For every tyrant a tear for the vulnerable
In every lost soul the bones of a miracle
For every dreamer a dream we're unstoppable
With something to believe in

Waiting for Love – Avicii

June 05, 2950, 21:42; The Last City, Earth

It was a party. Azra hated parties. It was crowded. Azra hated crowds. Even worse, it was her party, which meant Azra Jax was, unfortunately, at the center of attention.

But the Vault of Glass had been shattered. Never again would the Vex wield such power over ontology. Even better, they had broken the higher-dimensionality of the Vault, brought it back into the pull of cause-and-effect. It no longer stood out of time, so in some way, it never had in the first place.

Azra could live with that. Even if it meant being stuck wandering rooms stuffed with people still riding the buzz of victory (and alcohol). Nearly everyone, it seemed, wanted to pull her into conversation, or take a picture, or admire her gun. Her fireteam was similarly swamped, but at least they seemed to be enjoying it.

Azra was proud of herself. She lasted an entire hour before fleeing like a rabbit before a pack of coyotes. Frankly, she wouldn't have come in the first place (even though Veera and Tapio had begged), but Commander Zavala had made it clear he would be very 'disappointed' if she was not seen at the party.

She understood, in theory. Being ditched by your heroes didn't do well for morale.

Speaking of theory, the balcony to a locked room three levels above the reserved floor still counted as being 'at the party', right?

Azra's thoughts were interrupted by the slightly-exaggerated sound of someone climbing. Even without her Lightsense, she would have recognized the voice that made those grunts anywhere. She reached out a hand and helped haul Cayde-6 over the railing.

"Thanks," he groaned, straightening his cape.

"You're getting rusty," Azra commented dryly. It wasn't all that true, but she'd take the excuse to give Cayde a little ribbing.

"It's not polite to sneak up on people, you know," Sundance reminded the Arcstrider. "We thought it would be courteous to give you a little warning."

She spread her arms. "Consider everyone from here to Twilight Gap officially warned."

"After what happened with Shin Malphur, I'm not taking any chances," he shot back.

Azra grinned and accepted defeat. "I'd say I'm sorry for ditching the party, but, uh… I'm really not."

Cayde let out a pssh and shook his head. "You kidding? I actually won a bet with Ikora about how long it'd take you to sneak off. She thought you'd last two whole hours."

"Ikora Rey never struck me as the kind to take bets," Azra commented.

"A lot's changed," was all Cayde said. He shifted his weight, more on the left foot than the right, fingers closing loosely over the railing, throat lights glowing dimly even though he was silent. He had something on his mind. Azra hadn't missed the sheaf of papers tucked into his belt.

"This about the bet?" Azra asked.

Cayde's optics flicked up to meet hers. That would be a yes. "You looked it over yet?"

The Arcstrider shook her head. "Haven't had a chance. It's been chaos." Between all the debriefings, she'd barely found time to sleep.

"You never take debts serious enough," Cayde chastised. He winkled the papers free from their prison and handed them over.

Azra scanned the index and thumbed to the relevant page. She read the entry once, smiled, double-checked-

She laughed. Actually laughed, loud and unrestrained. She leaned over the railing, and if Cayde hadn't seen her in action, he'd have been worried she'd go over the edge.

Wait, he had seen her in action. He should be doubly worried. She managed to keep her feet on the ground, this time at least.

"I- I can't believe," she gasped, "after all that-" she wiped a tear from her eye as the mirth let her go. "We spent hours on this, man. Hours! And it was one of the original terms! We shouldn't have bothered."

He shrugged. "Well, the universe seems to like playing tricks on me. In any case." He pulled a mirror-polished knife from a sheath on his belt.

She was suddenly serious. "You don't have to, you know. I might not-"

Bullshit. He interrupted. "Part of keeping your word is collecting the payment, Jax." And he watched her, carefully. She frowned thoughtfully at the knife in his hand. Being Second was a big step, and a lot of responsibility. Cayde knew too well how big a burden it could be. Was her reservation true reluctance, or was it a lack of self-worth?

