Warframe - [The Hunters and the Prime(s)] - His final goodbye

PART OF THE SERIES: The Hunter and the Prime(s)

 

He’s left alone, so awfully alone as his hands grip at cold stiffen skin. Just what is he to do; with only his partner’s severed head, a body wracked with infected matter.

Characters |  Stalker (HC VARIANT) and Unnamed Excalibur Prime
Contents | Non-canon biology, Intimate partners, body horror, mental instability, psychological trauma, funeral pyre, canon relevance
Length | 9,791w

 

He can’t recall how long he’s laid there beside the push cart.

Hands roam over the firm object against his stomach, icy cold against his cool skin, sticking against his body as he keeps his visual receptors closed. In instinct, his mind is searching for a signal as a thumb feels over a closed jowl, over a smooth mouth made of rounded teeth. The mouth is firm against his palm, emotions running numb as he desperately tries to deny the reality in disassociation. An ache coils inside his chest as he affixes himself on the fantasy of just another morning – they just fell asleep, they’re fine.

But as he pulls the small weight close, a hand searching for a spine to move down, the ache scratches in his throat and chest – an emotional drag of jagged glass over stressed nerves.

Words run hushed as he tries to work himself into a state of placid nerves, lying to himself as though it’d work this time; this time out of a hundredth other attempts to calm himself down. Dark hands cup against the back of the severed head held against his chest; an attempt to force himself into a lie. Something to take away the pain burrowing into his crumpled emotions. And at his sides cerise vents quake as he tries to work trembling breath calm, voice catching in his throat as denials run rampant.

He can fix him. It shouldn’t be that hard; right?

Remove the infestation from the prime’s body, and just put his head back on.

That’s how it works, right?

Carve mutilated flesh from mutated bones.

That will be enough to kill it. Right?

Clean the blistered skin, mend bloody tears back together.

He can fix this. Right?

Right?

Emotions tumble again has he gives into his blunt hopeless thoughts that he can make this better, that he can make this right again. Even though his head is wrapped tight and sticking to his arms, his body torn apart and made of ruin. He watched it take over – tearing flesh and skin made jagged and cruel. The hunter has seen it a hundred times – all the victims someone else. No way to help them; the prime always holding him back from intervening; or he just…

Stood and watched.

They could’ve just gone back to their ship.

Didn’t he know they could’ve gone back to their ship?

As his thoughts brutalize his self-esteem, berating him, he tries to pull himself together again; he kicks against the floor, crawling back up to sit as thoughts drive through a storm. He was too slow to save him, that he could’ve seen them coming, that he pushed them to explore first before taking out the lingering infested. They knew the infested was there.

But did he really give a damn?

Was he that too fucking cocky?

Dark hands cradle the head as he forces himself up onto his knees, staring down at it with bitter resentment of the things he didn’t do. The result of his gnawing failures tickle in the back of his made numb mind. He shoves the strain into the emotional nothingness as he shuts himself down; running his thumb over the barely agape mouth made of a final breath. Despite the splattered blood, the sticking read made of his roving palms that stain against the prime’s cold skin…

He looks peaceful.

And Stalker sighs, hands coiling it up against his chest once again.

He needs to keep going. He can’t pity himself forever.

As he finally folds his legs beneath him, forcing himself up to stand, he sighs.

Before he keeps going, there’s something he must do first.

With a lingering glance he browses the doors adjacent to the hallway littered with slain blood, walking over corpses and following towards the residential bunkers. He leads himself into a small, multi chamber room that signs inside to either stalls or urinals. At the entrance lies two sink troughs – he doesn’t second guess if they still work in the century old vessel, turning water to trickle over the prime’s bloody face. Slowly, carefully, he starts to rub the gore away from the stiff features, wiping at barely moving skin with dispensed paper and a fabric he carried with him from the push cart. A tinge of red clings to the metal of the prime’s face, within the small creases of crossing teeth that he is just barely able to wipe away.

Stalker focuses on nothing but cleaning the prime’s face; he doesn’t want to spread the blood anymore than it already is, he doesn’t want the last moment he can look upon it to be covered in his own blood smothered between smooth teeth. He handles it gingerly as the blood drains down the open drainage pipe at the end of the communal sink. It’s edged by gold trim, a portion broken by a corrupted arboriform digging through the lamination.

He keeps his emotions locked away as he cradles the prime’s head again, wiping away tinted water with the damp rag. The features peaceful, yet still edged with tinting blood; he needs to clean it up better, but for now the job is satisfactory.

Stalker holds the head against his chest as he starts to walk away – catching himself in the mirror, pulling the head away from his chest.

Blood still sticks to him; from the prime and the infested he’s slaughtered. But, to his relief, the blood smothered over his chest doesn’t stick to the prime’s helm. Even then, he tries to keep it far from his chest, carrying it down in his hands as he walks back to the cart. All the while, as he settles a place inside the cart for the decapitated head, folding a blanket they rummaged from one of the civilian rooms, he’s thinking about what to do with his partner’s body.

He needs a funeral.

