#how many times had sniper heard that wretched call in the conference room?

[magictomfoulery]

love how for a good while emesis blue makes you think of the red team as some merciless monsters who thrive on chasing their prey

until you realise they are a shallow image of their past selves trapped in eternal hell with a man who started it all while having no weapon to take him down and no way to find rest without external interference

they are still defensive but there's nothing left to defend

[illumynare]

Destiny Fic: Three Queens Rising

Summary: Six of them went down into the Pit. All six returned triumphant. But not unchanged.

(The AU where Eriana's fireteam managed to kill Crota and go home, and things still went terribly, terribly wrong.)

Pairings: Eris/Toland.

Notes: Also available on AO3.

Story/section titles (plus a bunch of quotes) are from the Grimoire card Ghost Fragment: Darkness 3, which you should totally read because it's the BEST. GRIMOIRE. EVER. Saint-14's vision is mentioned in the Lore for the Destiny 2 Helm of Saint-14.

(Yes, I know the timeline is kinda handwaved. My excuse is that Destiny's timeline isn't that clear to begin with.)

Thanks to @ir-anuk and @jencforcarolina, who read the first draft and gave suggestions.

1. the queen who builds a high tower

This is the last thing Eris Morn ever saw: Eriana's hands gripping the Praxic Fire, as wholly luminescent as the sun.

#

Six of them went down into the Pit.

So many times, they nearly did not return.

When Vell Tarlowe charged Alak-Hul, his courage and his strength were not enough—

But Eris's hands were steady on her sniper rifle, and Eriana's grenades lit the darkness, and Sai danced invisibly. When Vell died in his final Fist of Havoc, Alak-Hul died too, and Toland raised Vell before the waves of Thrall could devour his Light.

When Omar was dragged away into the tunnels, his luck failed him, and they gave him up for dead—

But Toland heard his screams, echoing through ascendant spaces that the rest of them could barely sense. Eris demanded that they follow Toland's lead. And they found Omar, broke the rack of bones that held him, shattered the Heart of Crota before she could feed him to the Hive. He lost an eye and an arm, but not his Light.

When they faced Omnigul, Sai's cleverness was not enough, and a wave of Thralls crushed her as she bladedanced with the jagged bones of Acolytes—

But Vell raised her and fought back-to-back with her, punching a Thrall for every one she knifed. Toland chanted the words that lowered Omnigul's shields. And Omar's Golden Gun rang three times, every shot landing between Omnigul's eyes.

Together they felled the Swordbearers, stole their powers, and crossed the bridge. Together they faced Ir Yût and fed the Deathsinger her own death.

Together they faced Crota.

It was Eriana who struck the final blow: Eriana, alight with the Praxic Fire as she gripped a sword that sang with Darkness. All of them firing together brought Crota to his knees, but it was Eriana alone who cleaved him apart and broke the Oversoul Throne.

For the rest of her days, Eris would remember how brightly Eriana gleamed in that moment.

Years later, she would remember how easily Eriana held the blade.

#

The first years after they killed Crota were golden.

Vell returned to the Pilgrim Guard. Sai vanished into the wilds. Omar clapped Eris on the shoulder, told her to mind her aim with grenades—and forever laughed, even though his Ghost never could restore his eye and arm. (The Heart of Crota had rent too deeply at his Light.)

Toland received a very reluctant, conditional pardon. Eris was made his guard and guarantor, and the duty sat lightly on her shoulders. There were long, lazy afternoon squabbles over the nature of the sword-logic and the universe; there were nights of whispering invocations as they echoed and mastered each syllable they had learned from the Deathsinger. They were confined to the Tower, but they read the reports of Guardians who delved the the tunnels of the Hive on the Moon, and when the Guardians delved too deeply, they chanted the spells to raise them out again.

Eriana became the Warlock Vanguard.

