TYPE: Transcription
DESCRIPTION: Excerpt from a psychiatric counselling session
PARTICIPANTS: One (1) Human-type [Doctor]; One (1) Guardian-type, class Warlock [Patient]
// TRANSCIBER'S NOTE: Per regulations concerning psychiatric sessions, names of both parties have been redacted throughout. --MIL-921
ASSOCIATIONS: Darkness; Deathsinger [Hive]; Hive; Ir Tasarakh; Lucent Brood; Ohr, Wahei; Old Paris; Parisian Catacombs; Red War; Themis Cluster; Winnower; Witness, The
// AUDIO UNAVAILABLE //
// TRANSCRIPTION FOLLOWS... //
[Doctor] Thank you for coming to see me, Guardian. I understand this isn't easy for you.
[Patient] No. No, it isn't.
[Doctor] The first step in treatment is recognizing the need for it. I'm told that several of your friends and acquaintances had been pressing you to do this for... several years at this point. What prompted you to finally come see me? I know that the Vanguard ordered you to do so, but there must have been something that triggered their doing so.
[pause]
[Doctor] It's all right, take your time.
[Patient] It... I... ran into a Hive Deathsinger recently.
[Doctor] I'm given to understand that Deathsingers are especially dangerous?
[Patient] They can be. If you give them enough time to harmonize with the energy fields and ephemera, they can weave a symphony that can resonate and snuff out all life and crack the very continents--
[pause]
[Doctor] Guardian?
[Patient] Sorry. I'm used to people interrupting me when I start going off on a tangent like that. Yes, yes, they're dangerous.
[Doctor] Was there anything that made this Deathsinger especially noteworthy?
[pause]
[Patient] This one I saw... I'd already killed her.
[Doctor] "Already killed her?"
[Patient] She was Lucent Hive. That means she--
[Doctor] I know what it means, Guardian. You're hardly the first Lightbearer I've spoken with, especially since the Lucent Hive first turned up.
[pause]
[Patient] (sigh) Seeing her turn up again, after I'd killed her... it brought back unpleasant memories.
[Doctor] Not entirely unusual, given my experience with patients who've had run-ins with the Hive. What was unpleasant about the memories?
[pause]
[Patient] Like every Guardian, I got hit by Lightloss during the Red War. It was bad enough for most of my contemporaries, but in my case, I'd been in Old Paris, investigating rumors of a Hive brood that had set up in the Catacombs beneath the city.
[Doctor] Ah. Going into Hive spaces can be traumatic enough, but doing it while Lightless...
[Patient] Exactly. It isn't like going into those "Restricted Zones" where the Light feels far away. It's worse than that. It's like... like suddenly being without a primary sense after having it as long as you can remember.
[pause]
[Patient] Rather exactly like that, in fact.
[Doctor] Is this related to how you lost your eyesight?
[pause]
[Patient] It's... I-- That's a whole different trauma, Doctor.
[Doctor] We can save that one for another day, perhaps.
[pause]
[Patient] I'd been down in the Hive spaces for about six hours or so when I felt it. The Lightloss. It damn near knocked me over, and my Ghost just went... limp, almost. Seemed all disconnected and vague, like he was in a fog.
[Doctor] Is your Ghost with you today?
[Patient] Yes, but I asked him to just... stay quiet and out of sight. He's been asking me to do this as much as anyone else, but I... I just wanted to put it behind me at the time, you know?
[Doctor] Also not unusual in many cases of trauma.
[Patient] In the Catacombs, I had to fashion a sort of pouch to keep him in, hanging off my belt, while I tried to find my way out of there. But... I think the Hive had sensed I was in there, the whole time, and it wasn't until I was hit with Lightloss that they started to close in.
[Doctor] What did you do?
[Patient] I fought them off, for as long as I could. It was... hard, doing so. Not the shooting, but getting away from them when I didn't have the Light to fall back on. I'm a Voidwalker, and I've always used the Void and the ways through it to control the battlefield, but there I was, suddenly on the back foot, surrounded and scurrying and screaming and--
[pause] [deep breathing]
[Patient] To be honest, I still don't really remember how I got clear of all of them long enough to find somewhere to hole up and finish shaking out the first panic attack.
[Doctor] That's all right. We don't have to try to relive the whole experience if it's that traumatic for you.
[Patient] Thank you.
[pause]
[Patient] It didn't happen right after that, but it was probably at some point in the next day or so-- as near as I can tell, given I was underground with no real sense of the passage of day or night-- that she first started talking.
[Doctor] The Deathsinger?
[Patient] She didn't have the best command of our language at first. Kept interjecting Hive-speak. Her voice came from everywhere-- a common Hive cantrip-- to scare outsiders and try to drive them into a panic. Nearly worked that first time, I almost ran out of my hiding place.
