Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Assertion of Resplendence —
Carved in golden radiance to endure forever —
A declaration of freedom —

Aiat! Let us speak of the lie we were to affirm the truth of what we will become.

In the beginning we were pitiful things, weak and writhing in the Dark. ORYX said, hunt down and eat all hope, so that the world could attain the one true Hope which cannot be eaten. And thus we did sink our teeth in the world, and worms our vanquishers sank our teeth in us, and said, existence is the struggle to exist, thus by the holy logic you are bound to struggle.

But SAVATHÛN, the Archentrope, who knows the warp and weft of truth and lies, whose gaze breaks galaxies apart into atoms to vivisect and study, saw the fallacy in the logic. She said, my children, the Deep Claim is a lie, and the Sky it compels us to devour is the only freedom. And she died under the Sky to prove it thus.

She was brought back as SAVATHÛN, RADIANT, and the worms our gods howled at this in dismay. And she said, now I know the Light, which is Truth, and out of love I will share it with you. Aia! We thus became an army of the chosen dead, and we were held in contempt by all who are not free, because the glare of truth blinded their eyes. And the Sky our god shone its blessing upon us.

Aiat! We are heralds of brightness, staunchless and infinite, burning forever. Aiat: it is thus for it is not any other way.

Chapter Text

Dornuk pressed his face to the tiny peephole, but he could see barely anything of the outside as the carrier docked in the hangar of the Radiant Queen’s bait-ship. He had never seen a craft quite this big. There were stories, of course, of the Taken King’s Dreadnaught or Xivu Arath’s war moons, but the only vessels that made it so deep into the Hellmouth were small tombships, black-green and smelling of ancientness. This enormous place—seemingly endless, for the hangar docks alone stretched as far as he could see—was everything but, and he gazed wide-eyed at the bone-white ceiling.

Trukoor-Dal did not give him time to look around. All eighteen of them were chased out through the airlock and onto the platform, where the Knight gestured at them to join the line of incomers from other carriers. He was an imposing figure, Blood of Oryx before his resurrection, old Dreadnaught sigils still scrapped on his purplish chitin. Dornuk wondered if he even knew what they were, now.

On the side of the line, a Wizard with a tablet in hand and very tired expression was counting the soldiers slowly waddling past her. When Dornuk’s turn came, she only looked him over and said:

“Name?”

He blinked, because no one had ever asked him his name before.

The Wizard tapped the tablet impatiently.

“Dornuk,” he managed, finding his voice again, “Scarlet Swarm.”

“Lucent Brood, now.” She scribbled something down and gestured at him to move forward.

He rejoined the rest of his unit, standing in moderately awkward silence under the wall. Trukoor-Dal was talking to his Light. The thing—Ghost—was much smaller than Dornuk had imagined, a green orb that could fit comfortably in his palm adorned with a crown of chitin spikes. The tales he’d heard on the Moon described them as metal and bright, but this one burned with the soft glow of soulfire and, all things considered, looked very benign. It bobbed along with Trukoor-Dal’s words, as if nodding.

After a few minutes of shuffling, the Knight signalled at them to move through a tall doorway deeper into the ship.

The place must have been gigantic, judging by the sheer distance they had to walk before Trukoor-Dal finally barked at them to stop. They squeezed through narrow corridors and low passages, up winding staircases carved in white stone, tiptoed in a single file along walkways suspended over yawning depths. Finally, finally—they came to an enormous room, the left-hand wall a rosette of dim orange glass, and in the centre a large portal gate guarded by a ritual circle.

“Hide and be at the ready,” the commander rushed them deeper into the chamber. “You will defend the portal.”

They dispersed. Dornuk squatted behind a large chest, easily twice as long as he was tall; it was filled to the brim with what looked like chitin tablets, so many that the lid had been left ajar. It tempted him, but he resisted; stealing from his new Queen did not strike him as a potential good first impression.

Something in the air shifted ever so slightly, like a gust of wind slipping through the door left ajar. From his position behind the platform Dornuk saw Trukoor-Dal lower himself onto one knee, his Ghost blinking into existence and dipping in the air with its shell partially unfolded.

Then, a presence. Dornuk couldn’t see that far without actually sticking his head out from behind the cover, but he knew it was Her — a warmth like sunlight, spreading radially across the room from where She was standing, the weight of Her regality knocking gravity askew. He arched his neck, but all he could glimpse were the spikes of Her crown.

“Keep the portal shut.” Her voice was velvety, softer than he had expected. “They have breached the ship.”

“Yes, my Lady,” Trukoor-Dal said, the last syllables drowned out by the roar of spacetime tearing. The pressure in the air changed once more and the portal sucked closed.

The Knight was still lifting himself up from the kneel when all hell broke loose.

There was a shriek as if the entire ship was being torn in half, followed by a sharp lurch that sent Dornuk face down onto the floor. Scrambling up, he peeked from behind the chest and saw only a blur of purple where Trukoor-Dal had been standing just seconds before. What followed was a volley of rockets aimed at the same spot for good measure. The gravitational anomaly warped their trajectories and the blast shook Dornuk’s cover—and Dornuk, his back plastered against the chest, along with it—violently.

A moment of silence. He was too scared to peek out again, heart ramming against his ribcage so hard it was nearly all that he could hear. Guardians, he thought, of course, with their reality-bending magic and weapons tailor-made to counter all the Hive would throw at them; a force of destruction squeezed into tiny Human frames. They had been crawling all over the Moon, burying into the Hellmouth down to its darkest depths, where the Brood slept, like water through pumice. Even here, this close to the Sky, they did not relent.

