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This Is Your Only Purpose [Destiny] [Alt!Power]

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The big guy called himself Khepri... but I'm thinking he was Gavel in his last life.

Also... why Mochi?
 
Ok Spear, all caught up, and just wanna say it was a pleasure to read through it all again. As for the recent chapters, I wasn't expecting Emily Piggot(?) to be here, but she really works here.

And like Twei and some others, I can't stop thinking of RWBY when Cinder pops up.
 
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Oxygen
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    • Oxygen​
    Rose sat at the fire in the cold, holding her hands to the flames. She kept her back to the wind, and it whisked away the smoke. It, in a way, felt symbiotic. Her body sheltered the fire, serving as a windbreak. It stayed alive because of her, wood cracking and blackening. The fire kept her alive. The bitter cold bit into her back, and as the wind whipped around her, she was forced to move to prevent sparks from kicking up.

    "Fuck," Rose muttered, breaking apart more pieces of wood with her hands. The wood itself was cold, and the fire sputtered and complained as she threw it in. The illusion of complacency. Imagined structure dissolving at the slightest moment of chaos.

    "And so went the third collapse," her ghost said, deadpan.

    "Not funny," Rose said, irritably flicking another twig into the flames to be consumed.

    "Sure," her ghost said, flaps moving in an approximation of a shrug. The wind whipped again, sending a cloud of ash and snow flying. The flames hissed and spat, sinking down to blackened embers.

    Rose threw a branch off the mountain. It felt like an appropriate response.

    "Caring for a fire inside wasn't enough for you," her ghost said. "You had to make it more difficult for yourself."

    Rose sat by the embers. Sparks erupted as the wind blew, guttering out at her feet. "It's all made up," she said. "Trying to keep the fire alive, trying to keep myself from being burned."

    "You don't sound like you're giving up," her ghost said.

    "No," Rose said. "I'm just saying, look at what Emily recommended. What Cinder said. Khepri's confusion. They made their relationships with Solar."

    "You're trying to avoid saying forged," her ghost said.

    "Yes," Rose said. "They created a bond with their Solar. They're trying to push me to figure it out by painting signs to waypoint the path."

    "Reforging and tempering," her ghost said.

    Rose scooped ash-stained snow up into her hands, compressing it into a ball.

    "Don't you dare," her ghost said, floating away, then thinking better of it, choosing instead to alight on Rose's shoulder.

    Rose sighed, tossed the snowball down the side of the mountain, and blew warm air into her chilled hands. "The Light is deeply personal, even if it shares certain aspects by way of beliefs," she said, her voice muffled by the cage of her fingers. "Our interpretation itself exerts an influence on it. Cinder and Emily think my issues stem from a mix of elements influencing it."

    "You agree with their thought process," her ghost said.

    "I do," Rose said. "It makes sense. We've seen some cruel, sadistic people wield Solar. There's no inherent good to it."

    "Where do you think the expression should be?" her ghost asked.

    "The Sunbreakers express it through hammers. Creation, destruction. Fire itself is associated with inspiration," Rose murmured, thinking out loud. "Judgment, anger, tempering. What was it the guard said? Bonds broken, and made."

    "Certain species lived in harmony with fire," her ghost said. "Some even required the ashen wastes fire left behind in order to grow, or necessitated fire to release their seeds."

    "Phoenix," Rose said. "We talked about this."

    "Yes. But from the angle of suffering. Reborn in flames," her ghost said. "From the old, renewed. The image is kinder, more appealing, appealing, in the context of rising from the ashes."

    Rose began the plodding walk back to the warmth of indoors. She was silent, but contemplative. "Cinder," she said.

    "Her relationship is likely to be violent, no?" her ghost said. "I posit explosive, from what we've heard from her. She enjoyed hearing about Firebreak. Their sacrifice was meaningful to her."

    "Khepri?" Rose asked.

    "A more expected origin," her ghost said. "Creation myth. Also referenced in collapse legends. I doubt this Khepri is named after the collapse figure. More likely to be named after the Egyptian scarab god of the sun."

    "Will I need to change my name to a fire related one?" Rose asked.

    "Aodh has its origins in fire," her ghost said. "Three out of four chance, given Emily."

