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(I'm not gonna continue this.)

"The first thing anyone who's been to space will tell you is how beautifully terrifying it is. A sight filled with stars beyond perception. You feel so small. Being Up There never gets old." - Unknown Golden Age astronaut

(Xenophilia is the preserve of the dissatisfied.)

Chapter 1

All Change

It's always nice to have a week off. Especially when you're a Guardian, and /especially/ when your job title is 'Hive Removal Specialist'. At least, that's what Kuri styled himself as. Many a Thrall, Acolyte and Knight had fallen before him, let's just say. His ship - the Contractual Obligation (Kuri lost a bet with Cayde, and the name slowly grew on him) was nestled in a particularly dense area of the Kuiper Belt, and he was just sitting there. Staring into space. He wasn't an Exo - he couldn't E.V.A to get a better look, or remove the neoglas barrier between him and the void. His own reflection stared back at him; Human, male, European-ish; although the very concept of "nation", or even continents as something to identify with, has long since passed. The immortality the Traveler's light granted him meant he was always stuck a day before 20.

Guardians were the long-dead "worthy", those awoken by the Traveler's light. The long-dead rose from the ground seemingly not worse for wear - Due to the Collapse, many were not even afforded a simple burial - and a Ghost, somehow made by the Traveler, sought them out.

Kuri remembers when he was awoken. It was... confusing. Woke up outside a large apartment building (tenement block would be more appropriate,) and before he knew it he was having to fistfight two Thralls. He knew that he was previously human, and now he was something different; that he didn't even recognise his surroundings. Many Guardians have a peaceful Awakening where their Ghost finds them in short order and the pair then begin to get acquainted with the new chapter in their lives, but his was different.

No Guardian could remember their past life. All of that information is gone now. He was interested in knowing what exactly he did before. When did he live? When did he die? Did he have a family? A boyf- er, partner? Whatever happened, it was lost to time. Being awoken as a Guardian was always a fresh slate. Kuri appreciated that; a clean break from the past, whatever it was. Anyway, you could certainly say that life as a Guardian was certainly a lot more eventful than that of a conventional human. He didn't tire of it. The.. Not exactly childlike, but "carefree" aspect of the Hunters shone through. He took it as it came. He was adaptable; could make a joke out of things, but, strangely, liked getting serious. Most Hunters were. It's how they coped.

Of the stereotypical varieties of Hunter, Kuri was always drawn to the Solar. The burning star, Sol - the object that kept us all alive in the first place; the red-hot glowing ball in the sky that nurtured us. The Golden Gun was the ability he had the most mastery over, and it showed. For conventional weaponry, he used a Hand Cannon for emergencies - the Golden Gun technique carries over here, conveniently - but his mainstay was a Solar-infused bow. You see, most Guardians were generalists. Eliksn- er, Fallen, Hive, Taken, Cabal, Vex, Scorn... they were all the same to them. A sniper rifle, assault rifle or shotgun would do you well with any of them. But they were all noisy, and, unusually for a Guardian, even more so for a Hunter, he valued being subtle; quiet, unseen.

Kuri once heard that before the Collapse - hell, even before the Golden Age, way before - there was a nation in Northern Europe called Eng-land, and they had the best bowmen. Inside this nation, they used to say that to make a good bowman you start off by training his grandfather as a child. Well, the immortal nature of the Guardian meant Kuri got lots of valuable combat experience very quickly, which meant he was an extremely good shot with both bows and revolvers. Not as good a hand cannoneer as Cayde-6, not as good with a bow as Rixx, but he could give them both a run for their money.

And he did. Multiple times. You know, the name of Kuri's first ship was the 'Foregone Conclusion' for exactly this reason. Ironic, as by now, it's probably in pieces somewhere in some Dreg's workshop in the Reef.

The Guardian's attention was pulled from meditation towards the ship's coms console. This was his last day off, and he had better get reacquainted with the goings-on on his favourite patrol zones. Nobody really wanted to take London - Kuri himself only took that responsibility because it got him away from the City.