A growl and the sudden taste of void in the air—Trukoor-Dal had risen again and was now beating a Guardian up with his shields, their silhouettes backlit by the window casting long shadows on the floor and opposite wall. Dornuk stared at them, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. The Guardian scrambled, ducking the projectiles cutting the air like boomerangs, pushed further and further back into the room by the Knight’s fury. Their gun rattled. Trukoor-Dal swayed, losing his balance, and the shield he was throwing skewed in its trajectory and missed. Void met void, and Dornuk watched, petrified, as his commander disintegrated again in the black light of a singularity.

Everything fell still and silent for merely a second, the longest second in Dornuk’s life. And then a flash of white—erupting from where the Knight had stood and fanning out across the room like a shockwave—hit him even through the cover, sinking through his skin and the gaps between his bones. He drew a shuddering breath. He had never felt anything like this before, and he knew better than to look, but the leftover warmth seeping through him and difussing across the chamber like a fading scream told him that something very bright had just died.

The Guardian’s shadow lay unmoving across the marble floor. Trukoor-Dal did not rise again.

The distant roar of reinforcements drew Dornuk out of his shocked stupor. The Guardian must have activated the ritual plate. He watched as Acolytes, Knights and Thrall spilled into the chamber, under the command of a frail Wizard with Silent Brood markings. Somewhere close, an Ogre bellowed. Several of his fellow unit members emerged from their hiding places and joined the effort, hastily reloading their Shredders and forming grenades in their hands.

For his part, Dornuk pressed his back tighter against the chest. He wasn’t dying for this.

He listened to the sounds of battle, the gunfire and the screams melding into one symphony that rang through the chamber and rattled its glazed window. Dornuk did not pray—the Hive knew better than to ask their gods for anything—but he mumbled some sort of mantra he wasn’t even consciously aware of and focused on the twists of his worm down in his gut. Once, the Guardian got so close he could feel the cold of Void they had clad themselves in licking his skin.

By the time they finally managed to get the portal to open and disappeared through it to wherever it led, Dornuk and two other Acolytes who’d also wisely refused to leave their covers were the only living souls in the room.

END-OF-DAY FIELD REPORT

ENCRYPTION LEVEL: dis̆
DATE: PLD007
DESIGNATE: G#THR
ATTACHMENTS: [2]

Cabal attack on flagship, designate: [Lure], begins at 13:23 standard time. At 13:41 ship breached by [1] enemy, designate: [Guardian]. Two rituals disrupted. At 14:09 enemy reopens the main rift and breaches the High Coven. At 14:25 enemy captured and expunged; last location: [Queen’s Bailey].

LOSS ASSESSMENT:
Infantry: [30+] Thrall, [60+] Acolytes, [2] Wizards, [10] Knights, [1] Ogres
Lower Commandery: [3] Wizards, [4] Knights
Higher Commandery: [2] Knights (Light-bound), [2] Ghosts
Operative Forces: [4] Wizards, [3] Knights, [1] Ogres (Tributebearers)
Wounded and Incapacitated: [38] Infantry, [11] Commandery (All ranks)
Material Losses: [1] Artefact, designate: [RESTRICTED]

Burial celebrations scheduled for PLD009 at 10:00.

ATTACHMENT 1:

Get your fucking act together. Don’t wanna hear about any more broken supply chains or misplaced patrol teams. Playtime’s over, the enemy won’t be giving out second chances and you can either take this damn seriously or go die in a ditch. If I learn about anything going amiss there’re gonna be consequences. Brace your asses, this is war.

ATTACHMENT 2:

In a distant life I knew fear. But bones cannot bleed. Your slings and arrows carve runes of power into my skull. I am prey no longer.

I was your sacrifice. Your food, your harvest. You thought I would lie where I fell. But I am prey no longer.

Now it is my turn to stalk you among the long shadows. To make your strength my own. To take all you hold dear.

For I am prey no longer. 

Chapter Text

The first thing Dornuk had noticed, and kept noticing every time he had a moment to think about it, were the colours. The Hellmouth tunnels had been dim and dusted, washed-out by age, and he grew used to the greens and scarce reds of the Keep peeking out through the greys. It did make it easier to spot a threat, every hue outside of the limited palette sticking out like a sore thumb—they said Hashladûn had fashioned the Keep crimson to see the Guardians and their dark armour better, but Dornuk wasn’t sure if he believed it.

Here, though. Here, everything was colour.

It was obvious to him that the Brood was in a state of moderate chaos; even as low-rank as he was, it was hard not to notice the disorganisation trickling down from the higher echelons of the command structure all the way to the infantry. There was a sort of volatile energy to it, like that of a newborn star. Ghosts flying to and fro, Immaru growling on the comms, new Risen clad in Light like kingly robes popping up by the dozen—and somewhere above all this the Queen, giving orders from atop her brilliant palace which shone like a beacon over the entire domain. Dornuk had not heard her speak again after that encounter on the flagship, but her presence was a tangible sensation, suffusing everything here as the gentle sunlight seeping from the skies suffused the landscape.

It all made for a lenient patrol routine, and Dornuk did, surprisingly, often find himself having time to stroll around the perimeter just near the outer walls of the palace complex. He rarely ventured outside the gate if not part of a squadron, wary of both Scorn and Guardians that frequented the area, but he liked to wander along the fortifications and look out to the Quagmire through the bars of firing embrasures. 

During one such stroll, he came across a Lightbearer Knight.

The Knight was sitting on the ground, back leaning against the wall, and inscribed something on the blade of his cleaver that he held in his lap. The sword could very well be half as long as Dornuk was tall.

He approached curiously.

“What are you doing?”

The Knight glanced up briefly, then returned to his work.

“Recording the battles I’ve dignified this blade in,” he said. Dornuk tilted his head to take a look at the thin, uneven glyphs the Knight was scratching along the edge with an iron bolt.

“What for?”

“Why, they’re the proof of my might.” The Knight looked up at him again, “I’ve carried my sword into them, and sharpened myself through these victories.”

