#eleanor the only one able to get insight into why drifter's sentient warframe seems to have beef with them

[kivaember]

Umbra in 1999 fic wip

Because I wanted to get this out of my system, a rough little wip of Umbra's thoughts on the 1999 situation...

I initially was thinking of doing a quick little oneshot about it but ya know, maybe I could make this a multi-chaptered fic of like, ten chapters or smth of not only the Hex warming up to Drifter, but Umbra begrudgingly accepting Drifter befriending the Hex. It's a fun thing to explore anyways :ua I'll have a think about it hmmm

Anyways, hope you enjoy lmao

-

There were few things Umbra held an active dislike towards.

Ballas, for example. Though he was long dead and buried, his corpse tossed into the sun to become nothing more than meaningless ash, Umbra still nurtured a little ember of seething hatred for the bastard. Death in this system was never all that final, anyways, so it was wise to keep that flame going, for the possible day where Ballas somehow slithered out of whatever hell he was rotting in to cause more problems for everyone. Umbra wouldn’t be kind enough to make his third death quick, in that scenario.

The Void was another one. Aside from being tormented by it whenever the Conjunctions swept across Lua, the Void was the cause of so many problems plaguing the Origin system today - a constant source of pain and misery for Operator-Child and Drifter both. A threat Umbra was helpless against, could do nothing to mitigate or even slay the source of it. Umbra despised being useless - trapped - and to know that these things had been set in motion long before any of them had been pieces on the board was nothing short of infuriating.

Ballas and the Void. One dead, one an abstract entity unable to be destroyed by mortal means. Two constants always rolling about in the dark spaces between its thoughts. Umbra disliked other things, of course, but only in a passive way: an idle sting of irritation at feeling a blade or round pierce through its tough-as-steel hide, a capture target fleeing effectively, its ammunition running a little low… little, petty things not worth thinking much on.

Then Umbra was given a vital task - to assist Drifter in 1999 - and it added one more item to its list of actively disliked things:

Time travel.

Or rather, the complications that come from time travel, and the fact that Umbra’s charge was required to team up with a group of Infested humans whose interpersonal relationships were in danger of becoming as dysfunctional as Deimos’s Entrati family. It was a disaster in the making and Drifter was standing at Ground Zero for it - and there was nothing Umbra could do about it, as always.

Drifter wanted to fix it, of course. Fix them. Save them. It was their kindness - their strongest trait, in them and Operator-Child - and as much as Umbra could never fault them for it, it was, admittedly, a source of intense frustration at times.

Go back in time to 1999 and stop the Man in the Wall - somehow. That was their shared task. Umbra’s top priority, however, as given to it by Operator-Child, was to protect Drifter: not only from hostiles, but from themselves where “The Hex” were concerned. Drifter was lonely. Drifter will care, like Drifter cared about Lotus despite the risks it brought their continued existence. Drifter will get too attached and Umbra will have to be the pragmatic one between them.

Umbra failed on the very first day. Because of course it did. Drifter initiated a never-ending loop. For the Hex. And to stop the Man in the Wall, but mostly to save the Hex. Just like how Operator-Child and Umbra predicted. An act of kindness that Umbra couldn’t fault them for, but despaired over anyways because - its priority will always be Operator-Child and Drifter. This threatened to be a major detriment to Drifter’s well-being - mentally, mostly. Emotionally, definitely.

So.

Umbra actively disliked time travel, and by proxy…

It disliked the Hex, too.