#court of savathûn

[telestoapologist]

DESTINY 2 AS TUMBLR TEXT POSTS 💠💬✨

(19/?)

[sun-singer]

Inktober day 20: lake, featuring the Harmony and the gift mast

“Xivu Arath kills the wishful bishops, and Savathûn achieves some secret purpose, and Oryx’s Court tears down the Gift Mast. The Harmony people wail in terror, and they throw themselves into the silver lakes of Ana-Harmony to drown.”

[savyir-genesizz-the-wizard]

All Cogito-4 fics chronologically

Will be updated. If a fic isn't here it means that it's not canon anymore sorry

Pre-D1

Destiny 1 Report from the bottom of the canyon [X] Report from secret Operation Powerplant [X] Report from the Last City [X]

Destiny 2 Report from the crashed ship [X] 9 sayings of the Nessus scouts in A5341 sector [X]

Post Beyond Light Report from an unimportant rock [X] Report from a rock marked with yellow paint [X] And I killed Cayde-6 (old but still somewhat canon) [X] Lost and found [X]

Post Final Shape A house and a clothing line [X] Fragmented, Vex [X] Together (Wawrzyn's report) [X] Rebirth (Report from Savathûn's Court) [X] Ensnare (Of course I did) [X] Divine [X] Fireteam Colide plays a board game [X]

Full timeline, abriged:

BrayTech scientist (chemist)

pirate on an Eliksnii pirate ship after 4th reset

Killed while defending the crew from a ambush

Risen during the Great Hunt (1st of July)

Student of a Warlock named Štefan Ryba

Leaves the City for missions after the Battle of The Burning Lake (after Ryba goes missing)

Takes part in The Great Disaster (he's greatly affected by it (terribly scared of Hive) but doesn't let anyone know)

Doesn't oppose Osiris but doesn't align himself with the Cultists

Leaves the City more often after Osiris'es exhile (to avoid the tensions between fractions)

Takes part in The Battle of the Twilight Gap (as defending the ammunition suply chain)

Works on planets and other objects distant from Earth as a reasercher (notably the Asteroid Belt)

Recieves a vision from Traveler and finds his mentor's light artifacts

When the Red War starts he returns to Earth but doesn't take part in the final battle (stays at the Farm)

Confronts rumors of his mentor being Taken but doesn't find them in the Ascendand Realm nor the Reef

Investigates Nessus and the Vex for the first time

Fights on the Leviathan

Establishes a permament camp on Nessus

Confronts the nightmare of his mentor

Assigned Warlock Vanguard Deputy by Ikora Rey

Gets involved with Misraaks'es Splicers (works with them during and after SotSplicer)

Investigates alternative timelines and learns how to manipulate Vex structures

Leaves Nessus after the Echoes Incident

[thefirstknife]

When Eris Morn banished Xivu Arath from the Black Terrace, her throne world, I immediately started to wonder if such a thing was mentioned before.

This whole season was sublime with the amount of care and references to past Hive and Eris lore—heck, Imbaru was finally mentioned again in game by name!

So when the banishment happened, I thought this was completely new thing, but reading back on the lore I was amazed to find out it wasn't!

This happened before to Oryx. In the fourth Book of Sorrow it mentions how Savathûn and Xivu Arath conspired together to lock Oryx out of his throne-world, forcing him to cut his way back in and claim it.

"I think that Savathûn and Xivu Arath are trying to steal the tablets from me. They must have cut off my tribute while I was away communing with the Deep." -XXXIV: More beautiful to know

"We have marooned Oryx within the Deep." "Savathûn and I conspired to strand Oryx on his expedition." -XXXV: This Love Is War

"I fought my traitor siblings and I fought the swarming corpse of Akka and I cut my way back into my own court, the High War, which had been usurped." -XXXVI: Eater of Hope

I was so giddy when I read this, and so I thought you and your audience would like it too :)

YES!

This season was honestly a love letter to the Books of Sorrow. There were so many throwbacks, little details and mentions of stuff from there, it felt like a really nice way to bring this, ngl, fundamental text of Destiny into the game proper. Like, this text was never in the game and this was such a cool way to bring some of that content into voice lines that you can hear and interact with.

Hearing Xivu talking about the conquests from the Books of Sorrow was such a treat. It's one thing to read it and I absolutely adore that this was a written text because it added something special to it in written format, but it's another thing and more, new context to hear it being narrated in voice lines.

