[b]Characters[/b]: [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Community/Detail?itemId=221204960]Dredgen Yor, Hallena[/url], unnamed bandits [b]Word Count[/b]: 3,329 [b]Conversation source[/b]: Grimoire — Ghost Fragment: Thorn 2 [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/197415283?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1]Catalogue of Art and Fics related to Fireteam Daybreak[/url] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Community/Detail?itemId=221204960][ Related Art ][/url] ——— [i]Can I see what you got there…? … yer cannon, can I see it? I know you? Not that I can say. And you wanna hold my piece? Just that I never… seen one like it. No, you haven’t. Looks Dangerous. Seems, maybe, that’s the point. Suppose so. Can I see it? Not likely.[/i] The conversation carried up the canyon hill to her open window, where she sat polishing the bore of her rifle by candlelight from her lookout perch. The path along the Northern Channel to Palamon was a Bandit’s best friend, and tonight they were at it again, roughing up weary travelers who just wanted to be left alone. Hal had seen terrible things out in the wild, but nothing compared to the kind of depravity she saw in the eyes of men willing to take more from people than they had already lost. Monsters, they were… this world was so far gone now, beyond salvation; that’s why they’d called it the Collapse. [i]Where’d… where’d you find it…? You hearin’ me? He asked you a question.[/i] But, lost as it was, sometimes this world still entertained her, and it sounded like things were about to get interesting. Emerald eyes lifted from her weapon and turned toward lantern lights flashing through the tree cover and the sound of the conversation with vague interest as she puffed on her cigarette and removed it from between her lips to exhale with a sigh. [i]Didn’t find it. made it. Heh. Helluva touch you got then. You a ‘smith? I look like a ‘smith? Looks can be deceiving. Got that right. There a problem?[/i] The scout leaned forward in her seat and put out the cigarette in the metal ashtray she’d ripped out of a car years ago for the hell of it. Fingers nimbly slid the bolt back into the barrel and dry-cycled the rifle once on intuition before snapping in the four round cartridge; she stood up quietly and slung it over her back, put out the candle, slipped on her goggles, and climbed down the ladder. [i] Doesn’t need to be. Glad we got that cleared up… now, about that piece.[/i] Silence filled the air for a moment as she crept carefully down the mountain, four green figures lighting up bright in her lenses, one… darker than the others. [i]Been to Luna? Excuse me? The moon. You been? Nobody’s been. That a truth? That’s a fact. Funny you’d make that distinction.[/i] She could make out the voices more clearly now- three belonging to men from the city, men nobody would miss if they didn’t make it back that night, and one unfamiliar… empty but heavy, unsettling. It belonged to the other, the wanderer who’d been aimlessly wandering her neck of the woods for almost a week. The one who looked freshly dead, had she known better. [i]Truth is, you must think you’re some kinda something special. With that attitude. The way you’re just dismissin’ us like we’re nothing… like we ain’t even here. Fact is… you ain’t near as rock solid as you figure. Fact is, special’s only special ‘til it’s not.[/i] There was an uncomfortable twinge of something sinister that flickered through the air and pierced through her gut like silvered fear, making her sick. The Awoken swallowed, clenched her teeth, and continued to listen and sneak closer. “The bones say otherwise.” “Speak straight.” “You say “nobody”. Bones say otherwise.” “What bones?” “All of them.” “What’re you gettin’ at?” “Too many to count.” “You trying to get a rile outta us? Was only making conversation.” “You really weren’t.” The way he spoke made her stomach turn, but she was intrigued. Like a moth to the flame, she continued to lurk. “We got a smart one here.” “Experienced more than smart. But experience has its advantages.” “Experience tell you to lip off to strangers just tryin’ to make talk?” “Keep insisting and maybe we will.” “Talk?” “Have words.” “Ain’t that what we’re doin’?” “My conversations tend to be a bit louder.” Silence, even in her hitched breath. None dared speak, the message was clear. “That a threat.” “A truth.” “Who the hell you think you are?” “According to your facts, “nobody.” Yet, here I sit.” “Doesn’t matter much how pretty yer cannon is. You keep it up, we’ll see just how loud you like to get.” Rage boiled inside her as she again, saw that flash of ugliness she hated so goddamn much. The stranger’s dangerous aura suddenly seemed comforting. He clearly was not one to stand for much more of their pestering, and she