the sight of the little drone. But Mora wasn’t alone. Following her, there came a man in robes of black and yellow, with a hood over his head and a blindfold over his eyes. 

A distant memory of a small sanctuary in the Reef returned to Dola. A memory of buying tickets for a tournament and a memory of a black and yellow robe. And of a blindfold.

“You can’t even imagine how happy I am to see you’ve made it. It was a miracle,” Mora spoke right away, flying into Dola’s arms. “We crashed nearly onto the Lighthouse. The people hiding here with the Cult rushed out and got you out fast. We were so lucky to crash where we did. Without being brought back to the Lighthouse and without these people to help…”

“What happened to me?” Dola asked.

“You died,” the man with the blindfold answered tactlessly. “Only briefly. We were able to resuscitate you. I did not even think it possible, not for a Guardian without Light.”

Dola stared at him, confused. It took her a moment to realise that he would not understand why she’s silent. He could not see the frown on her face, nor the way she tensed up. 

“I am Brother Vance, the custodian of the Lighthouse and leader of the followers of Osiris,” he said following the silence. “I heard your crash, and your Ghost.”

“He was the first I ran into to ask for help,” Mora added. 

Dola remained silent. She looked around the room again. Bookshelves filled with dusty books and scrolls. A lectern with charts. Leaned on it, a stringed instrument. Supply crates and old pillows and rolled up rugs and the banner of the Cult, looking back at her with the iris of gold and the ellipses of resonance. The song was fading out of her memory. 

“Thank you. What is going on out there?” Dola managed to regain enough strength to ask. 

Vance moved towards a chair slowly, but confidently. Dola assumed this was his room by the way he knew exactly where the chair was. “The system was invaded by the Red Legion of the Cabal. The Last City has fallen and the Traveler has been suppressed in some manner. We heard reports of a cage being deployed around it. We’ve not heard anything since. Communications are down.”

“There has to be a ship that can fly out of here. We have to go and help,” Mora said. “We should contact the Vanguard and regroup with the others!”

“All Guardians are Lightless,” Vance replied, as if the duo in the room with him could have possibly forgotten. “If anything were to happen to either of you…”

“We know. But we are still Guardians. We have to help, we’re the only ones that can!” Mora insisted. 

“I believe it would be wiser to–” 

“I don’t care what you believe is wiser!” Mora snapped. “Our friends are dying out there! My friends! Every Ghost shattered is an irreplaceable loss! And you just want us to stay here to ask her about the stupid tones!”

Dola tuned back into the conversation. She turned to her Ghost and then to Vance. Both of them went silent; Mora zipped over towards her Guardian and Vance remained seated in place, arms clasped in his lap. 

“Tones?” Dola asked. 

“When we brought you back, you mentioned something about hearing a song,” Vance said and Mora huffed in exasperation. “Do you remember it? The song?”

Dola could still hear it, but even fainter than ever before. “Barely. It’s fading. But I heard it. I heard a song. What is it?”

The man in front of her hesitated and shifted in his seat, as if going through some inner battle. Perhaps debating whether he should explain this mystery to her, or not. It was beyond clear that he had a lot to say when he took a deep breath.

“It is the song of the Lighthouses that reacts to death. You heard it because you died. And you are the only one who has heard it that way! I cannot even count how many thanatonautic trials we’ve performed and none of the Warlocks were able to report the tones back to me,” Vance said, standing up from his chair, approaching closer and closer to Dola with each sentence. “None can hear the tones, except me. All of our Trials matches were dedicated to my research of these tones. They are vital to our understanding of the Lighthouses and of the Light and Darkness! Of life and death!”

He stood in front of her, looking somewhere over her shoulder. Dola could barely see his face in the dimly lit room and beneath the hood, but she definitely saw a smile, excited, eager. At the edges of the blindfold, faint scars; lines of damage hidden away by the cloth. 

“Guardians are here to fight and protect us. You want to get back and reclaim the Last City. I understand. But before you depart, may I at least know of what you’ve heard? If you could describe it to me, in any way you can?” he asked, pleading with curiosity and desperation. “My studies and the studies of the prophecies of Osiris could help you understand what happened to you and what’s to come. You’re a miracle of the sort we’ve never had before! There is so much research that could be done! We must not squander this opportunity.”

The medallion around Vance’s neck stretched down to his chest from which an eye watched Dola’s every move. She was mesmerised by the shiny centre of the iris. Resonant pulses of light spiralled away from it. Or so she thought. 

“Thank you for your interest in studying my Guardian, but we will need to leave as soon as she is feeling better. And I would politely ask for you to find us a way to establish communication with the outside,” Mora replied instead.

“You must stay and give me a chance to extract any information relevant to my studies,” Vance insisted. 

“We must? No we don’t. We are leaving,” Mora continued, moving in between Dola and Vance, replacing the light of the pendant with her own.

It snapped Dola out of the trance. She snatched her Ghost out of the air and moved her to the side. “We will not be leaving.”

“Yes, not right away, but–” Mora tried, but Dola raised her hand.

“We will not be leaving,” she repeated. “I heard more than a tone. I heard… A symphony. Orchestra? Chorus? I heard things that are coming. We are being watched by a million eyes. The Red Legion are not our concern. We have to prepare for what’s to come after.”

Mora returned to her previous position between Dola and Vance, getting close to Dola’s face, blinking and moving her flaps erratically in irritation. “You need some rest and then you’ll feel better.”

“I feel fine. I know what I heard and what I saw. Vance is correct. There is research to be done. And if the prophecies of Osiris are as fabled as people claim, then they hold the answers to what I’ve seen.”

“I really think you need to rest,” Mora said, with defeat in her voice.

“On the contrary. These people saved our lives and we will stay here to defend them, and the Lighthouse. I can only assume that the giant spaceship we saw in orbit that is literally grinding Mercury into pieces is also from the Red Legion. If that is the case, then we will have to defend this position. And with communications down, we’re the only ones here. I’m sure the Vanguard would prefer it if Mercury did not fall into enemy hands.”

Mora deflated in her spot between her Guardian and Brother Vance, then decompiled away. Dola would argue with her later for sure, but now she needed to speak of the song before it faded completely.

Chapter Text

Brother Vance stood by his lectern, running his fingers over a sheet of paper and dictating into his datapad. Pacing behind him, was a Lightless Guardian called Dola San. Frustrated with her own memory, she sighed and cursed as she tried remembering the tones she’d heard in the moment of her death. However brief that death was, it was invaluable. Dola was the only person who had heard the tones besides him. And she heard them first-hand, from her own death, in her own death, in that state between.

Vance once believed he’d experienced that state as well. He’d believed that a Ghost would land in his palm and tell him of his new birth. Only later did he realise that had he truly died and had been resurrected, he would not have known his own name. Or anything else. Still, the prospect held him in a state of both delusion and hope for years. That perhaps a Ghost would eventually appear. 

No such thing happened until a distraught Ghost of Dola San landed into his palm and told him a Guardian was in need of help. 

He’d not heard Mora ever since she decompiled away when Dola decided not to leave Mercury to join the fight against the Red Legion. He wondered about a relationship between a Ghost and Guardian in the two weeks since. An old hope, or delusion, resurfaced, however briefly. That perhaps his Ghost was angry and refused to return. 

No. He did not die and he did not have a Ghost. He had a Guardian he shared an ability with: to hear the illusive tones of the Lighthouses that signalled death. Why just him and her? There was nothing they shared. 

For a start, she was a Guardian, although Lightless at the moment. He heard her fiddling with knives and when she asked for new gear, as hers had been damaged or destroyed in the crash, she asked for a cloak first which told him she’s a Hunter. A sting of disappointment sparked in Vance; why not a Warlock? But he should not be picky. 

She did not speak of the Light otherwise which he attributed to the shock of losing it. He provided her with the gear they had stored from other Hunters and from rewards they would give to participants in Trials. Vance could hear her shuffling through the items for a long time. He did not know what she picked. 

Vance quickly surmised she was Awoken. He’d spent time in the Reef and the Reefborn Awoken accent was unmistakable. Paired with how she ended up in the orbit of Mercury in the middle of the Almighty’s arrival, it made sense to him. The Awoken were creatures of space. Dola only said that she had been out patrolling, but he could hear in her voice the way she described space. All alone in the vastness of the dark, with nothing but the canvas of stars, that’s the only place where we are truly free. She phrased it differently, of course. Vance added the poetry to her crude words as he wrote his assessment.

She was an expert in combat, but needed guidance and teaching in all things about the prophecies and the followers of Osiris so she had clearly never before considered, let alone studied them. In the field, scouting on the surface of Mercury to repel an occasional influx of the Vex or Cabal spies, Vance could only ever count one or two bullets fired, meaning that she did not miss. He’d heard Guardians like that in his Trials and those were the ones that climbed to the top of the Lighthouse each week. 

So why could she hear those tones? Why her? She was no scholar, she had never had an interest in the Lighthouses or the prophecies of Osiris or Mercury in particular. No special information on the Vex or their technology either. Not even an inclination to music; an element of the Guardian that Vance was particularly frustrated with as she was useless in trying to describe the tones. She was a Hunter who loved exploring space and enjoying good combat; completely unremarkable. 

Why was she the one to receive the front seat to the most important concert of all time? 

It was strange because, as Vance soon realised, she did not just hear a tone or two. She heard the whole song. Dola kept talking of the voices in the song and the arrival of those that played it. Of the end of all things. Vance knew that she had tapped into something deeper, something he could never reach and never test himself. 

She heard the source. She heard the start of the song and the crescendo and the conclusion. 

Vance hypothesised based on the crash site of her ship that when she flew directly over the Lighthouse, the Lighthouse reacted in the moment of her death and pulled her in, dragged her down to the surface. This both crashed her ship and saved her from being pulled into the Almighty’s core. Naturally, this would tune her into the exact frequency to hear the song, helped by the state of her consciousness; a Lightless death. 

Replicating this event would be impossible, Vance concluded. There was no other explanation for why she was chosen; it was a mere extraordinary circumstance, just like his insight into the notes played by the Lighthouse when the Light was snuffed out and a Guardian perished in his Trials. Coincidences, both events, that fell into his hands as a terrible gift from the violent invaders that sought to destroy the entire system. 

Osiris needed to know about this. Vance was the only one who could document it and preserve it and present it when the great teacher returns from his ordeals. 

But this must also remain a secret. Dola’s words were upsetting even to Vance and he had become accustomed to the prophecies of the coming end. If her words were to spread, it would not only cause additional panic at the time of an ugly cage holding the Traveler tight in its embrace, it would cast an additional suspicion onto the followers. 

They were already exiled, not in the good graces of anyone in the Last City. They cannot return with half-baked prophecies of doom. Dola’s words need to be researched, documented, tested, proven and packaged in a way that even the biggest sceptic would accept. 

Not even the great Osiris managed that, so what hope there was for Vance? 

Perhaps Vance’s hope was the Guardian pacing behind him. The Guardian that has heard the source, something missing even in the prophecies. If he could decipher her message, if she could remember enough for him to understand, if he could transcribe it, analyse it… 

There was much work to be done and it was so fortunate that the system was in lockdown. No one to bother them besides some Vex and the few Cabal which Dola could deal with even without the Light. As grim as it was, Vance believed this attack brought so much good for his research and for the protection of humanity in the future. 

If only Dola could remember it all.

Chapter Text

A month of tossing and turning in an unfamiliar bed, sleepless nights and sleep filled with nightmares, then waking hours filled with frustrating attempts to extract something from memory that was not there anymore. Something fading, more and more each day. Dola’s days on Mercury in lockdown were hell and not because of the scorching surface of a planet being syphoned away by a monstrosity on the horizon. 

She’d never read the prophecies before. Vance had provided her with all of the tomes, but her reading went by slowly. Random passages would send her into a frantic memory spiral, she would run to Vance who would try to transcribe the music from her feeble attempts to replicate it, only for it all to be met with failure. As much as she thought she replicated them perfectly, Vance’s reaction proved otherwise. 

She would listen to his frustrated chastising whenever she failed to provide answers, alongside watching him wince and frown every time she tried recreating the song. He’d tried teaching her music and had not been shy telling her how bad she was. Worst he’d ever heard, to be exact. It was apparently so bad sometimes that it caused him genuine distress. Dola stopped trying to touch any kind of music. 

But the words in those tomes stuck. Texts of the past and the future, of things that have come to pass and things that have yet to happen compelled her in a way she never thought of before. She’d heard of the Cult of Osiris. Everyone had. She even played in the Trials a few times. The Cult’s messages meant nothing to her then. 

Now, she understood. She understood what Osiris meant to say, what he needed to tell everyone. There are timelines so dark and so unforgiving. There are futures where no one remains. Futures where the only glorious victory is that of their enemies. Worst of all, there is a future in which those million watching eyes arrive to their system on a great wave of knives. Dola has heard the song that told of their coming. 

She just couldn’t remember it all. 

She tried to tap it with her fingers and to hum it with her voice and even to play it with a stringed instrument Vance gave her, but nothing worked; music was beyond her. Vance understood music so he was able to provide her with possible notes that might’ve fit what she’d heard, but the combinations were rarely correct. 

There were tones that Dola knew she remembered, but only if they played again, so Vance had to guess them and then arrange them properly. Their order was most often wrong and the song did not play as it did in the moment of her death. In her death, she became a vessel for it, and in her life the vessel overflowed, pushing the contents she needed out. 

Their research will certainly take a tremendous amount of time. 

In her wildest moments, she suggested trying to replicate the incident, which drew Mora out for the first time in weeks.

“We know I can be resuscitated. It doesn’t have to be a serious injury,” Dola said, standing in the room provided for her, similar to all the other rooms, just smaller. 

“No. You cannot do this,” Mora replied. “Please think about what you’re suggesting. We still don’t have the Light back.”

Dola paced between the bookshelves, a tome in her hand. Mora observed her Guardian; practical and simple brown leather armour replaced by black-and-yellow garments of the Cult. On her chest piece, there was a bright blue triangle and on her back a cloak mimicking the hood worn by the followers. 

Instead of a gun, in her hands there was a book. Piles of papers filled with notes sprawled all over the table and the bed and even the floor. Dola was unrecognisable to her Ghost. She used to be surrounded by people, switching fireteams often, enjoying her time in the universe doing simple things, and seeking a new partner every few weeks. 

Now, she sat in a dusty room reading scrolls and only talking to a leader of a cult. 

Her Guardian stared at Mora with vacant eyes, the Awoken glow glistening on her skin. 

“We could try…” Dola said again.

“Don’t leave me alone,” Mora replied. “You are my Chosen. I can’t bear to lose you to this after you survived the impossible.”

Dola sighed, going back to pacing like a caged animal. “I only survived because of the Lighthouse. Because of the Cult.”

“You survived because you were given medical attention.”

“You don’t understand what I’ve seen.”

“Whatever it is, at least wait until we get the Light back.”

Dola slammed the tome closed and threw it on her bed with such ferocity that Mora flinched in the air and backed away. “We’re never getting the Light back! Get used to it. There is nothing else for us except to commit to understanding what I’ve seen and maybe that will help humanity in the future.”

Mora recovered and hovered closer. “You will not understand anything by killing yourself for it. If he suggested this, I swear–”

“What? No, Vance didn’t suggest this. He was just telling me about the tests he did with thanatonauts.”

“And they all failed.”

Dola waved her hand, frantically looking around until she found a stack of papers, then sat at her desk. “Whatever. I won’t jump off the Lighthouse any time soon. No need to worry.”

“I have to worry.”

“Don’t. Leave me now, I need to continue taking notes.”

Mora obliged and Dola realised that her Ghost would not be supportive in this endeavour. She couldn’t; she did not hear or see what Dola had heard and seen. There was no one else who had. Only one person has heard a fraction of what she’d heard. And only one person could connect these dots and he was gone, possibly forever. The only thing that remained were the prophecies he left behind and a man who spent years studying them.

Chapter Text

“When will you share with the others what we’ve discovered?” Dola asked Vance as they both hunched over a desk. 

“When we can prove it,” Vance replied. 

“We have more than enough and I can vouch for everything. This is bigger than just us. It has to be shared.”

“Do you know what it means?” he asked. Dola simply waited. “Guardians are vessels for both Light and Dark. Your Queen has confirmed it so. And she advised me to keep it a secret. For now, I will.”

“It’s more than just that,” Dola said. She could feel it. “There is something else. The Lighthouses were made by the Vex. So why can they detect what the Guardians are vessels for? They can’t work with paracausality. Something else had its hands in their creation and I heard the song of its arrival.”

Vance considered this, tilting his head. Dola could not decipher him, but she could tell that her opinions were aligning with his. For the most part, he'd been a wall and everything she did or said bounced off him. Dola could not say or comment on anything without being met with either a stern rebuttal or an annoyed sigh. Things improved once she accepted to read Osiris’ work, but Vance still instinctively scolded or rejected her attempts to ask for help or any sort of explanation. She felt like her presence itself was grating on him. 

Now, the more engaged she became with the teachings, the more receptive to her presence he'd become. She’d noticed it before, the first time he asked her about what she'd read and her reply was full of enthusiastic analysis. She could see his face lighten up and absorb her words with a sort of intensity she’d not seen on anyone else before. As if her words opened up some sort of a new worldview. 

His passion for the studies reflected on her in turn, motivating her to keep going and do better; offering theories and explanations that fueled them both in a feedback loop. Dola could no longer imagine her life without the studies. Once she experienced the joy of reading and the effect it had on Vance, she could no longer stop. When before he had been annoyed at her lack of knowledge, now that she had it, he responded to it with that intensity. Dola became dependent on it. It was a way to help, now that she could not help with her Light.

Nothing else mattered anymore.

It seemed her words clicked again. “Its return, better said perhaps. It is, after all, what the teacher has always claimed,” he offered.

“That means we have the proof. If we act now, we can warn everyone. Prepare.”

Vance sighed and leaned back into his chair. Dola backed away when he reached for a datapad; at this point there was almost a predictive quality to his movement and her Hunter reflexes made sure she would not be in his way. She didn’t want to cause him to bump into her or trip. 

“You don’t understand how we’re perceived,” Vance said. “We are all zealots and fanatics to the outsiders. They even exiled the great teacher! They read his prophecies and declared them mad. What could we possibly say to change their mind if Osiris could not?”

Vance set the datapad on the desk and let it play: documents from the past about the dangers of Osiris and his research, public records of Consensus meetings declaring the prophecies forbidden, the trial in which Osiris was formally exiled, recordings of official Vanguard opinions on the followers and their messages. A cacophony of misunderstandings, lies, hate and refusal to let the dogmas be challenged. 

“What you have to say will invigorate the followers, but our eagerness to help humanity will not be rewarded,” he said after the recordings finished. “There will be members who will say as you say and want as you want. For us to rush to the City and tell everyone. We can’t do that. Not yet. The City is not ready for us. They never have been. We need to have a presentable theory that can’t be challenged or dismissed. And, if luck would have it, we need Osiris to return to us.”

“But he vanished into the Infinite Forest. And with the Light gone out…” Dola mused, looking out of the thick glass towards a bright blue triangle etched into a structure of stone. 

“I have no doubts about his survival. He is alive and well. He is simply waiting for an opportune moment to return.”

Vance reached out to place the datapad back to its position when his arm bumped into Dola. He felt her grip on his elbow. 

“Have you thought of going in there to look for him?” she asked, a new idea sparking in her head. 

The Infinite Forest had been his silent obsession for years. A place where one could simulate any reality and live lifetimes through them. The only way for a mortal like him to experience more than the time he had. 

It was undoubtedly a dangerous place, and sacred. Only Osiris was permitted entry and only he had earned it. Nobody else could go there and live to tell the tale. As much as he longed to experience the Forest, he knew, instinctively, that he was not worthy. 

His mind buckled under vivid imagery of pain and blood and mechanical ticks and sand on his face. The Infinite Forest cast its ward in the form of his worst memory. 

As if burned, Vance shook his arm out of her grip. “No.”

Dola could not predict his movement anymore. Vance stood sharply, the chair pushed into Dola by accident. The desk shook and a book clattered to the floor. Dola moved out of the way and watched as Vance picked up the remaining books in a hurry, stacking them one on top of the other in the wrong order. When he kneeled down to find the book that fell, Dola slithered around him and snatched it first as he started reaching out in a wrong spot. It became second nature to help him; she could not bear to watch him struggle with things she could do easier.

“I’ll put these back on the shelves,” she told him. 

“Good. Make sure they're in their proper place this time,” Vance replied, head bent. 

He turned to leave the study and retreat towards his room. At least that’s what Dola assumed he would do. He would usually not go back to his room for hours in which they would go over their notes on the prophecies together. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, looking at his back as he was walking away. 

He briefly paused. “Simply tired. I will stop for the day.”

With that, he departed from the study. The large room was now empty and hollow. No pages being turned, no hasty debate about the meanings of the texts. She’d gotten used to it all, in a way she never expected to. She didn’t know what to do without it anymore. Dola looked through the glass again.

The Almighty still hung in the sky. The bright blue triangle sizzled in the structure of stone. And the song has almost completely faded away.

Chapter Text

Dola found Vance in the study early in the morning, but did not approach. He was tapping the desk, then humming, then dictating notes into his datapad. Dola did not want to disturb him. She sneaked away and left to scout their surroundings. The Vex have been acting out recently and more Cabal ships flew above their heads. It would be in everyone’s favour to thin the herd, as she liked to call her expeditions outside. 

Hand cannons always felt the natural choice for Dola, so she held two. But today she lay on top of the Lighthouse with a heavy sniper rifle mounted in front of her. Through the scope, every angle that could threaten the Lighthouse settlement was revealed. To her left, several Vex Hobgoblins and a Minotaur were building a conflux. 

Dola zoomed in, adjusted the angle and fired. A bullet pierced through a Minotaur’s abdomen, spilling the radiolaria and killing the frame instantly. The Hobgoblins turned, trying to locate the shooter, but unable to detect Dola before she did the same to them all. 

With a heavy click, she reloaded, spent cartridges littering the floor around her. Above her, there was a noise reminiscent of a ship, which now needed her attention. A pile of metal with smoke coming out of its engine whirled through the sky. Definitely a Cabal ship. She tried to position to zoom in on it, but it spiralled out of control so quickly that Dola had to slide off the top of the Lighthouse to a lower block of ground as the ship clipped the roof. 

Flames and smoke billowing above her head and from the Cabal ship, she realised her attention was not needed after all. The ship had been shot down and would certainly crash. Dola slid to a lower block and then to another and another until she reached the upper entry to the Lighthouse. 

A massive explosion sounded off to her right as the Cabal ship crashed into the ground, ploughing through the sand and through several Vex frames until it reached the edge of the platform and tipped over, falling further into the chasm of Mercury. 

Serves them right, Dola thought. 

She stood on the lower ledge of the Lighthouse; not as good of a vantage point as on the top, but still high enough to see around. There were no other enemies anywhere near the settlement. She wondered who shot down this one vessel. Maybe she could do another pass on her surroundings before what they called “night” here. 

Dola stowed the sniper rifle when a blast of Light hit her, passed through her and continued on over the planet and beyond. Out of breath and stumbling, she almost slipped and fell, but in the past months she had learned to be more careful; there was no way out of a long fall without the Light. 

But it was the Light that hit her. It had to have been. There was a warmth deep inside of her. The weight of mortality lifted. Dola’s ears buzzed with static as she frantically looked around, stunned into silence. Mora compiled into existence before her eyes.

“Was that… It was. I can feel it. I can feel it, Dola!” her Ghost yelled in excitement. 

Dola’s arm engulfed in flames. A molten grenade formed in her palm, spitting droplets of fire. She threw it off the Lighthouse and it fell in the sand where it continued to burn. She drew a knife, spun it in her arm, sensing a lick of fire engulfing the blade. She reached inside as she held her cannon and it lit aflame. Her entire body was fire made flesh and the Golden Gun shined brightly as she fired it into nothing. 

The Light was back. 

Dola stowed all of her weapons and knives and ran past her Ghost into the Lighthouse. The sanctum was in disarray; the Light blast must’ve shook the place because several bookshelves were tilted and books were on the ground. A chair was knocked over and the lectern tipped on the side. 

“Vance?” Dola asked.

“I am here,” he replied from beneath the desk. “Are we under attack?”

Dola ran over, reaching out to the arm he held up. She pulled him from under the desk, careful not to hit his head on it. There was a happiness inside of her, the likes of which she had not felt in months. Acting on instinct, she pulled Vance into a hug and screamed with joy. She released him and looked around for Mora, while Vance stood in shock. 

“No, no, we’re not! The Light is back!” she managed to say. “Mora, check for any damage in here, just in case we need to move people out until it’s fixed.”

The Ghost zipped around, immediately working on it. 

“Come here,” she told Vance and grabbed his arm, pulling him towards the outside. 

Still uncertain and in shock, he moved slowly. Dola helped him cross the objects knocked over by the blast, and then the stairs, until they reached the outside of the Lighthouse, on the ledge. The Sun felt brighter. It felt pleasant. It burned just like she did inside. It was right, as it should be. 

“There was a beautiful translucent shockwave that swept over the whole planet,” she said, trying her best to describe it. “The Sun is no longer under threat. The Almighty is still where it was, but the plasma they used to shoot the Sun is gone and Mercury is no longer being syphoned. With the Light, the air is different. Heavier. More saturated,” she continued and held Vance’s hand in hers to help him not step too far towards the edge. 

“I heard a crash, and shooting noises,” Vance managed to say.

“That was a Cabal ship and my Golden Gun. It’s really back,” she said and squeezed his palm.

Vance flinched and Dola let go. “I can tell. Your hand is on fire.” He shook his palm when Mora returned to tell them the Lighthouse is safe and that there was no structural damage. “If you would prefer to go outside and scout, feel free to do so. We’ll be fine inside, if we are not under attack.”

“No, I don’t want to scout,” Dola replied, looking to the top of the Lighthouse above them. Finally. “I want to die.”

Chapter Text

An hour of pleading from Mora made the Hunter postpone dying by a day. It would be wise to test if things were permanent, get in contact with the Vanguard, ask around about the situation. Mora handled it all by herself while Dola ran and jumped and dodged all over Mercury, throwing as many grenades as possible and firing her Golden Gun into Goblins. For a moment, Mora believed her Guardian may actually return to her normal state of being and forget about the obsession she’d found on this scorching world while simmering in a dark room, Lightless, surrounded only by those that reinforced her strange thoughts. 

But now the situation has been clarified and Mora relayed everything to Dola. The Red Legion had been defeated. Their leader, Ghaul, burned to cinders by the Traveler itself, which has awakened. The pulse of Light that swept Mercury had been from that awakening. There were still Cabal to fight and Dola was informed that they would probably be swarming on Mercury. 

Mora assured the Commander that they would keep an eye on the planet, but felt uneasy when it became abundantly clear that Dola’s motivation was not in the name of the Vanguard. Of course, she would protect the planet, but this had nothing to do with her regular duties as a Guardian, and especially if the remains of the Red Legion weren’t in the vicinity. If they weren’t near the Lighthouse, they were out of sight and out of mind. 

Mora wanted to blame someone so naturally she blamed the self-proclaimed custodian of the Lighthouse. She wondered what would’ve been had Vance not asked about the tones . If he had just ignored Dola’s post-revival rambling, if nobody had mentioned anything, would she have insisted on hearing things? Would she have insisted on studying them? Would she have insisted on dressing in black and yellow? Some days, Mora would fly into the study and would be unable to differentiate between the two figures huddling around a desk with their near-identical hoods that Mora would only ever see from behind. 

Vance was using Dola’s situation, just like he had used the situation of other Guardians in his Trials. Mora has heard it from other Ghosts. The only thing he wanted was the song. Dola could die permanently for all he cared, if that would give him the information he wanted. 

Mora hated him. She almost regretted flying into his palm and asking for help. Shaking her new shell (one of the prototype shells meant as rewards for Trials, with a heavy blue scarab on top), she gasped to herself, shuddering with the memory of her worst thoughts. To wish your Guardian rather died… No. No, she did not wish that and she did not hate Vance that much. 

And she also blamed Dola as well. Begrudgingly, exasperated, angry, she blamed her Guardian for falling for such an obsession. Clearly the experience with a Lightless death shook Dola to the core and traumatised her. Being without the Light for months did not help. Surely she should’ve realised this by now and snapped out of it. Surely with the Light being back, Dola should’ve requested a jumpship from the Vanguard and returned back to her duties. To her previous self. 

Instead, Dola was on top of the Lighthouse, balancing on the edge in a gut-twisting way. Yes, the Light was back, but Mora spent months worrying about Dola’s every move. She had still not died after the Light had returned. Mora worried if she would be able to rez. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to stop this obsession. No matter how much she pleaded. Pleading got her a single day to watch her Guardian enjoying her time on the surface of burning sand. 

Vance positioned himself behind the ledge, safely away and seated in a chair. The Hunter’s Ghost hovered nearby, emitting faint buzzing which he came to understand was annoyance. It was unmistakable that Mora, the Ghost, despised being here and that she despised his presence. He was used to it. Instead of focusing on that, he focused on the Hunter and the way her boots scraped at the edge of stone. Tiny pebbles were rolling off the Lighthouse and soon, so will she. 

In the months they've spent studying together, Vance went from being tremendously frustrated by this Guardian and her lack of proper knowledge, to becoming accustomed to her presence and even pleasantly surprised as she became better at all things scholarly. He had been harsh with her at first, but she accepted his criticism without complaint and just dedicated to improving. It was more than he could say for many of the other followers. And now, she was beyond elated to leap into repeated deaths in order to gain more knowledge. Vance didn’t even wish she had been a Warlock anymore. 

He could not bring himself to understand the relationship between a Guardian and death, but he had never seen anyone so eager to die. The thanatonauts approached death with reverence and respect. Some even with fear. But Dola had been restlessly waiting to jump to her death since the day prior. 

Vance considered if he should be doing this. If only for a moment, he considered if this was appropriate. Dola wasn’t a registered or trained thanatonaut. How will this look in his research? Will it be waved off as necessity when his studies are verified? Dola has, after all, been the one to suggest it in the first place. 

Or will they perhaps call him cruel for allowing an inexperienced aspiring thanatonaut to continue with the experiment untrained, which will render his findings null and void? He wondered what Osiris would do in this situation. 

He wondered why there was an unease in his stomach. 

“I’m ready! Are the instruments ready?” Dola asked.

Vance chimed the datapad. “Everything is prepared. Whenever you–”

The boots scraped off the ground and a Ghost gasped. Merely a moment later, he heard a dull thud. At the same time, the Lighthouse replied in kind with a tone. He quickly recorded it, cross-checked it with his previous recordings and concluded that it wasn’t a new tone. 

Still, something had occurred. He needed to ask if she heard it again. If she only heard this one tone, it would be a miracle, but if she heard the whole song again… Vance clutched the datapad in his hands as a Ghost spun her shell. The sound of Light weaving a Guardian back to life was followed by boots stepping on solid ground. 

Vance’s and Mora’s sigh of relief echoed in tandem. 

“I did not hear it,” Dola said. Sharp, to the point. Angry. “Again.”

“This matches what Vance told us before, about the thanatonauts. They couldn’t hear it either, so it’s unlikely that–” Mora tried, but was cut off by Dola.

“I don’t care about some stupid Warlocks. Again.”

Vance restarted his instruments and nodded. This time she ran and scraped the edge harder. The thud he heard was louder. More distinct. There was a crack of bone in there somewhere, mixed with the tone that announced death. Same as before. Dola was resurrected. 

“Again.”

Vance did not even have the chance to get ready when she jumped again. This time, the cracks were even more distinct. So distinct, in fact, that he knew exactly how her skull shattered on impact. He winced in his seat. The tone was the same. 

Dola jumped again and Vance shifted uncomfortably as he heard a stabbing noise instead of a crack. He had no idea what she found to fall on, but whatever the object was, it pierced through her torso, lodging between her vertebrae. She was brought back once more and jumped, her spine twisting and shattering when she landed. In his mind, a clear image appeared; of a body broken in pieces, viscera and blood splattered around her. Vance stood up, nausea in his stomach. 

“When I bring her back, you will stop this,” Mora told him with a hiss in her voice he’d not heard before. 

“I can’t stop a Guardian–”

“I don’t know what her deal is with you, but she will listen. Tell her to stop. I can see that you hate this. As much as I did not want to believe there was any humanity left inside of you behind all that obsession, I can see that you hate this. For whatever reason.”

Vance was petrified as he listened to a resurrection. 

“Dola,” he said and reached out, but she was already off the edge.

He heard a cry of pain from the bottom of the Lighthouse after a sound of a thousand bones breaking. There was no tone. She survived the fall. Mora buzzed around him to hurry to her Guardian’s side when a shot from a hand cannon echoed through the valley. A tone appeared, sharp and grating to his ears.

“When I rez her, hold onto anything you can. She will not jump with you,” Mora said.

“I can’t see where–”

Mora nudged his arm into position. It was shaking. He heard a scoff. 

A rez went off and cloth brushed his palm. Vance snatched it and was pulled forward. He stumbled and tripped. Air got knocked out of his lungs as he fell on his stomach, but this time he did not hear boots going off the ledge. 

“What is this?” Dola asked. “What did you do?”

“You have to stop,” Mora replied. “I told him to hold you. It was the only way to talk to you.”

Vance was pulled off the ground by his shoulder and dragged into the chair. His chest hurt and the side of his face was scratched. He could not find his datapad until it was shoved into his trembling hands. 

“You made me hurt him,” he heard Dola. “You think you have some moral high ground but you told a blind man to hold a Guardian leaping off the edge. You’re insane. We are doing experiments! Stay out of our way!” Dola continued, raising her voice and her hand cannon. “And I can do this without jumping!”

“He doesn’t want you doing this either but he’s too much of a coward to say it!” Mora raised her voice as well.

Finally, there was silence broken only by Vance’s trembling sobbing. Mora’s buzzing grew fainter. He flinched when he heard boots scraping the floor. However, they did not go away, but towards him. 

“Is that true?” Dola asked. She was somewhere close. 

Vance gathered himself enough to nod. Mora scoffed again. 

“It was the only way to stop you,” she repeated. 

“Get out,” Dola replied. 

Vance heard a Ghost decompile and was then helped up, off the chair. Dola held his left side which he realised hurt him. His arm, chest and face all throbbed with pain. No doubt there was more than one scratch. Being on the ground, in pain, with sand on his face flashed him back to a detested memory. His heart was beating out of his ribs and his breath would not steady until he was inside, out of the scorching heat, where things smelled of fresh cleaning.

Chapter Text

Dola seethed. Her mind was a prison and her body was a cage. She wanted to jump out of her skin and be singed to the bone. Maybe then she would hear something again. Maybe then the Lighthouse would sing of her death. She needed this to make sense. It needed to be explained. She must know why she was a vessel once and only once. 

As she dragged the limping Vance to his room, rage engulfed every fibre of her being. She dropped his shaking body on the bed and watched him lean back and wince in pain, holding the left side of his chest. Dola was pretty sure he cracked a rib or two. His breath has mostly calmed down and he mostly stopped sobbing as he found himself in a familiar place. 

Her rage turned to pity. She was the reason he was in this state. Because she wouldn’t listen when he and Mora tried telling her to stop. Because she wouldn’t understand that this isn’t the way to hear the song again. The knowledge that she caused harm to someone she was so eager to help made her want to scream.

And it was Mora’s fault. How could she have even suggested what she did? Dola was on the brink of a jump when her reflexes registered a drag on her cloak. She was a second away from plunging to the bottom of the Lighthouse with Vance in tow. 

Pity turned to shock as she realised how terrifying that must’ve been for someone who couldn’t see when he would be pulled and when he would fall, but who knew what would happen if the Hunter didn’t stop in time. Dola looked around the room, but she knew it enough to know that she would not find more than books and scrolls. 

“I will come back,” she said to announce her departure. There was no reply. 

A minute later, she returned with a first aid pack. In a hurry, she knocked a stack of books which caused Vance to startle, and then hiss in pain. As she approached the bed and kneeled down, she could finally see the blood on the left side of his face; scratches from the rough sand and pebbles on his cheek and down to his jaw. The trail of damage went down his left sleeve and robe as the cloth’s weave dirtied and tore. 

“What hurts the most?” she asked. 

“Ribs,” Vance replied, coarse. 

