Archive of Our Own ^beta

Caiatl's broad shoulders trembled as she slowly released the breath she'd been holding. 

The Endless Night was just barely lifted. Watching the footage of the sheer carnage that had been wrought upon the streets of the Last City had been at once exhilarating and terribly stressful. Watching the Guardians move and fight quickly to defend the City, elegant and brutal all the same, was a wondrous thing to see, but in turn the sight of the Vex marching in waves of unfeeling wrath had made her trepidatious. What if they turned their cold, calculated gaze onto her forces, too? What if the Vex marched against them and did the same to what was left of her Cabal? The Guardians were a force of terrible strength– of paracausal might– but the carnage wrought upon the City was devastating regardless. 

Empress Caiatl’s gilded tusks swung as she shook her head at the footage of all the dead lining the streets. The chair creaked beneath her weight as she shifted and leant back, another sigh hissing through her gritted teeth. She let the video continue as she pulled her datapad over and scrolled through report after report. The small factions in the City had been obliterated or had abandoned ship; there were many dead; the Eliksni had fought alongside some Guardians; all sorts of civil drama and unrest that really would have been avoided if Zavala and Ikora had taken the proper approach and squashed the dissenting voices before they had a chance to cause the rot that left the internal civil structure weak and poisoned. Had she been in charge, she suspected this may not have happened. Even now, some voices on her War Council called for her to strike, to disregard the Rite, to raze the City and take mastery of Humanity while they were weak and reeling. 

Caiatl considered the missive she'd be sending to the Guardian leaders tomorrow, and for a moment wondered if she should once again extend the invitation to operate underneath her as Valusi. Even beyond her input, even if they had let the rot fester, had there been a Cabal presence in the City surely not quite so many innocents would have died. She thought a moment more and dismissed the idea; they'd won the right of autonomy though the Rite, had allowed her fleet to remain, and the wound was still extraordinarily fresh. Caiatl knew that if, say, one of the minor Imperial worlds had invited them to become their underlings right after the fall of Torobatl, she would have gored them with her tusks before they’d finished the proclamation.

No, no. The diplomatic, empathetic approach was called for here. Give them space, but offer the hand should they want to take it. She scribbled down her first draft of the missive, expressing deepest sorrow at the news and an offering to extend a hand to aid in rebuilding or supplies should they need them. Of course she knew they would likely refuse, and that her counsel would adjust this draft many times over, but the core message was written. 

She was no stranger to the deaths of innocents but to witness it never made it easier. The images lingered in her mind even as she wrote, as she scribbled out lines and rewrote them to sound less eager. They were allies of course, but not yet friends. Some of her turns of phrase were clearly being softened by her heart outweighing her head. Her aides would proofread it of course, but to show this emotional weakness in writing even to her aides could foster seeds of doubt among her own.

She must get her mind off this whole affair. Think of something other than the City and this missive. 

The chair creaked again as she stood and walked slowly to her wide viewport that looked over Nessus, the vast gentle curve of the green-red planet glowing brightly as the planet hung jewellike in the deep black abyss of space. Her shiftgown flowed around her as she moved as though the weave was lighter than air, the featherweight fabric draped loosely on her figure as if it had hardly been sewn together at all. The fabric felt fine and cool against her roughened thick skin as she walked, shimmering in light blues with threads of gold struck through reflecting the low light of her chambers. She stopped just short of the glass, her tusks gently brushing against the multi-inch thick glass as she drew in breath after breath. 

Caiatl clasped her hands behind her in the small of her back as she gazed out, past Nessus and into the deep black evernight speckled with glittering distant stars. All her familiar constellations, the heavens she was born under, were backwards and mixed up from this point of view. The same stars she'd lived under for all of her years were strangers to her in this formation. Her chest heaved and she loosed another sigh. Her heart ached for Torobatl and the Imperial worlds. She ached for those sweet fields of flowers and vast crop pastures, for the solid architecture with those tall columns and the gilded vistas telling stories, or depicting great warriors. Even as she knew she had moved on, still her heart ached. Would her people be transient forever? Would they ever have a home again? Perhaps they could carve out a place on Nessus far from the Vex and build their own Last City. Would they be overrun in time, too? 