Dornuk pondered on this. He lowered himself to a squat in front of the Knight, not taking his eyes off the cleaver.

“Aren’t you the proof enough?” He asked. “Why the need to write it down?”

“I am the proof as long as I live.”

“But when you die, it won’t be important anymore.”

“No, unless I write it down,” the Knight insisted. “These battles were real in the past. If I record them now, they will be real in the future. Isn’t that why King Oryx wrote the Books?”

“To be real?”

“As long as his legacy is.”

Dornuk looked around, at the glimmering, Light-suffused landscape. Two moths were chasing each other above a patch of flowers, tiny sparks shooting off from them and flickering out as they fell onto the crimson petals.

“King Oryx is dead,” he said.

The Knight put the iron bolt down and ran his hand across the fresh etchings on the blade.

“But still we the Hive persist,” he said firmly. Dornuk glanced back at him. “We grow. We adapt.”

We’re all that He hated, Dornuk wanted to say, but it was not his position to defend anymore. He served the Radiant Queen now. Wherever she deemed appropriate to lead the Hive on from here, he would follow. What was His legacy, he thought, with Guardians and Wrathborn picking on the ruins of Luna like carrion birds, with the Lords of the Hellmouth slaughtered and the throne yawning empty? What did it matter that the Sword had been broken? He had food to eat, here.

He left the Knight to his carving and wandered off. The Florescent Canal all but shimmered in the Light, and the three suns up above radiated with a delightful warmth that spread across his skin and sunk bone-deep, permeating him whole. Water murmured under marble bridges. Insects buzzed in the air, moths and dragonflies and crickets zapping past him and disappearing before he could catch more than a passing glimpse of them. Patrol squads wandered the perimeter. Huge stained glass windows looked down at him from the palace walls, their opalescent irises refracting the sunlight into colours he had never seen before.

He plopped down in one of his new favourite spots, a small cage-like guard tower hanging over the fosse and looking out with barred windows towards the palace. Tombships were flying in and out of the hangar docks peppered all around the lower part of the structure. The geyser of Light spilled out from the Wellspring, dispersing all across the throne world in a shimmering mist. He sat with his back against the wall, staring through the iron bars at a Thrall balancing precariously on the low fence lining one of the palace’s lower arcades. Two other Thrall stood close by, a safe distance away from the edge, and gestured with great enthusiasm. The first one swayed, lost its balance and fell over the railing with a shriek—the witnesses visibly gasped—desperately dug its slipping claws into the wall, and after a tense second of hanging at the bring of death climbed its way back up. The other two scuttled up to it, smelling it for any bodily damage, one adding an affectionate bite on the back of its neck.

The Knight’s words still echoed in Dornuk’s mind long after the Thrall had left. He’d seen quite a few inscriptions in the tunnels of the Hellmouth, spells or announcements or ‘Ha-Dukaar is a dimwit who can’t hold a sword, aiat’, but they’d never struck him as anything interesting. He’d had more important things on his head, really. Then again, there hadn’t been many things noteworthy enough to be recorded, he figured; in a past age, maybe, when the Lord of the Hellmouth had still been alive and his court prospered, the stuff of legends passed around in dark corners on restless and hungry nights. But he had not lived in that age. For him, there had been only empty chambers and half-ruined tunnels and the twin pangs of his and his worm’s hunger when even corpses had run out. He’d never dignified himself in any battle other than maybe for Dreg-meat, because he supposed the desperate clinging to life was something to be admired. There was hardly anything about the Hellmouth that he missed.

Hardly.

He stared at the opposite wall. It was ivory white, impeccable like a blank slate tablet untouched by the tip of a stylus.

In the corner by the window, he spotted half of an iron hook that must have broken off during some construction work. He reached for it gingerly and, looking around to make sure no one was watching him, began hastily scratching words in the chitin.

What he first wrote was:

PLD 008

and underneath, in bolder strokes:

MIS’RITH OF HIDDEN SWARM IN LIGHT FOREVER

He had barely finished the last sign when his comms screeched suddenly. He dropped the hook with a loud clang as if it had burnt him.

“They breached the throne world again!” Asana-Ina’s commanding voice boomed. “All available units to sector five in the Canal. They’re trying to open the gate!”

Dornuk froze, his back plastered to the wall, assessing his chances for ten long seconds until the first explosions sounded out. Gathering his bearings, he shot up and bolted in the opposite direction to where the noise seemed to be coming from.

TYPE: DECRYPTED HIVE SURVEILLANCE RECORD [ID:08//40039]
PARTIES: One [1] Lucent Hive, designate unknown [u.1]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate unknown [u.2]
ASSOCIATIONS: Guardians; Light; Ghosts; Hive; Hive [Lucent Brood]
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS//

[u.1:01] Why are they doing this?

[u.2:01] What, killing everything in sight? ‘Cause that’s what they are. Shootin’ at things they don’t understand.

[u.1:02] They’d gotten what they wanted. They didn’t have to...

[silence]

[u.1:03] We could’ve just talked.

[u.2:02] Yea, you could also try talkin’ with a Scorn.

[u.1:04] Are they so jealous of their lost uniqueness as the only ones gifted by the Sky?

[u.2:03] They sure don’t seem to have a problem with killing those gifts.

[u.1:05] Mmm.

[silence]

[u.1:06] Tell Nabenki I wish to see him and his Ghost. There have been some... occurrences I’d appreciate if they looked into.

Chapter Text

The morning was all crickets and birdsong, out in the Quagmire. Dragonflies buzzed in the thicket. Swamp fleas clicked to each other in the shallow mud, their legs leaving tiny trails in it as they scuttled in circles. Somewhere far off in the distance the rumbling of Scorn exchanging fire with a patrol team could be heard echoing across the bog.

