#the shard of the traveler

[brontios-helm]

Destiny 2: Shard And Portal

[wildstar25]

Just another day in the Rak'tika Greatwoods

[Warning for Volume, Flashing imagery, Eye Strain, and General Silliness]

Dances used: Toothless Dance Mine Wanna Dance? 2 Phut Hon Friday Night Bye Bye Bye

[therenaissancedungeonmaster]

Some doodles for my fanfic. Chapter 6 and Shard specifically.

And Sifdile. For @iphyria :)

[blackrocks-king]

Oh?

Ah .. this is .!

I’ve finally found it.. What has this been doing here??

Ahem … my apologies..

It must’ve been a while.. Truly my fault..

I must’ve lost the device on accident before heading to bed, and I haven’t been able to find it until now. I apologise if there was no activity on this blog. It is nice to be back.. haha. How have you all been doing?

[catwyk]

listen to travelling light. please.

[thesargasmicgoddess]

Thank you, London...

I said goodbye to London yesterday, making a place in my heart for all of the adventures, moments, and memories made there. The unique pulse of a city is always something to behold--but the heart and head rush you feel from vibrant and intimate experiences is what I will always associate with this city.

London was magical, but not in a way I had planned or expected. I did less sightseeing than planned and yet felt and experienced so much more than I ever dreamed I would. I cried, laughed, wandered, pondered, and soaked in all the spontaneous intensity the city had to offer me, and it was a brilliance of emotions that will stay with me for a long while.

It was bittersweet to leave, but I'm off to my next adventure...❤️

Cheers 😘

[shambholic]

[keeps-ache]

sigh. i think i just do not like dogs very much lol

[king-k-ripple]

Kirby 64’s factory level but with Sonic CD’s music and time travel mechanic

[brontios-helm]

Destiny 2: Spear, Sword, Shield, Shard

[aghostsdestiny]

Destinytober Day 9: "Devotion, Bravery, & Sacrifice"...

Lies, Cuts, & Shattered Dreams™...

[yellowmagicalgirl]

Why am I cursed to hate time travel and yet so many of my beloved series end up bringing in time travel

[therenaissancedungeonmaster]

Hi everyone! Finally have an AO3 account. I might go back through all my fanfic drizzled throughout my account on here and upload it to AO3 but we’re starting off with a bang with some more Traveler!Odile! This one might be more than one chapter but if it is, the chapters will be... kinda disconnected? More vignette-y. Also, remind me at some point to link all my Traveler!Odile stuff in a single post for folks lmao.

[thefirstknife]

Hi, I've been meaning to ask this question for ages, I just haven't found an answer to it. So, do you know why the shard is still out in the EDZ and not reconnected with the Traveler?

I love looking at the shard from the farm, I think it's dope asf, so mysterious too!

One of the biggest mysteries in the game, still!

The important thing to note is that the only real thing we know about the Shard is that it was shot off/detached from the Traveler during the Collapse. The bottom part of the Traveler where it is damaged? That's the Shard piece.

Like us, the Shard no longer knows the Light; not since the Traveler cast it off during the Collapse.

This is interesting because of two things; first, Tyra is kinda wrong here. The Shard, or at least a part of it, does know the Light. We were called to the Shard and then it restored our Light after Ghaul caged the Traveler. She also says:

For centuries, it has twisted and corrupted everything around it. Where it lies is now a place of death.

Which is true, sort of. The area where the Shard is located is corrupted, mostly by the Taken. We could also see that in the Harbinger mission to get Hawkmoon for Crow; the Taken were gathering there, drawn to the Light. The Dark Forest, are where the Shard is located, is generally considered to be unsafe and dangerous place full of corruption.

The second thing is, obviously, why didn't the Traveler get it back when it reformed itself? No clue. It is possible that the nature of the damage is such that the Shard is completely cut off and can't be reconnected. Maybe something to do with whatever happened to it in the Collapse. If the damage is paracausal in nature, especially Darkness-related, it might be impossible for the Traveler to stitch itself back together.

But the Shard did react to Traveler's reformation back in Arrivals. We know this because there was an eyewitness at the scene at the time, Chalco Yong:

It wasn't until she reached the wavery top branches that she saw it. Cresting over the tree line was the Shard of the Traveler, bleeding polychrome rays. Chalco turned her gaze up, following the arc into the stratosphere. What was happening?

