From Dusk to Dust (Destiny Fan Fiction)

16-The Council

AN: Woops. Went way over my word count. Oh well. If you had a fireteam, what would the name of it be? Vine: https://vine.co/v/5UeUMuOHLQh

The room had fallen silent for a while. Tanis ran out of topics to talk to Dinklebot about and closed his eyes to relax. He couldn't fall asleep, well, because Exos didn't need sleep. From a human's perspective, that seemed like a good thing. More can be done with those eight hours instead of sleeping. To Tanis, it was never ending boredom. The hours seemed to drag on, and finding things to talk about kept getting more difficult. He ended up giving up, but none of them would fall asleep. Tanis and the ghosts were doomed to have patience.

Alaura woke up a few hours later, but instead of rolling over to face her teammates, she stayed facing the wall. She ran her fingers over Kai's dog tags and linked the chain around her fingers. Her blue eyes focused on the engraving, yet her mind wandered a bit. She should've known better. The battlefield was insane, but with their positions, it made for horrible tactics. She should've surveyed better. Gave more orders. Instead, she worried about her team's health. She was distracted.

Alaura would carry this guilt to her grave.

She shook herself out of her thoughts after a while and sat up in bed. She rustled her short, knotted dark hair and set her bare feet onto the cold wooden floor. A chill ran up her spine, causing goose bumps to form on her arms. She put Kai's dog tags around her neck and tucked them into her shirt.

Tanis opened his glowing blue eyes and his eyelids clicked against each other as he blinked. He glimpsed at Malachi, only to find him still sound asleep curled up into the fetal position. His eyes panned over to where Alaura's bed was, only to find her fully dressed and putting on her thigh holster. Finally, someone is awake. He thought gleefully for a moment, until realization hit him. He had to talk to her about the events that transpired the day before. "Alaura?"

Alaura's eyes stayed glued to her gun. "Yes, Tanis?" She reloaded her pistol and clicked the clip in place. She set the gun in her holster, and then started checking her other guns' magazines.

Tanis sat up in his bed and made sure not to raise his voice, in fear he would disturb Malachi. He set his hands on the ends of the new coat he wore and played with the fabric. "Are you all right?"

No. I won't be all right for a while. She thought bitterly. She forced herself not to grimace and answered simply, "I'll be fine."

"You did not look fine yesterday." He left his jaw hanging for a moment before closing it. He looked away and leaned his back against the wall to prop himself up. Alaura stayed silent and chose not to answer. There must be something she'd answer to. Probing her about yesterday's events clearly wasn't working. Tanis added quietly, "You also talked in your sleep."

Alaura stopped what she was doing to peer at Tanis. Her interest peaked. "What did I say?"

Tanis hesitated. Would this take her mind off of her fallen team, or make things worse? He had already spoken up about it. There was no going back now. "You were talking about how the Light was calling you to a place between the Light and the Dark. Something about you having to do your duty...or similar to it. It was a lot of gibberish."

Alaura's eyebrows pinched together in confusion. She moved her lips to say something, but became stumped. What could that mean? She pondered for a moment, until she noticed how long she was taking to answer. "That's...worrisome."

"Yeah. You don't sound like you're..." Tanis searched for the right words to say. One wrong word can make it seem like he's accusing her of being insane. Hurting her more was not on Tanis' agenda. He tapped his finger on his chin as he found the words, "...all right."