Eris saw her stand in the Hall of Guardians, glittering and tall and sure, and she felt that a missing piece of her heart had slotted into place. Eriana-3, disciple of the Praxic Warlocks, marked by the Cormorant Seal, was at last a light to all Guardians as she had been a light to Eris, when Eris was newly risen and afraid.

The first years were golden.

The years after, burned.

To be a Guardian was to be dead, and live, and called to die again and again. Eris had known this since she opened her eyes to a room full of skeletons. There was no Guardian who did not know it.

Eriana, perhaps, was coming to know it too well.

The Warlock Vanguard remained unbowed. Her voice, as she questioned Guardians returned from disastrous missions, remained as stately and as calm as ever. Eris thought she might be the only one who could see grief in the flickering of Eriana's lights. She was certainly the only one sat with Eriana late at night as she studied in the Vanguard archives, hunting for a way to improve their defenses.

Wei Ning had been avenged. But new Guardians died the final death every day, and Eriana could not avenge or save them.

Eris worried about this. She said as much to Toland, one night as they sat watching the stars.

"These equations take their time," said Toland. "She'll balance herself in the end. Or die."

"She won't speak of it," said Eris. That was what disturbed her most: the two of them had talked endlessly about Crota, how and why he must die. She had known each heartbeat of Eriana's grief for Wei Ning. But now that Eriana was mourning again—was always mourning, for every Guardian—she would not speak of it.

"Hm," said Toland, and pressed his lips to her neck, and that that night Eris thought no more of Eriana.

But when Omar returned from patrol, grinning and triumphant—he was still a dead shot, despite missing an eye—she told him of her worries.

"I'll talk to her," he said. "We were all in hell together, yeah?"

Eris nodded.

She would would regret that ever, ever after.

2. the queen who raises an army

This is the most important thing that Eriana ever saw: the Light peeling up from Omar's chest in writhing, glowing threads as the Heart of Crota sang to him.

She had known for a long time that the Light would not protect those who served it. Else Wei Ning (most valiant, most pure) would not have died. But in that moment, Eriana finally understood that the Light was a thing, a substance that could be robbed and defiled—

Or gathered and used.

#

She became Vanguard to a shaken Tower. The treachery of Osiris still echoed in its halls. Barely months after she was raised to her position, Andal Brask died, and his protégé Cayde-6 took his place.

Eriana could not like either of her fellow Vanguards. Zavala was as brave as Wei Ning, but without her beautiful fury. Cayde had all of Wei’s brashness and cheer, but none of her nobility.

Every time that Zavala listened to a report of a dead Guardian and nodded in solemn acceptance, saying, “That was bravely done”—every time that Cayde cracked a joke, said, “Am I right or am I right?”—fire kindled in the hinges of Eriana’s jaws and ached at her fingertips.

They were not worthy. They were not right. Not when Wei Ning was Lightless and dead, when Guardians followed her into the final darkness every day.

Eriana had killed Wei’s killer, had slain the dark god of the Hive who was thought to be unslayable. And yet she felt, more and more, that she had done nothing. Changed nothing.

More and more, she found that Toland was the only one in the Tower she cared to speak with.

#

Toland the Shattered: a large name for a very small man. He was lean, pale, often stooping; when he did stand straight, he barely came to Eriana’s shoulder. His Ghost hovered close to his neck and never spoke. Granted the Light of the Traveler, he had squandered nearly all of it in forbidden research and wretched experiments.

Long ago, Eriana had despised him. When she had needed his wisdom to defeat Crota, she had used him. But when she had become Warlock Vanguard—

Then, she finally began to respect him.

For Toland alone understood what Eriana had learned when she slew Crota, when she saw the Light peeled away from Omar, when Wei Ning fell and never rose again.

And in his turn, Toland began to respect Eriana. For while she might not grasp Hive lore so easily as Eris did—Eriana had grasped Crota’s sword. She had pared the world into line with her will, and there was a light of reverence in Toland’s eyes now when he spoke to her.