    Rose made an expression of faint disgust, shivering as she walked inside. There was no small amount of irony in the realization of her own relationship with Solar. Whatever the starting root was, it had branched out from repeated attempts to fix it by forcing it. Stubbornly putting weight on a broken leg until it had finally set crooked, placing her hand to the flames until flesh bubbled and sloughed off. The problem was a gnarled tree of her own design, grown and watered through her own experience. She had reinforced the problem. And it also provided no small amount of amusement in how her own personal persistence was perhaps the worst possible way to address the issue. She learned best from facing problems head on.

    Exactly the worst thing to do. She couldn't convince herself the fire wasn't hot enough to burn. She could tell herself it wasn't, but telling herself and having the implicit fulfilled belief were two very different things. Fire would burn her. Getting angry made it worse. Bottling it up made it worse.

    Rose chuckled. She hated the feeling of helplessness, persistent and all-encompassing. The feeling of being cornered by something she couldn't wriggle and squirm her way out of. A problem she needed to address by displacement rather than head on.

    She held her shivering hands to the bonfire's flame, feeling the pain of the cold leaving her fingers. Fire was warm. Life-giving. It kept her heart beating. It wouldn't hurt her. Warmth. "Think happy thoughts," she muttered. "I'm trying to brainwash myself into sticking my hand into the flame."

    "Normalizing the idea of it to yourself," her ghost said. "Wielding the sun's fire in a hammer."

    "I wouldn't be averse to you taking a hammer to my head at this point," Rose said. "I'm two steps away from uttering 'fire good' as a mantra."

    "Maybe we're taking the wrong tack," her ghost said.

    "Listening," Rose said.

    "As you should," her ghost said.

    Rose rolled her eyes.

    "We want exposure to Solar, and can't hurry it up. Is there a way for you to use Solar safely, while maintaining your distance?" her ghost asked. "You're paracausal, and your Solar is bounded in part by your belief. You made it into a self-immolating spiral, which means it's currently more akin to real fire, no?"

    "So it would obey more of the rules of normal fire," Rose said. "What's your suggestion, then? Some sort of tangential exposure?" She looked over her soot stained hands, blackened with the sodden ashes. Solar Light's nature as a paracausal tool meant it could be used selectively to not harm, proven by those who wielded fire without being burned. "Insulation?" she asked, still thinking through her options. "Find someone who's capable of Solar without burning me."

    "Might help," her ghost asked.

    "Might not," Rose said. "If I can differentiate between their fire and mine, as silly as it sounds, it could do nothing at all. Still a good option to look into."

    "Trial and error," her ghost said.

    "I'm afraid," Rose said, voice quiet, as if saying it in hushed tones would make it feel like less of a failure. "One step forward, two steps back. Losing more than I win."

    "We have to look at it differently," her ghost said. "It's not a zero sum game."

    "Everything costs time,"Rose said.

    Her ghost whirled around Rose, before resting on the back of Rose's hand. "True. I can't deny that."

    "You look like shit," said Cinder, approaching from the direction of the main hall. "Been trying to cover yourself with ash to bring yourself closer to fire?"

    "Wasn't my intention," Rose said. "Although we've been discussing fire-related names."

    "Soot," said Cinder. "Pumice. You trying for a unique one? The good ones are taken around here. Not that anyone would care. Might make fun of you for it though."

    Rose rolled her eyes.

    Cinder chuckled. "I'm sure you'll find one if you want it."

    "No, just noticing how many other Sunbreakers have fire related names," Rose said. "Is there a reason for it?"

    "There a reason for yours?" Cinder asked. "Lotta people choose what they identify with. Some of us looked into who we used to be, or had the information available. Some of those didn't like what they found." She reached into the fire, pulling out a blackened chunk of wood. She broke it to pieces. Bits of shiny black crumbled off it and drifted to the ground, and Cinder watched as it fell, continuing to break pieces off until they became too small. She crushed what was left between her palms, brushing the fine powder off them. "Sometimes, people don't like who they are when they join. Names come and go. Less serious: Sal, the girl who you played hammer chicken with? She was going to name herself Sol."

    Rose made a face.

    Cinder chuckled. "Wouldn't have been the worst name."

    "What do you think of Emily's plan?" Rose asked.

    Cinder hesitated, leaning onto her hammer, which burst into fiery existence under her palm. "I'll tell you, but you're not going to like the answer."

    Rose crossed her arms, waiting for the response.

