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A New River - Chapter 6

"Are you going to be okay?" the Gunslinger asked.

Azra reached self-consciously to touch the Aegis on her back. The shield-point stuck up over her right shoulder, where she could grab it quick in an emergency. "I don't really know what will happen with this when it's all over," she admitted. "I don't think I have much control over how this is going to turn out."

"Not like that," Tallulah said. "Like… you're going through something rough. Anyone could see it. And you're alone. Are you gonna be alright?"

The wind picked up, pushing at Azra's cloak. The Light around them sang of spring in the mountains- meltwater and new green things growing in the weak sun. Unavoidable was the stench of Darkness- Fallen hatred and death- but it couldn't override the sweet feeling of renewal. Beside her, Tallulah glowed, warm as a campfire. The stone under her feet was ever-patient. The air whispered potential and anticipation.

The world turned. Dawn was coming.

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A New River - Chapter 6

"Are you going to be okay?" the Gunslinger asked.

Azra reached self-consciously to touch the Aegis on her back. The shield-point stuck up over her right shoulder, where she could grab it quick in an emergency. "I don't really know what will happen with this when it's all over," she admitted. "I don't think I have much control over how this is going to turn out."

"Not like that," Tallulah said. "Like… you're going through something rough. Anyone could see it. And you're alone. Are you gonna be alright?"

The wind picked up, pushing at Azra's cloak. The Light around them sang of spring in the mountains- meltwater and new green things growing in the weak sun. Unavoidable was the stench of Darkness- Fallen hatred and death- but it couldn't override the sweet feeling of renewal. Beside her, Tallulah glowed, warm as a campfire. The stone under her feet was ever-patient. The air whispered potential and anticipation.

The world turned. Dawn was coming.

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Come and see what the Guardians of the Last City have forged for you this spring!

We’ve got a fresh zine chock-full of new art and writing from the creative minds in our community!

Check out the zine here!

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Guarantees, Then Obligations - Brand Your Guardian

Huzzah for @d2artevents! Go check out the full zine on their Tumblr/Twitter, or peruse the #brandyourguardian tag for more entries.

Read my entry on AO3 here or beneath the cut!

It had been a long day at work for Cayde. It had been a boring day. Those were rare, after the Red War. Ghaul's death had sent the Red Legion scattering like coals kicked from a bonfire, and a good portion of Guardiandom was still running around frantically trying to stamp them out. Keeping that operation coordinated was a job and a half, especially on top of the Vanguard's attempts to re-establish the old patrol schedules. It had all been chaos for a bit there. But, six weeks after retaking the City, things were finally starting to slow down. Cayde was looking forward to some time off. Takeout for dinner and a few Crucible recaps, maybe. Or a rom-com. Or he could scrub down his apartment one more time. The burning-rubble smoke scent had pervaded since he'd moved back in, despite all of his scrubbing so far.

Lady Luck had a different plan for him. Cayde stomped up the stairs and opened his front door, ready to put on a trashy audiobook and spend the evening cleaning, only to find his apartment was occupied. The Hunter inside looked up and flashed him a smile as he took off his boots.

It was a surprise, to be sure. Azra Jax had a strong aversion to the City, and besides, she'd been even busier than Cayde was. Every time he'd checked up on her she'd been in a different corner of the System, running rescue missions or causing trouble for the Red Legion. But if she was home for the night, maybe he could wheedle her into going out to a bar or something. She deserved a night off, too. It seemed her field work had dried up enough to ease her conscience about it.

Or perhaps she'd just buried herself in a different kind of work. She had the coffee table covered with an assortment of what looked like legal documents.

Cayde decided to tease her. "Didn't expect you to be in town." He sidled up beside her and cast a critical eye down at the papers. "Wait, let me guess. You pissed off Zavala somehow and he's making you fill out hard copies of all your scouting reports?"

Azra grinned up at him wryly. "I was finally convinced to take a look at all of these." She flapped some of the sheets in her hands for dramatic effect. She didn't appear to be enjoying herself all that much, whatever it was.