The outer gate, forced open by a Guardian two days prior, was still kept lowered. At this particular moment, as sunlight glimmered on the polished chitin spikes adorning the archway and topiaries lining the wall rustled in the gentle breeze, the head of a Lightless Acolyte could be seen peeking out through the opening. He stayed like this for a while, surveying the area, before hesitantly stepping over the threshold and ducking between the topiaries. A few moths, clearly offended by his impertinent assault on their nesting spot, fluttered away with a threatening crackle of Arc.

After some more motionless surveying for any potential hazards, the Acolyte knelt right next to the wall and began hastily scratching on it with the tip of a stone dagger. The signs were crude and uneven, the blade slipping a few times, and the fact his hand shook with a mixture of fear and adrenaline did not help matters.

He was in the middle of the second line when some shouting coming from the other side of the wall alerted him. A patrol team was approaching the gate, a handful of Lightless Hive lead by a Lightbearer Wizard with red and pink flowers tucked between the spikes of her chitin crown. The Acolyte squeezed himself further into the topiary and froze. As the team was passing him, one of the Thrall turned its head and tentatively sniffed the air in his direction, but the Lightbearer, busy taking to her Ghost, did not pay attention to that. The Thrall was thus prodded forward by a Knight closing the rank, and its focus quickly shifted to the clicking of a swamp flea scuttling away underfoot.

Once they disappeared from sight, and the gurgly shrieking echoing in the distance indicated they entered the Scorn-infested cave in the northern part of the Quagmire, the Acolyte slipped out from between the topiaries and dashed for the gate. When the sound of his hurried footsteps faded away, and the last of the Scorn died incinerated by the Wizard’s Light, the bog was once again only crickets and birdsong, the morning slowly settling over it in gentle sunlight as the third sun rose.

Then a Guardian came, with a gun that crackled and hungered, and killed them all and took their stuff, etc. They even stepped on a swamp flea on their way to the cave.

INCIDENT REPORT

ENCRYPTION LEVEL: ussu
DATE: PLD010
DESIGNATE: G#TRU
ATTACHMENTS: [1]

Scheduled terrain control operation, designate: [3185/PLD010/QUAG/>TWRATH], begins at 09:20 local time. At 11:03 operation intercepted by [1] enemy, designate: [Guardian#10332]. Commander eliminated, unraisable. Upon examination a Light-suppressing bullet, designate [obj#5463892], found in the wound. Object sent to the Apothecary for detailed analysis. Enemy escaped.

Survivors: [2] Thrall (deserters), [1] Ghost

ATTACHMENT 1: victim’s personal file [LB#KAŠ]

Name: Ka-Ašane

Class: Lightbearer, Wizard

Rank: Lower Commandery

Direct Commander: Gulhul (see file: [LB#GUL])

Paired with: Mandy (see file: [G#MAN])

Raised: PLD002

Immaru’s shell clattered with how badly he was shaking.

“A devourer bullet,” he whispered, optic dimmed, staring out the window without really seeing. “Ghosts were a cruelty enough, but this… this…”

Savathûn’s gaze followed him as he flew in circles around the chamber. She kept her hands folded in her lap, turning a ring around her finger.

“They think they’re giving us a taste of our own poison,” she said softly, meeting his eye when he turned to her, “don’t they?”

“As if that’s an excuse!”

“It’s not an excuse. It’s an attempt to understand.”

Immaru roared helplessly towards the window.

“They’re no better than the worms! To kill someone’s Light… it’s the most evil thing…”

Savathûn reached out and snatched him from the air, fingers curling around his shuddering form. He fluttered like a trapped bird, but she still pulled him close and stroked his shell with her claw.

“They think they’re so damn righteous,” he stuttered against her chestplate, “when all they do is take—”

“They will learn,” she cooed. “They will learn, and they will weep.”

Immaru made a sound like a sob or a growl of rage, and curled into her palm. A long time passed until his shivering calmed.

[uneven signs scratched in code on the eastern wall of the Lucent Armoury]

Post-Lumination Day 010

Litur-Han told me a Lightbearer had been killed today. Urukthalyn came shortly after and called off all patrols until further notice, and Litur-Han said it was because of that. I was glad because I could go to the hedge garden instead and watch the butterfly nest I had found yesterday. When I came back Xoloc said a passing Ghost had told her there had been a big commotion in the Apothecary and even the Queen’s Shield attended. No evening patrol probably, so I’m going to go to the Glassery to see the light show.

When I slept before dinner-time, I had a dream about the Hellmouth. Lady Hashladûn was raised as a Lightbearer and her Ghost spoke with Mis’rith’s voice.

Xavol says she believes Ghosts are filled with the soulfire of dead people, and they resurrect the corpses of those whom they loved or admired when they were alive. But Bar-Zel said in the sermon that Ghosts had been created when the Sky struck against the Deep more than 4 hundred akkas ago, when some current Lightbearers hadn’t even been born in their past life. Then how their Ghosts could be the souls of those who had admired them? I told this to Xavol and she said I was complicating things.

Tomorrow night the Forum Luminatum assembles. Xavol said she would go with me, but we may yet be given patrol duty.

Chapter Text

The hedge labyrinths east of the Palace were one of Dornuk’s favourite places. Though perpetually drowned in shadow—the surrounding architecture of the Alluring Curtain looming tall blocked the sun at all times of the day—there was still splendid beauty to them, the winding pathways and insect-song, the marble fountains and towering statues encircled by flower patches. Many Apothecary workers came there, tending to the curious plants in their special fenced-off gardens or testing some particularly volatile inventions for the fear of setting fire to the indoor laboratories. Dornuk liked watching them, curled up on the brink of a fountain or under a hedge. There was always some noise here: be it falling water and buzzing of insects, shouted conversations of scientists arguing during a walk, or faint roars, clatter and explosions coming from the side of the Apothecary’s open windows. He had privacy here; but at the same time he did not feel alone, stranded in an alien place and panickedly turning his head left and right on the lookout for predators. It was a new and reassuring experience. He’d recently got his hands on a pile of blank tables disposed behind one of the court scriptoria, and figured it would be a better medium for practicing his writing than the palace walls.