[Doctor] What did she say to you?
[Patient] Just taunting, really. "I know you're there, Lightborn." "There's a little lost lamnb that's wandered into our den." Things along those lines. Wanted to let me know I was trapped, that they knew I was there, and that they were hunting for me.
[pause]
[Patient] I did eventually head out, try to find my way back topside, but... there's another Hive magic trick they do. Eris mentioned it to me a few times. Called it a "maze spell." It doesn't normally work on Guardians-- paracausalities clash and cancel each other out-- but it explains some of the stories of people who got lost in Dark places. The Hive warp the interior of their spaces, so that any mere mortals who enter their domain can't find their way back out again. It's one reason why Eris was trapped in the Hellmouth for so long-- she was Lightless, so trapped by the magic. Breaking the Hidden Swarm's enchantment over the shard of the Traveler they'd captured broke the magic enough for Eris to find a way out, it just still took her months to climb back out.
[Doctor] And so while you were down there, Lightless, you were trapped too.
[Patient] I understand a little better what Eris went through now. Even if I was only down there for a month. Or six weeks. Or was it three? I-- (sigh) Time is a weird soup.
[pause]
[Patient] I was a little better off than Eris-- I still had my Ghost, and despite Lightloss, he could still heal me, just couldn't rez me if I died. But leaving my hiding place... that put me back on the Hive's radar, and I spent nearly every waking moment on the run, and my ammo began to run low.
[Doctor] Really? I thought you Guardians could generate infinite-- Oh, I suppose you wouldn't, because of Lightloss.
[Patient] This was also before the... I think it's called the "primary ammo breakthrough." But even then, yes, it's rather dependent on access to the Light. I had my sword with me, and despite what some Guardians think, it's still useful after your heavy charge runs out. Even if you forget to sharpen it, you've still got a solid length of metal to hit things with. And I made sure to keep it sharp.
[pause]
[Patient] I was twitchy, desperate. I started thinking back to all the little spells and rituals that Eris had taught me, back before the Red War. The tricks and cantrips she'd worked out to keep alive down in the Hellmouth. It took a little trial and error, and more running away. I'm sure I was just running deeper into their tunnels after a while, thanks to the maze spell. And all the while, the Deathsinger was taunting me, singing new spells to block off tunnels, to direct her swarm, to... mess with my head.
[Doctor] How?
[Patient] It... I... She would sing little tunes about lost children, and how they would get caught by monsters. Or talk at length about how long she'd been alive, about all the things she had done to so many lost races, all the worlds she'd sung to death... And how, without my Light, I was just another fading ember of a dying race.
[pause]
[Patient] The Hive started getting better at finding the places where I was hiding, so it meant I was getting less chance to rest, after the first week. By that point, I was out of ammo, and my sword shattered during a fight against a Hive knight. I kept the broken hilt-- it could still work as a dagger or knife. But I was mostly trying to run, getting turned around because of the maze spell, and always on the defensive. Until I worked out how to use their magic more effectively.
[pause] [shuddering breath]
[Patient] There. That's one of the reasons Mahal doesn't trust me, I know. Because I had to resort to using Hive magic to stay alive, and like a true Praxic, she thinks my doing so has somehow irrevocably corrupted me. And... there are times I worry she's right.
[Doctor] I think your concern about it shows that you haven't been.
[Patient] I... thank you, Doctor, but I can't be sure, myself. Because...
[pause]
[Patient] I killed Oryx. Slew the Taken King. Took his own corrupted power and turned it against him, landed the fatal blow that sent him tumbling into his grave.
[pause]
[Patient] But... then I worked with Eris to contain his essence. To shackle his ravenous heart heart into the frame of a gun.
[Doctor] This would be the... "Touch of Malice?"
[Patient] Yes. But working out how to forge that shackle? I spent days scouring the Dreadnought, and other places that Oryx had touched during the Taken War, finding these... fragments of calcified power, and translating passages of the Books of Sorrow to understand him, to find the right way to seal his heart away. And by the end of it, Oryx had written a passage claiming that, to understand him would be equivalent to... becoming him, mantling his power. Like he thought doing so would mean he would live forever, because to fully comprehend him would be the same as becoming him.
[Doctor] And you believe you fully comprehended him?
[Patient] I think I got as close as a non-Hive can get. I don't think Oryx ever really thought a non-Hive would ever grow powerful enough to defeat him. Or if he did, he was convinced that whoever did so would assume his mantle and sit the Osmium Throne. Certainly Toland thought so.