Azra's Ghost spoke up before Cayde could ask more questions. "It's sponsorship contracts. Modeling deals. Promotions. Stuff like that. We've been pretty much ignoring them the past month, but…"

Yeah, that would explain Azra's general air of frustration. If there was one thing she hated more than spending time in the City, it was all of the attention the fame brought. She'd been a bit of a celebrity before the Red War, and things were much, much worse these days. They were talking about making statues, Traveler forbid.

"I just don't get why this is all so important," Azra complained. "It's baffling. There's people who model and stuff for a living. Why are they bothering me so much about it? What's even the point?"

"Well," Cayde said, "You know. It's advertising. A celebrity face gets the people buyin'. So I heard."

"I don't know a Hunter in their right mind who would take this deal." Azra slapped the contracts down on the table. "Sitting around for hours, days, getting prodded and posed. Or having to kiss up to some company founder. Seems mortifying. Why even bother?"

"Fame and fortune seem like pretty good motivators?" Cayde ventured.

Azra just shot him an unimpressed look.

Cayde shrugged and flopped down on the futon next to her, sending the Ghosts chasing after flying papers. "It's not a bad way to make money, if you've got the offer. A few days of light work and you leave with full pockets? No getting shot or blown up? Better than mucking around Fallen nests for peanuts."

"I think I'd prefer getting blown up," Azra said. "I mean, look at this." She yanked the top sheet from her stack. "Three days of photo shooting, three whole days as a human dress-up doll, and I'm still half-considering it cause it's forty thousand Glimmer."

"Sounds like a migraine," her Ghost commented, redepositing the stray files back onto the table. "And what would we even buy?"

"You could use your own room," Cayde said. It was a joke of a suggestion- he saw so little of her already, he was glad she came over when she was in town. But it was fun to propose the idea to her and watch her contemplate the horror of rental agreements and insurance. "Or an office, or something. You could get an address for all the adoring City people to send you fan mail…"

Azra called his bluff immediately, snorting and rolling her eyes. "I could also use a set of sniper rifles color coded for the days of the week, but that doesn't mean it's worth it."

"How about a nice racing Sparrow?" Cayde suggested, in earnest this time. "You know Marcus is itching to get the racing league started back up."

That did give Azra a pause, and Cayde allowed himself a mental pat on the back. Then he played his other card: "Or you could always donate it to the Kinderguardian fund, if you wanted to be all selfless about it. The Vanguard's not exactly flush with Glimmer at the moment. How's that really different than taking another scout mission, morally?" Besides, it might get her to slow down for a couple of days. She made a good act, but he knew her moods as well as his own. She was running on fumes. Look at her, frowning distractedly at her papers, not even trying to annoy Cayde back.

"I still don't think it's a good idea," she muttered to herself. "Why all this payout for an untrained amateur? Smells fishy."

"Well," Cayde said, "You're pretty famous already. People pay attention to what you have to say. Someone can put your seal of approval on things, it'll sure get people interested."

"So I'm selling my reputation for Glimmer," Azra said. She'd never sounded less impressed with a concept.

"Think of it as helping them, then," Cayde suggested. "And helping people looking for whatever they're selling. You've been around the block a few times, you know what's good and what's not. You say, hey, the product works, then the company gets to sell more, and you get Glimmer, and everyone knows where to go to get the good stuff. It's a win-win-win."

"That's all dependent on me having prior knowledge," Azra complained. "Or doing the research, I guess. I've never bought anything from most of these companies."

"Most of them?" Cayde asked. "So you do know some of these? That's a good a place to start as any."

Azra grumbled, so Cayde elbowed her in the side. "Come on. If you don't at least respond to a few, it's gonna look like you're getting airs. You can dodge the reporters all day, but you keep this up and the City folk are gonna think you think you're above them."

"Fine," Azra relented. "You're a bad man, Cayde. Sure know how to sweet-talk a girl."

Cayde stood up, stretching his back. "I'll make some tea. How about you pick out a few of those and I'll take a peak at 'em?"

Azra sighed and started leafing through the stack again. Cayde made quick work with the electric kettle, but she'd already pulled out four offers by the time he'd gotten the leaves in the water. Cayde exchanged one mug for the contracts sipped from the other as he read.

First up: Cobblestone Leatherworks. A shoe company. Made sense- Azra did like their boots, especially for exploration work. A no-brainer.