Dola opened the first aid pack and stared at the chemicals and bandages and instruments. She did not know what to do with any of them. She wanted to help, desperately, but knew nothing of medicine. She did not need it.

“I’m sorry.”

Vance sighed, shallow. “No, it is I who must apologise. I should have been firmer about these experiments. This method has been tested thoroughly. There are no new insights to be gained from repeating it.”

“But I am different. I heard it before. None of the others have.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Vance replied. “You heard it because you died without the Light. Now you no longer can. Not even a thousand thanatonauts will replicate it, not unless they die without the Light and come back somehow.”

“I will do anything to make it work. We can find another way. Me and my Light are yours to wield. Just tell me what we need to do,” Dola recited like an oath, while Vance leaned back in pain and shock, looking somewhere to her left.

“I… I will need time to think of another method,” he replied quietly.

Dola nodded, to herself, then took the simplest looking bandage in the kit and read through the label on a disinfectant. She applied it to the bandage and hovered it over Vance’s face. He wrinkled his nose as he smelled it, then reached out and took it, putting it on his cuts. 

Kneeling by the bed, she could see further beneath the hood for the first time. They were around the same height so the only thing she had been able to see so far had been just his nose, cheeks and jaw. She once caught a glimpse of the scarring around the edge of the blindfold, but now she could see it more clearly. Whatever blinded him must’ve been a physical injury. No wonder he was covering it with a blindfold, if the scars reached beneath it.

Dola extended her hand slowly towards his hood and pulled it down. She’d never seen him without it before. A short pile of dishevelled black hair hung just slightly above the blindfold on all sides. 

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I want to help you treat your injuries.”

Vance moved furthest back on the bed as he could, still holding the bandage on his face. “I will deal with it alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am sure. I’ve fallen more times than I can count,” he replied with a bite in his voice Dola never heard before. 

She stood up, leaving the kit with him and went to the door. “If you change your mind, call me.” 

Before closing the door, she heard faint sobs left behind in the room.

Chapter Text

For a week, the Hunter stayed out on the surface of Mercury, alone. She found an old abandoned sanctuary beneath the scorching sands. It was not perfectly safe, as the Vex would frequently wander in, but it served enough of a purpose. 

When she wasn’t resting in the shade of old, half-emptied bookshelves, she was hunting. Mostly the remains of the Red Legion, but whenever the Vex interfered, she was there. Her primary objective was to make sure that the area immediately surrounding the Lighthouse was cleared of hostiles. Her secondary objective was to exalt her rage. 

Dola was careful not to die. She did not want to talk to Mora and if she died, her Ghost would return and act worried. But the memory of a faded dream tempted her at every turn. Maybe this time the song would repeat. It’s not that she did not believe Vance. She did. The song appeared to her because she died without the Light in the proximity to the Lighthouse. But maybe this time things would turn miraculous. 

Leaving the Lighthouse was hard. It had been her home for months and it gave her a new life and a new purpose. Despite not talking to the other followers very much, she appreciated their presence and they appreciated hers; she had been the only thing standing between them and danger while the Light was out and they were cut off from the rest of the system. 

Most of all, she missed sitting in a cool study, surrounded by hundreds of books, discussing every line of the ingenious texts with Vance. She missed hearing him hum sometimes and tap his desk, as if composing a song.

Out here all alone, she was a knight without a cause.

A pang of guilt for leaving when he was injured pooled inside of her stomach. He did tell her that he did not need her help, but she had also left him crying alone and in pain. He’s too much of a coward . That was Mora’s judgement of his character. Dola vehemently disagreed. A coward would never cut himself off from the rest of the world to stand up for his beliefs. It took courage to leave the City. 

It took courage to choose to be alone. 

Mora would disagree, naturally. To Mora, courage was about asking for help and opening yourself up to others and all the other things that one might sell to a child. 

And yet, Dola frowned and slithered out of her hiding place, looking to the Lighthouse, silent as ever. Drawn by desire to return things to normal, she walked over there, and stood in front of the gates. She’d already cleared the area of enemies beforehand and none would dare approach again for days. 

“Mora,” she called for her Ghost. 

Mora appeared near instantly. She studied her Guardian’s face briefly in silence, then looked around. “Yes?”

“When we return, you will apologise to him,” Dola said. 

“You were on a self-imposed exile to atone for my crime?” Mora asked coldly. Dola raised her eyebrow. “I went about my business without you so I visited the Lighthouse and asked them where you went. They told me you left on your own.”

Infuriated at the nonchalance of her Ghost’s attitude, Dola grabbed her out of the air. “And Vance?”

“He’s fine. I already apologised to him basically half an hour after you left.”

“And?”

“As I said. He’s fine. You could’ve come back after a short walk instead of roleplaying the great Osiris in his exile.”

Dola squeezed the shell. “Why are you this spiteful?”

Mora, if uncomfortable, showed no signs of it. “I want you to understand the depth of your mistake to put your faith in this Cult and in the mysterious texts and tones and, most of all, Vance. You’re a tool to these people. Now that they know they can no longer use you, you do not matter to them. Vance doesn’t care about your gift anymore. I checked back several times and he never asked about your whereabouts or if you’d be returning.”

“Liar,” Dola said, squeezing the shell more. “If he was reluctant to ask, it's because my actions almost killed him. He’s afraid of me.”

“He is not afraid of Guardians. From what I’ve heard about Trials, at best, he is jealous of them, and at worst, he just does not respect them at all. That’s about it.”

“Stop.”

Dola released her Ghost and realised her palm was in deep pain from clutching the shell in anger. 

“We can just leave. I promise you that you will not hurt the Cult. They got everything they needed out of you. You will certainly not hurt Vance’s feelings, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Stop it.”

Dola left her Ghost behind and entered the Lighthouse. A familiar release from the heat swept over her in the cool dimly lit room. The smell of books and candles exhilarated her like an elixir of life. Faint chatter grew fainter and other members looked over at her, then resumed their talk. 

Dola moved in the direction of the study. Unable to control her speed and strength, she burst into the room loudly and saw a startled hooded figure at the desk. 

Vance turned, not quite looking at the right spot, holding onto the desk in shock. She took a step and he stood up. “Dola?” 

“It’s me,” she replied, smiling by instinct. 

Her eyes widened when Vance sighed a breath of relief and also smiled. “I am glad that you’ve decided to return.”

In that moment, Dola knew for a fact that her Ghost was a liar.

Chapter Text

Guardians swarmed Mercury in droves for the first time after a momentous occasion; the Infinite Forest opened and a call for help was issued. Dola was in the study with Vance when something changed. The Vex reacted. The Lighthouse reacted. Dola saw the bright blue triangle change as it began flickering across the valley. 

At first, there was excitement. Vance was convinced that Osiris had finally returned, although no trace of him was seen or found. Then, a single Guardian arrived, alongside the Warlock Vanguard on comms, urging them to the gates of the Forest. That was another sign that this truly had something to do with Osiris. Dola sat nearby as Vance coordinated with the Guardian on comms. At last, he was told that the Guardian had Osiris’ Ghost. The final sign. 

Dola was ready to jump into action, but nobody directly asked for anything other than Vance’s instructions. A Guardian was on the job and that was all. No one else was allowed in on it. 

When it was done and Panoptes was dead, the Guardian returned to the Lighthouse. Dola wasn’t even there when it happened, as she was too busy dealing with the increase in enemy activity around the area. She ran back as soon as word spread that the threat had been neutralised, hoping for… Something. She was not sure what, but she was hoping for it. 

She burst into the Lighthouse sanctum and found it uncomfortably crowded. There were other Guardians everywhere, nodding as she walked by, thinking she’s just one of the many that showed up in the past few days. Vance was occupied with three of them talking to him and asking for instructions and bounties and locations. Frowning, she retreated for the day and only returned for what passed as “night.” 

The blast window obstructed the Sun and only candles lit the Lighthouse premises. Dola found her way to the smaller study where she found Vance at his desk. Beyond confused, and expecting something to have changed, she stood by him for a minute before he turned to her. 

“What happened?” she asked expectantly. 

“The Guardian solved everything. Osiris has returned to the Forest,” Vance replied, clear bitterness in his tone.

“Without coming here first? We helped bring down Panoptes! Without us, who knows if Sagira would’ve been saved!”

“My thoughts exactly. And I expressed them as much.”

Dola leaned on the desk. “That’s it then? Osiris returned, we saved his Ghost and he left without a single word to us?”

“Do not blame Osiris for this. He is most certainly busy with things beyond our comprehension. The prophecies are clear on that. The threats coming for us are far bigger than this and they stretch into infinite timelines. Osiris is the only one keeping us truly safe.”

She shrugged. “I am not blaming him, but we could’ve at least had a simple thank you. I’m sure there’s enough time in the infinite timelines for that.”

Vance sighed and closed a book he was reading. “Such is the life of us followers of Osiris. I am certain that he will return again and we will be blessed by his presence.”

Dola did not understand how he stayed so calm. After dedicating his entire life to this, there must’ve been more disdain here. He stood, holding the book, and moved away from the desk, head bent as he walked. Dola pushed away from the desk and caught up with him. She took the book out of his hands and set it aside, then placed her fingers on his chin and tipped his head up. 

“You’re allowed to be furious, as I know you are.”

Vance was looking past her shoulder in a way she grew used to, but this time she nudged his head in the right direction. Dola could rarely tell his expression hidden beneath the cloth, in the darkness only illuminated by candles, and this time was not an exception. But his pose shifted, as if her words had given him permission to let go. 

“I am. I am furious,” Vance said. His composure changed and he gesticulated with his hands into nothing. “I’ve done so much. I’ve given everything for this cause. The Vanguard did not even attempt to ask if I needed anything.”

“Or if other Guardians could join this fight,” Dola added. “Oh now we’re useful to clean up the remaining mess that is sure to continue for months or even years. But for their special little ordeal, no one else was allowed in.”

“Exactly. The Lighthouse chose me to speak to. And it has chosen you. If you’d been there instead, you would’ve had direct contact with Osiris. He would’ve seen our work and our dedication. He would’ve been invited to visit us here, to see everything we’ve achieved in his name!” He continued, pacing on the spot like a caged animal, thinking of his next words in desperation and disdain. “And Osiris… Did not think to ask about his followers.”

“I’m sure he would’ve done so if somebody had told him that we’re waiting,” Dola said. 

“He knows that we do,” Vance replied sternly. A tinge of anger seeped through his voice in a way that Dola was not used to. “There must be a reason. And yet, I find myself furious nonetheless.”

“As you said, he is busy. Even if he knows that we’re waiting for him, he probably didn’t have the time.”

“Osiris would’ve been delighted to speak to me about the discoveries in regards to the Lighthouse. I am sure of it. He must be told what I’ve found,” Vance said, then mumbled, more to himself. “It was foretold that I would speak to him. It must not be the right time. Yes.”

Dola watched as he continued to pace until he huffed in anger and moved to sit down back in the chair at the desk. Dola crouched next to him.

“I require rest,” Vance said. “Too many Guardians today. I’ve not dealt with them in months. They all want so much, while having no interest in the teachings. They’ve always been like this, but now they are worse. I am no longer selling them a way to slaughter each other, and they care for little else.”

“Unfortunately I know what that’s like,” Dola replied, feeling strange about the time before . How odd it was to be ignorant of this knowledge. “They will not change,” she added, thinking about how she did change. 

She was different. She’s heard the song.

“I am aware. Could you return that book to me? I would like to finish reading before retreating for the night,” Vance asked and Dola complied, then left him alone in the study.

She returned to check on him two hours later as she had not seen him leave; instead of leaving, she found him asleep at the desk. Dola watched from the study entrance for a moment before stepping inside and closing the door as quietly as possible. 

A sense of loyalty and devotion beyond reason engulfed her. She was here to protect. She was a lightning rod, a hunting dog. A shield, a knife, and a book with unfilled pages. Nobody else understands what they’re doing, what they’ve discovered and where it leads. Now that the isolation of Mercury has ended, she will have to be more careful, more protective. As they continue waiting for Osiris to return again, it is her duty to keep the knowledge flowing and to protect the one who stored it.

She grabbed the spare chair, the one she would use when they were studying together. After placing it next to him equally quietly, she took her cloak off and spread it out. As she sat down into her seat next to him, she draped the cloak around them and fell asleep.

Chapter Text

The pain of the uncomfortable position woke Vance up in what seemed like a million years. There was some sort of a cloth on his head that wasn’t his hood. He moved it away slowly and bumped into something. Or rather, someone. Frightened at first, he quickly calmed his breathing. The cloth was a cloak and someone was Dola on the chair next to him. He must’ve fallen asleep at his desk. As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough on its own, he was seen. Instead of waking him up and directing him to his proper quarters, Dola just joined him. 

What a peculiar choice. He sat still, suddenly tense, sensing her breathing nearby. He could not understand what this action meant. Vance learned to enjoy her company; she was a valuable colleague and he’d managed to turn her into a fantastic scholar. A rare Guardian that cared about the truth; the only other one was Osiris. And the only other person between them was him. 

She was also eager to help him with mundane tasks for reasons he could not discern. He caught himself thinking back to the one time she hugged him, the only moment he witnessed her truly happy, celebrating the Light’s return. Despite her new scholarly ways, she was a Guardian first and foremost, and Guardians lived a different life; their priority was the Light and nothing else, not even the truth. The Light separated him from Guardians as a barrier ringed in spikes. Her loyalty was to the Traveler first. He barely entertained the idea of considering her a friend.

Shaking his head to himself, Vance stood up hoping he would not disturb her. It was warm and he needed some air before going to the sanctuary and being flooded by Guardians. He left the room feeling the heartbeat in his chest when a buzzing noise appeared to his left. A Ghost. 

“Hello,” Mora said.

Vance had not seen Dola’s Ghost in weeks and did not dare ask the Hunter about it. 

“Greetings, Mora. Is there something I can do for you?”

“Go back in time and never speak to my Guardian, but that’s not something we can work out right now,” Mora replied sarcastically. Vance frowned. “Instead, you could at least not leave her alone like this.”

Vance tried to look in the direction of the Ghost, but with how they moved, he knew that he was probably missing her by a mile so he clasped his hands and bent his head. 

“I do not understand. Excuse me, I must prepare for the day.”

“My Guardian thinks I’m a liar for telling her the truth. That you don’t care about her, past the tones she’d heard,” Mora said. Vance lifted his head in confusion. “I’m not really interested in what you’ve got going on, but I do still care about my Guardian and I know that if she wakes up and finds you missing, she will spiral into thinking that, perhaps, I was not a liar after all. And she’s been terrible at handling this sort of confusion ever since we’ve arrived here, so unless you want her to start throwing herself off the Lighthouse again–”

“You want me to go prove to her that you are a liar?” Vance asked.

“I want you to genuinely care for her in the same way she cares for you. But since that’s impossible, then yes, I want you to prove to her that I am a liar. You make her happier than I do,” Mora explained, her voice no longer sarcastic or spiteful. Just sad. “I will always be around to rez her, but she doesn’t need me as a friend. So go back, wake her up and pretend to be happy.”

Vance did not like the tone of her voice, despite Mora sounding genuinely devastated. He did not like the assumptions she’d made about him, but he did not want to stand between a Guardian and her Ghost. And there was nothing that he’d done, to his knowledge, that would make Mora think this way about him. 

“I don’t have to pretend,” he managed to say in return. 

“Fine. Just do what I told you. You’ll be thanking me later when she’s not splattered at the bottom of the Lighthouse,” Mora said and decompiled away. 

Vance winced at the thought, and stood petrified for a few moments before deciding to return to the room. He approached the desk and reached out to find Dola still in the same spot, only with a cloak thrown hastily on her. First, he moved the cloak away with a little more care. Then he reached out again to nudge her lightly and found her shoulder with a long braid resting over it. He’d never thought of what her hair was like. Or her face. He could not see it either way. For some reason, a long braid was not what he expected. A reflexive smile broke on his lips.

“Oh,” he heard Dola’s voice. “Is it really late? I’m sorry if I held you here,” she added, quickly standing up and away. 

The braid slipped from his palm. “Not at all. Thank you for your company. I was very tired last night.”

“No problem,” Dola replied. He could hear the smile in her words. “I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got patrolling duty.”

With that, she skipped out of the room, leaving him in the study, his heart pounding out of his chest again.

Chapter Text

Dola had been dutifully carrying out her chores on Mercury. Gathering samples and materials, protecting the Lighthouse from intruders, helping with maintenance of the facilities used by the followers, assisting with the Infinite Forge and testing it for Guardian use. 

When the Guardians would retreat for the day, so would she and Vance, back into the study, where books, scrolls, notes and music waited. Every day, they would look through what they might’ve missed. They tested other configurations for the notes in the music. They reworked the previous day’s work and then reworked it the next day again. Dola was sure that Vance managed to guess some of the tones of the song she’d heard simply through a meticulous method of trial and error until a note sat in place. 

Dola could not remember the song by herself, but upon hearing it, she would instinctively know whether it is correct or not. She did not care about other happenings in the system besides the sheets of music and scrolls of prophecies. 

When a legendary Hunter returned, when the Warmind woke, when hordes of the Hive with a Worm God burst out of the belly of Mars, Dola stayed on Mercury. 

When the Hunter Vanguard was murdered and Guardians clamoured for revenge, Dola stayed on Mercury. 

When they slew the last Ahamkara, when the Dreaming City was engulfed into a cruel loop, when her people needed help, Dola stayed on Mercury. 

Secrets of old Earth and new mysterious Lightbearers and the golden splendour of the Emperor did not interest her. 

None of it compared to hearing a tone suddenly clicking into place and a faded song coming to life. None of it had any meaning without hearing the song played in the comfortable study with just the solar winds beating on the blast windows of the Lighthouse. Vance could produce it digitally with his datapad, but Dola preferred it when he used the stringed instrument to play it himself. She would often ask him to play and sing anything he knew. And he knew dozens and dozens of ancient Earth songs and symphonies. 

The only thing missing now were the voices she’d heard with the song. And those were gone forever. Sometimes, she would think of dying again, in the hope that the voices would emerge once more from the vast of space. She thought of dying without the Light. In those moments, she clung to the Lighthouse for safety like the sailors of old. Inside, the keeper did not need her repeated deaths to compose the song. It would have to be enough.

Most of the time, she would return to her room for a good night’s sleep, but sometimes they would lose track of time, and debate the notes or the texts or the interpretations long into the night until falling asleep at the desk. When Vance once complained about back pain caused by hours upon hours in a chair, she’d constructed a cosy space on the floor near the bookshelves with piles of extra rugs, blankets and pillows. Instead of the desk, they would spend time reading and learning there instead. The added comfort of the space extended the time they could spend researching. 

She’d never felt alone again as their friendship deepened. She arrived as a stranger, uninitiated, uniformed. Dead. Two years later, she was incapable of imagining her life elsewhere. There was only the Lighthouse, the studies, and a bond she’d forged with a Lightless man. 

“I thought you’d leave today,” Vance said, one evening when she entered the study for the night and found him surrounded by pillows on the floor with a pile of books opened around him. 

Dola was in the process of taking off her cloak to leave it next to his robe on the side. “What? Why would I leave today? Leave where?”

Vance began moving the books out of her spot. “You hadn’t heard? About the Moon?”

“About the Moon? I’ve heard nothing. Did something happen? It would explain why Mercury was unusually vacant of Guardian activity.”

“They’ve unearthed something embedded into Luna. A giant black vessel. Dormant,” Vance said. “Long believed to be part of the fleet that caused the Collapse. It seems this theory has been proven correct. One of these ships had either crashed into Luna or been hidden there ever since.”

“I always thought that the stories about some sort of pyramid ships were a myth,” Dola said, sitting down into the blankets and pillows, and crossing her legs. Vance sat leaning opposite of her. 

“Apparently not. I thought you’d heard and would want to go investigate.”

“Should I have gone?” 

Vance shrugged and went back to his book. “I’m unsure. But we will hear about it all soon in reports from Guardians.”

Dola uncrossed her legs and moved next to him, leaning on his right. There would always be a second where he would tense in the moment she got too close. “If it’s relevant to us, we will find out,” she said. “What do you think?”

Vance felt a pang of pride for being looked upon for guidance. “It disturbs me. How have we not known about it before? Events as ominous as this never emerge without a cause. Something changed. This vessel could not have been alone in the Collapse. So where are the rest? If they are nowhere to be found in Sol, that means they escaped unscathed and are preparing to enact their revenge sooner or later.”

“The Darkness will return,” Dola said simply, as if discussing the weather, and shrugged. “We know this. Osiris has known this even longer than us. And the Lighthouse knows this too. If only people would believe the teachings.”

Weeks passed before they noticed a change, but it did not involve a mysterious ship inside of Luna. It involved the Vex who had begun acting strangely around the Lighthouse. Dola also monitored the gate to the Infinite Forest and found it erratic and unstable with each passing day. 

“Guardians are messing with the Vex again,” she reported one day when she entered the sanctuary, ignoring Guardians standing there attending their business. 

A Warlock looked at her quizzically, observing her gear. Two Hunters were jumping over the desks, loudly, and pointing at her, chuckling at the same time. A Titan slid over the floor towards Vance, almost knocking her over. After a nod of apology, the Titan slid back out of the Lighthouse holding a pile of bounties. The Warlock still stood nearby, looking at Dola’s outfit with judgement so clear it was obvious through the helmet. She decided to ignore him. 

“I’ve heard. Something about an Undying Mind and the Black Garden,” Vance replied. “It’s affecting time itself. I can sense it and observe it in the instruments monitoring the Forest.”

With each passing day, things became worse. Time distortions soon swelled over Mercury, turning the Vex even more dangerous than before. At the end, time itself shattered. With it in tow came Cabal ships with a swarm of Psions, who unearthed a device embedded into the sands of Mercury neither Dola nor Vance had seen before.

Chapter Text

The Sundial hummed as it spun, separating Mercury into a trifecta of time. Dola watched it from the top of the Lighthouse. 

“Are you certain you’ve seen him?” Vance asked, standing behind her. 

Dola put the sniper’s scope down. “Yes. He comes and goes. At the Sundial. I might be able to find him if I go there and just wait indefinitely.”

Vance started pacing erratically to the point of Dola having to monitor his every step. They were high above the ground. One misstep and he would plunge into the chasm. “Osiris has returned and we have not been alerted. I cannot believe he would mess with something like the Sundial.”

“What is it about the Sundial that’s so dangerous?”

“It is capable of altering time. There is no greater danger,” Vance replied. “Osiris’ reasons must be something we cannot possibly comprehend. Something big. He must’ve created this machine for some unfathomable purpose. And the Guardians previously messing with timelines have reactivated the Sundial which alerted the Psions who want it to rewrite the past and win the war they’ve lost. This is most troubling.”

“Should I go? Wait for Osiris? Ask him?”

Vance stopped pacing and looked vaguely in her direction. He seemed to be deeply upset for a reason Dola could not understand. “Yes. Go. Do whatever you must.”

She picked up her gear in a hurry, shaking from the prospect of finally meeting Osiris. It could be a day or a week or perhaps just an hour before she would see him. Excited and anxious, she helped Vance down from the Lighthouse and squeezed his hand before leaving. 

Dola approached the strip before the Sundial, staring at the monstrous structure. It did not take long to slip past some enemies and kill the others. Both the Vex and the Cabal were more interested in shooting each other; she was grateful. A triangular entrance beckoned her into the Sundial’s transparent but protective barrier. 

The hum of its spin intoxicated her the moment she stepped inside. The arms moved rhythmically and somewhere in the depth of the structure, there was a heartbeat. It sped up as she entered, |hungry| intriguing her to step closer. She approached the panel and crouched to look beneath the central pillar, into the core. It wanted Light |tribute|, and it whispered |a chorus|. She backed away in a rush, bumping her head into a panel and sliding backwards on the floor.

“Guardian?” 

A deep, stern voice. Dola looked to her left and saw a man standing above her, feathers on his cowl and a golden gleam from the beak on top of his head. Her breath stopped in her throat and she stood, petrified, on the floor. 

“Are you available to assist me, Guardian?” Osiris asked. 

Dola shuffled to stand up and as she did, Osiris observed her with a frown. Her gear . He made no comment about it and waited for an answer expectantly. In the presence of the prophet and a legend, Dola found out that she may not actually know how to speak.

“I suppose so, yes,” Dola replied with a voice she could not recognise as her own. 

“I am calibrating the Sundial for the exploration of the Corridors of Time. The Guardian has just left with fantastic news and I want to ensure the Sundial’s stability for further expeditions,” Osiris said and moved to the panel. As he did so, he pulled a strange set of cubes that floated around each other as if moved by magnets. “I simply need someone inside to re-calibrate the Sundial. It will not take long.”

He gestured towards the triangular exit on the opposite side of the panel. Dola moved into position, trembling and anxious. She should’ve said something more. She should’ve asked something more. She should’ve said or asked anything at all. Perhaps after she helps him. Yes, that will be a better opportunity. Osiris will be grateful for her assistance and she will tell him about the followers’ work. 

The Sundial revved and spun faster. Images blinked in and out of existence as the landscape in front of her rapidly changed. From golden grass and beautiful trees, to windswept sands, to a dark purple void of nothingness, and finally to an environment of pure white endlessness with a triangular door of stone broken into pieces, and stretched in slices across the vast emptiness. 

Dola stepped into the space, disoriented. She kept her eyes fixed on the triangular door; looking either up or down made her head spin as she could not tell where the ceiling was and where was the floor. If those things even existed in this space. 

Voices echoed across the chasm. Images appeared in Dola’s head. They flickered as if someone was skimming through the pages of a book. There was no way to discern between the images or the voices echoing in the halls of time. She just stood, focused on the door, enduring the pressure in her head. She burst into a million pieces of herself, latching onto individual images, causing more and more headache and pressure. Reflections of her own body sparkled in golden hues until she screamed. 

The million reflections suddenly merged back, returning to the source in a cacophony of memories. 

The area around her disappeared and she was pulled back, landing in front of Osiris, feather-light. 

“Thank you, Guardian, for your time,” Osiris said and nodded. He was practically mid-transmat when Dola raised her arm.

“Wait!”

“Hm?” 

Her breath hitched again and Osiris stared at her, expecting. “Your followers would appreciate it if you could visit the Lighthouse. We have much to tell you.”

Osiris’ demeanour shifted. His frown deepened and he stepped forward with an imposing presence. “My followers should do something else with their lives.”

He turned to leave when a Ghost adorned in gold appeared next to him. Dola thought she would start sobbing any moment now. She had not heard a Ghost near her head in so long she had forgotten what it sounded like. Osiris’ Ghost, Sagira, whispered something to him and he turned to face Dola again. 

“When I am finished with what has to be done, I will visit. Prepare whatever you must. After that I will expect you to cease with your activities on this planet.”

Dola nodded and Osiris vanished in a swirl of a transmat. 

Tears rolling down her cheeks, Dola heard her Ghost decompiling out of nothingness. The bond between them was strong enough that she did not even have to call out to her. Mora watched her Guardian fall to her knees and flew closer to her face, gently nudging into her neck. 

“Let’s transmat out of here,” Mora said. “I set up a beacon at the Lighthouse.”

In an instant, they were out of the whispering |hungry| machine and back in the familiar shade of the sanctuary. Vance was at his spot attending the Guardians. Dola did not approach and instead ran to the study where she crawled into the blanket fort and curled up on the floor, sobbing so strongly she could barely breathe. 

Witnessing millions of sequences and events across timelines and through the stretch from zero to infinity, her brain strained to comprehend it. It was only tied to one person and yet she still saw too much for one mind to contain. Overwhelmed by events set in stone and thousands of possibilities, she could not discern anything with any certainty. 

Except the reason. 

The reason Osiris built the Sundial. It was not for a grand scheme to prevent an apocalypse. It was not to study time itself. It was not for a goal required to save humanity. It was for a feeling so strong and woven into the fabric of the universe, simple in such a complex way that none could ever define it.

He built the Sundial for |weakness| love.

Chapter Text

Dola was locked in the study, alone, for days. She thought to die of overwhelming grief she’d felt from a million timelines. Mora stayed by her side through it until the feelings dissipated enough for her to move. 

The door was knocked on many times, which Mora handled in her Guardian’s stead. When Vance finally entered days later, Dola was sitting at the desk in his usual spot. He approached her, followed by the telltale noise of her Ghost and nudged her by the shoulder. Dola flinched so hard that he retracted his hand as if burned. 

“Are you alright?” she heard his voice and turned to see him standing behind her, looking the same as always. “Mora told me as much as she could. Something about the adverse effect of the Sundial. I apologise, perhaps I should not have sent you there to–”

“It’s fine,” Dola cut him off. “I told Osiris to visit us and he said he will, as soon as he’s done with his business at the Sundial.”

Vance’s worry was replaced by surprise, then disbelief and finally a smile. It was the biggest smile she’d ever seen. She could feel the joy pulse from him as he put his hands on his chest in relief. Trying to gather himself, he stepped forward, reaching out with his arm. Dola knew what he wanted and a sensation so strong overwhelmed her body to tears. As she reached back and held his arm, she was pulled into a hug.

“I cannot believe it,” she heard him close as her body fought back trembling. Vance held onto her firmly. “Did he say anything else, did he speak to you more?”

Dola could not tell him. How could she? How could she tell him that Osiris told her to do something else and that they all need to leave after he visits them? It would break Vance, and cause him to doubt and regret. Dola could ensure that he is happy for a few weeks until Osiris shows up and says his piece. If Vance doesn’t manage to appease Osiris then, and if his words don’t change the teacher’s mind, that will not be on her. She would not become the bearer of the worst news. Vance will not hate her for messing up their one chance at communication with Osiris if he doesn’t know how badly she’s done. And things could be fixed. 

“What about the Sundial? Did you learn anything about it? Why would Osiris make such a reckless machine?”

Dola could not tell him. The reason was so impossibly heavy on her mind and in her heart that she could not lift the words out of her throat. The feeling pooled in her stomach and spread through her body in a whimper and a tremble. Vance grew worried again; she could tell by the way he tensed, then tried to move away, but she didn’t let him out of the embrace. 

What she felt in the Sundial spilled through her, in understanding that she felt the same.

“No,” she spoke feebly. 

A billion years had passed before she moved her head out of the small of his neck to take a breath. 

“Is there something wrong?” he asked, holding her shoulders; he’d learned that it was the best way to orient where to look for her eyes.

“No. I am just glad for what we’ve accomplished. I’m glad I could help. It’s very overwhelming. To know that after all the years you’ve waited…” she rambled, then took a deep breath, aimed to stop the trembling. “He said we should prepare what we need to talk to him about. I believe he will still be very busy. We don’t want to waste his time.”

“Of course, we will get everything ready,” Vance said and let go of her shoulders.

Dola managed to lower her hood and unclasp her cloak before Vance moved far enough. A moment later, she was hugging him again, unable to let go, even when he tried stepping away.

“That can wait a moment, I suppose,” he said, confused, but unmoving, allowing her to stay.

Dola looked over Vance’s shoulder and found Mora still hovering near, as if on standby. Liar, Dola thought to herself. They remained in an embrace and Vance hummed the song of death through it. The Ghost decompiled at the first tone. 

It was relieving to know that Osiris was not a myth, but a man moved by |weakness| love. It was relieving to know that she was moved by the same. It was not the impulse for heroism that drove a legend she followed, it was simply love. Love for a man, love for humanity. Protecting people was about love. To be a Guardian was to love. That’s what Osiris’ teachings were about to her. She finally understood the teacher and his texts.

Chapter Text

Weeks passed preparing for Osiris’ inevitable arrival. In their spare time, Dola and Vance were frantically arranging materials they’ve gathered, notes they’ve taken and tones they’ve composed. With a pile of unmanageably massive materials, they’ve then spent additional time debating how to narrow it all down to only the most important points and trust that Osiris would understand enough. 

In the middle of it all, a dead man was pulled out of the Infinite Forest, impossibly alive. The massive Titan’s existence sent shockwaves across Mercury. Osiris and a Guardian managed to break through time itself to save Saint-14 from death. Now the Titan rested at the Tower and the Sundial was left to power down. It has served its purpose. The Psions wanted it to win a war and they were silenced because it was never made to win wars. 

Dola kept that close to her chest. Even when listening to Vance’s confusion about the Sundial’s existence and purpose, she could not tell him. The scope of love was a neutron star at her core. Her entire perception of Osiris shifted with it and all of the texts about him suddenly rearranged their meaning in her mind. It was too much to conceive, to explain, to say with words. It had to be experienced and she had no means to share it. 

When Osiris finally arrived, she stayed back. Osiris’ core was equally heavy as her own and she felt like their proximity would cause a black hole to form on the surface of Mercury. She could not explain it even to her Ghost, as Mora wondered why Dola would stay back when Osiris finally visited and as she and Vance had to explain to him their research. 

“This is not my meeting,” Dola said. It was the simplest thing to say. “It’s only for him. He discovered the tones in the first place anyway. I was just a vessel.”

“Now you believe me?” Mora asked.

They watched from the top of the Lighthouse as Osiris’ ship landed and swept the wind and sand around the structure. The legendary Warlock ventured inside. 

“I was a vessel for the song, not for him. You were wrong,” Dola replied. 

“Without that song, he never would’ve paid you a second glance. And you never would’ve paid a second glance to him,” Mora said and spun towards Dola’s line of sight. “You’ve met him before. When you tried to compete in Trials for the first time, years ago.”

“I figured,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter why he paid me a second glance. Or why I paid it to him. A lot of people meet in unusual ways. Why are you so angry about it?”

Her Ghost sighed and stretched her flaps. “I did not want to see you used and disappointed.”

“You misjudged him.”

"Have I? You know what he did with Trials. How he treated Guardians and Ghosts. How he did not tell participants about the experiments he was running, using their deaths!" Mora raised her voice. 

"I know. That was years ago," Dola replied. She's heard this argument before. "That doesn't mean he should be judged forever by people who preach forgiveness." 

"That was never my implication. I know he can be forgiven. I just didn't want him to treat you that way. I didn't want you to be just his experiment."

"I wasn't. I am not."

“You are not his priority.”

“I don’t care.”

“He doesn’t care either. About you,” Mora said. Dola turned to her sharply.

“He does. People care in different ways. He has his own. Just because you can’t see it or can’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Dola said. 

Mora sighed. “I will not stop being vigilant until this whole thing ends.” 

“Which thing?”

“The Cult. Osiris does not want it. If you’re both so devoted, you should respect his wishes. When Vance finishes his conversation, you should pack and leave this place. If you can do that, I will give him a chance. Give your… connection a chance. You can go to the City together and just move on in peace.”

Tempting, but impossible. He would never leave Mercury, and neither would she. The life of a Guardian cannot support a peaceful life anyway.

Beneath the Lighthouse, a conversation now took place outside and it did not seem friendly, especially not after Osiris swiftly walked away back to his ship. Dola assumed that he would take the materials they’ve carefully prepared, that he would shake Vance’s hand or even stay at the Lighthouse longer, to further discuss the findings. 

Before Osiris reached his ship, Vance ran towards him, calling after him. Osiris stopped and turned. Vance said something and Osiris responded, then patted him on the shoulder. With that, Osiris departed. Dola slid off the Lighthouse fast, watching as Vance walked back to the entrance. They met in the central sanctuary.

Dola observed him expectantly, trying to gauge the situation. Vance was distant. She wasn’t even sure if he registered that she was nearby until he turned vaguely in her direction with a mix of relief and distress on his face and posture. Half-smiling and half-slouching. Shaking just enough to be visible. Vance broke into a sob and rushed past her towards his room. 

She didn’t have to run. She could catch up with him in a few quick steps; she let him storm off and followed once the door behind him closed. When Dola entered, Vance was on the floor in the middle of the room on his knees, crying into his hands. With Mora dismissed, Dola went down next to him and put her hand on his back. It took him a few minutes to gather himself enough to be able to speak. 

“What happened?” she asked. 

“He told me to stop with the research and to leave this place,” Vance replied through the tears. “He said what we’re doing is dangerous. That we’re a danger to everyone. That someone else will run Trials now. Nothing I’ve done was enough.”

“He wasn’t happy with me either when I mentioned the followers,” Dola told him. “I thought he would certainly change his mind once we showed him what we’ve found. Once you’ve spoken to him. I’m sorry.”

