Destiny: Fireteam Euphrati

Chapter Two

The Stormcaller trudged up the stairs, nursing a gash on her forearm. She knew it was nothing serious and her ego felt as though it were in more pain than she was.

How on earth did that lousy brawler get the switchblade inside her guard?

Scowling, she rounded the corner and kicked open the door to her study, letting it slam behind her.

The lights flickered to life, revealing a cluttered desk, data slates, books and papers strewn about the room. To a stranger, it looked as though the place had been ransacked.

Her Ghost immediately set to work, looking for the papers they had last been working on. The blue beam flashed intermittenly as he scanned paper after paper, and Vae sat down behind the old, worn desk, rummaging about for something to write with.

"Perhaps you should bandage your arm, it's still bleeding."

The Warlock arched an eyebrow, momentarily watching the Ghost bob about roughly a foot off the slate gray floor. "Well, that means my heart's still working. I'd call that a plus."

"I don't think this is how first aid works."

The Warlock rolled her eyes, pulling the main drawer open, the wood giving a slight groan.

It was a piece she found while wandering Old Earth, surprisingly well preserved, save for the large amounts of recent scratches, scuffs and bullet holes. Deciding she wanted it in her study, she had spent little over a month pushing and dragging the mass of birch wood back to the city, as it was too large for her ship. It was a miserable trip, but it had acted as surprisingly good cover whenever she ran into trouble, namely Fallen.

She grinned at the memory, the Guardians stationed on the Last City's walls gaping in disbelief when they saw the exhausted Warlock slowly shoving the piece of furniture through the security checkpoint.

Withdrawing a simple, leatherbound notebook, she opened it up, flipping past arcane diagrams, equations, scribbles of hasty notes and detailed sketches.

"Do the other Hidden know about what we're doing?" Her Ghost hovered before her, and the Warlock chewed the inside of her cheek thoughtfully.

"Honestly, I don't know." She spun the chair around, looking out the massive window to the City below.

She counted herself lucky, her quarters were much higher in the Tower than some of her peers, and it was blessedly quiet.

"If they need to know, Ikora would tell them, though I think she may be afraid of word reaching Zavala or Cayde."

"How do you think they would react?"

The Warlock kicked the chair back, the wheels hissing in distress until they came to an abrupt stop alongside one of the bookshelves lining the walls. "Zavala, I think he'd be furious," she said, reaching up to pull down a data slate hastily shoved between ancient, decaying tomes. "Cayde, I don't know, honestly."

She didn't complete the thought, too busy considering possible scenarios. Flicking through files on the slate, she heard muffled laughter coming from one of the rooms next to her study. Sighing, she did her best to ignore it.

For a good while, she perservered, though the shrieks and squeals of merriment on the other side of the wall scratched at her ears and the Warlock would freely admit she had a relatively short patience.

"Now I can't focus," her Ghost grumbled, annoyed. She suppressed a chuckle at the tiny bot's temper. He had once gotten so angry he zapped another Guardian's fingers for constantly rummaging through the papers in the study.

Kicking off the frame of the bookshelf, the Warlock stopped the chair by grabbing the corner of the desk and stood.

"I'll see what I can do about our neighbors."

"Traveler's mercy, thank you."

The woman shook her head, picking her way through the stacks of books and paper in the pathway she had carved to the door.

Opening it quietly, she stepped into the hall, the red runner down the center of the walkway muffling the clang of her boots on the floor.

In a few strides under the fluorescent light, she was at the door to the right of her study.

The cries were louder, and the Warlock shook her head ruefully, already knowing what was taking place. Rapping her knuckles on the door, she heard whispered swearing.

"Go away!" A muffled male voice called.

Vae looked down the hall as she responded, hoping no one would stumble upon the odd situation. "Steven, for the love of Light, keep it down, will you?"

"Must you ruin all my fun?"

The Warlock crossed her arms, and for an absurd moment, felt as though she were yelling back and forth with the mechanized door. "At the very least, gag her. I don't want or need to hear everything going on in there!"

There was a giggle of feminine laughter and a yelp of surprise. "Who's your friend?"

"A friend, now shush. I like the idea of the gag."

The Warlock rolled her eyes, her thoughts already turning back to the research at hand.

Back in the study, her Ghost was already cataloging information for the Guardian to later add to her grimoire.

Each Guardian kept one, each to their own extent. Vae's was a collection of leatherbound notebooks, while another Guardian's may be a single data slate or a stack of hastily jotted notes on scrap paper.

Among many of the Warlock Orders, grimoires were shared, with members having total and unfettered access to each other's research. The Stormcaller disliked the idea, knowing the more narrow-minded of her peers would be quick to condemn her for her work.

Working entirely independently until Ikora recruited her as a member of the Hidden, Vae was in control of a treasure trove of knowledge, and had learned many dark secrets over the years.

The few people she had confided in merely brushed it off, but for Warlock Victus, it lent her a sense of foreboding whenever she returned to the Tower.

Pausing to look out the wall-length window, she took in the ruined shape of the Traveler. She knew that everyone within the Last City's walls owed the Traveler everything, or at least, they thought they did.

Half understood stories, quips of Fallen chatter and Cabal transmissions that she had decrypted and translated had begun to paint another story in her mind.

She'd often find herself wondering if the Speaker really spoke for the Traveler, or just for himself.

'High priest,' she thought to herself with a snort of derision. Her face contorting into a humorless grin, she went back to her work, turning her back on the white orb hanging over the horizon, and she couldn't help but feel the slight tingle of disapproval at the back of her mind.