Second, an independent armor smithy run by one Abd ar-Rashed. They mostly did work for Titans, but Cayde himself had commissioned a few pieces from them over the years. They made good raid gear.

Third-

Cayde spit out his tea and nearly dropped his mug. "Omolon?" he shrieked.

Azra shushed him.

"Omolon?" Cayde repeated, quieter but no less intense. "One of the major foundries offered a personal sponsorship and you were going to say no?"

Azra shrugged. "I hardly use their signature stuff. The whole liquid tech thing is too finicky. Hard to repair in the field. I dunno. But…" Her hand drifted to the holster on her hip, to the sidearm Cayde knew was there.

"I always thought it was weird," he mused, bringing the mug back to his lips. "They do all of this crazy tech, and a basic Vanguard commission design is the one still getting used today. Your baby's made it through more battles than I can count, at this point."

Azra tilted her head, considering that. "Maybe working with the weird stuff means they have to be that much more precise? Can't ever say I had an Omolon jam on me, liquid ammo or no. My sidearm did get damaged real bad at the start of the Red War, but Banshee fixed it right back up. It was with me on the assault on the Almighty, and the fight with Ghaul. Besides the Hellmouth, and the Dreadnaught, and…" she left the tail hanging. And the Vault of Glass. And hey, anything that helped Azra drag herself back from that pit was aces in Cayde's book.

"Then tell that story," he said. "That's the kind of stuff they want to hear. They can have Crucible junkies go on all day about their tech."

He shook his head at the oddity of it- an Omolon contract, and Azra was going to decline- and flipped to the last offering.

Axon Outerwear. A street clothes brand. That was weird. Boots, okay. Armor. Guns. Those were very much Azra Jax things. But normal human clothes were not. (She was lounging on the futon in her strike gear, for the Traveler's sake).

"Clothes?" Cayde asked skeptically.

"Most of mine got destroyed when they hit the Tower," Azra said.

"You've never been very gung-ho about buying more," Caye said. "I remember Andal always had to drag you out shopping. Literally, sometimes."

Azra shifted in her seat. "I think I see Andal's point of view on that more and more these days. I think… it's important to be able to change out of the armor, you know? Take a break from being just a Guardian. Put on something else."

Cayde raised an eyebrow at her, and she made a face at him. "I get the irony of it, thanks. I'll take off the armor when I have something other than base layers to wear."

Cayde tapped the papers against his arm, thinking. The name was still ringing a bell for him. Axon, Axon... "Hey, isn't this the company that does those subclass hoodies?" That was right, they had been quite the rage the past few years.

"They actually… they reached out to me a few months ago," Azra explained. "Before the Red War. Offered to make a custom one. 'Cause, you know. They had Bladedancer ones, but back then I was the only Arcstrider…"

"But you didn't want to draw more attention to that," Cayde said empathetically. "I understand." If the fame was a little annoying, the curiosity had been extremely so. Especially in her early days, when being The Arcstrider was the only public acclaim she had.

"But now there's thousands of Arcstriders," Spark said. "Maybe we deserve to be a little more loud about it."

"I thought you deserved to be loud about it before," Cayde said. "But I get wanting a break from it all."

"Maybe we could make a deal," Azra said. "Give 'em out for bounties or something. I mean, if I hadn't had Andal take me shopping, how long would I have gone through life with only armor to wear? And now, with all this chaos, you think the Kinderguardians are going to have any time to think about this stuff?"

"We might be able to make that work," Cayde said. It would be up the air whether they'd accept it, (giving a bunch of their product out as unofficial Vanguard merch ran the risk of losing them the favor of the Fashion Gods,) but it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Boots and armor and guns and a hoodie," Cayde commented. "What more could you need?"

Azra's stomach elected that moment to growl. The Arcstrider laughed. "Food, apparently."

"Dinner?" Cayde said hopefully. "Ramen?"

Azra grinned at that. "Well, that's partly up to Shiro, isn't it?"

"Shiro's in town?"

"Who'd you think got me to sit down and start taking this stuff seriously?" Azra asked. She held out a hand and Cayde helped pull her to her feet. "He headed off to meet with some foundry rep himself, but that was a few hours ago. He's probably done by now."

Fantastic. Cayde slapped the sheaf of papers down on the table. "Leave all the mailing and negotiating for tomorrow," Cayde said. "Tonight, let's celebrate."

