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The Commander goes to the Pale Heart sometimes. There are contacts to speak with, musterings to oversee. So long as his Guardians fight, he will never let them fight alone.
But every now and then, he goes alone, and for no purpose but his.
None see him go, when the time comes, except for perhaps Ikora, and she won’t speak of it.
…
Zavala walked the landing of the old Tower.
He had never considered himself the nostalgic sort. When you live as long as a Guardian, you could not afford to be.
Even all those long centuries mourning Hakeem and Safi, it wasn't about the house. That was what the Witness got wrong. It wasn't about that slice of their lives. It was about a boy who never got to live his. A woman he could have gotten to love for decades longer than he did.
Still, the sight of the Tower does something to him. Maybe it was all the new life growing around it; familiar, but different. Maybe it was knowing that somewhere, there was a piece of the good things that were lost. Somewhere, out of sight, but waiting.
The thought makes his chest heavy and his eyes burn.
Like most nights, he settled himself down at the center of the walkway, just by the rails, and crossed his legs. He used to overlook the City from here, when all was quiet and peaceful. Now, he overlooks something quite different.
He never dares to ask the question he wants to ask. He doesn't expect he'll get an answer, anyway. But he does always wait until operations in the Lost City have died down and the Tower is peaceful. Just in case he ever says what he wants to say.
Perhaps his intuition was a little rusty. It was a time of peace, after all, and whatever he'd promised Caiatl, he did spend most of his time in the City, these days — more time than usual.
Or perhaps it was just old habit; a soldier who hadn't quite been able to shake the feeling that if three eyes were watching him, nothing good would come of it.
He felt the Stasis rise up inside him. So startlingly familiar to the way the Light always did… but missing that one crucial component.
“Peace, Commander!” a strange voice called from behind him. “Peace! This one means you no harm.”
He blinked. It took a moment for his heart rate to settle.
“Luzaku,” he said. “I… didn't expect to see you here.”
And Sky, but the sight of a Hive standing in the Tower made his stomach turn. Luzaku was chosen by the Traveler, the same as everyone else. She meant him no harm.
But she was Hive. And here she was, standing not far from where Tess used to hawk her wares and Ikora's Dawning crystal used to float…
Luzaku made a strange noise. He thought he remembered learning that it was something like laughter. “This one apologizes,” she said. “It is late, and you intended to be alone. This one merely wished to extend her greetings.”
He forced a smile. Showing no teeth; he knew that the Eliksni, at least, were instinctively unnerved by the showing of teeth. He wondered if the Hive were similar. “It's no problem,” he said. “I was… contemplating.”
“May this one join you? It is a good spot to contemplate.”
“Of course,” he made himself say.
Luzaku drifted over and settled down next to him. She copied his pose, a touch awkwardly.
She was quiet. Waiting for him to speak? Or perhaps she preferred silence?
“May I ask,” he began after a few moments. “You seem far from the Blooming Burrow.”
“The Blooming Burrow was the site of the last one's transformation,” she said, “but it is not to be this one's prison. This one wanders far, but always returns home.”
“As any Guardian does,” he offered.
She was quiet. Perhaps he'd overstepped.
And then, suddenly, desperately, he realized he could not just sit here and think questions to a silent god. Not tonight.
“Luzaku,” he began. He stilled the tremor in his voice. “...Would you like some tea?”
“This one does not much like ‘tea.’ But this one does like conversation.”
…
He led her to a nook where he and Ikora would sometimes have dinner.
It was small, and not far from the Hall of the Vanguard. He realized on the way over that he did not know if this version of the Tower had it or not.
He needn't have worried. It was here, just like he remembered it, and somehow at the same time altogether new.
Zavala rummaged in the cupboards for a few moments. His things were not quite where he'd left them, but soon enough he had a cup of tea and a few drops of honey.
Luzaku watched him, silent until he sat at the table. Like on the lookout, she cautiously mirrored him, sitting across from him, her alien face so exactly where Ikora's used to be that he wanted to weep.
Mercifully, she started first. “What have you come here to contemplate, Commander?” she asked. “The mysteries of the Sky?”
“...Something like that.” He realized he needed to do better than that. “It's… I find myself wondering…”
Only now he realized that he didn't know the words to explain what he wanted. They were there, waiting, on the verge of being spoken; but he didn't know them.
“...I mourn.”
Luzaku looked at him. He could have sworn something changed in her soulfire eyes.
“What do you mourn, Commander?” she asked. “Your Ghost?”