Vance sat back on his legs, looking up in exasperation. “What is there for me now?”

“You will continue,” Dola replied. “And I will help you. Not for Osiris, but for us.”

Vance turned to her. The edges of his hood were crumpled and dirtied with sand. The cloth over his eyes did not fare any better, especially after the crying. Dola gently pulled the hood off his head, brushing over his hair, then reached for the blindfold. She’d never seen behind it, but this time he did not resist when she untied and removed it. 

Despite his closed eyelids, Dola could tell the damage to his eyes was horrific. She suspected he may have been attacked, his eyes perhaps stabbed or gouged; seeing the scarred skin shook her with worry and pity. The scars stretched across the entire skin surrounding his eyelids, now stained with the sand and tears. Vance turned his head away without opening them. 

Dola stood and found a new cloth in the drawer next to his bed where she knew he kept them. She returned to where they sat on the floor and tied a new one around his eyes which surprised him. Adjusting the strands of hair around the blindfold, Dola was overwhelmed by a moment of weakness. She held his head between her hands and kissed his forehead first, then his cheek and finally his lips. 

A wave of relief crashed over her. She didn’t linger, afraid it would scare him off or that he did not want this, but she pressed their foreheads together. Vance did not move away. But he did not move closer either. He put his hands over her wrists, but otherwise appeared as if he did not register what happened. 

He doesn’t care about you. Dola frowned to herself, remembering a cruel implication her Ghost put into her head.

“One piece of information I shared with Osiris interested him. He said it was useful, thanked me and said well done,” he said quietly, without acknowledging what Dola did. 

“Oh?” Dola’s interest was piqued and she wanted to steer the conversation into something better. “What did you tell him?”

“Something from years ago. A message given to me by your Queen. She told me to tell Osiris, when I see him, to plant the seed,” Vance explained, tilting his head. 

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

Dola shook her head. It didn’t matter right now. “We will stay here. The Guardians will continue coming anyway. They expect their bounties and patrol beacons maintained,” Dola replied. “We will finish the song.”

“I want that too,” he said and squeezed her wrists. His eyes were still teary, but he smiled with relief. She closed the gap between them again. He allowed it.

Mora watched from afar in horror, knowing for a fact that her Guardian will never leave this place.

Chapter Text

Waves of dread engulfed Mora. They’d been engulfing her ever since they first crashed on Mercury. 

Over two years ago, in their plunge to the planet, Mora sensed a shiver rattling her shell all the way until the ship hit the ground. As if something had been trying to pull her apart. Needles digging into her and fingers rearranging her insides. She’d believed that this had been the consequence of the freefall and crash. She could’ve decompiled, but she wanted to stay with her Guardian. To be there for her in their inevitable final death. Together. 

When Vance first played the recordings of the tones for Dola a few days after the crash, Mora’s dread spiked in her metaphorical gut. Whatever had probed through her, strongly enough to bring her shell almost to bursting, it had not been simply gravity. 

Whatever the tones were, she felt them.

Mora kept her secret close. She did not want to speak it out loud. She did not want to acknowledge it. She did not want to remember it at all. But every time strange tones echoed through the study in the Lighthouse, Mora knew, deep inside, that she had heard it all too. Something |old| reached out, waiting for her |to respond|. 

Most of all, she needed to remain clear-headed for Dola. She needed to be the voice of reason, to reject the mystery of the tones and the prophecies and everything her Guardian was so easily roped into. Mora could not afford to think about it all. If she relented, something |old| would reach back. It would find her. It would find Dola. It would find them all. 

Instead, Mora avoided everything. It’d been easy, given her distaste for the whole planet and the Lighthouse and its keeper. It’d been hard, given her Guardian’s obsession. Mora felt torn apart between what she knew was right and her need to support her chosen. 

For two years, she watched. She had her moments of disagreement and plenty of arguments, but at the end of the day, the two of them stayed and Mora kept to herself. She observed from the corners. She was there to heal and rez Dola. She was there to support her in other matters. 

Mora had also been there for Vance. When Dola was away, patrolling, Mora would stick around, near him, as a silent and unseen protector. She felt a responsibility for him too. Despite her dislike, she could not give up her protective nature. He was a civilian. He was blind. He was messing with something |old| that made Mora want to flee. 

Through their stay on Mercury, the Ghost also observed the inexplicable changes her Guardian went through. Dola acted as if a stranger assumed control of her. 

She’d been a Guardian for a little over a year before Mercury and in that year, Mora learned everything about her. There was nothing complicated there. She was a Hunter who loved good fights, guns, exploration and meeting new people. Mora often joked with other Ghosts about how Dola is a default Hunter. Nothing strange or concerning ever happened near her or with her. It was relieving. She'd heard of far more stressful situations.

Naturally, Mora did not know anything about her Guardian’s previous life, but she found her in a downed spaceship in the piles of debris in the Reef. Originally, Mora went to search in the aftermath of Oryx’s destruction of the Awoken Fleet; many Ghosts did the same. She initially believed that Dola had been one of the Awoken who perished in the devastating attack by that creature, however on further inspection of the spaceship she died in, Mora realised that it was older. Later, she dated it back to the Reef Wars. 

The Ghost didn't share any of this with her Guardian and there had never been a need to do so. Dola never asked. She did not seem to be bothered about it at all. Even when some of her friends talked about the possibility of figuring out their previous lives, Dola would shrug and tune out of the conversation. She had no interest in that or anything that had to do with the more uncomfortable parts of a Guardian’s existence.

Dola’s grim obsession with death after arriving to Mercury sent Mora into a spiral of anxiety every day. Just like her obsession with learning about mysterious and obscure details about the planet and its secrets. Dola had simply never been even remotely scholarly. 

And yet, within a month of reading, she became obsessed. Mora had previously never seen her Guardian touch a book. To turn her into someone who would never be seen without at least three in her hands at all times… Mora despaired. 

Where did it all lead? It led to the strange man in the Lighthouse. 

Mora saw that too. Mora saw how Dola attached to him from the moment he told her that her experience could help him. She wanted to help; her Guardian has always had the need to assist others. 

Traumatised, Lightless, feeling as if her entire purpose and identity had been stripped from her, she desperately wanted to be helpful. When Vance offered her the opportunity to do so, she leaped at it. 

At first, Mora hoped that Vance would continue being harsh with her. That he would continue rejecting her. That he would treat her as a tool. Mora felt bad thinking that way, but she could not help it. She needed Dola to give up, pack, and leave. She needed to leave Mercury. 

Instead, Dola became better and better at being a scholar, which turned Vance’s opinion of her around, which led to him mellowing out, which led to Dola attaching more strongly. Mora understood, in part. Dola had always had a lot of sympathy and love for people around her, especially those that were weaker. 

Over the course of months, Mora observed as they became friends. They talked more often about things that weren't just studies. They shared hobbies, strange as they were; Vance would play music and read to her, Dola would do simple tricks and show off her shooting prowess. 

Mora saw her Guardian trying to get closer to him and a part of her wanted to help. Sometimes she would; on several occasions, Mora reached out to Vance in private, to try and explain Dola’s actions to him. He would consistently remain unreadable. Mora could not tell what he felt, if anything. She concluded that he felt nothing.

Things rapidly changed when Dola, in her need to help, made a space for them in the study. Soon after, Dola was able to be closer to him in a natural way. They became inseparable. But only in the study. Outside, Mora realised, none of the other followers knew anything.

In a way, it proved to Mora that Vance did not care, but on the other hand, it made her angry. How dare he reject Dola’s affection this way? Her Guardian did everything she could to make him feel safe and comfortable and no longer alone, and yet, he never returned anything in the same way. While Dola jumped at his every demand and whim, there was never anything more than that from him. Mora had heard Guardians pointing and talking about Dola; mad dog of Mercury. 

Unfortunately, or fortunately, there was something there, even if Vance couldn't explain it or show it properly. Mora knew it. She talked to him when Dola was away, she helped him organise and archive his library. He’d light up whenever Mora brought up her Guardian. She liked seeing that. She hated seeing that. 

Dola’s need to help and protect him manifested more and more with more details. She asked him to teach her to read his script so he did. She would go after him, correcting everything he touched that he did not return upright. She made sure never to change the order or position of anything in the Lighthouse; Vance had a routine he kept to, remembering everything perfectly and doing it exactly the same every time. She helped him when he got injured a few times and when he got sick. 

He made her a gift for the Dawning. He started accepting being close to her. It made Dola fixated on him so much that Mora would find her sobbing in her room. Confused as she was, Mora started insisting that Dola should just tell him what she feels, but her Guardian insisted as well, that the fear of him rejecting her was stronger than the hope that he wouldn't. 

It became worse after the Sundial. 

Mora knew very little of what happened to Dola inside of the Sundial, but she understood a few bits and pieces. The Sundial allowed Dola to connect to thousands of timelines, all about one thing; Saint-14 and Osiris’ love for him. Experiencing this first hand unravelled Dola. That feeling she kept inside of her connected to everything Osiris had done to save a man he loved. Dola resonated with it. 

Her great teacher was motivated by love. So was she. 

In the two short months since, Dola’s affection grew to the point where even Vance must’ve realised it. Mora at least thought he did. There was no real way to tell, as he remained unreadable as ever. She felt ashamed for wanting him to reject Dola, but in the end he didn't. 

Mora had no idea why. Obviously, it helped his ego to be liked by a Guardian, and one that inexplicably shared his every thought and interest, but had he actually cared in the same way, he would've done or said something.

He would have acted differently after she kissed him. Mora was in disbelief. He did not react at all. His first thought was to keep going on and on about his faith, after the subject of his worship had been very clear about the whole ordeal. Osiris did not want this. It was a perfect opportunity to leave; he got the sign to stop and Dola provided an exit with her affection. Vance could simply take it, leave Mercury, leave the cult, and live out his life with her. 

Instead, he fell into a depressive episode and Dola reinforced his dedication to finish what he started, now with even more stakes in it. Now, he knew what she felt and he accepted it. But that was all he did. He accepted it. 

Mora knew that he did not share it. At least not in the same way. He liked the attention and he liked being understood, but had Dola never said anything, he would’ve been none the wiser. Had Dola not done what she’s done, Vance would've continued his life completely clueless and, more importantly, unbothered. 

Ultimately, as Mora had always suspected, it was proven to her that he did not care. What was there was Dola enabling him and validating his beliefs. That was all. No emotion of any kind compelled him to treat her as anything other than a vessel for information that would elevate him in some imaginary hierarchy of the cult. Dola’s affection was just an assurance that she would not leave; that he’d continue having an audience that listened to his every word, and agreed with it.

Mora hated it. Her Guardian deserved someone who felt the same way. Not half-way, not as a convenience, not as a part of this cult. 

But Mora also didn't have the heart to continue hating it. Dola was happy. They seemed happy. Somewhere, at some point, there was a way for them to figure things out and leave and lead a normal life. Mora swore to help them out. She relented and she came to terms with it all. She even started viewing him as a part of her family and the worry she held for Dola extended to the worry for him. There was nothing that she wanted more than for Dola to eventually take him away from Mercury. Take her away from Mercury. 

And now the shadows grew |longer|. Mora felt |the signs| in her mechanical bones, a point of dread. 

Something terrible was going to happen.

Chapter Text

Osiris’ words burrowed themselves permanently into Vance’s mind, even months later. He clung to the few that were spoken to him like a lifeline. Even the ones that hurt him. Especially the ones that hurt him. As he tinkered with a device made from scrap he’d found lying about in the old Lighthouse, he thought of those words more strongly. 

Dark omens spoke to him from the words etched into pages stained with sand that was impossible to clean. The Darkness will return, and in Darkness, the Lighthouse must stand to guide the lost. He was the only one who truly understood what was coming. None but the Lightless, mortal, could comprehend the true scope of finality that the Darkness’ return would bring. 

The Infinite Simulacrum will allow entry to the Forest. Someone will have to seal it. He could not let the Forest be taken and used by the long, angular shadows on approach. But Osiris’ words simmered inside of him anyway. Perhaps he was right, as he always was.

Find a simple life. But how could one find a simple life after bearing witness to discoveries that threatened life itself? It was easy for the ignorant civilians in the City to move about their day, but Vance could not imagine being uninitiated after all he’d experienced. Something was coming and it held a million blades. 

Start a family. Vance paused his tinkering with the device. His family was a Guardian. Guardians have a different life, the one he could not follow. Guardians are immortal, and he is not. Even so, he had a family and his time with it was limited. 

Write music. He’d done that his whole life. 

Leave Mercury. His life, his family and his music were on Mercury. 

Vance resumed work on the Simulacrum, grabbing a few more supplies and then deciding to continue back in his study in the new Lighthouse. When he stepped outside, the world changed. Osiris’ much older words replaced his new ones in Vance’s mind. 

The words about the end of the world.

And then the full song was unveiled for him.

It teased him with a familiarity he could not quite place, but knew he remembered from a time before his life turned dark. He’d heard it before, somewhere and somehow, and it beckoned him every time he’d managed to fill in a new gap from Dola’s imperfect recollection of the tones. Now he heard it himself and he knew where it led.

With a slow but horrifying realisation, he understood. There was simplicity in knowing. Equally terrible and comforting to have clarity about one’s own fate. He was the one who will seal the Forest. He had to close the loop. 

The song was of death and the death was his. The final tone in the chorus. 

Vance |the implement| had less time than he thought. Calm |relieved| to know the truth, Vance stood as the |hungering| tetrahedron eclipsed the sun so deeply that even he could sense the light of the Sun fading behind the monstrous |maw| shape. There was no escape from his |destiny| path.

In the new Lighthouse, Dola watched as a Pyramid ship descended through the sky, unfathomably silent, impossibly beautiful. It stirred the sands of Mercury as it descended through the unnatural atmosphere, and blotted the sun. Beacons lit at every spire, beaming into the sky. She expected a war to break on the surface of the planet, but nothing happened. The Pyramid hung in the sky in total peace. The Lighthouses sighed in relief and hummed in unison with it. The song was finished.

Chapter Text

“You can’t do this. It will kill her,” Mora said, mortified about what Vance just shared with her. 

She had the recording secured and Vance was clearly not in a great state of mind or body, standing in front of her vacantly. He was so dull he didn’t even cry and she’d seen him cry for way less. He must’ve been terrified out of his mind to get into a situation where this would be his final decision. 

She’d seen and heard him saying complete nonsense to random strangers in the Lighthouse for weeks. Now it made sense. He kept this anxiety and fear inside, and it would spill as incoherent rambling with strangers. Otherwise, it might've spilled with Dola. And he could share none of it with Dola. Or she would've understood what he planned to do.

“I must do it,” he said. “If I don’t do it, then none of it will happen anyway and I will put an additional strain on the timelines that are already suffering under the weight of everything Osiris has done and the weight of that Pyramid.”

Mora could not understand what he was saying. “What? You don’t know that. Just come with us. Please.”

Vance sighed. “I can’t. I have to seal the Forest or our enemies will surely use it for purposes so dark we cannot fathom them.”

Mora zipped towards him, gently colliding with his head. “Please leave this to someone else. You’ve been ordered to evacuate. If the Commander or Osiris wanted this done, they would’ve told you. They would’ve sent someone else. This is not a priority. Getting everyone to safety is.”

Vance pushed her shell away equally gently. “Promise me that you won’t tell her. She will not evacuate if you tell her.”

Mora shook, exasperated. Her frustration was audible. But he was right. She will never leave. Mora knew this. If he tells Dola, she will stay with him and Mora will have to stay as well. 

For a moment, Mora felt relief. If she does as Vance instructed, Dola will finally leave. The two of them will return to normal. Mora will finally be free of this place. Free of him. 

Mora was sick with her own thoughts. This is not what a Ghost should feel about the Lightless. Despite everything, she cared. Despite everything, he didn't deserve to be left alone in that place. 

But she did not want her Guardian to follow. If there’s anything that made Mora respect this man after all he’s done, it was this. He did not want Dola to die. And now, ironically, she found him worthy of her Guardian. Now that he will not be coming with them. Now that he will certainly die.

Now, she considered that she may have misjudged him after all. 

“How do you expect me to keep this from her? She will sense something is wrong.”

“Don’t do anything until you’re in the City. Show her the recording only when you’re certain that she can’t fly back.”

“You’re sure that something terrible is going to happen.”

“I know it. Either way, I will be sealed in the Forest. Do not let her come after me.”

In the last ditch effort, Mora flew back closer to him. “Please. You can’t put this on me. You know how she gets in grief. She will never let it go. If she survives the initial shock, she will never be the same.”

“Promise me that you will keep her alive. Do anything you have to.”

He pushed her shell again, but held her in his palm a little longer. Just as they met. 

“She loves you in a way she can’t express. She would’ve liked it if you could’ve stayed with her for the one life you have.”

Vance stood still, unreadable.

“In another time.”

Chapter Text

“Are you sure everything is packed? I’ll do another pass,” Dola said and dove back into the boxes. 

“There’s more, but we’ll send this shipment now. It is the most important, and I want it to get to the Tower as soon as possible,” Vance responded. 

It’s been months of relentless packing. While the Guardians were dealing with the Pyramid ships on other planets, Dola stayed on Mercury, as ever. The entire inventory of a massive library had to be checked and double checked, then packed and sent to safety. The evacuation was in full swing and there was no time to waste. Nobody knew what would happen with the Pyramids, but everybody doubted they would simply leave. Dola spent years on Mercury and never imagined she would be forced to go away, but now, with that vessel hanging in the sky ominously, she took the advice of her Ghost seriously for the first time. 

They will pack and leave until the situation resolves in one way or another. If something happens to the planet, they will simply have to resume their work elsewhere. If nothing happens, they can return. Dola did not want to risk the entire library and their work. 

And now they’ve received orders to complete the evacuation and depart the planets at once. Dola sealed the crate she was taking with her; the most important books were inside. An hour later she was at the landing pad, watching as the crate was being loaded into a ship. The rest of her possessions were in a single bag on her back. Other followers were also boarding and they waited as the crate was being secured first. 

Vance stood next to her, listening to the process. He was unusually tense and silent. Dola understood: they were finally leaving Mercury and with no promise of return. The City was not exactly a welcoming place for them, but they were involved in the evacuation procedure and were urged to retreat to Earth as any other Guardian or civilian. Despite the City’s attitude towards the followers of Osiris, they were invited to safety. Dola appreciated that. But Vance remained tense. 

He’d been different for months, which she could attribute to the uncertainty of what would happen to a place he dedicated his life to. Mercury and the Lighthouse meant everything to him. The possibility of losing them was real and it hurt. He was clearly not dealing with that possibility well and Dola did not know how to help because she felt the same. 

But he even had anxiety over going to the City; a place he’d last visited ages ago and that did not linger well in his memory. He’d often mention how the last place he remembered from there was the hospital. The first time evacuation was suggested he even despaired about not having anywhere in the City to return to, until Dola explained, incredulously, that he would obviously stay with her. 

“I would prefer if you’d come with me right now,” she told him.

“I have more things to prepare for transport and I have to attend to ensure everything is properly done and nothing is lost,” he said. “But this is the most important and I trust nobody else to deliver it safely to the City.”

Dola has heard the reasons before but she still didn’t like it. “We can just send this and I could wait.”

“No, sending this without someone to watch over it… No, I can’t. I need you to be there with these items and to immediately let me know when you arrive, as well as to watch over them. I do not know what they might do to our studies in the City. I need to be sure there will be someone there to protect them from destruction,” he insisted. “I will be merely an hour behind you.”

The ship’s pilot signalled being ready to fly. Other followers began boarding. Wind rose as the ship prepared for flight. Dola stood in front of Vance holding his tense hands. She kissed him goodbye. 

“Please hurry,” she said.

As she let go of his hands, his hold lingered for a moment, as if he hesitated. Dola went towards the ship and looked back, hoping he would simply follow her. 

He did not. 

Dola entered the evacuation ship, its hatch sealed, and it soared into the sky. She sat near the crate, resting her arm on it, protecting it. A symbol of an eye with resonant ellipses stared at her from the crate. Unease settled in her stomach. Away from the scorching sand for the first time in years, in space for the first time in years, there was only an unsettling feeling of incomprehensible strangeness. 

As they broke orbit, her heart rate quickened and her breath got shallow. A long string of her connection to the planet broke. Dola suddenly wanted out. She wanted back down to Mercury, back to Vance. She should not have left him there to board another ship. It was insane. She panicked, shaking in her seat. Mora appeared in front of her.

“I’m here. Just focus on me,” her Ghost said and Dola found Mora’s gleaming eye. 

Later that day, they were on Earth and her crate was secured in the Tower’s hangar. The first thing she did was send a message confirming her arrival and the safety of the shipment, but there was no reply. He must’ve been too busy to send something back, and she did not want to distract and delay him further, so she left it at that.

Dola hadn’t visited the new Tower a single time so she was confused and lost. There were too many Guardians everywhere. Too many noises and none of them the wind or the sand or the sizzling radiolaria. 

She sat near the other crates from Mercury in the hangar and observed piles from other planets. She’d heard that Asher Mir and Sloane would stay at their stations. It was a ludicrous choice. Dola focused on her own crates. It wasn’t long before another ship from Mercury arrived. She jumped towards it, observing the people disembarking and boxes being carried over. He should walk out any moment.

He did not. 

Confused, Dola stared at the now empty ship, her smile fading away. She walked through the crowd. She looked more closely. She asked if anyone had seen him. Other ships arrived, including the Gray Pigeon which landed in its spot and settled down. He should’ve been in any of these. She even considered he may have had to board Saint’s. She resumed her wait, hoping more ships would eventually arrive. She started shaking and sweating and tapping her foot and playing with her fingers and pieces of her armour, waiting. She even thought of taking one of the jumpships and returning to Mercury alone, but she was tasked with keeping their works safe. And outbound flights were not allowed anyway.

It went on for hours, until no more ships were coming to the City. 

Dola heard commotion in the Tower and a strange translucent light began slowly engulfing the City. People started leaving the Tower in droves. She watched Osiris walk across the hangar and approach Saint-14. They waited for the space to empty, not noticing a lonely figure near a pile of crates, and then left as well, holding hands. 

Dola still waited in the hangar, even as the Traveler got more and more engulfed. It emitted ethereal noises across the City as it streamed pulses of Light. Dola watched from the edge of the hangar, where ships should be flying in, and there were none. Just the Traveler in the sky, sparkling, engulfing. 

Her skin and armour soon became flooded as well. Light spilled everywhere as the tempo of the pulses grew. 

She watched as the City roared in awe when the Traveler finally pulsed its final beam of Light, temporarily blinding everyone with a wave of warmth and relief. When the pulse ended, the previously broken orb hung in the sky completely healed. Except for the piece at the bottom, the Traveler was complete. 

The solar system was not. At the edges of the remaining worlds, a Darkness crept in. No more ships came to the hangar.

Dola thought she could handle the possibility that she’d been lied to. 

She could not.

Chapter Text

Dola stormed through the Tower with a fury she’d never felt before. Everyone moved out of her way as she ran towards the figure standing at the edge of the Tower, facing the Traveler. Rage so strong spilled out that her footsteps melted the concrete she walked on. 

Commander Zavala turned when she approached. The Vanguard symbol beneath her feet billowed smoke as it deformed where she stood. 

“Guardian, how may I help you?” 

“Where are the rest of the evacuation ships?” Dola asked. 

“Every evacuation ship has been accounted for. All that were scheduled have arrived. Are you missing a shipment? I suggest talking to the shipwright in the ha–”

“I am missing a person.”

Zavala frowned and turned his attention to the Hunter fully. “How is this person missing?”

“I don’t know. He was supposed to be on an evacuation ship behind me and he wasn’t. On any of them.”

Zavala looked to something behind Dola and she turned. In hope. Behind her there was Mora followed by Ikora Rey. “If you have more information, the Vanguard operatives in the Tower will assist in you solving the sit–”

“You ordered his evacuation. He told me. You ordered all of them to evacuate,” Dola interrupted. “We prepared everything. His ship was behind mine. He should’ve been on it.” 

“Hello, Guardian,” Ikora said from behind. “I would appreciate it if you could come with me.”

Dola looked from Zavala to Ikora and back. Then to her Ghost half-hiding behind the Warlock Vanguard. She took a confused step back. “Where is Vance?” she asked directly. 

Commander Zavala’s face grew gaunt as he watched the Hunter, then looked at Ikora. “He did not want to come.”

“Yes he did. He was preparing behind me. He said he was boarding the ship after mine.”

“Dola San,” Ikora said sternly. “Come with me please.”

As Ikora reached for her, Dola jumped out of the way. “No! Tell me where he is, right now!” She ran into Zavala and began beating her fists over his armour. “Where is Vance? Where is he?! Where is he?! ”

A crowd gathered nearby, everyone staring. Dola did not care. If she could, she would’ve turned the Tower into a pyre until it reduced down to ash. She would melt them all to cinders until this world was sand too. 

“Dola. Please,” her Ghost chimed in. “Just come with us.”

“You will be safe to talk to your Ghost in my office. She has something to tell you,” Ikora added. 

While Dola was still, now weakly, batting her fists over Zavala’s armour, Ikora took the opportunity with Mora and they managed to grab the Hunter while her back was turned; they transmatted to Ikora’s office with Dola in tow. She was suddenly out of the Tower’s plaza and inside of a dimly lit room with bookshelves. The familiarity locked her into place. Ikora nodded to the Ghost and then departed. Mora floated in front of her Guardian. 

“He made me promise not to tell you,” she said with a voice Dola never heard before. If Ghosts could cry, that would be the sound they made, for sure. “He made me promise to keep you alive.”

“What are you talking about?”

Mora spun her shell and her central light blinked. A message played. It was Vance’s voice. 

“I must apologise for doing this, but if I don't, you will never leave and you will die and I cannot bear to know that you died chasing me. My fate is to close the loop and seal the Infinite Forest before the Pyramid vessels gain access to its secrets. I will die doing so. 

But I will also live doing so. 

I never understood why you chose me. I know that you felt for me with an intensity I could not match, but thank you. You made my life less lonely. You made it worthwhile to endure the hardships for. But you have your life and I have mine, and mine would have always ended, while yours would not. A Guardian should go on for all the lives she can save. I will do my duty only if I am sure that you will be safe. Do not blame your Ghost; this is something I am forcing her to do for you. She tried to stop me and convince me to leave Mercury with you, but I had to refuse. It’s not her fault. Please don’t break your bond because of this.

If there is one thing you can do in my name, it is to go on and protect those that need protecting. For me, keep hope for the future alive.

Farewell,

Vance.”

Dola’s heart shattered. Rage turned to dull sadness and the fire in her core extinguished. Her wail of despair pierced through the walls of the room. Inside of her, a stillness took hold, a terrible cold that called to her from the back of her mind; a voice that hummed a sweet promise of relief. 

Dola San closed her soul to the world.

Chapter Text

Dola walked into her apartment disoriented from grief. There was nothing inside of her.

She moved to the bathroom and pulled her hood off in front of the mirror. She could not recognise her face. Bleak, hollow. Dola ran her hands across her cheeks, digging into her skin with her nails until she drew blood. She felt nothing.

Forming a fist, she slammed it into the mirror, creating a web of shattered lines with a centre in blood. She gripped the sink with her other hand until it burst under pressure. Pieces of ceramic melted in her palm. She screamed the air out of her lungs.

She did feel something after all. It was rage born of desperation over something that could not be changed. 

“Dola,” she heard her Ghost speak behind her. 

“Get out.”

“Dola, please.”

“Get out! GET OUT!”

She threw a piece of melting ceramic at her Ghost. Mora avoided it and moved out of the way. Dola followed, melting the floor beneath her feet. 

“I HATE YOU!”

Mora ducked and weaved through item after item being thrown at her. Books, cups, pieces of technology, gun parts. Dola walked by one of the evacuation boxes and grabbed a pile of candles. She squeezed them until they deformed into melted wax. She threw that too. 

She left the apartment and ran up the stairs to the roof. She turned in the direction of the Traveler. 

“I HATE YOU TOO! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!”

Dola screamed until her voice became hoarse. Then she screamed more. She screamed until she lost her breath and fell to her knees. Dragging herself over the roof, her hands leaving trails of blood on the floor, Dola reached the ledge of the building. With her voice nearly gone, she called her Ghost who appeared behind her. 

“Don’t rez me,” Dola said. “Leave me dead when I jump. Leave me dead and move on. Find someone else. Bury me in the deepest pit that cannot be reached and seal it. Never bring me back again.”

“I can’t do that,” Mora said, her voice shaking feebly. 

“Then I will fly into the anomaly. Don’t follow me.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Let me die, Mora. Let me die. I was supposed to stay dead. I am only here because this thing up there and you brought me back. You brought me back to this and you are letting me suffer,” Dola said and turned to the Traveler. “You let them take the planets. You could’ve done something. You’ve done something before. You let the Pyramids win. You’re a coward. I hate you. I hope they rend your flesh into pieces. I hope a Pyramid cuts through you. I hope you’re sliced in half and I hope you collapse on this wretched City and burn up in a pyre. I wish you never came here. I wish something would pierce through you and your heart bursts and shrivels inside of you. I wish–”

“Stop it!” Mora yelled in despair. “He wanted you to live! He made me promise that I would keep you alive! He didn’t want you to become like this!”

“I hate him too.”

Dola’s heart unravelled into dust the moment she said that. Her rage turned to tears. She dropped to the floor exhausted and sobbing, her hands and her face painted in blood. 

“You will get through this. I promise that you will,” Mora said. “Don’t leave me like he left you. I promised him. Don’t make me break that promise.”

“He broke his promise to me.”

“There’s a chance that the planets will come back. Just like the Light, remember? Do you not want to be there when they do? Do you want me to have to explain to him how you died, if he comes back?”

“He’s already dead.”

“We don’t know that.”

“I hate all of you.”

Through the tears and through the rage, she stood up. She walked back to her apartment. She passed by the mess she’d made inside. All the broken pieces of everything she owned did not matter to her at all. Everything inside of her was broken. There was nothing left. 

Just an empty void of space, a black hole where a neutron star used to be.

The voices have always been right. It was a weakness.

Chapter Text

For three days, Dola laid curled up in the corner of her room, surrounded by a mess still smoking from her rage. She could not move. She could not eat. She could not. 

She ran every single interaction with him over and over in her mind. How could she have not realised? His every anxious moment made sense now. For months, he’d been strange. Off. Whenever she asked, he said it was because of potentially losing Mercury and his work. That it made him anxious to think about going to the City. Uncertain and afraid of the reception they'd experience there. 

Lies. Endless lies, playing with her heart. Playing with her sympathy and pity and love and care. 

The morning of the evacuation, he’d braided her hair. He liked doing it; it was tactile and calming. She could not understand how he could've done that and then abandoned her a few hours later, to go die in an anomaly of Darkness. She could not understand how she didn't see through the lies. 

Three days later, the braid fell apart and she cried until exhaustion knocked her out. 

At Mora’s desperate begging, Dola finally got up a day after, and spent the next three days dismantling every single object in her apartment. She tore down the shelves and closets and her table and her bed. She threw it all outside in a pile of ash. After, she ventured into the storage room where the items evacuated from Mercury were kept. 

She burst into the room, startling the remaining followers that had begun using the space as a new sanctuary. Dola looked over the storage and began marking things for transmat. 

“Are we moving to a proper temple?” one of the followers asked her.

“No,” Dola said, the first word uttered in almost a week.

“What’s going on then?”

“Are we going to get a place to stay?”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“Where’s Brother Vance?”

Dola stopped in her tracks. Her resolve shattered. A relentless flood unleashed inside of her, sweeping her off her feet. Dola leaned on one of the crates, knees buckling. 

“He stayed on Mercury,” Mora answered instead. 

“But… Mercury is gone…” someone said from the back.

Dola transmatted out of the room. When Mora dared to return to her Guardian, she found her back in the apartment where the place no longer looked as it did before. Now, it was adorned with the bookshelves and other items from the Lighthouse that Dola took from the evacuation crates. Wooden desks and even the bed, adorned with candles and wind chimes and books and rugs and banners. Dola sat at the desk. On it, there was a locked box. 

“I asked around, about the planets,” Mora said. “Ghosts are talking. Osiris went to research the nature of the anomalies left in their place. I managed to get in touch with Sagira.”

Dola held onto the box to the point of her hands hurting from squeezing it. She did not react to Mora’s words. 

“Sagira sent me some data they’ve gathered. Osiris is worried about the anomalies because they appear to be emitting the same noises that the Lighthouse did,” Mora continued. “The tones discovered at the Lighthouse are repeating from the anomalies. And the Pyramids. The research you prepared for Osiris was very useful. He used the recordings to investigate the situation further. Sagira said they will try and get more data.”

“Too late,” Dola said. 

“What do you mean?”

“It’s too late to investigate it more now. Nobody cared to investigate it while we were on the brink of a discovery. Maybe if they cared, we could’ve stopped the Pyramids.”

“Osiris–”

“I hate him.”

Dola stood rapidly and carried the box towards a special storage space she kept free near the bed. A locked box full of Vance’s personal journals. She could open it and read through his writing and cry until she collapses of exhaustion, but she did not. Perhaps one day if she finds out for a fact that he is dead. Until then, she would not invade his privacy. 

The thought ignited a feeble point of hope inside of her. He may not be dead. Every other part of her wanted to give up and accept the simple fact that he’s already dead, but something else in her heart wanted to keep the spark ablaze. 

“No, you don’t. He’s trying to help,” Mora replied. 

“He should’ve helped us earlier,” Dola said, raising her tone. “He pushed us away instead. He should’ve continued the research with us, at the Lighthouse. Had he done so, none of this would’ve happened. So, yes. Yes I do. I wish he would die too, in some dark forgotten pit.”

“Don’t say that.”

Dola turned to her Ghost, eyes red with tears and face contorted with rage. “Why didn’t he help us? Why did nobody help us?”

“That’s not what you asked for. You never asked for help. I tried telling you. I told you that you should just leave. After Osiris spoke to him, you both should’ve left,” Mora said, softly but firmly. “But what’s done is done. I will continue checking back with Sagira. We will figure this out.”

In the midst of reports of Guardians embracing Darkness on a cold and distant icy moon, Mora received the news. Her shell felt constricting now. She found Dola buried in a pile of books, unmoving, in darkness illuminated only by dim candlelight. 

In some dark forgotten pit, Sagira died.

Chapter Text

Just another Trials of Osiris match began on a slow start of the weekend. Team Alpha loaded in; complete strangers to one another. A Titan polished a shotgun to perfection and stared at the Warlock and Hunter that were with him. The Warlock’s pointy Trials helmet shone bright white against the Titan’s dark shaders.

“You two better pull your weight,” the Titan said. “Not in it for the carry. If you don’t know what to do, just follow and clean up behind me.”

The Warlock scoffed. “I’ve been Flawless before, buddy,” she said. “Don’t stand in front of my sniper with your charging and we’re good.”

“Whatever. You know who’s the enemy?” the Titan asked, looking at the feed with his Ghost.

“Ugh, a group. Oh it’s them, that trio. I’m pretty sure their Hunter will be abusing Stasis while it’s broken. As Hunters do. Might as well be cheating.”

“I know Reed-7. He is a good guy.”

“He’s fine, but the Hunter is annoying. Hunters always get the best new stuff and then run rampant in the Crucible with it.”

“What about the Warlock?”

“Shayura is brutal when she wants to be. She has no damn mercy in her bones. Praxic.”

The Titan audibly rolled his eyes. “A shoulder charge and a shotgun will solve that.”

“As I said. Don’t stand in front of my sniper.”

“Whatever. Hey you, Hunter. What’s up? Don’t doze off on us here. We’re going against a trio,” the Titan said and nudged their Hunter with his foot. “I don’t want to have to pick up someone’s slack.”

Dola San raised her head. The sun on her helmet was glowing. Both the Titan and the Warlock looked at each other. “Don’t stand in my way and we’ll win.”

The Warlock nudged the Titan and whispered something to him. 

“How many Flawlesses?!” the Titan exclaimed, prompting the Warlock to slam her hands on her knees and facepalm. 

“Whatever,” Dola imitated the Titan. “We’re starting.”

Her black and yellow cloak billowed in the simulated wind of the Altar of Flame on Mercury. Almost like the real thing. Saint began calling the match and presenting team Alpha and Bravo to one another, asking for fairness and sportsmanship. 