Super cool detail with the throne world as well. Eris knows the text well and she was so sneaky about her plan, outsmarting everyone involved. Absolutely incredible solution, one I'm genuinely glad was not telegraphed otherwise because it worked so well as a surprise.

[flowers-of-io]

I know it's partially the case of being able to project whatever you like onto a shadow until you cast light onto it and see what it actually is, but gosh when Savathûn’s primary communication with us were things like Truth to Power or "I have seen your grave", that was like. SO much cooler. Please Sav I want to be threatened by you again. I want you to tell me you can rend me asunder. I want to feel like you can legitimately crush me like a bug with a thought because you're the kinda girl who pervades the collective subconscious and holds court on a black hole's event horizon. Yes yes I know it's a Shooting Game where the final plot device is always a gun, but I can dream, Harold.

[xivu-arath]

⭐ ?

I went with a conversation yet unfinished!

an unofficial pattern that amuses me is that all my lavinia fics start with her complaining about the setting. nailing this starting scene (following toland, ascendant mud) was what made me realize it

there's a lot of wording I'm proud of in this one, but I quite like the description of sav's court from afar, and the "fountain left unfilled" considering what happens in the twq campaign...

of course I wrote this with both "a taste of salt" and the dust lorebook in mind, so there's a lot of offhand references and things I wanted to touch on in some way. it's important that in the simulation, savathûn always gave lavinia a familiar (and impossible) tea, while the tea she makes in this fic is wholly new and has possibly never been tasted before by anyone... (and the tea and bone teacup in turn remind me, at least, of truth to power and dul incaru pouring poison...)

I do wish I'd managed to find space for immaru but there was no coherent way to get him in and finish the fic close to time! it was also at max blustering small orb capacity already, I feel

[crow-posting]

Things I Think About:

Awoken Edition

Do Reefborn Awoken still bio-engineer their children? I think I read somewhere that natural births superseded bioengineered ones by the time The Guardian visits the Reef, but I can't find the grimoire/lorebook for that. It'd be an interesting point of tension between Reefborn and Earthborn (especially for those trying to date!) - while the former would see it as a way of survival, the latter might see it as a form of eugenics/population control.

How do Reefborn Awoken treat their AI? It is said that Reef Frames are merely "computers with robotic appendages"; do they view their AI with similar indifference? How would they approach Failsafe? How do they feel about the humanization of Last City Frames, or even pre-Golden Age robots like Curiosity? If Medusa is real, and not just a construct of Savathûn, how would they react if she revealed herself?

Throughout Season of the Seraph, Mara called Rasputin an "it" and said the Awoken "has long been wary of such a power in the system." She claimed Ana shaped Rasputin into something better, but did she actually see him as "more than a weapon" in the end?

Are Reefborn Awoken still prejudiced against Earthborn and Risen Awoken after the events of Forsaken? They aren't openly hostile, but many still seem to believe that Earthborn and Risen are severed from their people/purpose. How do they treat Distributary-born Earthborn vs. second- or third-gen Earthborn? How do they treat humans with Awoken ancestry? Is "cousin" a formal greeting or a friendly one? Do Earthborn call Reefborn "cousin" as well?

. . .

Edit: adding additional lore entries / flavor text about Earthborn and Reefborn interactions! Thank you @chrimsone for reminding me of some of these! ("Queenslaw"; "Of Earth and the Reef"; "Tigerspite"; "III: Just A Kindness"; "Spirit of Alliance")

. . .

How many of the original Awoken (891 crew or 40,000 passengers) are left? What roles do they serve? Does the Vanguard keep track of the ones who came to Earth? Did the ones in the Reef become part of Mara's court, so she could keep them close?

Do humans with Awoken ancestry have access to Awoken magic? Can Awoken Warlocks learn to dream-walk like Techeuns do? Can Risen Awoken hear Mara telepathically if they choose to open their minds to her? Does Mara have the same effect on Risen and/or later-generation Earthborn as she does on Reefborn? For those who are fully Awoken, do the abilities they pass on get weaker or stronger (or stay consistent) with each generation?

How diverse is Reefborn culture? How much influence does Mara have over it? Aside from local dialects, which developed before the Awoken settled in the Reef, most aspects of Reefborn culture were created to keep them united under Mara's rule. Does Mara have a "soft" influence like British royalty, or does she actively set standards for what is acceptable/frowned upon/taboo? (If she does set cultural standards, I imagine they're presented like the Capybara Corner, where certain behaviors are encouraged* from a young age.)