Whatever it was, Azra shook it off. The tension lines between her eyebrows faded and her expression smoothed out. "Someone's gotta look after those two, I guess," she murmured. She straightened her shoulders and looked Cayde in the eye. Cayde could get used to that spark of age-tempered determination in her Light. It made her feel a little bit more like Andal. "We doing this here, then?" she asked.

He shrugged. "We can't go to the Cave. This is what we've got."

Azra was rueful. "Not a bad view, I guess," she commented. The lights of the City were on, but this balcony looked over the outside of the Wall. The Traveler lit what the waning moon could not: forest and rock stretched out beneath them, bathed in the slowly-shifting light, while in the distance the shapes of mountains were only visible where they blocked the stars. It was a clear night.

He made the knife dance for a few seconds, flowing between his fingers as smooth and shiny as quicksilver. Then he straightened. "Well, Azra Jax, I haven't lost a bet on you yet."

Cayde struck a gash across his palm without hesitation. Sparks flew and winked out in the cold night air. The blow left behind a shiny-new scratch in his cyan plating. Wordlessly, he held the knife out to his companion.

Azra gripped it by the blade. If it was painful, her face didn't show. She held it a moment, fingers locked, before her hand opened. She held the knife between her outstretched fingers and peered at the blood welling from her new cut.

"Ow," she said dryly. Cayde had to suppress a giggle. The Arcstrider flipped the blade back to him. Sundance snatched it from mid-air.

"Well, whaddya say?" the Exo asked, holding out his freshly-scarred palm.

Her reluctance had evaporated like a puddle in Old New Dubai. She gripped his hand, firm and steady. "You got yourself a deal, Cayde."

The two stayed there for a moment, hands clasped. The weight of the occasion settled heavy on both of them. Azra's fingers loosened first, just a bit, and then their handshake was done. They both turned back to the railing and the view.

It was just a fraction of a second before they were interrupted by a gruff voice. "Suppose this means our deal is off."

Azra went startle-tense and whirled to face the newcomer. Cayde reached out a hand, to reassure her or stop her, but it wasn't needed. Her surprised gasp turned into a long sigh. She leaned back against the railing and crossed her arms. "Manners, Tevis," she growled.

He'd been startled by her startle. The Nightstalker's eyebrows were too high to pull off a nonplussed look, but he tried anyway. By the tilt in Azra's smile, she wasn't buying it.

"So he bet you for second, too?" the Arcstrider said conversationally. Her Ghost pulled a roll of gauze from somewhere and she began winding it methodically around her palm. The two other Hunters watched, Cayde in fascination, Tevis with a bit of sorrow.

"I bet both of them," Cayde finally answered. "But, uh, you beat everyone to the punch."

"I figured that's what you'd done, after seeing it in that monstrosity you called a bet," Tevis said.

"What better way to decide it, then who's the most gung-ho?"

They were interrupted once again as some clangs and grunts echoed below them. Azra moved to make space and Cayde helped pull Shiro over the railing.

As soon as he was steady, Azra threw her arms around the Bladedancer. "I thought you were busy with some Cosmodrome crisis!" she exclaimed.

"Are you kidding? A party, for you, that you can't worm your way out of? I wouldn't miss this for the world!" He pulled back, glee in his Light. "Look at you, all squirreled away up here. Bet you were absolutely miserable down there with the adoring public. People probably offing their treasured guns for stories from you. What a horrible position to be in."

"I didn't get a hug," Tevis groused.

"You didn't get stabbed," Azra said. "All thing considered, that's a warm a welcome as you could get."

Tevis took his barb with cool acceptance. "Speaking of, I heard Zavala mention that if you don't turn up in fifteen minutes, he's going to send out search parties."

"Oh, Big Blue would never do something like that," Cayde dismissed.

Tevis shrugged. "I don't know. Some people are getting worried."

Azra was obviously not happy with that prospect. Shiro took one look at her glower and started sniggering. Azra punched his shoulder in retribution, not remembering her injured hand. She immediately bent over the appendage, swearing up a storm. Shiro howled with laughter. Cayde couldn't help but join in. Azra let up after a moment, all the tension going out of her body as she slouched against the railing. She was beaming now, lights in her eyes.

