Calm

The light was failing fast deep in the woods, now that the sun had slipped behind the ridgeline. Quarrel crouched under a spreading pine, balanced on her toes in the snow, peering into the deepening gloom. Faint plumes of smoke rose from her respirator, drifting in front of her visor. Her helm telemetry was silent. All tactical information had been removed in favor of her own senses. Ghost was silent for the most part too, remaining at Rest. The scratchy audio sensors fed her the sounds of the forest. Bird song, the stony warble of crows, the evening breeze whispering through the boughs. She tried to calm her heart’s pounding, tried to take even, quiet breaths as she watched Guinefort slowly moving through a stand of brush barely six meters from where she waited.

The Exo moved with astonishing stealth, hardly rustling a leaf. His servos were even quieter than his light armor. Not even his dark cloak so much as snagged a twig. He was looking ahead of him intently, staring into a stand of trees as he slowly circled to get a better look. He did not see her.

If he was that interested in what lay ahead, he’d probably picked up Dane or Gelert’s trail. If she could just get a little closer, she’d have the drop on him. Guinefort was far more concerned about being found by the other two Hunters than by her. Good.

Guinefort was almost out of sight when Quarrel shifted forward to follow him. It was hard to keep her footsteps quiet in the crunching, deep snow, hard to keep her own armor from catching on every branch she passed. Slow and steady. If she just took her time, placed each foot with the utmost care…

A pine cone dropped from the branches above her, landing with a soft thump in the snow. Quarrel froze and immediately flattened to the ground. She saw Guinefort look back in her direction, white eyes searching. He had heard that! She lay absolutely still, hoping that the underbrush and deep shadows between the trees would be enough to hide her. Her visor began to fog over with her own breath. She tried to slow her breathing, not wishing for the vapor to be visible to the Exo. The snow was a dull cold beneath her fieldsuit. She could lie here for some time before it would truly become uncomfortable. Hopefully Guinefort wouldn’t make her wait that long. At last Guinefort began to move off, back toward the trees he’d been interested in. Quarrel let out her breath and waited a minute more before pushing herself out of the snow.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder.

Only two days of practice kept her from crying out. Quarrel spun around and saw Gelert crouched on her heels. The Hunter cocked her helm to the side and waggled a pine cone in her hand. Quarrel shook her head in defeat. Gelert nodded to her and then jerked her chin in Guinefort’s direction. Without a word, they began to slink after him.

Gelert stopped behind the same clump of bushes that Guinefort had used for cover. She held up a warning hand to Quarrel and the two of them scanned the tree trunks for any sign of the Exo. Quarrel spotted the edge of his boot coming out from behind a nearby trunk. She made a quick handsign at Gelert. They watched the Exo creep from cover. He was looking up into a tree’s canopy, still unaware he was being watched. Gelert kept her hand low and gestured to the branches. Quarrel understood she had seen something in them. It took a few moments, but then she saw it too. Dane was lying across one of the thicker, lower boughs over Guinefort’s head. The Exo was looking in the wrong direction, just slightly to the right of where his quarry waited.

Gelert pointed at Guinefort and then herself. Quarrel made a tiny gesture toward Dane. Gelert nodded once. She held up three fingers, began to tick them down.

Three, two…

On one, they burst from cover. Gelert dashed toward Guinefort nearly on hands and feet, streaking toward the oblivious Exo. He only had a moment to register that he was in trouble before Gelert rolled by and tagged him. At the same time, Quarrel was up and running. She shot out of the underbrush and surged toward the branch Dane was hiding upon. One burst of Light took her high enough to look into his helm. He was already twisting to face her, pushing himself back, getting ready to drop to the ground. She darted a hand out and grazed his shoulder before he fell.

Dane hit the carpet of dead needles and snow on the ground and rolled, cursing. Guinefort sat nearby, laughing and shaking his head. Quarrel had enough time to grin and then she was on her feet, looking around for Gelert. The woman had disappeared. Damn! When would she remember to keep an eye on her? A blur of movement from her right. Quarrel spun and crouched. Gelert’s hand flew overhead as she ran by. Quarrel lashed out with a foot and touched Gelert’s calf with the toe of her boot. The Hunter growled in frustration and skidded to a stop, gouging lines of dark earth in the white snow. Guinefort began to laugh even harder, and even Dane joined in.