*Encouraged or idealized? Who's to say. :)

The tragic encounters with Aphelion. The effect of asphodelia flowers on Awoken. The uses for and significance of amethyst. The fact that a lot of things that affect Awoken start with "a."

The parallels between Archiloquy and Nitrogen. The parallels between Savathûn and Mara. Mara's obsession with secrets and how she views "secrets" differently than "lies," even though a lot of her "secrets" can be considered half-truths and lying by omission. The idea that secrets - not truth - keep people safe.

OC-Specific Thoughts #1

Due to paracausal interference during his first resurrection, my Warlock retained his original memories. Would Reefborn Awoken see him as the person he was, or the person he is now?

Mara sees Crow as Uldren, even though she didn't see Savin as Chao Mu or Orin as Nasan Ar. If Reefborn Awoken now believe that Risen can "revert" to their old selves by regaining their memories (actual memories, not "second-hand" accounts like Shinobu's journal), how do they explain other differences - new personalities, the Light's alteration of DNA, etc? Would this change in outlook also change whether they respect a Risen's current identity/personhood?

OC-Specific Thoughts #2

How do Reefborn Awoken treat The Guardian? In the current story, Mara has forgiven The Guardian enough to share her power with them, and even encourages them during their battles against the Shadow Legion. She also seems to blame Savathûn for Uldren's death, though she still views Petra and The Guardian as his "executioners."

However, while Reefborn are more monolithic than Earthborn and baseline humans, they aren't a hive mind and not everyone agrees with Mara's decisions. People like Jolyon probably hold a grudge against The Guardian regardless of Mara's actions or official decrees. Would they act on that grudge? Would they make it known through disapproving expressions and terse tones? Or would they hide it as best they could, whispering just out of earshot and only glaring once The Guardian had passed?

If The Guardian (like my Hunter) has a history of not getting along with Mara, would it make the Reefborn's disapproval more obvious, or would they continue to act in ways that Mara would deem acceptable? Would it affect the way they treat people close to The Guardian, friendly towards The Guardian (Petra, Shuro Chi, etc.) or even Guardians in general? Would it change if The Guardian had helped them personally?

And would Jolyon ever reconnect with Crow, considering how close Crow and The Guardian have become?

[sightsofdestiny]

Athenaeum, Court of Savathûn

[thefangirlthatwaited]

Encounter (Chapter 142) - A Destiny 2 Story

Crow x Guardian

We landed in the Throne World less than an hour after Eris ordered us to mobilize, and right away, I could sense something was wrong. There was powerful Hive magic at play. I lifted my hand, and bits of soulfire swam around my fingers. 

“Ruby?” Shadow asked, eyes glued to my hand.

“This isn’t Savathûn’s or Eris’s magic,” I explained.

“That would mean...” Raven faltered.

“Do you hear it? The thrumming of her battlesong. Xivu Arath’s brood has come.” Eris explained as the doors to the Spire opened.

“WE WILL MAKE OF MY SISTERS COURT A BATTLEFIELD.” Xivu Arath yelled as she summoned her army to attack, and I barely made it to cover it as shots flew inches from my face.

“Fuck,” I hissed, trying to keep my composure. I should have expected Xivu Arath to fight back, but I didn’t expect retaliation this soon.

“What’s the plan, oh fearless leader?” Artemis teased.

I peeked from our pillar and saw a big ass Knight. “That’s our target. I can sense the Hive magic coming from it. We kill that, and we have our way forward.” I turned to my team and came up with a plan on the fly. “There are five of us, so let’s divide and conquer. West and Raven, I want you two to work on the outer ring. Keep the snipers and as much as the reinforcements from the rest of us. Artemis, Shadow and I will work on the Knight and its front line. Got it?” The team nodded. “Good. Let’s show Xivu Arath what the Light can do.”

We split into our teams and got to work. Xivu Arath was the God of War, and her army proved it. They fought harder than any Hive we’ve come across in a while. But as the saying went, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” It was exactly what was happening here. With one final shot of my Taipan, the Knight fell, and our way forward opened.

“You hear that? … She’s in our heads,” Immaru warned as if we hadn’t heard Hivu Arath before the fight.

Ikora scoffed. “I hear it.”

We continued to ascend the Spire as Hivu Arath screamed at us.