had half a mind to let what was going to happen, happen. They’d brought this on themselves. “You done talkin’ now? Guess he knows his place boys.” “Ever have a nightmare?” Hal’s jaw clenched. She was looking right at three of them. “You playin’ games? Or just thick?” “I know you have. This world? Can’t help, but.” “I don’t have nightmares, I give ‘em.” She rolled her eyes and made a face. “You are a goddamn cliche. The picture perfect bandit.” She almost laughed out loud but quietly thanked the man instead. “Hearing your voice - the things you’re saying, the shade of the hard man you pretend to be…” “Ain’t no shade.” Then like a thunderclap three loud cracks rang out, so sudden it made her jump and cover her mouth with a silent scream. Two of the men dropped dead, lanterns clattered to the ground and blood spilled into the earth with a sense of urgency. Hands rattled against her cheeks violently as she took in scene. She hadn’t even seen him draw. “Sit down.” The bandit moved to run but his gun tracked his movement like a cobra with a venomous hiss. “Sit. Down.” The last of the bandits fixed his eyes on the shadow of a man and slowly, quietly followed his direction. She could see the terror in his eyes… and while she was frozen by fear herself, there was no pity in her for him, for all the times she’d watched him pillage and murder travelers just looking for refuge. For all the times she’d seen the same look in their eyes. Hal’s lip curled and her brow hardened, the fear slowly left her. “Your mouth just got your friends dead. This is what happens when you bore me. And right now…?” his voice trailed off and he shook his head disapprovingly with a growly sigh. “I’m so very bored.” “Wha- No, Listen-” “Shhhhhh… “ The traveler mused eerily as he circled his prey. “But-but… you’re a- you’re one of them… A Guardian, right? You’re supposed t’be one’a the good ones.” ““Supposed to be?” he scoffed. “Maybe I am. Maybe this is what “good” looks like. Anymore, who can tell?” “I-” The man raised gun from his resting place beside his thigh and aimed it between the Bandit’s eyes. Hallena’s heart thumped hard in anticipation, internally she cheered, Do it. “You wanted to see my prize.” “No… I-” “Look at it.” “I…” The man’s cries made her smirk in satisfaction. Justice in the wild was a beautiful thing, Karma even more so. “Whimpering won’t stop what comes next. Look… Look at it. Open your eyes.” There was a brief pause as the man slowly turned bloodshot, unblinking eyes up to the barrel of the weapon. The hunter’s exhibitionism was dark and clever, psychotic and indulgent. “Not many get such a clean view,” he said, pride tugging smugly into one cheek. “The bone… you see it? Jagged- like thorns. I used to think of it as a rose, focusing on its bloom, but… the bloom is just a byproduct of its anger.” The blubbering man on the other end of his hunger remained still and silent, but nodded to show he was listening. “You have nightmares…? Ever seen a nightmare? Ever opened your eyes and realized the horror wasn’t a dream? The terror wasn’t gone?” Eyes shifted uneasily and the bandit’s jaw clenched as his eyes screamed back of the horror of the moment. “I’ve seen nightmares. They live in the shadows. They’ve been watching. I thought… it’s foolish, I know..” he paused with an ironic chuckle, “But I thought I saw a way. That maybe we could win, maybe-… we could survive.” Hallena’s heart ached sympathetically as it dropped into her stomach and she furrowed her brow. She recalled the stories of a heroic Guardian gone mad from the Hunters that passed through Palamon, succumbing to the call of the whispers in the shadows, devouring the light of his enemies, his friends. Their warnings had been clear, “[i]Stay away. if you see this man, run, he’s nothing but a rampaging beast, and he will bring you to ruin[/i].” But that wasn’t what she saw at all. “But once you step into those shadows… it’s so very hard to walk in the light. Or…” He paused as he gazed unfocused into the darkness of the night. “Maybe I just wasn’t strong enough..” [i]There[/i]- regret? No, something else… Eyes intently analyzed his tone, his body language, the wavelength at which (she could feel it now) his light vibrated. Not sinister like before, but disappointed, bored. Eyes hardened and he turned back to the man, fierce and firm. “Maybe. But I feel strong now.” [i]Oh Traveller, no, please[/i], the man on his knees started again as he shifted the weapon in his grasp with an anxious twitch. “I stole the dark. Or, maybe it stole me. Either way, here we are. And I’m hungry. It’s hungry. You have no Light beyond the spark of your pathetic life…” he snarled in disgust, “But a spark is something.” An audible gasp escaped the man as the shadow pulled back on the hammer with a click. “Open your eyes.” ([i]cont. below[/i])