“Nice one, fresh meat! We have a winner!”

Quarrel stood up and dusted the snow off her armor. She extended a hand to Gelert. The woman shook hands and sighed.

“Got a little too cocky at the end,” Gelert muttered. “You and your long legs!”

Quarrel laughed. “I’ll use every advantage I can get. You didn’t make it easy!”

Guinefort joined them, still chuckling. Dane trudged up beside them, his own breath smoking through his helm’s respirator.

“I almost had you, Guinny,” he admonished the Exo. “If these two had just waited a second longer..!”

“I knew you were there the whole time,” Guinefort shrugged, sounding nonchalant. Dane turned his attention to Quarrel.

“That was a pretty gutsy move to rush in like that,” he said. “I could have tagged you easy.”

“Then why didn’t you?” she grinned.

“Ha. You got lucky this time, fresh meat. You know you’ve got to do it again and — ”

“And prove it wasn’t a fluke,” she finished for him. “I know, I know.”

Dane snorted and shook his head. Guinefort and Gelert shared a chuckle. It was so dark now she could really only make out the silhouettes of the Hunters as they clustered under the tree.

“Come on,” Dane said. “Let’s get back to camp.”

He led the way and the others fell into line behind him, moving through the trees as silently as they had been during the game they had just finished. A Hunter’s version of hide and go seek, they had spent several hours playing each day they’d been on patrol. While at first it had seemed frivolous, by now Quarrel could tell that her instincts had sharpened admirably at the practice of finding the Hunters, with no scans and no cover but what nature afforded them in the moment. It was a simple game of elimination. Each participant was on their own, watching their back and looking for their prey. There were several versions of the game, including the rules they had just used, which called for teams of two to form when someone was finally tagged. The final twist being that, once the first team had tagged the others, they had to turn on each other — as Quarrel and Gelert had done — in order to crown an overall winner. For three days, Quarrel had been either the first one tagged or close to it. Now she had finally won. She couldn’t stop smiling.

Back at camp, Guinefort set about making a fire while Dane, Gelert, and Quarrel scrounged up some field rations. They were settled in a small clearing several hundred feet from an icy stream. Before the fire was lit, the camp looked almost like an abandoned thing, with only two low tents of winter camouflage fabric and a small ring of stones for the campfire. A few split logs acted as makeshift stools. The Hunters liked to travel light. Their Ghosts had sent their ships to synchronous orbit after transmatting the Guardians to the mountain’s surface. They had carried everything they needed on their backs until they found a suitable site. Quarrel shared Gelert’s tent and Dane shared his with Guinefort, although the Exo spent very little time in it. He opted to keep watch at night so the others could sleep, though they still took turns with shifts. Whenever Quarrel had struggled out of her warm sleeping bag into the snowy dawn, she would inevitably find Guinefort sitting beside a tiny fire, scribbling away with a pencil nub in a little notebook he carried with him at all times.

The first morning, she’d coaxed him to let her take a look at the notebook after he admitted that he was mostly drawing. He was a terrific artist. Beautiful, scenic sketches and detailed renditions of wildlife and forest flora covered the pages. She’d raised an eyebrow at a couple of portraits of Gelert, lovingly and secretly rendered as they’d sat around the campfire at night, the shading on her delicate features so faithful that Quarrel could almost see the firelight flickering on her face. If Exos could blush, Guinefort would have glowed so bright he could be seen back at the Tower. He’d mumbled and snatched the book away. Clearly she was not meant to have seen those sketches.

Tonight Guinefort was at it again, perched on an upright log, his leg crossed at the ankle to serve as a makeshift table for his battered notebook. He listened in to the conversation as the other three talked and ate. Dane really did most of the talking whenever Guinefort was busy sketching, but Quarrel had opened up to the Hunters in the past few days and found she had a lot to say herself. Gelert never spoke much, content to chime in only when she felt it was absolutely necessary. Quarrel had found that Gelert wasn’t nearly as cold as she seemed, only that the Awoken was slow to warm up to people she didn’t know. She was so very different from Zinnia in that regard.