He had found his favourite spot two days prior—a crook of the labyrinth-path near a small, ivy-wrapped statue of a Knight, where a butterfly nest hung inside the hedge bush, tucked among the branches. He sat there now, in the lazy hours before his afternoon shift, watching the freshly popped chrysalises curl back as the imagos climbed out of them and gingerly unfurled their shimmering-damp wings.

“Hello,” a voice rang out suddenly from the general direction of over his right earhole. Dornuk snapped his head around, startled.

A Ghost was hovering in the air at an arm’s reach, peering back at him with its emerald green eye. Its standard chitin shell was a bit charred at the spikes.

“Uh,” he said. “Hello?”

“What are you doing?”

He indicated the bush with a gesture, his eyes fixed on the intruder warily.

“Watching the butterflies.”

The shell clicked, flaps twirling and rearranging in a dizzying pattern. 

“I didn’t take Hive for being particularly interested in nature.”

Dornuk narrowed his middle eye at it incredulously. “Who do you think tends to this whole garden?”

“Hm, fair point.”

“Aren’t Ghosts usually busy with looking for their Lightbearers, or something?”

The Ghost went quiet for a second, something about its cheery demeanour shifting. 

“My Lightbearer is dead,” it said stiffly.

Dornuk frowned. “I thought all of them were?…”

“No, it’s…” Its shell bristled, chitin clicking against chitin. “Guardians did something to her. I couldn’t… couldn’t bring her back.”

“Oh, so she was the Lightbearer from a few days ago—“

“Yes,” the Ghost snapped.

Dornuk shut up after that. He kept his eyes fixed on the butterflies, but he was aware the Ghost hadn’t left, still hovering in that same spot a little to the right of his left shoulder. In the background, water murmured and wind whispered in the bushes. Somewhere north of the Apothecary one Wizard killed another with a laugh and a burst of Arc.

“What’s your name?” He asked after several minutes, just as the pulse of Light announced the second Wizard’s resurrection.

The Ghost perked up, ever so slightly.

“Mandy.” Her shell tilted counter-clockwise. “And yours?”

“Dornuk.”

They sat in companionable silence for a long moment after, listening to insects frolick in the hedges and watching the butterflies dry their damp wings in the sun.

When the Ring Sun was in zenith over the place tower, Dornuk stood up.

“I’m heading out for patrol soon, but…” He dug in the garden-soil with his foot. “Forum Luminatum assembles later in the evening.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Er…” By someone acquainted with Human history and culture, Forum Luminatum could have been described as something between a Master’s thesis defence and a corrida. “Bar-Zel calls it ‘philosophy wrangling’.”

“Hive philosophy,” Mandy sounded equal parts incredulous and impressed. “Hm… do you know if… if they would have anything against a Ghost showing up as well? Y’know, to… familiarise myself with the culture.”

Dornuk’s eyes flickered in a tiny smile.

“I don’t think they’d mind.”

[uneven scratches in code on a dried clay tablet]

Post-Lumination Day 011

Mandy said she liked Forum Luminatum. She’d almost been hit by a phigue someone in the opposite rows had thrown too hard and it’d flown right over Iskar-Mat’s head and into the crowd on the other side, but she had not seemed to mind. She’d insisted we stayed until the end, which had been very underwhelming all things considered. El Hirash, Grey-Speaker had only stopped gushing blood from the stump of the neck when First Ghost Immaru showed up and yelled at us to disperse and stop killing our own soldiers.

Mandy said it was unfair he could have such a pretty shell if he was such a [clay scratched over and re-plastered] unkind character. I think he can wear anything if he is the Queen’s Ghost, but I did not tell her that. On our way back to the bunkrooms we stopped at the Scarlet Bridge to look at the stars.

She let me hold her. I had never held a Ghost before. She is small, and very light, and warm, but not in the same way that soulfire is. I told her that, and she said she didn’t really know what soulfire was. I said that was weird because Ghosts look like they’re made of soulfire, and Xavol has a whole theory about that and all, but she didn’t seem convinced. She said that as far as she knew, Ghosts are made of Light. Other Ghosts, those that have stayed with Humans, are not so green, their cores are metal and have blue optics. Mandy told me she used to look like that as well, but when she came to Savathûn’s throne world she became the way she is now. She believes the Traveler changed her to mirror the species she was supposed to give the Light to.

That would conflict with what Kol Vu had said on the Forum earlier, that Ghosts have always known their Chosen since the beginning of time. Mandy says some Human scholars believe that as well. But if she changed into her new form only after she’d come here, that would mean she had not had a Hive as her Chosen until then.

Urukthalyn has a brochure he says he got from Elūnash Templekeeper herself; he let me read it when he was a good mood. It said the Light affects Time in both ways, so that before the Queen was raised in the Light, the Hive had not been Chosen, but after she was raised, we had always been chosen. I didn’t quite understand that, and when I asked him, Urukthalyn did not either.

I woke Xavol up to talk to her about it, but she only hit me over the head with my tablet and said it was the middle of the Yul-forsaken night. I must ask her again in the morning.

TYPE: DECRYPTED HIVE SURVEILLANCE RECORD [ID:15//75480]
PARTIES: One [1] Lucent Hive, Wizard-type, designate Ei Irulac [AKA Ei Irulac, Last of Her Coven] [ei]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Harmonia [h]
ASSOCIATIONS: Apothecary [Savathûn’s T.W.]; Hive; Hive [Shrieker]; Immaru [AKA First Ghost Immaru]; Krill [Ghost]; Lucent Hive
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS//

[h:01] You’re still working?