    Cinder sighed. "The Sunbreakers have just as much in common with Warlords as with the City. Fire doesn't like being controlled. It doesn't like being told what to do. We burn bright. There's a lot of emotion in fire."

    Rose's eyes narrowed, and she stepped toward Cinder. "What happened?"

    Cinder stared back coolly, shrugging. "We're mercenaries, Rose. Ones with our idea of justice. The ones who had the conviction of a greater good left with Aodh and Osiris."

    "What kind of justice?" Rose asked. Her tone had dropped a low growl, her arms no longer crossed, her revolver in her hand.

    "Don't be stupid," Cinder said. "We tamped down anything more needlessly cruel. But judgment requires punitive measures. We're not monsters, but we also didn't see a reason not to create our own territories to defend."

    A great deal of information fell into place for Rose as she breathed out. Embers. The Sunbreakers embodied fire in not only the comfortable hearth, where hot food and a warm bed awaited, but in the destructive nature as well. What Sunbreakers were here were dying embers looking for purpose. The others had gone on their journey, a purported torch in the darkness. Those who remained weren't only split in intended purpose, but also ideology. The routine they held, a poker stirring embers, keeping them red but not alight. Bare subsistence. "And what about Emily?" she asked.

    "A voice of reason," Cinder said. "To you. To many of the Sunbreakers here, she's a radical. Fire yearns to be free. Free of restraint, free to burn. Do you understand what she means?"

    Rose nodded, anger all but forgotten. Emily saw her as a catalyst, a crucible to redefine the Sunbreaker mantle. By appealing to empathy and the destruction of the City, Emily could stoke the flames, beginning the process of removing naysayers or holdouts. The mantra of accountability made more sense in such a context. Cinder was implying Emily would have been better off going with the main force, a more devoted splinter faction, with a more singular objective. Rose wasn't sure she agreed, but continued. "What about you?" she asked.

    "I'll be a Sunbreaker no matter what," said Cinder. Cryptic. She could go either way, then. Her fingers wrapped around the head of her hammer, flames curling up her arm like a snake. "But it's very rare you'll persuade others to give up power, perceived or otherwise. Emily says it's necessary. Do you think others will think so? And even if they do right now, will they in the future, when it isn't just lip service?"

    Fire burning without purpose. As banal and corny the metaphors were, they helped to address her perception of the internal Sunbreaker politics. Identifying with certain aspects of flame, and pushing into them. "Thank you," Rose said.

    Cinder laughed. "Sure. Any other burning questions?"

    "Are there any Sunbreakers who can control their fire enough that other people can avoid being burned?" Rose asked.

    "Oh," Cinder said. "Good thinking, but there's an issue. That's not some rookie technique. It's granting unconditional trust. To make your fire burn enemies, while letting allies pass unharmed. Works best in a team of people you know, a team of people you're willing to lay your life down on, where their fire is yours. Not a lot of people are even capable. Especially now."

    Rose grimaced. "Okay." Trust was at an all-time low in the Sunbreakers, and she was an outsider. The explanation made sense.

    "I'll ask around," Cinder said. "But most people'll probably set you back. Think you can refrain from getting into arguments with whoever I ask?"

    "Yes," Rose said. "What about some form of insulated use?"

    "What, with fireproof clothing? Got some asbestos handy?" Cinder asked. "You'd need someone overseeing you."

    "Could you?" Rose asked. She held Cinder's gaze.

    Cinder let out a sigh. She kicked the bottom of her hammer, flipping it and catching the haft from the air. "Fine. This isn't going to go well." She beckoned Rose. "Follow me."

    She took Rose into a darkened hall, larger than the personal rooms, but smaller than the pantry or kitchen. It hadn't been used in some time, and the air was stale, thick with dust as they stepped in. Cinder's flaming hammer cast long shadows. It didn't smoke or sputter, only flickering fire writhing around it with the head glowing a dull red.

    Cinder wordlessly stepped over to a cabinet, opening it and removing some supplies. She wrapped Rose's right hand in thick cloth. After it was bound, she stepped back, looking around the room to reorient herself. Loud footsteps rang out as she meandered from one side of the room to the other before coming back with a sloshing keg of liquid. She popped the lid off it and smelled it. "Good enough," Cinder muttered. "If it catches, smother it. If you need to dunk it, we're done for the day." She set it down next to Rose, where it splashed, liquid splattering the ground. "You're going to create fire outside yourself. Imagine it like armor. Sunbreakers imbue themselves with flame, the sun at its peak. Fire protecting. Trust yourself."

