#everyone knows Shaxx dragon is completely blind

[frostwyrhm]

Bringing this over from twitter, because I’m still thinking about the Shaxx dragon. ‘twas just an impulse i had

[lordshaxxion]

Dragonlord AU - Conviction

welp. Here comes some good old heartfelt pain

The walk to the Vanguard Hall was silent, Kilgharrah making occasional chitters here and there to Edix in an attempt to drawn some kind of reaction from the distraught Warlock. Edix had wrapped the little dragon up in a blanket before he left his room and was marched to the Hall with Ikora leading the way. Things weren’t looking good and they were about to get even worse as they entered and saw Zavala talking to a small group of Titans.

As he was talking, he heard Ikora entering and clearing her throat. Looking up, the Commander saw a teary Edix holding a wiggling bundle in his arms and a very concerned-looking Ikora next to him, arms crossed. Whatever had transpired, it wasn’t good.

“Everyone leave. This is now a private matter of the Vanguard.” Ikora barked, voice carrying across the room and echoing as the staff and few Guardians quickly left and closed the great doors behind them. She gestured sharply for Edix to move to the war table and set the squirming bundle of blankets down. Once he had done so, he choked back a distressed sob before revealing Kilgharrah.

An audible noise left Zavala as he stared down at the infant dragon, eyes wide as he remained visibly calm otherwise. Cayde-6 was already asking questions in alarm.

“Is that what I think that is?!” He squawked, mouth lights flashing orange. “Where did you get that?! How did you get it into the Tower undetected?” He was in complete shock, the Exo hesitant to move closer to the little beast. It didn’t seem like it could have possibly been a living and breathing Ahamkara, it was so innocent, and yet there it was cleaning its scales and chirping at Edix.

The doors to the Hall banged open suddenly, a thunderstruck Lord Shaxx storming in and staring at the baby on the table.

“HOW THE HELL IS THERE ONE LEFT?!” He bellowed, staring at Zavala behind his helmet though everyone could tell his expression was one of fury. “How could we have possibly missed one?! It isn’t POSSIBLE!” He roared, voice filling the empty room and driving more tears to fall from Edix’s eyes.

“Evidently, Shaxx, you missed not one but two. Edix found the mother on Io. She called out to him through the Awoken mind.” Ikora said, almost snidely. The Commander and the Crucible Handler had prided themselves in their hunt of the manipulative beasts, Lord Shaxx bragging about it every so often in gesture to the skulls that hang as trophies in his area of the Tower. The comment only wound Shaxx up more as he clenched his great fists and stormed towards the quivering dragon, ready to smash it to a pulp in such rage no one in the room had seen either at all or for a very long time. Edix gave a cry and grabbed Kilgharrah, pulling him out of Shaxx’s reach.

“He’s just a baby! You can’t blame him for the things only a few Ahamkara did!” The Warlock shouted at the Titan, eyes filled with barely unshed tears as he cradled the dragon in his arms. No one had ever dared to raise their voices at Lord Shaxx, least of all Edix.

“Give me the dragon, boy, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Shaxx snarled, as the heat of Solar Light radiated from him. Edix shook his head.

“No! You can’t make me! I made a promise to look after him! I’m not breaking it! Not for you, not for anyone in this Tower!” Edix shouted. “Kilgharrah hasn’t hurt anyone! He’s just a baby!”

“Zavala! Tell him!” Shaxx snapped at his old friend, Zavala unusually silent and calm. “Zavala?”

All eyes turned to the Vanguard Commander, watching him stare at the dragon with eyes like a hawk.

“Edix. Explain.” He said quietly.

