Commune


The door blocked as much as it could of the outside world but Aro could still hear the hum of the lights, the moan of the vents, the rush of his thoughts. The latter most of all; what he wouldn't give to shut it up.

Seated on the floor, legs crossed, Aro took one more look around the meditation room, the walls a cool calming grey. Then he closed his eyes. Going from the crown of his head downwards, he released the tension from every muscle along the path. Muscles in his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, his back and lower.

It was as easy as before, now that he knew what he was doing. Around him, the sounds of the world dim and fall silent. Then the world itself shifts. Aro does not open his eyes again until the sound of rushing wind greets his ears. When he does, he opens them to darkness and dim white light, far off in the distance.

Aro saw nothing when taking in his new surroundings. He felt plenty.

He twists himself around and comes face to face with a pillar, no more than a few strides away. The material used to fashion it was unclear but it was as black as the Ascendant sky and smoother than anything should reasonably be in a place such as this. Aro didn't move to close the distance. Instead, he raised his head, tracing up its length, higher than he would have been able to reach without his Light, all the way to its flat top.

There sat Pride. Shoulders hunched over and legs crossed in an imitation of Aro's position. His dark skin glowed with the flashes of light coming from beyond them and his eyes, as always, were the only splash of color that could be seen in any direction. They were trained on him.

"You took your time." Pride spoke quietly, yet even in the howls of the wind, he could be heard and understood with perfect clarity.

Aro gave as a response, "You offered to answer my questions. In the Vault and when we met here." Aro begins to push off his hindquarters and rise to his feet.

"I remember," Pride answered, "I also remember that the deal involved you coming to me in person."

He smiled. Aro's jaw tightened in response. "It is not happening," he seethed, not bothering to keep the venom from his tone.

Pride dismisses his indignation with a shrug. "Time will tell," he calmly replied, "This part of our story isn't over yet." Pride relaxes, leaning back and reclines on a wall that is not there. "I'll answer your questions but not all of them."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I pick and choose at my discretion," he explained, still staring down at Aro.

"Questions like wha-"

"Don't ask me how you died." Aro went as cold as the glow in the Herald's eyes. "I will not answer that. Not here, not now." His tone carried an air of gravitas that left no room for argument. Those red eyes flicked away from Aro, turning towards the distant sky.

Aro's jaw tightens again, to the point that were he in the real world, the strain would have woken him up. "Were you there?" he asked.

The eyes flicked back and stared for a long time. "I was there," Pride mumbled.

Aro stopped himself before he was unable to. A barrage of questions was spewing forth from the geyser of his mind so quickly and so forcefully that he had to remind himself that the dull ache he was beginning to feel was not real. That, if he were not careful, his body would pull him back and he'd lose this opportunity.

Aro, instead, asked his first question. "Since the day my Ghost found me, I've had dreams," he said, "Nightmares. Of things I can't explain. For things that had yet to happen and as of late, they've become more vivid and frequent and...accurate. And you…" Aro hesitated, "You're there. A lot."

"You weren't always dreaming."

"Yes, you've told me that already. But what are they?" he asked, "Why are they happening?"

Pride continues to watch him as he speaks, his face unchanging, his eyes stock still. "Your power is a gift from the Traveler," he replies, his mockery palpable, "You should be honored to be among its chosen."

"I work among its 'chosen' every day." Aro's patience was fraying thin, "None of them can do the things I do."

Pride kept quiet. Aro huffed. "You said you could help me."

"And I am. You were chosen. As I was chosen. As…" he stops. Then he waves a dismissive hand, "Well, that part isn't your business. Not yet, at least."

"Chosen for what?"

The Herald shrugged. "Been asking myself the same for centuries. All I know is that I've become a sort of wrench in whatever plans the thing had for us and humanity. Or maybe it predicted me switching sides and that's why it made us a pair." Pride shrugged again. "I suppose I don't really know anything."

Aro shifted on his feet. "The dreams? The visions?"

"Messages from the Traveler." Again, Pride's eyes turned to stare off into the distance. Despite how often his gaze switched back and forth, between Aro himself and the dark horizon beyond, his body remained in the same position; shoulders forward, legs crossed. Aro's body back in the real world must have looked much the same. "But there are times when your mind can reach out on its own. Into the future, beyond the physical world. I mean…" Pride looks around, "Look at where we are. Look at how easily you got here. But you and I do have some ability to see into the future. We share abilities but in varying strengths. Mine is longer-ranged and more widespread." He worked his jaw, as if he were taking the time to consider what he said next. "I'll think things, say certain things and they won't feel as if they're my words. It's as if someone else is saying it and I'm just repeating it. Only they haven't said it yet."

He let out a short snort. "In turn, your sensory capabilities have always been better than mine. You clearly sensed the presence of the Darkness and the Light better than most. No one feels my presence better than you do. Made hide and seek games as a kid entirely unfair. Of course, at the same time, I always had the uncanny ability to guess where you would have hidden."

Pride smiled when he said that. It was a sad one. Along with the absent glaze in his eyes, Aro wondered what he was remembering. "You die and twenty-one years of practice go down the drain."