"Celebrate what?"

"Things are starting to get back to normal," Cayde said. "The patrol schedules are set. The VanNet is up and steady. There's nothing going on."

"You want to celebrate… having nothing to celebrate?" Azra asked skeptically.

Cayde grinned. "Exactly! You down or what?"

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Hey do you still write fanfiction about destiny2? would you be into proofreading a destiny2 fic about cayde6?

Ahh! I didn't see the notification about this! >.<

Yes, I'd love to help out with proofreading work! Feel free to message me.

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A New River - Chapter 5 - Into the Fight

It was also weird to not be sprinting about- Azra had to keep reminding herself this was a battle, not a skirmish. There were too many enemies to be moving recklessly here, and Guardian endurance would only keep up so long. Slow and steady was the pace they'd have to keep, even if it made Azra's skin itch. It was hard to stay in the present moment when somewhere, at that moment, people were fighting and dying for the City.

"Hold up," Spark interjected. "I think I have something?"

Azra and Tallulah both froze. The comms frequencies had been silent since the net had gone down. If they were reading someone, they had to be within ping range. With the mountains blocking signals, that would be close.

There was something in the audio feed. It sounded like plain interference, but as Spark tweaked the radio frequency and compressed the audio, a voice emerged from the static. It was too fragmented to work out a complete sentence, but Azra caught "party" and "Wolves" and "mayday".

"I can't triangulate an exact location," Spark reported, "but they're west of us. Probably further up the pass."

Tallulah dropped onto the stone ridge next to Azra. "Is Saint-14 there?"

"I don't know," Spark said. "That's not his voice, but it sounds like there are more Guardians there."

Azra slid on her helmet and double-checked her sidearm.

"Hold on, we're going?" Tallulah asked.

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fuck it. ten notes on this post and i start freeing the mst3k posts in my drafts bc i need to stop being afraid of being cringe

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In the context of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it should be pronounced 'junior'. There are some circumstances where JR is a kind of nickname (like if your name is John Russel people might call you JR instead). Maybe the guy introducing King got nervous or something and misspoke.

Okay is JR "jay-ar" or "Junior"

Like how do you say it

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Beware, you have awakened the materials nerd within me.

"Rock" is a poorly defined term. Geology-wise, it's just "lump of solid thing in the ground". So granite is a rock. Ice is a rock. By this definition, glass is a rock, where it's naturally occurring.

What glass is not is a "crystal". A crystal is something with a repeating molecular structure. You get a bunch of marbles in a jar and they all line up nicely? A bunch of colored pencils in a box? Honeycombs? That's kind of like what a crystal is. There are plenty of things that are made up of the same stuff as glass (Silicon and Oxygen) that are crystals, and thus behave much differently than glass. Think Quartz or Micah (a good portion of rocks are crystalline silicates like this, made from Silicon and Oxygen, with a repeating molecular structure). Crystals really like where they're at, all happy and balanced, so they (usually) have higher melting points and (usually) are stronger and harder. (Note: Ice is also a crystal. Metals are crystals in that they have that nice repeating pattern, but their bonds act differently 'cause they're metals. There is no universal classification for anything and the states of matter are a lie.)

Common soda-lime glass is "amorphous". It has no crystal structure. All the atoms are random in there. This means they aren't locked in, and glass is very easily melted down and shaped (why we make so much stuff out of it). Glass is not classified as a "mineral", because it does not have a crystal structure. It's just kind of. There. It's "mineraloid" as in "kind of like a mineral but not really".

If you start getting into the weeds of 'what is a solid and what is a liquid', you will find nothing but bullshit. A solid is something that holds it shape. A liquid is something that takes the shape of whatever container it's placed in. (Over what timescale? Under what pressure? How much does it have to re-shape to count? Asphalt will drip at room temperature over decades- is this a solid or a liquid? How is that definition helpful?). And then you get the process by which things deform over time, while still being solid from a molecular standpoint, by a process known as "creep". The most common forms of creep happen more at higher temperatures, which is why hot metal gets soft. Honestly creep makes me angrier and more confused than about half of the quantum mechanics I had to learn.

tl;dr: Glass is a rock, by virtue of being "solid thing we find in the ground". Glass is not a nice orderly crystal like most rock are, its molecules are just kind of all over the place, which makes it act different. The states of matter are a lie.

