Eyes Up, Guardian

Chapter 11

Cayde snapped his fingers in front of Tessa's face, dragging her from her thoughts for the third time in the hour alone.

"Sorry," she murmured, meeting his eyes apologetically. He opened his mouth to comment, but backed off before he could speak a word.

It had been two days since the incident with Damian, and for two days she had worried and thought about it. It had been two days of wandering the Warlock halls and badgering Ikora with no luck. So, she had decided to train with Cayde, but clearly, it wasn't doing anything to distract her from her thoughts.

"Have you gotten shadestep yet?" Cayde asked her, hands on his hips. Cayde and Ikora insisted she didn't need to train with them anymore. At the level of Cayde's personal scouts and not far behind Ikora's hidden, she knew she didn't need to train with them. But working on her own, there was always something that didn't click. Ikora told her she just needed time, time to get used to being a Guardian and to accept and master the Light on her own. The pieces would fall into place eventually. She didn't want to wait that long, and besides, it reassured her to have another pair of eyes watching what she was doing. It was easier to prove to herself she was doing stuff right when Cayde and Ikora told her she was doing it right. And Cayde was always open to an excuse to get out of boring work.

"I– shadestep?" She frowned, opening her mouth to speak again as Cayde let out an exasperated sigh.

"C'mon, Tessa," he groaned, "do you think we wear exotics to look pretty?" He asked, gesturing frustratedly at her Graviton Forfeit. "Shadestep is one of the most valuable skills a hunter can learn. You're wasting your time if you don't know what it is." He told her, looking disappointed.

"I know what shadestep is. I've been trying, but I can't get to it, like it's out of my reach." She explained, equally, if not more frustrated.

Cayde only stared at her, looking unimpressed.

"What?" She snapped irritably, "It's not my fault. This isn't like the other classes, being a nightstalker doesn't come easily to me." She said, softening her tone.

Cayde sighed, but nodded, "I know." He said, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. He could tell she wasn't just angry or upset, something was putting her on edge, gnawing at her. "I know." He said again, "But I'm going to help you get it. Besides, it's not like the other classes came easily either."

"Easier than this one." She mumbled, Cayde only chucked lightly. But it was true, the other classes hadn't exactly come easily. It had taken her a long time not to panic when using arc, and for a good few months while she was working on her gunslinger subclass she couldn't a target with a handcannon to save her life. Cayde had started doubting her relation to her mother. Now, she quite liked handcannons. She'd even bought a Hawkmoon from an agent of the nine.

But those had felt different. Like she could see the end goal in her mind and all she had to do was make a path. Now, she didn't even know what the end goal was. Sure it was being a nightstalker, but what did that really mean? What did it mean to her?

"Let's go over it, okay?" Cayde said, "In the past, it's helped for you to know how the movements work, right?" She nodded. "Then let's talk about that." He suggested, "What do you know about shadestep?"

She bit her lip, trying to visualize the movement in her mind. "I've seen it done," she said, "it's like the person uses the void to carry them somewhere, only they're not going fully into it, parts of them are still there."

"Not exactly, in fact, its kind of the opposite." Cayde explained, "The Guardian goes wholly into the void, what you see isn't actually the Guardian, it's pieces of the void. You travel through the void to get from one place to the next. It's sort of like you go into the void and whatever was in the spot you took moves into where you were. It holds your place, so that you can come back."