“I was running a mission on Io for Asher when I felt a presence in my mind. I followed it into a network of caverns beneath Io’s surface before I found an adult Ahamkara. She was ancient and she was a mother. This baby was cradled in her paws, but he was a stillborn. She asked me to care for him and I promised her that I would. She didn’t demand anything, nothing of this ‘great price’ everyone says the Ahamkara ask for. Only that I care for him.” Edix hesitated as he was explaining, taking a breath to steady himself. It still hurt to think about what had happened. “She gave the last of her life to bring him back, using part of my Light to help the process. I could feel her dying, and I could feel him living. I made a promise to the mother and I brought Kilgharrah back to the Tower with me to care for him.”

As Edix spoke, he spoke with conviction, with defiance and determination. When this Warlock made a promise, to anyone, he would do everything in his power to uphold it. Zavala could see the emotions in his face and the shining of his tears only reflected them. He had essentially raised this boy from a young resurrection, he knew Edix well. Now Zavala was faced with a massive dilemma. Kill the Ahamkara and lose the trust and respect he’d gained from Edix, or let him care for the Ahamkara and risk the safety of thousands of lives he’d worked so hard to save.

“The damned thing needs to be executed!” Shaxx snapped in the wake of Zavala’s silence.

“I am in agreement. We cannot allow a live Ahamkara, infant or not, to survive or reside here at the Tower. It is putting everything we have worked towards in peril." Ikora said firmly, arms crossed where she stood at her usual station around the war table.

“No, please. Zavala, please.” Edix pleaded, tears welling up again and streaking down his face. “Kilgharrah hasn’t hurt anyone! He couldn’t hurt anyone! I’m begging you, please don’t kill him!”

Zavala just watched Edix cry and beg, watching how close he held the Ahamkara to his chest. He had never felt such confliction in his long, long life. He cared for Edix greatly, he’d raised him after all, but the Ahamkara were a dangerous threat. More dangerous than the Fallen, than the Vex, than the Hive. Just allowing one to live threatened the safety of the City and it would only take one fully-grown Ahamkara to destroy everything and turn everyone against each other. It would destroy the City in a matter of days.

Zavala couldn’t allow it.

“The Ahamkara will be executed.” Zavala decreed with an air of finality. Edix stared at him before he burst into fresh tears. Anger, ugly and fierce, reared its head in him.

“You monster! You asshole! What the hell is wrong with you?!” Edix screamed, eyes burning with tears and body alight with the flames of the Dawnblade. “You can’t do this! He hasn’t done anything to hurt anyone! He wouldn’t!”

“You have five minutes to say goodbye before the creature is to be removed and imprisoned until we can execute it correctly.” Zavala said, trying to remain cold and indifferent on the outside. Inside, he was in turmoil. He hated seeing Edix cry and now he had just destroyed every ounce of trust the Warlock had placed in him. The Commander just turned to leave, his sentence delivered with conviction.

“You fucking asshole! You monster! You’re no better than what we fight against! You’re worse!” Edix screamed until his throat was raw, heaving sobs leaving him and lungs spasming as he sobbed. “You are blinded by hatred for things you know nothing about! You are a monster and a coward!”

Kilgharrah made a little noise and looked up at Edix, blinking. The poor thing was too young to understand, it hadn’t grown into the intelligence the Ahamkara were known and feared for. As Edix crumple to his knees, he held the dragon tighter to his chest and sobbed. Shaxx stood too close for comfort, the Warlock hissing a venomous ‘fuck off’ to the Titan. He could feel a little presence in his mind, feeling Kilgharrah nose around his face to explore the tears curiously. Edix’s Light and soul burned. In hatred for the Tower, in hatred for everything Guardians stood for if it meant the murder of an innocent life, in distress, in disgust at Zavala’s actions. His chest burned and ached as he cried, wheezing and coughing as his eyes were flooded and his nose ran.

The five minutes went by faster than Edix wanted them to, he was almost sure Shaxx had moved in before the time was up, and before he knew it Kilgharrah had been snatched from his arms. Edix cried out and watched as Shaxx held the squirming creature by the neck, biting back another sob and failing as the Ahamkara was carried out. He couldn’t breathe, everything hurt. Only Cayde came to his side and helped him to his feet, the Warlock pushing him away and glaring at him with red-rimmed eyes and a snotty nose.