[Doctor] I'll admit, I've only skimmed Toland's writings. They're... not subtle, and--
[Patient] You don't need to mince words. Toland was prone to rambling and tangential discourse. Kind of like me... which only adds to my anxieties as of late.
[Doctor] Did you want to unpack those?
[Patient] No, let me finish talking about the Deathsinger today. Another session, maybe then I can talk about those.
[Doctor] All right. No rush.
[Patient] So. Oryx. Like I said, I read enough of the Books of Sorrow to work out how to properly shackle his ravenous heart. Then Eris built the gun around it. And I never really put much thought into the worry that I'd turn out like him, even though I'm too curious for my own good when it comes to Dark things.
[Doctor] Isn't that a Warlock virtue, though? To seek out knowledge?
[Patient] I like to think it is. The Praxic Order would disagree. They're more of the "Know Enough To Be Afraid" school. And given what some Lightbearers have done with the Light alone, before you even stop to consider the Dredgens, you can sort of see their point. But I've always maintained that you can't hope to beat back the Darkness if you refuse to know how it works or thinks.
[Doctor] I... Forgive the interruption--
[Patient] It's okay.
[Doctor] Thank you. I have read some of the treatises that some Guardians have written about the Darkness, the Winnower, the Witness. There doesn't seem to be a consensus about it all. Do you think there's a difference between them?
[Patient] (exhales slowly) How long do you want me to go on about it?
[Doctor] Maybe we can bypass that for today, then.
[Patient] I think there is a difference, yes, but we can skip the discourse on it today. (sigh) It's frustratingly complicated and difficult to untangle. Sometimes I wonder if it's even possible for lower-order beings like mankind, and even Lightbearers, to even come close.
[pause]
[Patient] But anyway-- I never put much stock in the notion that I'd turn out like Oryx if I learned how he viewed the universe. But down there, in the catacombs? As I started using more and more Hive magic to slip past their patrols, to burn through their defenses... I stopped being so defensive, and started going on the offensive. But that just made the Deathsinger work harder, crafting new traps and singing new refrains to try to weaken my resolve, to try to break me. And that made me refine my techniques, learn new tricks of my own. Like making a Hive portal to go from place to place, kind of like Eris does.
[pause]
[Patient] By the end of that second week, when the Deathsinger started changing her tactics again, I got... emotional about it.
[Doctor] "Emotional," how?
[Patient] It's... I was frustrated by it, you know? There I'd finally adjusted to things, and she changes it up and forces me to scramble to recalibrate again. There were plenty of moments when I was having waking dreams of driving my broken sword into her throat and sawing her head off. And they were waking dreams. Didn't help my state of mind.
[pause]
[Patient] But at the same time as I hated her and wanted to kill her, there was this part of me that drew a sort of... thrill, I guess. Because it was forcing me to adapt, to get stronger, to get... sharper. I learned more about Hive stuff in those few weeks I was down there than I ever did listening to Eris's rambling. And I think I started to understand, a little bit, how the Hive perceive that kind of 'thrill' as a kind of love. Which also didn't help my state of mind when I realized it.
[pause]
[Patient] I think the swarm down there started to get scared of me. Even their thrall were a lot more cautious about charging into battle against me. Especially after I started using bones to craft a staff as an additional focus for the magics. Started with Hive bones, cut the spine out of a knight I'd killed, used Hive resin to stick them together, topped it with a human skull from the catacombs.
[pause] [shuddering breath]
[Patient] Sorry. Need a moment.
[Doctor] Take your time.
[pause]
[Patient] Finally, she sent her consort out to try to stop me, because she could tell I wasn't breaking like she thought I would. Started taunting and provoking me again, kept trying to harp on my powerlessness against their power and magic. But that was when I worked out how to cast the same spell, to project my voice to everywhere, was able to respond finally.
[pause]
[Doctor] What did you say?
[pause]
[Patient] "Cease your jabbering, hag. One does not speak unless one knows. You are not speaking to some mere freshly Risen new Light, you are speaking to a seasoned warrior of the Twilight Gap, and more besides. I am the Silencer of the Hellmouth, who was Crota's End. I am the Planestrider of the Ascendant Realm, who became the Kingslayer. And you think you, with your paltry little kingdom and your terrified brood, will be the one to stop me?"
[pause]
[Patient] And it was working. The brood... some were hesitating to fight me. But I didn't show them mercy for hesitating. It... they were too weak to stop me, so they didn't deserve to live. To exist. It made me feel more powerful as they fled, as they fell before my spells, my broken blade. I slew a knight and took his sword and I pursued them into the deep down Dark of the catacombs.
[pause]
[Patient] I fought her Consort when he tried to ambush me, and I cut his legs from under him before I smashed his skull in with my sword. She started shrieking, and it felt like she was trying to bring the entire catacombs-- the entire city of Old Paris-- down on us. Maybe she was.