She shook her head gently. Fanciful thoughts about the future. Keep your skull rooted in the here and now. 

Her eyes narrowed as she stared past Nessus and into the darkness beyond.

What did her father see between those stars to make him so gluttonous and twisted? So uncaring towards his people? Had it truly just been a depressurisation accident that drove him further into his state or had he truly seen something out there, in that vast nothingness? 

She stared out into the darkness and saw nothing at all. 

... maybe she'd be better off thinking about the missive.

Her door slid open and Taurun entered, hands folded in front of her as she lightly stamped the floor before bowing. Caiatl could see her in the reflection of the viewport and noted the formality.

“I’ve made progress on the missive we’ll be sending to the Vanguard,” Caiatl spoke and Taraun nodded slightly, “I’ll need you to take a look before it goes before the council.”
 
“Of course,” her counsellor bowed again and followed Caiatl’s gesture to the desk. Taurun took the papyrus in her hands and read over the words. Caiatl knew that the numerous scribbles, the strikethroughs, the empathy of her script– it would not be missed. Taurun missed nothing. The Empress refocused her gaze to look out over Nessus once more as Taurun read, knowing very well that her counsel could read much quicker than this. She was being quiet, undoubtedly re-reading the passage and thinking.

“Empress,” Taurun began, her approach ever careful and cautious, “your empathy is admirable. Ca’aurg will protest at the offer of aid. He will likely say we have little enough as it is.” A pause. Caiatl gazed at Taurun’s reflection before her counselor met her eyes through it. She carefully continued, “and others on the council may agree.”

“Do you agree?” Caiatl murmured, and Taurun shifted on her feet as another pause dragged on.

“It may be worth taking a more considered approach.”

“I make the offer under the assumption that their pride will get in their way of acceptance. We are similar after all,” Caiatl sniffed as she raised her broad, callused hand to idly fiddle with a tusk ring, “we would not accept an offer from them. They’ll acknowledge the offer as a formality.”

“And if they do accept?” Taurun’s questions were always layered with several other questions, all wearing the same disguise. It was Caiatl’s turn to consider her words, wary of the hidden thoughts that Taurun held from her.

“Then we send what we can spare.”

“Yes, my Empress.” Again Taurun was quiet. There were unasked questions, unsaid opinions, floating in the air between them. Caiatl flicked the ring before she sighed deeply and finally turned to face her counselor who stood up a little straighter. Ever observant, Taurun tilted her head so slightly it was barely perceptible, looking to the Imperatrix expectantly.

“They crumble from within.” Caiatl began, weary and strained. “There is poison. They have splintered as a result of that poison and those fractures weaken them.” Caiatl gestured at the silenced video feed of cleanup efforts in the City. The Empress’ voice turned soft, almost a private thought that escaped before she could halter it. “Watching the footage, reading the reports… I couldn’t help but be reminded of Umun.”

At the utterance of the name, the air seemed to go a little colder. Taurun was silent. When her counselor made no move to speak, Caiatl continued the thought.

“Savathun already lurks. Xivu Arath cannot be far behind.”

Taurun’s gaze fell to the ground, and after a short time Caiatl once more turned her back to stare out into the nothing of space. Taurun’s reflection grew in size as she approached, eventually coming to a stop next to her. Caiatl folded her arms across her chest, the silky shiftgown bunching a little around her shoulders, the blue reflecting in the glass almost like an aurora over Nessus. For some time, the only person who had seen her so bare was Taurun, but still she felt far too exposed. Vulnerable.

She looked at the scattering of diamonds in the void, at their unfamiliar arrangement. She recognised a few familiar constellations, reversed and warped by the distance from Torobatl where they had been charted. Caiatl knew she would never again see them the way they had been taught to her, and that the whelps of the new generation would never know them.

In the footage of the streets of the City and in the reports she read, Caiatl saw the shadow of Umun’arath, of Torobatl, and of painfully familiar poison.

She felt like a whelp again as she idly wished the stars were in their correct order; alas, Umun’arath. Xivu Arath.

She wished it had never happened.