Is glass a rock

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*shuffles up to the podium*

*flips through some papers*

Ahem.

Spotify Wrapped. Numbers. Song numbers from Spotify Wrapped. You give me numbers, I give you (hopefully) pleasing arrangements of words based on the vibes and/or lyrics of that song. Throw in a character or characters too if you want.

This has been the public service announcement. Thank you. Goodnight.

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Daytime reblog for the daytime people!

And there was no time to think, to consider this- there was the familiar distant crack-BOOM of an anti-air gun and a Skiff screamed by, too close and far too low, and Azra didn't have time to do anything but act on instinct. Spark summoned her Sparrow from his storage and Azra threw herself on it, gunning the thrusters before she even got her feet in the pedals. Muscle memory ruled her- she saw a small stone ridge of sorts from the corner of her eye and she acted. She skewed the right hand grip all the way back and managed to get her left toe in the stirrup in time to jerk the control outwards. Despite the stabilizers (she didn't have the time to toggle them off), the bike skidded and turned at a crazy angle. Azra twisted both grips to maximum and the bike shot off behind the upturned slab.

There was no space to brake- Spark dematerialized the bike and Azra turned to take the slide on the Aegis. Not a millisecond too soon. The Skiff crashed, sending up quite a nice fireball. The trees around them were shredded by the shrapnel. Wood splinters and leaf bits rained down like confetti. Azra, unhurt, lay there looking up at the tattered foliage as her brain slowly began working again.

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And there was no time to think, to consider this- there was the familiar distant crack-BOOM of an anti-air gun and a Skiff screamed by, too close and far too low, and Azra didn't have time to do anything but act on instinct. Spark summoned her Sparrow from his storage and Azra threw herself on it, gunning the thrusters before she even got her feet in the pedals. Muscle memory ruled her- she saw a small stone ridge of sorts from the corner of her eye and she acted. She skewed the right hand grip all the way back and managed to get her left toe in the stirrup in time to jerk the control outwards. Despite the stabilizers (she didn't have the time to toggle them off), the bike skidded and turned at a crazy angle. Azra twisted both grips to maximum and the bike shot off behind the upturned slab.

There was no space to brake- Spark dematerialized the bike and Azra turned to take the slide on the Aegis. Not a millisecond too soon. The Skiff crashed, sending up quite a nice fireball. The trees around them were shredded by the shrapnel. Wood splinters and leaf bits rained down like confetti. Azra, unhurt, lay there looking up at the tattered foliage as her brain slowly began working again.

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Hey everyone!! Look what's premiering in one hour!!!

This project was so much fun!!! Everyone did amazing with their parts PLEASE go check out the video description for everyone's socials and show them some love!! We all worked super hard on this and hope you enjoy it as much as we do!! ｡･ﾟ･(ﾉ▽`)･ﾟ･。

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Reblog if its ok to spam you with boops

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Day 10 - Dream

You are here.  After so long, you are finally here.  You have followed the song of this star from light-centuries away- a song of potential.  A song sung not in certainty, but in expectation.  Of want.  You are as a moth drawn to the burning flame of hope.  There is meaning here.

There is meaning everywhere, if you look for it.  Countless eons you have passed in company, by rocky planets and wave-churned fundaments, in the thick soup of gas giants, on fragile web-filaments strung between asteroids.  You have known a hundred trillion faces.  You have seen so much that nothing could be unusual to you anymore.

It can still be new.  Even this plain star, this system so rote- even this is still new.  The differences may be infinitesimal on a universal scale, but they are still differences, and their effects echo long and far.  The voices on the wind are those of strangers.

-

Her arms are on fire.  They itch.  The Shard before her ripples with iridescent sparks.  There is too much Light- she can see the bones of her hands through the flesh.  It crashes over her again like a wave, like a landslide-

-

Ground shifts.  Seas boil up into existence.  A thousand small tragedies occur- a rock, once sat in the light of the sun, buried.  New plants, just testing the soil with their roots, drowned in a flood.  Things are changed, irrevocably, taken from their set destinies by your gardening.  Your touch breaks, damages, alters, but as things heal, they heal better.  After the flood, stronger plants grow.  Fish swim.  The planet goes from sun-burned rock and icy dust to a garden.  It blooms.