The Titan started running to the left and the Warlock followed. Dola detached to the right. She flanked the enemy before they could realise and cleaned up two of them with her hand cannons in the first twenty seconds of the match. Only the Warlock stood and she was rushed by Dola’s other two teammates. The round was done in thirty seconds. So was the second round. And the third.

In the fourth round, Dola slid towards heavy ammo first, blocking the enemy’s line of sight with her grenade. She loaded a massive sniper and cleaned up two with headshots without breaking a sweat. She rushed the third, the Hunter, and struck her with a heavy solar knife, then punched her out of a dodge with a melee knife.

In the fifth, Dola fired up her Golden Gun and cleaned up the whole team before her teammates reached the combat area. The enemy team was no longer trying. She found them in spawn, Titan and Hunter shrugging to one another while the Warlock burned with rage. Dola shot her out of a dash with her hand cannon engulfed in solar energy and ended the match. 

The feed chimed the accomplishments and failures. The enemy team fell at the gates of the Lighthouse. Dola was granted passage. Her two teammates just stared in shock, happy that she would not be in their next match on the enemy team. 

Saint was still calling the match ending when Dola loaded herself up for the Simulated Lighthouse. It’s been a few hours since this week’s matches began, but Dola was already on her third Lighthouse visit. A total of over four hundred in the past two months. 

Her body plunged into the Simulation and she appeared on top of the decorated Lighthouse. She walked forward with a sense of purpose. She’s endlessly studied this simulation over the past two months. She explored every inch of the structure. She looked at every angle, calculated every distance to every object she could see from it. Dola was convinced that she could accurately determine the position of the Simulated Lighthouse in comparison with where the rest of the areas on Mercury were. 

There was no certainty that this would be the day she made her attempt, but there was no harm in doing another pass of her calculations. She approached the chest in front of Saint who greeted her, somewhat less enthusiastically than the last two times. After a nod to him, the chest opened and spilled treasures she passively picked up. 

As usual, Dola moved away from the chest, but did not leave the Simulation. Instead, she went to the edge of the Lighthouse and stared at the sun and the labyrinthian caverns below. Across the converted plains and craters of Mercury, somewhere in this space, there is an entrance to the Infinite Forest. 

Yes, she is in a simulation, but the Infinite Forest is a simulation engine itself. If she could find it and enter, she would be passing from one simulation to another and theoretically, that would give her an ability to enter the Forest proper. If that doesn’t work, she will continue coming here every week and do more research. 

She’d already tried with other simulated arenas being used in the Crucible, but with no results. The arenas were simply locked simulation spaces. Dola was certain that the Lighthouse was the key. The Lighthouse was the source of it all. It was a starting point. Other arenas were elsewhere. Even the arenas simulated inside of the Forest were not good enough. The Forest was vast, endless. There was no way to know where to begin searching. Worse, other arenas were simply copies, fake and empty. Just a coat of paint on the walls; paint that will change for the next match.

Dola jumped off the arenas into the abyss many times. It led nowhere.

“Guardian?” Saint called from behind. 

Dola turned to see him away from the chest, near her but not too close. A Ghost with a scarab on top of the shell hovered next to him. Dola scoffed. “Yes?”

“You come here very often. More often than most!” Saint said slowly. Carefully. As if speaking to a feral animal. “I’d like to congratulate you, but also suggest some rest. Yes?”

“No thank you.”

She turned back to stare at the Sun and her first proposed path towards the Infinite Forest. There was a way down the spire that would put her just over the labyrinthian caverns. She was confident she could pass through those. Obviously, the trip will take her more time. Probably another four hundred visits, or more. She will map more of the simulation with each trip. 

She neared the edge and turned to start descending. Saint-14 leapt forward and grabbed her arm before she could slither down the wall. 

“Hey!” she yelled.

He effortlessly pulled her back and set her feet on solid ground. “I do not think this is wise choice. We are in a simulation, Guardian. There is nothing down there.”

“Did my Ghost tattle to you? She does to everyone. I am Dola the Weirdo to the whole City because of her,” she said and moved back to the ledge. Saint grabbed her again. “Let me be.”

“I don’t need a tattle tale to recognise a broken heart.”

Dola froze and forgot to wrestle out of Saint’s grasp. Cold sweat ran down her spine. Her senses dulled under the pressure in her helmet. 

“Leave me alone,” she said. 

“I don’t think I will,” Saint-14 replied. “And I am very stubborn.”

Saint held her arm in his huge hand and positioned himself between her and the ledge. Dola stared in frustration then wrestled out of the grasp. Saint let her. She yelled in anger, removing her hood and taking off her helmet. The pressure was unbearable. With another scream of rage, she slammed the helmet into the ground. It made a dull thud and rolled off to the side. Her long black-haired braid spilled out of the helmet and her sparkling purple eyes teared up. Her pale indigo skin glistened in the simulated sunglow.

“You don’t understand! My Ghost doesn’t understand! Nobody does!” she screamed and stomped the ground, her fists hitting her legs. 

“What do I not understand?” Saint asked calmly and began a slow approach towards the Hunter thrashing in desperation and anguish. 

“I love him and he is gone! He is in there somewhere! He is in that place! In this place! In some place like this, exactly like this!” Dola was on the floor, gasping for air and drowning in tears. “I just have to get to the Forest! I just have to get there, it’s right there! Please let me get there and I will be out of your way.”

“Guardian,” Saint said, crouched in front of the Hunter sobbing on the floor. “Look at me. I am Saint-14.”

“I know who you are! I saw an infinity of timelines in which you and Osiris lived your lives!”

Saint reached out to her and lifted her head, to look him in the eyes. His helmet was on the floor next to hers. What a kind face, she thought. 

“Then you know that I died because I set my life aside to chase the man I loved into the Infinite Forest,” he said. “I am the only one who understands exactly what you feel.”

Dola’s gasps became infrequent as she looked at Saint-14 and consumed his words. Saint waited until her sniffling and tears cleared up a little. 

“But he saved you. Who would I be if I didn’t attempt the same?”

“Osiris made an awful bargain he still refuses to tell me about. He believes he’d paid for it now. Life for a life,” Saint said, becoming emotional himself. “You are not Osiris and you do not wish to be. His burdens would crush us all. His bargain was one of a kind and for good reason. I still carry burden myself, of being the only one pulled from death back into this world while others lay in the ground. You don’t want to set these burdens onto yourself, or someone else.”

Dola was weeping again, as the weight of truth collapsed on her in full force. 

“He told you to promise that you will not waste your life,” her Ghost spoke. 

“Guardian, you can come to talk to me when you feel low. Any time, day or night. Promise that you will. If you think of running off following some strange plan, come to me instead,” Saint added. 

Dola left the Simulated Lighthouse crying without end, but she left it safely in her ship. She did not go back into Trials that week. Or the week after. 

She flew her ship to the anomaly of Mercury, listened to the distant song beckoning her, then set a direct line to Saint on her way back. She rummaged through the crates brought from the Lighthouse in the evacuation; they belonged to no one but her now. Books and scrolls with words pushing her to madness that would dissipate when a Titan’s hand lowered on her shoulder. 

She even managed to return to Trials, weeks later. She continued coming to the Lighthouse, but no longer looking for a way to jump into the empty abyss. Instead, she had Saint-14 standing by her, offering words of kindness and understanding. 

In tears, she realised that the person who made Trials would never witness her achievements in them. She would've liked to show him her prowess and he would've liked to listen to her winning.

One day, she’ll come up with a new plan. There had to be a way to get to Mercury. There had to be a way to return it from the anomaly. There had to be a way to save him.

Chapter Text

The simulated sun scorched the top of the Lighthouse. Two figures sat near the edge, in the miniscule shade provided by the taller structures sticking out from the floor. 

Saint-14 had just called the final match of the weekend and greeted this week’s final Flawless Guardian. It had become routine to take the time after the final match and sit down and talk to that Guardian, who was always the same. The Hunter next to him adorned in black and yellow garments sat with her legs pressed to her chest and her head resting on her knees. Despite her many wins this week, every week, she would always just stare vacantly until Saint spoke. 

“How did you find your games? I am always very pleased to call matches with you,” he asked, the usual.

“It was okay,” Dola replied. “There’s a lot of opponents that target me deliberately.”

“Guardians hold grudges, yes? You stopped many of them from climbing to the Lighthouse.”

Dola sighed. “I guess. But sometimes they send messages. Rude ones.”

A Ghost chimed into existence next to Dola. “You should let me filter through them, but you insist on opening them every time.”

“I agree with your Ghost. Pay no attention to those that are rude,” Saint nodded. 

“I don’t care about them being rude to me. They lose either way. Sometimes faster if they’re preoccupied sending me that crap,” Dola said. “It’s about how targeted they are. Since everyone knows apparently.”

“You do wear the insignia,” Mora said gently. 

“They don’t mock me for the Cult. They mock me for… him,” she snapped and gestured with her head vaguely in the direction of the transformed plains of Mercury. 

Saint looked across those plains, remembering his own burdens. “It says more about them, to mock someone for their love.”

Dola could not stop the silent tears rolling down her cheeks. “I hear it every day. Not just people mocking me. It’s the general chatter of Guardians. Everyone is still talking about the planets being gone. It’s always… Oh poor Asher! Poor Sloane! I’m so glad Ana made it out! They don’t even mention him,” she continued. “I don’t know what’s worse. If they don’t mention him or if they do. Because if they do, then it’s just… Glee. Well at least that annoying guy is gone. The Darkness did at least one good thing.”

“I will talk to them,” Saint said, an uncharacteristic tinge of anger in his voice, one Dola had not heard before. “Guardians should not speak that way. Not about the Lightless.”

“You’ve done enough. You don’t have to bother yourself with this.”

“I’ve not done enough. This is yet another burden I carry,” Saint said, shaking his head. “I was there, on Mercury. Before it all happened. I watched last ships leave and I searched through the Lighthouse to make sure nobody was left behind. I looked for him. And when I did not find him, I assumed he had evacuated. So I left.”

Dola turned to look at Saint, who played with pebbles on the ground next to her. He was a mountain and seeing him with his head bent was strange. 

“There was nothing you could’ve done,” Dola said and turned back to staring at the canals the Vex shaped into Mercury. “He was already in the Forest and it was sealed.”

“It does not mean I do not think about it. If I’d searched a moment earlier. If I’d been faster. We leave no one behind. Not in that place. No one should be lost in the Infinite Forest. I would have carried him out of there on my back."

Dola smiled, imagining it. For a moment, she entertained the idea. Saint, returning to the tower with disgruntled Vance in tow. Disgruntled, but alive. She thought about Vance’s message, mentioning closing the loop, whatever that meant. If Saint prevented him from following his goal, would that have destroyed the timeline? Perhaps it should’ve been destroyed. Perhaps there’s a timeline out there where that happened. 

What she would give to split into a million pieces again, in a place of endless white void where timelines could be felt on your skin.

“It’s not on you,” she simply told Saint. “Thank you for thinking of him.”

“A Titan knows all those he protects,” Saint replied. “It’s thanks to the work of him and the others that this simulation is possible. Everyone who comes to this tournament and to Shaxx’s arenas should be grateful instead of sending rude messages.”

The Titan’s huge arm encircled Dola almost entirely as he pulled her into a sideways hug. Her tears continued, still silent. She didn’t think she still had enough tears to cry. She didn’t think Saint-14 was actually serious when he offered to talk to her and that he would follow through without fault or complaint. She knew he had his own grief. 

“How is Osiris?” she asked. 

Saint released a heavy sigh. “He is… Fine. Running back into his work. He deflects when I ask him to confide.”

“You knew Sagira well?”

“As if she were my own. And she was close with Geppetto. We miss her terribly. Osiris does too, but he does not want to speak of her,” Saint replied. “He is distant.”

Dola sighed and looked to the Sun.

Chapter Text

The threat of Darkness arrived with a loud bang, then nuzzled itself close and became yesterday’s news. Guardians conquered stasis and moved on. The Pyramids became a known sight, as simple as the Traveler that hung in the City’s sky. The missing planets and moons did not disrupt the order of the heavens. Things continued on as ever. 

Osiris lost his Light and with it his inner fire. With this loss, the followers of Osiris lost their purpose. There will never be new prophecies again: the prophet was gone and so was his well of knowledge. All that could be extracted from the remaining texts had been extracted and studied. The crowd in the makeshift quarters for the followers in the City, where the books and scrolls were stored, dissipated with each day until only one remained. 

Dola San still wore the same gear, representing the followers of Osiris. She remained in the quarters, keeping an eye on the books and scrolls, keeping them safe. Ikora had allowed the materials and Dola’s devotion to stay. There was no threat from reading these books anymore and old exiles have long since expired. The quarters remained locked most of the time anyway, until they turned from quarters to storage. Dola moved about the system, doing her duties. 

When the dead Awoken prince was revealed to be alive as a Guardian called Crow, Dola was out in the system doing her duties. 

When an alliance was brokered between the Vanguard and the Empress of the Cabal, and between the Vanguard and the Eliksni House of Light, Dola was out in the system doing her duties. 

When Osiris was declared missing as a traitor that allowed a Vex force to invade the City, she travelled back at full speed. He would not have done that. Osiris would not have endangered the City. She had seen what drove him. To be a Guardian was to love and all Osiris ever wanted was to protect. A Guardian of no equal. 

She tried to reach someone in the Vanguard, preferably Ikora, during the commotion, but she could not. Nobody had the time to deal with Dola. She acquired many labels over the months and she would acquire more in years to come; none positive. It was easy to point and laugh at her given the outfit she wore, proudly presenting to the world as a member of the followers of Osiris. It was easy to point and laugh due to her outbursts in public and especially in Trials, until Saint-14 broke her out of the prison of her own mind. 

But at this point everybody knew. At best, people avoided her. At worst, she was called names and mocked. She did not care about the names, but it made it difficult to be heard in a situation when she believed she should’ve been heard.

Like now. Dola knew that there was always the option to contact Saint, but she was also reluctant to bother him at the time when he was most vulnerable. Most in pain. 

And yet, he explained to her that was the exact time when we sometimes had to bother those we cared about. 

“I’ll open the line to him,” she heard her Ghost say when she returned to the ship. 

“Saint?” Dola said as soon as the line was established.

“Dola, hello. Is it urgent? I am very busy,” she heard his voice dripping with anxiety and anger. 

“I know what happened. Osiris would not have done that,” she said immediately and it quelled some of his nerves. 

“I know. I need to find him. He was somehow compromised, maybe blackmailed into doing– ”

“No, you don’t understand Saint,” Dola interrupted him. “Osiris would not be compromised or blackmailed. He would rather die. This isn’t Osiris.”

Silence from the other side. “What do you mean? ”

“It’s not him. This is someone else.”

More silence, prolonged this time. Saint was in deep thought. She could picture his frown. “I have felt something was wrong for a long time. I know something is wrong. I must go.”

With that, Saint closed the call. 

Later that month, Osiris was found in the Dreaming City and the shell in his image split open to reveal the Witch Queen. Real Osiris returned even later, in deep slumber, cleared of all suspicions. Dola was on the front line of every effort to bring him back home and sighed in relief when it was confirmed he had been safely returned to the City. She met Saint in front of his and Osiris’ house and they hugged, both sobbing. At least one returned. 

But Osiris’ loss of Light became the catalyst for the Witch to gain it. 

And with it, Dola watched as an anomaly of Darkness split open in the void of space. 

Mars rolled out of it, preserved and tangible. The planet was covered in scars of time, as it had clearly been used to scavenge for information. Pillaged as it was, it had been otherwise unaffected. The sands were the same and so were the mountains and volcanoes. Dormant, silent, ancient. Windows into the past projecting images of things long gone, empty mirrors into the time before. Dola walked into the crops from millennia ago and watched the buildings half in new shine, half collapsed and forgotten. She walked through time again. 

None of it mattered because at the end of it all, it had returned. The planet that had been swallowed whole by the Darkness had returned. It was possible. What she spent a year hoping for proved to be possible. 

Dola looked to the Sun.

Chapter Text

The song and the voices finally made sense. When that ancient creature spoke of his devotion to the Witness, in the depth of the Pyramid, Dola felt the connection between a million voices she’d once heard in her Lightless death and the voices that spoke in the Darkness. 

She did not know what to make of it. What to make of it all. Rejuvenated in her studies again, she sought her answers in that derelict Pyramid ship and in the monstrous Cabal world-eater infested with growths that shook and resonated in delight when death was near and she sat in the H.E.L.M. leaned on the pedestal displaying relics of a dead thing still whispering. All Pyramids, all remaining anomalies, all places where the egregore growths feasted on the dead.

They all connected to the voices in the dark. They all shared the same frequency. The same frequency of the tones detected long ago at the spires of Mercury. It all led to the Witness. That’s the only way it all made sense.

Dola was pulled out of her frenzy, briefly, as the twisted memories taunted Guardians on the Leviathan. A shadow followed her as she moved through the rotten fields of egregore. It hummed songs behind her back, words warping into accusations of being left behind alone, to die in a place out of time. She ignored it. She never even looked at it. 

She sat in the Tower, in the corner near the edge, looking over to Commander Zavala. Everyone heard of his tale spawned to life by the Nightmares. People would come to offer sympathies and ask if there was anything they could do to help. Zavala stood like a rock, telling each one to continue with their duties banishing all Nightmares. It was never about him. 

But for Dola, it was. She remembered how she snapped at him the day after the planets disappeared. If only she'd known what they shared. The sweetest curse of loving a mortal. Dola never approached to talk to him about it. She just stood watch on a monstrous derelict, cleansing every inch of that space from a million Nightmares. They will torture no one else.

Finally, Osiris woke up and spoke of a secret hidden on a faraway planet. She flew there immediately and found nothing but a giant of deep blue, spinning with ferocious winds swirling on its surface. Out there in the dark, the sun was unfathomably small. Unfamiliar, too distant. There was nothing on Neptune that she, or anyone else, could detect but she knew that Osiris had never been wrong. 

Dola watched the Traveler leave its spot above the City from the same place she watched it heal itself two years ago. Alone in the hangar, she watched in peace as it settled in orbit and stood, waiting. The book in her hands pressed to her chest, with worn edges and rough pages, to keep the shaking away. Sometimes she would open it just to run her fingers over the ridges of dots that were words. 

She knew every word by memory, even years later, but she would still read through it nonetheless, feeling the words at her fingertips, just like he taught her. Etched into the hard cover, the name of the book and its writer and owner brought her comfort in times like these. And times like these were more common these days. 

The fleet of Pyramid ships entered orbit. Dola was among the first on the front line of the battle. The great wave of knives led by a million watching eyes. She’d seen it before. A resonance streamed between each ship. A noise on a familiar frequency. 

When the Traveler activated, it brought tears of joy. A labyrinthian pattern smashed into a Pyramid, but to no avail. A being of a million voices paid it no mind. 

She stayed on Earth for the defence of the planet and its population, despite the song beckoning her outward. A Guardian protects. 

When the beam struck the Traveler and a portal was opened, silencing it, Dola cried in her ship for hours. At first she could not tell why, but later she watched the mesmerising triangular gate leading into a place nobody could go into. A way to another world behind a shimmering portal out of her reach. Cruel reminder, grander in scale. It felt like failure. She focused on helping Earth, frequently on call with Saint-14.

Osiris had found powers beyond comprehension on Neptune, just as she always knew he would. She appeared in his sanctuary on Neomuna one day, looking to meditate after experiencing the strange feeling of strand and its pull on the fabric of reality. It unravelled everything that she was and that she will be. She could not keep it steady in her arms, but was determined to keep trying. It slipped through her fingers in a way that solar Light did not. 

She looked to Osiris deep in thought. He glanced at her as she entered, but didn’t pay her much mind. She never expected him to remember her. Perhaps he did not focus enough on her gear either, not enough to notice its colours and symbols. She left him undisturbed in his studies. 

Beneath the city, an entity breathed in unison with the consciousness of the universe. Its frequency intoxicating. It sang a melody so clear, so known, pulling the strings of memory inside of her. 

Dola returned to Earth.

And then an anomaly of Darkness split open in the void of space, spitting Titan back into the rhythm of the system.

Much like Mars, it returned largely unchanged except for the piles of egregore growths that stirred in the depths of its seas. Dola was among the first on her way to it when she heard the communications of Deputy Commander Sloane, left alone on the moon for years. It was believed she was dead. It was believed that none could survive inside of the anomaly. 

But Sloane lived and spoke and fought on. She survived.

Heart surging, Dola looked to the Sun.

Chapter Text

“I understand that she’s busy, but I must speak with her,” Dola insisted. 

Saint struggled to explain. “There is nothing she can say that can help you. She told me how she survived. She’s a Guardian. She had help from an ancient creature. Sloane even let herself be Taken for this. None of it relates to what you need.”

“But that means it’s possible.”

“Of course,” Saint replied. “But do not make connections that are not there.”

“At least we know the planets can definitely return. Mars may have been a coincidence or a freak accident, but now two of them are not,” Dola said, excitement rising in her voice. 

“Yes. If Mercury were ever to return, you have my promise that I will help you search.”

Dola paced in front of him in the hangar. It was early and a line of eager Guardians had not yet formed. They were alone, for now. She could not bear to be interrupted with mockery and strange looks at this time. She hoped they would have a bit more time to talk. Saint raised his arm to make her stop pacing around him and called her closer. 

“I’ve mentioned this to Osiris,” Saint started. He shifted uncomfortably. “He told me that her survival was a miracle. He also said that even part of Asher Mir survived through the Vex Network. I presented the possibility for hope even for Vance, but Osiris… did not want to talk about him. Acted as if he did not know him.”

Dola stopped her pacing immediately. “That’s not possible.”

“I am not sure. Osiris has been through a lot. He has much on his mind.”

“No, that’s not possible. Osiris spoke to him. He knew of the research. He knew how important it was. He could not have forgotten it. It is not possible that he would forget about the Lighthouses. Something happened while he was away.”

A crowd started appearing around the hangar. Dola stared at Saint in frustration, while Saint tensed and clearly did not want to entertain the theories she’d started constructing.

“Perhaps Osiris was making a joke,” Saint offered, sounding feeble.

“Did you find it funny?” Dola asked, a note of bitterness stinging her tongue. 

Saint looked away. “I did not comment.”

Dola sighed, desperate now. This did not make sense. Her mind raced, frantically. “Vance told him something important. Something about a seed. He must know.”

“I could not press the issue. I am sorry.”

Dola heard the whispers behind her, nodded to Saint and walked past three Guardians pointing at her. 

It’s been a while since she’d been back into the locked storage where old crates from Mercury lingered. The room was filled with dust and other signs of neglect. She didn’t even know why she went back there. All of the items that mattered to her were stored in her own living space in the City. Some she carried in her ship with her. The rest were trinkets, relics, copies of books, rugs, pillows, banners, old bounties and other items pulled out of the Lighthouse during the evacuation of Mercury. They would only matter if the Cult wanted to re-establish its existence and redecorate a new place. 

But she was the only one who remained. At least to her knowledge. She was certainly the only one willing to let the world know about her beliefs. 

It would be days until Dola was approached by another. 

She sat in the dusty room again, looking through the crates, thinking of Saint’s words and the possibilities that waited in the future. She did not blame Saint for closing off and not wanting to bring this to Osiris’ attention again. He’d suffered enough. The idea that someone tinkered with Osiris' mind while he’d been in captivity was difficult to entertain, especially for the benefit of someone else’s disbelief. There was nothing to do until Mercury returned. 

The sound of steps approaching the storage room roused Dola from her thoughts. She closed the crate and went out of the room to look. There was a frame helpfully pointing a person in Dola’s direction.

“The Cult’s storage unit is right there,” the frame said and departed. 

A woman in a robe and with a walking staff moved towards Dola. The robe bore the insignia of the Cult, and so did the staff. When she approached, Dola realised the staff was a glaive. The woman stopped and her eyes widened as she inspected the Hunter in front of her. 

“Hello,” the woman said. “What a coincidence. You must be the member I’ve heard much about in the City.”

Dola frowned. “Who are you?”

“My name is Sister Faora. I led the followers of Osiris before your time,” she said. “Before Brother Vance took over. I remember the day he came to my lecture for the first time.”

“What do you want?” Dola asked, realising her legs were shaking. She began tapping the floor from anxiety. 

“Do you not think we could be friends? From what I’ve heard, things are rough in the City for the only one openly wearing these colours. If there was another…”

“I am fine. There is nothing for us to discuss.”

“On the contrary. I would love to hear the truth about what happened from you. Instead of rumours.”

“No. There is nothing to tell,” Dola insisted.

Faora stood still, relentless. “I opened his mind, you know. Told him to listen. Listening is what made him rise through the ranks above even me. Whatever he remained on Mercury for must've been worth it.”

Dola stepped forward. With one hand she grabbed the glaive and with the other Faora’s robe. With brutality she thought she had long forgotten, she pushed the woman into the wall behind her. 

“Never speak of him again. We are not friends. Find someone else to bother.”

If the woman had been rattled by this, she did not show it. Dola released her from her grasp, returned to lock the door of the storage with the only spare key distributed by Ikora to her and her alone. With the door closed, Dola left and removed herself from the vicinity of Sister Faora, the ex-leader of the Cult. 

She later read the records of the Cult’s meetings and lectures in archives Vance had meticulously kept in his possessions. Faora was intense. She had the talent for speaking and motivating followers. If there was anyone who could rouse the Cult back into activity, it was her. 

The line of succession of madness and obsession always reached far. Reading the records, Dola could map that line from Faora, through Vance and to herself. The cycle perpetuated and continued by each successor learning from those that came before them. Dola would break that line. There will be no successors to her. She believed in the teachings and the prophecies. She had seen them come true. She would forever be a part of the followers and her garments would never change colours. She would always believe that Osiris is the one to listen to when things get uncertain.

But if… 

No. When Mercury returns, there will be only one goal for her on that scorching world. Only one thing will drive her, the same thing that drives the teacher and the only thing that matters: |weakness| love.

Chapter Text

The Tower was filling up early in the morning as Guardians ran to grab their bounties and go do their duties. There was a line forming around the vault. Everyone had to make space for brand new weapons they've been finding in new locations. 

Dola was using the vault on the farthest side, close to Lord Shaxx who was announcing, very loudly, that rookies are requested for training in the Crucible. She buried herself in her vault, ignoring everyone around her. 

Even years later, an endless rage burned inside of her. Saint-14 tried to temper it, but the process would be long. Getting out of bed was a struggle every day. Stopping herself from driving her ship into an anomaly of Darkness and disappearing forever was a struggle every day. Getting busy with Vanguard operations was the easiest way to prevent her mind from going into a darker place. 

She was used to the comments and whispers that followed her so she paid them no mind as she heard them nearby. At this point, others weren't even trying to hide it. 

"That's her? I’ve never seen her without a helmet," she heard a voice coming from an Exo. She glanced to the side and saw a Warlock. 

"Yeah. I mean, who else would wear this?" a female voice replied. Hunter. 

"I don't know, it doesn't seem likely to me. That it's her."

"Why not?" 

The Warlock's heavy long robe made a swooshing noise as he stowed a weapon. "I mean, I expected her to be… Ugly. Or something."

The Hunter stopped playing with her knife. "Why?" 

"What do you mean why? Why else would she be obsessed with… Brother Vance? She could pull anyone with these looks, so why him?" 

There was a distinct chuckle from at least two other people nearby. Dola ignored them. 

"I've seen people you've been with," a third person commented. A Titan leaned on the wall uncomfortably close to Dola. "People have wacky tastes out there. Maybe she saw something in him that you don't. Those guys you've been with certainly saw something in you. I guess." 

"Hey!" 

"Yeah, but Vance? There's a difference," the Hunter said. 

"Well she's clearly in the Cult too, so that insanity is covered," the Titan replied. 

"Have you ever actually been to Mercury? Talked to Vance? That guy would say the weirdest things. I could barely grab my bounties in peace," the Warlock chimed in again. "So yeah, I was expecting someone ugly or awful."

"Are you planning to hit on her?" the Hunter asked and nudged the Warlock in the ribs. "If you think you'd be better than Vance."

Another chuckle. Dola was almost finished with her vault. 

"Why am I being bullied here?" the Warlock asked as the Hunter and Titan laughed. "No, thanks. Not after she was super annoying in Trials. Took me down at the gates three times in a row. Damn, take a break."

"Oh so that's what it's about. You're pissed off about Trials," the Titan said. "Are you surprised she's good at it? It's her natural environment."

"I know, but damn. She doesn't need any more guns. Get out of there, let someone else get a chance," the Warlock added, his tone becoming angrier. "I almost wish that Vance was still here. Then she'd be busy with him instead of taking it out on people in Trials. Whatever that weirdo was even capable of doing for her. I can't imagine it was much."

A spark in Dola set off a short fuse. The fire pooled in her, igniting a storm. She moved with such speed that nobody could react before her knife was at the Warlock's throat, pushed against the wall of the Tower. Someone screamed, several people gasped and someone yelled for help. 

Dola stared at the Warlock's eyes without breaking line of sight and without moving her knife. He panicked and tried pushing her away but she grabbed his arm with her other hand and snapped it in half by kicking it with her knee. A crack echoed through the Tower. 

"Never speak of him again," Dola hissed. "Don't even think about him again. You can say what you want about me. You can be as mad as you want for not being good enough to beat me. But never involve him in this ever again." 

She was about to send an extra warning when a large hand grabbed her, lifted her in the air and set her aside as if she were a toy. Lord Shaxx stood next to her, holding her collar, moving her effortlessly away from the Warlock. 

"Guardian! What do you think you're doing?! This is the Tower! If you have a conflict to solve, that's what the Crucible is for!" Shaxx yelled next to her. "You are not to start any violence near civilians!" 

"He's not a civilian," Dola said with spite in her voice as she pointed to the Warlock whose Ghost was treating his broken arm. 

"Do not talk back to me! I don't care how many times you've been Flawless! I will personally flatten you in the arena myself!"

The Warlock snickered at her, but Shaxx took half a step to cross the gap between the two Guardians and stood in front of the Warlock now, towering above him in a terrifying visage. 

"And you! Keep the gossip to a private channel! This behaviour is unbecoming of Guardians. All of you!" Lord Shaxx continued. "If you have a problem with someone, deal with it by incinerating each other with grenades in the Crucible! Or have a talk! Whatever works for you! If I see any more violence in the Tower I will throw you all off the wall!" 

Dola still seethed, but was glad that someone finally also reprimanded the other side. She found it hard to breathe. Rage was transforming into helpless grief. She needed to get out of here fast. 

The crowd that had gathered slowly dispersed as Guardians did not want to get on the receiving end of Shaxx's lecture. The Titan that participated sneaked unsuccessfully as his armour rattled. The Hunter helped the Warlock with injuries and retreated. 

Dola was soon the only one still in the same spot, petrified by a swarm of emotions she could not deal with. She felt the large hand on her collar again and was then moved without her own volition. Shaxx put her away in the corner of his Crucible station. 

"You can stay here until you gather yourself," he told her. "I know about you from Saint. It's a tragedy what happened. I am sorry for your loss!" 

With that, he returned to his duty without uttering another word to Dola. She stood in the spot he put her in, paralysed, for at least half an hour. After, she nodded to Shaxx and left. 

"You have to do something about that anger," Mora told her later, as they sat in the ship on their way to a strike mission. 

"I can't."

"You can when they say mean things about you. "

"Yes, because it's about me. I can't if they say mean things about him."

"You have to learn. One more incident like that and they'll stop tolerating us. There are civilians up there."

Dola turned to her Ghost. "I would never harm a civilian."

"When rage overwhelms you, it's hard to tell who you're harming." 

"I would never harm a civilian," Dola repeated, louder. "We're not all like you."

Mora went quiet and constricted her shell to indicate discomfort. "That's mean." 

"I'm sorry." 

But it was true. Mora has harmed a civilian. She caused Vance to fall and get hurt and she kept his ludicrous secret to stay on Mercury. Dola tried to process it. She tried to get over it, and not to blame Mora. She tried to honour his words, but it would become harder after incidents like this, and after Mora tried preaching to her at any point. 

She was sorry though. She wished for things to have gone differently. She wished to have been more perceptive of all the strange little changes in Vance's behaviour as they got closer to the evacuation. She should've known and recognised that he's trying to do something stupid. That it wasn’t just anxiety over leaving Mercury. That it wasn’t just uncertainty and fear about the future. It was a decision to have no future. 

But she trusted him. The fantasy of all their talks about living together in the City overwhelmed her to the point of becoming oblivious to the truth. In her dark moments, she blamed him. In her worst moments, she hated him for what he's done. 

Her heart shrivelled with grief. There was no air to breathe anymore. Any negative thought about him made her want to explode. It would've been so easy to overload the reactor and blow up to stop her mind from going there. It’s been years, but her body ached to run across the hallways of the Lighthouse, to find him in his study and hug him. 

Dola secured her helmet, left the reactor alone, and landed safely into the strike mission.

Chapter Text

A Ghost chimed into existence in a dark room filled with forgotten crates. Mora shone her light over the area and found Dola in a corner, on the floor. Half-rolled rugs surrounded her, alongside old dusty pillows. She was curled on the ground, clutching a book close to her chest.

She repeatedly ran her finger over an improvised gift on her thumb: several Vex bronze pieces coiled into a ring. 

Mora's subtle scan showed that she's fine. Mostly. In any case, she didn't hurt herself in any way, but her state was nearly catatonic. The Ghost flew closer and nudged her gently. Dola looked to the side where she was nudged. 

"Am I needed?" 

"No, but I wanted-"

"Then leave me be." 

Mora spun in the air and neared Dola's face which stared vacantly into the distance. 

"Saint wouldn't like this."

"I have a right to spend one day not thinking about the healing process." 

From all the types of days when she would forego the healing process, this one was the best, comparatively. On worse days, she would look for situations to vent her anger or she would just insist that the best thing to do would be to fly into the anomaly.

But Mora didn't like it either way. 

"I know it's not a good time to bring this up, but it really never is, so I might as well. This is what I meant when I said that you’d get hurt."

Dola looked at her. "No, it really isn't a good time."

"You have to hear it." 

She sighed. The lack of resistance emboldened Mora. Other times, Dola would just become violent or straight up leave. Now, she was simply dulled to the point of exhaustion. 

"What do I have to hear?"

"You were never the priority. I never misjudged him," Mora said and Dola could not stop the silent tears. She hugged the book tighter. "That doesn't mean that he didn't feel anything for you. He felt… something. But there's a reason it's called a cult." 

"What do you want?"

"I want you to understand. There was nothing you could've done. His first priority was always the cult and the duty he felt he owed his faith. And no amount of care or affection or love would've changed the outcome," Mora continued. 

“I should've known that he planned to stay.”

“There was no way for you to have known. He never would’ve told you.”

“But you could've told me.”

Mora sensed the rise in tension and the anger in Dola’s voice. “I did not want to violate his trust. And neither should you. He never would have forgiven you if you'd stopped his plan.”

“Perhaps. But he would’ve been alive.”

Mora sighed. “If you’d known, you would’ve just stayed with him.”

“And that would have been my choice. You took that choice away from me,” Dola said, her voice dropping. “So did he. Did you want to hear me say that? Do you want me to say that I know he betrayed me? That I don't want him back?”

“No.”

Dola’s tears strengthened. “Because I do want him back. I forgive him. I want to find him. Alive.”

"I would be more than happy to find him alive."

"You never liked him." 

"I got around to him towards the end. Especially when he made me record that message. He was genuine in the way he wanted you to stay safe and go on. He was also genuine in wanting us not to break our bond. I begged him to change his mind. I wanted him to choose you. I told him that you would've loved nothing more than for him to spend his one life with you. And you know what he said?"

Dola was fully sobbing now. "What?"

"In another time, " Mora played a recording of his words. 

Hearing something she'd not heard before pierced right through Dola's heart. It was as if he'd been momentarily brought back to life. Her whole body tensed, almost ready to start looking for him somewhere in the room. Then the emptiness of the storage among the crates hit her and she deflated, clutching the book again. 

In another time. 

"I would've given anything for things to have gone differently. If the miracle happens and Mercury returns and he's alive, I will do everything in my power for you two to have that life you wanted. But you need to understand that he's always had a higher priority. If he ever comes back, that priority would have to be changed if you want to have a different life with him. And that also has to change for you."