“THE HELIUM DRINKS. THE AMMONITES. WE SOUNDED THEIR END WITH OUR BLADES. THE ECUMENE. THE HARMONY. THEY WAILED IN TERROR AS WE SANG THEIR EXTINCTION. HUMANITY HAS JOINED THE CHORUS OF OUR WAR ETERNAL.”

“What is she doing?” Ikora asked.

Xivu Arath issues her challenge.” Eris replied.

“You’ve really done it now. You need to chase Xivu’s goons out of here before they take over.” Immaru explained.

“Can we stop the bickering and focus on the issue at hand? Are there more of Hivu Arath’s minions?” I hissed.

“Ruby, press on!” Eris replied, causing my anger to boil.

“Ruby, don’t,” Stell warned.

“I know.” 

Full chapter on Ao3

[okome-sasanishiki]

失われたセクター Lost Sector

🟥カバル Cabal

🟦フォールン Fallen

🟧ハイヴ Hive

🟨スコーン Scorn

🟩ベックス Vex

🟪宿られ Taken

ネオムナ Neomuna

🟥水耕デルタ Hydroponics Delta

🟥黄金の令状 Gilded Precept

🟩スリラドローム Thrilladrome

エウロパ Europa

🟩パーディクト Perdition

🟦封印されたボイド Concealed Void

🟩塹壕E15 Bunker E15

月 Moon

🟦K1ロジスティクス K1 Logistics

🟦K1クルー区画 K1 Crew Quarters

🟦K1コミュニオン K1 Communion

🟧K1リベーション K1 Revelation

夢見る都市 The Dreaming City

🟪星明りの間 Chamber of Starlight

🟨叶わぬ願いの入江 Bay of Drowned Wishes

🟪アフェリオンの休息 Aphelion's Rest

ネッスス Nessus

🟦亀裂 The Rift

🟦死肉の穴 The Carrion Pit

🟩太陽系儀 The Orrery

🟩古代人の理�� Ancient's Haunt

🟥合流点 The Conflux

サバスンの玉座の世界 Court of Savathûn

🟨抽出 Extraction

🟧埋葬所 Sepulcher

🟨変性 Metamorphosis

コスモドローム Cosmodrome

🟦エクソダス・ガーデン 2A Exodus Garden 2A

🟧ベレス・ラビリンス Veles Labyrinth

[ramshead-shackles]

Krardosc had not been alive very long. How long had it been? Ten court cycles? Twenty of the human years? She didn’t know. It didn’t really matter, not to Hive.

And definitely not to a Hive Lightbearer.

She had been very careful to keep her affliction hidden, to keep her little Light tucked carefully away from the view of her Brood, away from the prying grasp of the War God. She did not remember, but she was clever, and picked up on little fluctuations in voice and tone that would suggest she knew things, or that such information would be above her station.

She had written down the names of the most prominent members of her brood before she had died, perhaps as a way of honoring them? It didn’t matter, it worked now as a ledger of things to remember, things that would be detrimental to forget.

And yet, Krardosc still failed. She could not tithe, not with darkness, as she should. And she was found out; and she killed her brood mother, running for her and her Ghost’s life, into the wilderness. Alone, the two of them ran for a very long time.

It was the same Ghost that had condemned her to this fate that had offered her a name. “Krardosc” was a combination of Hive words, meaning “Warrior of Wits”, and even though it felt unfitting, she had politely accepted it. Yes, Krardosc. She could prove worthy of that.

Still, the newly named Krardosc didn’t have a name for her Ghost, and as the two wandered, they bonded. Slowly at first, with only the Ghost doing much of the talking. And then, one day, she was sleeping, and found the little Ghost resting against her chest, between her claws. And she had smiled, beneath the chitinous face. And had gently patted the shell of the Ghost, and uttered a name: Satu.

Satu and Krardosc traveled alone, for a long while, an acolyte and her Ghost. They kept out of sight, lonely, but having each others company to take the edge off. Finally, stumbling across the furtherest reaches of the planet called Earth, Krardosc found hope; and a home. A Knight, a Wizard, and two other Acolytes, each with their own Ghost, and secret Light. They had found each other, and had secreted themselves away into a den of bones and mud, and they welcomed the other Lightbearer, after she had proven herself against their Wizard.