-

Her heart pounds heavy in her chest.  There is air in her lungs, but it’s too much.  Goosebumps tear over her skin like fire on an oil slick.  Her senses are fully haywire- she smells the lights of her HUD like mango and lime, and the heaviness of the water around her is a ringing in her ears.

Abort, abort, Spark thinks.  It’s the only coherent thought in Azra’s head.  She pushes off from the Shard-

-

You cast the shards away.  You have broken yourself to do this.  Broken yourself in a million ways.  In this breaking, there is despair; that you, as you are now, are not strong enough.  You could never be strong enough.  You are subtlety, quiet voices in large crowds, a child’s wonder, forgiveness.  Your foe is sharp knives and finality and death and death and death.  It would cut you to the marrow.  Drink your soul.  Twist you until you are something you are not.

But in this breaking, there is hope.  Hope that you can heal.  That you can be better.  That this sacrifice will mean something.  That your bet will pay off.  It is an impossible hope, that you could ever beat this foe.  You hope anyway.

The breaking is a promise.  It is a terraforming of yourself.  Every piece you shed is a whisper, still yours in intent and power, but now separate, forever changed.  The splinters crash into mountains and splash down into seas, causing earthquakes and sending up gouts of superheated steam.  They drift on breezes.  They think, with the ponderous slowness of glaciers, in the quick leaps of electrons across the void.  A million sparks of yourself pull themselves together, a million notes of respect and wonder and hope and yearning.  They are the Ghosts of all of your plans, phantoms of the future.

-

She’s underwater.  That’s all she can process at first.  She’s underwater and there is an arm around her chest, tugging at her.  Pulling her up?  Dragging her down?  She has no sense of direction until her head breaks the surface.  Azra gasps desperately, on instinct, but she’s fine.  She’s wearing a helmet, and her rebreather is constantly cycling cool, fresh air against her face.  She can’t drown.

She gasps anyway.  All of her nerves feel lit and over-sensitive.  She tries to kick her legs but the muscles just spasm randomly.  Her body doesn’t feel real.

“Hang on, I gotcha,” Shiro grunts from behind her.  That’s Shiro’s arm, then, pulling her.  He shifts his grip and begins towing her back to the cliff with powerful strokes.  Azra lets herself go limp, trying to just keep her wits, remember where she is.

The cliff, the Shard.  Answers.  They were looking for answers.  About how she’d regained her Light during the Red War.  Why her.  What this piece of the Traveler, having sat on the ocean floor for centuries, had to say.  She wanted to try to commune with it again.  Lucky she’d brought Shiro along- she’d have drifted in the ocean for a while waiting for her muscles to learn to obey her again.

At the rock face, she grips the wall with all of her might and lets her helmet rest against the stone.  The sense of itchy wrongness is fading, but she has no strength.

“Here,” Shiro says.  He’s right next to her, still, and without another word he rearranges the pair of them- Azra clinging piggyback, Shiro hanging on the sheer wall.  He takes a few deep breaths and then smoothly, confidently, starts hauling them both up the rock.

It’s not a show of strength, exactly- Shiro is an Exo, so his frame is perfectly capable of supporting both of their weights.  Even with her gear, Azra’s only adding maybe a hundred kilograms.  But even if it’s not an unusual amount of strength, it is an impressive display of balance and coordination.  Rock climbing is tricky enough without extra weight disrupting your balance.  And Shiro’s finger-joints aren’t flexible enough to conform to holds like Azra’s are, his hands too rigid to cram into cracks effectively.

Azra will have to take time to admire the skill later.  It’s taking all her effort just to remember how to breathe and hold on at the same time. 

Shiro heaves them over the edge and lets Azra down on solid ground.  “Spark?” he asks, already turning to dive back in for the Ghost.

“He’s alright,” Azra answers.  Spark had stayed out of realspace, so he hadn’t been incapacitated like Azra had been.  Shiro steps away from the drop, back towards the boulder where they’d left a pile of their things.  A second later and he’s back with Azra’s boots- which he sets within arm’s reach- and her cloak, which he wraps around her shoulders.

