Chapter Text
Lord Saladin likes to take the occasional stroll through the ruins of Twilight Gap. Mostly all he finds is snow and rusty cargo containers.
This time he finds one Guardian beating another to death with unnecessary cruelty. There were standards of honor one maintained in the Crucible, ones he expected those in the Iron Banner to uphold as well. Merciful deaths where you could make them, any purposeful cruelty was frowned upon immensely, even more so outside of the combat arena. If you had a grudge, you took it to the Crucible.
He puts a stop to it. The Titan scurries away, unwilling to further invoke the wrath of an Iron Lord, and Saladin turns to the Lightbearer curled on the ground. The Ghost disappears from it's healing duties the moment the Iron Lord's eyes fall on the Guardian's face. The face itself twists into primal fear, but the Ghost hadn't finished, and his legs were useless with a broken spine; he was at the Titan's mercy.
Lord Saladin knows this face. Queen Mara Sov had been aloof to most Lightbearers, but him, she had shown occasional respect. Perhaps because he was old, perhaps because he was an Iron Lord. He had met her and her brother, though only a few times. The man had been arrogant and disrespectful, but this, before him, was a mere boy. Doing the math in his head, he figured that this Uldren wasn't more than a year old, at the least.
He strode forwards, and crouched next to the downed Lightbearer, who recoiled, the panic in his expression betraying that he expected another attack. Saladin gathered Light into one hand and ran along his spine; Warlocks may be masters at healing, but any Lightborn worth his salt could heal localized injuries. The skill had been essential in the Dark Age, when letting your Ghost out was far more dangerous.
He looks at Uldren's face, now surprised, and reminds himself what the man had done to Shiro. The pain that losing Cayde-6 had caused. Shiro was his only real friend, in his post-SIVA days. He would have wasted away if the Hunter wasn't so persistent; he'd be a friendless, lonely old man who lived by himself on a mountain, with no legacy to pass down. Just a mistake to guard.
Iron Lord Saladin Forge looks at the reborn Uldren, thinks of Shiro, of how mistakes of the present could become demons of the future, and makes a decision he hopes he doesn't regret.
He starts calling the boy 'Crow', because, apparently, he hadn't known about Uldren when Saladin called him by that name. Saladin, realizing the mistake of his assumption, and that the young Light had probably heard the name, told him everything. Saladin didn't like secrets, and he was bad at keeping them. Besides; with his slip-up(a foolish one at that, perhaps he was old), the boy already had damning evidence. Best to tell him now than let him agonize in uncertainty.
There had been a lot of unmanly crying that Saladin hadn't known how to deal with. Luckily, Crow's Ghost was probably the softest, sweetest thing the Traveler ever birthed, and managed to handle it over the course of a few days.
'Crow' was the only other thing that came to mind when looking at him, and he couldn't go around calling him 'not-Uldren', so 'Crow' it was, and it seemed to be sticking. Aside from that, Crow brought nothing to the Iron Temple but a dented Awoken sword and a silk burial cloth which, to Saladin's utter dismay, seemed to act as a sort of... security blanket.
Lightbearers did not need security blankets.
Perhaps the revelation of his past would make him abandon it eventually. Or, perhaps, he would replace it with his newfound fondness for the wolves; there was an old, arthritic thing that Saladin didn't have the heart to lock out of the Temple's warmth, and Crow took to him immediately. Saladin suspected there was Hunter Light running through those veins, and the Ghost, Glint, confirms it.
He gives Crow an old set of clothes to wear, because it looks like he's never been out of that armor. They don't fit, because Saladin is bigger and Crow is rather thin. After seeing how ravenously the young Hunter eats, he figures that won't be a problem for long.
Crow is a healthy weight now, and Saladin had long since given him access to the library within the mountain. He can't teach a Hunter how to use his Light, but he could provide material that could guide him. Old journals of Perun, documenting the grueling process of touching the void, martial forms of the arcstrider, knife techniques and obscure ways to channel your Light. He finds one of Timur's lists of every-class party tricks, and soon learns how to make tiny, Light-made ring obstacle courses for Glint.