Keeping her eyes fixed on the sky, she flipped on her radio. Immediately, Eris Morn's voice echoed over the Vanguard's public frequency: "This will not be the end. It will be an escalation."

A flash, piercing in its brilliance, lit up the southeastern sky. Chalco braced herself against the tree, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them, the sky had returned to clear blue and the Shard had returned to its dim, jagged state.

While the Traveler was reforming, the Shard reacted, beaming some sort of "polychrome rays" into the sky. This is pretty intriguing as, usually, pieces of the Traveler and the Traveler itself only emits white/silver substance. When the Traveler finished with it, the Shard stopped emitting these rays and returned to how it was. Interesting! Maybe the Traveler attempted to bring it back to reform itself fully, but couldn't. I'd maybe consider that the problem is the distance, but that's kinda odd given the sheer paracausal power of the Traveler.

With the new stuff we know about the Collapse, most notably Savathun's involvement, it brings more questions about the Shard. Did she do something that made the Shard? Possible, but also less likely since her goal was to protect the Traveler so she wouldn't have risked it by damaging it. Could've been an accident or perhaps she even saved it from further damage but couldn't prevent it entirely. Maybe the Witness was creating the link with the Veil, as it did in Lightfall, but Savathun cut off that part of the Traveler and stole the Veil away. Or maybe the damage was done just by removing the Veil during the link.

But the question still remains; what happened and why couldn't the Traveler attach it back during its reformation? Before Lightfall, I thought we might get some answers about the Collapse in there, but there was nothing new to answer these questions. Yet! We might still get something, I assume once Savathun returns or when we learn more about the Witness. I still think that getting the full scope of the Collapse should be coming at some point and it might be at any point this year. We should definitely get some information on the Shard of the Traveler. It's a sort of a loose end that's not been explained, mostly as how it ties to the events of the Collapse and especially the new information about the Witness, the Veil and the portal it made.

[poorlytunedukulele]

Day 10 - Dream

You are here.  After so long, you are finally here.  You have followed the song of this star from light-centuries away- a song of potential.  A song sung not in certainty, but in expectation.  Of want.  You are as a moth drawn to the burning flame of hope.  There is meaning here.

There is meaning everywhere, if you look for it.  Countless eons you have passed in company, by rocky planets and wave-churned fundaments, in the thick soup of gas giants, on fragile web-filaments strung between asteroids.  You have known a hundred trillion faces.  You have seen so much that nothing could be unusual to you anymore.

It can still be new.  Even this plain star, this system so rote- even this is still new.  The differences may be infinitesimal on a universal scale, but they are still differences, and their effects echo long and far.  The voices on the wind are those of strangers.

-

Her arms are on fire.  They itch.  The Shard before her ripples with iridescent sparks.  There is too much Light- she can see the bones of her hands through the flesh.  It crashes over her again like a wave, like a landslide-

-

Ground shifts.  Seas boil up into existence.  A thousand small tragedies occur- a rock, once sat in the light of the sun, buried.  New plants, just testing the soil with their roots, drowned in a flood.  Things are changed, irrevocably, taken from their set destinies by your gardening.  Your touch breaks, damages, alters, but as things heal, they heal better.  After the flood, stronger plants grow.  Fish swim.  The planet goes from sun-burned rock and icy dust to a garden.  It blooms.

-

Her heart pounds heavy in her chest.  There is air in her lungs, but it’s too much.  Goosebumps tear over her skin like fire on an oil slick.  Her senses are fully haywire- she smells the lights of her HUD like mango and lime, and the heaviness of the water around her is a ringing in her ears.

Abort, abort, Spark thinks.  It’s the only coherent thought in Azra’s head.  She pushes off from the Shard-

-

You cast the shards away.  You have broken yourself to do this.  Broken yourself in a million ways.  In this breaking, there is despair; that you, as you are now, are not strong enough.  You could never be strong enough.  You are subtlety, quiet voices in large crowds, a child’s wonder, forgiveness.  Your foe is sharp knives and finality and death and death and death.  It would cut you to the marrow.  Drink your soul.  Twist you until you are something you are not.

But in this breaking, there is hope.  Hope that you can heal.  That you can be better.  That this sacrifice will mean something.  That your bet will pay off.  It is an impossible hope, that you could ever beat this foe.  You hope anyway.

