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imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese · 2 months ago

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Destinytober24: Day 8 - Harmonica

You know who else cheats at cards?

Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there

When the sky is darkening, the fire crackling, and one is alone and missing one's ghost, the only sensible thing to do is pull out a harmonica and serenade the universe, like a whale singing its solitude out to the open sea.

Cayde-6 is doing this now.

It is the in-between time. The Witness has not yet been killed. The Vanguard is preparing for what may be its final operation. Crow is out scouting. Zavala is learning Stasis from Ikora, and Cayde has been left with his own thoughts, for however long that will last.

A Hunter's journal lies open on one of the salvaged folding chairs by the fire. It shows a map of the Blooming, sketched in a careful hand with clear labels of landmarks and concentrations of hostile troops.

The fire is spitting, a new log having recently been added. A small pot of something edible is near enough to the flames to be kept warm but not close enough to char.

And Cayde... Cayde is warding off the loneliness with a sad song. He tells himself that if Sundance is in the Traveler and the Traveler is all around him, then she can probably hear the music. So he plays for her. He plays to tell her he misses her. That he knows she misses him too.

It isn't so much a sound behind him as a feeling. A creeping feeling. The sensation that he is no longer alone. He stops playing and tilts his head, listening. Not Crow. He makes too much noise. This is someone quieter. The eerie sensation increases. It feels inexplicably... Hive.

Cayde stands and spins around, Ace drawn. Three green eyes glow in the darkness above a larger sphere of Soulfire at the other end of the path leading up to the campsite.

As his finger depresses the trigger, he hears the gunshot from a different direction. Cayde retains his grip as the barrel of his gun is knocked aside.

Solar. Different angle. Two of them.

Cayde tumbles back out of the firelight, seeking the shadows to avoid the next shot. But the next shot does not come. He rolls again and comes up on one knee with a tripwire grenade armed and blinking in one hand, his weapon readied in the other.

The Hive eyes have ducked behind a rock. He can see the faint glow. He waits a moment for the grenade timer to run down so that it will detonate as soon as it lands and prepares to toss.

"Cayde!" a voice calls out.

Feminine. Low. Familiar. Pissed off.

"Eris?" Cayde stands up. "Eris Morn?"

"Yes." She confirms with an oh-so-familiar tone of complete exasperation.

"Well I'll be damned."

Cayde tosses the tripwire grenade behind him, holstering his hand cannon as the device explodes harmlessly on the beach.

A hand holding a globe of Soulfire emerges from behind the rock, followed by the distinctive three glowing eyes. And then, as she comes closer to the fire, the tear-streaked face of Eris Morn above the outline of her chitinous pauldrons, strings of beads glinting in the firelight, becomes visible.

"Sorry," Cayde says, flippantly. He isn't very sorry. A little sorry, maybe, but not that sorry.

He steps closer to the fire, his arms out, ready for yet another hug in a long string of hugs from people he's been dead to for years.

Eris steps closer to him as he stands, his arms still out, the awkwardness of the situation increasing as he awaits an embrace that does not come.

Instead, Eris leans in and holds out her Ahamkara bone like a flashlight, peering intensely at him. Her outstretched hand hovers inches above his skin as her three green eyes bore into him, examining him as though he is a science experiment. She looks closely at one outstretched hand, up one arm, walks around behind him, peers down his other arm and finally leans up on her tiptoes to scrutinize his face.

Cayde-6 leans back slightly as her hand hovers over his faceplates. Eris steps forward and continues until her fingertips are just inches away from the tip of his horn before withdrawing her hand.

"It is you," she intones.

"Yeah, it's me." Cayde's arms are still out, waiting for a hug he is no longer certain is coming.

Eris tilts her head.

"How?" she asks.

"It's... complicated."

A shadow to the side steps into the firelight. The second shooter.

Cayde's eye-lights blink in surprise. Of all people...

"Now that's a face I didn't expect to see. How are you still here?"

The Drifter shrugs as he continues to walk toward the fire. "I might ask you the same thing, brother."

"And you," Cayde turns back to Eris, still examining him intently, his arms still out awkwardly. "I figured you'd be a Hive god by now."

"I was," Eris says nonchalantly as she makes another slow circuit around him, peering at him over her ball.

"I think he wants a hug, Moondust."