One thing Saladin can teach him, however, is how to fight. He shows Crow how to use a sword, and the Hunter picks up on it fairly quickly. Perhaps it is some vestige of Uldren's skills. Either way, lessons on weapon use went well, and Crow was proving himself to be a quick learner. Their ideologies, however, often butt heads. He would have thought a life of constant beatings to desensitize the young Hunter, but Crow abhorred violence, perhaps for that very reason. It was during these arguments that Saladin often questioned what he'd been thinking, bring Crow to the mountain, let alone putting time and effort into him.
This boy was too soft to be an Iron Lord.
But Shiro is away, and the others of the new generation he'd been training were toiling away at their own tasks elsewhere in the system. At the end of the day, he would rather have a kinderguardian he didn't get along with than nothing but the wind and his Ghost.
Eventually, the New Generation trickle in and out of the mountain as the dust stirred up by Saint-14's return settles. Eventually, Lord Saladin has to attend to the Banner tournament. The thought of leaving Crow alone in the mountain makes him anxious, but bringing him to the city might not be the best idea. He wasn't... ashamed of Crow-at least, that was what he told himself whenever the possibility crossed his mind. But someday, the young Hunter would be revealed to the City, and he wanted a plan to deal with the taboo by association that may result if he was a known associate of the boy.
He makes it back to the mountain after the banner and discovers that Crow is a master of hiding, sneaking, and generally going unnoticed; he has even made it a game to test his stealthy abilities against the more sharp-eyed among the occasional visitors to the Peak. Saladin is alarmed by this risky behavior, but glade that Crow is brave enough to take those risks, and he let's the game continue.
But the first time Shiro comes back, Lord Saladin orders Crow to hide in the library, and not to come out, at risk of final death. He doesn't know how Shiro would react to him sheltering a reborn Uldren Sov. He knows Shiro, and part of him reasons that the Exo would never harm an innocent. But the part of him that has spent time and effort with Crow, the part that had watched him go from half-starved to healthy, watched him experiment gleefully with his Light, taught him to master the gun and the blade, could only conjure up nightmare scenarios where someone wound up dead and he lost Shiro whichever way it went.
So he squirrels the younger Hunter away, far from the prying eyes of the master Hunter with a few good centuries of experience. Crow should only meet Shiro after he'd proven he could defend himself against a far older Lightbearing opponent in single combat, and he had yet to beat Saladin in any of their sparring sessions.
Nevertheless, it is good to see Shiro again, even if it would make feeding Crow difficult.
Ana Bray comes to him. Crow hides and starts at his usual game, lingering in shadows that catch the Huntress' eyes only to dance away or freeze and slip into the void before she could see him. She isn't Saladin's favorite person, and he expresses as much. He also tells her that if she seeks his blessing to use the Warmind, or his forgiveness for using it and dragging his apprentice into it's sway,, she aught to leave for she will receive neither.
Instead, she tells him she found out the truth about SIVA. That she had been incorrect in her hypothesis that what commanded SIVA was merely a fragment of Rasputin, not the Warmind itself. That it was all for Felwinter. All it had wanted was Felwinter, so it killed them all. She told him that it had hunted his wayward friend since the day he was reborn. That-
WHY DIDN'T HE TELL US? There was no doubt in his heart that if Felwinter had told them, not a single one would have turned their back. They would have brought fire to the Warmind and burned it to the ground.
He tells Ana Bray never to step foot on Felwinter Peak again. Crow watches, terrified and horrified by what he has heard. Saladin snaps at him-when he thinks back to the moment, he can never remember what was said- and leaves before his vision could blur. He cannot let Crow see him like this.
Iron Lord Saladin Forge tears across the system in a weeks-long rampage of rage and pain, leaving nothing but molten ruts in the ground and ashes of humanity's enemies in his wake. Shiro finds him, eventually. His friend says that Crow had told him everything, and the slow horror of 'did Crow survive this conversation' overrode any annoyance he might have felt towards the younger Hunter for meddling in his affairs.