“You… You didn’t do anything… You could have persuaded him otherwise!” He snapped, sniffing and glaring at Cayde as more tears kept coming. Cayde sighed, mouth lights glowing a faint orange with the imitated noise.

“You know I couldn’t, kid. You know Zavala’s opinions on these things, you grew up with them.”

“It’s all bullshit! It’s all lies!” Edix shouted at him. “Everything we know about the Ahamkara is wrong! Not all of them were manipulators! Not all of them corrupted! Zavala is blinded by his hatred for them!”

Cayde only sighed again and shook his head, crossing his arms. While he’d never been that close to Edix in his youth, he still cared deeply for him.

“Look, there is nothing I can do to change this.” Cayde said with an air of finality, starting to walk past Edix before slowing beside him. “But all I can say is that creature is going to be taken to the labs to be put down humanely.”

With that, Cayde continued out of the Hall and left Edix behind in his confusion. Why would Cayde tell him such a thing? Unless…

Edix looked down the corridors, checking the coast was clear before he had his Ghost, Spiro, break into the sealed lab. Cayde had given him that information so he could rescue Kilgharrah, and Edix seriously owed him a big one for it.

As the door opened with a soft hiss, Edix found Kilgharrah chained and muzzled on the cold metal table. There was initially no sign of life until the dragon shifted and squirmed sleepily. He’d been drugged with sedatives, but he wasn’t dead. Edix held in a relieved sob as he freed the dragon and picked him up, turning on his heel and running from the labs. There was nowhere on Earth he could go that would be safe. Only Io was safe for Kilgharrah now.

Edix ran for the Hangar, grateful for the cover of the late night and the lack of workers there as he broke into the consoles with Spiro’s help and summoned his ship. Alarms started to go off as the ship came around without the proper permissions, Edix transmatting inside and setting course for Io. They cleared Earth’s atmosphere in mere minutes, the jumpship having them arrive on Io in an hour. They were in the clear.

Asher Mir was working at his station in the strange twilight hours of Io, the Jovian moon’s night hardly a real night. Regardless, it provided him with enough light to continue with his work and that was all he needed. There were footsteps behind him, making him turn. The Awoken hadn’t been expecting visitors.

He turned with a poisonous quip ready on his tongue, his words dying as he saw Edix approaching. His helmet wasn’t on as it usually was, his long white hair falling freely around his shoulders. As the other Awoken approached, Asher could see tears streaming down his face. Then the researcher saw what the other was carrying. A dragon. An Ahamkara.

They sat together on a rock near Asher’s station, Edix crying quietly and the abrasive researcher trying his best to comfort him. The younger Warlock spoke quietly between sobs as Kilgharrah slept in his lap. He was terrified of the repercussions of breaking the young Ahamkara out before his execution, terrified of losing Kilgharrah because of his own carelessness. He was terrified of being hunted down by Guardians on Zavala’s orders. He was terrified of becoming an enemy of the Tower; it had been his home, the only thing he’d known for so long.

Asher just listened to him, sitting beside him with a hand on his back and a look of near-concern on his usually-scowling or frowning face. He knew the severity of the Ahamkara, he knew their history and the dangers they posed. Yet he also knew that Edix wouldn’t have done this unless it was in good conscience; he’d come to know his assistant very well over the years, and he knew that Edix rarely made impulse decisions or decisions at all that weren’t well thought out. He knew the importance of the promise Edix had made to the mother Ahamkara, knew the importance of Kilgharrah’s rescue.

There wasn’t much he could say to reassure Edix. Asher Mir was known for snappy quips and an abrasive, hostile attitude. He didn’t do comfort. All he could do was sit there and just hold Edix gently, both of them sat in silence as Kilgharrah slept peacefully.