The pleasant orange glow of the interface welcomed him; a brief moment of loading, and then there it was. A quick flick of the wrist away and he could see that everything was stil fine. Hadn't burst into flames just yet...! There were some reports of Cabal activity system-wide, but nothing special aside from that. If there was one thing the space rhinos did well, Kuri mused, it was logistics, and organization. As someone who spent vast amounts of time alone, Kuri could appreciate that. Having your own shit together was difficult enough, nevermind running an entire army. Their actual performances on the battlefield - against Guardians - left something to be desired, of course, but they got stuff exactly where it needed to be, and exactly when it was needed.

Fireteams had already been sent to deal with the Cabal ships, of course. Couldn't just let a territorial intrusion like this happen without contesting it. But this would prove to be a feint; a diversion. Chatter on coms was normal. Cayde was teasing Zavala about something or other, and that's when it happened. The coms network lit up like it was on fire just for a moment before, one-by-one, the satellites linking the solar system together were destroyed. Kuri's blood ran cold. This wasn't normal. This wasn't like any normal incursion. But, he was too far. The sheer concentration of Cabal craft in orbit around the City would be able to shoot down the Contractual Obligation in an instant. All he could do was sit and watch, as...!

Not half an hour later... It was like his soul was ripped away, straight out of his body; leaving nothing but its imprint behind. Kuri felt cold. So cold, so very cold. He was terrified, exposed, vulnerable. Like someone had cracked a fertilized egg open, and thrown the still-forming chick into ice-cold water. His Light-!... His Light had gone. It was ripped from him. He tried to mentally reach inside himself; try to find even the faintest mote of Light...

...

Nothing...

There wasn't anything there. He tried to conjure his Ghost next. It worked. At least, he could still do that.

Kuri's Ghost was a quiet one; it wasn't usual for him to speak unless something important was happening. But all his Ghost could do was utter a weak "Oh, no...".

"Do you feel it, too?" Kuri rasped, breaking a week-long silence. His Ghost considered it for a moment, before his features - amazing that they could build displays of emotion into what is effectively a floating cube - seemed to droop.

"The Light..." It took him a moment. The floating cube just preferred to be called by its model name; Ghost. Said it suited the pair of them. He continued; "The Light... is... gone. The Traveller's Light has been trapped. The Cabal..." he spoke, floating to the coms console. The last message the ship's communication console recieved was a partially-transmitted "Goodbye", with interference in the background that sounded much like the space rhino's language, Cabralisé. Didn't say who it was from; it was sent publicly.

And then things got worse. It would be an hour or so before transmissions began again - Someone had managed to drag a spare relay into orbit and even then, only briefly before it, too, was destroyed - alongside its operator. And the few reports that got through really weren't good. Reports of the Vanguard being missing in action, perhaps even dead - Cabal burning a bloody path throughout the City, street-by-street, killing or capturing as they went. The soon-to-be slaves would soon learn to be envious of the dead. They had caged the Traveler! The Guardians fought a good fight, but in the end they just weren't prepared. The now Lightless Guardians scattered throughout the system. Those who weren't caught up by Taken (not good) to Cabal (definitely not good) to Vex (DEFINITELY not good) to Hive (DEFINITELY, DEFINITELY NOT GOOD) began forming up again on Titan, at the New Pacific Arcology. They could deal with the Hive's incursions to the surface, but few would be able to deal with the sudden loss of their Light; the connection to the wandering Great Machine that had granted humanity a second chance at survival in the first place.

Then, things got yet more worse. Being away for a week, Kuri specifically didn't carry any more fuel than what was needed to return to base - it was expensive, and he wasn't overflowing with Glimmer - And.. his base... the City... was being burned by the Cabal. You could have almost seen the "OH, SHIT" reaction happen as he quickly programmed in a destination for the planet he knew best. Back to Earth - just enough fuel to get to his patrol zone; the ruins of the city of London. The Cabal didn't seem to care much about the rest of the planet, only the Last City. He knew there best; even had a few safehouses set up over the past couple years he patrolled here.

"Going back there?" Ghost piped up. "I can heal minor wounds, but... If you die, I won't be able to revive you." he spoke, solemnly. "And if you die, that's me gone, too. But.. we can't exactly stay here. London is what both of us know best. It's our best chance.", he continued.