Shiro tells him he must return to the mountain. He tells him he is stronger than his grief, as proven with the SIVA crisis, as he would prove now. All Saladin can do is stare at him and wonder, try to fathom, which of his nightmare to scenarios had played out? Question why, why had he left Crow alone in the mountain for nearly a month?
Shiro seems to read his thoughts. He says Crow wore a mask, but he knows the voice of Uldren Sov when he hears it, and he has noticed the signs around the mountain that a hidden kinderguardian lived there; scorch marks on floors and walls, where Crow has practiced with his Light or lost control, sloppy unfinished knives in the scrap of the forges, and the arthritic wolf had gotten fatter. He tells Saladin that he, too, is stronger than his grief.
Stronger, but not ready to comprehend why Saladin had taken him in. The old Iron Lord tries to explain, but in the end Shiro claims he needs to take a wander, to digest the information, and that Saladin needed to return to the mountain-and the banner-as Crow was anxious he wouldn't return, and the Vanguard were troubled by the reports of his rampage.
There is a crack in their friendship, and Saladin is afraid it will turn into a chasm if he tries to pressure Shiro into accepting his decision to take in Crow. So he let's the Hunter go, and hopes that the time spent wandering will heal the damage.
He returns to the Peak to find it had been well cared for in his absence. Crow greets him nervously, seeming equal parts anxious and relieved.
Saladin thanks him.
Crow has intense night terrors, and nothing Saladin or Glint does seems to help. All they could do was hope that it didn't happen while Shiro or one of the others was around, because things like terrified screaming tended to echo loudly throughout the Peak's structure. The night before the Darkness arrives, Crow has a dream of such intensity that he comes bursting into Saladin's quarters, eyes wild and unfocused as though he were still partly asleep, screaming that 'they' had arrived.
It took over an hour to calm him down.
Then, in the early hours of the morning, as an emotionally exhausted Crow finally went back to sleep, Lord Saladin got a call that made him suspect the young Hunter's dreams weren't dreams at all. He begins asking about this particular one, and the landscape Crow describes is decidedly Io. Most kinderguardians would have made their pilgrimage there by Crow's age, so Saladin gives him some armor from a Banner tournament many years past, and takes him to Io.
Crow follows his dream, and Lord Saladin follows him closely. The Young Wolf is on this planet as well, and it would not do for them to meet. The dream guides them to a Tree of Light at the center of the cradle, directly beneath a Black Ship. It makes the very air feel sick, and Saladin feels slightly nauseous for the entirety of the hike. It has a worse effect on Crow, for some reason; he's trembling slightly by the time they reach their destination, but the Light of the tree seems to help. Perhaps it is because he is young, and his Light cannot weather such Darkness as well as Saladin's can. Saladin has heard the tales of the Tree of Silver Wings, and does not trust even this Light-made one.
In the dream, Crow says, he took several of the leaves. They do so, and leave before the Darkness can possess their Ghosts.
Uncertain about what to do with the leaves now that they had them, they locked them in the vault where the Iron Lords put things they couldn't figure out or thought dangerous.
Planets disappear, and Crow wants to help. Saladin has yet to let him leave the cosmodrome, as it is is restricted by the Vanguard, and therefore a perfect place to exercise his Light without running into other Guardians. But that restriction is ending, and Saladin knows he would have to let this fledgling leave it's nest. So he gives Crow a ship and supplies, tells him to find a manageable task to complete, and return when he was done.
Crow is too soft to be an Iron Lord, but an old Titan could dream. Dream, and try to find loopholes in his own standards, because giving Crow to the Vanguard felt like a worse idea with each passing day. Zavala, he wasn't as worried about, but Ikora Rey was a master at holding grudges.