"What do you mean?"

"It's what I've always meant and you just hand waved it as a lot of people meet in unusual ways, " Mora said. "That's true, but you met through a cult. The obsessions you both hold are not healthy. You can't have any other priorities. You will have to walk away. Both of you. If he's still out there. Do you think you can do that? Do you think he'd be able to?"

Dola was still crying. Vision blurred, holding onto the book for dear life. "I don't know."

"Focus on that in your healing process. If you're preparing for what you might do if you get him back, prepare for that. If you don't get out of that mindset and if you can't help him get out of that mindset, it will happen again. You will never be able to rest easy. He will never think of you as you think of him. You will always have to wonder about whether he's being honest and whether or not he's planning some other suicidal idea in the name of a man who does not want to be worshipped." 

"He's been through a lot, I can't just-"

"I know. There are ways to help. I will help. Saint will help. Please just let us help." 

Dola could not see her Ghost through the tears but extended her hand. Mora flew into it, settling on Dola's palm. The weight of the little drone was comforting. Dola brought her closer, pressing her into a hug next to the book. 

"If he's back, yes," she said quietly. "I will do anything if he's back. I promise," almost on instinct, she looked to the other side of the room, where through a wall, if there'd been a window, she would've seen the Traveler. If it’d still been there.

A prayer tossed into the Light.

An apology for words shouted in anger.

"And while we wait, promise to work on it too." 

"Okay," Dola said softly. She looked at Mora in her hand. "Do you have more recordings?" 

Mora sighed. "I do. I don't want you to get lost in that. You need to learn to move on." 

"I know. I'm trying. But it would help on days like this. You know I'm doing better every day. I'm doing my best. Please." 

"Okay," Mora relented. "What do you want to hear?" 

Dola picked a recording of him humming a song which she listened to on repeat until finally falling asleep.

Chapter Text

Pinned between the edge of the map, a rock and three enemy Guardians looking at her location, Dola experienced a rare moment of uncertainty in a Trials match. She’d not yet lost a single round today, but this might be the first. One of the enemy Guardians had a sniper. The other two detached for, Dola assumed, a flank. 

If she doesn’t move soon, she will be surrounded. Her other two teammates have long since died in positions she could not reach to safely revive. Dola focused on the sniper. She could easily outmanoeuvre one sniper and close in to finish them off. But now she no longer knew where the other two enemies were. 

One step at a time. She prepared a path in her head. It was a short dodge and rush across lush yellow grass and fresh dirt to reach the tree that only grew in Mercury’s past. She knew the terrain by heart. From there, she just needed to–

A chime in her feed interrupted her. 

“Just rez dude,” a text message from her teammate read. It was from a Hunter who died at the start of the round.

Dola ignored it and proceeded with her plan. She rolled over the grass and heard a sniper shot zip past her head. If her count of the enemy’s special ammo was correct, the sniper only had two bullets left. Dola found cover behind the tree and was about to–

“Let her do her thing bro, she’s been Flawless like a billion times,” the other teammate chimed in. Warlock who tried to rez the Hunter. 

Dola shook her head and re-focused. The sniper will be expecting her to peek on the right. They always do. Instead, she peeked on the left. The enemy quickly tried to adjust and missed both remaining bullets. While they fumbled with their weapons, Dola rushed forward, hand cannon drawn. 

Solar bullets from the cannon scorched her target to the bone, forcing them to run behind cover to heal. But she was faster. She slid across the floor, then jumped up on the platform behind the Warlock that was preparing to put down a rift and finished them off with a quick stab. 

Dola took a moment to gather herself and reload. There was now a chance to perhaps even go for the revives. But first, she had to find where the other two enemies were. She peeked to look for them and–

Chime. 

Dola scoffed. She did not need advice or commentary from her teammates. She was about to simply dismiss it when she saw in the corner of her eye that the message was from the Warlock she just killed. 

“Tryhard,” it said. 

Whatever. She was used to this and worse. 

“My other two teammates are cowards who don’t want to win ‘dishonourably’ or something,” another chime. Dola moved out of cover to the inside of the area, near the circular room that led into the inside of the map where it was much cooler and there was no sunglow. “You’re just another weirdo. Just like the guy you mourn for. I’m glad he’s dead.”

Dola stopped in her tracks. She knew this was just bait. She’s gotten worse messages, even than this. But it was yet another knife through the heart. And yet another fuse lit. A spark eating a line that led to explosives. 

“Don’t,” she heard her Ghost in the feed. 

Dola stood petrified in the middle of the corridor, completely exposed. Her ears were buzzing and there was a pressure in her head; rage and grief mixed into a powerful bomb that waited to be set aflame. 

She did not see a Titan running at her at full speed. There was just the pain of the collision. A cold shield of void slammed into her chest, knocking the breath out of her. She was not dead, but she was on the floor, rolling down the corridor until she hit the structure in the centre of the map. She looked up, holding her ribs, trying to get back to her feet and run into any sort of cover. The Titan walked towards her slowly. He was clad in bright yellow and deep shiny black. For a moment, she felt a familiarity of the palette. She even dared to hope that this was someone she may have known in the Lighthouse. It stayed her hand from instinct.

As he approached closer, he raised an autorifle and then stopped. Dola could hear noises coming from his feed. Up close, she realised she did not know him after all. His colour scheme must’ve been just a coincidence. 

With a hand on the trigger, she hesitated. She could’ve easily finished him off while he stood in front of her clearly reading through his feed. Dola’s thoughts raced. The guy from the Titan’s team that sent her messages must’ve been screaming at the Titan to secure the round. But the Titan hesitated as well. They stared at each other in several painfully slow moments. Dola could’ve done it. The Titan could’ve done it too… Probably. She had the upper hand. 

“Don’t,” Mora whispered again. 

“What are you doing? Get him!” her teammate sent a message.

“Yeah bro, just get him what’s going on please just get the round.”

The Titan lowered his autorifle. Instead, he extended a hand to Dola. 

“Saint? I want this match annulled,” the Titan said in his comms. “My teammate cheated.”

Dola stared blankly as Saint-14 responded into everyone’s comms, calling the match void and disbanding the teams. She was still on the floor as the match concluded and the Titan was still holding out his hand for her. 

She accepted it and was pulled to her feet. She was barely aware of Mora scrubbing her comms offline to stop the barrage of insults coming from both of her teammates and from the enemy she killed. Finally, there was silence in her feed. 

The light breeze of the simulated Radiant Cliffs carried the blades of grass and leaves across the area. The air smelled fresh and the atmosphere, while warm, was nothing like the scorched sands of Mercury she knew best. 

“I apologise for the other guy on my team. I did not know him. I’m here helping someone get to the Lighthouse for the first time and we don’t want to win with a cheater,” the Titan told her. Dola was still dazed. “My name is Bee.”

She finally saw the third teammate on Bee’s team and it was a Warlock in old beginner’s armour. They were nearly shaking.

“He wasn’t cheating,” Dola managed to speak for the first time.

“He spent the whole time flying into the match trying to get us to send you rude messages. If you can’t play and win without emotionally tormenting the enemy team, then you are a cheater.”

Dola was on the brink of crying. “It’s not against the rules.”

“Saint knows me. And he knows you. Nobody lost anything but a few minutes of their time.”

“I don’t know how to repay you,” Dola said, getting increasingly sentimental.

Bee put his weapons away and waved to the Warlock he was grouped with to come closer. The Warlock moved in slowly. “It helps to be helpful. I help people go Flawless all weekend. Promise me you’ll help someone and that’s enough for me.”

Dola stared at him in awe. He took off his helmet and revealed a kind Exo face that matched the colours of his armour. Black and yellow, like a bee. She looked at her hands; her armour was glowing already and it almost matched his colours. 

“I can help you,” she said. 

“Oh, we don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“I want to help. We’ll be at the Lighthouse in no time,” she said, looking at the Warlock who in turn looked at Bee expectantly. 

The Titan smiled, nodded and waved at her. In a moment, she was in a fireteam and loading into a new match. 

Not even an hour later, the trio landed on the Lighthouse and she watched the Warlock stare at the environment, eyes wide. She felt a warmth in her heart for the first time in months when she saw him picking up his loot. He turned to her and showed her a new Ghost shell he got, then immediately put it on his Ghost. Dola looked at Saint who nodded to her. 

First step to moving on. To be a Guardian is to protect. To be a Guardian is to love. To be a Guardian is to help. She will be helpful. And there were so many ways to help, not just Guardians looking to experience a victory for the first time, but also to help the cause that burdened the entire system.

Chapter Text

Commander Zavala’s office was unlit. The large window allowed for streaks of moonlight and streetlights to turn the space into more than just a dark room. In the corner near the bookshelf, a Hunter stood in the shadows, playing with a cat. She was used to unlit rooms.

Dola had scheduled to meet with Zavala ahead of time. It was unsurprising to her that he was running late and she did not blame him. He was a busy man. But there was an anxiety building up inside of her. She tapped her foot on the floor and swayed a string in front of the cat. The orange cat was enchanted by it, swatting at it with its paws. Dola put the string away after a while and set to pet the animal. It started to purr in delight. 

The door swung open and the Commander entered his office. He did not notice the Hunter until the lights turned on. Zavala was mildly startled upon seeing a figure in the corner of the room. 

“Guardian?” he called. 

Dola turned, her hood still on. He could only see the glowing Awoken eyes. “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

“They come and go. Their presence makes the place more… lively.”

The Commander moved to his desk and sat down. There was a weight of the world on his shoulders. Dola had seen it on Saint as well. Titans . “How may I help you?”

“I scheduled a meeting with you,” Dola replied. 

“Oh. That was you,” Zavala said, suddenly more alert. “Dola San, if I’m not mistaken?”

She nodded. “I apologise for the problems I’ve caused.”

“You did not have to schedule a meeting to tell me that.”

“I didn’t. But I just wanted to say it.”

Zavala waved his hand. “I understand,” he said. “Ikora, Saint and your Ghost explained. I am truly sorry for your loss. It was my intention to evacuate everyone. But we can’t make choices for others.”

Dola watched as the Commander sunk into his chair. He became smaller. His loved ones have also made choices that ripped a family apart. 

“I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through, too.”

He nodded and silence fell over the room. Only the purr of a cat was audible. Dola absentmindedly continued to pet the animal. 

“Well, if you did not come here to apologise for something that does not need an apology, how may I help you otherwise?” Zavala asked a few moments later. 

“I would like your permission to allow me to investigate the anomaly of Mercury,” Dola said, straight to the point. “Now that we know that the Witness did not randomly pick our planets and moons to steal, there must be a reason why it also stole Io and Mercury. I don’t know anything about Io, but I do know plenty about Mercury. Maybe if I investigate, we could find out what the Witness wanted with it. Maybe it could help us with the portal.”

“That’s a dangerous game to play.”

“Is there a game not dangerous in a situation we’re in? We’re letting Eris play Hive God.”

Zavala sighed. “I appreciate that you asked for permission. If this can stay on the record and you make timely reports about everything you’re doing, I will allow it. Entering the anomaly is strictly forbidden, however.”

“Understood. I did not plan on entering it, but I might have some ideas about various scans and analyses I could run. I’ve been working on a possible drone I could send inside that might be able to avoid the fate of the Glykon and phase through to the surface.”

A second cat strolled into the room and moved around Dola’s legs, then joined the other on the shelf, as if trying to also grab the Hunter’s attention for pets. She smiled and extended her hand to the other cat as well. It’s what she wanted. Two cats in the City. Dola looked out the window to where the Traveler used to hover. 

“Keep us up to date with your progress,” Zavala said. “And stay in contact.”

“I will. I stay in contact with Saint.”

The Commander nodded and Dola moved away from the cats and walked to the exit of the office ready to leave.

“Good luck, cousin,” Zavala said as she walked through the door.

Chapter Text

With a plan in mind, Dola set out to gather supplies, ask questions and make amends. 

She waited for days in the Tower courtyard, near the tree, until she finally saw an Exo Warlock stroll in with a Hunter friend. The memory of his arm breaking echoed in her ears like a persistent buzz. As soon as he landed and headed towards the postmaster, Dola hopped up from her spot beneath the tree and approached him. 

“What do you want?” his Hunter friend yelled, startling both Dola and the Warlock. 

The Warlock took a step back, visibly disturbed. “Go away.”

“I want to apologise,” Dola said. 

“Sure. Whatever,” the Warlock replied. “Weirdo.”

Dola felt a rush of fire in her stomach, but let it roar against her insides until the flames were doused. “I apologise,” she said, nodded and walked back to the tree. 

The list was long and there was only so much time to apologise to everyone she yelled at in her uncontained grief and rage. She decided to offer those apologies and leave. She could not stand by and beg people to accept them or even to acknowledge them. Many of those apologies she left as messages. She walked into Ikora’s office, apologised and left before the other woman could gather herself. Some, like Ikora, fully deserved those apologies. Some definitely did not. Some tormented her for no reason, without her ever doing anything to them, but she offered her apologies anyway. 

In the H.E.L.M. Dola walked down to the gateway that transported her into the dive tank. A closed eye of an immense creature welcomed her in the viewing port, followed by stable breathing reverberating through the structure. Next to the viewing port, stood a woman, half-engulfed in Taken energy. Dola had already sent a request for supplies from Sloane, but meeting her in person was different. She had not had the chance to talk to her before. Her breath hitched as Sloane moved to face Dola. 

“Guardian, you’re right on time,” Sloane said. “You have a request for me?”

“Yes. I will be embarking on a mission with permission from Commander Zavala. But I need supplies to help me and some of them I need from you. And your… friend,” Dola replied, pointing at the proto-worm. 

“If I understand correctly, you will be running an experiment with the remaining anomalies?”

Dola took a deep breath. “Yes. With one of them. I don’t have enough expertise or a connection to both.”

Sloane moved to the other side of the viewing port, carefully observing Ahsa. “Mercury,” she said, looking over Dola’s attire. The worm’s deep slumber resonated through the glass. “I’ve been updated on what’s happened. I wish I could give you some information to help, but unfortunately my situation was unique.”

“You are my hope,” Dola said, stepping forward. “Your survival is information enough. Now I just need more data, which I will get by investigating the anomaly itself.”

“You’re welcome to any supplies you need. From both of us,” Sloane replied and tapped the glass. 

On the other side, the worm’s sigh sang in a deep note. 

Dola walked through the massive hallways of a Cabal flagship. Once, these were the only people she fought and seeing their ships falling from the sky in a scorching world was a sign of safety. A massive structure of the same basic design broke a planet apart beneath her feet. It killed her. 

Now, she walked side by side with the Cabal as a guest. She was ushered into a large war room. Many Cabal towered above her and looked at her as she passed them by. There was only one person that wasn’t Cabal: Iron Lord Saladin stood by Empress Caiatl at the far edge of a long war table, looking over data with her. Dola approached them. 

“I was informed that you need my assistance Guardian,” Empress Caiatl spoke. 

“Just permission for gathering supplies from vessels that you own,” Dola said. She was unsure how formal and official she should be. She resorted to getting to the point quickly.

“I don’t own them. The Coalition does,” Caiatl replied. “But I appreciate your respect for coming to me personally. You are free to take anything you need as long as you log everything and send me your reports.”

With her deepest thanks, Dola departed the massive vessel and headed to her next destination. Landing on the Moon kicked up dust that still swirled as she stepped down on the ground and walked over to Eris Morn who, she was told, would be attending her duties there for a few days. 

The woman was fiddling with items on the table at the landing station. There were other Guardians nearby, doing their own business. Someone was repeatedly pushing ancient tires off the edge, into the craters below. Dola walked past them, towards Eris. The woman holding a bright green orb turned. Three glowing eyes stared at Dola from beneath a blindfold. Dola found it incredibly difficult to meet that gaze.

“Guardian. What do you need?” Eris asked. 

“I am on a mission to investigate remaining planetary anomalies,” Dola said. “I need supplies from the Leviathan.”

“Empress Caiatl can surely assist you with that.”

“It’s not about the supplies. It’s about what’s there. The Nightmares,” Dola clarified. “I’ve been to the Leviathan many times. But now I need sensitive items and I cannot be compromised by Nightmares while inside. And I cannot take that burden on my mission. But you can help people with their Nightmares.”

Eris moved forward and looked over Dola from all sides. She brushed the back of her hand against her cloak. Her movement was unnerving. “Grief seeps from you like a river through a broken dam. The Nightmare has already taken hold. I will bring my supplies. Meet me on the Leviathan.”

Dola was shaking as she stood in front of Eris and her staff on the derelict vessel infested with egregore. Every stalk and seed of the swaying fungus resonated with a hum through her bones. It clung to her, like ghastly arms pulling her in. She could lay down and let herself be swallowed by the fungal network, allowing her mind to wander back to the place of empty death where a song of a million voices played for her again. 

Eris snapped her fingers in front of her face and Dola was anchored in the moment. A chant followed, and then the staff centred the dark red energy, summoning it into a single point in front of Dola; a point where she was instructed to place a personal item relating to the Nightmare. 

Dola took off her ring made of Vex bronze and placed it there.

It was the first time she’d actually seen the Nightmare. Until now, she could only hear it. It followed her through the Leviathan, with words and song, but she never looked back. She could not. Now, she had to. 

The spectral figure of swirling red energy hovered in front of her. It had his form, and his voice, but wrong in details that betrayed its sinister nature. 

“You could not have remembered the tones of the song when I needed them, but now you’re back to do what? Apologise?” the Nightmare said. 

“Yes,” Dola replied, her voice thin. 

“It should’ve been obvious that I was planning to stay and you did nothing. You lived in ignorance. You lived only for what you enjoyed and you ignored the signs. You could never interpret the signs.”

“I didn’t ignore them. I knew something was wrong, but I thought it was because you were distressed about what would happen to Mercury and what would happen if we had to leave,” Dola said, raising her voice and feeling the tears.

“Do not argue with it, Guardian,” Eris warned her. “This is not the person you remember. This is your mind tormenting you. Accept it. Let it flow through you.”

“You left me. You were glad to get rid of me,” the Nightmare said with a snarl.

“You know that’s not true. I know that’s not true,” Dola replied. It caused the Nightmare to waver. “I am doing everything I can to get you back.”

The red energy began to dissipate. Eris urged Dola on as the Nightmare was beginning to transform. It looked as if the red was being flushed away by a powerful wind. The Nightmare turned from a jagged, angry form into a ghostly memory, more aligned with what Dola remembered. 

“You cannot let it linger,” Eris said.

Dola turned to it, hovering closer to her now. “What if I don’t find you?”

“Then you will move on.”

The memory reached out and Dola felt its palm passing through her braid. “I can’t.”

“You’re latching onto it again,” Eris warned. 

“You have to,” the memory said. “Our time will always have been fleeting.”

Dola stepped back, away from the memory. A connection severed. She released a breath she’d been keeping and the memory faded from her sight, turned to vapour in the heavy air of the Leviathan. 

Finally, there was silence. The egregore around her stopped screaming at her mind. She could only hear the latent hum of the vessel and distant wind. Eris removed her staff and ended the ritual. The silence became heavier. Dola collapsed to her knees, sobbing. She reached for the ring and returned it to her thumb, gasping for breath.

“You did well, Guardian,” Eris said. “You can move unburdened. That doesn’t mean you will forget the grief. You will not. The dam cannot be repaired. But you will learn to live without it and the river that is now gushing through you will calm.”

It took Dola three days to continue with her mission, but when she did, she walked through the Leviathan alone. 

With primary supplies gathered and most apologies sent, she only had two more things to do. They were not necessary, but she wanted to deal with them. They would distract her otherwise. 

Dola walked down the stairs of the Annex in the Tower until she reached a dusty hallway leading into a room she hadn’t been in before. A faint smell of ozone permeated the place, radiating from a machine in the back of the room where Taken energy swirled in a see-through container. Leaning on the railing in front of it was a man playing with a jade coin. He stood up right when Dola walked in. His grin went from welcoming to defensive as Dola approached him. 

“I don’t know if you remember me,” she said. “We met at the Lighthouse on Mercury. You were making weapons in the Infinite Forge.”

The Drifter looked Dola over and a spark of memory lit up on his face. “Oh yeah. I remember you, sister. You cornered me in and breathed down my neck like a wild dog,” he said. “I swear I was just talkin’ to the guy and had nothin’ bad on my mind.”

“I know,” she said. “He told me. He said you were kind to him.”

“Well of course. He was helpin’ me with the weapons I needed,” the Drifter said, still acting defensive, backed up against the railing but eyeing the exit. 

“I don’t mean to harm you,” she said to quell his fear. “I came here to thank you for being kind to him. If you ever need any help, you can just ask and I will do it.”

The Drifter was clearly confused and his mind rapidly worked through what was going on. He relaxed as Dola backed away. “Right. Mercury is still gone.”

“Yes. He never evacuated.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I will find out what happened and how to return the missing planets,” she said, stood by for a moment and then turned to leave without another word. 

“I hope ya’ make it, sister.”

With that concluded, there was only one more person to talk to. 

Dola walked through the City in the evening. People passed her by in a haze as she walked through the busy streets and towards a house she’d been in front of, but never inside of. She did not want to intrude, even when Saint-14 asked her to come in. It did not feel right. Even now, it did not feel right. But she had to know. 

Dola called Saint ahead of time so he waited for her in front of the door. He paced back and forth until he saw her in the distance. As soon as he did, he motioned towards the entrance. 

“You will come in this time, yes?” he asked. 

Dola hesitated, but nodded. It’s what she came for. As Saint let her in, her mind flew back to the same anxiety she felt the first time she got to speak to Osiris. To his irritation and annoyance. To his warning. To his begrudging acceptance. To a brief flash of a golden shell hovering near his head. 

The inside of the house smelled of incense and tea. Books lined up the walls. Pieces of technology, equipment, datapads and texts were sprawled over the dining table and the work table and the couch. On it, Osiris sat working on a piece of tech that she could not identify. He was incomprehensibly ordinary without his Warlock attire. He was just a man, lounging in his home in a robe. He looked up as Saint and Dola entered, only briefly considered them, and then went back to his work. 

“I appear to have a guest Saint forgot to warn me about. I will call you back again later, Nimbus,” Osiris said into one of the datapads. 

“This is some business with strand. I do not quite understand it,” Saint said. “But it keeps him occupied. And in one place.” She heard Osiris huff. “This is Dola. She is a friend of mine, from Trials.”

“I see,” Osiris said and looked her over. Just as the first time, she could not tell if he noticed her attire, or recognised it. “If you have matters of Trials to discuss, then I will leave you be.”

Saint nudged Dola as Osiris began picking up his stuff. In the silence that followed, she stood as petrified. 

She could not ask him. 

She watched the man in his own home, detached from the legends told about him. Detached from who he was and what he’s done. Detached from the way she’s heard those around her speak of him. 

The glowing symbols of the Cult adorning her felt heavy now. What did all their beliefs serve? And who? 

Osiris has earned his peace. He’s earned a life unbothered by mysterious questions and missions. She could not burden him with her inquiries. She would not cause him to spiral into searching for answers that could tear him away from Saint again. A point inside of her snapped; faith wavered. 

He was just a man.

She turned to Saint. “I’ll be on a mission for an indeterminate amount of time. Just wanted to let you know, so you don’t get worried when I’m not in Trials.”

Saint looked at her, puzzled. “Are you sure that’s all?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like some tea at least? You walked a long way and Osiris has made too much again,” Saint offered. 

Dola used all her strength to contain her tears and nodded. She sat at the dining table and Saint served her tea, then sat down with her. He was still puzzled. Dola knew that he could not understand what made her change her mind and she did not want to elaborate that here. She flinched when Osiris sat at the table too, joining them, alongside a piece of technology he was tinkering with. 

Years ago, she would’ve given everything to be in a position so close to him. To talk to him. About everything. To ask him so many questions. To offer to stand by his side eternally as he searches for the answers about the nature of the universe. To be the bridge between him and Vance, to be a Light wielded, a guard to two true scholars. 

Now, he was just there. Infinitely simple in his humanity. An understanding from years ago clicked in her head. Even at his most legendary, he was never driven by grandeur or the need to be considered a hero. He just wanted to protect. He just loved. 

Dola drank her cup of tea in silence and listened to Osiris patiently trying to explain his work to Saint. Their time, too, would be fleeting. 

Half an hour later, Dola excused herself, said her goodbyes and decided to get to work.

Chapter Text

EXPERIMENTS WITH THE ANOMALY OF DARKNESS
RECORDED BY: DOLA SAN
LOCATIONS: ORBIT OF THE ANOMALY OF MERCURY; MARS; TITAN; GLYKON VOLATUS; LEVIATHAN; VEIL CONTAINMENT (NEOMUNA)

EXPERIMENT 1

For the first test, I sent a drone inside the anomaly without any alterations. I’ve lost all visual, audio and other sensors as soon as the drone dropped into the anomaly. I could no longer change its course or see where it was. My data came out as if the drone had vanished. The only sensor that still sent some form of data was the gravitational array which continued to send nonsensical information about impossible gravity waves and tremors until it finally shut down. I assume this data came from the drone’s descent into the anomaly, as similar gravitational anomalies were detected on the vessel Glykon Volatus.

REPORT SENT.

EXPERIMENT 2

The second test involved several drones carrying a sample from the returned Mars. I applied an uncontaminated sample of sand taken from Mars; one sample was from the sands unaffected by the tears in time and two were taken from the tears that led into the past. Of the ones taken from the past, one was from the Golden Age and one was from the time of the Collapse. 

The sample unaffected by tears in time did not alter the behaviour of the drone. 

The sample taken from the Golden Age did not alter the behaviour of the drone.

The sample taken from the Collapse sent back a data spike. The audio sensor detected a burst of tones with an uplink to my monitoring station. This is consistent with the research conducted on Mercury; the tones were reactions to the numerous deaths in the Collapse-age Mars. The tones linked with the anomaly, the Black Fleet and its source: the Witness. I suspect this is why the sample from the Collapse returned the tones while others did not. The tones are linked to Darkness and the Witness; the deaths in the Collapse were affected by both Light and Dark, the same forces that the Lighthouse reacted to. 

This experiment has an attached file for download: copy of the tones detected on the spires of Mercury and the tones recorded in the anomaly with this method. As can be heard, a variety of them are identical. No other sensors sent any other data and this did not help me see inside the anomaly, find Mercury or make any other progress. 

REPORT SENT.

EXPERIMENT 3

For this test, I gathered samples of egregore from three locations:

1. Glykon Volatus, the derelict vessel currently owned by the Coalition and with the permission from Commander Zavala and Empress Caiatl. 
2. The Leviathan, a vessel formerly owned by Emperor Calus, now in possession of the Coalition, with the permission from Commander Zavala and Empress Caiatl.
3. Titan, a moon recently returned after having been in an anomaly of Darkness identical to the one being investigated. The sample was taken from the methane sea, from a depth of 5000 metres. Taken with the permission from Commander Zavala, Deputy Commander Sloane and proto-worm Ahsa.

All drones with egregore samples reacted the same. They all sent back audio feedback of various tones and noises. Some matched the tones from the spires, but some were brand new sounds that I could not identify or explain. I could surmise that the egregore samples are in some way communicating with the anomaly, perhaps sending signals through the Darkness network. There was no response to these sounds which makes me think that while the egregore and the anomaly are trying to communicate with the Witness, the Witness is not responding to these communications (at least during my tests). It’s impossible to say if this is because the Witness has gone beyond this realm and can no longer sense these communications or if it is deliberately staying quiet to obscure its location, status and a potential reveal of how to get through the portal. 

While I cannot determine which one of these two options are true, I do believe the Witness is still keeping both Io and Mercury in its grasp for a purpose unknown to us. 

I will attach the file with the sounds I recorded and open it for anyone to investigate.

REPORT SENT. 

EXPERIMENT 4

My fourth experiment involved attaching a sample of radiolaria to the drone sent into the anomaly. The sample was acquired with the help and permission of the acting Neomuni Cloud Strider, Nimbus. We organised a heist to acquire a living Vex frame and extract an uncontaminated sample of radiolaria from the frame while holding the rest of the frame in our possession. 

Nimbus remained on Neomuna with a monitoring station hooked up to the Vex frame while I sent a sample of radiolaria with the drone into the anomaly. The questions I wanted answered were the following: 

1. Will the radiolaria change the drone's behaviour in the anomaly?
2. Will radiolaria be able to connect with the rest of the Vex Collective that was abundant on Mercury and will that, in turn, tell us if the Vex are still present on the planet?
3. Will the frame we sampled the radiolaria from be able to react to the drone's location? Will the individual Vex we have captured be able to connect to the portion of radiolaria we acquired from it and let us know through some sensory data if it can see where the drone is? 

The radiolaria did not change the drone's behaviour. The drone lost all data as it entered the anomaly. No tones were recorded. After the final information about a gravity well, all feedback shut down. 

No data was received in relation to radiolaria. If the drone reached the surface of Mercury and some Vex frame (if existing) found it alongside the radiolaria sample, we simply can't tell. 

The Vex frame started behaving erratically as soon the drone entered the anomaly. The data from the monitoring station did not detect anything peculiar, but Nimbus confirmed with both personal retelling and video evidence that the Vex frame began twitching and sizzling at the same time that matches the drone's entrance into the anomaly. The frame continued to behave erratically (secured in an isolated chamber) long after the drone stopped sending data. 

Nimbus reported a feeling of a strange passage of time. They told me that they experienced multiple instances of deja vu as well as peculiar ideas about their own past and future. Their report is attached to this file. Nimbus noted that they left their post in proximity to the Vex frame and shut it down out of fear from the strange sensations they experienced. I agreed that was the best choice, given the possibility of danger to everyone involved when one experiences any time fluctuations. 

Unfortunately, it's unclear if the experience Nimbus had was due to their status as a Cloud Strider and/or the location they were in during the experiment. From what I've learned, Cloud Striders have possible ties to Vex technology, and Neomuna has long been plagued by the Vex who are an essential part of the ecosystem. 

Furthermore, the existence of the Veil also added to the issue. Neomuna's infrastructure is built on the Veil, with its most closely linked component being the CloudArk, an alternate reality engine that allows for human habitation via mind-uploading. The CloudArk shares a base with the Vex Network, which allows movement between them (though moving from the Vex Network to the CloudArk remains difficult for the Vex, presumably due to the barrier provided by the paracausality of the Veil). 

The Veil is the foundation on which Neomuna's technology was built and it is somehow connected to the Vex Network. Nimbus' experience and the behaviour of the Vex when a portion of its radiolaria entered the anomaly may have something to do with Neomuna, Cloud Strider technology and the Veil, rather than the anomaly itself. I did not consider this prior to the experiment. I would like to repeat it with a monitoring station off Neptune and conducted by someone else, as a control experiment. 

Unfortunately, due to the danger of repeating this experiment, I cannot ask anyone to take this risk. Perhaps Nimbus got off easy because they're attuned to Vex technology and someone else could've been seriously injured or killed. Nimbus offered to participate again, but I declined due to the danger and due to the fact that their status might be conflicting with the data. They offered assistance in another way which I am grateful for. 

I have no conclusion to make for this experiment. There are too many unknowns, but from the little I can tell, it might signify that the Vex have a way to detect what's happening within the anomaly. This is perhaps due to the Vex' natural attunement to alternate realities and timelines, or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Mercury is a Vex world. It might be both. It also helps that the Vex are a linked consciousness of minds which makes it possible for radiolaria to transfer information between individual frames. Another experiment with the Vex could be conducted with the anomaly of Io, but the Vex have presence there as well so it remains an unclear path to explore. 

As a personal note: I wish I could discuss this with someone versed in Vex technology. I've spent much time on Mercury, but the Vex were nothing more than enemies to me. I have some grasp on their biology and behaviour, but not nearly enough to cover ground for this experiment. 

REPORT SENT.

Addendum : 

I got in contact with Eido, the scribe of House of Light. She has read my public reports and expressed interest in helping. I unfortunately had to decline any direct help with conducting the experiments as I understand the danger they may pose. However, she offered her knowledge about the Vex and the Vex Network to help me untangle information possibly gained from this experiment. Preliminary comments included Eido's belief that the Witness may have abducted Mercury for its connection to the Vex and the existence of the Infinite Forest. According to Eido, the simulation engine could've been used to quickly, accurately and consistently generate large quantities of possible pathways to find a reality in which the concept of "the final shape" is reached, giving the Witness information on how to achieve it. 

Eido informed me that she found ancient records that seem to indicate that the species which eventually became the Witness may have had a similar piece of Vex technology at their disposal which they used in a similar fashion. In that case, the Witness’ interest in Mercury and the Infinite Forest makes perfect sense and would explain why Mercury was targeted.

This, so far, also seems to be consistent with what I've learned about Mercury and its conversion into a machine world. While nobody truly knows how and when that happened, I've checked the studies conducted by Osiris and his followers whose main theory is that the Vex flooded Mercury during the Collapse and converted the world while humanity was getting back on its feet. 

From my personal experience, I believe the spires of Mercury were made in the Collapse to connect the Witness to the Vex' work on the simulation engine. The spires may have been a way to communicate with Mercury while the Vex were searching for a reality of the final shape. As I was on Mercury when the Pyramid ship arrived, I experienced something I can most accurately describe as a collective sigh of relief coming from the spires when the vessel descended. I believe the spires have been waiting for the Pyramid Fleet and the Witness to return. 

Eido was very excited about this information and told me she would continue investigating. This is now pending any new discoveries.

To redact from the public record: the Infinite Forest was sealed. The Witness could not, to our knowledge, access it to use the simulation engine after it stole Mercury. I’ve not brought this detail to Eido yet and I would like to explore other options without her knowing about this because it may limit her perspective if she were to discard the Infinite Forest as a possible reason the Witness may have taken Mercury.

I also have no way of knowing if the Infinite Forest had been sealed successfully. I… 

I don’t know if he succeeded. 

REPORT SENT.

EXPERIMENT 5 - ATTEMPT 1

After the confusing and overwhelming data of the last experiment, I needed some time to think of how to proceed. I settled on the idea that I would require assistance from the Veil to get through the anomaly.

This proved to be exceptionally difficult. With permission from Ikora Rey and acting Cloud Strider Nimbus, I was allowed to enter the Veil Containment facility and make a preliminary observation. 

To put it simply, this was not a pleasant experience. The Veil reacted to my presence and pulsed with, I've been told, a strange frequency detectable only through the audio sensors. The tones. My mind could hardly withstand being in the presence of the Veil even through the glass on the observation deck. I believe that my previous experience with hearing the song through the Darkness network as well as my experience with mind-displacement in the Sundial have made my reaction to the Veil incredibly negative. I had to depart to prevent fainting. 

REPORT SENT.

EXPERIMENT 5 - ATTEMPT 2

I was given protective gear shielding me from the Veil's unique radiation frequency. This stopped me from sensing anything from the Veil at all through the observation deck. This in turn allowed me to descend further into the Containment and to stand below the Veil directly. 

The moment I got near the structure, it reacted differently this time. It encased me in a bubble made of strange transparent vine-like appendages. I felt as if I was being observed. The Veil pulsed with a frequency and held me encased for several minutes. When it released me, it returned to its previous dormant state. 

I did not get any data from this. I believe my protective gear shielded me too well and nothing was detected. The Veil perhaps tried to communicate with me but could not because of the protection I wore. This means that the test can't continue unless I go inside without the protection. 

Unfortunately, this was forbidden by Ikora Rey. Nimbus concurred. Ikora insists that going in without protection is too dangerous given my first experience which only happened through the glass on the observation deck. I understand her concern, but if we don't continue, then this is a dead end. I personally believe that aligning the Veil with the anomaly will make it possible to see into it and possibly even return the missing planets. 

I've received additional information from Ikora that confirmed the Veil reacted to Titan's return from the anomaly. There's a link between the anomalies and the Veil that must be explored. I am beginning to believe that the tones have a much stronger connection to the Veil than they do to the Witness; the Witness must have exploited the Veil during the Collapse and the Lighthouses have, somehow, patched into this network. If we’d known about the Veil during our research at the Lighthouse… 

I will take time off to think of a way to safely communicate with the Veil. 

REPORT SENT.

EXPERIMENT 6  

With the help of five volunteering Guardians, I was able to enter the Pyramid ship in orbit around Earth, formerly owned by the Witness. This is the Pyramid ship that had been struck by the Traveler's terraforming beam during the battle in orbit. 