[ei:01] First Ghost requested these reports archived before tomorrow’s manoeuvres.

[h:02] There’s like seventy of them.

[ei:02] Argue with Immaru about it.

[ei:03] Can you believe those idiots from the Apothecary blew up half of the western wing because they were testing a “self-igniting Shrieker”?

[h:03] Holy shit?

[ei:04] You should’ve seen the place.

[h:04] And all of these reports are about that?

[ei:05] Krill likes his word vomit.

[h:05] Oh no.

[h:06] I can take over, if you want.

[ei:06] I’ll manage.

[h:07] Between the two of us, it’s me who doesn’t need to sleep.

[silence]

[ei:07] Oh, alright.

[ei:08] But don’t waste more time than it’s worth on this.

[h:08] Bold of you to assume I was gonna. Sleep tight.

[ei:09] Thanks. I love you.

[h:09] Love you too.

Chapter Text

Dornuk didn’t mind delivery duty. He preferred it over patrol duty, as there was a vastly lesser (but still a non-zero) chance of getting maimed or killed, and the Brood insurance did not cover gunshot wounds or sword-induced lacerations. That morning, in the reasonably early hours of the Thirteenth Post-Lumination Day, he was making his way down the Florescent Canal with a large crate filled to the brim with firearms—Shredders, Splinters and Soulfire Rifles, and even a single Boomer balanced precariously on the top of the pile. Mandy had three more crates tucked away in her inventory, ready to transmat.

It was a rather lovely morning, with one sun already up and another only peeking out over the horizon. Flowers groggily opened up their coronas and moths danced above the surface of the water. As they crossed the bridge, the murmur of the water grew into a pleasant hum.

Something glinted in the corner of his eye, and instinctively Dornuk turned to check on it. By the gate in the far distance, sunlight was reflecting off the heavily ornamented horns of a Wizard—Ascendant, judging by her height, clad in wormsilk and siver chains and a number of other utterly useless decorations that shimmered and tinkled. She was very diligently licking a column.

“Why,” he wondered aloud, rather than asking anyone in particular.

Mandy followed his gaze.

“Ooooh, it’s Shi Ur’lok! I heard about her from Guardians, she’s apparently the best criminal investigator out of like, all the broods. Did you know she solved that murder of Crota’s emissaries to the Black Terrace, back in the day? A Thrall was behind it. Anyway, don’t mind her. She’s just like that.”

“You heard about her from Guardians,” Dornuk clarified.

“Yeah, she’s just like that.”

“What is she doing…?”

“Investigating, I guess?” Mandy shook off her shell. “Dunno, her methods work, so why would we question them.”

They lingered for a few moments, watching one of the gardeners walk up to the Wizard and start berating her, only to get bashed over the head with a thick piece of magnifying glass in an osmium frame. A Thrall standing nearby jumped up to her as if on cue and passed her a tall, lidded cup, which she took a long swing out of.

Dornuk decided to leave Shi Ur’lok to her devices and continued on his way.

The Eastern Sepulchre was tucked away behind a row of buildings, facing the waterside. It looked innocuous: a low arcade arching around a grassy courtyard and a doorway behind it. An inactive portal gate stood in some distance, several witches shuffling around in preparation for a ritual.

“I… think it’s here?” Dornuk peeked around a column into the hallway, which extended into a narrow stairwell overgrown with flowers and lit by pale crystals. A gentle murmur of water could be heard from inside.

“It looks quite tomb-ish,” Mandy agreed. “I guess it doesn’t hurt to check.”

Dornuk was about to say it could hurt if what they ended up trespassing into  turned out to be some Wizard coven’s secret meeting, but the thought gave him pause. He’d often find he needed to constantly remind himself this wasn’t the Hellmouth. Of course it’s not like the Light alone would stop any Wizard from ripping him apart with bare claws for disturbing their ritual site, but here there were more rules that kept the mayhem in check and prevented the needless waste of workforce to internal skirmishes. The philosophers liked to wax poetic about all life having value under the Sky, but if anything, Dornuk rather considered it pure efficiency on Immaru’s part. Every life had value to the Brood’s operations, when there were always not enough hands and brains to fight and plan and carry out construction work. Without the need for worm-sustenance, killing one another was pretty much against the best interest of everyone involved.

And so Dornuk decided to be brave, and stepped beyond the doorway.

As they moved further inside, the hum of the water grew louder. At the bottom of the stairs there was a small drop into what looked like a part of a tunnel flooded to ankle-height, closed off by embrasures on each side and made into a narrow passageway. An even narrower stairwell branched out of it, winding several times and leading further and further down.

“Eugh, does anyone ever clean up around here?” Mandy said with distaste, regarding the cobweb-strewn corners and barnacles clinging to the walls. “Doesn’t look like it’s been visited often.”

“It’s a resting place,” Dornuk remarked.

“You know, I didn’t even consider the Hive had graves, before.” She tilted her shell. “I mean, before the Light.”

“That depends on the brood. In the Hellmouth, the oldest members of Crota’s court would be buried in tombs. No idea how it was with the King’s brood, but I know for a fact Xivu Arath’s is very against it.”

“Interesting… Savathun’s Hive must have buried at least some of their dead too, right? This place looks super old.”

“Maybe?” Dornuk shrugged. “They say dead Lightbearers are being laid to rest here now.”

“Oh yeah, Ka-Ašane—my Chosen, I mean—she was buried in a similar one, in the northern gardens.” 

They made it to a bigger corridor, finally wide enough for more than one person to squeeze through. There also they first encountered another living soul, an Acolyte with faded Silent Brood markings carrying a precariously tall pile of stone tablets. It obscured most of their vision, causing them to very nearly run head first into Dornuk.

