#variisis

nihlus spent a relatively young life in the void of space. a mercenary outpost in the outer rim. the scope of the terminus systems. across nebulae and asteroids and the ancient, destructive mass of interstellar medium that stretches across space and time immemorial. the antiquated squabbles of organic, sapient life is a drop of blood in a vast and black ocean that knows more violence than entire species will ever fathom. to nihlus, it seems that the fundamental point of his profession is to mitigate the conflict. covert action. damage control. for the interplanetary governments that create their own suffering and strife, rules and biases, good and evil.

"you sound like someone i used to know,"  nihlus tilts his gaze to the cyborg, not disagreeable. briefly turning his eyes away from the scope of the black widow sniper rifle balanced in his arms. the pair observes their target from inside a vacant apartment, overlooking the dead drop between batarian mercenaries and cerberus operatives. standard reconnaissance.

a stake out, humans called it.

"i'm inclined to agree. i like to imagine that if i were to strain the universe through the finest sieve, into the finest dust pile, i wouldn't find an iota of honor..."

( she was happy for the break - working for far too long in the first place , delighted to make them both lunch & fresh glasses of lemonade. )

< --- hey , v ? >

organic hands reaches out to poke his cheek , squishing gently against the metal as her voicebox switches to exospeak -- scratchy & stunted from being so terribly , painfully half - human.

[ SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE ! ]

the message scrolls across her outer visor in giant , red letters - even if it's been ripped off so the cyborg can finally BREATHE AGAIN : in wheezing , choked gasps as claws dig into the earth underneath her . the star in her chest glows bright , too bright as the warlock rolls over on her back : panting , eyes turned stars-ward as the final streaks of white drain out of her hair & lumax's worried voice finally reaches her ears.

another day , another super that she held longer than strictly necessary - another battlefield now reeking of ozone & thunder-scarred earth. her generator feels like a punch in the chest when it finally kicked over - oxygen - deprived lungs filling once more .

but at the end of the day , she trusts vega - enough to be seen like this , enough to spar with him , to undertake hellish missions & trust that he'll have her back. ( WHEN SHE PUTS IT THAT WAY, SHE TRUSTS HIM A LOT. )

( & here he is , being so ... understanding . curious . welcome , but curious . )

" thanks , v . " voicebox rattles , static clinging to the edges as hotaru takes one last , shaky inhale to fill her lungs . organic hand reaches out to him - an exhausted smile on her face , appreciative of his understanding .

the starship is a polymetal mass cleaving through space-time at FTL speeds. millions of lightyears, billions of centuries, reduced to a four day-cycle commute. nihlus leans back into the seat of a cockpit, observing the long, fathomless depths of space that stares into the flight deck like a dilated pupil. the pointed end of his talons tap-tap-tapping the surface of a multi-purpose navigation panel, as he surveils the ship's internal and external statuses projected across the monitor. calibrating and re-calibrating the autopilot's predetermined rendezvous point: taetrus, a turian colony in the mectare system. paranoia, in moderation, becomes a habit he had cultivated in the turian military, drafted and clanless, feeling the weight of the heirarchy's cold, calculated rejection on his back. as it crosses his mind, nihlus carefully inputs instructions to access the extranet, searching through codex entries. taetrus' capital. its history. its prevailing cultures. food. decorum. he glances over his shoulder, too-green eyes catching the gleam of @variisis​​‘ armor as the older turian stalks across the deck. saren positions himself like a sentinel aside nihlus' piloting seat. "i got tired of dextro rations,"  nihlus explains, a part of the truth, "apparently there's a new seafood place around the corner of our dead drop.”

@variisis​ asked:

“Let us speak of the terrible beauty of becoming ourselves.”

AI-COM/RSPN: ASSET RECOVERY // WARSAT NETWORK INTEGRATION PROTOCOLS //NO RESPONSE AI-COM/RSPN: ACTIVE EVALUATION DIRECTIVE //FORCECON IMPERATIVE //SEARCHLIGHT SERAPH SATELLITE INTERNAL MISDIRECTION //INFORMATION PENDING… … … … I AM WAR, I HAVE NO BETTER, BEND YOUR WILL TO MY BLADE.

   Rasputin's Exo frame stares endlessly forward, another fixture against the maddening red twists of his integral neural tendons, those of which fray and connect through the space between metal conductive pillars. He's not moved since his conversation with the Guardian, strung high above the metal platforms. A sore remnant of what he'd once been, an all seeing eye to cast judgment unto his foes-

   Many of which now filter, in and out. Eliksni, Cabal, Guardian. Few are the finer details regarding his last waking moments before the Black Fleet, before IT came to cast its ruin in a blanket over the system. He will adjust, it takes time, and patience. Briefly he ponders over if those were his own learned behaviors or another fragment of his son.

