Chapter Text
Have you ever taken a moment… just one, small second of your time to sit back and think of all of the little things in life that you take for granted?
The things that go by, day by day, falling into a routine that you’ve come to accept as the normal parts of your everyday life.
It could be hobbies, occupations, friends, loved ones- all of these things that become an afterthought in your mind without even realizing it; because you’re used to them.
So when something happens to this routine you've mindlessly set up, it hits all that much harder. Something that changes the rut you've become familiar with like it never existed in the first place.
You never notice the little things in life until they’re ripped away from you.
It’s then that you finally realize just how much you truly took for granted. The first reaction is to blame yourself, scrambling to think of a million things that you could have done differently; things that could have prevented any of this- all of this- even if every single thought you had was impossible, it didn’t matter.
But no matter what happens, no matter what thoughts or ideas run through your head, there is always one, single question; one single word that is always scratching at the back of your mind like a feral animal.
Why?
From beginning to end, it’s a question that lingers in the mind like a sickness. A plague on each thought that can never be cured no matter how hard you try.
This is the lesson Aridana learned, and one that has never left her thoughts since the very second she was brought into this contained hellscape.
One minute, it seemed everyone was peacefully going about their lives in the Last City. Citizens and Guardians roaming through the tower, living and working normally as they always did. Aridana once again going through the reports that Cayde had conveniently “forgotten” to do for the ump-teenth time.
Meanwhile, there was Sunny, doing her best to keep her usual upbeat attitude and trying to make the Awoken Guardian laugh, even with this evil-looking storm outside. Of course, she was doing her damnedest to try and convince Sunny to help her get through the paperwork all while she cracked jokes about kicking a certain Hunter Vanguard’s ass once he got out of that important meeting Zavala had called him into earlier.
But then you blink.
And the next minute comes.
Trapped to a scrapheap of a device, sitting as a hostage of the Cabal; her light ripped away from her, while forced to watch the closest person to her be in constant pain.
Stripped piece by piece, hanging from the walls by wires like some mangled marionette. Somehow, through all of that, Sunny was still alive.
Even if she was barely hanging on.
Aridana always knew she was a fighter.
She could only hope she kept fighting. She begged her to keep fighting.
She never thought the Cabal had forgotten about her, though. They were more than happy to give the Hunter her own fair share.
They scrapped her armor the moment she had become their captive, letting her keep the absolute bare minimum of blood-soaked rags hung loosely around her body. It gave them easy access to her now-vulnerable flesh, the open air leaving a constant chill running through her body.
It was easy to see every gash whether it be new or old, every scar they’ve left, every bruise on her body with a simple glance.
Her “prison” was the thing you really only heard in passing, rumors bouncing from Guardian to Guardian.
But it was very much real.
The machine she was locked in bound the Awoken by her arm, as well as from the waist down, heavy steel clasped around her to ensure she stayed put. But as a precaution, once they locked, a fail-safe would activate. Hooks from the inside would latch into her skin.
In case she thought of any way out.
The contraption was connected to a near-by control panel, giving her captors access to whatever harm they deemed fit in their interrogations.
She was surprised to find out how much the Cabal seem to like electrocution. Practically frying her from the inside out, her throat now raw from the howls that were ripped forcefully from it.
But physical harm was the least of her issues. They knew her weakness. Nothing they did to her could hurt as badly as being forced to watch Sunny, a person she held so near to her heart, be brought to the brink of death and back over and over again.
Every one of her screams, every one of her tears- it was Aridana’s nightmare that just wouldn’t end. Why wouldn’t it end, why can’t they just kill them both and be done with it, why are they doing this-
Why?
The Awoken had no idea how long they had been held there. It wasn’t exactly like the guards kept her up to date. However long it’s been, it felt like an honest eternity.
The scraping noises of the near-by machinery mixed with the sounds of Cabal tech powering through the walls. The sounds of heavily armored footsteps always echoing around the floors, the grotesque language spewing from the mouths of these ugly bastards; it had all become white noise to Aridana.
