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Eris smiled gently and put her hand on Zavala's arm as she stood in the central pillar of her Throne World.
"It is in the past," she said in response to his outpouring of guilt. "I know you only did what you thought was right."
Zavala sighed and nodded. Still clearly burdened by the weight of her loss even with her standing alive in front of him.
He was telling her how much she meant to him. Heartfelt words, confessed in sadness, as one might do at a gravestone to the departed. Words he had wished to tell her when she was alive and now, as she stood in front of him, reconstituted within her beautiful throne, he had been given a second chance to do so.
His words were honest and vulnerable. Eris felt very strongly the need to be solemn and focused upon him, but she was in a unique position she had not previously been in before. The Drifter, ever devious and playful, was sending her sweet, ridiculous and, unfortunately for her, quite amusing messages hand-written in a book in another area of the world-cyst which formed her throne.
In an effort to hide a smile which would have been inappropriate in the context of what was being spoken, Eris did something she very rarely did with anyone outside of the Drifter or Ikora. She stepped forward and pulled the contrite Commander into a hug.
He was surprised but immediately returned the embrace, warm and firm. Eris used this opportunity to stifle a silent laugh and regained her composure. The hug felt good, though. Perhaps she might indulge in more hugs with others in her future.
Zavala stared at her for a moment after she released him. Eris recognized he was making an effort not to look away from her unbound eyes. Ikora was familiar with them, as was the Drifter, but she had never shown them to the Commander. And, while she appreciated the gesture, Eris briefly found herself wishing he was not making such an earnest attempt to be accepting of the visage she no longer desired to hide. It would have made her task of keeping her expression neutral and not reacting to the Drifter's shenanigans far easier.
"We have, all of us, been through so much, Commander," she said gently to him. "It is good to be able to return to you."
"Indeed," Zavala said, giving Eris' arm one more squeeze before turning away. "Whatever else you need, Eris, you have only to ask."
"I know," she nodded and turned slightly, stepping toward the glowing malachite-coloured rift which would enable him to leave her Throne World. "For now, I ask only for a small amount of time..." Eris paused, stifling another smile. "...to rest."
"Of course, Eris. You must be exhausted."
Eris did not correct him or clarify that the rest she wanted was not for herself. She chose instead to borrow one of the techniques frequently employed by the rogue with whom she had found herself deeply enamoured and let the Commander retain his assumption. She simply nodded and received a nod from Zavala in response before he exited her realm.
When she was certain he had fully departed through the glowing green rift which currently formed the only entrance into this space, Eris Morn, Bane of the Swarm, Many Mouth Hunger, Knife Edged Truth, Heresiarch, Crota's Bane, Oryx's Sorrow, Killer of Savathun, Ruin of Xivu Arath, Hive God of Vengeance, tilted her head back and let laughter bubble from her lips unrestrained.
"Insufferable," she whispered with a smile as she strode toward a nearby bookcase. The tomes within it shuddered and trembled as Eris stepped up to, and then into, the spines facing her. The books parted before her, and then enveloped her, like water.
Eris Morn traversed the pages of the library of her soul with a light step and an even lighter heart, writing in her mind where she wished to go as she walked through the fluttering tunnel of foliated vellum and paper. It smelled of old leather, wax, wood, and earth. The rustling sounds the pages made felt like the soft voice of an old friend.
In moments the books in front of her parted again and she stepped into the bedroom she had willed into existence, a place she had sensed and felt, but which she was only now entering for the first time. She regarded it with quiet approval. It was pleasing to her. Indulgent, yet still grounded. Comfortable, yet still practical. Cluttered, but not oppressive. A warm gentle fire. Thick carpets and dark wood furniture. And in the sturdy bed now pushed up against a wall of books, eyes open with a gentle smile on his face, her scruffy, bedraggled (but now considerably cleaner, fed, and somewhat hydrated) not-so-meretricious rogue.
The Drifter sat up slightly and his sunken eyes sparkled with exhausted genuine joy as she approached.
