Chapter Text
"I'm sorry, Sagira… Run…"
The Celebrant drives its sword into the cliffside stone above Osiris's head. The cryptolith erupts in neon flare.
I AM THE WAR YOU CRAVE. PURPOSE ETERNAL. A LEGACY IN BLOOD.
The sickly fire runs through him, blazing, twisting his light with Hive corruption. The terrible infection spreads, searing veins and nerves and soul. Osiris screams, desperately reaches for that spark of Light that has always been there, Solar Fire to burn it away, or cauterise some part of himself to protect it, but it wraps dark tendrils around him and he tastes blood like sweet wine on his lips.
He can feel it now, that whisper, that drumbeat of death which runs inside him, his terror mixing with rage, and every struggle makes it louder, stokes the rage, stokes the bloodlust and need for crude violence. It fills him, turns doubt and fear and love to ash, transmutes happiness to joy in death-bringing and endless war. Thoughts filled with flame and the scent of scorching flesh, a dead thing honed into a blade.
EMBRACE ME, LIGHTBEARER, AND BE A GOD OF DEATH.
Finally, the runes fade and it lies there on the altar, mind burned clear of everything but that perfect, vicious purpose and the siren song of slaughter.
A weapon perfected.
—-------
Saint throws open the door to Commander Zavala’s office and steps inside. It is nicer than office that he had as Vanguard. It is nicer than office Osiris had as Commander. Wide windows to look out over this wondrous city, the books and trinkets, the little clicking balls on the desk.
He pauses by the Speaker’s mask near the doorway, as he always does, ducks his head in a respectful bow. Pushes down the flicker of grief that he had not been there, had not been able to save his Father. Had not been able to say goodbye, not really. And then turns to those assembled.
“What is it? Your words were very ominous, Ikora.”
She is there of course, expression blank in a way that makes him nervous, and Zavala looks like he is about to try to be gentle with him and that is never good sign. The only one who seems normal is Eris Morn, and her normal is… very strange at the best of times.
“I bring news of Osi-”
“Saint!”
There’s a blur of metal and brightness which hits his chest at high speed, the shock of it pushing him back a step. And then he raises his hands to cradle the familiar, well loved shell of Osiris’s Ghost.
“Sagira? What is this? Where is Osiris?”
It has been too long without him, just cryptic messages, apologies… poems that make adoration kindle ever deeper inside him.
“We need to go,” Sagira says. “Now. We have to-”
He’s ready to run immediately, to speed to the Grey Pigeon and be off, but Eris touches his wrist, her gloved hand light but firm.
“Haste is sometimes dangerous, and we will need care if we are to retrieve our errant Warlock.”
It wars against the drive to action in him, but he has learned patience over the long centuries. Something that Osiris had never quite mastered. He knows the value in watching, finding that weak spot to strike, and Eris had been a Hunter, still is by his estimation, and knows that more than most.
He gives a nod. “Tell me.”
Sagira humphs and settles on his shoulder, against his neck, pulsing injured light. “He’s an idiot,” she mutters, voice full of grief and love. “Saint, we have to help him.”
“What has happened to Osiris?”
“He was investigating some strange signals on the Shore,” Ikora begins. “Reports of Hive structures growing, Cabal and Fallen gathering at them and then going missing.”
He does not see problem with that. More of them should go missing and make their lives easier in his opinion.
Eris must see the direction of his thoughts, because she jumps in. He appreciates her bluntness, very like a Titan in some ways. She does not try to shield him from difficult things, as though he is a child new to the world, or as if they will somehow tarnish him. “He believed that it was related to Xivu Arath, the Hive god of war. He visited the Hellmouth on Luna to investigate. He has not returned, but I found Sagira in the tunnels. Alone. And I found the remains of a Hive ritual.”
No. No this is not- Osiris, what have you done?
His hands clench at his sides. “I will tear apart the Moon and their pits to find him.”
He will crusade against them the way he has crusaded against the Fallen and the Vex, make himself the terror of the Hive too until they whisper his name to their young as a warning.
“He isn’t there,” Sagira says. “Not anymore. He- I don’t know where he is. Not dead though. I know he’s alive.”
“From his reports,” Ikora continues, “I believe the best place to start looking is the Tangled Shore. I’ll send the Guardian there to investigate and-”
“No,” Saint says flatly. “I will go.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Zavala says, and Saint gives him a mullish look.
“He hunted for me for years,” Saint says. “He broke time to stop me dying. I cannot stand here and run Trials while he is missing like this.”
“The situation on the Shore is… complicated. And your reputation with the Fallen is-”
“I will be on best behaviour,” Saint says sourly. “I will not kill anything I should not.”
Zavala does not look convinced. Probably astute, because at the moment, Saint would be quite willing to destroy the entirety of the place if it got Osiris back.
“With the situation in the Dreaming City and-”
Saint leans forward, slams his hands down on the desk. “You know I will go anyway,” he says bluntly. “For this, for Osiris, I will not stay behind the walls. I would appreciate the help of the Vanguard, but I will do this myself if need be. If that leads to my exile, then… then at least I will know a fraction of the pain Osiris has been through.”
A low blow. He knows it. Zavala had cast a vote against Osiris, and Saint cannot blame him, even if he’d hated it at the time, and still hates it now. And he will grieve if they do exile him, the City has been his purpose almost since the first breath of his fourteenth life. But for Osiris…
Zavala sighs. “Ikora will brief you on the situation. But we cannot afford an all-out war on the Shore. Not even one led by Saint-14.”
He can hear the undercurrent beneath the words, the exhaustion of threat after threat and spreading darkness. The bitterness that once again such a large problem leads back to Saint’s wayward Warlock. Saint doesn’t care. He will perhaps, but later. When Osiris is safe.
He nods, and steps back from the desk. “Thank you, Commander. Now tell me everything.”