The breaking is a promise.  It is a terraforming of yourself.  Every piece you shed is a whisper, still yours in intent and power, but now separate, forever changed.  The splinters crash into mountains and splash down into seas, causing earthquakes and sending up gouts of superheated steam.  They drift on breezes.  They think, with the ponderous slowness of glaciers, in the quick leaps of electrons across the void.  A million sparks of yourself pull themselves together, a million notes of respect and wonder and hope and yearning.  They are the Ghosts of all of your plans, phantoms of the future.

-

She’s underwater.  That’s all she can process at first.  She’s underwater and there is an arm around her chest, tugging at her.  Pulling her up?  Dragging her down?  She has no sense of direction until her head breaks the surface.  Azra gasps desperately, on instinct, but she’s fine.  She’s wearing a helmet, and her rebreather is constantly cycling cool, fresh air against her face.  She can’t drown.

She gasps anyway.  All of her nerves feel lit and over-sensitive.  She tries to kick her legs but the muscles just spasm randomly.  Her body doesn’t feel real.

“Hang on, I gotcha,” Shiro grunts from behind her.  That’s Shiro’s arm, then, pulling her.  He shifts his grip and begins towing her back to the cliff with powerful strokes.  Azra lets herself go limp, trying to just keep her wits, remember where she is.

The cliff, the Shard.  Answers.  They were looking for answers.  About how she’d regained her Light during the Red War.  Why her.  What this piece of the Traveler, having sat on the ocean floor for centuries, had to say.  She wanted to try to commune with it again.  Lucky she’d brought Shiro along- she’d have drifted in the ocean for a while waiting for her muscles to learn to obey her again.

At the rock face, she grips the wall with all of her might and lets her helmet rest against the stone.  The sense of itchy wrongness is fading, but she has no strength.

“Here,” Shiro says.  He’s right next to her, still, and without another word he rearranges the pair of them- Azra clinging piggyback, Shiro hanging on the sheer wall.  He takes a few deep breaths and then smoothly, confidently, starts hauling them both up the rock.

It’s not a show of strength, exactly- Shiro is an Exo, so his frame is perfectly capable of supporting both of their weights.  Even with her gear, Azra’s only adding maybe a hundred kilograms.  But even if it’s not an unusual amount of strength, it is an impressive display of balance and coordination.  Rock climbing is tricky enough without extra weight disrupting your balance.  And Shiro’s finger-joints aren’t flexible enough to conform to holds like Azra’s are, his hands too rigid to cram into cracks effectively.

Azra will have to take time to admire the skill later.  It’s taking all her effort just to remember how to breathe and hold on at the same time. 

Shiro heaves them over the edge and lets Azra down on solid ground.  “Spark?” he asks, already turning to dive back in for the Ghost.

“He’s alright,” Azra answers.  Spark had stayed out of realspace, so he hadn’t been incapacitated like Azra had been.  Shiro steps away from the drop, back towards the boulder where they’d left a pile of their things.  A second later and he’s back with Azra’s boots- which he sets within arm’s reach- and her cloak, which he wraps around her shoulders.

Azra clings to the fabric.  It’s grounding.  Reassuringly familiar.  Shiro, too, is familiar.  He sits down next to her and she leans on him automatically.

“Take your helmet off first,” Shiro orders.  Azra fumbles for her latches.  Spark whisks it away as soon as she gets it off her head.  Almost immediately she misses the cool breeze of her respirator- the air is warm and humid and full of the smell of ocean brine.  The sun’s bright, too, making her squint.  But at least now she can rest her head on Shiro’s stable shoulder.

They sit in quiet for a couple of minutes.  Azra’s nerves slowly calm from that raw dazzling fire to a more stable buzz.  She could have just chugged an energy drink.

“Any useful nuggets?” Shiro asks.

But Azra shakes her head mutely.  It’s far too jumbled, too alien, to make any sense of.

Shiro sighs.  “Let’s not do that again.  I don’t like having to haul your catatonic ass out of the ocean more than I have to.”

Azra nods into his shoulder.  She knows he’s burning with curiosity.  She’s grateful he’s not pushing the issue.  She doesn’t know if she could sort out the dreams into words right now.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Azra murmurs.

“Always,” Shiro replies.

AO3 Linky!

[life-spire]

@ Jasper Garratt

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