The other Guardians took me with them to raid the Pyramid for additional loot and to clear it out from Shadow Legion repeatedly trying to retake the vessel. I was interested in two things:

1. The remains of the Disciple called Nezarec who had been slain by Guardians months prior. His remains stand in the Pyramid as do the remains of another Disciple in the Pyramid in the Throne World. I've had experience with this Disciple however, through the remains of his body previously collected by Guardians, and through the Nightmares manifested by his powers on both the Moon and the Leviathan.
2. A room inside the Pyramid that contains effigies or copies of planets. Guardians reading my report have informed me about this and have told me that both Io and Mercury are visible inside of the room.

I've collected a sample of the Disciple and sent a drone with it into the anomaly. It reacted the same way as egregore. There's a communication happening with the anomaly and there's a myriad of sounds and tones reacting to the drone, but the drone's data stops there. I still cannot make the drone pass through the anomaly to safely land on the planet. 

The room with planets overwhelmed me as soon as we entered. I immediately noticed Mercury and approached the miniature planet in the sky. It differed from the Mercury I remembered in the sense that this Mercury had not been broken up into pieces.

It spun in the air, suspended in silence. I zoomed in with my weapon's scope and saw all the details on the surface I could remember. Craters and Vex structures lined up the ground in a way I remembered. It was still a machine world and I could see parts of it clearly.

Personal notes: it felt as if it would've been easy to slide through spacetime and enter the planet. I had to step away with great difficulty to prevent myself from forcefully slamming into the suspended planet which would've surely broken my neck. I became incredibly overwhelmed and emotional. I've not seen Mercury from orbit since the moment I left it for the last time. 

I regrettably sat below the planet and started sobbing. One of the Guardians from the group (a Titan I know from Trials, called Bee) approached me and helped me gather myself with words of encouragement. After I calmed down, I tried to figure out a way to do something about the planet being in that room, but could not come up with a solution. It was just there and it would not budge. It did not allow entry or any detailed scans. It did not emit any data. I believe there must be a way to utilise some form of power, perhaps from the Veil, to pluck the planet out of the anomaly using this room.

The missing planets returning would help us, of that I am sure. The Witness took them for a reason and still holds them for a reason.

I located the Caloris Basin on the surface. I'm pretty sure I found the exact location of the Lighthouse that guards the Infinite Forest. I had to remove myself from the room for the time being to prevent myself from being drawn to the anomaly. 

REPORT SENT.

EXPERIMENT 7  

I've read the texts that Guardians have gathered in the Witness' Pyramid which contained information recorded in the Deep about past civilisations and deeds. 

The Dark is a repository of information and knowledge, including memories of people long gone. Some ancient civilisations used the powers of Darkness to even be able to communicate with their dead and to store memories and messages for the future, after their time has passed. 

There's a link in the Dark to the history of everything that ever happened and the source of it is the Veil, the consciousness of the universe. 

I went back to the Veil Containment without asking for permission first for which I am sorry. But nobody would let me go there without protection and I can't gather any data with protection and it's of utmost importance that this data is collected. 

My mind throbbed with the strain of realities as I descended to the bottom of the structure. Standing beneath the Veil split opened my mind. The Veil pulsed with a frequency that is dear and known to my heart, and my consciousness divided as it once did back in the Sundial. 

I can't fully explain what I've seen, but I've looked for a memory or message or existence of someone among the dead. I could not find him. 

I don't know if that means he isn't dead or if I just didn't have enough time to search. 

I've seen the Veil's memory of Mercury. The Veil remembers Mercury as it was. As a part of the solar system. Its absence strains the Veil's energy field. I don't know how to explain it. I'm sure that returning Mercury and Io would help us understand more about the Veil and everything. 

Including the Vex. I felt the Vex collectives crying out for the Veil, in some strange concert of minds that swirled and sizzled with longing. I don't know what it means. From what I've learned, they tried to recreate it. The Black Heart was their great experiment and failure to connect with the Veil. They still want it. 

Everything is stored in the Dark. Everything remains in the Dark. The wounds, the pain. And the pleasure. Sickness and exaltation. 

It’s so easy to reach.

There is an archive of all of time and space. Everyone that ever lived and that ever will live. 

Somewhere, a veil is always lifting. 

The gardens bloom and the knife strikes the leaves off the branches. 

A million eyes burn with rage. 

A pattern. A chorus. Sing.

The Vex the Vex the vex thevexthevexthevex 

I am a dead thing.

Mercury will sing and none will hear its song the dead are not truly lost they are simply inaccessible to us 

In another time in another time in another time inanothertimeinanothertime 

I could not find him. 

END REPORT?

Chapter Text

In weeks of recovery from the overwhelming task of her investigation, Dola needed time off. To rest her mind and body. To put a gap between the secrets of the universe and herself. To re-read and ponder on her reports, and on whether or not she should ever send the final one to anybody. She put it aside and sought out help for her troubled soul.

Her investigation revealed nothing and changed nothing. She had to focus on something smaller in scale. 

Dola entered the building and children’s laughter immediately echoed all around her. It was a colourful place, cosy and warm. Several kids ran in front of her, chasing each other. A few adults were tending to kids seated around small round tables in the back. 

Bee had told her about this place. He talked about it often, as a place where one could do real work and help those most in need. He also told her that visiting Guardians would cheer kids up and that they were welcome to come. 

So Dola listened and showed up. The place immediately overwhelmed her with lights and noises, but somehow comforted her nonetheless. She looked around. 

A few kids noticed her and started pointing, while tugging at the sleeves of the nearby adults. There was a group at one table vigorously colouring a large piece of paper. A few kids played with a ball near the edge of the room. 

One of the adults nodded at her and Mora came out of hiding as well, to much delight of the nearby children. Four of them swarmed around the Ghost right away, trying to grab her out of the air. She accepted the play and flew off on her own. 

Dola moved through the room towards a quieter area in the back with more tables. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. Something special to connect to. To choose children most in need to cheer up with her presence. She'd practised a harmless trick she could do for them with her solar Light. 

Her line of sight ended at a table in the back where three children sat in a circle. Her heart skipped a beat. They were all seated with their hands on the table, over a thick piece of paper. None of them were looking at it; instead, they all looked somewhere vaguely in the direction of the adult seated with them, but not quite aligned. 

The trick she'd practised would do her no good, but her feet moved on their own towards that table. She arrived so quickly it startled the teacher sitting with the kids. 

“Oh! A Guardian! We don't get many Guardians visiting our little group! You're the first for these three!” the teacher said, quickly standing up to greet Dola. 

Dola motioned with her hand that this would not be necessary. Instead, she focused on the kids who were trying to find her. The swell of her heart overtook her entire body. She smiled reflexively. 

“I'm Dola,” she told the kids to let them know where she is. She crouched next to the table. “I'm a Hunter. You know what that is?”

They all yelled enthusiastically. One little boy reached vaguely in her direction. She found his hand and he gasped in joy. 

“Hunters have long cloaks!” one of them said.

“And they're really fast!” the other chimed in.

Dola got a closer look at the piece of paper on the table. 

“What are you all doing today?” she asked. 

The little boy almost fell out of his chair in the rush to answer. “We’re learning how to read!” 

Dola looked at the thick paper, textured with dots. “That's really interesting. May I?” 

She still held the boy's hand when she put it down to the paper. The boy nodded again and Dola glided his palm over the dots. “Lightly, without pressing too hard,” she said. 

She helped him move his fingers over the dots and he happily started spelling out the word Dola picked. When he was done, Dola smiled and congratulated him. 

“I didn't know the Guardians learned that,” the teacher said. “You don't seem to need it.”

Dola’s smile faded as she looked at the teacher and moved away from the table. “I knew someone who did.” 

She became overwhelmed with emotion. There was a deep dark pit inside of her stomach, an absence like the one she stared at so many times etched into the backdrop of the Sun. 

But these children were happy with her presence, and no other Guardian sought fit to visit them. None but her. She could help them, satiate that need to give to those that needed giving. 

“I will come back and I will bring some materials I used when I was learning,” she told the teacher. “Maybe I will even bring some other gifts, if you all promise to practise while I'm gone.”

All three kids clamoured in agreement and promises. Dola’s smile returned briefly and then turned into the onset of tears. She excused herself and reassured the teacher that she would return. 

She didn't even pick up Mora from a group of kids pulling at her shell before storming out of the building and into the street, into the cold air that made the tears sting her cheeks. She dropped to the bench next to the door, and sobbed into her hands. 

The word she helped the little boy spell was hope.

Chapter Text

“Saint, what is it like in the Infinite Forest?” 

Dola stood near a pillar of stone, overlooking the empty expanse of the simulated surface of Mercury. The Sun engulfed the sky in the same way she remembered. Saint stood next to her.

“You have been inside, yes?”

“I have, but only on patrolling,” Dola replied. 

“There is much to say about it,” Saint said. “It is vast and complicated. What do you really need to know?”

She uncrossed her arms and started twiddling with her fingers. She could tell Saint anything, and yet, the words stuck in her throat. 

“What is it like when you’re in there for a long time?”

A Titan’s hand moved to her elbow. “There is nothing I could tell you about the Forest that would offer comfort.”

Tears slid down her cheeks. She refused to look at Saint for the next question. “What is it like to die there alone?”

Saint moved to face her, but she looked away. “Dola…” he tried but she would not budge. Holding back the sobs, she just let the tears flow in silence. “Have you given up hope?”

“Hope has exhausted me. And it brought me nothing but pain,” she replied. 

An overwhelming sense of relief flooded her. She’d tried staying hopeful. On the outside, she promised and promised and promised that she still held onto it. But in truth she had given up the moment her investigations into the anomaly solved nothing.

“I’ve been where you are,” Saint said. “In the Forest, I’ve searched and waited. And I died. But I still hoped. I hoped for lifetimes.”

Dola exhaled, her heart tied into a knot, and turned to look at Saint. His helmet was off and she could see his kind face. “Saint. He only has one life,” she said, speaking through the knot and the influx of tears. “I’ve come to terms with having to watch him die, but not for decades and decades. Instead, I’ve lost him so soon. It’s already been longer without him than with him. And I don’t even know what happened to him. I will likely never know.”

“We will get Mercury back like we did Mars and Titan, I am sure.”

“He doesn’t have time for us to wait for that to happen. And nobody can help me,” she said, weeping. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve split my mind apart communing with the Veil and not even that could help me. I don’t know what else to do.”

Saint moved closer and pulled her into a hug. Dola broke apart against his armour, sobbing loudly. “Sometimes all we can do is wait. But perhaps I could ask Osiris again.”

Dola cried louder at the mention of Osiris. “I don’t want to bother him. We’ve always bothered him. He wants nothing to do with us. He either doesn’t remember or we are a joke. I can’t listen to anyone else telling me they don’t care. Especially not Osiris. He inspired me to accept that to be a Guardian is to love and protect. I can’t handle learning that there’s a limit to who Osiris wants to protect.”

“That is not the case,” Saint said. “I will ask him. And I will ask others too. Perhaps Misraaks could help.”

“I’ve spoken to his daughter. She was kind to me,” Dola said through the tears and moved away from Saint’s hug. “She exchanged theories with me but we could not come up with anything conclusive. I think she’s still looking for answers.”

“I will ask Osiris,” Saint reiterated. 

“Don’t,” Dola said. “He is busy.”

“Dola, allow us to try.”

“This all started because I’ve heard and seen the end of all things. It will come to pass if Osiris does not do his duty,” she interrupted what looked like the start of a long speech. “After it is done. If we’re all still here.”

“I still stand by my promise. That I will help you search, when Mercury is back.”

“Thank you, Saint.”

Dola gave the simulated Lighthouse another look and then left the simulation. Back in her ship, she flew to the anomaly orbiting the Sun and sat together with it in its orbit for hours, spinning the bronze ring on her thumb until exhaustion forced her to turn the ship back and return to Earth.

Chapter Text

A Ghost jittered with anxiety until her Guardian was safe at home. No matter what, Mora could not shake the feeling that Dola would eventually snap and blow up the ship’s reactor or fly into the anomaly or do something worse. Something that would take more people with her. 

Somewhere deep down, Mora knew that Dola would never do it. That before a point of no return, she would stop herself. The Guardian felt too strongly about disappointing Saint and even about her unspoken promise to someone who could never know if she kept it. 

But it caused anxiety nonetheless. 

“Stop following me around,” Dola said and knocked Mora out of her habitual, instinctual observation of her Guardian. “We’re at home, it’s fine.”

“Sorry,” Mora said. “I just worry sometimes.” All the time . 

“I know. But it annoys me when you hover.”

“Sorry,” Mora repeated. “I need to know you’ll be okay.”

Dola turned sharply and Mora flinched. “You should’ve cared this much a lot sooner.”

Mora was speechless. Dola would sometimes say something harsh like this. Then she would immediately apologise. But this time, Mora reacted first. 

“I DID care. All the time. From the start! That’s why I am worried!”

“I’m–”

“You died in front of my eyes, Dola! And I didn’t have the Light to get you up!” Mora yelled. “I flew to the Lighthouse in the hope that someone would be able to help me, to give you a chance! And they did! Because he heard me. He heard me and stopped them from raising the blast windows.”

Dola stared at her Ghost motionless. “You hated him.”

“I went through every single emotion after. Yes, at some points I hated him. At some points I was jealous. Later, I was just glad that there’s someone that makes you happy. And I was grateful. He helped us when I failed.”

“The Light was gone, you couldn’t–”

“I still blamed myself. You can’t possibly understand a Ghost’s perspective. What we feel. What inexplicable force binds me to you. I thought I should’ve died instead of you. To give you one last chance to live. But for a few seconds, I felt relief. I did. I was relieved that I was the one to survive. And it scared me. And I blamed myself,” Mora continued without pause. “And then you came back to life without my help. And you came back different. And I no longer understood you. So I blamed myself more, for severing our connection with that one moment of cruelty. I thought you somehow knew. Instinctively.”

“Mora, I didn’t think–”

“You didn’t think that I had complicated feelings about a man who made you happy, but who turned you into something I could not recognise?” Mora asked, incredulous. 

“He didn’t turn me into anything.”

“He helped.”

“I wanted to know more about what happened to me.”

Mora sighed. “I accepted that. I tried getting closer to him. And I did. You know I did. I kept him company while you were out patrolling. I helped him with organising and archiving. He talked to me. I thought of him as my own, Dola. He came to me to tell me that he is leaving you. And I had to keep that in for a month. I had to keep it in when you panicked in orbit. I had to keep it in when you waited in the hangar. I had to keep it in when you held your vigil the entire night. And I knew that once I played that message, I would lose you again.”

Dola extended her hand to her Ghost. Mora wished she could cry. She didn’t know what that felt like, but she watched her fair share of crying and she always thought about how much it would help to be able to release a flood of emotions.

Mora landed into Dola’s palm. The heat of her Guardian’s skin wrapped her in comfort. 

“You should talk to Saint too,” Dola said softly. “I’m sorry. I wish you’d felt safe to tell me all of this before.”

“My job is to support you. I can deal with my own problems in my own time.”

“No, you shouldn’t. You should tell me,” Dola said. “If I’d known… Mora, I always thought none of this mattered to you in any way. That you are acting on logic and instinct. That you don’t…”

“Feel?”

Dola sighed and pulled her Ghost closer, nuzzling her face on the shell. 

“It’s how you behaved and talked. You were giving me logical answers. You were telling me why I logically should just get over it and move on. That I should logically accept the fact that he left me. Even before that! You kept telling me that I should logically accept that he does not care about me the way I do about him. That we could leave Mercury and he would just shrug and move on.”

“I thought it would work on you. I didn’t want to amplify your highly emotional state. I was worried for you. I was worried that you would go forward with some drastic measure if I affirmed your negative emotions,” Mora said. “I was just worried.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t think I helped. I tried helping you by telling people about what you’ve been through, but it just made them mock you. I failed to support you when you needed it most. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Thank you.”

“Stop saying that!” Mora yelled, but Dola kept her in a hug. She felt tears on her shell. “Stop saying that…”

“I won’t.”

Mora released the tension in her shell and let herself be moved and cuddled next to Dola’s neck, in her cloak. 

“You never told me that you thought of him as your own.”

“I had to. You were inseparable.”

“Did you think that just because of me?”

“No. I wanted him to be safe. Nobody deserves what he’s been through. I want him to be alive and I want us to find him. And I want both of you to get out of this trap you fell into.”

Dola sighed. Mora knew that it would be difficult to achieve, but she wanted to believe that it was possible. 

Mora continued to hope.

A droning hum reverberated through her shell, shaking her internal systems with a force she could not identify. In her memory, a song echoed through the empty hallways, illuminated only by candlelight. Looking for her |to join the chorus|.

Mora continued to keep her secret.

Chapter Text

All alone in the vastness of the dark, with nothing but the canvas of stars, that’s the only place where we are truly free.

The void welcomes. The endlessness of space in the deep black, to mimic the endlessness of time in the corridors of white. It would be so easy to get lost. 

A lone jumpship cut through the universe with determination. The stars were nothing but a blur on the side windows. 

Nothing wanted to speak to her. Only the distant notes of despair, repeating over and over and over and over and over. 

She’d been to every Pyramid ship. She ventured back inside the Moon, pushing through a million new copies of blood-red smoke in the shape of a man who sang cruelty to her. She latched on again. Her dam buckled once more under a deluge. She would deal with that again another time. Instead, she moved to the empty hallways that echoed voices and she stood in front of the veiled statue. Nothing ever replied. Nothing spoke. The voices just repeated, dull and hollow. Everything remains in the Dark.

On the plains of ice, the winds blew icicles onto her gear, tearing fabric with each step. The howl of the wind was similar to the one she could hear on Mercury, but here it was frigid. The depth of the cold called her to embrace it, but she moved into the Pyramid and trekked across the impossible geometry until she reached a statue. The voices repeated. Over and over. Nothing replied. Nothing spoke. It was Nothing. 

Orange resonance spooled out of the Pyramid broken in half that lay in a swamp. Stench of death flowed into every pore even through her gear. She looked for the statue and could not find it. She watched the dead corpse of a worm still dying. Nothing spoke. Nothing. She climbed up on a bone presented on a pedestal as proof of conquest. Curled up on the smooth, perfect, structure of the bone, Dola cried for hours. The bone reverberated with a distant whalesong. It cried with her. 

She returned to the Pyramid in orbit, struck by the Traveler. A labyrinth grew on its surface and so did a tree. She climbed to the top, listening to the roots churning through the vessel’s insides. The tree in the distance stood peacefully, in full bloom. She knew of its siblings. The one felled in the Garden and the one consumed alongside Io. 

Of the seeds we do not speak.

Dola stared at the triangular portal etched into the Traveler. She placed her palm on the triangle lit up blue on her chest piece. Realms beyond her reach where answers lay. 

The Dark that kept it all, mixed here with the Light that cleansed. You could only be one in the Dark, but in the Light you could be many. And yet, still nothing spoke. Nothing replied. 

The voices were different here. There were chimes and gentle whispers and bird wings. Dola was not sure if she was imagining it. Or perhaps it was all coming from the tree. She did not know. She could not hear it all. She could not understand the things she’d heard. The one who could was gone. 

There was no way to get into the anomaly. There was no way to snatch a planet back into the motions of the heavens. There was only the wait. 

Dola had time to wait. 

She promised to live and her life was infinite. 

And that creature will burn. She will see its million arms crumble. She will see its million eyes bleed. 

She will find him, in the Light or the Dark.

Chapter Text

The world stopped. 

Sliced into blocks. Pieces sliding as seen fit. 

There was no pain or even consciousness. Nothing remained. 

In the Nothing, the voices offered salvation. The end to pain, and to questions.

A deep rumble reverberated as the universe rearranged itself.

It was tempting. One word and all would be over.

Dola snapped to reality.

***

“What was that?” Mora asked, shaking her shell. 

Frightened cries and questions of children murmured around them. A few other Guardians rushed outside to keep the perimeter safe, if needed. 

“It’s getting closer,” Dola replied. 

She was crouching next to her group of three kids, letting them hold her hands. 

“The Traveler is… In pain,” Mora said, strained.

Dola gently shook her hand, motioning away from the kids. “Not here. What’s going on with the Vanguard?” 

“They’re launching the operation. It wasn’t meant to start yet, but they think they have no choice now.”

As Mora still listened to the information on her comms, Dola tapped the kids’ shoulders and directed them into a safe corner with others and their teacher. She left Mora with them too, and walked out of the building. 

The streets were filled just moments ago, but now they were deserted. Unsteady wind carried pieces of paper through the air. Doors and windows closed. Only Guardians were outside, patrolling. It was only days ago that their enemies were flooding these streets with the dreadful Pyramid ships hovering in the sky. 

Droning and humming. 

Whatever happens, it will happen soon. Dola did not plan to follow through the portal. At least not in the first wave. Her place was in the City, with the civilians. To be a Guardian was to love and protect. 

She was distracting the kids with playtime when Mora heard the first word of some sort of a blow being delivered to that creature. Focused on making sure the kids are not stressed, Dola only listened to some of the news.

The inside of the Traveler was filled with memories. Some beautiful, and some twisted.

The Hunter Vanguard was mysteriously alive. Dola remembered exactly where she was when Mora told her about his death. She remembered how much she did not care about it. There was only the song, and the warmth of the Lighthouse, a dozen books, pages turned, and a voice long gone. 

Commander Zavala lost his Ghost. Dola stared at the distance vacantly. 

Countless abominations were created against order and reason. Dola resisted the urge to charge in and incinerate everything in sight. 

But at the end, some of the voices sang a different song and the Witness bled. 

Dola looked to the Sun. 

If it bleeds, it can be killed. And if it can be killed, its hold over the universe must cease. Its hold over the planets it has stolen and defiled. They must return. When the final blow lands, when the sword beats the knife, the cosmos will be whole again. 

Three days later, the Witness shattered into pieces. 

The anomaly of Darkness remained in the void of space. 

And a star from the Traveler fell on Nessus.

Chapter Text

Rekindled grief pushed Dola into the portal. She knew she shouldn’t. She knew there was nothing to gain. But she needed to see. 

Perhaps to ask. 

She walked through the overgrown remains of the Tower she remembered. When it fell, she wasn’t there. Dola tried to recall when was the last time she visited the Tower before the Red War to no avail. It did not mean much to her then. 

It never meant much to her. 

Dola had never been to Io, but Mora explained to her that a section of the Pale Heart vaguely mimicked a part of it. She went there immediately after the old Tower. 

The distorted and mesmerising ground, split into sections and formed like a crater, welcomed her. Dola ignored the creatures she’d never seen before and swarms of the Hive and the Taken, drawn instead to the centre of the Cradle. From the middle of the maze-like structure, a tree grew, its branches curling up into the sky like a contorted palm grasping for something. She walked up to its trunk.

Dola had spent countless hours losing herself in the insanity of trying to figure out what it meant. The message. And then months later, after he was gone, she had it figured out. Plant the seed.  

The Silver Tree on Io was the result. And now it was copied here. 

Seized by a resurging sorrow, Dola dropped to her knees in front of the tree. She’d never seen the one on Io. Later, she saw images, but that was all. And it was the only part of the lost worlds the Traveler mimicked in this place. In a way, he helped make the original, and now its copy was here. Dola felt a connection in mourning.

Silent tears fell across her cheeks in a way she thought she’d long forgotten. 

The Witness was dead and the planets had not returned from its grasp. Where were they now? Can they ever be returned, now that the hand that held them has been severed? Are they lost forever? 

Will she ever step on the marigold sands and walk over windswept dunes again? Will the radiolaria ever flow beneath her feet, and into the white and gold frames of the ancient Vex that drained life from a garden world? Will she ever see that triangular stone ruin light up with a starry blue portal? 

Is he now truly gone forever? 

Dola touched the rough bark of the strange tree and sobbed. 

“Can you tell me where it is?” she asked through the tears. “Please, can you tell me where is Mercury? Do you know where is it now?”

Silence. 

“I didn’t come here while the Witness was still alive. I knew what it would’ve done to me. I would’ve asked this and it would’ve given me everything in exchange for the attempt to ruin you. And I would’ve accepted. I couldn’t even come to watch it die. It would’ve sensed me and it would’ve answered my questions to save its own life. It would’ve shown me where Mercury is. It would’ve let me go there. It would’ve trapped me and killed me there, but I would’ve known. So I couldn’t come here to help,” she continued. “If I’d come, I would've died, and he wanted me to live. If I’d come, I would’ve hurt you. I would’ve hurt everyone just to get the answer. It’s been calling to me for years. The voices. The music. I heard it.”

Silence.

“I felt it with the Veil too. There is a song in the fabric of the universe. You must know it. You must know where it comes from. You must know what it is. You must know where the planets are.”

“Please.”

“I just want to know. I need to know. You must remember Mercury. You must remember how you terraformed it. You must have a connection.”

“Please. Anything. I'll take any answer. I just need to know.”

Silence.

Dola stood and walked away. 

In the place of a million sacrifices, she walked up to the centre of emptiness. The statues stared at her, unmoving. Equally silent. The monolith in the background pierced and bleeding spectral lights. Dola approached the middle and faced the structure with the statues.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“You would know too. You would know what you did to the planets. Where are they?”

“What did you do to them? Why did you take Mercury? Where is it now? Please.”

“Where is he?”

The wind swirled around her, betraying nothing. There was nothing. 

Dola sat in the middle of it all for hours, in silence. An ancient grave, abandoned and empty. She would never have a grave to attend to, to visit, to mourn at. There was only the wait, and quiet. 

Nothing spoke back.

Chapter Text

Hidden away in a dusty old storage room, in the dark, Dola was roused from her nap by Mora. She was surrounded by old discarded things from the Lighthouse that nobody wanted anymore, not even her. She’s already taken everything that mattered. But the pile of rugs and pillows in the corner still stood and Dola hadn’t been back in months. Years? 

It was damp and stank of mold. Cobwebs littered the shelves. Purely out of habit, Dola held a book, an old abandoned one from the boxes. She checked it absentmindedly a few times; it was just a copy from another copy that she didn’t need. 

She considered doing something about her promise that, once the Witness was dead and if they’re all alive, she would finally sit down with Saint and Osiris for a talk. But she couldn’t intrude on the celebrations. 

And then trouble arose once more.

“Dola?” Mora shone light on her Guardian. “Please get out of that trash.”

“Am I needed somewhere?”

“Yes. You will be interested in this,” Mora said and shared information on Nessus. “Something is happening to the Vex. They’re… different. There are massive tremors. Nessus is changing.”

“It’s that thing that fell from the Traveler.”

Mora hesitated first, but then decided to say everything. Dola will find out eventually. “There are reports of Precursors.”

Dola turned to her Ghost sharply. “They don’t leave the Vault. And…”

“Mercury.”

Dola stood up so fast she got dizzy for a moment. “What else is going on?”

“Other Vex appear to be under some sort of control. We don’t know who, or what, is doing that. They’re acting independently. Literally. Guardians are reporting strange behaviour by the Vex. Individual.”

“We’re going to Nessus.”

“Saint is on it. And Osiris.”

Her back to her Ghost, Dola briefly lingered by the open door of the storage, then turned to look at Mora. “We’re going to Nessus.”

As she left the storage, she felt a spark inside of her chest. A glimmer of hope. A call to fight.

While everyone else had been celebrating the Witness’ defeat and rejoicing after saving the universe, Dola fell down the endless dark pit, deeper than the world. She could not leave her apartment and when she did, she was hiding inside the dusty storage room. People had reasons to celebrate, but she didn’t. Her plight had become worse. 

For years she hoped that at least once the Witness was gone, surely, the planets would return and she would be able to search. She would at least know. It was the uncertainty that ate at her insides. There is nothing for her to do until she finally knows . 

A few times she’d tried joining others celebrating their great victory. It didn't go well. She was an outsider, detached, pointed at. Connection did not come naturally to her anymore, not like it used to, before. So she returned to her books.

She’d not been on Nessus more than a few times after her return from Mercury. There was nothing there for her. A world too far from the Sun. Not unpleasant, but unfamiliar. This was not what she knew of the Vex. A few times Dola wandered the Vex structures in hope of seeing something familiar, or something that connects to Mercury, but there was nothing there. 

Only the tall leaning spires with triangular entrances teased her as they rose from the ground, discernible in the distance through the occasional fog and foliage. It was more painful than anything else. And now she returned to find it changing in front of her eyes.

Tremors shook beneath her feet, betraying an inner working of a grand scale, somewhere deep. She knew about hollowed out planets, but this was different. The spectral pink hue from the strange artefact they named “Echo” constantly filled the edges of her vision, but she couldn’t discern anything that other Guardians and Vanguard officials hadn’t already noted. 

She hoped to hear something. To be the one to find out something new. To help with information that nobody else could attain. To walk the path less travelled.

She jumped. She leaped from the transmat zone in Artifact’s Edge without a second thought and to the horror of a few other Guardians nearby, she did not break the fall. The moment she was rezed, Mora yelled at her. Dola lied about it being an accident, but Mora knew. She always knew. 

Dola was ashamed. She regretted it. This was tested so many times, to no avail. And what she’d done would’ve upset him. 

Either way, Dola heard nothing. Maybe he would’ve heard it instead. 

No. He can’t be upset and he can’t hear it because he is gone. 

She debated jumping into the depth of Nessus, into that pink hue, but Mora stopped her by getting Saint on the line. As always, he calmed her down and gave her a task; something to be helpful. Dola decided to investigate the Vex and bring back as much data as possible for analysis. Whatever led them now had an unknown plan and Dola was determined to be ready for both study and battle.

Chapter Text

The Vex were changing, and so was the planet, vibrating from underneath the surface. 

Something stirred in its insides, signalled by constant quakes.

Dola observed the Vex moving and fighting. Hidden among the tree branches and in the depths of their ruins, she took note of all the peculiar details. The regular Vex had some sort of ghostly collars around their necks. Something, or someone, had control over them. She instigated combat with them in the attempts to draw out any of the Precursors and it worked. The more she poked, the sooner they would arrive. 

Big Hydras and Minotaurs, shiny white and gold, as if brand new, from the dawn of time. Commanding minds directing and leading other Vex, organising them as a proper fighting force would. But they had no collars. They were not under control. They obeyed a strange new force nobody knew about. 

Why them? There were other Vex collectives to choose from. Why Precursors? 

How did they get here? Have they abandoned Mercury? When? Do they know where it is? Can they reach it? Or are they here because they’ve evacuated, like everyone else did, like everyone else should’ve had. Maybe they’re following a new leader and using a new power to redecorate Nessus into their new home. 

Or maybe they were just pulled out of time. Maybe none of them knew of Mercury. 

But Dola kept seeing remnants of it. In their shiny frames and in their architecture. Perhaps they’re always compelled to build the same things, but she could not take her eyes away. Suddenly, everything looked familiar. She went to missions all over Nessus, stopping in the middle of combat to look at a strange hallway or a half-remembered statue or the angle of the room or a pillar that she swore was exactly the same as some she’d seen on Mercury. 

Then Failsafe reported something strange in their code. Music . In their names too, and in their chatter. 

And Dola got sick with despair. She could not hear it and she could not understand it. She wanted to pursue this point, but she did not know how. At home, she looked through her books again. Through his books. She did not understand it. Not back then, and not now. Reading through his writing about music, she cried as it meant nothing to her. There were words with no meaning. She could not comprehend any of it. 

Perhaps this meant nothing. Perhaps the Vex were now tuned into a different song. Or perhaps this has always been the same song; out of place and out of time, these ancient Vex from the past brought their memories of the future in tones and notes to Mercury, used the Lighthouse to play the music that pulsed through her body in death. 

But Dola couldn’t tell. She couldn’t prove it right or wrong. It could’ve been a clue worthy of investigating, or it could’ve been a dead end that she would waste her time pursuing. 

She left Nessus and retreated to the City until Mora delivered the news about Saint. 

He’d been yoked and controlled by an unknown entity known only as the Conductor who convinced him that he is nothing more than an imperfect copy of some other original, better, Saint-14. Dola called him multiple times without success. She left him messages. She pleaded with him to contact her. Obviously many others had done the same so perhaps he was just working through it all. Or maybe he just could not respond to anyone. 

When he finally replied, she could barely recognise his voice. 

“Saint, can you hear me?” 

“Dola, I am… I am busy,” he replied.

“What is going on?”

“I am not who I thought I was. You should not concern yourself about me.”

“Saint, that is not true.”

“Whatever happened with the Sundial. In the Forest. Osiris has made a mistake. I am not who he loves.”

“That’s not true,” she repeated. “Saint, I saw it all in the Sundial. He loves you in every timeline.”

“I should have stayed in that place,” he said, unrelenting. Dola took a sharp breath. “I am sorry.”

Her hands shook and her mouth quivered. In the core of her being, a dread set in. A terrible hollow of an endless void.

“Don’t say that!” she yelled into a closed comm line. “Don’t say that to me! Don’t say that to me, Saint! No one should be in that place! No one! No one!”

Mora materialised next to her Guardian and spoke softly. “Dola, the line is dead.”

Dola tore her comm unit, crushed it in her fist and flung the remains into the wall. She walked to the door to leave her apartment.

“You can’t go into the field like this. I need you to take some time off. We have to be ready if something big happens,” Mora said, trying to stay calm. “Saint needs to process this. He is going to be okay, but he also needs some time off.”

Dola let go of the door handle and stayed inside. She had no strength to speak. What was happening to Saint was upsetting enough. It was Saint. Saint-14 was everything to her. He saved her life. He’d suffered enough. She could not handle that he might think he’s not worthy of being here. It was incomprehensible. 

But it went deeper for her. What does the exposure to the Infinite Forest do to someone? What can this Conductor do to those that have been exposed? To those that might still be there? If he’s alive, what horrors could he be going through? Would it not be better if he had simply died years ago?

Dola’s heart shattered again.

Chapter Text

“You did what?” Dola asked weeks later, unable to understand.

“It was the only way. We went to see my tomb. And now I understand. The Conductor can’t harm me anymore,” Saint replied. He sounded like himself again. Eager, hopeful, motivated.

Dola was happy for him. But her question was not about that. She listened to him completely incredulously. “Your tomb. In the Infinite Forest. You went there.”

“It is not as it sounds,” Saint said. 

“You went to the Infinite Forest.”

Saint placed his hand on her shoulder, but Dola ducked under it and moved away. She could sense her anger building inside of her. How was this possible? Why didn’t they tell her? Has Mercury’s return been kept a secret? What was going on?

“The Vex keep archives on Nessus. They have a copy of the Forest. We accessed only the place I was laid to rest,” Saint explained. “It cannot help you.”

Dola was still in shock. “How can it not help me? If they keep an archive, they could have an archive of the Forest from the time he entered. I could access the archived recording of what happened.”

“I don’t know if that would work.”

“I don’t care if you don’t know! I have to check.”

Saint became visibly uncomfortable with her attitude. “Dola, I am trying to save you from disappointment. You know what I promised. That I would help you search. But this is not the same place.”

“I have to try.”

“We will ask Ikora for permission to go.”

“No. I am not asking for permission. And I am going alone.”

Dola took a step back, then turned and left the hangar. She knew she only had a narrow window of time to flee before they pursued her. And she knew they would. Saint will recover in a moment and alert the Vanguard. She had to be on the way by then. 

“You don’t even know where it is,” Mora told her as she set her ship to fly to Nessus.

“I will scour every inch of that place until I find it,” Dola replied.

Mora flew close to Dola’s head, lightly bumping against the black and yellow cloak. Dola watched as the ship’s computer displayed coordinates. 

“What is this?” she demanded of her Ghost. 

“I asked Geppetto.”

Appreciation briefly replaced her anger. Dola turned her back to the Sun.

In a pit filled with foliage and humidity unnatural for a place so far away, spectral pink hues merged with particles of radiolaria in the air. The Vex sat in the middle of it all, guarding the fountains of white sizzling liquid, flowing through the planet. 

Around them, four triangular gateways positioned in silence. Dola stepped through the eroded stone and the wet grass, towards the Vex who stood unmoving. 

None of the gates were right. Just similar enough to cause her pain. 

One of ancient moss that smelled of asphodelia flowers. One of the new foliage of spectral pink. One encased in ice and snow. And one of the dark, of the future where the Sun shone no more.

All were shut. A translucent barrier blocking entry into their swirling starry blue portals. 