Quarrel felt a pang of guilt when she thought about the Warlock. Poor Zinnia had not been allowed to come along after all. It turned out that penances were just as bad as they sounded. She was under orders from Shenu to perform one backbreaking task after another, none of which involved anything Zinnia would find even remotely fun. She had really been in trouble for going to the Cosmodrome. For some reason, Shenu had taken very poorly to the idea. Dane maintained it was because he knew that Zinnia was useless in battle against such a savage enemy. But if that were the case, wouldn’t Zavala have set her to penances as well? Dane had shrugged and said that this was “floofer business”, leaving it at that. He wasn’t at all broken up about not having Zinnia join the patrol.

The field rations for dinner were as terrible as ever. Quarrel ate with good appetite, though they hardly resembled the food she was used to from the Tower kitchens. The freeze-dried pouches were good for sustenance only, but consumed around a campfire and with good conversation, she found she didn’t mind them so much. Three days ago, she never would have believed that she could have so much fun with Dane and his fireteam. He was still as cocky as ever, in a way that sometimes rankled, but they’d shared many genuine moments of laughter and good advice.

She had to admit that for all his talk, Dane knew what he was about. On the first full day of patrols, they’d encountered the remnants of Fallen tracks in the snow, a trail made by a scouting party. The two-toed marks were unmistakable, moving in a narrow line, deviating to rocky outcroppings that peered over tiny civilian outposts where travelers came to rest before entering the City. Even though Dane had declared the tracks old, he’d had the team spread out and sweep the surrounding forest as seriously as if they’d heard a Dreg grumble in the brush. The Fallen traveled light as well, hardly a scrap left behind in their passing. Quarrel had picked up a bit of footwrapping and a tiny fish bone, the only other evidence of their presence. There were no marks of tents or fires.

Guinefort and Gelert seemed to balance Dane out too. Whenever he started to brag overly much, one or the other usually had a lighthearted jab meant to bring him back down to earth. Quarrel had expected them to be little more than cronies lapping at his heels, eager to share some of his Crucible glory. Instead she found they were truly friends. The way they moved together, worked together, even shared each other’s jokes and finished each other’s sentences was unmistakably borne of long, happy association.

Far from being three days of humiliation and misery that she couldn’t wait to escape, Quarrel found she was actually looking to her return to the Tower with some regret. She had not felt so right since she had met with the Speaker. Sitting in the middle of the woods nestled under mountain peaks, barely staving off the cold and watching the trees at every unfamiliar noise…she was as calm as she had been sitting in Marina’s apartments watching the vidscreen. Calmer, even. The open air, the vast rolling vistas, even the occasional snowstorms were soothing in a way no kind words of advice or comfortable Tower accommodations could be. She felt Reborn all over again. Even Ghost had noticed, remarking on it offhandedly once in a while. It seemed to please him, though she thought he also sounded a little puzzled by it.

“So what do you say, fresh meat?” Dane asked, stretching his legs before the fire. “Can we put you down in the books as a Hunter yet?”

“You just want me to join so you can pick on me as a Mentor,” she teased, scraping out her bowl. Tonight’s rations were a poor approximation of Ella’s vegetable stew, washed down with strong coffee courtesy of Gelert.

“I’m doing that already!” Dane grinned.

She shrugged, setting her bowl aside.

“I don’t know. It’s still kind of early to decide, isn’t it?”

“I chose in my first week,” Dane said. “So did Guinny and Gelert. We all joined up at the same time. The choice was obvious.”

“Cayde does a good job of twisting arms too,” Guinefort grunted. Gelert’s lips quirked in a small smile. Quarrel remembered Cayde’s gleeful admission of his bet with Ikora Rey. She decided against letting them know about that.

“Look at you,” Dane said, examining her in the firelight. “You’re carrying knives, you take to our exercises like a duck to water. Hell, a Hunter even named you. It’s just too bad it was Tory. He’s got no imagination.”

“Actually, it was a Titan,” Quarrel corrected him. And Zinnia, she thought, but she wouldn’t say that either. Zinnia was a subject best kept out of conversation with Dane. They’d made her tell the story of her naming last night, curious about its origins. They had been expecting something of her deeds at Rebirth, not a squabble while watching the vidscreen. The revelation had caused a lot of laughter.

“Yeah, well, it’s still a Hunter’s name,” Dane scoffed. “Not something one of those hoity-toity floofers would choose. They all want to be philosophers and poets and gods. The only thing they spend more time on than names is choosing what Bond goes best with their vestments and how to sneer at other people.”

