When Destiny Burns, Ep. 2 A Halo and Inheritance Cycle Crossover [Discontinued]

Chapter 14.3 The First Gear

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Even though he had left the festivities behind him, he could still hear the enchanting voices of the singing elves reaching out to him. Arya had disappeared somewhere, Eragon and Saphira had joined the elves in some massive feast and Aeraleth was with them too. For a war-ridden land, the various races were very quick to throw parties. To Maine, such activities were a waste of time and resources. He wasn't going to play nice with these elves after they had nearly attacked and seriously belittled him. Even if they hadn't, he wouldn't have taken his helmet off anyway, meaning that he would have stood at rigid attention for the entire length of the event. No, he would much rather be alone. He felt disturbed for some reason; as if there was something going on around him that he just couldn't explain. It was frustrating.

He marched through the forest until he had placed at least five-hundred meters between himself and the elves. He had thought them to be wise and disciplined; creatures of intelligence and magic. Magic they were, but the rest? They were a disappointment. They behaved erratic and acted with needless complication in their lives. Their customs were harder to understand than raw Covenant glyphs and their minds were as hard to understand as human minds were.

Maine didn't lie to himself. He was longing for a return to the old; to fight against a foe that, despite always winning the greater battles, could be defied with every single little conflict. He missed living his life in such a way that he understood what was happening to him: win the war one mission and engagement at a time. He didn't long for free time or a life of peace.

No, of course he wanted peace. Peace meant an end to the years of suffering that his kind had been put through –and peace would mean his own end. He was a Spartan; a tool for warfare. He existed to win wars and when the war was over...nobody would need him anymore. The missions that ONI had been giving to the Secret-Spartans had grown increasingly rare and simple; they were running out of Insurrectionists to beat down and Parangosky had been forced to move with extreme caution, lest she forced mankind into another war.

He could have felt the end of his usefulness coming. What was waiting for him after the war? A life as a civilian? No Spartan could ever life as a normal person. It was impossible. He could not imagine the true Spartans living a normal life and he could not image the Secret-Spartans –with their fits of aggression and mental problems- living a normal life.

He heard a small branch snap, roughly forty meters to his left. Upon closer investigation, it appeared that he hadn't been all alone in the forest after all.

"Arya."

"Spartan?"

He faced the black-haired elf, who was sitting on a fallen log underneath a different tree, with moderate suspicion.

"Why are you here?" She asked him. Her voice sounded...off. Distracted...troubled...weak.

"I heard something," he answered truthfully, "and I came to investigate."

"Leave me be Spartan...I have no desire to be near you now."

The way she made the word 'now' sound indicated that something was troubling her. Why wasn't she with the rest of the elves? With Eragon? Why was she here, all alone?

"Why are you-"

"I said leave me be!" She snapped at him, louder than she had ever sounded.

Maine didn't know what to do with her. Aeraleth wasn't there to assist him and when he was on his own, he only knew how to kill people. That was the sole reason why he would not be able to function in a time of peace...and he refused to allow that to happen.

So he started thinking. Sifting through every single fact he knew about the elf in less time than it took a human to blink, he stumbled upon the way she had spoken to the queen. She had been disowned because of her desire to help her species deal with the other species as an ambassador –as the egg-courier. She had lived all on her own for seventy years and even he could understand that, for a normal person, being so long without your kind had to be unpleasant. And there was more. She had been tortured by Durza –a Shade- for weeks. Even though the ways that the people in this country employed to torture had to be...primitive at best...her ordeal could not have been pleasant. She was carrying a burden with her that had caused many a soldier to be driven to suicide. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder they called it. Arya had to be suffering from PTSD...and without proper psychiatric help, she would only sink deeper into a manic depression that would ruin her life. Even though she was an elf, she would suffer by her own mind.