Then Crow interprets 'manageable task' as 'go to war against a champion of Xivu Arath'. Iron Lord material after all, he decides, but damn if his hair wasn't getting grayer. Osiris, though, had recognized Crow's voice, but at least he didn't seem inclined to exact retribution on his apprentice's behalf; the only retribution he needed was for his Ghost.
When Crow next returns to the mountain, there is a dark, festering cut on his face. He'd been backhanded by a Guardian with a Splinter of Darkness on their wrist, and he refused to name names. He'd been caught without a helmet, and this was the price. Saladin fumed even as he ran Light over the wound, at Osiris' recommendation. They would have to keep treating it with Light over the course of several days, and in the end it would likely leave a permanent mark.
He interrogates Osiris while Crow sleeps off some painkillers, and learns the it was the Young Wolf who struck Crow. He doesn't know what to do about this, he really doesn't. He has half a mind to go snatch the Splinter away and crush it, like it should have been when the Vanguard first got ahold of it. So he tells the Wolf, at the next Banner tournament, that if he crosses the line too far he will be there to end it.
Permanently.
Crow follows his dreams again and the Traveler itself grants him a weapon, made of the same material it itself was made of. The young Hunter is frightened by the attention, frightened by the possibility of being a major pawn in a grand cosmic war. The next Banner, Saladin screams at the orb in the sky on his ward's behalf. Whatever special plans, whatever grand task, whatever sacrifice the Traveler had in mind for Crow, an older Guardian would have done just as well. Maybe better. Maybe anything.
Hadn't Crow suffered enough?
As always, the Traveler was silent.
Crow kills the High Celebrant with a combination of cunning, quick thinking, and coordination with the Guardian and Osiris. Though unexpectantly trapped in the Ascendant Plane, he manages to get a communication out, to instruct the forces on the other side how to find the next portal site, and to burn it with Light when it appears. They do so, and suddenly it is the Celebrant who was trapped and helpless with Crow.
It is the first time Lord Saladin could say out loud that he was proud of the Hunter. When he returned to the mountain, tired and filthy, the Titan greets him, sends him to care for himself, and starts choosing metals for a new blade. When he named a new Iron Lord, he presented them with a Light-forged blade that best suited them. The Young Wolf had been the first, receiving a broadsword of sol Light. For Shiro, he had crafted pair of push knives imbued with arc. For Crow, he makes an elegant short sword that hummed with void Light.
He does not mark it with the Iron Sigil, only his personal signature touch. Nor will he tell the others they have a new brother-in-arms. He is not ashamed of Crow, far from it, but making him an Iron Lord publicly would be disastrous. He dreads facing it, and fears for Crow. Killing one Hive demigod would not protect him; even if Crow presented the City Consensus with Savathûn's head on a plate, someone would find cause to blacklist him. Or worse; extradite him to the Reef, whose people had even more reason to be vengeful and cruel.
Crow breaks the tradition of the ceremony and hugs him. Lord Saladin is not an affectionate man, physically or emotionally.
He permits it anyway.
The Cabal are in the thick of it again. Crow wants to help again. Their differences of opinion clash again. It's a symphony of repeats, and Iron Lord Saladin Forge hates hearing the same song twice. Lord Crow is tired of hiding, 'forgets' his helmet, and marches into the HELM boldly while pretending he's never met Lord Saladin in his life. Osiris is shocked by this behavior. Saladin doesn't trust himself to speak, because he was a bad liar, and if he opens his mouth Crow's charade will end and the backlash would hit him, too, and Crow's goal seemed to be to avoid that.
Zavala is speechless, staring at Crow and Glint as if looking longer would help him reconcile the image. Amanda Holliday is the first to unfreeze, and the first to throw something at the Hunter. He ducks elegantly, and makes quite a show of not knowing what why everybody hates him, and that he'd been invited in on the operation after killing the Celebrant. He looks pleadingly towards Osiris, and eyes the others present nervously.
Saladin had no idea where he'd learned to act. He decided he didn't want to know, because it probably involved Skorri's play scripts.