    Easy for her to say. Rose clenched her fist, picturing. Fire in a halo, surrounding her hand. Her Light, coalesced into a bracelet of flame, a sheath around her protected arm. She could feel her skin prickle, and yanked her hand back.

    "What?" Cinder said. "Can't make it outside yourself? All angry inside?"

    "I'm not angry," Rose said.

    "Then you don't trust yourself," Cinder said.

    "I have to trust myself," Rose said.

    "Then make fire outside. Take your Light and make it into fire. Don't burn your blood unless you're trying to boil your brain," Cinder said.

    Was Cinder deliberately provoking her? Rose breathed. She'd made fire from herself so many times it was difficult to consider doing it any other way. Fire came from her, a deep abiding rage she put away until it burst out into a pyroclastic tantrum of self-immolation. For Cinder, it seemed simple. Why was it simple? Confidence commanding fire to do as she pleased? Powering through didn't work. Her arm was sweaty, encased in the bandages. But tuning everything out led to Void, not Solar. Creating her own little pocket of space. She didn't have to trust anyone in it. Anyone inside was safe. Unless she didn't want them to be, in which case she'd deal with them.

    She couldn't trust herself. She couldn't stop judging herself and her own failures. Void was perfect every step of the way, but Solar was an issue she couldn't ignore. "A lot of people died in the City. People who thought they were finally safe," Rose said.

    "Is this helping you?" Cinder asked.

    "I don't know," Rose said. It felt good to be angry, to have a target. But she couldn't stop herself from being ready to retaliate, an immediate, disproportional response. Burning them so they wouldn't touch the fire again, if they were even capable of it. Sacrificial flame? Trying to enforce judgment on herself as well as others? Self-flagellation? Even if that was the case, knowing it didn't change how she felt. Retributive aggression. All it took was a spark. How could she temper flame?

    She unfurled the fingers of her hand, letting a sheen of Void light curl over them, up and over her wrist, trickling up her forearm. Heat welled at her fingertips, on the edges of the Void she was so close to, consuming the armor of Light in licks of a purplish hue, limning her arm.

    The armor spotted, then broke, and Rose plunged her arm into the water.

    "Good start," Cinder said. "What'd you do?"

    Rose unwrapped the sodden bandages around her arm, squeezing the water from them. She opened her mouth, then closed it, trying to figure out what to say. "I don't know yet," she finally said.

    "Did you burn yourself?" Cinder asked.

    Rose shook her head.

    "Good start," Cinder repeated. "Try again tomorrow."

    Rose opened her mouth. She wanted to try again right now. To do it again and again until she got it right. But then she set her jaw, remembering what her ghost had said. "Okay," she said.
     
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    • As excellent as always. You write these sorts of quiet, contemplative chapters so well, and it's a treat to read.
     
    Eeeeeeee, new chapter! Wonderful work as always! Really enjoy Taylor having to sit down and Think, being forced to rest by her own mistakes, its great. Also the lil bit of her deliberately avoiding forge metaphors is gr8.

    One thing that irks me about Destiny is that Solar is pretty much always treated as Fire. Why the heck can't more things relate it to sunlight? Its got a whole buncha perfectly suitable interpretations and weaponizations available!
     
    Sonicman66 said:
    Eeeeeeee, new chapter! Wonderful work as always! Really enjoy Taylor having to sit down and Think, being forced to rest by her own mistakes, its great. Also the lil bit of her deliberately avoiding forge metaphors is gr8.

    One thing that irks me about Destiny is that Solar is pretty much always treated as Fire. Why the heck can't more things relate it to sunlight? Its got a whole buncha perfectly suitable interpretations and weaponizations available!
    Click to expand...
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    I'd say because sunlight is fire, just far enough away that it can't harm us (most people) but it certainly would be an intriguing way for Rose to wield solar. Probably unique and very powerful.
     
    SouthofRedPaws said:
    I'd say because sunlight is fire, just far enough away that it can't harm us (most people) but it certainly would be an intriguing way for Rose to wield solar. Probably unique and very powerful.
    Click to expand...
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    She does well with the buckler shield, she should be trying to use the Solar imbued into the shield edge --a throwing halo.