"What?" Eris pauses, giving the Drifter a confused look before looking back at Cayde again. "Oh."

Cayde raises his arms a little bit.

"Very well" Eris turns and places her Ahamkara bone on top of the open journal on the chair before clumsily reaching up to provide Cayde with the most graceless and uncomfortable hug he's ever received as he looks down in exasperation at Eris' rock on his map.

Cayde and the Drifter make eye contact. The Drifter smirks and sits down in an unoccupied chair, lounging back like he owns the place.

Cayde raises a finger, about to say something when Eris steps back and places both of her hands on his shoulders, gazing at his face intently.

"Have you been on the Moon?" she asks.

Distracted from what he was about to say, Cayde looks at her quizzically. "What? Uhmmm... you mean before or after I died?"

"After," Eris says, her voice insistent.

"The Guardian and I did go looking for a ghost there for Micah."

"No. After you died but before you returned. While you were dead. Have you been on the Moon?"

She speaks with the intensity that only Eris Morn can summon, focused on a confusing detail that means nothing to him, and it's as though all the years have dissipated and they're back in the Vanguard office and she's once again being frustratingly cryptic and weird, up to and including having her damn rock on his damn map.

It's oddly comforting, the exasperation. Like an old familiar blanket.

"No, Eris," Cayde says, with a gentleness he never had with her in the past. "I wasn't anywhere. I was... with Sundance... somewhere inside of here... before here became... whatever it is now."

"Hmmm..." Eris releases his shoulders and turns away, staring into some unidentified point in the darkness out beyond the light of the fire. "Troubling, but... not unexpected."

Yup. Same Eris.

"Someone wanna clue me in here?" Cayde asks looking to the Drifter, of all people, for clarity.

"Apparently a ghost of you... not like a guardian ghost, a ghost ghost.... has been pestering her on the Moon for years," the Drifter says, tumbling a coin across his knuckles. "She's been tryin' to figure out this whole time whether it was a pyramid phantom twisting her memories or actually you. That's one of the reasons she wanted to come see ya."

"Yes," Eris turns away from both of them and reaches out a hand in front of herself, her fingers combing empty air. "Of all the nightmares that have been sent to torment me, yours has been the most confusing."

Cayde feels a pang of guilt. "Wasn't me. I mean, I figure I tormented you enough while I was alive. Seems unfair to keep doing it after I'm gone."

"Yes," Eris intones and nods. "It did seem like far more effort than you would have troubled with."

Another pang of guilt.

"Look... Eris," Cayde steps toward her. "I don't know if you got my message after I died but um... I am sorry about your ship."

"My ship?" Eris turns back to him, confused.

Her three eyes blink slowly and then narrow. "My ship." Her mouth twists into a snarl.

"Easy, Moondust. You got a Tomb ship now. You don't need that old thing."

"She has a Tomb ship?" Cayde stares at the Drifter in disbelief.

"Yeah," the Drifter answers gleefully. "Reclaimed from the Lucent Hive. The inside is bigger than the outside. It's wild."

"You seriously have a Tomb ship?" Cayde asks her.

"Yes," Eris intones, as though it was a simple boring fact that was not remarkable at all. "Your light is... different."

She never was much of a conversationalist. Same old Eris.

"Yeah," Cayde says. "No powers either... just the gun... And no Sundance... I don't even care that much about the powers but... I miss her... a lot..."

"Yes." Eris says, her own voice now gentle. She lays a hand on Cayde's arm.

"It hurts," Cayde says bluntly in a way he knows she will understand.

"It does," she agrees, once more staring into his eyes with her own.

"Now I know what it feels like..." He places his own hand on top of her own.

"It is not a feeling I would wish to share with anyone."

"Yeah," Cayde says quietly.

The Drifter's misshapen ghost appears over Eris's shoulder. Both Eris and Cayde look at it for a moment, and then over at the Drifter.

The coin disappears and he sits up nervously from his slumped position.

"What?" he asks them.

The Drifter's ghost bumps into Eris gently, blinking red then blue then red again, before floating away into the darkness beyond the firelight. It emits its single tone from a lighter spot a short ways away and looks back at them, its shell open and spinning.

"Hmmm...." Eris follows it. Cayde follows Eris. The Drifter shrugs, stands up, and saunters after everyone else.