Only problem was, there was a minor Hive infestation developing in London. Kuri did his best to cut off the largest heads of the hydra, but one Guardian can only do so much. The Hive were the only faction known to habitually permanently kill Guardians. Kuri was always careful; in a way, he reassured himself that, ironically, he was just as vulnerable now as he was back then. He just didn't bother to think about it. Now, London had another "infestation", as it was called in the City. The Fallen.

They were the only sentient ememies -aside from the Cabal, but the Cabal are a galaxy-spanning empire bent on conquest- Kuri could never bring himself to kill one of them outside of self-defence. Any other bad guy, he'd pop them in an instant. But, Fallen... Kuri could sense traces of Light in them, and in this particular region, very little darkness corruption.

He theorized that these Fallen didn't belong to any known House, and there's a good chance that the other Houses didn't even know this one existed. Other scout patrols often spoke about emissaries from other Houses regularly going back and forth, but no such thing happened here. In his years patrolling London, dealing with the aforementioned heads of the hydra wherever they showed themselves, he only ever killed one. It was a Dreg that Kuri had accidentally caught off-guard. He (are there female Fallen?, Kuri wondered) tried to get him in the neck with a shock knife, so it wasn't /murder/, strictly speaking. Kuri's Hand Cannon put paid to any thoughts of that. Kuri still thought about him once in a while. Saw his face. The only sentient being he had ever killed. At least it was instant.

Kuri usually liked to watch them from far away; keep an eye on their movements. They seemed to live here. He found their Ketch, which was a relatively large spaceship that a Fallen House lives out of, nestled away inside a large park, camoflagued with trees and assorted foliage. This was unusual as most Houses used their Ketch as a mobile base from which they would deploy smaller ships to extract Ether and then retreat. Initially, he suspected the ship was faulty and they didn't have the parts to repair it; but that didn't make any sense, as they surely could have either contacted another House or managed a crude repair after all this time. He saw the many actions they took against the Hive. They did a good job of containing it, too. After all, they lived there, supposedly. And it just wouldn't do to have your home overrun by arcane rot. It almost made him think of them as... well, not an ally per se, but.. it seemed they had an unspoken agreement. You leave us alone, and we leave you alone. Sometimes, he got spotted, but after a few initial failed attempts at pursual, they just stood there and watched him, too. He waved at them once. He swore that a Captain made a small wave back.

Sometimes he would leave a now-purified Hive infestation to see a few Dregs or a Vandal returning the favour, watching him from a nearby rooftop. They never waved back, but most times he was well within the range of a Vandal's Wire Rifle, but they never shot at him past those first few unsuccessful skirmishes.

"Let the weird Guardian help", he would imagine them saying to one another. "After all, he's doing our work for us." Kuri subtly tried to find out, on his rare forays back to the City, if anyone else had a similar arrangement. He never saw it replicated anywhere else, and sometimes it gave Kuri some hope that eventually he could come to a (different from now, obviously) Vanguard and hopefully orchestrate some kind of, official truce. Before the Cabal, he had some hopes of eventually convincing them. He supposed that such a thing doesn't have a chance of happening now.

He actually had one other close-quarters encounter with the Fallen in London. It was an interesting story he hoped he would be able to tell someday. He had been dispatched to deal with reports of an Ogre spreading arcane rot everywhere. Acolytes and Knights were commonplace... nay, near-universal near Hive infestations, but an Ogre? Summoning one of those took a large amount of power. He was supposed to be sent as part of a Fireteam, but they lacked the manpower at that moment in time, so he was sent alone.

This worked out for him in two ways; he got to maintain the 'truce' with the Fallen, and, besides - he worked alone normally anyway, so this suited him. 'Lone wanderer who lives for the perfect shot' indeed.

---

The usually clean air of the ruins of London were tainted with a foul, acrid rot today. Kuri was right in the middle of it; in what was referred to as a "park" in the Golden Age. He was in a clearing - he had traced the source of the corruption to here. Usually you would expect to find a Wizard here maintaing the summon circle; keeping the Ogre bound to this realm. No Wizard, and an unusually basic summoning circle. The amount of power it must have taken to summon using this simple arrangement... Anyway, a summoned Hive 'leaks' arcane rot wherever they go for a brief period of time after being summoned, and the more powerful they are, the longer the 'leak' lasts. He scented the air. Not pleasant, but after some direction-finding, his enhanced senses gave him a general direction.