    As for the "strong hand" line, it made me immediately think of something:
     
    Want to attempt to keep disappointment from being too big regarding Rose's powerset/upcoming weapon:
    For upcoming use, Rose's Solar will be more maintenance/bursts than active, utilizing it with tricks alongside Void. (Some of the jokes I've made are actually foreshadowing on utilization.) I have a lot of fun scenes outlined on how to utilize it in fights.

    Her Solar usage will be essentially metered by her Void overshield until she's in a better place mentally. Then she'll use it as a mixup a lot more frequently in combat. There'll be more interesting iterations in future arcs.
    An iteration on a hammer.
    Poleaxe/Pollaxe with a short handle/long haft depending on how she's fighting. An oblique (well not really) reference to Colin's halberd while still roughly fitting into hammer theme, and having an interesting fighting style. Blade on the top for whittling, small hammer head for forging, axe head for peeling fruit.
     
    Spark
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    • Spark​
    The fire didn't look normal. Instead of flickering upward, a spear towards the sky, it resembled a thin film across the layer of Void gauntlet Rose had created. Tinged in blue and red, the fire ate away at the violet armguard, leaving pinholes in the reality Rose had asserted. The pinholes grew, cauterized edges forming as the flame itself trembled, sinking through the holes and making the wobbly surface uneven.

    Rose sloughed the armor off, letting it hit the ground. Eaten through, made more of holes than Void, it still held what mottled, pitted shape was left despite defying gravity to do so. It clung to existence until it finally evaporated, motes of purple trailing off into the air before fading away entirely. The fire continued to burn, taking on a more expected shape, licks of flame against the dark finding nothing else to consume and guttering out. Rose didn't say anything, just stared in the dark where the fire had been, where she could still see it.

    Solar was judgment. It was wrath and anger and heat. It was the flush of embarrassment and the gavel of justice. It also simply existed apart from the precepts of cognitive association. Fire burned. Her Light was whatever it was because of her. Not because she was broken in some manner, but because of preconceptions she couldn't change without time. You didn't heal a cut by digging your nails into it and peeling back the skin, watching the blood well up, begin to coagulate, and then repeating the process.

    Fire burned out of necessity. It consumed fuel. Rose breathed in, and Void coalesced around her arm, violet fathomless Light in the dark. Then Solar bubbled over the surface once again, more akin to water in how it moved, forming a thin film across the surface of her armor. It rippled, small waves across it as the surface tension threatened to break. As she moved her arm slowly, the flame listed with it, amassing in the opposite direction of the movement, then collapsing in on itself as she halted the movement.

    She dropped the gauntlet to the ground once more, and watched it burn away.

    Void had broken and given way to Solar under duress. Her impotent helplessness had exploded outward. It had always been happening. Here, in the dark room, with only the intake and exhalation of air interrupting the silence, it was easier to sink into the near-mindless state of the Void, and even easier to draw upon it.

    Or perhaps it was just because, when left alone with her thoughts, she naturally gravitated toward it, her personal affinity creeping over until she was one with its yawning lack. Void folded over her arm and snapped into place, in the image of her buckler. She hoped those who'd used her tower shield had managed to survive. The buckler spiraled into itself and winked out of existence.

    "You done?" Cinder asked.

    Rose nodded. "For today." She wanted to push it. She always did. But it wasn't worth the potential loss of progress. "Same time tomorrow?"

    Cinder nodded, and left the room.

    Rose waited for the sound of footsteps to fade. "What's your opinion?" she asked her ghost.

    "Of your burgeoning progress regarding Solar?" her ghost asked. "Interesting. Insulating yourself from it via Void. The effect itself is interesting too, more akin to a fluid. Was holding my figurative breath. Looked like it would spill over or collapse. An unintended side effect, or were you exerting control?"

    Rose chuckled.

    "That's a no on exerting control, then," her ghost said. "Still, worth investigating. If you can break the tension, the effects could be useful. Or if you could maintain it. Anything else you wanted to discuss?"

    "I know it won't change anything, and it won't really help the root cause," Rose said, "but I want to pull on the threads anyway. What do you think caused the issue?"

    Her ghost floated, shell spinning around, expanding and contracting to let Rose know she was thinking. Finally, she spoke: "I think the interpretation of your Solar being self-destructive is an oversimplification. I think you connect strongly with Void not only because you want to protect, but because of how you want to protect. You deny resources, restrict and control areas, and portion off reality into zones."