It’s come to a point where she’s even stopped responding to her captors now. Time and time again, they come in for “questioning,” but she can’t hear them.
She doesn’t want to, not anymore.
Until they mention Sunny.
She’s the only thing that she can hear anymore, and it made her sick. The Cabal could threaten harm to herself all they wanted, but it was Sunny’s life on the line that would always spark a reaction from her. Exhausted to enraged in a matter of seconds, it never failed.
Maybe that’s why they’ve seemed to increase their visits to the Warlock as of late. Maybe it was because they knew what it did to her.
But she knew there was no “maybe.” They had a screen constantly in front of her, just so she could see and hear exactly what they were doing to her. They knew how badly it ate Aridana up inside to see her hurt, there was no maybe about it.
Bastards.
‘Of course it’s my fault.’ she thought, her mind under a seemingly unending fog. 'I can’t even protect my own family. I’m no Guardian. Just a failure.’
Aridana tried to look away from the screen in front of her, to no avail. The contraption she was held in kept her head nice and still, so she would never miss the special show they put on just for her. She had run out of tears to cry, and lost the voice to scream at them to stop, even if they never listened.
She was forced to focus on the screen once more. A few Psions had entered Sunny’s chamber, she noticed, and Aridana cursed under her breath.
They had come to hurt her again. What would it be this time? Electrify the wires she hung from? Or maybe pull a few more parts from her; it had been some time since they’d done that. The Awoken’s thoughts hissed through her head, venom coursing through each and every word.
But suddenly the Psions just… stopped.
They never just stop.
The screen in front of her flickered a few times.
Fear flooded Aridana’s body as she fixed her gaze entirely on the feed. She didn’t even notice the pain of trying to force open one of her eyes that had been recently swollen shut.
Her thoughts lingered, only for a moment. 'What are they…’
Suddenly the compound shook, bits of debris falling from the ceiling. She let out a hiss as her head attempted to jerk upwards out of instinct.
She glanced back down at the screen, and her heart sunk.
The screen was off.
The feed was cut.
Whatever just happened must have dropped communications in the compound.
The lights of the room she was being held in flickered before being flooded with a harsh red flashing.
Heavy, armored footsteps suddenly stormed through the halls as more and more of the machinery began to malfunction.
Aridana began to panic as her thoughts raced through her mind.
Is there an attack on the base? Was it someone finally coming for them, or just another skirmish from the Fallen? What were they going to do to them now?
What’s happening to Sunny.
Her already shaky train of thought was cut as another explosion went off, much closer to where she was this time.
She didn’t know what to do. If it was some kind of Fallen attack, what could they possibly to to them that isn’t worse than what’s already been done? But if, just if, by some sort of miracle it was some sort of rescue team after all this time…
“Traveler please, tell me they’ve gotten to her…” her voice cracked barely above a whisper, fear and anguish wrapped in her tone.
Every day, she hoped and prayed to anyone listening that if they survived, nothing would matter as long as Sunny was alive and taken care of. Aridana was an afterthought in her own mind. She just wanted her sister safe.
The Hunter’s eyes dart to the large, sealed door in front of her room, her eyes wide with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. There was a loud pounding noise coming from it, as if someone was ramming into it. Her heart began to beat faster as she heard something muffled from the other side.
Voices.
Voices she knew.
Even through the thick steel, she knew the sound of those robotic voices like the back of her hand, but that wasn’t all. A loud, commanding female voice was shouting from the other side. Through gunfire and explosions, she could make out 3 muffled voices, and knew exactly who they belonged to.
Aridana’s body began to shake. Ikora was there. Buck was there. Cayde was there.
They were trying to pry the door open.
'The explosions… they must have knocked the electricity out.’ she thought. Her pulse was throbbing in her ears as she began to realize that without electricity, she didn’t know if Sunny was going to be okay. She may have been able to see all of the things that the Cabal had done to her, but it didn’t mean she knew whether the Warlock was on some kind of life-support or not.