Aro asked him if that's how old he was when he died. Twenty-one. It was so young.

Pride said it was. Then he said it was all he was going to say on the matter. The warning in his voice was clear and very credible. Aro nearly did something he regretted. This wasn't the place for forgetting himself. Pride demanded his next question. Aro gave it. "There have been times when I've lost-"

"Control?" Pride gives him a grin that lights up the constant night. "I've noticed. I notice every time you do."

"And when I do, sometimes I hear you in my head."

"I have no influence on you in that state," Pride says, "You don't have to worry."

"But the Darkness does."

"As well as the Light. As well as yourself. Your first time was against Gluttony, wasn't it?"

Aro nodded. "Yes," he answered, "Pulled myself from the brink of death."

"I remember." Now his face was changed, twisted into something dark and angry. "I nearly interfered. Tell me, how did you do it?"

Aro broke away from his gaze and looked down at his feet. He lifted one up in distracted curiosity and found no prints beneath. "I...felt trapped in a dark place. Like in some dark room that was too small and closing in around me." He paused to reconsider his words, deciding to leave Toland's involvement out of it. "I found my way to my Light and encountered a block. I pushed past this block. Everything is a blank after that."

"But when you woke, your enemies lay dead before you." Aro noticed the distant look in Pride's eye. Pride noticed his notice. He told him, "My first time was during the Dark Age. Rogue Lightbearers. Wannabe Warlords harassing a settlement. Killed all but one of them. Left him to tell the tale. Those visions we tend to have tell me he's still alive, drifting through the system and past it. Maybe one day, I'll see him again." Pride smiled again and this time, there was nothing bright about the way his teeth were bared. "Your power has always been stronger than average but when you push through the block, you leave the floodgates open. Your powers were leagues beyond normal after that. You swim with the river now and it propels you forward."

It sounded ridiculous, what he was saying and it made sense. He could barely pull on the Void at the start. His first Nova Bomb, a stroke of luck. Now he created singularities. Now he controlled Solar flames strong enough to vaporize stone. Now he breathed fire. 'Dragon of the Light', he had been called. To this day, Aro didn't know if it was his humility that made him hate the title or the accuracy. What was a dragon but a force of nature contained in a physical form?"

"When you give into it entirely, Aro, when you dive into the river," Pride said, "You do just that. You're not in control anymore, not solely. A different part of you takes over. One containing...baser aspects of your personality."

Aro swallowed. "Someone once told me I was smiling after taking down a Minotaur," he muttered, "Blew it to pieces and grinned as it fell apart."

"I did say you weren't the nicest person in the world and that this…" he waved a want towards Aro, "Was new."

"So I really was a monster before…"

"Does it really have to be so black and white?" Pride asked curtly.

Aro doesn't answer. He unclenches the fist he didn't know he had been holding. "That isn't who I am anymore."

"Are you so certain?"

"I don't want to hurt anyone with this, Pride," Aro spat more than said.

"You won't hurt anyone you don't truly want to hurt. You are still in there. You're just letting something else take the wheel. Every time you've taken the dive, released your chains, I'm sure you did so with a goal in mind. Something to focus and train yourself on. What did you want more than anything when you fought Gluttony?"

Aro remembered the conversation. He had told Toland he wanted to see his Ghost again. But beneath it all…

"I just wanted to go home."

"You asked and your Light responded by clearing the obstacle. Me? I wanted…" Pride pauses again and licks his lips. "Let's just say I wanted bad things for them. There were civilians nearby. Not a single one of them was harmed. Because I did not wish them harmed. It is your Light, Aro, it serves you. Stop being so afraid of it." He sniffed, "Have faith in your Traveler, if that helps."

To Aro's surprise, the corner of his lips twitched upwards. "Never thought I'd hear you suggesting faith in the Traveler."

"I said if it helps you. I have no love for that ball of yours."

"It is the source of your powers."

"No longer," Pride declared, "My connection was severed centuries ago. I don't weaken or grow stronger with it as you do." Pride brings up one of his hands. Sparks of blue Arc lightning begin to dance around his fingers, lighting the darkness and casting shadows across his face. "It's why I can still do this and you can't."

Aro could feel the static on his skin, even from a distance. He could hear the low humming, as if there were a generator nearby. It was noticeable when the Arc Light was dispelled. Then the hand drops and for the first time, Pride moves in his entirety, getting to his feet.

He looks down at Aro. Aro watches back. Pride grinned. "See? Not so bad. We had our talk. I set my boundaries. You respected them and I respected your own. Not so difficult." The Herald rolled and stretched his shoulders. "Right. Till next time, then?"

Pride doesn't wait for his answer. Doesn't pause to let Aro even half-assert that no, he wouldn't be back. He turned on his heels and walked, right off the top of the pillar. His feet hit empty air. Neither he, nor gravity, seemed to notice.

The darkness of the Ascendant Plane seemed to close in around him, the further away he got, until he disappeared.

Then Aro's entire being jolted, suddenly, sharply and painfully. Closed lids flew open and a yell of pain escaped his throat as blinding white light pierced his eyes. Aro felt himself toppling over and hands catching him before he could.

