{"id":730,"date":"2014-06-20T12:18:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T16:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/?p=730"},"modified":"2014-06-23T08:42:15","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T12:42:15","slug":"no-longer-afraid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/2014\/06\/20\/no-longer-afraid\/","title":{"rendered":"No Longer Afraid"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Note: While this story is largely self contained, some additional background on the characters and motivations contained within can be found here<\/a> and here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Jenn Shu was lost and loving it\u2026<\/p>\n

Here she was, once again, dancing in the dark, somewhere amongst a mass of swaying, gyrating bodies. She was adrift in a crowd of hundreds, beneath a vast array of hypnotic, ever changing lights and powerful, pulse pounding rhythms. This is what she did all night, every night\u2026 or at least every night she wasn\u2019t on a mission outside The City. That her actions were bordering on self destruction had<\/em> occurred to her. That they were starting to affect her life, her work, and her team had occurred to her as well, but none of it mattered as long as she didn\u2019t have to remember the past and didn\u2019t have to be alone. Not even that it was Christmas Eve mattered. This is where she belonged tonight, where she belonged every night.<\/p>\n

Here, the grind of tightly packed bodies kept her fears immobilized, the strobing lights kept her fears disoriented, the heavy beats kept them distracted, and the darkness kept them anonymously hidden. Besides, she justified to herself again and again, what other options were there? To go crawling back to therapy and be tied down by doctors and well wishers once more? Absolutely not! To someone like her who had lived her whole life free, being stuck in a comfortable room, always watched, always medicated, always guarded\u2026 It was almost as bad as the memories and nightmares\u2026 Or maybe it was worse? And what other options were there?<\/p>\n

Should she go out on the wall with Philip, as he stood guard, vainly wishing for a snowfall that would never come? Or should she resign herself to being stuck in some archival library with Nairb as he pieced his way through the history and technology of the past in an equally futile effort to gain the respect of his fellow Warlocks, or even less likely, the renewed respect of his father? No, that wouldn\u2019t do either\u2026<\/p>\n

But neither then would being alone\u2026 not anymore\u2026<\/p>\n

Alone, she would have to admit that her spirit had been broken, that she no longer found joy in venturing ahead into the unknown as she had since she was just a child. That she was, for the first time in her life, afraid<\/em>. Everyone here was really afraid anyway though\u2026 right? She was just one among many, wasn\u2019t she? Even if she wasn\u2019t, here, at least, there was enough free flowing alcohol to keep her fears submerged so deep that they would never be able to surface.<\/p>\n

Or so she had thought.<\/p>\n

At first, Jenn was sure that she was mistaken. People pushed their way through the crowd dozens of times each night. That the large man pushing towards her looked remarkably like Philip didn\u2019t even occur to her until after he had none too gently gripped her by the elbow and began pulling her back through the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you\u2026 let go of me! What are you even doing here?!\u201d Jenn protested angrily as she ripped herself free of her team member\u2019s grip once they\u2019d made it outside. She wanted to shove him away, or maybe even take a swing at him. Instead, she had to make do with staggering sideways into the nearby wall. Jenn put one hand over her face, her fingers unconsciously aligning themselves along the gruesome scar that ran from above her left eye, through her partially severed nose, to the line of her right jaw. It was a bad habit she was sure she would never be able to shake\u2026 Sighing, she tried again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy\u2026 why are you here, Philip?\u201d she asked slowly, carefully controlling her voice to make sure the words came out unslurred. She\u2019d never told Philip or Nairb about coming here\u2026 never wanted to be seen like this\u2026 by them\u2026 She grimaced as she asked the question. Both at the guilt and embarrassment of being caught, and because of the painful throbbing inside her head. How could being away<\/em> from the blaring music inside make her head hurt worse?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a mission. I was sent to find you,\u201d the plain-clothed Titan responded matter-of-factly. \u201cYou good?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNext time just page me,\u201d Jenn groaned, ignoring his question. Instead, she pulled her light jacket tighter around herself then glanced guiltily towards the phone on her hip as she realized that she had switched it off hours before\u2026 in direct violation of regulations. It had seemed clever at the time. Who would bother contacting her on Christmas Eve? Now? Not so much\u2026 Philip gave her a knowing look then turned and headed towards the City\u2019s nearest transit hub. Unable to come up with a valid<\/em> reason to stay behind, seeing as the truth was not an option, Jenn followed.<\/p>\n