The Drifter's ghost continues moving until it leads them to a crack in the ground pouring out brilliant white light. It hovers over the crack and emits its tone again.

Eris catches her breath. "Is it... one of them?" She asks, looking at Cayde.

"Cracks in the Traveller?" Cayde asks. "Yeah."

Eris walks over and kneels down next to the crack in the ground. The Drifter's ghost settles into her open hands. She tilts her head, listening.

"You know, Ikora did the same thing." Cayde says.

The Drifter stands next to her. "Eris?"

Eris's hand flies up, palm flat. "Hush."

The Drifter looks back at Cayde. Cayde shrugs.

"You just gonna sit there on the ground like that, Moondust?" His hand reaches out to touch her arm just below her pauldron.

Eris hand flies up and grips his wrist tightly.

"Be. Silent," she commands him, giving his hand a small shake with each word.

The Drifter's ghost floats up from Eris' lap and bumps into his chest, nudging him back.

He takes a step back and the ghost floats back down into Eris's open hands.

The Drifter's hands raise up, palms up in a gesture of surrender as he steps back further. "Oooookay."

"Is that your ghost?" Cayde leans over and whispers.

"I think she's gonna be a while," the Drifter whispers back, not answering the question.

"Yeah, Ikora sat there for a couple hours the first time she saw it too."

"Alright then."

Both turn and walk back to the fire.

Cayde sits down on the chair next to where Eris' Ahamkara bone is sitting on his journal. The Drifter takes a seat as well.

"So uh... are you and Eris..."

The Drifter is silent. He leans back and his coin once more starts to flip across his knuckles.

"I mean, I'm not going to pry but... I've only ever seen you look at one other person like that..."

Still silent, the Drifter shrugs.

"And you're still here," Cayde continues. "That... that really is a surprise... I figured you'd be long gone by now."

"Yeah well," the Drifter keeps his coin tumbling as he talks, "Decided I wanted to stay after all."

"Have to admit... I did not see that one coming... does make a bit of sense though."

The Drifter is silent for a few more moments as the coin walks across his knuckles and the fire licks at the logs. Then he leans forward and the coin disappears.

"How long you figure you got?"

"I don't know," Cayde says quietly. "It... doesn't feel like a long term thing."

"Might not be long term for any of us, really, depending on how this fight goes."

Cayde nods.

The Drifter shrugs. "Feel like losing at cards?"

The practised grin with a glint in his eyes is back and Cayde finds the offputting man oddly comforting in this moment, much in the way Eris being frustratingly obtuse was comforting earlier.

Shifty scheming Drifter is still shifty scheming Drifter, and that, too, feels weirdly soothing to Cayde in a world where everything else seems to have moved on without him.

"Lose?" Cayde asks, his elbows resting on his knees. "I seem to remember the last time we played I wasn't the one with no pants on."

"If you call seein' me without pants on winning, sure." The Drifter winks. "Didn't know you felt that way, brother." His eyes sparkle in the firelight.

Cayde laughs and shakes his head. Yup. Still Drifter.

"Shut up and deal."

The rogue Lightbearer reaches into his coat with a wide toothy grin and pulls out a dark glass bottle. He places it on the ground between them.

"Ooooh," Cayde reaches out, curious, and picks it up by the neck. He brushes off some dust to get a look at the label. "Ooooh," he says again, this time leaning back and nodding in appreciation. "All right, you have my attention."

A deck of cards appears in the Drifter's hands.

"Uh... hmmm..." Cayde pats at his pockets. He wasn't resurrected with any glimmer.

His hands come across a lump. It's not a question of value, but the spirit of the thing. That'll do. He pulls the object out and holds it up.

The Drifter raises one eyebrow and then nods, shuffling the deck with easy familiarity.

Cayde tosses his harmonica next to the bottle on the ground between them.

The metal instrument glints in the light of the fire as two rogues sit down to do what rogues do best: see which one can out-cheat the other at cards.

Link to the entire month's worth of prompts on Ao3, posted daily.

#destinytober24 #destinytober #destinytober 2024 #destiny 2 #cayde-6 #the drifter #eris morn #the drifter's ghost #drifteris #the-final-shape #the drifter/eris morn #drifter/eris #ao3 #fanfiction #writing #harmonica #imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese #cs member writing

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imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese · 1 month ago

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Destinytober24: Day 15 - Together

Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there

"That is ridiculous." Eris intoned in the far back corner of Eido's Potion workshop. "Why is it called Chill Touch if it is neither a touch attack nor does cold damage?"