He had to blink several times before his vision began to clear and he could take in his surroundings. He's back in the meditation room, with its mats and vents. When his head swiveled around, he came face to face with Asura, helping him sit upright.

"You look awful," the Exo murmured, keeping him balanced.

"Thank you," Aro grunted.

"Been here long?"

Aro just grunts again. Scratches the itchy, neglected stubble along his neck. "What time is it?"

"Sundown."

"Been here a while then." Asura helped him to his feet. Aro trudged over to the wall to collect the few things he had brought with him. His stomach rumbled, loudly. Behind him, Asura snorted, made some quip about sleeping being hungry work. Aro couldn't find it in himself to disagree. He was very tired.

The Hunter told him the ramen shop was still open. Aro perked up at the thought. Then when Asura added that they'd have to hurry to make it before closing, he deflated. Running was the last thing he wanted to do. But then again, so was starving into the night.


He retired early, just after the sun set entirely, as he had been hoping to do since he returned to the real world. With a full stomach, a cleaned body and silence, save for the cheers of Asura watching the Crucible and making an admirable attempt to keep quiet, it was only his racing mind that kept him awake in bed, his eyes glazed over but set on the ceiling above.

"That was a lot," Kain remarked. There was nothing else that had occurred today worth remarking on.

"It was," Aro whispered aloud.

"Maybe now isn't the best time to discuss this but…" Kain hesitated then grunted, appearing in a quick and slightly uncomfortable flash of light just above Aro's head. "When you were talking to him, to Pride, I noticed you were...more relaxed," he told him, out loud this time, "The usual uneasiness you or anyone would have around Pride, you didn't have it today."

Aro had his hand on his chest, listening to his Ghost and absent-mindedly scratching his nails through the thin hairs on his stomach. The fingers paused for just a moment as Aro's went back over the entire exchange. "I noticed too," Aro muttered, "I...believe it was deliberate. He eased off the pressure on purpose. To get me to stay. And also so that I'll eventually return."

"Will you?"

Aro lifted his hand off his stomach and looked at it. With little more than a thought, the hand began to glow, giving off the faint color of orange and a modicum of heat. The Solar Light bubbled beneath his skin. Across the room, closed within a drawer, the exotic shard still feeding on his Light reacted.

The power he was exhibiting would barely warm him on a cold morning. With will and focus, Aro could turn it into a wave of destruction as undeniable as the sea in a storm. He recalled his duel against Shaxx. The swirling vortex of fire he had trapped him in, back when he was less of the fighter he was going into the Vault, as well as coming out of it. Even today, he could only just barely remember it occurring. It was because of his ability to give into his Light, let something else take the wheel with only his singular directive to steer its fury.

And Pride, as simple as anything, gave him the means to control it. To use this power in service of the Traveler, humanity, the Light. Against his enemies, against him. He did it so easily and that fact terrified Aro and intrigued him in equal measure.

There were even answers in the questions he refused to entertain. He would not tell Aro how he died. He refused to even be asked. That, alone, was enough to tell Aro that however he died, at his twenty-one years of age, it was likely not painless and it definitely was not peaceful.

The answer was obvious. The both of them still needed to hear him say it. "I think I will. Soon."


Kayla's boots were the only noises being made in the Vestian halls. Soft, light bootfalls that echoed nevertheless. If only her mind could be so quiet.

The news about Rasputin's attack on the Cabal had been the talk of the Tower months ago. Mostly with laughter, jeering and no small amount of schadenfreude, something even Kayla would admit to, if pressed. After such an event, it had grown harder for Kayla to believe anyone short of Envy could ever be a true threat to Rasputin. Harder than was wise, perhaps.

Then Sora came to her, talking of Psion Flayers. Then did Kayla see the error in thinking as she did. She and Sixx scoured the Tower archives but struggled to find much of anything that Sora hadn't already sent over herself.

The sound of her boots increased in speed, her destination in sight. Petra had sent out the call that they were to meet her in the designated meeting room. That they may have found their key. Down the hall, she could see Daniel's broad frame leaning against the wall next to the door. On the other side of it was Erek, sitting, his legs bent and knees drawn in. Daniel raised an arm to hail her. Erek barely raised his head.

Kayla had her Ghost compile her thoughts and send them over to Sora, who has already confirmed that she will soon speak to the Vanguard. When Sixx tells her that the message is ready to be sent, Kayla slows in her walk. She focuses inward.

There's quiet in her head now. Then more quiet, then buzzing, like the drone of a voice. Speaking, there was speaking. Much too low to be heard and too nonsensical to be understood anyway. But behind all of that, she could feel the strain. She could feel it in the muscles she didn't have, in her neck, around her throat. Kayla felt as if she were the one who tried to speak, she would fail and that the attempt alone would take everything she had.

The sound of her name from across the hall snapped her out of it. She forced herself to relax, her hands to unclench and her shoulders to fall back down. Another set of steps had entered the hall and Kayla turned to find Petra quickly approaching her. "And Sixx?" she managed.

"Yes?"

"Mark it urgent."


If this chapter comes off as exposition, that's probably because it is. But it's exposition with a story purpose later down the line! I think...