The room was perfectly silent, only the undulating vibration of the Shadow Past's engines filling the air. This signular distraction from the silence was however not a bad thing or so the Shipmaster thought, it let him know that he was still living.
"How long are you going to stand there Torin?" he said quietly, Mandibles barely moving under his helmet. The Elite Zealot standing in the doorway stepped forward and bowed his head respectfully before speaking.
"Until you are ready to hear me Shipmaster, I learned long ago not to disturb a sleeping Sangheili." for a long moment the silence continued, but then it was shattered as they both burst into laughter.
"You speak wisdom beyond your years Torin," the Shipmaster chuckled, stepping from his chair to stand alongside his longtime friend.
"But I'm sure you didn't just come to say hello to your Commander." Torin stopped laughing immediately and stood a bit straighter.
"True, i've come to report, we've picked up an Escape pod, human, it is currently in the Hangar." The Shipmaster waved the words away and began walking, stepping from the control room.
"Bah, reporting is a Minor's work and you know it." Torin shrugged.
"Be that as it may." moments later and a jump through a gravity lift found the two standing in an ocean of Grunts and Newly trained Minors all waiting to crack open the Escape pod and see their first living human. Two Minors were already pulling on the hatch, the hydrolics protesting loudly as they began to bend under the stress.
"Since you're allready here Torin would you like to put on a show for our younger generation?" Torin Nodded and drew the Energy sword holstered at his thigh.
"With pleasure." as the sea of bodies seperated to let Torin pass the Minors working the door grunted, putting their backs into it with a renewed vigor until, with a loud crash, the hydrolics buckled and the hatch hit the floor revealing a dark interior. A shiver of apprehension ran down Torin's Spine and a feeling of dread settled in the pit of his stomach.
"What in all the hells is drawing this feeling over me...humans are hardly something I need fear..." and with that and a flick of his wrist, he activated his sword and stepped inside. At first he couldn't quite tell what he was looking at, dark spatters covering the walls and seats, but then the coppery scent of human blood hit the back of his throat. Torin blinked once at the strong smell before looking down at seemingly the only occupant of the pod, a small human, a child, lying face down on the floor. Unsure of what to do, Torin squatted down to examine the four deep slashes in the boy's back. the blood was tacky and coagulated, three days to a week old at the most, but as the big Elite peeled the human's shirt away to take a closer look at the wounds, something else caught his eye...a pattern on his right shoulder...a familiar pattern.
"...By the Gods..." he whispered before deactivating his sword and scooping the boy up. The Shipmaster along with the entire procession of other Covenant was shocked as Torin bolted from the Pod, stopping once next to his commander to whisper something before the both of them were gone, down the hall toward the center of the ship.
"Torin! What's going on!?" the Shipmaster called.
"The boy has been marked!" was the Zealot's only response as he put on more speed, rounding a corner and entering the Med-bay.
"Gerard! Where are you!?" he yelled, an Elderly Elite popped up from behind a table at the far end of the room and both the younger Elites raced to him, Torin lying the boy face-down on the table and tearing his shirt down the back to reveal what he had seen.
"...He's been marked..." Gerard whispered quietly after a moment.
"Yes, and if we are to learn of where and why, he must survive." Torin replied, upon hearing that, Gerard nodded and knelt back down to retrieve some things, one of which was a liquid he used to wash the blood away from both the wounds and the marks.
"This was not made by us." Gerard whispered as he cleaned the jagged slashes.
"The marks or the wounds?" The Shipmaster asked.
"Either of them." the old Sangheili answered before waving Torin and the Shipmaster away.
"I'm sure the Prophets will want to hear about this, go on, i'll call when i'm done." as the Ship's commander and the Zealot left the room, Gerard removed the rest of the boy's shirt and a pair of glasses from his face, setting both off to the side so he could work.
"What is your story i wonder..." he said quietly, inspecting the three Forerunner glyphs tattooed in different colors on his right shoulder.
"And what does it mean for us?"
James! (dragon form) by ~drgnfrnd
Sta.sh