Azra clings to the fabric.  It’s grounding.  Reassuringly familiar.  Shiro, too, is familiar.  He sits down next to her and she leans on him automatically.

“Take your helmet off first,” Shiro orders.  Azra fumbles for her latches.  Spark whisks it away as soon as she gets it off her head.  Almost immediately she misses the cool breeze of her respirator- the air is warm and humid and full of the smell of ocean brine.  The sun’s bright, too, making her squint.  But at least now she can rest her head on Shiro’s stable shoulder.

They sit in quiet for a couple of minutes.  Azra’s nerves slowly calm from that raw dazzling fire to a more stable buzz.  She could have just chugged an energy drink.

“Any useful nuggets?” Shiro asks.

But Azra shakes her head mutely.  It’s far too jumbled, too alien, to make any sense of.

Shiro sighs.  “Let’s not do that again.  I don’t like having to haul your catatonic ass out of the ocean more than I have to.”

Azra nods into his shoulder.  She knows he’s burning with curiosity.  She’s grateful he’s not pushing the issue.  She doesn’t know if she could sort out the dreams into words right now.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Azra murmurs.

“Always,” Shiro replies.

AO3 Linky!

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Day 8 - Harmonica

TYPE: GUARDIAN CUSTOMS PROJECT PARTIES: Four [4]. Three [3] Guardian-types, Class Hunter, designates Cayde-6 [c6], Azra Jax [aj], Shiro-4 [s4]; One [1] Ghost-type, designate Sundance [s] ASSOCIATIONS: Cayde-6; Jax, Azra; Shiro-4 CUSTOMS ASSOCIATIONS: First Lives; Music; Pack [Hunters] /AUDIO UNAVAILABLE/ /TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../

[c6:01]: What do you think of “The Dust Rock Blues”?

[s4:01]: For what?

[c6:02]: For the name of our band.

[aj:01]: You’re forming a band?

[c6:03]: We are forming a band.

[s4:02]: This is news to me.

[c6:04]: It’s cutting-edge stuff.

[aj:02]: How are we going to form a band?  Half of us don’t even play instruments.

[c6:05]: Not true!  Andal and Tevis both play guitar.

[aj:03]: And what?  You’ll play the harmonica?

[c6:06]: As a matter of fact, yes.  Hence the blues.  You think “Dust Rock Blues” is too on the nose?

[aj:04]: Two guitars and a harmonica does not a band make, Cayde.

[c6:07]: You haven’t heard my harmonica playing.

[s4:03]: Everyone from here to Twilight Gap has heard your harmonica playing.

[aj:05]: What are me and Shiro supposed to do, be backup dancers?

[s4:04]: Actually, I can play the violin.

[aj:06]: Since when?

[s4:05]: I dunno.  Few years?  Cane real naturally.  Might have been from my first life, who knows?

[c6:08]: Cool, a fiddle player.  Hey Azra, maybe-

[s4:06]: Not fiddle.  Violin.

[c6:09]: Same thing.

[s4:07]: They’re different instruments.

[c6:10]: Bullshit.

[s:01]: Actually, fiddles have a much flatter bridge.  It’s so you can play two strings at once.  It’s called-

[c6:11]: Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?

[s:02]: Not when your side is a dumb one.

[c6:12]: Anyways, what I’m getting at, is we make Azra the singer.

[aj:07]: Absolutely not.

[c6:13]: Come on!  Imagine it.  Fronting the band?  The money, the fame-

[aj:08]: I think I would die.

[c6:14]: Fine.  Maybe we can put you on upright bass or something.

[aj:09]: I can’t play the bass.

[c6:15]: You can’t sing much either, but I wasn’t gonna let that stop us.

[aj:10]: Why don’t I take the harmonica?  We can give you another instrument.

[s4:08]: Like a kazoo.

[aj:11]: Yes!  A kazoo.  Maybe one of those little clappers.

[c6:16]: You know what?  Forget I said anything.

[s4:09]: I think it’s far too late for that.

[c6:17]: I’m going to be finding kazoos everywhere for a month, aren’t I?

[s:03]: If you want help hooking one up to his respirator, just let me know.

[c6:18]: Betrayal! 

[s4:09]: You did kind of start it, Cayde.