Existence is a game that everything plays, Toland whispered in the gray hours of the morning as they stood on the Tower walls together. Staring up at the pale, lifeless hulk of the Traveler, Eriana agreed.

For all its miracles, the Traveler could only sustain. Revive. Delay.

Everything is becoming more ruthless and in the end only the most ruthless will remain.

Against the hungry Dark, what use was the gentle Light? It was only Crota’s own sword that had felled him.

This is the shape of victory: to rule the universe so absolutely that nothing will ever exist except by your consent.

Late one night, after another conference with Toland, Eriana went to stand on the Tower walls alone. She gazed out over the glowing expanse of the City. She listened to the soft laughter and chatter of the Guardians around them.

She thought: I will defend them against this universe of spears.

To do that, she needed a knife.

#

Toland was prolific in his theories. Eriana was willing in her experiments.

But they made no real progress until the day that Omar came to speak with Eriana. Until the moment when Eriana ignored his words and stared at him with newly hungry eyes.

He was not the same, Omar Agah, and not only because he lacked an eye and arm. The Light was still a fountain within him, but it was . . . Looser. Unbound. Hanging off of him in ragged, invisible strands.

Available.

And in a moment, Eriana understood what she could do with him, and therefore had to. What was the only way to make the Tower and the Guardians strong enough, when all the universe around them was made of swords and spears.

“Omar,” she said, “Toland has a theory.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, that means he’ll never shut up. Listen, this is why you need to leave the Tower for a bit.”

“It’s a way to keep the Guardians safer,” said Eriana. “We could use your help in the experiment. If you’re not afraid.”

And Omar smiled at her. “You lead, I’ll follow. Can’t be worse than the Hellmouth, right?”

Briefly, Eriana hated him: Omar Agah, whose luck saved him when Wei Ning’s did not.

But it had not been luck. It had been Toland’s knowledge and Eriana’s fusion grenades. They had saved him, and so now they had a right to him.

She told herself this, later, once he began to scream.

#

She did not expect Eris to rebel.

Zavala: of course he would resist her vision. Eriana was not at all surprised when she had to kill him. Cayde-6: of course he would deny her authority. Eriana did not blink when she leaned he had fled.

But Eris?

Loyal, gentle Eris, who had followed her into the Pit? Who had gazed at her, always, as if Eriana were the Traveler itself?

She did not expect that betrayal.

She had known that Eris would have questions. Eriana had studied Crota only to defeat him, but Eris had wanted to understand him. Of course Eris would want to know whence came the vats of Light that Eriana offered to the Guardians, and why the Ghosts fell silent once their Guardians had tasted that Light.

Of course Eris would want to know why Omar, and other Guardians after him, had vanished.

But Eriana had truly thought—she and Toland had both thought—that Eris would understand their logic. Their need.

There was only one way for the Guardians to survive, to be safe, and that was to conquer. To hone themselves into a knife. To abandon the gentle dreams of the Traveler and seize the sword.

If the price was that a few Guardians died screaming, the Light peeled out of their bodies and used to seed the great vats where it boiled and fermented and grew into a new elixir . . .

That was still better than the Tower ruined, the City sacked, humanity destroyed.

It was infinitely better than Wei Ning crushed beneath Crota’s sword.

Eris did not agree.

Eriana knew that she must punish her. But when she stood in the Tower’s central court, Eris bound before her, the assembled Guardians watching—

She remembered the days after the Mare Imbrium, when she had been nearly blind with grief, and Eris alone had stayed with her, sworn vengeance with her.

Eriana could not bring herself to kill her. Not after that.

But queens must enforce their authority somehow. So she summoned the Praxic Fire into her palms.

“Eris Morn,” she said, “for your help in slaying Crota, I will spare your life. But you are forever banished from the Tower.”

And then she struck Eris across the face.