This must have been made by an experienced Wizard who quickly fled the scene after. He wasn't aware of any powerful Wizards, not after he had put an arrow through the eye (at least, Kuri thought that was his eye...) of Sl'Teth, Void Summoner.

Perhaps this was some kind of reassignment by the Hive, or maybe the powerful Wizard had come out of hibernation. In any case, if he couldn't find him now, he had very little chance of finding him at all until he summoned something else. He made a mental note to try to keep track of it. Didn't want this situation spiraling out of control; didn't want to get anyone else involved.

Kuri turned himself around with a specific direction in mind. Where...? His eyes locked onto a large tower block in the distance. "There," he said to nobody in particular. He looked around himself one final time to ensure he wasn't being watched before heading north to the tower block in the distance. The further he got from it, the clearer the air smelt, although it always carried with it a certain acrid tang.

The closer he got, the more he could swear he heard fighting; gunshots, explosions. He quickened his pace and, soon enough, he saw quite the visage about a hundred meters in front of him. A squad of Fallen were engaging the Ogre! Well, they were more hiding in cover while the Ogre tries to blast them away than fighting, but they were trying, bless 'em. It had gotten a Dreg - dragged back into cover by his comrades; it seemed that he was alive - but it wasn't looking too good for them.

This fight was taking place in the middle of a large street with residential buildings on one side and a high-rise apartment building on either side, which itself was flanked by smaller apartment buildings. It was then, that Kuri got a particularly stupid idea; certainly one that his legs wouldn't thank him for; but his job was to kill this Ogre, and not any of the Fallen. Certainly would help to remind the Fallen what Kuri is capable of should they decide to turn on him - not that he anticipated anything like that happening. Kuri had a interest in studying the Fallen, and made a point of collecting any literature the City was able to produce on them. They had a strong sense of honour, which implied that as long as Kuri didn't shoot at them, he should be fine.

It was very possible, he reflected, that they were sent to do the same work Kuri was. The Fallen in this part of the world, oddly enough, were not too hostile. They rarely attacked Guardians, and they didn't raid the few human outposts dotted around the countryside; much preferring to extract Ether in peace. It was official Vanguard policy to shoot any and all non-humans on sight, but Kuri always thought that - with the exception of Cayde -, they were all sanctimonious pricks, void of any nuance. Thankfully, the more genocidal of the bunch tended to like off-planet adventures, which made it easy for Kuri to patrol in peace; able to make his own decisions about what was best, based on his own experience.

Last thing any reasonable person would want to do is to antagonise these Fallen, especially when they've seemingly purposefully closen to not attack humans or Guardians. It's time that someone returned that goodwill. Kuri might need bailing out one day, and maybe - just maybe - the Fallen would remember this favor. Confident that neither the Ogre or Fallen squad were aware of his presence; using his triple jump he was easily able to get to a third floor apartment in the high-rise block. He had a better view of the fighting down here. The Ogre was below him; the squad of Fallen hiding behind a wrecked bus to the right. It didn't look too good for them; they would almost definitely be goners if Kuri didn't intervene now.

Immediately below him was an billboard to advertise fast-food sloped at a downwards angle; it looked like it had fallen, at least partially, off its mounting. It was just the perfect thing to... channel Cayde with. Shame he couldn't record this and show off, tell Cayde that the student had finally surpassed the master, because they'd see that he purposefully wasn't shooting the Fallen. He took a step forward, and...

In a uncerimonious fashion, he slid down the billboard, He slid for a half-second, building up momentum, before leaping up into the air again, as high up as he could go. He reached for his Light, and before he knew it he was brandishing the Golden Gun; pointed towards the sky. The Ogre, feeling the sudden expression of Light, conveniently, turned to face him - before Kuri blasted it in the face with six precision shots; one in each eye. The Guardian decided to not outstay his welcome, and before he knew it, he used his third jump to get just enough momentum to crash through a window of one of the residential buildings opposite.

He ran through the ruin, smashed through a second window to get to the road on the other side; conjured his Sparrow and he was off. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that Ketch tonight. If only he could speak Eliksni..