They are archives. Only archives. Dola stared at each one and then to the one of the dark. It led to the archive of the tomb of Saint-14, inside the Infinite Forest. It’s the closest she could get. Perhaps it could be attuned to another point of the history of the Forest. Of the history of Mercury. 

She could see what happened when he entered. What happened when the planet was taken. What became of the Forest, and of him. 

Even if it wasn’t possible to get him out, even if he was still alive somehow, she would at least know. She would know. She would know to hope or not anymore. 

The Vex were still unmoving; their yokes in place. Dola felt as if she was being watched. She moved past the Vex, towards the barrier that barred entry into the Forest. Upon placing her hand on it, she could only feel a cold nothing. It wouldn’t budge.

“Open the gate,” she said quietly, standing next to a still Minotaur. “Open it. Let me use it. I just need to see and I will leave. I have no quarrel with you. I don’t care for your secrets. There is only one thing I want to know.”

She was aware that she was talking to a Vex frame. Futile endeavour, but there was nothing else to try anymore. If she was truly being watched, her observer could hear it. Her tears returned. She banged on the barrier to the Forest. 

“Open it!”

She banged on it again and again and again, her anger building up, until streaks of red stained it. “Open it! Let me into the Forest!”

A sound of a horn, or a trumpet - Dola could not tell the difference - sounded behind her. Deep, haunting, echoing in the stone corridors through the fog and radiolarian mist. The reverberation made her dizzy, as the sound drummed against her ears so hard she could feel her brain rattling in her skull.

She turned. 

The Nessus gate was transformed into orange stone with windswept sand and a pyramidal capstone cut in sections. The barrier was gone. In front of it, there was a figure with a crown of white and gold. 

“A glimpse now,” the figure said, her voice mixed with that of the sound of the horn. “And the rest when I’m done with my work. If you aid me, you will be able to look for yourself.”

“Dola, don’t,” Mora said, materialising. Dola could barely hear her over the horn. 

“There is nothing and no one for you here. Join the chorus.”

Dola walked towards the gate of the Infinite Forest, the one she remembered. She just wanted to see. Just a glimpse. A glimpse into what happened. A glimpse of hope. 

She stepped through alone, as if pushed, mesmerised, lost. 

A long hallway compiled in front of her steps, stone and statues and a starry void combining inside a triangular corridor. Cold sweat ran down her spine. Fear erupted inside of her. 

Dola left the long triangular chamber and stepped into the Infinite Forest as she knew it. 

As if looking at the sky with a ceiling of patterns. Strange clouds with lightning strikes and platforms and spires materialising around her. In the air, unknown golden particles. Dola squinted. She looked down to the path in front of her and gasped.

Vance was on the floor, on his knees, his back turned to her. He rose slowly and took something from his pack. She could recognise his every move and every detail of the fabric of his robe. Please turn. He fiddled with something in his hands, something she couldn’t see. A ticking noise chimed for a moment, an echo of a heavy stone gate sliding into place sounded off, and then there was silence as the Forest sealed. 

“No!”

He could not hear her. He did not turn. It was just an archive. Dola’s yoke broke. 

Please turn.

The golden particles grew bigger; copies of him, created by the Forest. She did not understand. She saw glimpses of him everywhere and nowhere all at once. She heard him sing. She saw him approach himself. She saw him - one of him - digging into the eyes of another. She heard a scream piercing through the empty hollowed planetary core and remembered his words. I have to close the loop.  

“No!”

The world crumbled around her. The sky was collapsing like a theatre stage, revealing a black nothingness behind it. 

“No! Let me see!”

The horn returned, briefly, then silence. Dola felt arms around her. 

Pulled from the collapsing time and space, there was nothing more. It was the glimpse she was promised. 

The arms pulling her were strong; she could not wrestle away, although she tried. She was kicking and screaming and crying all the way until she was back in a foggy place where the Vex guarded the gates. Except the Vex were no more. Their broken frames littered the floor. 

“Dola?!” Mora said first. 

She flailed in the arms of someone she could not see or recognise. She nearly wiggled out of their grasp when another set of arms helped with the grip. Dola screamed like a wounded animal. She kicked with her legs and swung her head, hitting something hard. A streak of blood rained down the side of her head. 

The arms let her go, putting her on the floor gently. 

Her vision blurred. Strange images of a collapsing reality flickered in and out, making her dizzy, stinging her eyes. She needed to get out. She needed to stop it. 

“Transmat us out of here!” Saint-14 said. 

“The Conductor is directing the Vex to mess with the transmat zones,” another voice said. Bee. “My fireteam is working on it.”

On the floor, pinned down by two Titans, there wasn’t much she could do. She wriggled one of her arms, looking for something she could use as a weapon. Dola found a piece of a shattered Vex frame, cold and sharp. 

“Dola, no!” Mora yelled as Dola raised her arm as much as she could.

Instead of stabbing her captors, Dola stabbed herself. The object ran once into her right eye and then into her left. 

The images stopped.

Then a deep all-consuming ache replaced them. 

She wailed. The pain overwhelmed her whole body. Saint and Bee stopped holding her down, she heard something about rushing to get out, and Mora’s screaming. Tears mixed with blood, Dola lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

Dola woke up in a bed that smelled of fresh cleaning. 

She opened her eyes and stepped out of the sheets. 

The room was unfamiliar, but calming. She felt remarkably clear-headed. 

The door to her room was locked. Dola moved to the side and found a small bathroom. Clean, and bright. Her memory was crystal clear; the recollection of an unfathomable decision and unbearable pain. She looked into the mirror. 

Around her eyes, like imperfect and broken sunrays, ran scars. Dola touched the rough texture of her scarred face. A familiar feeling. 

She returned to the room and saw Mora floating in the middle of it. 

“We are in a Vanguard facility. You’re safe here,” Mora said. 

“I would like to go home,” Dola replied calmly.

“You can’t go home yet. The Vanguard is concerned.”

Dola changed the topic. “Shouldn’t you have healed it all?” she asked, touching her face again.

“I tried. I think you’re not letting me. Even if it’s subconscious. I healed the damage, but I cannot remove the scars,” Mora said and flew closer. “What happened?”

“The Conductor yoked me and showed me what she promised. A glimpse.”

“And? What was it?”

“It was just the beginning of it. He survived entry. That’s all,” Dola explained, emotionless and absentminded. 

“That’s all?”

Dola could not utter any other word about what she’d seen. “The Conductor will show me the rest if I help her.”

Mora flew even closer. “That’s why the Vanguard is concerned. About you being yoked again.”

“I will not help her.”

“But you could be yoked and forced.”

“Nothing I did was because of the yoke. I did it of my own free will. The Conductor has no power over me.”

Dola turned away and sat on the bed. Mora followed, slow and steady. She watched her Guardian for a few moments in silence. Dola was unmoving. Uncharacteristically calm and steady, her voice slow and evenly paced.

“Why did you do that to yourself?” Mora asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Let me heal it.”

“I am not preventing you in any way. I’m not doing anything.”

Mora sighed. “You’ll have to stay here for a while. To make sure you’re okay. Talking to someone will help.”

“I have nothing to say.”

Mora waited a moment, then decompiled. 

Dola thought of the record of something from over four years ago. Seeing him for the first time in so long, even if only like that. She saw what he’d done instead of sitting in an evacuation ship with her. There was a sense of relief. She finally knew at least something. He entered successfully and he sealed it successfully. It was a start. 

And it was the end. The spark of hope nearly extinguished. The Forest only exists as an archive now. Forever inaccessible, forever gone, forever closed. 

She will never step foot on the marigold sands and she will never enter the starry portal and she will never see him again. 

In the back of her mind, the haunting echo of the horn spilled its roots across her body.

Dola absentmindedly started humming a song.

Chapter Text

“Would you like your Ghost to be present, or would you prefer us to be alone?” the doctor asked.

“I don't have a preference,” Dola replied. 

The doctor nodded to Mora and Mora stayed, settling on the table next to Dola. They were in a clean and sunny room, overlooking the City. A sense of calm enveloped Dola, a type of calm she'd not really been used to. Despite knowing that this is due to medication, she wasn't angry either. It was relieving. 

She’d been talking to this doctor - a therapist - for about ten days. Dola wasn't able to really share much, but she wasn't pushed to do so. They told her that she’ll be able to go home after a few more sessions, if everything went well, but that she will also continue to be monitored. 

Her scars had not healed. 

This was the first time Mora had been invited to stay. 

“You told me you had difficulties with your Ghost. When did that start? I'd like to hear a perspective from both of you,” the therapist asked. 

Dola spoke first. “When I decided to stay on Mercury. Mora hated everything about it right away.”

“It's true,” Mora confirmed. “You changed. I did not understand it. I…”

The Ghost stopped. The therapist looked at her expectantly, but Mora refused to continue until Dola nudged her.

“This is the right time to say anything you want to, even things you may have kept to yourself before,” the therapist said. 

Mora turned towards Dola. “I heard it too. Or sensed it, anyway,” she said and flopped down on the table in obvious relief. Dola raised her eyebrow. “I wanted to leave because whatever that thing was, the tones, they were inside of me. They were prodding. It was one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world. I still can't get rid of them. I never told you because I figured it would just validate everything, and that you'd never want to leave. That you'd involve me in research too, exposing me to more of it all. But I made a mistake. I should’ve told you. It made no difference. Maybe if I’d told you, you would've let me leave.” 

Dola stared blankly. Once again, she wasn't angry, just dull. Accepting. She waited and Mora continued.

“I always should’ve told you. About everything.”

“You should've told me about his plan.”

“Yes.”

The therapist leaned forward. “Dola hasn't told me much about this person. Only about the grief. Do you think, Dola, that you could let your Ghost tell me?”

Sorrow breached through all the medication Dola had taken, but she held the tears in. 

“I don't have a preference,” she said again, silent. “Mora won't be able to explain what I feel, but she can tell you everything that happened. If she wants. I can't. And I can't be here listening to it.” 

“How detailed can I be?” Mora asked.

“It’s up to you.” 

The therapist dismissed Dola back to her room. She was called back later in the evening. There was no way that they talked about this for hours without pause, but Dola didn't truly care. She spent her time scribbling on paper, tapping the pen in a rhythm, absentminded and detached. 

When she returned, Dola couldn't see anything different in the therapist’s behaviour towards her. A piece of her feared judgement, as that was the only thing she'd ever gotten when anyone learned anything about her time on Mercury. 

“I'm sorry for what you've been through,” the therapist said. “Especially after. You don’t deserve to be treated that way.” 

“Neither did he,” Dola said. 

The therapist nodded. “That is also true. Do you think he would've accepted if you took him to the City against his will?”

“No. He would've probably hated me. But he would be alive. That's my purpose. To protect. A Lightless civilian should not be sacrificing for me.”

“Protecting others is important to you?”

“There's nothing above it.”

“Mora told me that you work with blind kids down in the City. This is something you value a lot and it helps you?”

“Yes.”

The therapist took something from the bundle of notes she was holding and handed it to Dola. She accepted a piece of cardboard, embossed with a children’s drawing and a textured note. It was a stick-figure of a person with a long cloak surrounded by three smaller figures. The note read: We hope you will come back after your recovery.

“You’ve not visited in a few weeks,” Mora said, looking at Dola’s face now covered in tears. “They left this with me yesterday. I told them that you've gotten ill.”

Dola ran her fingers over the note, then held it to her chest. “Tell them I will come back as soon as I can.” 

“It's clearly important to you that other people appreciate your protection and aid. Do you think he appreciated it?” the therapist asked.

Dola looked at Mora through the tears. “He did. In some way. I don't know what Mora told you, but he did appreciate it.”

“She told me the same. And she told me that despite this, he had things he was interested in and appreciated more than you.” 

“He did.”

“And that he didn't care about you the way you did about him?”

“Yes.”

“And you were okay with this?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Dola took a breath to respond, then stopped. She always had trouble explaining it. As irrational as emotions could get, this was certainly somewhere on the top of the list. 

“Our connection doesn't have to be identical for it to be accepted. I felt one way and he felt another, but at the end of the day he appreciated my companionship. That was enough for me.” 

“Do you think he would've appreciated it at all in any way if not for the way you met?”

“No. And no, this doesn't bother me.” 

“Can you see yourself having the same feelings, with the same caveats, for someone else?” 

“No.”

“You would rather someone else feel the same way for you as you do for them?”

“No. You don't understand. I can't feel anything like this ever again for anyone else.” 

The therapist paused, looked at Mora and then back. “Have you tried?” 

“I don't want to.” 

“Mora told me that you were quite upset often about the fact that he's mortal and that you're not. You were thinking about this a lot? Losing him one day?”

“Yes,” Dola said, the tears flowing stronger. “But I eventually came to terms with it. I just wanted us to go back to the City where he’d be safe and then do everything in my power to provide him with the best life I possibly could.”

“You told him about this?”

“Yes. He always said he's excited about it, but later obviously I realised that he was lying.” 

“Would you rather he just admitted that he didn’t want that?”

“He did want it! A part of him did anyway.”

The therapist rephrased. “Would you rather he just admitted that he won't be coming with you regardless of this?” 

“Yes. But obviously if he’d done that, I would've stopped him. Or I would’ve stayed with him.”

“Mora said that she feared your decision would've been to stay with him. It's her primary reason why she kept it away from you. You staying on Mercury would've meant that she would have to go on alone or stay with you and likely die. Can you be honest with her and tell her what would've been the more likely choice you would've made?”

“I would've stayed. Her fears were justified.”

“You still think she made the wrong choice keeping it from you? Considering that she would've been violating his trust and putting both herself and you in danger?”

“Yes. We are here to protect the Lightless. Both she and I are the first line of defence. Always. If we are to die for those we protect, then we are to die,” Dola replied. Her tears dried away. “I feel strongly about this. It might be difficult for you to understand it, but you were not risen in the Light from your grave. I already lived my life. I already had my time. And then I was called again, with a duty to stand between the Darkness and those that can't defend themselves. It's a call to purpose that cannot be explained. I should not be here, but I am, because the Light asked of me to guard the feeble remains of humanity against extinction. We exist for no other reason.” 

Mora hovered closer. “Dola…”

“I would've stayed and it would've been my fault. I can only hope that this feeling would’ve prevailed and that I would've dragged him out of there kicking and screaming, and then we all would’ve survived. That should have been how this ended. But I didn't know what he planned. That means I didn't have an option to make my choice. Mora should've told me, to allow me to choose.” 

Dola explained this with no judgement in her voice. She didn't mean it as a bad thing, and she looked at Mora constricting her shell. Dola offered her hand to her Ghost and the little drone moved into her palm. Reassured. The deed had been forgiven.

“He should’ve told you first,” Mora said, with renewed courage.

Dola looked at her Ghost in her palm. “Yes.”

That deed had also been forgiven, although she could not provide that same reassurance to him or tell him about it.

“Mora told me that you saw something during the incident that resulted in you staying here with us. Did that help you understand why he may have chosen to stay?” 

Dola thought about it in the ten days since. She didn't have an answer, just a series of theories. 

“You've not told me what you’ve seen inside,” Mora said. 

“He survived entry and sealed the Forest.”

“Did you think of the possibility that the Conductor constructed something you wanted to see? To trick you?” Mora pushed. 

“She would've constructed something more pleasant.”

“So that’s not all. What else did you see? I know there was something more.” 

Dola turned her head sharply to her Ghost, which resulted in Mora hovering out of her palm. “He experienced dozens of different realities of himself. His other copies. He attacked one of them. He gouged its eyes. That's the last thing I saw.”

Leaving Mora and the therapist in silence, Dola put her attention back to the cardboard piece of drawing she received as a gift from the kids. 

“Dola, I… Is that why you did what you did? To yourself?”

“I don't know,” she said. “All I can think of is his message. He said that he knows he will die if he goes into the Forest, but also that he’ll live that way. And that he has to close the loop,” she continued. “He could never tell me what happened to him. The incident that blinded him. He only ever said vague things about a sudden unseen attack, and sand on his face and ticking sounds. And then waking up in a hospital.”

“I’m not sure what-”

“He did it to himself. He had to close the loop. If he didn't blind his other self in the future, none of his past would've happened.”

“Dola, that's… You can't know if that's true.”

“It's who he is. It was unpreventable. We could not have saved him then. It only matters if he can be saved now.”

“Do you believe that he can be saved now?” the therapist chimed back in. 

“No. If he's still alive, he's locked in an unreachable place and his time is running out. But more likely he's already dead.”

“Those kids think that you've gone to an unreachable place and that you can't return. When we lack information, we can often come to very bad conclusions.”

“Are you telling me to have hope?” 

“It's what I tell everyone.”

“I’ve put hope on a pedestal because he told me to keep it,” Dola said. “His song was about hope.” 

“You shouldn't give it up.” 

“The longer I hope, the more devastating the disappointment. But you’re right. I won't give it up. For him. Which is why you have to let me out of here so that I may continue with my research. This whole business with Nessus has opened new possibilities. I have to keep looking. There could still be a way to reach him.” 

The therapist waited a moment, then made a final note on her pad and then folded it close. Mora hovered near Dola while Dola looked back to the cardboard. 

“One more thing,” the therapist said. “About the Cult.”

“My beliefs are my own,” Dola said sternly. “I was never like the others. I believe in the research and I will continue believing in it. Osiris was correct, always. I will continue studying his writing. He's just a man, but he has insights that others do not.” 

“We can talk more in-depth next time.” 

“I have nothing more to say.”

“I think we should discuss what will happen if you do get him back. From what Mora told me, his involvement with the Cult was quite different.” 

“I’ll bring him to you then,” Dola said, still maintaining her composure. 

The therapist nodded and stood to leave. “I will write down my report for the Vanguard. I can allow you to go home, but I would prefer if you’d stay out of the field for a few more weeks. Spend some time with the kids and with your friends. I will also request that your Ghost keep an eye on you and report to me for as long as possible. Please do not obstruct this process. Is this agreeable?”

“It is. Thank you.” 

An hour later, Dola stepped foot into her apartment. Mora told her that Bee and his friends cleaned it up a little for her. She walked by the bookshelves, tapping her fingers over the books, then went to her bed and found a special secured crate. 

She opened it without a word, and saw two different bundles tied with rope. On the left, his private journals. She left that as is. On the right, his books; work in progress. She grabbed the rope and pulled that bundle out of the crate, then returned it back securely. 

In the bundle, there was a book about Osiris’ work dealing with Panoptes. She left that in the pile. There was another about the involvement of the Guardian that helped Osiris. She left that in the bundle as well. She found the book about the tones and took it aside. She found the one about the Infinite Forest and put it aside too. 

Below a few more works in progress that she couldn't really place at first glance, she found something that caught her eye. The book lacked a sort of technical and formal aesthetic even before she could read the title. There were many pieces of paper sticking out, unlike the neat order of the others. She opened the cover and ran her fingers over the inside of the page. 

Dola: Rage of the Sun.

Her heart skipped a beat. He was writing a book about her? She assumed it was about documenting her experience with the Lighthouse, but the lack of formality in what little she’d seen made her turn to another page. When she ran her fingers over it again, reading the first paragraph, her heart skipped another beat. 

It was not a book documenting her experience with the Lighthouse. It was a fiction novel, with her as a hero. 

A brilliant light fell in streaks through the Glass Spires of the city of Hermetica. High winds sharpened the tallest tower with particles of sand, from which the king alone watched over his deserted kingdom. Today he would need help from his last remaining Sentinel before the kingdom was to be consumed by their ancient foes. She burned bright like the Sun eating the sky, and his heart, in turn, burned with hope.

Dola did not sleep or eat until she reached the end. She wasn't sure why he kept this in the work in progress section; the whole story was done. Perhaps he was planning to write more parts or maybe to edit. It did not matter. Through the tears, she now knew that she possessed the greatest treasure and a way to keep him alive, through his art. 

At the very end, she found a note. 

If you read this after I am gone, know that it is as I intended. You are the keeper of my life’s work.

Now she knew for a fact that Vance had cared.

Unfortunately, he had not cared enough.

Chapter Text

It was early morning in the City when Dola made her way through the streets and towards a bookshop. She’d been told that there's a smaller bookshop operated by two Guardians that could help her with what she wanted to do. 

She spent a few days overthinking it and considering all possibilities. Locked in her apartment, flipping pages and notes, rediscovering so many new details. It had to be shared. If anything, it had to be shared with the kids at least, and she’d need help to make that happen. 

The place was unsurprisingly empty, just as she hoped for. Tall bookshelves, filled to the brim with books in all sorts of states, flanked her as soon as she entered and a small bell chimed above the door. Some books looked brand new, some appeared as if they'd fall apart at the first touch. Dola moved as far away from the books as possible; she didn't want to ruin anything. 

Two people were inside: one was an Exo sitting behind the counter at the far end of the cramped room, and the other was very obviously a Hunter, sitting on one of the bookshelves in the dark. As Dola approached, she noticed a bond around the Exo’s arm; a Warlock. 

The Exo looked up at Dola as she stood in front of the counter. His green antennae appeared to have perked up, as if he was scanning her. 

“What do you want?” he asked. 

Dola did not expect this informal approach. Perhaps she should’ve dressed differently; her black and yellow were obvious tells that made people do a double take.

“I was told that you have the equipment needed to make copies of books, and to make them fit for publishing,” she said. “I have a book I’d like to do that with.”

“We don't do that for everything. I will have to check it first,” the Exo said. He sounded annoyed. Dola started reconsidering. 

“I'm okay with that,” she replied, trying to sound as patient and composed as possible. 

She took the book out of her pack and put it on the table. It was heavy, due to the textured pages, and Dola’s own transcript into a non-textured script. She needed both versions, if she planned to make copies for the kids. The original was safely locked in the crate by her bed. 

“I would need both versions done,” she said, showing the Exo two different templates. 

He seemed confused at first as he stared at the heavy pages lined with dots, but recovered quickly and put it aside. He picked up the other version instead and opened it to start inspecting its contents. At the sight of the first page, the Exo frowned. 

“I’m not publishing prophecies from that guy,” he said and slid the book back to Dola.

She caught it mid-slide, putting her hand on top, then slid it back. “They're not.” 

“Whatever they are, I don't want the name of my bookshop associated with anything that has to do with members of the Cult of Osiris, which now that I am looking at you better, is very obviously where you belong too.”

“It has nothing to do with the Cult,” Dola insisted, still pressing her hand on the book, against the Exo’s attempts to return it. 

He now seemed properly annoyed. If he had any reasons to stay polite before, now he decided it was no longer required. 

“My decision is final. I will not have any sort of writing from members of the Cult of Osiris, whatever the writing is, coming from my bookshop,” he said. “Even if I requested that you change the author's name to hide the association with the Cult, I would still know and it would piss me off.”

“Please.”

The Exo stared at Dola incredulously. It was clear that he did not expect her to keep going or to keep the book locked between them, where he couldn't move it. 

“You can beg me all day, I'm not publishing anything from Brother Vance. I've had enough of him. I hoped that him staying in that wretched place would free me from thinking about him ever again, but for some reason you’re bringing his books to me years later. I said no. And good riddance.”

Dola released her grip as her resolve broke. The Exo, who had been pushing quite fiercely against her, now flung the book across the counter and on the floor as Dola stopped providing resistance. She backed away as the book clattered over the floorboards. 

“Azira!” another voice came from behind Dola. 

With tears in her eyes, Dola turned to see that Hunter standing behind her. She was also Awoken, but radiated clear and overwhelming void energy. The Hunter picked the book up and returned it to Dola gently. It moved Dola to spill her tears.

“What?” The Exo, Azira, asked. 

“You’ve made your point,” the Hunter told him.

“I clearly haven't because she's still here.”

The Hunter turned her back to the Exo and instead addressed Dola. “Come with me.”

Dola had nothing else to do, so she followed the Hunter into the back of the bookshop. As she passed by the Exo, he very adamantly refused to look her way. 

In the back, she found herself in a cosy room with a couch, a table and a tea set on it. There were more books all around the shelves, some of which were bending under the weight. Dola sat down.

“I'm Davan,” the other Hunter said. “I was in Bee’s fireteam helping him get you out of that place. I didn't see you while we were there, but Bee told me about what happened and a few things about you.”

“Bee told me about this bookshop,” Dola said, tears flowing down her face. 

She was tired of crying, but could not stop it. Not when people said things like that . And it was better than being violent. Like this, she hurts only herself.

“He was right to do so. I'll do what you need,” Davan told her.

“But… Your friend does not allow it.” 

“He will. I'll talk to him. He'll be annoyed and angry, but we’ll do it.”

“Why are you helping me?” 

Davan paced around the couch, moving through the shadows. “I’m sorry for what happened. We should’ve done more to help.”

“We?”

“The Vanguard. The evacuation.”

Dola’s tears resumed. She put her face into her hands and sobbed. “Why do you care?”

“Why don't other people? Vance was a civilian,” Davan said simply. “I spent a fair amount of time on Mercury. I was helping with some of the missions during the Panoptes crisis and after, with the cleanup. I purchased a lot of bounties,” she continued with a smile. “Azira… Never liked any of it. He has his reasons. But I felt at peace there.”

“I must've seen you then. Before.”

“Probably. It doesn't really matter,” Davan said and waved her hand. “I am pretty sure that I was the first person who delivered cookies to him. For the Dawning.”

“What?”

“I remember it so clearly. He was very confused when I told him I have something for him. So I don't think anyone else had done it before me. And when I delivered them, he seemed happy.” 

Dola fell into a strong bout of weeping. She remembered that day. Later, she got her own gift. The Vex bronze ring on her thumb still shone as the day it was made. 

“I didn't know him. And I definitely had no interest in being a part of the Cult or in anything that it had to offer. But I could recognise years of isolation and what it does to someone. Nobody deserves that. And nobody deserves what happened to him.”

While Dola remained unable to speak due to her tears, Davan got closer and took the book to inspect it. She put the textured version aside and focused on the one she could read. She turned a few pages, seemingly interested. 

“What is it?” Davan asked after a few minutes as Dola’s crying subsided. 

“It’s fiction. I don't know when he wrote it.”

“It’s about you? Dola.”

“Yes,” she said and looked down at her hands. “I would like some other works of his done as well. But this first.”

Davan closed the book. “Mercury was singing. Is that right?”

Dola looked up sharply. “You heard it?”

“I heard… Something. I have a condition. It's best if I didn't go into it. Not right now. He said something to me as we were getting close to the evacuation that made me realise I wasn't imagining it. I remember planning to ask him when I visited another time, but that time never came.”

“I can tell you all I know. If you want.” 

“I’d be glad to listen.” 

“Why aren't you like the others? About me and the Cult?”

“If I had prejudices against it, then I could not expect people to treat me differently,” Davan said. “I apologise if it sounds mean, but I don't think the Cult was a good thing. Osiris doesn't deserve to be treated that way. But I can't be cruel to the people who are a part of it. Many could easily treat me the same way due to what I'm dealing with. I am simply careful about how I view these things. There's always a reason why someone does what they do.”

“Thank you,” Dola muttered, her eyes watering again. 

“You can leave the book with me. You said you want both versions?”

“Yes. I help a group of blind kids down at the daycare. I think they'd be excited to read this. And it would be good practice. There aren't many things like this for them. Most of their practice is very dull. They'll enjoy this story. And it’s about me and they already look at me as a hero. Not that I've done anything to deserve that title.”

“You deserve it according to those kids, I'm sure,” Davan said. “And according to him. You were close?”

Dola thought she was done with crying, but Davan’s words pushed her into another bout of tears. She could not reply. She didn't have to. It was obvious what the answer was. 

“I hope there's a way to find him,” Davan added. 

“There is not.” Dola promised to continue looking, to continue hoping, but that hope has been thinner than ever.

“You never know,” the other Hunter said and put her palm over the back of Dola’s hand.

A horn sounded off, in the Darkness. An impression of the Veil stretching like a drum swayed in front of Dola’s vision. Davan retracted her hand and it was gone.

Perhaps she was right. 

Dola looked up again, at Davan, then through the window, to the Sun.

Chapter Text

The Vanguard report about the entity known as the Conductor was scathing. Dola let it play through her datapad on the side of the table. 

Maya Sundaresh, or some copy of her, merged with the Vex Network, using the mysterious Echo to control the Vex and find her Golden Age. Find a way to control everyone in the system, to force everyone to become a part of her Collective and reforge all of Sol through radiolaria, letting the Vex take over. Making everyone join the chorus.

All the horrors she's done and attempted to do for one reason. 

|Weakness.| Love.

Except it wasn't really. The Conductor has warped it so much that it became unrecognisable and manifested as her tormenting the very woman she loved, to the point of discarding her entirely. And when all was said and done, the Conductor fled back into the Network, the Echo in tow. 

Dola wished she'd had the chance to speak to the Conductor again before she fled. She knew it to be unwise, but she could not help it. The Conductor would've given her what she wanted. With the power of the Vex she controlled, Dola could've gotten every single answer to every single question. Where is he? Is he alive? Can he be saved? How? 

But what would have been the cost? 

Her own death? Unacceptable. It would’ve defeated the purpose. He wanted her to live. 

All of Sol subsumed through radiolaria? Unacceptable as well. Again, it would have defeated the purpose. 

Dola constructed the possible scenarios and pondered. At some points, she feared herself to have become indistinguishable from the Conductor, someone who would've done anything to save a person she loves. But then she realised that there were scenarios with unacceptable results and understood that the Conductor could not have helped her. 

But it still hurt. Because the Conductor was the only one who could've provided her with answers.

And there were so many questions that remained. What will the Vex do now? What about the Precursors? What about Nessus and all the radiolaria? 

What about those mysterious gates to the archives of the Infinite Forest? 

Dola closed the book and prepared it, and others, for her mission. It was time. She'd talked to Saint and apologised, then asked him to arrange the meeting as he had done so once, before she was ready. 

But now she was. 

They would meet in his study in Neomuna. She arrived first, way ahead of scheduled time. She dropped the books she carried on the desk and looked around. The sleek design of everything around her was calming and clean. A strange creature known as pouka hovered near a small decorative pool of water. Dola focused on the desk which was filled with various trinkets and technology. In the corner, three self-rotating cubes, as if magnetised. The symbols on them sparked memories. Absent-mindedly, Dola started muttering the prophecies under her breath while she waited, tapping her foot to the rhythm of the words. 

“Guardian,” she heard from behind. 

A familiar voice. Her heartbeat quickened as she turned and saw Osiris, now in his full robe, down to the Sunbracers. He pulled the face mask down and then his hood as well. Dola stepped back when he approached her at the desk. There was a weight to him, and weariness. He’d been through a lot in the past months. And years. Has there been any point in time when he hadn’t been through a lot? 

“My name is Dola San. I arranged this with Saint,” she said. 

“Yes. I’ve been told you have some questions for me.”

Dola took a breath of courage. The first test. “For a start, I want to be transparent with you,” she started. Now she can’t back away. “I am a member of the Followers of Osiris.”

Osiris frowned, just as the first time they spoke. Dola was sure that he would send her away.

“I understand,” he said instead. “What do you have for me?”

Briefly stunned, Dola almost didn’t know how to continue. “I have… I have a lot,” she muttered and then slid the books she’d brought towards him across the desk. She pointed out the first one. “It’s an unfinished book about the Infinite Forest. I’ve gone through it all several times. I would like you to take a look and… Add to it. Correct what has to be corrected. Finish it.”

Osiris touched the book; unlike the original which Dola kept safely locked in her crate, this one was newly printed and translated from the textured pages. Infinity’s Crown. As he opened the first page and then flicked through the rest, Osiris smiled bitterly. 

“One hoping to finish a book about the Infinite Forest is sorely deluded,” he said. “It is a place of infinite possibilities. There are no beginnings or endings. It does not start and it does not finish. But I will read through what you’ve written.”

Dola bit her lip and had to also bite her tongue, but the words got out nonetheless. “I didn’t. I didn’t write it.”

Osiris looked up at her. Before he said anything else and before Dola could add to it, he reached out for the other book she’d brought. Music of Mercury. It was months since she last read through this one. As he opened it and inspected through the pages, some forgotten worry crossed his face as a shadow of an unexpected cloud shrouding the sun. He faced her again. 

“You did not write this either,” Osiris said. 

“No. But you know what it is about,” Dola replied. 

“The spires resonated on a frequency shared by the Black Fleet. The closer the Pyramids, the stronger the resonance. When they occupied our system and shadowed our planets, the frequency was still active, pulsing through the universe in communication. What they communicated about, I never found out.”

“Why Mercury?” Dola asked. “Why was this frequency detectable by the spires? They were built by the Vex.”

“In my early studies, I could never quite form a working theory. All of my speculation had too many ifs and unknowns,” Osiris said, focusing on one of the pages in the book. “But now… Especially here,” he continued, waving his hand vaguely towards the ground. “The Vex began their work on Mercury in the Collapse. They may have unknowingly sensed the Veil, transported by the Black Fleet. It may have sung to them, just as it did when they attempted to recreate it. They’ve always been drawn to it, its paracausality a peculiar mystery to them. Because of this, they may have misinterpreted the Darkness of the Fleet for the energy field of the Veil, therefore becoming linked with the Pyramids. But even this theory has problems and too many unknowns. Without a way to investigate the spires again, I believe we may never know.”

Dola listened to him, transfixed. She imagined how differently things would’ve turned out had Osiris done this years ago, when he visited the Lighthouse. Had he stayed and offered his insights and his theories. 

“Why would the Witness have taken Mercury? I’ve speculated that the Witness may have aided in the transformation of Mercury during the Collapse. That it gave the Vex what they needed to create the spires on purpose and that it took the planet back to investigate what the Vex had uncovered in its absence.” 

Osiris rubbed his beard, then crossed his arms. He was silent for a moment, pacing a few steps back and forth before replying. “That is possible. But without the ability to further investigate…”

“Yes, we may never know,” Dola finished. “Is there any other reason to take Mercury?”

Osiris looked back at the first book. “The Infinite Forest. The Witness could’ve used it to simulate trillions of scenarios to help it achieve the Final Shape. With an engine as powerful as the Forest at its fingertips, we are lucky to have been able to stop it. However, I’ve wondered about other timelines. The Witness would only have to take the Forest once for it to be used to achieve the Final Shape for all of time and space. But it has clearly not happened. This means that the Forest has in some way been disrupted. Made inaccessible to the Witness even when it took Mercury. Perhaps there are timelines where it was never built or where it was destroyed.”

Dola’s mind spun. 

Was that the reason? Was that why there was no other way? 

Was that why he thought he had to die?

“Eido thought the same,” Dola said quickly. “I’ve shown her some of my research reports and she suggested the same about the Witness taking Mercury. That it would’ve used the Forest to generate a path to the Final Shape. This was months before we stopped the Witness, but she didn’t mention other timelines. And she didn’t know, and clearly neither do you.”

“Know what?” he asked, turning to her sharply.

“It was sealed. The Infinite Forest. The Witness could not have used it,” she said. “Made inaccessible to all timelines.”

“By whom?” Osiris asked. 

“By the author of these books. You knew him. You’ve spoken to him,” she replied, keeping her focus steady. “Brother Vance. He told you about the tones of the spires, which he discovered. And about planting the seed. He stayed behind on Mercury and sealed the Forest from the inside.”

If there was a spark of recognition on Osiris’ face, Dola could not tell. He stared at her in confusion and disbelief, as if trying to place her words into some understandable context. A moment later, his frown deepened with worry. 

“Who has told him to do this?”

“Nobody. I don’t know.”

“How do you know about this?”

Dola’s resolve buckled. Her eyes teared up. “I was there. He was supposed to evacuate with me. But he stayed behind. Without telling me. I only found out after it was all done, in a message he left me. It was also noted in a report to Commander Zavala. He apparently worked with the one Guardian to set it all up,” Dola explained, trying to stay as composed as possible. “And… The Conductor showed me. In the archives of the Forest on Nessus. I went there to find out. The Conductor let me see a glimpse of it. He did enter the Forest and he did seal it. I don’t know how. After, he… Well.”

She put her hands on her face, unable to speak more. It was relieving to have said all this to Osiris of all people. But what purpose did it serve? She dropped down into the chair, sobbing. 

A hand placed on her shoulder made her look up. 