Eris made no sound as her eyes turned to ash, but her Ghost screamed as it frantically tried to heal her—until Eriana caught it, twisted it, and incinerated its core.

“Go from here,” she said, letting the charred bits of the dead Ghost’s shell clatter to the ground, “and never return.”

3. this is the shape of victory

There's a silence in the Tower.

It's a beautiful place, drenched with sunlight in the day, gleaming with lamps in the night. Ghosts fly in obedient, graceful lines. Guardians clasp hands and clap shoulders as they wait to speak with the Gunsmith, with Master Rahool, with the Vanguard Queen.

The wind sings in the trees. But the Ghosts are forever silent. The Guardians speak only in hushed, reverent tones. And the Vanguard Queen speaks as she wills—

But when she speaks, silence follows.

#

There’s a whispering in the Wild.

Fewer Guardians roam there now. The Vanguard Queen does not like to risk her Guardians’ lives with mere patrols; if she does not send them forth in a host to conquer, she wishes them to stay within the City walls.

But sometimes, Guardians are allowed a short mission. Sometimes, Guardians find a way to slip out. And when they do, sometimes they dare to whisper to each other, to trade in treasonous rumors:

There is a rebellion. There are Guardians whose Ghosts still speak to them. There is a blind Oracle, her eyes burnt out by the Vanguard Queen, and with the ashes of her eyes she sees the truth.

And not sometimes, but only once in a very long while, a Guardian dares to go look.

#

There’s a celebration in the caves.

Cayde is back, and with him three new Guardians to join their band, two of them stolen out of the Tower prisons just before their execution. It’s an amazing feat, and—little though Eris likes him—few but Cayde could have pulled it off.

Eris will speak to the newcomers later. For now, she sits in the little stone chamber she has claimed as her room, and listens to the muted din of the celebration. She thinks wistfully of the last night before they departed for the Moon—even close-lipped Sai laughing and toasting—

Her neck prickles with a sudden awareness, and Eris turns, knowing what is about to happen. The Light is no longer hers to sense, but her time on the Moon and her studies have left her still attuned to Hive magic.

The air before her shifts and ripples.

“Eriana is wroth at you tonight,” says Toland, who has never yet managed to appear behind her.

“Is she ever not angry?” asks Eris.

She hears the soft rustle of Toland’s robes as he sits; she reaches out her hand, and feels his fingers wrap around hers.

For one moment, they are back in the tunnels beneath the Lunar surface together, and nothing matters but the darkness and their breathing.

This time, Toland is the one to break their unity. “Deliver Cayde into her hands, and she might forgive you.”

Eris laughs softly. “Tempting, that. But I think I will suffer him a little longer.”

“Oh, Eris,” says Toland, sadly fond. “You could have learned so much if you had stayed. My research—”

It was refreshing to be pitied for something besides her lost eyes and Light, but Eris had no intention of listening to his speech again.

“I’ve spoken to Osiris,” she interrupts, and doesn’t need eyes to know that Toland has gone rigid with jealousy. “He thinks that Saint-14 might have truly seen the future.”

Toland snorts. “A Guardian savior who will drive back the Darkness? A childish fancy.”

He sounds again like the man she remembers from their first days in the Tower, before he pitied her, before he reverenced Eriana.

“Maybe,” Eris allows.

“And if there were such a one, surely it is Crota’s Bane,” says Toland, remembering his allegiance.

Eris thinks of Eriana, how steady her hands had been on Crota’s sword, on Omar’s chest as she peeled the Light away from him.

How gloriously she had shone in the moment before she made Eris’s eyes forever dark.

With infinite grief, Eris thinks, She could have been.

4. the queen at the end of time

This is the first thing you ever see: your empty hands, grasping at the air.

"Guardian! Eyes up, Guardian!"

You look, and floating before you is—you don't know what: a little floating thing, shaped like a starburst made solid.

"I'm a Ghost,” it says to you. “There aren't many of us left. And I've been looking for you a very, very long time.”