In the past, before Europa, she had dismissed the look on his face when she approached him as a ruse, a mask, his surely-feigned intense interest a practiced response, designed to manipulate whoever he was speaking with. But, as she observed him over time, she came to realize that while he did have a practiced smile and pleasant expression for most people who approached him, and while it was as much a defense mechanism for him as the speed with which he could draw his hand cannon, the mask always stopped before it reached his eyes. He was consistent in this with very few exceptions. Eris Morn was one of them.
With Eris, even when they were still but acquaintances working together on Io, or, later, students, learning together on Europa, the way Drifter looked at her had always been different. Searching. Appreciative. Fully engaged. In the past she had been infuriated with how his eyes were constantly glittering with amusement when they alighted upon her, initially dismissing his playful gaze as a joke at her expense. But over the years his teasing had always remained gentle, his eyes interested, no matter how harsh her responses. And, over time, that, too, shifted, and she saw relief, comfort, trust, desire and… joy.
Even now, after her death had destroyed him, her presence still filled him with happiness. It made her feel beautiful, powerful, and, above all, loved.
Eris crossed the room quickly and picked up a chair, bringing it next to the table beside the bed.
He blinked and she smiled. The he blinked again in mild confusion and surprise.
With a rustle of paper Eris' armour, gloves, boots, helmet, head covering, beads, charms, and outer clothing were suddenly carefully positioned on the chair and she now stood smirking before him in the loose shirt and comfortable leggings she wore under her armour.
"Oh… that's a cute trick…" he said appreciatively.
"Hmmm…" She smiled and stepped next to the bed. "May I join you?"
He blinked again below her and opened his mouth to speak, but then simply nodded and shuffled over on the bed as Eris repositioned a pillow between her back and the bedpost so she could sit up and lean against it.
The Drifter's gaze was drawn to her feet as she settled in next to him, to her carefully and meticulously mended centuries old socks. He looked from them to her face and back again, then tentatively reached out a hand to hover, but not quite touch, her right foot. An unasked question.
Eris nodded, intrigued as the Drifter ran his fingers over her ankle, feeling for the seams, the little mended scars in the material of her socks.
The Drifter's own socks, which he was not currently wearing, were likewise ancient. His were filled with holes. He insisted socks felt weird without 'built in air conditioning.'
Eris' socks were carefully stitched with precise intent, mended by feel, and were criss-crossed with as many seams as her own skin. She felt him checking the seams, verifying, as though he were re-mapping and re-fixing every detail, confirming they were all still there, all still as he remembered them.
Eris curled her toe around his wrist and dragged her foot up along his arm, tugging him gently toward her. The goal was, after all, for him to rest. He obediently left his study of her feet and crawled along the mattress beside her legs to her open arms. Lying on his side with his head in her lap, he sunk into her with a sigh, nuzzling the side of his head against the top of her thigh.
She hummed and began idly stroking his beard, tracing his eyebrows and the scars in his cheeks.
Eris had always enjoyed when he lay with his head in her lap and let her touch him. It was something that had started years ago. They had been working together and he was engaging in his habit of perpetually lounging upon things, draping himself in various configurations and slouches. He'd tilted a chair back on two legs to lean in and rest his head on the table next to a book she was reading to ask her something wildly inane. She had glared down at him, seen his eyes sparkling up at her, and been overcome with a desire to brush her thumb along his cheek, which had promptly caused him to stammer and forget what he was saying, much to her great amusement.
He made excuses to position himself like that again and again until eventually she began allowing him to lie in her lap. He'd claimed it helped him sleep. Both were aware, at that point, that he was using any and every opportunity to increase physical contact with her. But both were also aware that she was enjoying it.
It was a comforting habit. Her tendency to idly run her fingertips along objects transferred easily to mapping his facial features through touch. His delight at her doing so was always palpable, always wanting more. And now, with her returned, him lying in her lap was a renewal of something deeply cherished which had caused both of them great pain to be without.