The Hunter took in a large, shaky breath. “S…Sunny…!” she tried to yell, her voice so hoarse it was practically nonexistent. Again, she tried to yell for her sister’s name, and again she got the same result, this time followed by a harsh coughing fit. Her eyes stung with tears as she tried to muster up the strength she knew she didn’t have.
Then the door began to split. Two sets of hands on each side of the door, trying their damnedest to pry it open enough to get inside, while the third continued to give them cover fire.
“You’re supposed to be a Titan,” one of the voices grunted. “So put some damn backbone in it!”
“Cayde, we’ve got enough going on without you bullshitting me, so shut up and help me move the damn door!”
“ENOUGH, both of you! Get that door open before we end up killed! This mission is dangerous enough as it is without unnecessary conflict, now move!”
The sparks of the sporadically malfunctioning hardware continued to fly, growing closer to the Awoken’s shackles. Light now poking through with another shove of the door, a surge of volatile energy shot through the room and everything in it.
The pain from the sudden shock caused Aridana to screech with a force she no longer knew she had in her voice, before what air was left in her was practically forced out of her lungs.
“Shit, was that a person?! Someone’s alive in here?!” exclaimed Buck’s deep, robotic tone.
“After a screech like that, alive might be a stretch, bud. Now quit flapping your gums and move this damn door!”
“For the love of- move.” Ikora’s voice growled through the metal.
A few loud shots rang out as the Warlock blew out what was left of the doors malfunctioning control panel causing the sliding door to spring open, much to the Titan’s surprise.
It seemed, though, that the panel had a few more electrical connections than just the door, as the shackles holding the Awoken hunter sprung loose. The hooks inside the cuffs ripped out of her arms as she let out a pained yelp and fell to the ground with a sickening thud.
The fireteam rushed into the room, Ikora staying close to the inner control panel, shotgun close in hand.
“I’ve got eyes on the door, you two, scan the room.”
The two exos split up as they carefully began to scout the room. Aridana could see their heads above the equipment as they slowly moved inward. She tried to speak, but her throat felt as if she had swallowed glass.
Desperate, she tried to crawl in their directions, any of them. The blood seeping from her wounds began to leave trails as she made the painstakingly slow movements.
Buck held his Sweet Business close to him, ready to unleash hell on anything in his path.
“I know I heard a yell…” he muttered, eyes scanning the area. “It sounded so damn-“
He stopped. If exos could breathe, he would have forgotten how.
“Familiar.” he choked at the sight before him.
His fireteam leader, his friend lay on the ground, struggling so hard to move that she doesn’t even realize he can see her.
The sound of his machine gun hit the ground with a large CLATTER, getting her attention as the Titan sprinted over.
“Gods…! You’re alive?!” He sputtered, panicked. Aridana looked up at her teammate, her wet eyes swirled with a mixture of relief and agony. The state she was in made him sick to his stomach.
Ikora kept her eyes firm on the door, but not failing to take notice in the commotion.
“Buck! Status report! What’s going on?”
“She’s alive!” he said, kneeling quickly trying to figure out how to grab her. The Awoken’s body was so horrifically damaged, he was afraid of killing her; if she didn’t die right in front of him.
“Hold on, you were right?!” Cayde exclaimed. “Put money on it if you’re that sure next time.”
The sound of a shotgun sounded off at the front. “Buck, if it’s a civilian then grab them, we can’t be here much longer,” she growled. “They’re starting to regroup.”
“Hey, we came here for a reason, Ikora, remember? I mean, great we saved a civvy, but we’re not leaving here without-“
“It’s ARI!” The titan angrily interrupted before the bickering continued any further.
The room stood silent for all but a moment as both members of the Vanguard whipped their bodies in the direction of the Exo. “What?!” they spat in unison.