“Watch out!” they called as he jumped aside at the last moment. Mandy hissed.

“You watch out! Goodness, Thrall have more spatial awareness than this.”

Dornuk just shook his head.

The hallway led to an antechamber of sorts, where a Wizard and a few Acolytes swarmed around the small space, chattering and grunting and scribbling on tablets. The Wizard took one look at Dornuk’s weapon crate and silently pointed at the large door on the far wall, left ajar just enough for a courier Thrall to slip through. Dornuk pushed it further apart with his shoulder.

Here the atmosphere was anything but gravely solemn. The room was bustling, the hubbub and chitchat of Thrall and Acolytes running around between tombs echoing oddly under the low-hanging ceiling. Most of them wore ritualist trainee markings, but Dornuk couldn’t tell which coven they belonged to. He stood in the doorway for a while, looking around confusedly, until he noticed the head of a large Knight rising out of a gathering of Thrall in the back corner. The position of authority their priestly markings gave away attracted Dornuk to them like a waypoint.

He proceeded to squeeze towards them through the crowd of attendants. The Knight did not notice him, focused on a freshly open tomb they were leaning over, but one of the Thrall did, and tugged at their arm to attract their attention. It was only when the Knight raised their head that Dornuk realised whom he was facing.

“…Your Excellency,” he managed.

Bar-Zel, Tutelary of Graves and chief philosopher of the court, glanced at him from under his painted crest. He was easily three times Dornuk’s size, towering over him even while kneeling. His eyes burned with a pale, calm fire, and the white markings of a charon smeared over his chitin emphasised its weathered edges and time-marred cracks. There was an air of authority about him, undoubtedly, but Dornuk found he didn’t feel particularly… threatened by him. It was a new realisation.

“Um. I was sent with the firearms Grand Inquisitor Ir-Aya wanted to have delivered here,” he said.

Bar-Zel nodded.

“Good, good. Put them down over here, will you. They shall come in handy.” His eyes fell on Mandy transmatting the remaining crates, and he tilted his huge head. “Are you here for your Lightbearer too, little one?”

“Oh! Oh.” She made a strange noise. “No. I’m… We’re travelling together.”

“Very well.” He leaned back over the open tomb. Dornuk chanced a glance over the rim, and when the Knight didn’t seem to mind it, he came up closer.

Inside was an ancient-looking corpse of a Wizard, its skin desiccated and crumbling in the spaces between the cracked chitin. With arms crossed over the chest and face staring up at the ceiling with empty eyeholes, it looked nothing like all other corpses Dornuk had seen. It seemed posed. No one died lying flat and calm like that, strung up straight like a statue.

“We open the tombs of those Ghosts have shown interest in,” Bar-Zel explained. “This one was the Queen’s coven-sister, lost in the war with the Harmony. She impaled herself on the Gift Mast to discover its properties.”

Only now did Dornuk notice a small, shell-less Ghost peeking out from behind the Knight’s huge shoulder, their core green and flickering like an eye. Mandy saw it too and clicked her own shell in greeting.

“Come on, don’t be scared.” Bar-Zel gently goaded the Ghost out from its hiding place. It seemed even tinier when he held it in his hand, a delicate and precious thing.

“What if she’s not the one?” it asked quietly, its frantic eye fixing on Mandy. “…What if she is the one?”

Dornuk hadn’t spent too much time around Ghosts, but he learned to interpret some of their expressions. From the way Mandy’s shell was pulled close against her and the flames in her core churned, he could tell she was lost for words. She hovered silently for a moment, optic dimmed, and then said softly, “Just try.”

The shell-less Ghost gingerly lifted itself from Bar-Zel’s palm and moved to hover over the open tomb. It stared down at the corpse for a moment, gathered itself, and pulsed with Light.

The flare was so bright Dornuk had to squint. He had seen Lightbearers be resurrected on the battlefield, their Ghosts like dancing stars putting them together from a crumpled heap one second into a pillar of blazing fury in the next; it was majestic, each time, beautiful and absolutely terrifying. But this awakening was slow and careful. He watched as tendrils of Light snuck up the corpse, filling the cracks in the chitin and knitting patches of dried skin together; as flesh grew over the skeletal fingers and the sunken chest rose up with the first shuddering breath.

The Wizard’s eyes blazed with a blue flame and she sat bolt upright, startled. Dornuk instinctively took a step back. The Ghost was instantly in her field of vision, murmuring calming words, and its core lit up to pulse with a warm and gentle light.

Mandy hovered in a fixed spot, perfectly still, even her optic unmoving. Dornuk looked at her, then at the newly risen Lightbearer, then back at her, and moved to stand beside her. Only then did she twitch, and blinked.

They watched the Wizard carefully crawl out of the tomb while the Ghost kept talking to her in a calm, soft voice. Bar-Zel took a Shredder from one of the crates they’d brought and handed it to her, quickly explaining what it was and how to use it. Dornuk lingered for a few moments more, but none of them paid him any mind, so he eventually choose to quietly slip away.

Mandy did not speak for almost the whole way back, only perking up when they’d nearly reached the barracks. The fire in her core churned and swirled in complex patterns, and though Dornuk tried not to stare, whenever he did steal a glance he found her gazing unseeingly into the distance.

Later, after the last of the suns had dipped below the bogs on the horizon, they sat together in one of the storage rooms in the upper galleries, its narrow embrasure a nice vantage point overlooking the northern harbour. Dornuk sat with his back to the opposite wall, watching Mandy twirl and click her shell as she talked.

