You try your hardest to leave the past alone
This crooked posture is all you've ever known
It is the consequence of living in between
The weight of family and the pull of gravity
Heirloom – Sleeping at Last
-
Two weeks wasn't too big of a deal. Cayde needed time to cool off. From the story, things had gotten even more heated after Azra had left. Two weeks didn't throw up red flags.
Three weeks, people started getting worried. But Cayde was competent. He could handle himself, so they all told themselves.
At a month, Andal started organizing search parties. Azra was not very good at tracking, but she tried. She chased more reports and leads than she could count, but always came up empty-handed. She hacked into his caches and left notes. Left a beacon at the old campsite when the cooling weather forced them to move. Hung around his favorite places. Yet still, nothing.
Even Shiro, for all his expertise, never got close. Any trails Cayde left had long gone cold.
So one month turned to two, turned to three, and still no sign. The silence at camp became more and more grim. They all stubbornly refused to talk about funeral arrangements.
In the end, they didn't find Cayde. He found them.
-
January 09, 2881; Crew's Camp, Koh Thmei, Earth
It was an average night, weather-wise. Average temperature, intermittent cloud cover. Perhaps a bit windy. Azra pulled her cloak close around her and stared into the guttering flames of the fire.
You really should sleep, Spark insisted. He was right. Exhaustion dragged on Azra's body. She'd run herself quite ragged.
In a little bit, she replied. Just a few more breaths of the night air. Just a few more heartbeats of stillness. She was on her own tonight, and the quiet was a blessing after so much movement.
Leaves rustled, separate from the blowing of the wind. Azra wouldn't have picked it up if her senses hadn't been sharpened to a razor's edge by thirteen years in the wilds. But they had, so before she'd quite realized that there was something in the bushes, she'd drawn her sidearm and aimed down her sights at the intruder.
Recognition stayed her hand. A scruffy-looking blue Exo pushed aside the branches, eyeing the weapon. The man was dirt-stained and his shoulders were hunched, but it was undeniable. It was him. Cayde. Azra actually dropped her gun in surprise.
"You moved camp," the Gunslinger rasped. He didn't get any further before he was tackled to the ground. Azra deftly pinned his arms under her knees and clapped her palms to his cheeks. The warm metal beneath her hands was much-needed confirmation of his presence. (Nothing ever seemed as real at night.)
"What. The. Fuck." Azra whispered harshly. She'd gone from surprise to joy to blind rage and back again in the space of a few seconds.
"Hold on there," he began, struggling futilely against her weight.
She felt the butterscotch-whiskey tinge of his light, the smooth plates of his eyebrows, his horn. She looked up and made eye-contact with his Ghost Sundance, of similarly familiar Light and shell. "It's really you."
"'Course it's really me-"
Azra slapped him, hard. It only served to hurt her hand. She swore and shifted her weight. Cayde took the opportunity to slip free. Azra stumbled back to her feet, massaging her sore palm.
"Maybe this wasn't a good idea—" Cayde muttered. He was interrupted when Azra threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder.
"I thought you were dead," she murmured.
YOU ARE READING
You've Got Time ( a Destiny Story)
Fanfiction"No one can open the Vault alone. I opened the Vault. There was no one with me but I was not alone." A team of six entered the Vault of Glass. Kabr fought and died. Praedyth was captured. Pahanin ran. Two were cut away, and one hid. This story story...