Saladin cannot openly support him, but he is more than able to hold Amanda Holliday back as she spits curses and insults that bring genuine hurt his ward's face. Zavala just continues to stare. Osiris advocates for calm.
Saladin asks the Traveler for strength.
Osiris makes a great effort to make sure Crow is accepted by the Vanguard. He advises Saladin and Crow to continue the charade of not knowing one another.
It gets old fast. Crow plays his part by expressing every one of his opinions he knows will displease Lord Saladin. It gets worse with every battleground they conquer, and it successfully puts him in a foul mood, giving the illusion that he had as much a problem with Crow as everybody else. It took him a while to see what the young Hunter was doing; the more Holliday and the Vanguard saw of his ire towards the young Hunter, the better.
Crow explained his plan with a strained smile and concealed pain that Saladin only sensed because of personal experience. Lord Saladin would never escape his revelation to the City without backlash, and Iron Lord or no he would face consequences for helping to conceal the fact Uldren Sov had been reborn a Lightbearer, should that knowledge ever be made apparent. Saladin reminded him he was perfectly capable of defending the both of them if it came down to it.
Crow tells him that if every vengeful Hunter in the system came knocking at the mountain's gates, not even he could deter them. He says that it's for the best. Saladin looks at the stress-drawn face of Lightbearer who is too young to have to face such trials, let alone plan for them, and feels something within him twist painfully.
That night, he quietly informs a few of the New Generation of Crow's existence- the ones he knows will have calmer reactions to the truth-and that he is one of them. He will not stand idle while one of his planned to isolate himself before throwing himself on a sword just to spare a little trouble.
He trusts them to spread the news carefully among them other members, breaking it to them in (hopefully)controlled settings where calmer minds might prevail.
He tries to check on Shiro, but he is still on his wander.
Zavala starts to accept Crow more readily than Holliday, but warns that he will be informing Ikora of his existence. When it turns out that she had known of him, before Lord Saladin had found him, the old Titan had half a mind to give her a thrashing for not doing anything about Crow's situation in the wilds. Hunted by his fellows, struggling to survive, isolated, hurt and confused as to why everybody hated him so much. Zavala says the Hidden lost track of him a year previous, around the time Saladin took him in, and he is relieved to know that his role has not yet been revealed.
Lord Crow continues his foolish plan to put as much distance between himself and the Iron Lords as possible. No matter how many times Saladin quietly rebukes him for trying to reject the legacy he had sworn an oath to, he persists. He reassures Lord Saladin that while he may never be an Iron Lord publicly, he will forever be one in the shadows. He would not forget his vows; it was against Hunter honor to do so.
So they continue the charade.
And then Crow takes a Devourer Round for Zavala.
The psion tracks Zavala to his usual haunt in the First Garden. In another life, he would be warned by an apparent spectre, and he would shoot the lone assassin before they could act. In this life, Lord Crow, who had been increasingly worried by the simulations he'd discovered hidden in vex data, body-slammed the Titan while throwing a careless vortex grenade at the assailant. The gun went off.
Iron Lord Saladin Forge forces his way through the Praxic healing halls, unyielding to those who gave protest, and spurred on by hissing and whispers of 'Uldren Sov', or worse, 'why should we save him?'. Zavala is covered in blood and unharmed. He barges into the healing room, Crow is still bleeding heavily from the left shoulder, breaths short and pained as one Warlock pulls a Dark bullet from from his flesh and another worked at the wound with sol Light. Glint is frantically to re-establish their link, and
Crow keeps trying to calm him with his good hand, only for the Warlock to make him lower his arm again.
Saladin threatens them not to let him die. He threatens violent and painful deaths, ignoring Crow's weak protests.
Warlocks are notorious gossips, so one effect of the incident is that Crow's identity is outed faster than the Vanguard can contain it, as is Lord Saladin's outburst. Half the population of the Tower convinced themselves that the assassination attempt was orchestrated to make the Hunter look like a hero. Zavala tried to stamp down that rumor. Unsuccessfully. In retaliation, he brought Crow on as part of the personal security detail Osiris insisted on forming.