[aj:12]: Insinuate that I can’t sing again and I’ll make it a year.

[poorlytunedukulele]

Day 5 - Impasse

April 07, 2883; The Last City, Earth

“So.  It’s come to this.”

The Hunters all stared at each other, steely-eyed.  The tension in the air was palpable.  It seemed to stifle breath.  Cayde crossed his arms, optics flicking from face to face.  Shiro kept his arms akimbo, hand never drifting too far from his sidearm.  Tevis scowled.  Azra pressed her lips into a thin line.  For a long second they all stood stock-still, nary a muscle-twich or servo-whine.  The bustle of the Tower Concourse around them was just a background hum.

Andal Brask presided over all of them, chin high and expression hard.  “Cayde,” he commanded.  “You go first.”

Cayde wasted no time.  He spoke confidently, with the occasional sharp gesture to accentuate his points.  “Leo’s is clearly the superior option.  It has the widest variety of food.  Breakfast stuff, Greek.  Coney dogs.  Everyone could find something.”

Andal turned his eyes to Azra.  The younger Hunter added her points quickly.  “They don’t serve alcohol at Leo’s.  Finnegan’s has a bar.  I heard they have a new batch of ciders in.  And you know you’ll be able to flirt your way into a free drink if you want one.”

Shiro tilted his head.  “They do have that new bartender- whatstheirname- that doesn’t flirt with Cayde.”

“What are the chances they’ll be working tonight?” Tevis asked.  “They have like five others.”

“Finnegan’s food is so heavy, though,” Cayde whined.  “It just sits in ya.”

“Maybe if you didn’t order and then eat two entire baskets of potato wedges,” Azra said.

“They had a two-for-one deal!” Cayde said.

“Not your turn,” Andal interrupted.  “Shiro?”

Shiro looked Azra straight in the eye.  “Leo’s has a dish that they light on fire.  In front of you.”

Azra’s resolve clearly wavered at that.  Tevis stepped in before she could recant her vote.  “Finnegan’s is more calm.  Leo’s has those LEDs at maximum brightness.  I feel like I’m in a shopping mall.”

“Bacon and eggs,” Cayde said.

“Pulled pork,” Azra countered.

“Leo’s will be faster,” Shiro pointed out.  “And cheaper.”

“We’re all rich and it’s raining at Camp,” Tevis said.  “What else are we going to do?”

“Do none of you have any better points to make?” Andal asked the group.  “Or any other restaurant suggestions?”

Cayde groaned.  “Well, you won’t let me vote for Ramen again, so this is what you get.”

Andal tsked disapprovingly.  “The Ramen Quota is the only compromise that let you still participate in dinner decisions, Six.  It is not my fault you filled it already this month.”

Azra’s eyes went wide, her voice sweetening noticeably.  “Can’t you vote this one time, Andal?  Just to make things easier?  It’s an even split.”

Andal glared at her.  “You’ve filled the puppy-dog-eyes quota this month, too, Jax.”

Azra swore and looked away.

Andal shook his head.  “We need discipline.  I can’t go resolving your interpersonal conflicts every time there’s a disagreement.  You guys can sit and argue until you get really hungry, or something else forces your hands.”

Someone from outside the circle cleared their throat.  It was a different Hunter- Ashton, a member of Dead End Cure.  (He wasn’t the only onlooker, by far- just the boldest).  “Why don’t you guys just go to separate restaurants for dinner?”

He’d thought the suggestion was a reasonable one, but the five Hunters turned to stare at him.  Expressions ranged from incredulity to outright hostility.  Ashton swore he could feel the air smoldering on his skin. 

He put his hands up and backed away nervously.  “Okay.  Geez.  Didn’t mean to strike a nerve.”

There were a couple of scoffs, and the group turned to resume its tense negotiations. 

“What a weirdo,” Cayde muttered under his breath.  “Go to different restaurants?  Who does he think we are?”

“Okay, hear me out,” Shiro said.  “Sushi-“

“Only if you can find one that doesn’t serve ramen,” Tevis interrupted.

“Why the hell do you care if they have ramen?” Cayde asked.  “You wouldn’t have to eat it.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Tevis answered.

Andal sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose as a fresh round of argument erupted.