And for once, she felt at peace. Yes, this is where she was meant to be. Each of them had come from a different brood, the Knight an old remnant of the Taken King’s children, the Wizard once a member of Savathûn’s court, tithing to the Witch Queen, and praising her Light, until he had received his own. The two others Acolytes were twins, and an odd pair. They did not talk very often, except to each other, and would not share what brood they had originated from. But they were fiercely loyal, and they taught Krardosc everything they knew; which was much.

She was home, and she made an effort to make it Satu’s home too. The little Ghost was timid, though he loved to talk and learn and listen, just as his Acolyte did.

And together, they were no longer alone, together they found family, and hope, and something deeper than even that.

Love.

[ghoustghoust]

okay but what if Mara is actually dead and the “Mara” we see in the Queen’s Court is actually Savathûn manipulating us?

[savyir-genesizz-the-wizard]

-15- Together

ACCESS: RESTRICTED DECRYPTION KEY: 98XTU88T41$WAW-990 REP #: VIP-BREACH AGENT(S): IKO-006

SUBJ: Agent Cogito-4 spotted in the Quagmire

We have intercepted a conversation on a closed channel frequency used by the "Fireteam Colide" within the Court of Savathûn between VIP#0311, known as titan Kobzar-13, a Vanguard Scout, and COG-411, Vanguard Reasercher and Deputy Warlock Vanguard Cogito-4. The conversation confirmed his current location and mentioned artifact's from the Sunken Piramid.

Adressing your concerns, #411's behaviour is not out of ordinary.

Communication has been transcribed below. Breaks are described in annotations.

COG: Listen, I'm never against a friendly mission or two together but I think that you are just using me to complete Savathûn's puzzles. KOB: Well, it's not like you're getting nothing out of it. COG: I'm not because I'm not going to use something made by a Queen of Lies. KOB: …Is that why you are levitating?

Note: Only background noises are heard for 402 following seconds.

COG: …I think that this will be it. KOB: What is this? COG: A black disc, roughly 20x20cm. Star-shaped hole in the center. KOB: I heard that some guardians use something like this for shooting practice. COG: No, no, these ones are different. It's like a gigantic columnal of a crinoid. This being in Rhulk's possesion would suggest that there must have been a civilization of these somewhere, likely inteligent. I saw some more artifacts depicting these creatures inside the vessel. KOB: …And? COG: What do you mean? It's a great discovery! KOB: But… if you found this in a piramid… they are dead. And so is the Witness so there is no point in learning from them or anything.

Note: Here the recording captures approximately 10 seconds of silence.

COG: Really? KOB: What? And before you say something about me not carrying about science- COG: Yeah, yeah, I know. KOB: You don't really care, do you? COG: I do. I care about the crinoids. And the others, too. Do you sometimes think they had friends? KOB: Likely.

Note: Here the recording captures approximately 4 seconds of silence.

COG: Sorry. KOB: It's ok. I get it, I think. …Why are you here anyway? Nessus didn't work out? COG: …What do you mean "didn't work out"? Half of the planet collapsed! I did half of the sampling collecting work and left before I got burned to death by radiola. KOB: What? COG: You didn't know that?! KOB: I was on Earth! Why wouldn't I be? Everyone in the City is talking about how bat demons are going to get us and that Targe is dead- COG: I'm afraid that you are not wrong. Then I won't be worrying you more. Just know that Nessus is out of the equation and I- well, I want to have something to do! Last time I got to exploring a piramid it got lost to the Darkness and when I came back it was gone!

Note: Here the recording captures two seconds of a long sigh from #411.

COG: And that thing that happened to Nessus. Let's just say that I lost a bunch of Vanguard equipment and I think that Ikora is trying to get me. Don't tell her where I am…

MESSAGE ENDS

[phthalology]

“Who taught you to be this way?” Nokris asked once, with both cruel sarcasm and innocent curiosity, and it stuck.

So Savathûn works this question, while imbaru ticks along and she prepares to wear a face that is not hers. She looks into the nooks and crannies of her throne world, and in that way in which one’s own mind can get in one’s way, she finds a squatter.

The Pyramid is a scuttled ship and a laboratory and a museum and the home of something big and terrible and yet surprisingly delicate.

Savathûn meets the Disciple for the first time in a long time.

She kicks him, her talons slapping his spine to swiftly deliver his face to the ground. This, Savathûn hopes and imagines, is embarrassing for him.

“Do you remember Taox?” She thunders, spreading her wings.