    Rose stared at her ghost, amused and annoyed in equal parts. "This a roundabout way of telling me I compartmentalize?"

    Her ghost laughed, jerking back and forth slightly in the air. "Kind of? It's more about Void meshing well with positive expressions for you? It may have broken under duress, or shattered when faced with overwhelming assault, but I would associate Void with positive control. You refined its use in combat, converting it into shields and protective spaces, using it to nullify powers temporarily. My hypothesis is Solar is the same. Your expressions of Solar trended toward rage, and deliberate, self-destructive sacrifice. Given your need to be involved and martyr yourself, I think Solar formed into a very good scapegoat."

    Rose noticed her ghost's tone growing more hesitant as she finished speaking. Her ghost was taking care to step around the topic of blaming herself, which no doubt was part of the hypothesis. Easier said than done. Doing what was right wasn't always the correct thing to do. Nor was it something she was always capable of. "I'll do my best," she said. Her ghost knew what she meant.

    "And I'll do mine," her ghost said.

    Anger came naturally to her. Rage that exploded outward, kept away until it could no longer be contained. Collapsing inward, until it devoured her whole.

    Her shield was in her hand, casting long shadows in the dark. She pressed it against her forehead, missing the feel of the cool metal buckler and the heavy weight of her tower shield. But the reconnection to the Void was welcome, she could feel herself slipping, falling back and never touching ground, only staring into the starless night the Void provided. She clad herself in the space within moments, violet armor affronting reality in a pulsing glow matching her heartbeat.

    It winked out of existence between those heartbeats, and the room went dark once more.
    Rose did what was needed around the compound. It provided her with a great deal of insight into the inner workings of the outpost. The mixture of old technology and new was of great interest to her. She'd been in settlements before where such medleys took place. A treasured resource of working technology was often used to jumpstart other pieces of technology, or was necessary enough to rely upon and constantly care for.

    Even what those in the Golden Age might have perceived as trinkets or useless baubles often found use by those innovative or desperate enough to do so.

    For the Sunbreakers, power was no object. What couldn't be fueled by fire was fueled by steam, electricity, or managing to jump up a few notches to fusion. But the technology level itself was relatively basic. Ghosts could repair, Sunbreakers could forge, but the more complex technology often required parts they didn't have access to, or was not useful enough to care for with the fastidiousness necessary to keep it active. They had very little incentive to do so, given their usual spate of nomadic movement. Some Sunbreakers took to tinkering with it as a leisure activity, and sometimes it produced results.

    The discussions turned surprisingly technical as they leaned over pieces of scrap, discussing Golden Age Solar capacitors and their use as embedded weaponry. The conversation was interesting enough that Rose's ghost lingered, and Rose did her best to listen. They didn't seem to mind, caught up in their debate on how best to utilize these limited resources as weaponry. One wanted to use them to make some kind of rocket launcher, which the others shot down.

    "You'd be better off with Solar detonators, you'd be making some kind of beam cannon with these. Maybe some kind of burst fire energy disbursement. You'd need a cooling mechanism to stop the embedded capacitors from overheating," said one, sketching out an image with Light. An exo with spines projecting from her head, she tapped a metal finger against the basic image.

    "Beam cannon's the point," said the other, confident. Bearded and hulking, he leaned back in his seat, which creaked under his weight. "Pulsed high burn gives better range."

    "You're moving into laser territory," replied the exo. "Then you run into issues with smokes defracting the beam before it makes it there. Web mines'll distort it, maybe even fuck with the charge. You got something against launching superheated projectiles?"

    "That's some Arc ass shit," said the bearded man. "I don't want a railgun with some Arc powered magnets, I want a giant blowtorch."

    "Armor mod?" the exo murmured, reconsidering. The spines on her head shivered as she tilted her head. "Shoulder mounted too much potential blastback. Too vulnerable. Flip-out arm module? Limited size means more potential overheat. Gun's still safest. Every configuration you're thinking of is walking around with a miniature jet engine trying to hit people with it."

    "I don't see the issue," said the bearded man. "Put it on a big hammer. Armor piercing and I get to have some multipurpose function to extend into midrange."

    "Absolutely not," the exo said. "You have enough hammers."

    "You can never have enough," said the man, voice wistful. He sighed, then leaned over the design the exo had drawn. "Fine, pulse burst midrange. Solar disbursement into feed mechanism. Needs to rev up for each shot."