Two hours later, Jenn found herself armored up, standing on the cold, dark, moonlit beach of a small forgotten island some three thousand kilometers southwest of The City. Her drunkenness and headache were gone thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, but she would have gladly taken them back in exchange for returning to the safety of the party. Reluctantly, she watched as the dropship that had deposited her and her fire team there arced out over the ocean, heading north towards where the Traveler was hiding below the horizon. It only took a few seconds for the aircraft to disappear, its faint engine glows blending in with the bright, starry sky.<\/p>\n

Nairb\u2019s in flight briefing had been, as always, short, to the point, and highly factual. An unusually large amount of Glimmer had been detected on this small, unassuming island three hours earlier. A group of Fallen ships had been recorded near the area as well, but The City\u2019s patchy, unreliable detection grid had been unable to determine if the aliens had uncovered a lost relic, had dropped off some large piece of equipment, another drill perhaps, or if they had simply crashed landed throwing up an easily detected plume of the substance that passed for currency among those who lived beneath The Traveler.<\/p>\n

\u201cJenn, are you ready?\u201d Nairb calmly asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, just double checking something,\u201d she lied. Fiddling with her rifle helped sell it. \u201cI thought it was Philip\u2019s job to worry too much,\u201d she added teasingly, feigning confidence that she didn\u2019t actually feel.<\/p>\n

In the past she would have immediately ventured into the thick tree line, seeking out the Glimmer\u2019s coordinates, trusting her instincts and natural talent to keep her safe. Now, she hesitated.<\/p>\n

\u201cJenn?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOk, I\u2019m good,\u201d she lied once more as she pulled herself away from the stars and forced herself to move. Hiding the truth from those who trusted her, who\u2019s lives depended on her, was hard, but letting her fears be known, spending the rest of her days in the careful, considerate, confining care of others was harder still. So she moved.<\/p>\n

Jenn assumed her position at point and lead her team into the densely packed trees. Soon, her uncertainty gave way to real confidence, as she remembered how good it felt to push ahead of the others.<\/p>\n

She was damaged, yes, maybe even irrevocably broken, but she was still one of the best at what she did. It only took watching Philip trying to move silently through the trees and undergrowth in his bulky armor to remind her of that. Nairb was doing a little better in his Warlock robes, Jenn admitted, but even he might as well have been shooting up signal flares compared to the way she was able to slip silently through the jungle.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep it quieter<\/em> you two,\u201d she complained. More false bravado, but it made her feel a little better.<\/p>\n

True, she didn\u2019t strike out as far ahead as she might have in the past, but she had managed to separate herself from her fire team by a good margin by the time they completed their ten kilometer hike through the forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cHold position,\u201d Jenn called out over her encrypted radio before she dropped prone. She readied her sniper rifle, crawled forward, and pointed it in the direction of the disturbance ahead. Two kilometers down hill, in a newly created clearing blasted from among the trees, sat not a piece of mobile artillery or the beginnings of a new forward base, but the remains of a crashed Fallen dropship. The orange dancing light of an ever expanding circle of burning trees made infrared imaging of the crash site almost useless. It did, however, provide Jenn with near perfect illumination for a visual scan with her high powered scope. She patched the feed to the rest of her fire team as she provided commentary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t spot anything that would have caused a Glimmer plume other than the crash itself,\u201d she reported. \u201cI see one badly damaged dropship in the middle of the clearing. It looks unserviceable. Behind it, by about twenty meters, in that dark section of tree line I\u2019m fairly certain is a Spider Tank, fully functional. You can make out its legs and main gun\u2026 Surrounding the dropship I count\u2026 ten, eleven on that side, twelve on the other\u2026 upwards of twenty lower classed Fallen soldiers and one\u2026 one Captain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenn\u2019s targeting sight settled between the Captain\u2019s four eyes almost of its own accord. Hatred, and not a small twinge of fear sprung up inside her as she looked upon the magnified alien. That image conjured up another like it, that of a Fallen Captain and his electrified sword as it arced up towards her helmet and face more than a year ago. Her finger moved inside her rifle\u2019s trigger guard and began a slow stead pull. She would have her measure of revenge, consequences of drawing return tank fire be damned. Hell, the consequences might even be welcomed\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAgreed,\u201d Nairb said, an instant too soon, unknowingly interrupting her firing motion. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing here worth securing tonight, and the site is too hot for just us. Come on back, we\u2019re going home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tears welled up in Jenn\u2019s eyes, clouding her vision as she fought both for and against the urge to unleash retribution upon the distant figure centered in her crosshairs. Ultimately it was the tremors of rage and fear shaking her body\u2026 throwing off her aim\u2026 that forced her to hold her fire. With a crushing sense of regret Jenn inched backwards, breaking her line of sight with the clearing then stood and quickly withdrew.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026I wish I had been there in the early days, back when The City needed to salvage every crash site and weapon they could get their hands on,\u201d Philip was saying as Jenn rejoined her fellow Guardians. \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t have passed up a find like this back then. I think we could have taken them. You\u2019re with me, right Jenn?\u201d Philip asked. She remained uncharacteristically silent, not trusting herself to keep the churn of negative emotions out of her own voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not passing it up,\u201d Nairb reminded the blue clad Titan. \u201cWe did our job and determined the nature of the Glimmer signature. I\u2019ve marked the site for Vanguard followup. If it is still there in the morning we will reap what resources we can from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u2026 maybe,\u201d Philip replied.<\/p>\n

