Work Text:
Eleusinia is an island on the Sea of Screams. Be it distant from other Hive courts, it still floats in the same dark-dead void, moved by violent currents and connected, though faintly, to ancient sword-pathways. Such proximity makes it a dangerous realm to tread, but provides a direct connection to any and all drama taking place on the Ascendant side of things. So when a new Queen takes up court, Mara knows about it instantly: the walls of Erebus shudder like an invitation to come and pay neighbourly respects, and the frothing ocean, usually boiling over the edges of her throne world, now pulls back and reveals a glistening path leading northwards.
Thus, she comes to visit, as it is only proper; as one god to another.
High Heresy is a tower and a pit both. The inner chamber is a tall cylinder within a larger cylinder; it reminds Mara of a vast bell, like the one in Savathûn’s palace, or the inside of a well. Eris might have conquered the Hellmouth, but she has never truly left it.
The goddess herself is sitting at an ornate table among piles of clutter, studying a map. She raises her head when Mara steps out of the portal, and her eyes light up.
“I was weak,” are the first words Mara says to her. “I thought you were truly gone.”
Gone. What an elegant word for something so brutal, so irreversible. Death, the kind of it that truly sticks, that can’t be wished away or transcended, or everted into a new plane of existence through nothing but will alone. She was weak to have mourned Eris, but she cannot bring herself to feel shame for it. It was a mortal grief; one human mourning another. She hadn’t felt it since Sjur‘s passing, not truly—not even after Uldren—but when the news of Eris’ death reached her, it was as if a yawning hole had opened in the pit of her stomach, swallowing her whole.
Eris smiles. She is beautiful and alien, with the eyes and the scars and the ichor displayed openly. The gentle ambience of the throne world casts her form in soft green light.
“I shall serve you yet, my Queen.”
Mara shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything to that. She looks around, at the mirror-like walls and smooth floors, the chandeliers, the cabinets full of books. This is a royal court, indeed, but also so painfully Eris’, so familiar, so hers. It is nothing like the howling emptiness of the Sea of Screams; the silence here feels peaceful, not lonely. It is a place of respite.
“To birth a throne so glorious,” she speaks, running her fingers along the rim of Eris’ worktable. “I hope you were not in much pain.”
Eris seems surprised by the question. Her expressions are easier to read now, without the blindfold.
“Barely any at all.” She walks around the table to stand on the other side, across from Mara.
Still the distance. Always the distance.
But Mara does not believe her. Ascension hurts. The only way to create anything that matters is to suffer for it. Godhood isn’t gentle; it’s a crime against nature, and as all crimes, it comes with appropriate punishment.
“You have killed the Navigator, Lord of Shapes, Taken King.” Mara speaks those titles without reverence, but does not spit them like insults either. A great enough foe warrants respect even in death. “There is always a price.”
She knows it. Eris knows too. You do not devour your enemy without absorbing a part of them. They had learned it long ago, and then learned it again on the cold rocky surface on Eris’ namesake, in the meeting of eyes, where for a moment she was not Mara gazing upon her beloved advisor but Oryx looking at Crota. There is always something abandoned, and something discovered; a navigation, of sorts.
She ask, softer, “What have you found?”
And Eris shows her—as one god to another.
She shows her a roiling black sea, frothing green, draining to leave behind a desert. She shows her a sword broken in half, its blade buried in foliage, reclaimed by a garden—and then a fire that consumes all of it, destroying the flowers, melting the steel and shaping it into something new. She shows her exploding stars. She shows her a bloodline that severs, a tree with charred roots, the course of history violently reversed. The scream of a bereaved sister. The laughter of a queen.
Joy, joy, when a blade has found its mark.
Mara gasps when the vision ends, and sways until Eris catches her. Mortifying, if this had been anyone else. But Eris does not say anything, and lets go once Mara has collected herself—at least visibly so, because her head is still spinning, and a sudden urge surges in her heart to reach out for Eris’ hands and squeeze them. Her thoughts, always so orderly, are now all running away from her like startled foxes.
But she is still Queen. And Eris, be it for her newly forged divinity, is still Eris.
“The price,” Eris says. Her fingers splay across her chest, where Mara knows the spear had punctured her. “I welcome it. I have avenged you twice over.”
Mara shakes her head. “You do not owe this vengeance to me.”
“But I choose it.”
Beloved Eris. Mara presses her lips together, hoping it will keep unwise words from spilling, and constructs her response carefully.
“I‘ve never wanted you to destroy yourself for my sake. I do hope you realise that.”
Eris flashes another smile—sharp, proud. Divinity serves her well. “You never gentled me, my Queen. You let me be what I am. In my darkest times… I appreciated it most.”
“Still.” Out of a sudden, Mara feels silly for this thought, but the words burn on her lips. “To have you lost to this would be a sacrifice I’m not willing to bear.”
“I will not give them this victory,” Eris says with conviction. “They have taken enough from me. I will not let them strip me of myself.”
“Then be cautious.” She gives in, and takes Eris’s hand. “Such power is a dangerous blade to wield alone.”
Eris is smiling still as she raises their joint hands and presses Mara’s fingers to her lips. The air in the throne world is shimmering gloriously, spilling through the false windows, and settles on the both of them like headlights, or perhaps some sort of shaft of divine light. Mara’s heartbeat—frantic, human—pulses like a nascent star at the centre of her chest. Eris bows her head and steps forward, and Mara does not step back.
It is a soft, soft silence that falls, afterwards.