Rhulk waits a moment to answer. Probably composing a letter: Oh, my dear Witness, today I discovered irony …

He does not want to kill her. It is not time. They both know it.

“Who?”

They talk. Long enough for her to come to believe he truly does not know, or remember, or care. The traitor and the teacher had krill concerns, and the Disciple’s were cosmic. Taox truly operated on the scale of one krill court to another. Her decision to kill her wards — the children she had raised up into a harsh world, the children who escaped their first set of jaws — was deeply mortal.

Savathûn wonders whether she simply wants to believe this, then wonders why.

The Disciple scrabbles for the glaive Savathûn knocked across the shining floor and draws around himself a red, smoky curtain of spiraling, boring knives. Savathûn focuses on the alternate definition. Teleporting herself out of the Pyramid is easy; it’s in her throne world, after all, and the same thing that could kill her gives her power.

(That, too, she had learned in part from Taox … )

[flowers-of-io]

Read on Ao3

Maybe the blinding rage that had flooded her initially had been better, M’riax thought—because now that the mission was over and she was back in her tower staring at her empty bedroom, all the fire had fizzled out and what she was left with was only a dull, throbbing ache. It seemed to constrain her movements, pulling all her muscles taut until she could barely bend the joints and conspiring with gravity to press her down to the ground with an impossible weight. Part of it was exhaustion, most likely, but the heaviness in her head was anything but physical.

She collapsed into the hammock, trying to make sense of the maze of thoughts all shouting in her mind. She wasn't even surprised anymore; the initial shock had given way to a hollow feeling that was not quite fear and not quite sorrow, but the cotton-thick, choking sensation of it in her chest and throat was impossible to ignore.

Kor O’oyag had been lying to her.

The crew of toddlers she was working with had been lying to her as well, apparently.

Immaru… she wasn’t sure. Did he know? He’d steered her towards Noornoon, and Noornoon was now apparently working with Guardians—so maybe he was in fact the traitor Kor O’oyag had made him out to be? Was Immaru in on this, or had Noornoon fooled him as well?

But Savathûn had trusted him. That was the reason Immaru kept him around in the first place. Had he been a traitor, then, or an accomplice? Had Savathûn planned to eventually ally with Guardians?

That thought made her stomach sink.

She curled up in the hammock, bunching the fabric of her cloak up in her arms and hugging it. She’d been such a gullible idiot. Ur had been right; they’d grown in Savathûn’s throne world, right in the middle of a court turf war, and to expect anything less than a knife hiding under every pleasant façade was foolishness at best and a death sentence at worst. Whom else would she find turning against her? Shala? Nabenki? She hugged the cloak tighter, tears stinging in her eyes.

The hunger—she had no other name for it yet, she didn’t want to have a name for it, she didn’t want—flared up in her stomach like anger. She thought it would have been easier to be angry, but not like that—not in in a way that pulled her taut like a drawn bowstring, narrow-focused and alert and shivering with desire, not the cold frenzy of a clean kill and the pang of yearning she felt every time she killed a Guardian and a tiniest sliver of a thought crossed her mind that murdering their Ghost would finally put them in the ground for good. She was afraid now, claw clutching the material so hard they almost pierced it.

She didn’t need a name for it. She knew what it was.

She knew it had nothing to do with the Light.

She welded her eyes shut to keep the tears in. What would happen when Savathûn came back? Because she would know—there was no keeping this from her, she wouldn’t even need to lay eyes on M’riax, and then all of it would be over. The Queen had no love for the Darkness. She had sacrificed everything in order to escape its clutches.

And now M’riax wielded it.

Now she did start crying, her shaking sobs stirring the hammock into a gentle sway. Ei-Hamal made a small noise of concern and landed on her shoulder, her scan beam inspecting the Lightbearer warily—but there was nothing wrong with her, not in that way, and so she only nuzzled against M’riax’s chitin. She had never been skilled with words of comfort, but she would never leave her in such a state.

M’riax sniffed loudly and shifted the bunched-up cloak in her arms, and it was then that she felt the warmth.

Blindly she rummaged her hand in the folds of the material, and her fingers found something small and round and not quite substantial, radiating gentle heat. Her Mote of Light. She fished it out and cupped in her hands, a tiny bright thing like a miniature star humming a melody that resonated with the spar of Arc within her harmoniously.

The hunger simmered down when she looked at it. The blind, all-consuming desire curled back, replaced by the warm and soft and pervading feeling of safety.

