Rust and Water: Part Fifteen - Best Served

Part Fifteen: Best Served --- He found her sitting out beyond the fledgling walls, sitting on a rough-hewn block of granite that waited to be dressed and fitted into the growing fortifications. Her head turned a little as he approached, but otherwise she didn’t acknowledge his presence, her gaze distant, staring beyond the trees and mountains to something perhaps only she could see. Though she was still her hands were busy just above her lap. As he approached he could see a strip of tattered and stained fabric twisting through her fingers. Over and under, through and back, restless caresses. He wondered if it was in reflection of her thoughts, constant, twisting restless memories and recriminations. With a heavy sigh he sat beside her, a respectful distance away, but close enough that he could reach out to touch. Other than that small shift of the head she didn’t seem to take notice. Her fingers continued their restless dance. He let her sit in silence, reluctant to break it, though he knew that eventually it must be so. Neither of them were ever particularly talkative, but neither had they ever had difficulties finding something to say to one another. “Have you come to scold me?” She finally said. He would have breathed a sigh of relief that she had been the one to break the silence, except…well. “Do I need to?” He said instead. She huffed a strained laugh. He glanced over to see her eyes squinted shut, one hand against her forehead, the strip of faded and threadbare fabric still fluttering between her fingers. “No, but if you must, you must.” Now he did sigh and leaned back on his arms, head tilted to the sleeping giant overhead. “You know I’m not your enemy.” “I know.” “Would you call me friend?” She was silent long enough that he let his head swivel to look at her. He didn’t like the haunted, blank look in her distant silver eyes. “I don’t think I should.” She whispered, so soft that his audio receptors barely picked up the words. Her fingers began their restless twirl again. He wondered how much longer the scrap in her hands would last under such treatment, but it had become a good indicator of her moods in the meantime. “[i]Shouldn’t[/i] doesn’t mean [i]can’t[/i].” He murmured. Again, that rusty laugh. “And such has been marked in my past actions.” She looked down. “I shouldn’t have gone without planning. I shouldn’t have dragged them along with me.” She swallowed audibly, her eyes once again squinted shut. “But I did.” [i]Was my life worth theirs?[/i] Her hand went to her forehead again. “Would, that you could do it over again, would you repeat your actions?” The words tore out of her throat. “Yes, by the Traveler, [i]yes[/i]!” She pushed herself off the stone. “Nothing I did would I have done differently.” Her hands clenched at her sides and she looked up at him, his glowing crimson eyes lighting her pale blue skin, turning it violet. “So scold me, yell at me! Tell me I was stupid that I acted rashly, that I got them killed!” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she turned her face away from him, away from the dead god she invoked. [i]Little pieces lightless on the ground. An outstretched, gauntleted hand, frozen in the act of reaching.[/i] The crimson lights flickered as his eyes closed. Slowly he stood, his rough robes falling back into their proper place. She must have heard his approach, but she didn’t move away. In one, heartbreaking moment he realized she expected him to strike her. Instead he reached out, pulling her small, stiff figure against him so her head rested where she would have heard his beating heart, had he had one. One chrome metal hand reached up to cradle the back of her head. “You were stupid, and rash. But at any moment they could have turned away. You did not kill them.” “Don’t be [i]kind[/i] to me.” She sniffled, and he felt the stiffness draining out of her muscles. “I put them in that situation. They looked to me as leader.” “You did, and they did.” He agreed. “But I went there, to the place they fell, and I don’t think I would have done differently either.” “Don’t lie.” He didn’t. He had never lied to her. Withheld information, oh yes, but never lied. His memory brought back to him with photographic clarity the place where the battle had taken place. The squalor of the people held beneath the warlord’s thumb and threats of power. The evidence of those he had made [i]examples[/i] of. The people there had had the look of those that had just awakened from a particularly vivid nightmare, not sure, even now, that it hadn’t ended. Shinobu herself had been there, directing the shell-shocked pilgrims to take what supplies they could. He had exchanged with her a look, and she jerked her head in answer to his unspoken question. What he had seen at the site of the battle was telling. “I do not lie.” He said. “I wasn’t meant to walk away from there.” She whispered. [i]An arrow flying from the darkness. The warlord distracted from the single woman before him, companions lying tangled with his own dead. Who would dare? A tangle of matted, dull red hair above a dirty face, paler for the blood that stained the fabric over her heaving chest. Those few last breaths spent on one question. Was my life worth theirs?[/i] “Was it worth their lives?” He reared back, genuinely shocked. She looked up at him, her silver eyes dull, awaiting his judgement. “I…no…I must marshal my thoughts before I answer you.” He released her from his arms, though he took her hands and guided her to sit on the block behind them. She allowed him, her dull silence frightening. He looked down at her, before answering with a single word. “[i]Yes[/i].” Her eyes widened, life coming back into them. She opened her mouth but stopped when he raised his hand. “And it would have been worth your life, my life, any of our lives. Because they, not us, not us who were brought back by the Traveler, are the chosen future. They are our [i]hope[/i].” His hands moved to her shoulders, making sure he had her full attention. “We must guard that hope. And if we should die so that even one of those flickers might live and grow, every one of us should be glad to do so. That is why we were chosen, and gifted.” “To guard.” She whispered. “To be guardians of those small lights so that one day…” Now he turned, and her gaze followed him. They looked to the sleeping orb, then to the lights glowing beneath it. “So that one day they will outshine us.” She let out a deep breath, one that carried away the heavy weight upon her. It hadn’t all gone, that he knew, and that was for the best. “Friend Knight?” “Yes, Alia?” “Thank you.” “Thank Zavala, I just cribbed him.” She laughed, and, though still a little rusty, it was genuine. ---- Part Sixteen: https://www.bungie.net/en/Clan/Post/1371758/230137576/0/0 Table of Contents: https://www.bungie.net/en/Clan/Post/1371758/226526566/0/0