//------------------------------//
// Somewhere In This Mess 
// Story: What Now? 
// by Q-22 
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Never one to lead a conversation, The Guardian did a lot of listening during his time in the Sol system (and beyond.) Listening to his Ghost, Cayde's jokes, Lord Shaxx's screams of encouragement, recordings left for him by various renegade-type individuals, and the offers of reality-altering wish-dragons from somewhere he didn't want to think about.

Out of everything though, he loved listening to people around him just...talking. Not about the fate of the universe, not about the next target to hit, and definitely not anything related to wars with the Cabal on Mars and of stepping into them (whether we wanted it or not.) He loved sitting around for hours, just listening in on scraps of scattered radio chatter and pieces of other people's conversations. It was a nice reminder that there was more going on than just his own story. That, even with how big everything was to him, entirely different things were just as big to countless others.

Sure, maybe his business was kind of important, but still. Eavesdropping on random civilian conversations reminded him why he was enduring all the hellish punishment the galaxy had to offer. It reminded him that his story wasn't just about him, and that if he stopped throwing himself against the Dark, countless people would suffer. Countless would die. All those other stories mattered to him. And for them, he endured. For them, he killed. For them, he died.

One of the many thing he liked to listen to where conversations about dreams, dreaming, and what it was like. What little sleep he ever got was purely to relieve himself of exhaustion, and whenever he was resurrected he was all set and ready to go. He only ever dreamed once or twice in his lifespan, and those were just visions that were put into his head by external powers.

Whenever he'd hear about dreams, he'd be captivated by both the abstract absurdities of them and how realistic they seemed to get. He learned from his listening that people would sometimes dream of things they did, experienced, or people they knew and spent time with. He had also heard of dreams that made absolutely no sense in regard to anything. He often wondered what he'd dream about. Based on what he knew of nightmares, he imagined he'd probably have a lot of those. He didn't exactly have many serene, calm, pleasant memories to have nice dreams about.

Right now, he wasn't entirely sure what he was experiencing. He was sitting in a circle of bright, luminescent silver light as a veil of dark swarmed all around, swirling and twisting like a hurricane. From what he knew of most dreams (as described to him by others,) you almost never knew when you were in a dream until you woke up. He could tell he wasn't awake, and was confused as to how he knew he was dreaming.

He could hear voices in the shifting storm, gunshots and explosions too. It didn't take long for him to realize they were memories. Strike briefings, encounters in Raids, Crucible strategy discussions, the screams of the Hive Wizard Omnigul, words from countless missions and encounters, all sounding out right next to steady, thrumming screams and explosions.

Looking down, he noticed two things. Firstly, he was still the whatever-he-was thing that he was when he fell asleep. Secondly, he was without his cloak.

Clearly, the second thing was more a problem than the first.

After a brief push of his will, something ruffled on his back and he saw/felt his cloak materialize around his neck and down over the rest of his body. He tugged the hood over his head, trying to ignore the maelstrom of chaos and death circling his little area of peace. If this was how all of his "sleeping" was going to go, he wasn't sure he wanted to sleep much. He had no desire to relive anything from his past, so in the circle he stayed.

That is, until he heard something different. Someone was screaming. Distant. Imperious. Desperate. New.

He stopped thinking and charged toward the sound. Hesitation killed. He had learned that the hard way more than once.


elsewhere


Luna often found dreams to be rather easy to peer into, and only marginally harder to enter directly. Simply trying to glimpse the outermost machinations of the intruder's internal workings was akin to pushing against a snowed-in door. Certainly possible to get past, but extremely draining to do so. Whoever this stranger was, they kept their mind sealed tight.

Eventually, a few minutes into weaseling forward, Luna caught a snippet of something. A recognizable strand of thought, whisking by and offering easier passage inward.


m o o n


A chill ran down her physical spine as she tasted the dread and malice dripping off the memory. The topic, in the stranger's head, brought her nothing but impressions of N I G H T M A R E S and DARKNESS. Despite her experience with both abstract thoughts, what she was subjected to was an almost physical telling of them. It made her shiver, if only for a moment. Though, she felt her chance slipping away, and decided to push, grasping onto the familiar concept(s) and hoping for the best.