   Trillions of drifting quandaries mull through his processing mind, a raging war to reconnect himself into the once terrifying ally he'd been. Not for terror's sake, their enemies could not be frightened. He thinks this is what it means to be exhausted, pulling subset data from Felwinter’s memories suggests as much, from what is tangible to a machine mind such as his own. Each attempt to reestablish his grasp on the network which he had crafted over counted years, one of which now is overrun with the enemies of Humanity, and only being met with empty replies and lacking connection is teetered on the edge of maddening. Another understanding insight to the plight of which his son suffered over his unwavering philosophy to coded bylaws.

   Even as Rasputin acknowledges this dilemma, and continues onward despite it, he does not leave himself unaware to the goings on of the HELM and its occupants. Though his reach is much the same as the Exo frame’s- limited at best, the WARMIND has still found access of his frames to be viable. He isn’t completely useless without the WARSAT network. One turns its attention unto the newest visitor to the craft, an Eliksni, and one he recognizes while compiling data subsets that had been given to him by both Ana and Elsie.

   “An unusual topic for discussion,” he remarks. “I am already more than myself. A whole of two and changed for the better of Humanity because of it. Why would you understand this as terrible?”

@variisis . letter prompts or song of achilles . accepting

Hearing those words come from Andal did have a very rare effect: getting her to stop focusing on what she was doing to have a good look at him. Mostly because Andal was the type of guy that very rarely made any sense apart from speaking straight from the gut and then, in turn, getting hurt because of it.

 @variisis . letter prompts or song of achilles . accepting

   “It's fine." Moe signs, moving past him and around. It kinda sucked when Cayde didn't have that much (useful) information to give her because well - he was out and about far more than she was and if she didn't have to risk her neck then she'd take that "I kinda prefer to see you more like... you know those vending machines you put a coin in and you get some random-" the signing pauses suddenly, her face lighting up with a snarky grin "Actually, like an automated fortune cookie!"

She gives him a choked-up laugh as she continues walking. It had been long since she'd been self-conscious about how it sounded (breathing shallowly in a sharp cut and wheezing) and while she was well over her thirties she still felt conscious from time to time. Not today though, she wasn't about to make herself feel bad because of the way she laughed. No, thank you.

𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬  𝐭𝐡𝐞  𝐥𝐢𝐞  𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫  𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫  𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬  𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭  𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧?

something along the lines of  ‘ I can handle it. ’  n’heik, among many yautja - and not just ferals, has been trained and taught to fight impeccably.  he’s exceptionally skilled at combat.  save for the fact that he’s never actually gained experience.  the feral yautja failed to enforce learning by doing and with hindsight underdeveloped and reflection not nurtured, n’heik doesn’t learn from his combat mistakes.

he sustains significant injuries, recklessly throws himself head first into a fight and isn’t aware that not every prey fights with brawn.  some prey intelligently utilize both fight and flight combined, as opposed to one or the other.  instead of taking his time to observe and plan ahead, he’ll engage in combat certain he’ll overpower his opponent.  sometimes, he can’t handle it.

𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭  𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝  𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲  𝐝𝐨  𝐢𝐟  𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐜𝐤  𝐢𝐧  𝐚  𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦  𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡  𝐭𝐡𝐞  𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧  𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐯𝐞  𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧  𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠?

it depends on his reason for avoiding them.  n’heik is aggressive, above all else, rarely giving in to passive behaviour.  he enjoys confrontation and intentionally seeks it out.  the avoidance would likely be down to disrespect or disinterest, and seeing as he’s not developed the insight to think “teamwork could free us,” or “two heads are better than one,” he’d jump first to violence.  his predatory thought process would have him asking how the individual could benefit him, and should he be unable to come up with anything then it’s always survival of the fittest.

𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧  𝐝𝐨  𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲  𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥  𝐭𝐡𝐞  𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭  𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭?  𝐡𝐨𝐰  𝐝𝐨  𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲  𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐝  𝐭𝐨  𝐢𝐭?

guilt is an extremely complex human emotion that a species like the yautja are unlikely to exhibit, or at least to the level humans do.  as a feral, he was raised to rely on only himself and that it’s the predator and the prey.   while ferals are effectively a family, the dynamic is very different to mankind and other yautja subspecies.  guilt would be very unusual for a feral to experience, as would reacting or behaving in a way to make another feel guilty.

if anything, feelings that oppose guilt are greatly encouraged, such as pride and hostility.  you upset or offend your sibling?  you are the superior one.  you act in a way that brings harm or negativity to another?  you are the superior one.  so for n’heik as an individual, he doesn’t experience guilt.  the most he might feel is the emotions that come with failure.  shame and embarrassment would show themselves as anger, as aggression.

guilt comes with feeling you have done something wrong, and in the world of the feral yautja, the only wrong you can truly do is to disappoint and / or disgrace the creed.  thus, pride and a reckless seeking of honour and achievement keep him driven, to avoid doing so.  but, were he to disgrace the feral creed and his superiors, he’d be cast out or killed.  the only room for guilt would be post-desertion, and even then he’s not psychologically intelligent enough to process such an emotion.  it would be approached as any other in-depth emotion is, through violence and aggression.