[pause]
[Patient] And I shrieked back at her, and now I had her scent. I chased her down, followed the stink of her magic, and I caught her with a spell, pinioned her to the wall and spent-- it felt like days, but who can tell, time is a weird soup-- spent a while peeling the chitin from her flesh and flaying every scrap of tissue from her until I went deaf from the screaming, and pronounced her death sentence while I ate the tongue from out of her mouth and--
[pause] [shuddering breath]
[Patient] I think I spent another week down there, but who can tell? She took her time in dying, and it wasn't until she died that her magic fell apart and the Light came rushing back. My Ghost came back to himself, I was able to recover my hearing, and with the maze spell broken, I could find my way back to the surface. But after all of that, I didn't want to stop and think about what I had done down there. How much of the Dark I was inhabiting.
[pause]
[Patient] My Ghost said I needed a lot of healing when he came back to himself. There'd been a number of injuries, wounds I'd taken, splits in the skin, cracks in my bones. I told him I didn't remember them, but the truth is... I remembered all right.
[sound of a Ghost compiling into tangibility]
[Patient] I know, buddy. I just... I didn't want to remember. I avoided going to therapy afterward because it was... easier to just forget. Even if I couldn't. Because there are times I feel that Dark viciousness come back up, when I just turn cold, ruthless. I don't like thinking about them.
[Doctor] Because it reminds you of what you did in the catacombs?
[Patient] Yes. And the hate I felt for those Hive, I feel it sometimes when I'm dealing with these aberrant Hive-- Nokris and his necromantic brood, Mindbender's hybrids, the Lucent. And I feel the me that terrified those Hive in the catacombs come back up. And I feel my natural curiosity... sharpen sometimes, when I'm trying to seek more insight into the Darkness, and I worry that it's... coming from outside me. That I wonder if a part of Oryx didn't find its way into me.
[pause]
[Patient] The last couple years... between the Black Fleet's arrival, the Lucent Brood, the Shadows of Salvation... I feel like I've been dancing on the edge of a razor. I know Mahal was always coming after me because she was concerned I'd already tipped over the edge of it. But I had convinced myself that I had things under control.
[Doctor] Until recently, when the Deathsinger turned up again?
[pause]
[Doctor] Guardian?
[pause]
[Patient] Yes. And no. But... the other reasons... I don't want to get into today.
[Doctor] That's fine.
[Patient] I convinced Morgan, one of my best friends, to take me along on one of those pirate hunts out in the Themis Cluster. He and his crew had been running down a lot of these old pirate crews out there, and some of them turned out to have these Dark relics in their possession. I've been studying them along with Misraaks, but when Morgan said he'd got a line on another one, I tagged along. Some Fallen pirate called the Sharpshooter had set up shop there-- but when we were in his lair, this Lucent Hive turned up.
[Doctor] And it was the Deathsinger?
[Patient] I'd know that voice anywhere.
[Doctor] What happened?
[Patient] I panicked. This was one of my nightmares come back to haunt me. And not in the sense that the Lunar Pyramid was doing it. Live, in the flesh, rezzed as a Lightbearer. She ran off, but-- Rev said I was screaming, shrieking so much the asteroid nearly came apart around us. I barely even remember it.
[pause]
[Patient] I couldn't really tell my friends. I'm not there yet, but...
[Doctor] As I said, the first step is recognizing the need. But I will warn you, therapy is not a one-off. Things aren't going to magically get better after one session. Not even for Guardians using their space magic.
[Patient] (faint chuckle) It... already feels like a big relief.
[sound of a Ghost warble]
[Patient] I know, buddy. We'll talk ourselves when we get back.
[Doctor] I can tell there's a lot more to unpack. But this is already progress, opening up about it. And I can tell you, based on other Guardians I've worked with-- this kind of visceral reaction to the Lucent Hive, especially if it's one they personally killed previously, is not uncommon.
[Patient] Even after what I told you about the catacombs?
[Doctor] If anything, that just further explains your reaction. It was obviously a very traumatic experience for you. The way you talk about it, the hesitancy in your words-- especially given how verbose you otherwise are-- and your physical body language during it, these are all clear signs of post-traumatic stress. I'm not surprised you had a panic attack upon running into this Deathsinger, but you are facing that trauma now, just by talking about it. And that's not insignificant, it's a sign of your strength.
[pause]
[Doctor] Like I said, it's not going to magically get better overnight. Especially if there's other traumas or stressors enhancing them. But we can work on all of that.
[pause]
[Patient] (quietly) Thank you, Doctor.
[Doctor] Of course, Guardian. It may take time, but things will get better.
No comments:
Post a Comment