"Ya got me there, Moondust, I have no idea. These rules are like a millenia old at this point. Fuck if I know what the hell they were thinkin'. I'm still casting it, though."

He turned to his ghost. "Roll to hit."

Saint-14, Eido, and Eris all watched the Drifter's misshapen ghost as it levitated, wiggled and then dropped the twenty-sided die on top of the shipping crate they were using as a table. No one trusted the Drifter to touch the dice, but his ghost was deemed honest enough to not cheat, or at least, if it were going to do so, it would not be cheating in the Drifter's favour.

The die skittered across the surface and came to rest with the number 17 on top.

"Oooh. That's nice." The Drifter grinned. "That should hit."

"It does," Scribe Eido of the House of Light tried to keep the disappointment from her voice as her four eyes peered over the top of her DM screen.

"Alright, alright, alright. Damage time. Ghost?"

The Drifter's ghost levitated an eight-sided die and let it rattle across the table, coming to rest near the first one it had rolled. The number on top was a 1.

The Drifter's ghost emitted its single tone.

"Ugh. Well at least he can't heal for a turn," the Drifter dipped a thin triangular chip into a small bowl of Saint-14's seven layer dip and ate it.

"Hmmm… you are correct," Eido said, one hand holding a data pad, another hand manipulating the datapad screen, a third hand marking down damage on a paper behind her screen, a fourth hand adjusting a small statue of a tree on the table in front of them. "That is one of the effects of that spell. Unfortunate."

"For you, sure," the Drifter replied with his mouth full. "Not for us."

Saint laughed and sipped from his drink. Several potions burbled in flasks and twisted tubing behind him. Globes of glass terrariums containing various plants dangled above them as light filtered down from several skylights in the ceiling. One of the city cats had wandered into the workshop and was rubbing up against Saint-14's leg, purring as he scratched it behind its ears.

"That's all for me." the Drifter concluded. "My turn's done. You're up Three-Eyes. Go mess 'em up."

The small diorama on the table was briefly cast in a green glow as Eris leaned forward, examining their miniature battlefield.

"Can you not relocate elsewhere?"

"I already moved," the Drifter explained, eating another dip covered chip. "Can't move again till next turn."

"Your position is exposed and you only have eight hit points."

"Yeah well, they can always miss."

"They are unlikely to miss. Your armour class is very low."

"I'm a wizard. That's normal."

"If all three assailants hit you it is likely you will die."

"Do not worry Eris!" Saint said warmly from across the table. "I will heal him!"

"Besides," the Drifter added. "They can't kill me if you kill 'em first, so go get 'em, Moon Druid of Vengeance."

"Hmmm… very well. I will attack by throwing my spear at the leader." Eris picked up the 20 sided die and rolled it. It landed on a 7.

"Oh…" Eido said, attempting and failing to hide her delight. "That is a miss."

Eris frowned. "I see."

"And you spear has landed… here." Eido reached out two of the three fingers on her upper right hand to place a small glass token on the map. "You will need to retrieve it before you can attack with it again. Would you like to do anything else on your turn?"

"That is frustrating. I am unused to such a simple action failing."

"We're first level characters," the Drifter said through a mouthful of chips. "It's normal to miss."

"I will move between the assailants and the Drifter," Eris said, picking up her small game piece and placing it next to the Drifter's. "I believe that should enable him to use me as partial cover against two of them."

"You sure you wanna do that?" the Drifter asked.

"I have more hit points than you."

"By two."

"That should be enough to make a difference."

"Awww… that's sweet, but this ain't me, this is Lanlar the Magnificent, and he's a bit of an asshole."

"Strange, I thought you about follow up on your statement by making an argument regarding a difference between yourself and your character… not a similarity."

The Drifter's Ghost expanded and its eye went wide.

"Ooooh!" The Drifter put his fingers up to his lips and winced as he pulled away from Eris in a mock flinch.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" Saint slapped the table in delight, causing all of the miniatures to bounce slightly but not fall over.

Eido giggled.

"Wow, Three-Eyes…" the Drifter said, leaning back with an admiring smile. "Wow."

Link to the entire month's worth of prompts on Ao3, posted daily.

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