The City Consensus was in an uproar. All the things that Saladin had feared were coming to pass. There was talk of extradition, conversations about whether Crow could be held culpable for the actions of his past life. But worst of all, there was an outcry to punish his Ghost, for 'betraying' the Vanguard and choosing Uldren Sov as his Guardian. Crow, arm in sling and link with Glint recovered, took it all with a straightened back and clenched jaw, eyes forward.
Iron Lord Saladin Forge did not stand these slanders lightly, and since it was already out that he... cared, about the Hunter, it was best to put any newly forming rumors to rest. When the Consensus asks him, in a sham of an 'inquiry', what his relationship to the Hunter is, he tells the truth.
He tells them Crow has been under the Oath of the Ironwood since before coming to the City. He tells them to examine Crow's blade, and they would find it was forged by his hand. He told them Crow, though soft and uncommonly kind for a Lightbearer, was still an Iron Lord, trained by he himself in several forms of combat, tested by fire and tempered by battle. He made the message clear:
Don't. Fuck. With. Iron Lord Crow.
He promised them pain otherwise, counting on the fact he was the single most intimidating living thing within several lightyears. (To his surprise and satisfaction, it actually worked).
Whether they heeded his warnings to stay their hands with Crow or not, they certainly didn't want to fuck with Iron Lord Saladin Forge.
The rest of the campaign against the Cabal is fought with an ever-thickening atmosphere that nobody knew how to disperse-or didn't want to. Osiris had devised a dangerous new plan that couldn't possibly work. Lord Saladin's frustration that he could even think for a moment such a course of action would be honored by the Cabal added to the tense situation.
He had nearly lost Zavala and Crow to these dishonorable wretches, and Osiris wanted to parlay with them on their terms. Zavala agreeing to it made it even worse; he was putting his freedom on the line... and either way this went down, Crow, who was still healing, would be in the line of fire with the Commander. But in the end there was nothing he could do to dissuade them; Crow was too eager to please, Osiris had to much sway as the only Warlock in the room, and Zavala was his grim, stubborn self.
Then there was Crow himself, upset that Saladin had thrown away their charade. The Titan stood by his decision, and reminds Crow that he is bad with secrets and lies. Coming clean kept him from going ahead with his self-destructive plan, and might just save his life one day, he reasons. This doesn't stop the young Hunter from stressing and fretting.
It isn't all going bad, though; Amanda Holliday is slowly warming up to Crow, as much as one could expect from someone who had been directly impacted by Uldren's rampage. Taking a bullet for one Vanguard, however, didn't excuse his past self for murdering another, not in most eyes. Saladin glares down several people over the next few weeks.
Others take one look at Crow's wolf-adorned armor, which he can now wear openly, and decide to think twice about starting trouble.
The culprit, in the end, was an individual knowns as Amtec. Under her direction, Zavala is nearly killed once more, but Crow is faster with a blade than the puny psion with a knife the size of it's body. He stops the blade with his own, and Lord Saladin, who accompanied them because he refused to be on the sidelines if anything were to happen, relieves the attacker of his head before turning on the Empress.
She insists she has nothing to do with it. She orders her men to find the sniper. Zavala's Ghost is suppressed, not dead, and both recover quickly. Zavala insists on finishing the deal, and Saladin guffaws.
The ritual is completed. The Iron Lords do not move or sheath their blades. All parties, wary of one another, back off and transmat away. Lord Saladin does not expect the ceasefire to last.
Lord Crow is more optimistic. He participates in the Guardian Games with zeal, and stays up for the all-night mega-party that the Hunters throw just outside the wall. For one night, he is just another Hunter, reveling in victory, and it doesn't matter who he used to be.
Saladin goes home; he has no desire to listen to Hunters boast for the next week.
Then Crow calls to tell him the sun hadn't risen.
