revivalproject | Volcano Things

WHO: Keith, OPEN
WHERE: The Warrens
WHAT: Keith wanders around, checking out things underground, feeling a little useless and redundant, but he's making a map. Find him wandering, find him taking notes, find him drawing, finding him trying to burn off the excess energy he had from being bored.
WHEN: During the shelter-in-caves part of the volcano stuff
WARNINGS: Nothing, yet; Will edit if needed

So, it seemed that this was definitely something that the current data point for Keith was no good for. One would think otherwise, of course, because he could have loaded everyone up on a ship and gotten them off the planet. How is being stuck in a cave safer than that? He wasn't sure. But, here they were... stuck in a cave network, and Keith was feeling... well, useless.

But there was definitely something he was good at that didn't need a data point, and that was navigating things. He had a very good visual memory, and finding his way through a cave network wasn't hard for him. It wasn't hard for him to remember where things were or where he'd already been, either, and he was going to use that to his advantage, at least, in figuring this place out. So, he spent most of his time down in this 'warren' exploring and looking around, mapping it all out in his head, and maybe even sketching things down when he had the chance and supplies to do so.

Excellent visual memory combined with decent drawing skills was useful to have.

He also could be found trying to work out from time to time. Jogging through the tunnels, using any wider spaces to practice his fight skills, it was a way to keep busy and active. Keith didn't do well sitting still for too long if he wasn't doing something while he was taking that down time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cayde's metal features pulled into a scowl.

".... Well that is pretty messed up. Mind, the whole concept of dying and coming back is something I'm used to, do it all the time back home, but these guys were just playing with you." Which probably wasn't a surprise at all, all things considered, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth. You couldn't even die to escape being stuck in that situation.

"And it's not like everyone is the type that can just die and come back," Keith said. He could accept that there were races who could do that. He'd met enough different types of beings by now to be okay with that idea. "For those who can't, it's... not a pleasant experience... or easy to deal with."

"No, no. And that's a good thing, really." Cayde shook his head then, forcing a laugh. "You make it sound like it's fun. Dying's never fun. It makes us a little more reckless when it's not permanent, but actually going through it? I know there's more than a few of 'em I could've done without the experience. And when you're new to the whole thing, it's probably damn frightening."

"Yeah, I..." He couldn't hold back the slight shudder. "I wouldn't want to find out."

"Wouldn't wish that on anyone," the Hunter agreed, nodding. He only vaguely remembered Awakening for the first time. Certainly he told the tale now with a lot more humor, and looking back at it, it was kind of funny, but he knew it had been terrifying. Maybe that was more for the lack of understanding, but he couldn't imagine it being entirely different for someone being brought back by the Atroma's means.

"You mentioned... that it's happened to you before?" Keith looked a little concerned. "Is that normal for your race?"

"Well, I wouldn't say normal," Cayde clarified. "Definitely not a race thing. It's... complicated." He drummed his fingers against his arm.

"I'm a Guardian. That's a title as much as it is an occupation. I don't know what the qualifications are save one- we all started off dead. Exos, Awoken... Humans. We got brought back by the Light, little to no memory of whoever we used to be, but called to be something else. There's big bads out there, and not everyone can fight them. So we do. We face off against the things that want to beat us down and snuff out humanity. Sometimes we die doing it. But then we just get right back up and continue."

Keith frowned.

"So, you have no idea who you were before?" That must be frustrating. Also, to just keep getting... revived... like a tool with a dead battery getting recharged... Keith felt that was diminishing them as people.

"And this... this 'light'. That's what does it?"

Cayde folded his arms behind his head as he leaned back again, bouncing a foot over his knee.

"I have ...snippets. Pieces of a puzzle that probably won't ever get completed, but that's mostly on the account that my memory's been more or less shot even before I came back as a Guardian. They didn't exactly encourage Exos to remember who they were before they were Exos," he said, snorting lightly.

"Pretty much. The Light of the Traveler. Still not entirely sure who or what the Traveler is, 'cept that it's a big giant eyeball in the sky that's been hanging around forever. Basically looks like a small moon hovering out there, just within Earth's atmosphere. But I guess it saved humanity once, and when it couldn't do anymore, it gave us the Ghosts, and they scoured what was left of Earth, some still do- in search of their Guardian."

That was an odd mental image to have, and Keith looked a little perplexed for a moment, but then nodded.

"Do you ever wonder what you're missing?"

The pause was longer than he meant it to be, but his answer was ultimately unchanged.

"All the time," the Exo replied with a chuckle. "How can you not, right?" He sighed, the upper half of his face going dark as he shuttered his optics. Still, as he opened his mouth, amber light continued to spill forth from his throat with each word.

"But is it really missing if you're starting off fresh?" Yes. "I've been other numbers before I became Six, and I don't know if they've ever felt that they were the best of them, but me? I'm good where I'm at. Maybe bits of past me's have clung despite the reboots, and maybe some of that even belonged to me when I was still flesh and blood."

Blue flared open again, outlining the edges of his brow plates and the rims of his optical sockets, chasing away the shadows from horn and hood.

"But I know I'm Cayde-Six, and that's all that matters."

"Hm." Keith considered that for a moment and then nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess that is all that matters. That we know who we are."

He'd gone through something like that already, too. He didn't know anything about his mother, or where he'd gotten his Marmora Blade before. Didn't even know what the blade was. His dad had died before he'd been able to tell him anything more than his mother had left when he was an infant.

But he'd discovered that it really didn't matter. What mattered was that he knew who he was. And, yeah, that sometimes faltered still from time to time, but he always came back to the same thing. He was Keith. He was a Paladin. He was a Blade of Marmora. He was the Red Paladin, but he was also the Black Paladin. He was human. He was Galra. But he was still Keith. He'd always be Keith.

"I know what you mean."

It was a nice speech, or at least he thought it was. Say something enough and you just might convince yourself. And it wasn't that it was an outright lie, it just wasn't completely true.

Because for all that Cayde was proud to be who he was, he knew there were still those moments when he'd feel lost, find himself at the edge of that hole that always threatened to never be filled. He'd found a plug for it, an unhealthy one, he'd admit, but it helped him, even if they were ultimately lies.

He smiled the smile that came all too easily, so practiced along with the rest of his casual carefree air that even he wasn't sure when he was pretending and when he was being sincere.

"Don't you forget that," he said, chuckling a bit. "Even though this situation seems the worst, maybe you can remember even worse times. But you got through them. So being in here? This is nothing. We got this."

Keith took a deep breath and then nodded a little, actually managing a weak smile.

"Yeah... yeah, we do." Keith seemed a little more relaxed at that. Not that he was likely to ever be completely relaxed stuck in a place like this, but he was closer than he was before.

He got up.

"Thanks... and uh... sorry for disturbing your nap."

Cayde grinned, giving Keith a nod. He couldn't solve a volcano problem or a bad onset of cabin fever but he could do this much.

"Eh, don't worry about it." He had plenty of time to try catching up on that.

Keith nodded a bit in slight amusement and then turned to keep going with his mapping work.

Volcano Things

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