Friend
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Crow could physically feel his heart stutter when the chime of an incoming call echoed through his roomy new office.
At long last, he finally understood why Cayde-6 had so clearly hated this job—why none of the other Hunters had been willing to take it. His days were spent in a constant state of frenzied work, none of it particularly exciting. Each morning he woke up and scanned through his messages for incoming Foreguard reports from the previous night, returning whatever calls needed further clarification.
(Which was most of them—the Foreguard was mostly Hunters, and Hunters weren't used to giving clear and comprehensive reports. They hadn't been needed, back when the job of a Hunter was simply to be pointed in a vague direction and told to deal with whatever problems arose there.)
Once that was done, usually interspersed with bites of tasteless instant porridge for breakfast, he started collating the data collected by the Foreguard from the previous day, adding it to their starcharts and marking any points of interest for Zavala's threat assessment, Ikora's research operations, or the civilian mining operations. Occasionally there was information of interest to Misraakskel, which he enjoyed passing on, or to Empress Caiatl, which he emphatically did
not.
(She had never forgiven him for the death of her Psion during the initial war with the Lucent Brood. She had never pushed for him to be punished again, of course—she had taken her pound of flesh in the form of Saladin, who genuinely seemed to enjoy his position as Primus Forge these days. But that didn't mean she or Crow liked the occasional unavoidable conversations.)
After a quick lunch, sometimes shared with Zavala or Ikora (or, if he was lucky, Amanda), he dove into the starcharts and started identifying possible exploratory targets for those Foreguard who were willing to go where he asked rather than wherever the solar winds carried them.
(He had originally tried sending instructions to every explorer out in the black. When nearly a quarter of them ignored him completely, and another quarter sent polite responses to the effect that they intended to do what they wanted, he decided to focus on guiding those who wanted to be guided. The explored portion of the local cluster was increasingly looking like a spiderweb as some of those maverick Guardians shot outward in as straight a line as they could manage, and it was all he could do to get his more reliable Foreguard to fill in the gaps as best they could.)
By the time he finished that work and sent out the instructions, it was usually past seven, and he just had time an energy to drag himself to dinner before throwing himself back into bed for the next day. It was a monotonous routine, but it was worth it to see the occasional wonders the Foreguard uncovered. He had never—in either of his lives—felt quite like he did now, like he was contributing every day to something that would help define the future. As hard as it was, and as long as his days had become, he wouldn't trade it for anything.
But not all of the Guardians sent their reports in the Last City's evening and night. Some sent them during the day, in the form of calls like these ones, which he always had to answer, interrupting whatever he was already working on to take in yet another report. (Because what if it was urgent? What if they needed help?) So, with a sigh of surrender, he rolled his chair over to the console and tapped the flashing button to answer. "Crow here," he said.
"Hello, Crow," came an intimately familiar voice, rich with an audible smile. "It's good to hear you again."
Crow couldn't help the smile that broke across his face as relief flooded him. "Savathûn," he said. "How have you been?"
"Well enough," said the Hive Queen. "We've resettled on the Fundament and are doing our best to integrate with the societies already there. There are still a few scattered islands with Krill on them, can you believe it? My siblings and I must have missed a few pockets."
"I guess you figured they'd all be killed by the god-wave anyway," Crow pointed out. "No real need to be comprehensive."
"I suppose not," she allowed. "Still—I expected my past to stare me in the face when we returned here. I didn't expect it to be quite so literal. The Leviathan is still here, too. I went down and visited it. Its story is as interesting as you had hoped."
"I hope you'll tell me it," Crow said.
"My scribes are compiling it as we speak," said Savathûn. "But for now, we received your message from the Vex, requesting our star charts. I wanted to call to send those over immediately. I've forwarded the documents to you, as well as the net address for this terminal. We have a base on one of the Fundament's moons, now, to receive extraplanetary communications. I'll be checking it every few days."
"Thanks," said Crow, already seeing the information flooding into his terminal. That would be a
lot more work, but at least he could foist some of it on Ikora and Parvati-9.
"I also wanted to check on you," Savathûn said, sounding like it was simultaneously a shameful admission and one she was nonetheless proud of. "How are you, Crow? I can't imagine your new duties are easy."
Crow smiled again, running his fingers along the feathers of his white cloak. "They keep me busy," he acknowledged. "But it's good work. I enjoy it. It really feels like I've found a place I fit in—a place that needs me as much as I need it. I don't think
he ever felt like that in his entire life."
"No," said Savathûn with a sigh. "No, I can't imagine he did." She was silent for a moment. "Do you still wish I hadn't given you back those memories?" she asked then, almost hesitant.
Crow frowned, considering. "Not really," he said. "I… well, you said it best. If we don't know where we came from…"
"…How will we know where to go?" she finished, a sad smile in her voice. "You were doing quite well for yourself before, however. If I hadn't done that…"
"Things might have been better," Crow acknowledged. "But they might not. I was getting threatened by Petra every other day. Mara kept trying to get close to me, half the City's Guardians still reached for guns when they saw me, and I didn't know why any of it was happening. It was hard, yeah, but at least I understood
why afterward. There were probably kinder things you could have done, but it's not like you had a lot of practice with kindness."
"No," she said lowly. "No, I suppose I did not."
"So—I forgive you, if that's what you want to hear," said Crow. "I think I forgave you a long time ago."
There was a beat of silence. "Thank you," said Savathûn quietly. "I should… let you get back to work. I have work to do as well."
Crow nodded, smiling slightly at her awkwardness. "Tell Immaru I said hey?"
"Hey yourself," came Immaru's grumpy voice over the line.
Crow laughed. "I'll see you both around," he said. "Thanks for calling."