Tevis was thoughtful. "You look well," he commented.

Azra's grin faded into a more subdued smile. But she nodded. "All things considered, I think."

"But?" Tevis asked.

Azra nodded.

"Would you two quit that?" Cayde swatted the back of Azra's head lightly. "Be confusing on your own time."

"Sorry," they muttered in unison, both shamefaced. The liars.

"Anyway," he announced, "I hear there's a dance contest in the works, and it's been half a century since anyone's seen Azra breakdance, so I'm going to go make some bets."

Azra rolled her eyes. "I'm not that good, Cayde."

"Ah, but everyone'll be underestimating you. Prime time to make a few thousand glimmer." He hopped up on the railing and bowed with a flourish. "I'll see you all at the bottom!"

The three Hunters watched a little incredulously as Cayde did a backflip off the balcony. His crowing shout grew dimmer and dimmer, until it cut off with a thud and a muffled swear some stories below them.

"Idiot," Tevis muttered fondly. He turned and opened the apparently-unlocked balcony door. "You coming?"

Shiro nodded and pushed himself upright.

Azra hesitated. "I'll be down in just a minute."

Shiro gave her a look. When she didn't waver, he shrugged to himself and followed Tevis through the door.

Then she was alone. The night air was cold, but refreshing, like sipping cool water on an empty stomach. Diesel and cooking-spice tainted water, but still. She could stand it a while longer.

The reverberating bass of party music made its way up through the bones of the Tower. Azra could feel the faintest vibrations of it through her bare fingertips on the railing. Spark appeared over her shoulder when her curiosity was piqued. A quick search through the database pulled up a song title neither of them recognized. It had been written twenty years ago.

They looked out over the mountains together and for once, thought of the future without fear.

"Tomorrow we'll go find a campsite," Spark said.

"Tomorrow I'll go get a hunting rifle and we'll have venison for dinner," Azra replied.

"Tomorrow we'll get ourselves placed back on the patrol schedule."

"Tomorrow we'll go work on mapping the northeast hemisphere of Ganymede."

"Then tomorrow we're going to have to buy some better cold-weather gear."

"Tomorrow we're going to leave a stash for Praedyth in the Waking Ruins, for whenever he gets out."

"Tomorrow Shiro might need some help in the Cosmodrome."

"Then tomorrow we might get to bash some Fallen heads in."

There was comfortable silence for a moment. The loud voices and party music and engines seemed to fade a bit, leaving them with a few heartbeats of calm and stillness. The stars winked overhead, their shapes unchanged by the decades.

"Tomorrow sounds like a really busy day," Spark ventured.

"Eh," Azra said, "there'll be plenty of tomorrows. We have a whole universe of time now."

And how great that felt to say. There was yesterday and now and tomorrow, and there always would be. The feeling was like stretching after waking up, like being caught up in City business for too long and being able to just leave it behind, stand under the shade of trees or under the enormous sky and let all of the stress and tension fall away. There was a spark of energy in her soul again. A weight off her shoulders. She felt like she could run for miles.

"So, where to next?" Spark asked.

"Back to the party, I suppose," Azra answered. She swung herself neatly up on the railing, staring out at the hundreds-foot drop beneath her.

"What about the stairs?" Her Ghost asked.

"Stairs are for dummies." She narrowed her eyes against the updraft, judging the distance to the correct balcony. "You with me?"

"Of course."

So she jumped.

Author's Note:

So! Here we are at the end. But it's not really the end. There is more of this story (which I have been procrastinating on this to focus on, embarrassingly). This is a good point to stop while I sort out the rest of the bits.
In the meantime, I have a lot of stuff written that doesn't fit into the chronological narrative. Stories from the Dark Ages, scenes that don't fit anywhere else, complete chapters that I decided didn't have a place in the main storyline. I'll be posting them over in the companion fic, The Nights That Never Die, when they are complete/the mood strikes.

Happy Hunting, Guardians, and Be Brave!