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 "You can't do that here," Gol interrupts anxiously. "Stop, Orin. Stop. You have radiation poisoning. If you're sick here, you'll die here, and then I'll have to resurrect you here, and you'll be sick and die again and again. You have to move. Come. I told you not to walk around here."
+==War Hammer==
+.
+Orin graduates from wooden mace to stolen [[Scorch Cannon]], from bare flesh to salvaged plate. The Fallen do not interest her, but they are well-provisioned. She hunts them to better hunt Warlords, and makes many enemies of many older, wilier Risen than she.
+.
+The [[Pilgrim Guard]] finds her pinned down in a box canyon, fighting alone and out of ammunition against a gang of six mercenaries. She is a graceless fighter with an unflappably grim resolve, so when they sweep in to help her, she does not immediately recognize them as the cavalry; she sees them coming, considers the odds, and then raises her empty Scorch Cannon to wield as a maul. Seventeen to one? She'll try her luck.
+They laugh about it later over weak tea and hardtack.
+.
+When the Guard invites her to join them, they present her with a war hammer. It is as tall as she is. Along its grip, they've engraved the words I AM THE END OF ALL THINGS in tidy block print.
+.
+She meets a young woman whose skin looks like hers.
+"Where did you come from?" Orin asks, staring too hard, standing a little too close. It is impossible not to: every other blue-skinned person she has ever seen has either been dead or a distant figure hurrying for a gleaming ship.
+The young woman cringes away from her. "The Sinaloan ruins."
+"Are there other people there like you?"
+"No."
+Hearing her question, one of her friends pulls her aside to point up at the sky. "Your people are up there," he says. "They live among the asteroids."
+"Why aren't they here?" she asks, but he has no answer.
+.
+The everyday rhythm of the Pilgrim Guard suits her for decades: eradicate Warlords and alien invaders; protect mortal civilians; guide homeless refugees to safety. Their numbers wax and wane over time, but they are forever the watchers-in-the-dark, the living-shield-that-shelters, the ladder-which-humanity-will-climb-toward-rebirth. Inspiring campfire speeches are an endless fact of life, and they buoy her until she begins to recognize the leitmotifs of self-sacrificing heroism.
+Orin loves her leaders and friends; she loves her little ramshackle community... but she never wished to become soldier or symbol. Whenever they gather in the evening for dinner, she feels claustrophobic anxiety press around her. She is shackled to the wilds by all these people that she loves, and she has no words to explain her own restlessness. Alone on night watch, she tells Gol that she feels monstrous. Why doesn't she love this? Why doesn't she want to stay?
+==Question After Question==
+.
+There are stories of a massive settlement in the far south. Rumors call it "[[The Last City|The Last Safe City]]," a place of peace and prosperity guarded by indestructible Old Russian warriors who fight alongside twenty-foot-tall wolves (whatever those are).
+The Pilgrim Guard has heard of many so-called safe cities. They come and go, but mostly they go.
+Still, they reroute their caravan. The land down south is good: arable, temperate, and with too many indigenous parasites for the Fallen to wish it as a customary home. Even if there is no safe city there, it is a better place to guide civilians than the ravaged deserts and plains of the north.
+Orin hopes the rumors are true, but it is a selfish hope: If the city is real, and people are safe there, then maybe she can rest.
+.
+"City" is a misnomer; it has been a misnomer since this place's inception. It is a chaotic sprawl of tents and shabby lean-tos. There is not a single permanent structure among them. The streets are nothing more than muddy pathways that smell of waste and smoke. But the people! Neither Orin nor Gol have seen so many people in all their lives.
+Filthy children scream with laughter as they play tag around salvaged tanks. A civilian militia stands vigil over cassava farmers. Armored Risen bicker over where they should mark the city's borders and how best to defend them.
+The Traveler looms overhead as Orin wanders through it all, wide-eyed and exhilarated.
+.
+The Pilgrim Guard prepares to move out, provisioned to make an eighteen-month expedition through the far north. Orin stays behind. No one questions her decision, though they do grieve it. Each one of them cuts a notch into the grip of her war hammer until it reads I I I I I I I I I AM THE END OF ALL THINGS.
+.
+There are Awoken here in this safe city. They are uncommon, though [[Exos]] are even rarer. Most have Ghosts, as she does. A few do not, and it's these people that Orin is most fascinated by.
+She dogs them with relentless patience, asking question after question: Where did you come from? Why have you come here? Where are the rest of us? Where did you get that gun? What are those bullets made out of? Why doesn't everyone have those bullets? Do people ever move to avoid you? Do you hear voices when you are alone? Are your dreams ever like omens? If I was one of you, why didn't anyone ever come looking for me?
+==Queenslaw==
+.
+[[Namqi Sen]] is the first person to take her seriously. "If we're going to talk a while, we might as well sit down," he says, gesturing to a nearby stack of ammunition crates.