“Maybe I should go on patrol with some Warlocks and Titans before I make up my mind,” she said. “After all, I get the feeling my present company is biased.”

That made Guinefort chuckle again.

“You wouldn’t like it, fresh meat,” Dane said. “The Titans are all right, but you’ll be stuck on the Walls more often than not. And the Warlocks…well, I hope you like moldy books and meditation. You can forget about patrols like this for a Novice.”

“Are you saying Hunters don’t like to study?” she asked, waving her spoon at Guinefort. He was sketching out a dried oak leaf balanced on his knee, carefully capturing every little vein.

“Don’t look to Guinny as an example of a model Hunter!” Dane said, scooping up some snow and chucking it at the Exo. “He’s going to turn in his resignation any time now and defect to the Warlocks.”

Guinefort brushed the snow off his notebook and raised an eyebrow plate. “After which, Dane will realize he’s nothing without me,” he said calmly.

“Guinefort is a Hunter.” Gelert spoke up. “He’s too crude to be a Warlock, and too weak to be a Titan.”

They all had a laugh at that.

The good natured banter turned to general Hunter gossip, which Quarrel mostly just listened to. Her ears perked up at mention of Tory and Polaris, and how they were set to re-map sections of the passes above Twilight Gap in the coming months and possibly even the Cosmodrome. She wondered if they would be opposed to her tagging along. She was already determined that her return to the Tower would be short. Surely Zavala would consider those two Hunters senior enough to watch over her in the steppes. And if they didn’t want her along, maybe Dane would be amenable…

You could also just go, a seditious little voice inside her said. Zavala’s admonishments be damned. He can’t keep you away!

Eventually even the gossip died down, until the four were just sitting quietly gazing at the fire. It was turning to embers, the silent cue that soon it would be time to turn in for the night. A coyote called in the distance, high and inquisitive. The Hunters turned as one, gazing off into the night, alert but unafraid.

“I’m gonna hit the sack,” Dane said at last. “Who’s taking first watch with Guinny?”

“I will,” Quarrel offered. She was tired, but didn’t feel quite like turning in just yet.

“Good. Wake me up for third shift, Gelly,” he nudged Gelert with his elbow, automatically volunteering her for second shift. Gelert sighed and drained her coffee. She stood up and bade Quarrel and Guinefort a good night before crawling into her tent.

“Want me to stoke the fire?” Guinefort asked.

“Sure,” she agreed, and went off to visit the latrine they’d dug in the ground well away from the camp and the stream. Back in the trees, she could only faintly smell the campfire smoke when the wind shifted. She had to listen hard for the crackling logs. Otherwise the night reigned in the woods around her, cold and lonely. The moon was hidden behind thick clouds tonight. It was probably going to snow again. She still felt glad. Except for figuring out how to do her business while wearing armor — that was just an awkward affair, no two ways about it.

She took her time going back to the camp proper so she could have a moment to speak with Ghost in privacy.

“Ready to go home tomorrow?” she asked. It was funny how quickly she had begun to refer to the Tower as such, even though the wilds were beginning to feel just as familiar.

I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to check in, Ghost chirped from Rest. He’d been even more reticent about joining Dane on this trip than she had. But now, free from immediate threats of Fallen and Hive, he was very happy to be on patrol with her. That was a relief. She had been worried that he really wanted her to hang about the Tower forever, prepared to deem everything else too dangerous after the excitement with the Hive.

“We can see if Zinnia is off of penances,” Quarrel said. Oh, she felt sorry for that poor Warlock! Whichever Order she ended up choosing, she hoped that she wouldn’t be bound like Zinnia was to Shenu. If that was the way of it, she just wouldn’t choose at all!

I sure hope she is. With Shenu, you never know.

“Do you think she’ll forgive me for the company I’ve been keeping?” Quarrel asked.

I think she’ll just be glad to see a friendly face! Ghost said. Just make sure you haven’t picked up Dane’s bad habits.

“Okay. I’ll only brag a little bit about winning the game today.”

Ghost burbled and clicked, a little laugh. He was proud of that win too.

She made her way back to the newly stoked fire, savoring the night air. One more night out in the wilds. One more night to relax — despite the snow and cold, despite the fact that Fallen could be near again. She wasn’t sure if her confidence was high because the City was just out of sight beyond the mountain range or because she was with an experienced fireteam. All she knew for certain was that she wanted this again.