The City was awash in a Vex-induced endless night. The Hunters are quiet. Their victory was subdued almost immediately by a disaster. Ikora has a plan, but it involves the Fallen. Lord Saladin has heard rumors of a human-sympathizer Kell, but is reluctant to believe he actually exists. And all he needs is to hear the word 'Splicer' to know he wants nothing to do with any of it.
Crow tries to reassure him, and offers to keep an eye on things in his stead, since he wouldn't be caught within a mile of anything Splicer-related. The Vanguard heavily discourage this, since there was no telling how many of the Eliksni refugees were once Wolves under the Queendom, but they have no say over the business of Iron Lords. It is something they become increasingly frustrated about, their lack of control over Crow. Ikora asks Saladin to 'reign him in', and the Titan can't help but laugh.
One did not simply 'reign in' a Hunter. Crow had gotten his taste of the wilds, of action, and that life was sucking him in; he was greedy for more of it, for more of life in general now that he didn't have to hide. Saladin had made his peace with letting his fledgling leave the nest; if letting Crow near the Eliksni was a mistake, it was better the Hunter make his mistakes now than later. It was part of life; how was he to learn if he didn't stumble into disaster every now and then? It would help him to react to worse disasters later on.
It turned Saladin's hair gray(er), it even hurt a little, but it was time to let Crow make his own way, without him there as a crutch.
Crow gets along fine with the Eliksni, surprisingly enough. From what he hears, they quickly grow fond of him. Though Lord Saladin is skeptical of the young Hunter listening to so many Eliksni stories, the other Iron Lord spreads just as many old tales of his own. Apparently, one of Skorri's tragedies was gaining quick popularity.
The Endless Night takes a heavy toll. The first time he returns for a Banner tournament, the mortals look strained and fatigued.
The second one, they are alarmingly lethargic, and Lakshmi-2 stirs a disturbing amount of trouble. The Night is bringing out the worst in people. Tempers are short, and there are whispers that a famine should be expected, that the coming winter promised empty bellies due to the mass death of the City's crops. Some of the younger Guardians are having similar lethargy to the mortals, due to their weaker Light, Crow among them. He still smiles, and thankfully still has the energy a Lightbearer should.
The third one, there is blight in the Tower. He can feel it wear on him throughout the week. There are few mortals still at work, and the Guardians who pick up the slack are slow, tired, acting without energy. He comes across Osiris and Ikora sitting in one of the balconies. The former has his arms wrapped around his apprentice, and the latter is slumped against him like all the life had gone from her. Saladin retreats, not wanting to intrude on the rare moment of affection. He finds Zavala in his office, eyes raw from lack of sleep, and dull from poor health.
The Last City was dying.
He goes to the Eliksni quarter only to find Crow. The Eliksni are faring only slightly better than the Humans, being a species optimized for dark places and minimal sunlight. He finds the Hunter halfheartedly mending a lamp, and he does not protest when Saladin practically drags him back to the mountain. He refuses to let the Night suck the life out of the young Hunter.
And he tries not to think too hard about it when Crow tells him his dreams have too often featured a drowning bird of late.
The Night is lifted, and everyone spends the next few weeks just living. They celebrate the Solstice. They right their sleep schedules. Farmers try to save their animals and plant whatever crops they think might make it into fall.
Crows dreams of the drowning bird get more intense, and Saladin begins to fear what they mean.
Lakshmi-2 does something... horrific. She lets the Vex into the Last City. Whatever he feels about the House Light situation-and he still can't decided what to feel, he could thank Crow for that-compromising the safety of the City isn't the answer.
The coup cripples the City's lines of communication. People fight each other in the streets, some not even knowing or caring who they were fighting or who they were hitting. Others took the opportunity to loot and vandalize, and as was always a risk with Human nature, some just wanted to watch the world burn. Lord Saladin is away when it happens, and by the time he gets to the City, the Factions have fled, crippling the Consensus, and the Last City has been lit aflame by both the Vex and it's own people.