+He is a pilot from the [[Reef]] and he has been sent to recover downed surveillance drones he calls [[Crow (device)|Crows]]. His [[Jumpship|Hildian]] sustained damage during a dog-fight with a Fallen skiff, and now an important pump is leaking. He cannot find the source of the leak, nor does he have the supplies to repair it. The rest of the Awoken are at home, in the Reef.
+The gun is a standard-issue [[Tigerspite|Tigerspite AR]]; it uses cased telescoped rounds made of a proprietary plasteel-spinmetal blend. There are engineers hard at work on manufacturing techniques that will allow for widespread distribution of the weapon to Risen and civilian populations on Earth.
+People do avoid him. Earthborn and Risen Awoken almost never speak to him; he is surprised that she bothered. He does hear voices; he does have prophetic dreams. He describes it all in detail and she is shocked by how familiar it sounds. It is like listening to a recording of herself.
+At her final question, he hesitates. He runs a grimy hand through his hair and looks up at the stars. They have been talking a long time. "If we're going to talk some more," he says at last, "we might as well have a drink."
+.
+Namqi is not particularly tall, nor particularly handsome. Taken in isolation, parts of him are beautiful. His nose. His hands. The lines of his throat. The coruscating light that passes over his skin fascinates her; she watches to see if its patterns match her own. They do not.
+Most of all, Orin is struck by his ability to listen with empathy. He is quiet more often than not. Long silences don't frighten him. And when he speaks, he does it deftly, without condescension.
+.
+It takes eight weeks to repair the leaking pump. In that time, Orin convinces Namqi to break queenslaw and smuggle her and Gol beyond the [[Vestian Outpost|Vestian Outpost]]. She is determined to understand why she revolted against her own people.
+They are scarcely a half-day's burn toward [[Interamnia]] before they are intercepted by [[Ceres Galliot|Galliots]] painted in the Queen's colors.
+.
+"Woof," Sjur Eido says when she sees Orin for the first time, "Mara's gonna hate this." She crosses the detainment cell to get a better look at Gol. "Figured this might happen eventually, but I'd always hoped..." She pulls at the nape of her neck, then gives a little half-shrug: well, what can you do.
+Turning, she looks at Namqi. "You know you broke the law, right?"
+He nods.
+She claps him on the shoulder and smiles. "My man."
+.
+Two [[Paladin]]s deliver her to Mara Sov. Gol is not permitted in the court, nor is Namqi.
+"I knew you," Orin says before Mara can speak. It is uncourtly etiquette, she supposes, but they are alone and she is too bold to fear offense.
+"What do you remember?"
+Orin gives a slight shake of her head. Moments pass. Mara, too, is comfortable with silence. Behind her mask of composed indifference, her eyes are sharp with curiosity.
+"Why did I leave?" Orin asks.
+"You wished to be my emissary."
+"And you banished me for it?" She squints. "That doesn't seem like something you'd do..."
+Mara smiles faintly. "No."
+.
+They have several more conversations.
+The revelations are absolute in their terror. Orin has never felt such a profound sense of schism—not when learning that most mortals would sooner swallow cyanide pills than come face-to-face with a Risen, nor that the Eliksni were once abandoned by the Traveler, nor that almost all Warlords are Lightbearers.
+.
+But the queenslaw is, of course, the queenslaw. It must be upheld—but the spirit of the law often differs from its letter.
+Namqi accepts a sentence of five years' indentured servitude to the crown for smuggling Orin into Reef holdings. They let him pick his detail and negotiate his salary.
+Orin's case is not so simple. She is not who she was, so after vigorous philosophical debate, it is decreed that she cannot be held accountable for her past oaths. But she engaged in witting trespass, aided and abetted by a learned civilian, and for that, she must sacrifice a boon: an unnamed future debt of the crown's choosing.
+Orin accepts the sentence gladly and returns to Earth to mend her wounds. She needs to think. She needs to talk.
+==Debt==
+.
+It seems everyone knows the Pilgrim Guard now. Their numbers have quintupled, and only continue to grow. The grateful civilians of the Last Safe City style them [[Guardian]]s, and they wear the title well.
+Orin is glad to see her friends doing so well. She does not rejoin them.
+.
+During his sentence, Namqi maintains daily contact with Orin via vidcom and holoprojection.
+When he is released, she begs him to come get her. She wants to understand what humanity was trying to achieve before it stooped to setting off nuclear warheads in order to steal a few cows.
+They scour the inner planets in his Hildian. When parts of it break down, they work odd jobs.
+They are deliriously happy.
+Centuries pass.
+.
+On the day that Sjur Eido dies, she receives a call from Mara Sov. "I would ask for my boon," the queen says with shaking voice.
+It is the first time she dares to trust a Guardian. It will not be the last.
+.
+The Queen paces as Orin leans on her war hammer. "I need to know who killed her," Mara says.
+"To know, or to see them killed?"
+Mara's grief and anger blaze across her face. She looks out at the Reef as she struggles to master herself.
+Orin imagines Namqi dead and clenches her war hammer a little tighter.