Ikora changed positions at the door, remembering not to let her guard down while she tried to get a look at their fallen friend. Cayde, on the other hand, was not so patient. The hunter dropped what he was doing immediately, leaping over malfunctioning control panels to get to them.
Buck’s expression was nothing short of a grimace, his mind racing. He didn’t even think before he shot his hands forward, stopping the hunter’s sudden advance. “WAIT,” he huffed. “Don’t… not yet.”
The titan’s words came as a whisper, much to Cayde’s dismay. He wanted to protest, tell him to fuck off and let him get her out of this hellhole.
But he didn’t.
He stayed. And watched in disgust at what these damned Cabal had done to her.
“Aridana.” Buck called. “Can you hear me? Are you-“
“s…sun…” called a hoarse and pained whisper, causing both Exos to jump.
“Sun…? Is that what you want? Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here and-“
“NO!” she screeched, a gasp ringing from everyone in the room. The Awoken’s breathing was ragged; her gaze filled with malice and fear. “S…Sunny. Where’s Sunny…?!”
Ikora’s expression changed to that of a shocked concern, “What… what did you say?”
“Tell me… tell me you h-have her… please…” she cried. Her thoughts echoed around her head, ‘Don’t prioritize me. Save her. If it’s me or her, save her.’
Her next question made Aridana’s heart drop, “Do you know where she is?”
You bastards, she spat in her mind. They didn’t just try and save herself first.
They didn’t even know she was there.
They didn’t even know if she was alive
She didn’t even know if she was alive.
“Here. Goddammit, she’s h-here…!” she growled, tears pricking the corners of her fury-filled eyes as her fist hit the ground. “You damn… forget me. Get her…!”
She wanted to scream, to cry, to lash out and knock sense into these idiots that so foolishly came for her first.
Her throat was raw, causing her to hack up blood in her attempt to scold those in front of her, breathing still a constant struggle. Her vision was nothing more than that of a blur, so she didn’t realize she was being lifted up.
“What are you doing?!”
“Oh sorry, was I not waiting for her to die like either one of you two?”
The room was silent as Cayde hoisted her onto his back, a silent yelp of pain attempting to exit Aridana’s mouth. “How honest to Light fucking stupid do you think I actually am?” he hissed. “Sure, if Sunny is here, then there’s a safe bet she knows where she is.”
He turned, his back facing the both of them. “But if you think, for even a second, that I’m gonna let her lay here; let her rot here because she’s hurt, when we all thought she was already dead-“ he jerked his head in a tilt, stopping himself.
“Not happening.”
The Vanguard made his way to the front of the room, Ikora eyeing him. “I never said we would leave her.”
“Coming up with some 6-point plan while she’s bleedin’ out isn’t that different.”
Buck walked over and picked up his machine gun, holding at the ready as he grouped back up with the others. “He’s right. I hesitated. But we can play the blame game later,” he huffed, the barrel of the menacing weapon beginning to spin, ready to open fire on anyone who dared tried to stop them.
“We have people to save. So,” the titan turned, looking at the other two. “Let’s hit ‘em where it hurts.”
The two Vanguard glanced at each other before giving a quick nod. Ikora remained in the back, giving Cayde a better cover as his hands were quite literally full.
Aridana glanced upwards, her vision still hazy and mind in a daze. “Cayde…” he rasped, feeling the Exo jolt at the sound of her voice. “No matter what happens… I-I want you to promise me…”
The Hunter glanced over his shoulder, listening closely to her words, as hard as they were to hear. Aridana’s eyelids began to flutter, her consciousness beginning to fade.
With one last look of determination, she forced out her request.
“Save her.”
They were nothing more than a whisper, her head now slumped against his shoulder as her vision faded to black. The sound of her friends shouting her name in fear of her dying there and then began to muffle as she lost all consciousness.
But until she knew that Sunny was okay, and safe again?
She wasn’t going to miss a damn thing.