    "Not ideal," said the exo. "But we can-"

    They were cut off by someone grabbing Rose by the shoulder. "New Light," said a man. A face ruddy with cold and beady eyes stared down at Rose with suspicion.

    Rose suppressed her first reaction, which was to grab for the hand and peel it off her. "How can I help you," she said, without any hint of a questioning lilt, and the bare minimum of politeness.

    "Eavesdropping?" he said.

    "Just an interesting conversation," Rose said. She didn't find it as interesting as her ghost, who was bobbing her shell and making assenting noises. "My ghost has some experience with Solar capacitors. Their use as weapons always appealed to her, but we didn't have too many to utilize outside of basic necessities."

    "We have all those here," he said.

    "So I've seen," Rose said.

    He looked Rose over. He wasn't quite tall enough to loom over her, so she just stared back at him. "You came from the City?" he asked.

    "Was one of the defenders before it fell," Rose said. "I fought to get as many as I could safely out."

    "And now you're hiding here," he said.

    "Aren't you?" Rose asked.

    "They aren't coming for us," said the man. "That's why you're hiding here."

    "Is there a reason you're trying to aggravate me?" Rose asked, keeping her voice calm. "Something you get out of it?"

    "I'm just letting you know you're with the Sunbreakers," said the man. He kept watching her, keeping her at arms length, trying to keep her body in frame in order to see indicators of her fighting back against him.

    Rose wasn't planning on it. The power vacuum was worse than she'd thought. Particularly if anyone could become a Sunbreaker if they had the aptitude. Presumably those less friendly had kept their distance. Made sense. More insular factions scared of new arrivals. "I'll keep that in mind," Rose said.

    "You do that," said the man. His face was kept carefully clear of any emotion beyond the facade of pleasant interaction. "We have matches tonight. You should check it out." He released her and backed up before leaving.
    "The matches are supposed to be strictly friendly," Rose's ghost said. "My guess is relations are starting to break down and tensions may come to a head faster than predicted. Impatient."

    "What are the rules?" Rose asked.

    "I know you're not planning on it," her ghost said. "But I'd like to recommend once again not going on the basis that you're trapped into a bad choice either way."

    "I don't go, I get accused of being a coward. I ran from the City, I ran from a fair fight, they'll say," Rose said. "I do go and I refuse to fight, same thing."

    "I know," her ghost said. "But you fight fair, by their rules, you lose and you lose face."

    "I know," Rose said.

    "And you just want to know the rules so you can skate right to the edge," her ghost said.

    "Winning is all that matters to them," Rose said.

    "I'll query Cinder's ghost. Not telling Emily yet, although I'll leave her a perfunctory note that'll go out after we're already on our way," her ghost said.

    "I appreciate you," Rose said.

    "You make my job so hard sometimes," her ghost said. "You know that?"

    Rose laughed and shook her head.
     
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    • I kind of want to see Rose have a bit of a eureka moment here in the matches where her solar changes to destruction of her opponents instead of just outright destruction. It would fit with the escalation and sudden breakthroughs style that was typical of Taylor.
     
    All that gun talk is making me wish for a good trace rifle right about now. God I wish coldheart gets a rework soon.

    As for the other bit, about the guy being confrontational, that sounds very familiar but I don't know if you intended him to.
     
    Binge read this over a few days and very excited to see more. Though rip to some very important/memorable people. Who knows maybe the young wolf will get some relics in the future of dean or Rebecca probably not but still looking forward to more.
     
    After being introduced to this story, I sat down to read it on a long flight - long and short is that I really enjoyed the story. It was great and I felt true to the time period in Destiny, also the imagery was equally great.

    However, I have really struggled with the section since the fall of the last city. The fall of the last city felt like the author had an attack of the grim-dark. Suddenly, I went from reading Destiny to reading 40K - the entire section has put me off the story.

    From what I can understand the city falling is meant to be a low that Taylor can build from but all it does is leave a sour taste in my mouth. Having read 170k words, I would expect the story to have already been well progressed on the growth of the protagonist and setting. Unfortunately, it feels like we just finished the prologue. It honestly made me think reading anything but the last couple of chapters was pointless.

    Anyway, overall I think the author is very good at their craft - expert at building the world and fleshing out the characters!!
     
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