+At last, Mara says, "First, to know." She gives Orin the [[strange coin]] that the search party found on Sjur's body. "I'm not sure it was a murder."
+.
+The search sends her deep into a sublunar cavern where she finds no enemies, but instead clouds of steam and [[Xûr, Agent of the Nine|a half-man]] with grasping tentacles where his face should be.
+"Forgive them," he rasps as she crushes his windpipe in her fist.
+"Who?" she snarls, tightening her grip.
+His face writhes with growing urgency. Reminding herself that she came here for answers first and vengeance second, she pushes him away. He staggers, steadies, reaches into his robes to draw something out—
+"Orin!" Gol warns, but she's already seen it. She hefts her war hammer and strikes him hard in the chest. It is like hitting a ball off of a tee; there is no resistance. He caroms off of a dewy boulder with a sickening crunch—that is his spine; he will never stand straight again—and as he hits the ground, a tarnished silver jar slips from his fingers. The sound echoes as it bounces away into the dark.
+.
+Orin uses a hunting knife and brute strength to puncture the jar's dented lid. She turns it over and pours a thin stream of pale grey powder into her gloved palm.
+"Dust returns, it ever returns," the man chuckles wheezily. She looks up and he is gone.
+==Synesthesia==
+.
+Orin begins to experience waking hallucinations. Immaterial strangers speak to her in unrecognizable languages. When she reaches for Namqi, she feels as if she is falling into him, being pulled through him, sieved into smaller and smaller scarves of some atom-self that he breathes into the blood of his bones. When she continues her hunt for the Queen, she feels a crushing fist around her windpipe. There is something she must say, but she has no words to say it. There is somewhere she must go. Someone she must be.
+It is not horrifying, though she thinks it should be. Instead, it is unspeakably lonely.
+.
+It grows steadily worse, until it is not possible to tell the difference between day and dream.
+She tries to describe her number-color synesthesia to Gol, to Namqi, to Mara. She sees green and thinks "nine." She reads "purple" and tastes nine.
+They all tell her to stop. To rest. To be still. There have been other breakthroughs. Other messages. The [[Nine]] are known.
+She cannot.
+She hunts for the man with the writhing face.
+She hunts for herself.
+.
+On the day that Namqi dies, no one can reach her or Gol, though they do try.
+She does not find out for months.
+.
+On the day she meets [[The_Drifter_(character)|Wu Ming]], she is on [[324 Bamberga|Bamberga]]. She has just left a Gensym lab. She has just read a transcript of Namqi's last words. Her hands are shaking. She feels nauseous. She feels she can see herself in third-person, tottering to a safe place to sit and cry.
+Wu Ming is a bonfire in the darkness, and she crawls toward his warmth.
+.
+Wu Ming is ravenous for her stories of the Nine. He asks whether she's met them, whether they can give a man power, whether they know a way out of this solar system. Orin cannot answer any of his questions but she cannot keep her own stories down. She is sick with them; they come out in a compulsive bilious stream and when she is emptied, she talks of herself. Of her grief. Of her restlessness. How she feels the most alive in the empty spaces between blinks. How she feels she is a snake perpetually sloughing away its skin, except this last molt is all wrong and she is caught in the ghost-throat of her old self.
+Wu Ming leaves his questions by the wayside as he is drawn inexorably into the gravity well of her desperate honesty. Her confessions lower his defenses. He talks of himself. Of his fear. Of his loneliness. How he feels he is one fingernail away from plummeting into an abyss. How he feels vicious resentment every time he is brought back from the dead: He never asked for the gift of the [[Light]].
+.
+They make excuse after excuse to meet again. Every conversation is colored by excavated truths; every day they feel they will reach some bedrock that will break them to pieces. It is as frightening as it is intoxicating.
+.
+Lies!
+Lies!
+Lies!
+He is not Wu Ming—he is a man named Eli—a man named Dredgen Hope—a man named the Drifter—
+He is not vulnerable—he is a paranoid con man—he is a dead-hearted murderer—he is a cowardly liar—
+He is not her friend—he is waiting to make his move—he has ALWAYS been waiting to make his move—
+She is stupid; she is so stupid to have fallen for his lies!
+She cannot mend this!
+.
+She leaves and so too does the Light. The severance is absolute in its terror. She has not felt such a profound sense of—
+S C H I S M?
+it can be mended
+Orin is not your name.
+==Scales==
+.
+On the day she leaves to find the Nine, the [[Techeun]]s name her Orin the Lost. She raids a storeroom in the Vestian Outpost, stuffing into her knapsack digital schematics for a phaeton backscatter scanner, a jade coin, several bundles of dried queensfoil, and nothing more.
+.
+She goes beyond the heliopause.
+It is a long walk.
+A sudden death.
+.
+She sheds herself and emerges anew in the glimmering scales of her old lives: an immigrant, a translator, an emissary, a hammer of judgment. They expect to claim her will, but she clenches it a little tighter.
+Her gifts can end wars.
 [[Category:Lore]]

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Revision as of 09:19, December 6, 2019