"Ya know," he mumbled into the soft grey of her leggings as her fingerip slid along his ear, "I remember on Io…"
"Yes?" Eris asked.
"Watchin' you fondle your ball. Thinkin' how much I wanted those hands to touch me like that."
"Hmmm…"
"And now, here we are…"
"Here we are," she repeated back to him, sliding her hand along his shoulder, down his arm, and back again.
How many people had asked her how she could give up the rush of feeding the insatiable hunger for Tithes, the power of being a god, the addictive nature of being able to bend existence to her desire, the visceral physical instantiation of her vengeance? But it was simple. Eris had found something she wanted more, something that no Hive godhood or ability to compel others could ever provide: the trust of a person who trusted no one, the love of someone who for so long had refused to ever love, the unmistakable spark of delight in the face of someone who believed they could not feel anything... wanting her, believing in her... not missing who she was when she had two eyes, nor being disappointed at who she did or did not become... the way he had always been drawn to her, following her... the way he followed her still.
She dragged her fingers along his neck, following an errant scar, and he sighed in contentment.
Would she have been able to give up godhood and tempered her vengeance if she was not also the Drifter's Moonlight?
He shifted onto his back and she continued to touch him, carding her fingers through his hair.
"And is the experience congruent with what you had envisioned?" she asked him.
"Nope."
Eris stilled her hands and tilted her head.
He looked up into her eyes, adoration on his face. "So much better than I ever could'a dreamed up on my own."
She smiled down at him and resumed brushing the edges of his beard with her thumb.
"How is it different?" she asked.
For the Hive gods, their desires for power stemmed from a need for vengeance. Their first calls to the Darkness millenia before Humanity even began to exist stemmed from the vengeance Eris would eventually mantle herself in to become their undoing. For Eris, the desire for vengeance had for so long been all she wanted. And perhaps this was what caused all those other variations of herself in Elsie Bray's many failed timelines to become what they were.
Elsie, who in desperation reached out a hand in friendship to Eris, her enemy in every other iteration. Elsie, who had chosen to teach instead of fight, and whose choice placed the ever-obnoxious Drifter once more in Eris' proximity - a fact which at the time Eris had loathed so intensely but was so very grateful for now… Elsie had been convinced it was power which had corrupted Eris' other iterations. Unlikely. Eris had handled power time and time again without it overcoming her. But loneliness…
"Well, for one, at the time I didn't know you ran cool," the Drifter explained.
"Hmmm…" Eris waited for him to continue.
"Yeah. Your body temperature is cooler than mine, like... like moonlight…"
This decrepit, at the time quite foul-smelling, irreverent, repulsive man who was so clearly drawn to her, even on Europa, had become that which now mattered to her most.
How often it seemsed to be the neglected slight little things which ended up sending the largest ripples through our lives…
"And I thought it would be more freaky," the Drifter continued. "Not in a bad way," he added. "Just at the time… I'm gonna be honest with you… I wasn't thinking a lot of um... platonic thoughts about you very much..."
"Tsch." She cradled the crown of his head in her hands as he continued, making circles at his temples.
"Couldn't stop thinking about you at all. It was wild. Still is wild but... it's different now... it's... it's so much more... the way you touch me... like I'm special... like I matter... like I'm... precious."
His voice cracked slightly. His eyes were unfocused.
Eris bent down, sliding her arms around his neck, alowing them to cross below his chin and continue sliding down along the sides of his chest. She pulled him tight against her.
Two-eyed Eris died in the Hellmouth.
Three-eyed Eris died on the Dreadnaught.
And now... what was she now? She was so much more than either of the Eris' who had come before.
The Drifter had loved her before her death, yes, devotedly. But the loss of her had shattered him. He had shed so much of what he'd clung to. All of it become ash in the face of loss.
"Like I'm worthy…" he continued. "And not just normal human life being worth keeping... like… like you feel that I'm worthy of you..."
She shifted in the bed and he sat up slightly. She pulled him closer to her and slid farther down the bed. He let his head rest on her stomach as she wrapped her arms around him again, holding him. His own hands slid along her legs, holding her as well.