Zavala appreciated and resented her bluntness. “Yes. God, yes. But not just him. Everyone we lost. I feel as though, at last, we have a moment to breath… and now I can't stop mourning.”
A tremor in his hand caused his tea to slosh, just so.
“Why am I telling you this?” he asked. More to himself than anyone else. “I've never told anyone this.”
“You misjudge this one if you think she is using witch-tricks on you.”
Maybe she had noticed his mistrust. “No! No, it's not like that. I just… do you ever… have something that is so hard to say? Something about yourself that you don't understand well enough to speak?”
Luzaku nodded, once, slowly. He wondered if she had studied and practiced Human mannerisms for occasions just such as these.
“This one does not understand a thing about herself,” she said. Then, another awkward laughing sound. “But this one does understand mourning. Sometimes I mourn the last one.”
“The last one?”
“The one before this one. Ikora calls it… ‘Acolyte.’ The one that was transformed into this one.”
Zavala did a slow nod of his own. “Yes… right,” he said. “I understand.”
Something like a smile. “This one doubts that. But that is alright. This one does not fully understand, either.”
“What do you do?” he asked. “When you miss the last one? Is it… still you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. The last one is… me. This one is me. The next one will be me. …I… am still me.”
Spoken softly, but defiantly. Like a prayer.
“This one has spoken with many Guardians, and believes this is a linguistic confusion,” she explained. “The Hive do have a concept of ‘I’. But the word for that is different from the word for… ah… perhaps Humans do not have a word for it?”
“For what?” Zavala asked, spellbound despite himself.
“For… the person. This one. The be-ing. Ah! Hopefully you understand. The person that one is.”
“The ego?”
Luzaku tasted the word. “Perhaps. Perhaps. But the ‘I’... that is like… the ‘soul.’ It is what powers us from within. When one dies, the one is gone. But the ‘I’ remains.”
“That sounds like the soul,” Zavala said quietly.
“Good! Then you understand. The last one is gone. Someday, so will this one be. But the soul remains. And so, there is no need to mourn. Not truly.”
Zavala was quiet. There was a very cold feeling within him.
He flinched as Luzaku reached over the table. Her clawed finger was gentle, and surprisingly warm.
She had taken a tear from his cheek and now studied it rapturously.
“This one is sorry,” she said quietly. “This one has… said something to upset you?”
It took him a moment to respond. He swallowed, hard. “No,” he said. “It's only that… how do you know?”
“Pardon?”
“How… do you know? That someone is… okay? That some… soul… that you loved, is still out there?”
Luzaku cocked her head. A gesture that seemed genuine this time — and universal.
Then, understanding seemed to flare. “This one has forgotten that Humans do not have morphs,” she said matter-of-factly.
“...What?”
Luzaku did not seem bothered to explain the non-sequitur. “The Hive have lived with death for so long, the Unseen Sister is clear as daylight to us,” she said. “We die constantly, in our way. It is a fact of life. But Humans live for so long in their… egos? Their shapes? They grow to fear it.”
“Well.” Zavala sighed. “I don't think it is our longevity that causes it. Otherwise the Hive would fear it the most.”
But this just seemed to confuse Luzaku. “Longevity,” she said. “Meaning?”
“Er, long life.”
“No, no. Not longevity. I mean… undying. Not-death.”
He stared at her uncomprehendingly.
Luzaku sighed. It was probably the first time he'd ever heard a Hive be annoyed… except for Savathûn, who always made that clear in a very human way.
“What would you call it if…” she wiggled her fingers around. “If one day, the same person walked up to you, but they were different completely in appearance? But they were the same person?”
Zavala did not understand. “...Transformation?”
“Yes! Yes. That is the right word. Undying, unchanged. Eliksni shed their shells. Every seven years all atoms are different. Humans have forgotten they are only this one. But there will be a next one. Dying, changed.”
“But those aren't the same,” Zavala said. “To die is to… cease all change. To never change again. There will be no next one.”
Luzaku cocked her head again. “Nothing will stop changing,” she said. “The Sky teaches us this, as it rescues us from entropy. And there is always a next one. The only thing that does not change is the Sky, eternal. And the Sky lives in all things, does it not? Does the Tower not stand, here, though it fell years ago?”
The tears were back again. This time, Zavala wiped them himself, and did not so much mind that Luzaku saw.
Tentatively, he reached out. Luzaku laid her hand on his, after a moment's pause.
“What will the next one be like?” he choked out.
“This one does not know,” Luzaku said. Then, slowly, she bared her teeth. “But one day, I will.”