“I will read the books,” he said. “Perhaps there is yet a chance that Mercury will return. Whether we are right or wrong about this theory in regards to the spires, it would be best to conduct the research on them. We don’t want any remnants of the Witness or unsolved Vex technology to stay unchecked. You said that you’ve visited the Conductor and the archive on Nessus?”

“Yes. I had to, the moment Saint told me that you visited his tomb,” Dola replied through the sobs. Osiris lifted his hand off her shoulder and returned to pacing around. “At first I thought you somehow gained access to the Forest. That perhaps Mercury has returned and nobody told me. But then Saint explained it’s an archive. I went and begged it to be attuned to the moment I needed to see. The Conductor obliged and tried to get me to help her.”

“While we have dealt with her temporarily, I would advise against seeking her out again. We do not know what else she may be capable of, while in possession of the Echo.”

“I never meant to help her. But she’s the only one who can show me. And she did. She at least let me know that he successfully entered the Forest and sealed it. But… She could show me more. She could let me search, even if it’s just an archive. Maybe we could find a way to bring Mercury back.”

Osiris turned back towards Dola, inspecting her. She could not muster the strength to stay composed or formal so he got to see her weeping inconsolably on the chair. He approached and sat in the chair next to her, casually flipping through the pages of one of the books, occupying his hands. 

“I understand your need to know,” he said. She wasn’t very subtle. And neither was he, as he split the timelines apart to drag Saint out of the Forest. “But we have to be careful while the Conductor is still active. Saint and I are running analyses of the Network with Failsafe, to find her. Once we know more, and she’s dealt with, we may be able to peruse the Nessian archive without danger from the Conductor.”

“So I am to wait again?”

“What we’re dealing with is very troubling. The changes that the Conductor has brought to Nessus and the Vex as a whole will have lasting consequences and we don’t know even a fraction of them yet,” Osiris told her. “Nessus has been completely hollowed out. The Vex have done so to Mercury before, exactly to create the Infinite Forest. If they plan the same for Nessus, or something worse… We don’t know. They’ve also accumulated extreme amounts of radiolaria, changing the surface of Nessus. We don’t know what they plan to do with it all, or if Nessus will undergo further change.”

“What about the Precursors?” 

“Also troubling. Their collective had not been yoked. They joined the Conductor willingly, receiving power and influence from the Echo. Their minds fed on data, sharing it through time no doubt. I wonder if it could even be possible that what was done to Mercury was done through time, by the Precursors we’ve met here. But we should not be hasty in our conclusions,” Osiris said, fiddling with the pages. “Perhaps the most troublesome, Failsafe has informed me of the Vex generating new data about the Forest. This should be impossible, given Mercury’s absence, and yet it has been done. Maybe this is related to their archive of it, or perhaps to something else. Your information about the Forest being sealed brings even more confusion to this information.”

“Could the seal have been broken? Could the Vex somehow be accessing the Forest now that the Witness is gone, even if Mercury is still in an anomaly?”

“Nobody, not even me, could control the Forest indefinitely. Yes, it is possible that the seal was broken or overridden. As for if the Vex are capable of accessing it… I don’t know. This is why we need to be careful with the Conductor and the Echo.” he said quickly. “Are you sure you don’t know how he opened and sealed the Forest?”

Dola’s mouth quivered and she sighed through tears. “Yes. He never told me what he planned to do. He knew that I would’ve stopped him. Or stayed with him. And he didn’t want me to die.”

“Perhaps there are hints in his writings,” Osiris suggested. 

“I’ve read through them plenty of times, but I will check again.”

In truth, there were writings that she never looked through. They were private and even though he left them with her, she felt uncomfortable rummaging through them. If she does so, it will be because she can confirm he’d died. If she looks through them, she will admit that her hope has truly been depleted. As long as they stayed unread, it meant that there was a sliver of it still in her heart. 

“There is much still left to discuss and I have many things to attend to,” Osiris said. “I would be interested in continuing after I’ve gone through these books. Perhaps our upcoming exploration of the Vex Network will yield some new results too. You are free to contact me if you find something new as well.”

Dola nodded, largely free from her tears now. She stood to leave; she felt as if she’d bothered him enough. In her mind, she still remembered his original reaction to her presence, and to Vance’s. But he’d been kind now, and clearly interested in talking again. Things went better than she could’ve dreamed of. It went as he had dreamed of. She wished he could’ve been here. 

But if all their theories are correct, then Vance was right to do what he has done. He saved every single timeline from at least one way the Witness could’ve won. 

And nobody knew about it. 

If they’re correct. If they’re not, he still may have died in vain. And the chances of Dola ever knowing the truth were slim. 

Not as slim as before though. 

She was on her way out when Osiris called out for her.

“Dola,” he said, still from the chair at the desk. She turned. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She nodded and left his study, weeping again. 

A part of the reason for talking to him had been to figure out why Saint had told her that Osiris seemed to not have known Vance. She wanted to ask him. She wanted to understand. But now it did not matter anymore. Whatever his reason for saying that to Saint had been, it made no difference. He knew now. 

And it was enough.

Chapter Text

Dola tentatively opened the book about music when she returned home, emboldened by her talk with Osiris and with a new idea in mind.

Words gained meaning. 

Confused, she worked through the first few pages and found herself following the notations, humming as she went. She tapped her foot instinctively, in tune. 

She closed the book. What happened? 

“I heard you humming a few times before. Ever since…” Mora said quietly. “Since the yoke. I didn’t want to draw your attention to it, not right away. You’ve been doing it unconsciously.”

Dola turned, frightened. A distant horn sounded off through her mind. It did something to her. 

“I understand it,” she said. “I understand the music. I never did. Something happened to me again.”

This time, Mora had to believe her. Dola had been notoriously terrible at music, to the point of causing Vance so much distress that he forbade her from engaging with it. There was no point. She had no ear for it, she could not replicate it or learn it. Not even the basics. She listened to his theory all the time but none of it translated into an ability to perform any kind of music. Dola could not even sing happy birthday in tune. 

Now, she felt a symphony under her fingers as she read the book. 

Since the Conductor’s yoke. She became a part of the Collective, however briefly. Failsafe’s words sparked in Dola’s mind; about how the Vex were changing. Their musical underlining, their names, their arrangement. With the Echo, the radiolaria had learned to sing. 

Dola tapped into it, and learned as well. 

A new opportunity. She had to use it now, while she still had it. There was no guarantee that her insight was permanent. The research has to start now. 

Her mind was racing. Expanding. With the tones, she’d heard them once and then they faded with time. With this… New melodies were forming inside of her the longer she thought about them. They were amassing instead of disappearing. 

A connection. 

She is a tuning fork.

Dola darkened the room, leaving only candles. She sat on the floor, legs crossed. Windows closed, to block out distraction. A few wind chimes from the Lighthouse spun even in the still air of the room. She closed her eyes |and saw what used to be|.

A spectral hue danced in front of her. She reached out to it.

In the Light and Dark, the universe sang.

Of creation and death. And creation again, from death. 

Rivers of life arose around an undying star. They learned to flow through spacetime. 

In the pools of entanglement, there was a point. Arms of many lunged to reach it, and she was one of them too, driven on the soundwaves of a symphony played by a distant horn.

A heart and its pulse, ripped apart from one another. All understanding lost.

And the horn was war. Hollows under the soil filled with dread and decay, bursting. A flock of feathers hanging on bareboned bodies in flight obscured the setting sun. And their cries were monstrous. Pillars of time collapsed under the weight of crumbling realities, one by one by one by one.

And the horn was curiosity. Descending into the underworld for science.

And the horn was tribute. A procession, a loop, a celebration, a pain.

And the horn was shattered glass. Six falling through the world, three falling through the world, one remained |remains| through the world.

And the horn was fire. Traces of gold searching through an eternal library for answers, for love, for knowledge. Oh time.

And the horn was numbers and calculations and trillions of points of data wrapped in a network and the one calculating calculating calculating.

The horn was an archive. It was a cage, filled to the brim. Constructing, compiling into a new frame, unfinished. It shimmered like a starry sky, awaiting input.

The Vex. The Vex. The vex the vex thevexthevexthevex.

“Dola?”

She opened her eyes. She was on the floor, shaking, unable to move her head. When she pushed herself off the ground, she groaned in pain and sensed a flood of hot blood from her nose. 

“Dola, I waited as long as I could, I didn't mean to interrupt you,” Mora said, flying in front of her, concerned. “But I had to get you out.”

The Ghost tried to patch her nose but to no avail. Dola stood and stumbled to her kitchen, then put a towel over her face, filling it for a few moments until the nosebleed subsided. 

“What happened?” Mora asked.

“I have a plan.”

Chapter Text

The Veil hummed as it swayed, separating Neptune into above and below. 

Attuned to both Light and Dark in her second birth as an Awoken and in her third as a Guardian and in her fourth that let her absorb the harmony of the universe. She sat in the centre beneath the gaping maw of the Veil.

Candles lit around her and the wind chimes tied to railings. The heartbeat pulsed, in tandem with her own. An idea sparked from her brief meditation and a memory; a vision of the Veil stretching like a drum, awaiting a symphony. 

The Veil reacts to music. That is her way inside.

Dola lifted a curved bronze horn, marking the heavens above, then bringing it to her mouth. As she bellowed the first tone, the Veil’s tendrils slithered in anticipation, extending around her, engulfing. She continued playing the song that once played through her mind in death. Now, she could read the notation. Now, she knew it by memory. Now, she knew how to play music. 

The deep resonating hum echoed through the Veil containment. The longer it went, the more the Veil reacted, stretching the ghostly tendrils until they formed a cage, encasing her in a chamber that bounced acoustics like an ancient stone cathedral. 

She was elsewhere. 

The horn gone from her hands. She floated above the abyss. 

Then the plunge.

She was in a jumpship. The flashing of gunfire in space forced her to duck and weave through the Reef’s many interconnected asteroids. Pieces of rock suspended in place with ancient cables. Her ship got grazed. Dola dove under a ketch. Her radio buzzed with urgent messages.

“ Leave! Go! You have to move, right now! ” 

Dola angled her ship and looked below. Shiny unassuming orbs headed towards Ceres. She tuned out the radio and the wheeze of her ship, the strain of her engine and the warnings. 

It was peaceful. 

The orbs fell onto the surface in total silence. 

Then trillions of tons of rocky mass exploded into debris and dust and unheard screams of those vaporised in an instant. 

Dola moved, but too late. A piece of debris struck her jumpship, pierced the cockpit and knocked her ship into a collision with a nearby asteroid. 

Deeper.

As if pushing through thick foliage in a foggy forest, Dola pushed her mind further. The Veil remembers all. The Veil’s energy can break the barrier between worlds. It can let her into the Network. It can let her see. 

She stepped into suffocating mud and sank. 

She took a step across the polished metal block. A conflux sparked nearby. The ticking of the Vex around the corner. A laser spun behind her. And above her, an impossible lake. 

In the centre, a man reached up and brought the lake down. 

A flood of radiolaria spiralled towards her as a gushing waterfall. Dola drowned with the sizzle in her ears, the fluid consuming her flesh until she was only bone, then flushing the bones further down. 

Bright green lights surrounded her on the floor. Bright pink, and purple and hues of blue sprawled as far as her eyes could see. The man was in front of her, dissolving into code, cursing. The walls of the Network spilled with numbers, until an object started weaving itself to life in front of her. 

The Veil constructed in binary, one simulation at the time, block by perfect block. 

When Dola saw it whole, it sang back to her. 

Deeper.

She was in the Network. An endless labyrinth. She needed to find the right exit, but there was none until there was. Appearing and disappearing, blocks of code flew around her, pushing her up and down in the stream of digital chatter. She grabbed and latched onto one of the blocks. She fell through it.

Inside, four people she could not recognise laboured over disassembled equipment in a cave.

Dola pushed off something and nothing at the same time and reached for another block. 

Inside, the same four people, but different, argued in a circle beneath a purple sky.

Another.

Inside, the same four people, but different, yelled into their communications devices while trudging through a jungle, as if running away. One of them suddenly disappeared.

Another. 

Inside, three people were crying around a campfire. 

Another. 

Inside, one person stood above a gravestone, depositing a sunflower. 

Another. 

Inside, two people held in an embrace as if finally meeting after having believed they had lost each other forever. 

Enough. Dola pushed away, far away from these blocks. 

Deeper.

She floated on nothing until she spotted a triangular door in the distance. It was inexplicably made of stone. With a single-minded purpose, she swam through the code to reach it and when she did, it opened for her. 

The air sparkled. Vex lights filtered through particulates of glass. She stepped through.

Footsteps to her left. Dola turned as a person walked away from her, a shiny bond on his arm. A Warlock.

“Hello?” she tried communicating for the first time.

He turned and his face contorted with joy and tears. 

“He-”

Dola blinked and he disappeared mid-word. On the floor where he used to stand, there was nothing but a pile of bones. She stopped in her tracks. 

She blinked again and there was nothing there. No man, no bones. 

Dola blinked again.

“-lp!” he finished his word and reached towards her with his arm.

Dola grabbed it, took a breath, focusing not to blink. The man disintegrated in front of her eyes. In her hand there were bones. She dropped them in panic. 

Silence. Then footsteps again. He was walking away. 

“It’s an illusion like all the others have been. You’re seeing things again. Who wouldn’t, in this wretched place.”

“Hey!” Dola yelled. 

The man turned, his face contorted with joy and tears.

“Help!”

In front of her nothing but ash and bone. 

Dola screamed and ran to the pile, digging her hands into it. She was shaking. 

When he reappeared, she was on her knees in front of him. She looked up.

“Tell them I’m still here!”

As ash rained over her, she stood and ran the other way, back to the triangular door.

Deeper.

Strange bizarre unknown creations encircled her from every side. Old things, unfathomable, unidentifiable. 

Ancient souls drifted through the universe pillars of smoke and dust endless arms grasping for life angular ships sailed through the black one by one they extinguished us all entire systems swept under the hatred and war swords through the sky stars snuffed out forever planets plucked from the heavens the end of all things help us help us help us you cannot you are ahead you are where we cannot go remember it remember it all every soul lost every atom torn apart we are kept in the dark –

Deeper. What is deeper than these dead worlds. 

Split apart, warrior of the Sun. 

Find it down the steps in the dark and sing to us of hope and weakness. 

Drink through a bowl of blood flowing under the roots. Of the seeds we do not speak.

Focus a golden gleam into a point through the darkness. 

Dola squeezed through. 

Her feet found purchase in shifting sands. She was breathing heavily, her head spinning and her vision blurred. Dola dropped to her knees into the scorched muddy black sand. A moment after her vision focused, she ran her fingers through the sand; it felt familiar, but looked wrong. She looked up. 

Stalks of egregore swirled around charred Vex pillars. Fungal growths piled around every corner and every slab, staining the orange blocks with black mold. The roots of the growths went up every obstacle, wrapping the steps ahead in a carpet of spores. The steps led to a dilapidated triangular structure, encased in pulsing, hungry egregore.

Behind it, a Pyramid hovered motionless in the distance, obscuring the Sun. 

Dola turned.

The Lighthouse behind her was a pillar of egregore that breathed around the structure. It was a tree of sprawling black desiccated branches that formed a fungal canopy, leading from one Lighthouse to another, across the planet. A roof of mold and spores, feeding death to the structure that resonated together with the Pyramid in a stable breathing rhythm. Dola heard the symphony bouncing between the Lighthouses.

Haunting, discordant, angry. Rage in every note, scream in every tone, the pitch so low it rattled her bones. Each pulse directed by a resonant light from the Pyramid. And with each pulse, a stalk of egregore formed into a spear, poking at a dormant, nonexistent gate to the Infinite Forest. 

It scratched the stone and hissed and clawed at the rocks, but the portal was not there. Long and deep canals ran down the stone, scratch marks left behind by enraged hungry arms. 

Dola’s mind took the sight in. She was in the anomaly. She looked up at the canopy and saw pieces of drones sticking out of it, blinking in attempts to send data, twisted and reformed into one and many. Her drones. They reached, just not the surface; the egregore trapped them in its grasp. 

A resonant pulse from the Pyramid went off in the distance and Dola ran to cover; a Vex enclosure nearby that she knew was there. As the pulse razed the planet, she heard scuttling and rattling of the egregore, reaching for the Infinite Forest. Dola covered her ears, avoiding the scratching and the discordant tones in the distance. 

Mercury sang and stank of death. 

When the pulse passed, Dola stood and walked to the Lighthouse. She felt tears on her face, mixing with mold and spores. She coughed, cleaned her face with a part of her cloak and then covered her face with a helmet. 

The portal to the Lighthouse was unlit, but Dola knew how to climb the structure. If the portal is unlit, then the protective barrier will be as well. She made her way up, up the stone protrusions and over the egregore cover. 

On top, the blast window was raised, but had since been broken through by the branches. Dola moved past them and through the opening, then stood in the sanctum of the Lighthouse. 

Greeted by emptied bookshelves and no furniture. An empty, dead space. In the centre of the sanctum, only the memory of objects that used to stand there. A circular spot where there had been a lectern and low shelves and a table. A chair and an instrument to observe the heavens. Scrolls and books, artefacts, relics and little trinkets. 

Now, only dust and spores. Growths that found themselves in every corner, breathing. Swaying with no wind, in the rhythm of the harmony produced by the structure. 

Dola walked towards the path to the hallway, but then stopped. What was there to see? All of the items had been removed a long time ago. What was the benefit of walking into their study and seeing egregore where their life used to be? 

What was the purpose of it all? What was there to do? What was there?

She looked through the window at a world transformed once more. At least the marigold sands were vibrant in colour. At least the planet had life, in radiolarian streams and clicking of Vex frames. Patrol beacons and Guardian chatter. Gunfire and lasers and vehicles flying overhead. Chimes and lectures. Music. Despite the destruction of a garden world, it learned to live again.

This was a dead world. Consumed by egregore, darkened, covered in the dust of death. Music pulled through the last gasps of the instruments embedded into the core of the planet, dominated by that Pyramid in the distance and its pulses, signalling, searching, pillaging. 

But what it wanted, it could not reach. Now it laid here abandoned forever, searching for what it could not find. A door closed for all eternity. 

Here. Deeper.

Phase through the point. In memory of consciousness. 

Put the crown on me. 

Sing of the universe. Rejoice in the chorus.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎‎ ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ ‎   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ Deeper. Deeper. Deeper.

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ Reach out. Reach out. Reach across the timelines. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ In simulation, dive. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ Deeper. Through the Dark.

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ You remember everything that ever was and will be. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ In the library of time, a record of the cosmos.

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ A starry portal opened. She went through.

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ A vast space sprawled before her. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ Simulating in perpetuity.

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ Empty. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ De–eper..- D–

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ Crackle and sizzle of lightning and radiolaria. Her ears full to bursting.

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ The song slowed and stretched like a broken tape.

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      Golden echoes flickered across floating stone. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      The air crumbled. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      Too deep. Can’t breathe. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      The pressure squashed her into a point. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      Of hope. Of hope. Of hope. 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      He is here.

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎     D…ee p – h–e … l p 

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎     Sing.

   ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎    ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎ ‎      ‎ ‎     The horn bellowed once more.

Dola stood in the Lighthouse. It was lit and scented by candles. Warmth and chatter permeated the circular stone room. Through the protective barrier over the window, the Sun burned in the sky. Guardians mingled in front of her and she wanted to pass through them, but she could not. She could not move. She had nothing to move with.

The air flickered with static. It’s a recording. She had to let it play. 

Guardians moved about, crowding the central spot near a bunch of benches and tables and a lectern. Dola pushed with all her might but she could not change where she was. As if in a nightmare, she was chained as an observer, trying to do something but unable. 

Finally, the crowd cleared, moving unbearably slow and phasing through her in a swarm of static. He was standing by the lectern, as always, speaking to a Guardian. Dola’s heart almost burst out of her chest, except there was no heart and no chest. When he spoke, a sizzle of static reacted to what should’ve been tears.

“... the dead are not truly lost. They are simply inaccessible to us,” he said to the Guardian. “For the most part.”

Before she could reach out, she was pulled out, through the code and static.

Her mind was spinning. Why a recording of this?

She was in the Lighthouse again. He was speaking to a Guardian. 

“Alone in the Infinite Forest. Lost to the Vex.”

A pull. A return. She was in the Lighthouse again. He was speaking to a Guardian.

“...anchors countless timelines…”

“A pattern. A chorus.”

“...this system, and beyond…”

“I will walk into the Infinite Forest and spread hope, Guardian.”

A pull. A return. She was in the Infinite Forest. He was speaking to no one. 

“I’m sorry.”

The words lingered. Dola tilted her head, feeling a weight she could not have in the static. Dizzy beyond imagination, she took a step forward and her feet rattled the pebbles on the ground. He was standing close, just a few steps away, motionless, arms clasped at his waist. From all her experience, she could tell that his face was angled towards her. 

“Vance?” she tried. 

Was this real? Was she speaking to him? 

There came no response.

Dola took the steps needed to close in and reached out, in fear that she would be pulled again, removed before understanding, but the tip of her fingers touched the rough fabric of his cowl. In an instant, tears flooded her face. 

“Can you hear me?” she tried again.

“Please find a way to move on,” he replied. 

Was it a reply? Was it a trick of another memory of an event she had not witnessed? 

Dola moved another step, choking on tears, and lifted her shaking arms enough to carefully and tentatively put them around him, as if trying to hug a statue of glass. 

But it was not glass and it was not static. It was him, or some strange effigy of him, or the Veil’s most elaborate trick on her mind yet, and she hugged him, feeling the familiar tense and rigid posture he most often had. She felt the fabric and the warmth and the motion of his chest from his breath and the beat of his heart. 

There was no reaction to her hug, no movement, no change in facial expression, and nothing in return. He still stood there, unmoving, unspeaking, strange, but familiar. Dola moved away, barely able to see through the tears. She put her hands on his head, then his shoulders. 

“I can bring you back. I will find a way to pull you through,” she said.

“No,” he replied, directly and on time, causing Dola to let go and drop to her knees, hands and head on the floor. “I cannot come back.”

“Yes you can. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

“Your obligations to me have ended. You have no chains left.”

Dola looked up, then scrambled back to her feet, found his hands and pulled. He could not be moved. 

“Please,” she tried, but with no result. “Please, there has to be a way. There has to. Come with me.”

The air was becoming filled with static. Dola instinctively knew that her time was ending. 

“In another time.”

The static sizzled through the air and she felt the pull of gravity, moving her backwards. The image of the Infinite Forest became blurry and unfocused. There was so much to tell him. So much to ask. Where are you? Are you okay? Are you real? Was any of this real? 

“I learned music! I came here with music!” she yelled through a warping tunnel.

As she was being pulled away, she saw a smile on his face.

Dola crashed through layers upon layers of depth, through the world, through time, through the cosmic consciousness yanking on her strings.

The song snapped. 

She opened her eyes on the floor of the Veil containment, a waterfall of blood streaming from her nose and ears, shaking with a seizure beneath Mora’s desperate attempts to call out to her. 

Covered in blood, Dola wailed.

Chapter Text

It was a bright day in the Last City and Dola sat at the bench near the riverside, looking out towards the city. She’d just handed the kids back over to the teacher from the daycare and moved to sit in silence.

The riverside was filled with people taking a walk and having picnics on the grass. The sunny weather drew many outside and the pleasant wind carried chatter and smells of cooking downstream. 

Despite the new threats and horrors happening in the system, the atmosphere was cheery and optimistic. New Eliksni arrived to the City every day, looking for refuge and they were embraced with joy. 

Dola breathed heavily, but was otherwise calmer than usual. She accepted medication without complaints. As well as being grounded for an unauthorised expedition to Neomuna and experiments with the Veil. She didn't mind. There was much to think about.

Was it real? 

Did she finally reach him, some version of him, somewhere, even if dead? The Veil, the Darkness, it allowed communion with other consciousnesses and with those long gone. It also played tricks on people's minds. It could've warped her to construct a scenario she wanted to see. 

Which one was it? 

Dola thought about it a lot in the weeks since. She decided to have faith. It was the only thing she had left. 

And if it was real, it meant that she could do it again. They could communicate, at least, if not being able to save him. Obviously she would have to find a way to do it safely, and away from the Veil. Nobody will ever allow her to go back there again. Perhaps for a good reason. She'd been told that her survival was a miracle. 

Just as scheduled, Osiris walked to the bench she was sitting on and sat down next to her. He stayed in silence for a moment, wringing his hands together.

“The books are adequate,” he said without preamble. “A lot of incorrect conclusions, but only because of a lack of information. It's as I expected. A lot of it is very good and contains useful summaries and explanations.”

“What will you do with it?” Dola asked. 

“I've already edited and added to it myself. I believe it wouldn't do any harm to be published when I'm done.” 

Dola looked at him, observed the golden gleam on the beak hanging above his face. “He would've liked that.”

Osiris sighed and offered no comment. Dola didn't want to bother him further. The fact that he accepted and did as much as he did was enough. 

“You've had some sort of an incident with the Veil?” Osiris asked instead. 

“Yes. I went there to commune with it,” she said. “To find out.”

“Did you?”

“Mercury is still in the anomaly, covered in egregore that’s still trying to carry out the Witness’ plans. It's trying to reach into the Forest, but the entrance is gone,” she replied. Osiris turned to listen. “I don’t know if that's true. It felt true. It felt like I was there, as if I passed through the veil.”

“Your full description certainly makes sense.”

“You've read my report,” she realised. 

“Naturally. I've spent time with the Veil myself. It is a fascinating entity. We’ve barely scratched the surface with our inquiries into it,” he said. “What you've done was reckless and dangerous. But we should use your experience and information now that we have it. No point in ignoring it. If you’re correct, that gives us options for saving the planets yet. Our own and others the Witness has stolen.”

“Do you think it's correct?”

“It could be.”

“Do you think I've seen him for real?”

Osiris looked away, across the river. “I don't know. Perhaps.”

“There should be a rescue operation,” Dola said matter-of-factly. “We would do it for anyone else.”

She looked down at her hands. It was obvious to her why this wasn't being done, of course. How would a rescue operation even work? The anomaly was impenetrable and the only way Dola accessed it all was through an incredibly dangerous journey of the mind. Without further information and confirmation, there was nothing to be done. 

But it stung her. 

Osiris made no comment. There was nothing to say; nothing that she didn't already know. If he’d been as before, with his Light, he would've done this investigation himself. He would've dove too, through the world, to uncover this mystery, and to understand. 

But obsession was thinner now. It slipped through his palms like a pile of sand before it could harden into glass and dig into his skin to draw blood. It was better that way. 

Dola knew it was better that way. And yet, she wondered still. 

Was it real? Did he reach out, to let her know? He told her to move on and that he couldn't be saved, but what if he was wrong? What if that part was a trick on her mind? A lie? 

“If anything changes with the anomalies, you know that we will send people,” Osiris replied. “We did so for both Mars and Titan, the moment they returned.”

“I just wish we could do something proactive. I’ve been trying on my own for years and nothing worked,” Dola said. “I tried being like you.”

“You should not.”

Osiris stood to leave. Dola knew she reached the limit of his understanding, perhaps pushed too far. He nodded to her courtly and put his palm on her shoulder. Her heart sank. 

“I will continue with the books. If you discover anything new, contact me, but don’t go looking for trouble,” he said. “Be careful and take care of yourself. And your Ghost.”

He strolled away down the street through the crowd and Dola watched as he moved further away, greeted by many as he walked. She waited until she could no longer see him to leave as well, going in the opposite direction back to her apartment. 

***

When Dola took the plunge, Mora dove with her. 

Something |old| played a melody with the strings inside of her. Every chord resonating through the wires and the plating and the Light of her core. 

A familiar tune. Familiar hands. A call from the past, from before she existed, from before the universe was set in motion. 

A time of unity in a singularity where the two were one.

Mora finally understood. 

***

Dola walked into her darkened abode, lit by candles. Incense permeated the space, softened by gently swaying wind chimes. 

She took off her armour and dressed in a long ornate black and yellow robe. As she settled on the floor cross-legged and surrounded with candles, Mora materialised next to her. 

“Other followers were around the building earlier, again,” Mora said softly. “Faora too.”

“It’s not yet the time for them to know what we can do,” Dola replied. “This is ours alone. I am the archive and the legacy.”

“I will threaten them with Vanguard action if they return.”

“Good. If they cannot be patient, then they are not worthy.”

Dola straightened her back and lifted her arms holding a cloth. She tied it around her eyes, then pulled the hood down on her head. 

She could play the part outside. She cared for the people who cared for her and she cared for those kids. All she ever wanted was to protect. All she ever aspired to was to be heroic, to be the shield, the knight, the sword. 

But at her fingertips now there was infinity and it must be used to help, to keep them safe, to see what the future holds. Through song and horn, she can bring true prophecy back again. Now that nobody else can. 

And if she learns to dive through eternity, she might be able to talk to him again. 

He would be proud.

Dola took her horn and played a deep, low note as Mora positioned herself in front of her Guardian. The blindfold blocked her vision, steadying her mind and preventing the flashing images that caused nosebleeds, but she could still sense the rumble of the cosmic music resonate sharply through her Ghost. 

The link to the Veil. 

Spectral hues engulfed them both, rousing the wind chimes as both Dola and Mora phased through the world. 

Together, they dove for |ruin| hope.

Chapter Text

In a time before the Red War, before Mercury, Dola San had a fireteam. They did everything together and they enjoyed trying new things, so when they heard about an exclusive Crucible tournament being hosted in the Reef, they flocked to it with many other Guardians. 

Dola loved gunfights in the Crucible, but she was still new to them. A special tournament meant only for the best Guardians scared her. However, she would not back down from a challenge. 

“So what if we lose matches? We lose them anyway,” an Awoken Warlock called Nedran said. An aura of pure void energy engulfed him almost at all times. To outsiders, he appeared frightening because of it, but Dola knew him only as a laid-back prankster. “I really want to try and get some of that armour. It's so fancy.”

“I also want the armour. I want that cloak,” Dola said. 

A large Titan arm clapped her back. Her beloved partner, Nysa-3, the heart of every group she finds herself in and an endless source of joy to everyone. “The one that makes Hunters look like cats? Interesting.”

“What do you mean by that?” Dola asked with a smile on her lips. 

“Oh nothing. I hope you two will think of little more than clothes once we’re in the matches. We don't have to thoroughly embarrass ourselves. Besides, we won't get anything if we just lose,” Nysa-3 replied, her other arm now clapping Nedran’s back as well, hands crackling with arc energy. 

“Dola has been practising so I'm expecting her to do something and help me get my threads,” Nedran said. 

“I'm not anywhere near good enough,” Dola replied. “I'm afraid you'll have to do something yourself.”

Dola was suddenly lifted into the arms of a Titan. She exclaimed in surprise and then settled in the familiar position of being carried which is something Nysa-3 would do to her often. Usually by commenting about how the Hunter weighs nothing.

“You won't be selling yourself short on my watch!” Nysa-3 yelled, her voice echoing through the metal tunnels of the Reef’s structures. 

A few passing Guardians looked their way as the Titan made a loud spectacle of carrying Dola around and talking about her prowess in combat, much to Dola’s embarrassment.

“Oh here we go,” Nedran commented and whispered to passing Guardians: I don't know them.  

As they emerged into a clearing with vendors, Nysa-3 put Dola back on the ground as they all looked around to locate what they needed. At the far end of the clearing, there was a setup that stood out from the rest of the Reef. It was jarring how out of place it looked. 

A table with books and candles and clattering wind chimes clashed with the grease and grime of the Reef. Red banners with an unusual symbol hung on the wall and the whole corner was very bright. Some Guardians passed by and talked to a man standing there, dressed in a long black and yellow robe. 

“Trials of Osiris,” Dola said. “Who is Osiris and why is he subjected to trials?” 

“I can't believe you don't know the basic history,” Nedran said. “He was a Warlock Vanguard and Vanguard Commander. He got exiled.” 

“And now he’s being put on a trial? And we’re fighting other Guardians over it?”

Nedran put a hand over his forehead while Nysa-3 laughed so loud the man near the table and several Guardians turned in their direction. 

“No,” Nedran replied. 

“Okay, then don't tell me. I'm here only for the cloak anyway.”

“Who’s going over there to buy the tickets? Not me!” Nedran said and leaned back against a wall that was dripping coolant from a pipe. 

“Not me either. You both owe me glimmer so I'm not paying for anything for you two,” Nysa-3 said. “Also that guy gives me the creeps.” 

Dola looked to the vendor who was selling something to another Hunter. He was entirely unremarkable to her so it was difficult to understand what would make him creepy. 

“You too, huh?” Nedran chimed in. “ Followers of Osiris. Come on, it's a cult. Call it what it is.” 

“You two clearly know something I don't,” Dola said. “I don't see an issue with that guy.”

“Hood indoors?” Nedran said. 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“This isn't about your Hunter identity! It's fine for you, I guess. But if you’re not a Hunter? It's just tasteless. Trying to be more mysterious or something.”

“He'll need more than a hood to appear mysterious with all that yellow,” Nysa-3 added. 

Nedran chuckled while Dola frowned. “What's wrong with yellow?”

“You like yellow? I've never seen you wear it.“

“I don't have a good shader…”

“Maybe he'll give you his, so that settles it then. You're going to buy the tickets and you can bond with that guy over yellow.” 

Nedran pushed Dola forward with that. She heard another comment from him behind her back. And over hoods indoors. She chuckled and approached the vendor. For a moment, she just loitered around, looking at books and decorations. Another Guardian jumped to grab the ticket before her. Dola stayed and observed the symbol on the banner. 

“Just because I can't see you, doesn't mean I don't know you're here Hunter,” the vendor said, startling her. “I am Brother Vance, of the Followers of Osiris. I assume you would like to partake in the Trials?” 

Dola only then realised that he was not looking quite at her. Paired with what he said and her noticing the blindfold on his face, she figured out that he was blind.

“Yes. Me and my fireteam. I'd like to purchase tickets,” she said, suddenly feeling strange about the jokes aimed at his expense. 

Brother Vance accepted the glimmer and handed her the tickets, extending his arm just slightly to the left of her. She moved towards his hand so that it would be aligned properly with her and then accepted the tickets. Dola lingered for a moment until a Titan behind her let out an annoyed sigh. She was clogging the line. 

“If there’s nothing else, please clear the queue. I am very busy,” Vance said.

Dola moved and returned to her fireteam. She absentmindedly gave tickets to Nedran and Nysa, still looking back at the vendor. 

“So when are you joining the cult for that yellow hoodie?” Nedran asked and slapped her shoulder. 

“Did you know he's blind?” Dola asked instead, not acknowledging his ridiculous question. 

“Yeah, I've passed by here a few times. That's what I meant when I said creepy. He would just always know that someone is nearby.” 

“His hearing is unaffected by blindness, I would presume. And you jingle a lot,” Nysa chimed in and Nedran rolled his eyes. 

“You know what I mean.” 

“Yeah, I get it. I’m getting weird vibes from this tournament and these followers. Especially that guy.”

“Come on, don't be mean,” Dola said finally, feeling like these comments weren't warranted. Not against a blind, Lightless man.

Nysa pulled Dola into a sideways hug, squashing her against armour in a way that Dola was used to. Her face pressed to Nysa’s chest plate in a way that made her face look silly. 

“Oh we’re upsetting the yellow-enjoyer! Fine, let's go fight some Guardians!” 

Nysa-3 and Nedran bumped fists and dragged Dola into the match. All the way behind them, Dola could feel the eye with resonant ellipses still staring at her from the symbol on all of the tournament's insignia. 

She returned for tickets two more times in the coming weeks. Each time, she approached, deposited her glimmer and received the tickets. The vendor, Brother Vance, always seemed busy. Dola never learned what was creepy about him. The only thing she felt was pity. 

Trials matches weren't going well for her and her fireteam so they quickly stopped trying. She never got the cloak. Dola would pass by the clearing with the vendor fairly often, always looking at that banner. As months went by, her fireteam dissolved. 

Nedran disappeared while on a mission he never told the other two anything about. 

Nysa-3 and Dola drifted apart, losing the spark of affection. After Nedran’s disappearance, Dola retreated and failed to be a good partner to Nysa who couldn’t reach her anymore. Dola decided to end their relationship and Nysa simply left. Instead of the warmth of her fireteam, she replaced it all with exploring the system alone.

The last time she visited the area in the Reef with that banner was months before the Red War. She still knew nothing about Trials, or Osiris, or those followers, or what any of it meant.