He had already confessed to her the guilt he felt at the thought of making her lose her fireteam again from his running away. Eris felt likewise at his loss of her after he had finally learned to love again. It was worse, perhaps...
She had known when she demanded, defiant of his detachment, that he be vulnerable with her… knowing when she did so that, like an abused animal, the bond they would form together would be profound and transformative… knowing that someone like him, if he ever truly loved again, would do so with his whole being, that the attachment would mean everything to him. Like him, Eris had perhaps supposed at the time the passion would burn bright and then fade, perhaps to a well-worn friendship…
She held him now, their breathing in sync, feeling the comfort of him in her arms, feeling his muscles relax at her holding him. She sat back up and resumed making circles with her fingers on the back of his head, under his chin, the back of his neck, behind his ears.
And in some ways she supposed her own desire for him in the past had been quite selfish. What would it matter to her if he was destroyed by the loss of her? She would be dead.
It seemed so heartless now, seeing what losing her had done to him. She thought back to Zavala, speaking to her as though he were at her grave. Ikora, feeling unworthy of comfort when Eris was the one who had died. Ikora had lived through her death twice now.
"You tryin' to get me to fall asleep in your lap?" Drifter asked as Eris continued to touch him, gently pushing against skin and scars and muscles, pressing her fingertips into him, letting him know she was there, and present, and alive.
"Yes," she said quietly.
"No promises but I think it's working."
Her lip quirked into a smile. "Good."
"Scared to though."
Eris tilted her head. "What are you afraid of?"
He closed his eyes. He looked so tired.
"You not bein' here when I wake up." His voice shook and he raised a trembling hand to reach for one of hers.
"Hmmm… it is true I may be called away while you sleep. What will help?"
He shook his head against her stomach. "I dunno... maybe… somethin' to remind me this right now is real?"
Things would be different now. Eris understood this, and she accepted it, although it remained to be seen how different things would be. She'd experienced before… the pulling away of those who grieved her death upon her return. This was, after all, not the first time she had returned from the dead, albeit not quite so literally.
It was normal, she knew from experience. It would pass. It was not unreasonable to have experienced great emotional pain and have a natural unconscious desire to not experience that pain again.
But not him.
Eris looked down at him as he clung to her as though she might disappear at any moment. Eris supposed this was because the others had time to deal with, and accept, the loss of her, so they now struggled with her being returned. They were happy, they were grateful, and Eris felt that. She felt welcomed, wanted. But the mourning had happened. For many of her oldest friends, it had happened twice. There was an emotional distance which would close over time.
But Drifter... did not accept. He'd tried to mourn and grieve but he'd been overwhelmed... He did not move on... He tried to outrun his pain and was, to Eris' extreme gratitude, regardless of the source, unsuccessful in the attempt.
Eris stretched out a hand into the empty space above them both. Soft clinks sounded from the table. Several objects floated up and over. She placed them on the bed one by one. A sheath of knives, an amulet, an ancient well-worn journal wrapped in leather strips, a bundle of letters, a Titan mark of chain links.
Space was vast. Even within the system, individuals become lost so easily.
To leave Sol entirely... she did not know how she would have ever found him again. Eris wondered where she would have looked. The Nine, most likely... She doubed they would have helped. If anything remained of Orin would she have given Eris any assistance? Eris was uncertain. Failing that? A wish then, perhaps. What would that have cost her? The last time she wished to know the way the price was… high. What would have been taken from her to know which way the Drifter had gone?
And would she have been willing to pay it?
Old Eris would have scoffed at such an idea, but now… knowing what she would have lost.. knowing what it is to be loved so completely that someone would transgress aspects they believed to be essential to their own identity, built through fear to protect themselves from pain they found intolerable… knowing someone would willingly exposed themselves to pain they knew would shatter them... just for the chance to experience her love…
No. It would not have been guilt which would have driven her to pursue him had he not returned.
It would have been desire.