Ur and the rest of them could talk about allying with Guardians against the god of war like it was nothing because they were—what? A week old? To them the only perspective was Xivu Arath They hadn’t seen what she’d seen. They hadn’t known the Queen, they hadn’t had their home burned down and friends killed, they hadn’t watched the Traveler—

The Light was solace. The Light was life. The Traveler was their only protection against the long night, and M’riax would give nothing short of her own soul to protect it in return. Guardians might have their own foolish ideas of what their god could and could not withstand against, but they had not lived what the Hive had been through. If they wanted to pull their god under the waves of their own destruction along with them, they could try. She would meet them on the battlefield, face to face and blade to skin.

She held the mote close to her chest.

Until she got it back, this had to suffice.

[xivu-arath]

Savathûn recalls a moment when she looked to the sky.

“Look,” says their father, the king. “The storm lifts.”

He has brought them into the orrery, its brass and platinum moons spinning around Fundament on many interlocking axes. Up the stairs to the swell of the dome where the telescopes, lenses, and listening instruments rest. They are old, older than seven generations of the Osmium Court, salvaged from another continent that had drifted close in the first year of the king’s reign.

Xi Ro, eager as always, runs to the winch, helping him open the dome’s eye for them all to look through. She does this even though the telescopes bore her, because moments when the king remembers his surviving children are rare. Rarer still for him to allow them close to his most prized treasures.

The dead worm has its own place here, set on a pedestal from where it seems to be watching.

Sathona is not bored, but neither is she sated (not like Aurash, who is already pressing forward to count how many moons can be seen). The Court is full of whispers these days, and Sathona does her best to hear most of them. Whispers of war with the Helium Drinkers, of the king’s negligence, of untrustworthy waters and worsening weather. Direr still are her dreams of brave, foolish Xi Ro crushed under rubble, Aurash swept away by a burning wave. What may come looms ahead, dark and not quite unknown, and the stars and moons are much too distant to matter when weighed against it. Whatever use to her is something that cannot be touched or swayed?

The orrery frustrates her as every discovery of her limits does. Beneath the mystery of it – just how old is it? Who thought to build it, and why? – lies the same taste of bitter air, a reminder that she is small and frail and meant to live a life she can barely count on both hands.

But when Aurash waves at her to take her turn, she still closes two eyes and peers up into dissipating clouds and an uncaring, glittering sky. Useless as these are to her, they are pretty enough. For that, and because they are all still together, remembered and alive, Sathona thinks to cherish this moment.

Savathûn does not cherish it. She forgets nothing. Every moment of her past is as it should be, a single gleaming instant that she can pin between her claws. But still, something (the warm surprise of trust from an uncertain parent, pushing Aurash’s shoulder for more space, flickering awe at a new curiosity well out of her reach) is lost.

It is a moment of synchronicity that reminds her. They are pruning away yet another civilization, and through secret and subtle means Savathûn knocks their binary stars from their seat, spilling the accretion disk out to envelop the nearest planets and moons. The swell of satisfaction that accompanies this is unexpected, and so she stops to find the cause.

Look how far she has come from that moment. Her father’s efforts seem small and futile now, while she can pluck every star from the sky. There might be some few, paltry things still beyond her grasp, but they will not remain so. She has lived longer than young Sathona could have envisioned. Of her siblings she is the wisest, the most prepared, and by far the most clear-sighted. Is this not everything she has wanted?

But –

Xivu has swooped down to drain the lesser star, and Oryx infests the heart of the greater with his blights. He is singing some awful dirge he picked up several systems ago and not yet tired of, and Xivu joins him with far greater enthusiasm than skill, until the pressure of their combined voices forces even their fleets to scatter from them. They don’t care, drunk and giddy on triumph and certainty.

Savathûn is quite sure she does not envy them their stupid, simple joy. This is not the first battle, nor even the thousandth, where she has watched them make fools of themselves amidst their slaughter.

But. She is not sated, and it gnaws at her more sharply than her worm ever has. Nothing that she would strain to reach for is here.

The lesser star gutters down to a dully flickering core, and the greater has been rendered a cyst through which the Deep can be heard. Savathûn finds this a tedious, predictable ending and turns away. Behind her, her siblings continue to laugh and kill and sing (terribly still).

If there is nothing here that she would reach for, then it is past time she look elsewhere. She remembers that glimpse of the sky once more.

Among those stars and shadows was one lying moon.