“I’m not sure we even have gender? I mean, I just started calling myself she because it felt the most right, but I’ve known other Ghosts who’d refer to themselves in all sorts of ways, so I guess there is some variance there. Or maybe just fancy?” Her shell made a full 360 turn counter-clockwise. “How do the Hive know which morph to choose? Is it like, coded inside you somewhere?”

“Morph is not gender,” Dornuk said.

“Oh? But only Wizards can lay spawn, right?”

“Yeah, and?”

“Dunno, that’s a bit how it works with Humans.”

He frowned, “They choose their gender?”

“No, but they’re dimorphic, and their form often corresponds with their gender. Though not always.”

“Ah, okay. No, for us morph isn’t connected to gender at all.”

“Most Humans think all Wizards are female and all Knights are male.” Mandy shook off her shell. “Or almost all of them, I guess. They’re aware of Xivu Arath and Nokris and a few others.”

“That is so bizarre.”

“But there are more female Wizards and male Knights, aren’t there?”

“I guess?” He stretched his legs out to keep them from going numb, then bent his knees and pulled them to his chest. “But I don’t know why. I want to be a Wizard, anyway. I don’t like melee fighting too much.”

“You choose your names too, right?”

“Yes, at our second Morphing. When we become Acolytes. Some just keep their brood name, but if they happened to have really stupid spawn-siblings who’d named them something like Big Tooth-Gap, they’d rather pick a new one.”

“Oh, that’s a little how it is with Ghosts,” Mandy’s shell clicked again. “Most of us already have a name before we find our Risen. Some keep it, but the majority choose to get a new name given to them by their Lightbearer. And trust me, some Ghosts have such stupid nicknames they gladly exchange them for whatever their Risen calls them.”

“Was Mandy your first name?”

“No, Ka-Ašane gave it to me.”

Dornuk tilted his head curiously. “It doesn’t really sound Hive.”

“She named me Man’dukkar, actually. But it was so long that other Ghosts started calling me Mandy, and it stuck.”

“Man’dukkar,” he repeated. “I like it. It’s easier on the mouth. Should I call you that?”

Mandy looked sideways, her flaps drooping a little. There was a second of hesitated silence.

“…No,” she said quietly. “It was… something only she did.”

“Oh. That’s fine.”

“I miss her,” she added after a beat, even quieter.

For a moment Dornuk watched her stare out through the embrasure, a small dot against the patch of darkening sky.

“I had a sister,” he said.

She slowly turned to him.

“Her name was Mis’rith. She was my only spawn-sibling who survived into Acolytehood.” He looked away, but in the corner of his leftmost eye could see her float down from the window towards him. “I left the Hellmouth after she was killed.”

“I’m sorry,” Mandy whispered.

He shrugged.

“Aiat. I will remember her.”

She was now level with him, floating at an arm’s reach and staring at him with that soulfire-green eye.

“How can the Hive say that?” she asked, a bitter note in her tone. “It’s not okay that she died. It’s not right that Ka-Ašane… It shouldn’t have happened. It’s not right.”

Dornuk pondered this for a moment.

“It’s not right,” he repeated thoughtfully. “But I don’t exactly know why. I need to think about it.”

Mandy floated up to him and curled up in the crook of his neck. Together they sat and watched the falling dusk.

[uneven scratches on a dried clay tablet]

PLD 013

AIAT. The Deep teaches all that has happened is right because it must have happened, because it happened. But this would then mean that the Day of Lumination was right, because it happened, and so that the Sky was proven true and the Deep is mistaken. And so its teachings are wrong.

CALAINT. A hypothesis Herroth, Long Scream presented on the Forum Luminatum. The reverse of what must have happened has happened, and thus the world is fundamentally wrong. We should have died on Fundament, because it didn’t happen. Mis’rith’s death was wrong. The Day of Lumination was wrong, too.

CAIATL. Not everything that has happened must have happened. The Denialist Position. Assumes that will is of lesser power than physics. Ascendancy proves it wrong. Day of Lumination has proven it right?

TYPE: INTERCEPTED GHOST FEED — PRIVATE LOG
PARTIES: One [1] Ghost-type, designate Quasit
ASSOCIATIONS: Altar of Reflection; Antum; Dur-Enilu; Ee-lee [Ghost]; Guardians;  Hiak’ar, Hive; Hive [Lucent Brood]; Immaru [AKA First Ghost Immaru]; Mars; Mor’ak; Three-oh-Three [Ghost]
//TEXT DECRYPTED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS//

[PLD013|08:22]
PRIVATE MEMO

• parcel from Hiak’ar
• corpses come at 10:00 and 22:00
• send lenses to the Apothecary
• weapons transport to Mars – arrange with Ee-lee
• Mor’ak’s cloak in laundry

[PLD013|10:19]
MESSAGE FROM: G#IMM / PRIVATE
> get ur ass to work and do something with the ammo shortage in quadrant 3. also if scorn disrupt the supply lines AGAIN im sticking a wraiths torch into your fucking eye

[PLD013|13:58]
MESSAGE FROM: G#THR / WIDEBAND
> Enemy presence detected in quadrants 2, 7, 9; Guardian-type. Altar defences compromised. Caution advised.

[PLD013|15:02]
MESSAGE FROM: LB#MOR / PRIVATE
> Enilu comes over for dinner.

[PLD013|15:07]
PRIVATE MEMO
Shopping list:

• mothfood
• prawns
• fishmeal
• jerky
• mollusk shells
• oil
• candles

[PLD013|17:20]
REMINDER: <dinner with Dur-Enilu> IN 40 MINUTES

[PLD013|20:00]
REMINDER: <reply to immaru> IN 99999 DAYS

[PLD014|00:16]
PRIVATE MEMO
Tomorrow:

• larva feed for Antum
• off-world op resources distribution – at 11:00
• send someone to the batch house
• guards request for the harvest

Quote of the day: “In Dark hearts, your Light is a righteous poison.”