Night Patrol

[rekindledtitan]

It’s always hard to tell where Nexus time will fall relative to her own world, and it gets even more complicated with the planet-hopping nature of a Guardian’s job. This time it’s the small hours of the morning back home, but Blaze finds they’ve popped out in the early evening, Nexus-time. ‘They’ being just herself and her Ghost, one six-foot-plus robot soldier in plate armor and her palm-sized companion, his shell an array of silver points that flex and spin as he floats alongside her.

 

Ghost is projecting a map of the central Nexus in front of him as they walk. If one watches closely, the little boundaries and markers shift slightly, every so often. They have a lot of errands duties to get through, so it’s possible to run into them almost anywhere. Hunting for parts in an all-night tech market, or collecting a takeout order from one of the many places serving ‘Nexus fusion’ dishes. Sorting supplies around a park bench in the moonlight, or heading into the woods along one of the less popular walking trails.

 

They talk to each other now and then, one loud and one barely a murmur; it’s mostly about the work, but now and then it slips into more serious discussion. Eventually, Blaze exhales a simulated sigh of frustration and asks, perhaps rhetorically, perhaps directed at the nearest innocent bystander:

 

“How would you help someone figure out how to be their own person?”

Comments

[rekindledtitan]

"Oh." She frowns with sympathy, the metal plates of her face drawing together as much as they're able. If Ayatan's close enough she won't resist reaching out to pat the other warrior's shoulder. "I'm sorry. We've had major losses in the past, but... not like that. Maybe you'll find more of your brethren? I mean, uh... I don't know where new Tenno come from, but... could there be more out there?"

[ayatantreasure]

It's... strange. Nobody's touched them like this in years, a casual pat of camaraderie, warrior to warrior. Especially not like... this. They look at her, eyeless face searching her for... they don't know what.

She doesn't know. Nobody does, not even back home, save for a trusted few. She's trying to cheer them up, and they want to believe her, even though they know there won't be any new Tenno. There'd better not be.

But more in cryosleep... maybe. "The Lotus might have known more hiding places. If we can find her, maybe. She's... gone." Not dead. They're fairly confident of that. But the terrified, innocent soul that lives at their core is shaken by her absence, ripped away from them in an instant, leaving them alone. Abandoned.

They inhale, exhale, repeat. Striving for calm, reaching for that deep pool within. "The sacrifice was worth it," they say at last. "The other Tenno, I mean. We beat back the Sentients, and we toppled the Orokin Empire. The people in the Sol system can live their own lives because of that."