Lord Crow is furious. He demands Lakshmi's head, a violent demand that he never thought the Hunter would make(perhaps he spent too much time with Saladin, he was rubbing off on him more than he thought). But Lakshmi is already dead, killed by the Vex. The future she had predicted had come to pass after all, and it was all her own doing.
There are cries that Osiris was in on it, and Lord Saladin just can't make himself believe it...
The Last City is in a time of upheaval. Without the Factions, the Consensus is in shambles. Zavala and Ikora, needy for a civilian voice, ask Suraya Hawthorne to fill the role until a more permanent solution can be found. Some of the more minor Factions are already taking advantage of the mass exodus. There is, briefly, some more drama about Lord Crow, but it is lost in the sea of voices.
There are even worries that the Guardians would take over, like the Warlords of old, and so, Lord Saladin found himself taking near-permanent residence in the Tower. Knowing that the Iron Lords were monitoring things seemed to help, at least a little. When Crow tells him that Osiris has contacted him, he gives the Hunter his blessing to pursue the ex-Warlock.
He doesn't know why Osiris had betrayed the City, he isn't sure any amount of grief could cause such a thing, but to get answers they needed him alive, preferably unharmed. Osiris always seemed to have a soft spot for Crow, as much as Osiris could, at least. If anyone could talk the man into giving up and coming in, it was Crow.
Crow returns from the Dreaming City, of all places, shaking and haunted.
He tells Lord Saladin of a incomprehensible horror that he had witness upon catching up with Osiris. A monster had sloughed off the skin of a man, and a Queen had imprisoned it in chrysalis of amethyst. Savathûn, witch queen of lies and deception, had posed as his friend, whispered falsehoods in his ear, nearly destroyed the City as they knew it.
And Crow's 'sister' wanted to make a deal with such a beast?
She was a fool. A tool. And her foolishness would cost them.
Crow admits that he doesn't know what to think of Queen Mara Sov. He says she is polite, friendly, even, especially in comparison to Petra Venj.
But there is an... undercurrent to he words and personality, he tells Saladin, and he isn't sure if he can trust her. Nobody was just that friendly towards him, and if he had a dead, traitorous brother whom had slaughtered his people, and that brother came back from the dead free of memory, he would at least be a little angry. At the brother, maybe, or at the Ghost for rousing him from his rest.
Mara Sov displayed none of this. She kept trying to tell him about Uldren, sharing little things like his love of story-making. Comments about Uldren's love of exploration and wandering, that perhaps it had been a sign of predestination, that even as Uldren his Hunter blood had called him to the wilds.
It stressed Crow out immensely, brought up questions and lines of thought that he had preferred to leave alone. He voiced these inner conflicts only to Saladin and Glint. Saladin noticed that he was avoiding the fiction writing he used to enjoy, and curses Mara Sov for turning him away from one of his greatest enjoyments. As he does this, he sneaks several of Crow's favorite works onto his jumpship without Glint noticing.
Titans can be sneaky, too.
Crow continues to help hunt for the Techeuns regardless, and though his 'sister' wears on him, he admits that he does want to know her, at least a little. Saladin warns him about her tendency for mystery and manipulation; Savathûn is not the only Queen of deceit to watch out for. Lord Crow gives a strained smile, says that he knows, that his instincts ring sometimes when she speaks.
But, perhaps, he can pry some true things out about her, get to know some version of her. He knows that few Guardians can even say they have even distant descendants among the living, let alone direct family members. He isn't sure if he can think of Mara as family, but he thinks it would be selfish for him to dismiss her completely, when so few are given such a chance to connect with a living close relative.
Lord Saladin reminds him to keep in contact, to maintain caution around Savathûn(and Queen Mara), and wishes him well. He watches Lord Crow's ship take off, and after about a minute, realizes he's zoned out.
He shakes his head, refusing the thought that he might actually be old, and decides to take a stroll through Twilight Gap.