Jenn cringed as he looked over to her, his gaze not leaving her. He knew her too well, knew that her silence meant something was wrong. She could just imagine the look of concern<\/em> on his face, beneath his armored helmet.<\/p>\n

Concern was something to be avoided\u2026 It lead to pity, which lead straight to being grounded within The City\u2019s walls\u2026 for her own protection. Something she very much did not want.<\/p>\n

\u201cJenn?\u201d he began.<\/p>\n

This was it, the question she knew would eventually come. The one she was no longer able to avoid. The one that would see her locked away with all the others who were traumatized\u2026 broken.<\/p>\n

\u201cWha\u2026 would you look at that!\u201d he said instead.<\/p>\n

Jenn opened her eyes, thank god for emotion concealing helmets<\/em>, and couldn\u2019t help but smile as she saw what had distracted the Titan, and given her a few more days\u2026 or weeks\u2026 or months of freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cSnow!\u201d Philip exclaimed. \u201cReal, honest to God snow!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLooks like you got your wish, too,\u201d Jenn said as the levity of the moment helped pause her emotional slide. \u201cLook at the time. We just passed midnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaha! Christmas?! It\u2019s a white Christmas!\u201d Philip said a moment later.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly here, it is still much too warm at The City,\u201d Nairb said, always the stoic party pooper. But even he, Jenn noticed, unlatched one of his sealed, interconnected gloves and reached a hand up into the increasingly dense swirl of falling white.<\/p>\n

Jenn played along. She touched the flakes with ungloved hands like the others, and even laughed and playfully cursed when Philip lifted her up and spun her in exuberant circles. On the ride home, helmet off, she managed to keep herself and her team distracted with talk of the snow, and what might have caused the Fallen ship to crash, and by belatedly agreeing with Philip that yes, they could have taken them.<\/p>\n

She said anything and everything she had to to make it back to the party with the others unaware.<\/p>\n

Back in her comfort zone she danced and swayed and drank longer and harder than ever before. Except something wasn\u2019t right, it wasn\u2019t the same. This time it wasn\u2019t working. This time the press of bodies and blare of music couldn\u2019t drown out that almost asked question, or that flash of terror, or the shot she had very nearly taken. She could have gotten her entire team killed! But it didn\u2019t matter now, she kept telling herself. It was, like everything else, in the past. She could just keep dancing, even as tears streamed down her face, altering course as they tried to cross her long, deep scar. She could just keep dancing and no one would notice. She was safe as long as no one noticed\u2026<\/p>\n

But then, somebody did notice.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey! Are you all right?!\u201d some random guy asked, shouting above the music, trying to be helpful. His question was anything but.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo\u2026 no I\u2019m not\u2026\u201d Jenn answered truthfully. It may have been the first honest answer she\u2019d given in months. She didn\u2019t give the stranger time for a follow-up. She was already pushing her way towards the door before he even thought to ask.<\/p>\n

Security Report: 82129<\/strong>
\n 25\/12\/2509, 19:22:44<\/strong>
\n Sector 10, Block 6 (\u201cBaudway\u201d)<\/strong>
\n Incident: Single gunshot reported at or near civilian housing #1504.\u00a0<\/strong>Housing owner not responsive to inquiry. Emergency entrance authorized. Owner found DRT. No foul play suspected.<\/strong>
\nSubject name: Jennifer Shu<\/strong>
\n Age: 22<\/strong>
\n Occupation: Guardian<\/strong>
\n Case Closed, Pending FOTC Investigation.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Note: While this story is largely self contained, some additional background on the characters and motivations contained within can be found here and here.) Jenn Shu was lost and loving it\u2026 Here she was, once again, dancing in the dark, somewhere amongst a mass of swaying, gyrating bodies. She was adrift in a crowd of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,53,97,98],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/destiny.bungie.org\/fanfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}