Stalker forces the caster wheels of the cart straight, shoving it forward and staring down the hallway before him to where the body writhes and searches. The sounds of claws meet his auditory receptors as he rounds the cart towards the entrance to their ship, hopping one end over the small stairs and against the wall. Inside the cart the prime’s head is wreathed with gathered materials, a haphazard resting place for the prime’s head against a stack of other items slouching beneath it. With the cart finally stable, items kept from shifting, he turns back to the corpse scratching at the ground.

It’s desperate as its golden claws scratch, creating vast bloody gouges in the tile as the headless stump struggles to breath with the cruel scythe protruding from its back. Vicious bubbling exacerbates his sear disgust as he circles the corpse, stepping back as a bloody hand tries to reach for his ankle. The intermittent signal tries to reach for him internally, trying in vain for a connection.

He steps on its back.

The infestation creeps beneath his foot, beneath the prime’s skin as he pulls the scythe out of the corrupted body. And, in the same motion, he strikes down in an ill-satisfying manner, digging into the deep wound, opening the wound with the hooked end.

Again, and again.

Sickening squelches come from the corpse below him as the scythe claws through mutated grey flesh, bones shattering with each impacting downward strike.

He barely takes his time to aim, only for the same region of mangled flesh as the body tries to squirm, but also takes heed to not strike the gilding that marks the prime’s now vulnerable spine. The thickness threatens to shatter the end of the shark blade as it bites through flesh. Beneath his foot the body tries to surge, gushing blood as hands try to reach back against the hunter’s pressing foot. In return he renews the pressure, shoving it against the ground as he tears through to where the heart still resides.

He needs to kill the body for good; he can’t burn it like this.

As long as the body is still moving, he can’t stop.

Even as spurts of blood covers his hands, making his hands slip.

And eventually, it does stop moving. Limbs flopping as he nudges the bloody palm from his ankle.

His arms are aching, barely able to hold onto the scythe and lets it slip through his grasp. Metal taps against the ground beside the body, fingers fiddling around the scythe’s smooth coating as he removes the pressured foot. The end of the bloody weapon drags along the ground as he circles once, nudging the headless stump.

It lies still, motionless in the pool of spilt blood.

The hunter sighs and looks up to the room around him, numerous infested corpses fringing the spattered paths and small seating benches. There’s so much that will need cleaned up if he’s going to put him to rest here – where he won’t have to carry him somewhere else. But, as he looks around, there’s barely any room to even try to make a tidy platform, nor the air circulation to dissipate the smoke a fire will bring.

Does he even have the right materials to make a funeral pyre?

Stalker pulls himself away from the motionless corpse, dropping the scythe before the angled push cart. As he looks up his glance meets the severed head, forcing himself to look away as to not fixate that he’s the one that did it. He did it to him.

He needs to keep scavenging, put the prime’s head somewhere safe, keep it pristine as he dredges through working alone. His shoulders slump as his sight returns to it, hands held near the prime’s resting head – they’re covered in blood.

They need cleaned again.

A sigh.

But to clean them, he needs to leave the prime’s sight.

Back at the corpse he hoists the red splattered cream up, coaxing it onto its side to fetch the knife he dropped beneath its body. His fingers trail along the wide girth of the blade, holding it inwards against his wrist.

Another glance moves over to where the prime’s head rests; and a whisper, “I’ll be back,” – as though the prime still lived. It’s a motion just to settle his own nerves, as he wanders along the multitude of standardized hallways. Digits fiddle with the blood-soaked knife as he walks, on edge as the small blade is his only defense from stray infested. It’d only take one to take him down, especially if he lets down his guard.

He stares down the open airway of the residential quarters, glancing over for signs of infestation and glossing over the size of the small courtyard several meters below him. It’s coated with dust and rimmed by the spires of infested arboriforms, its sickly pale bark dim and browned by rot. There’s space enough for a small pyre in the center, on an open landing just slightly tilted away from the tall glass staring into the dark of space. Shadows of the surrounding vessels linger and break up the lights of the distant sun, illuminating just slight down on the central landing of the residential courtyard.

Stalker leans over the railing; and visualizes the pyre in his mind.

He’ll need to construct a sturdy base, the material to be burned, something to light it all ablaze.

Eyeing the twisting branches of the arboriforms he considers if they might be flammable, idly fiddling with the bloody knife as he plays with the idea of scavenging the ship’s nervous system to create the fire, the fats deep in the walls to be used as the accelerant to get the burning process going so there will be nothing left beside sprinkling ash.

Trying to filter through his memory banks for materials he can use, he comes across happier times; of made soft exchanges, tempting breathes turned sharp, of the fluttering in his chest the first time the prime expressed his feelings.

It’s not what he’s looking for, and it just make the ache in his chest swell.

He’s not able to properly express himself; gripping the knife’s handle firm as he pushes himself away from the railing.

The arboriforms, the flesh within the walls, he considers them as part of the funeral pyre as he carries himself to the nearest restroom to clear his head. Water runs cold over his hands and the blade, wiping the deep red off his dark palms and off his forearms as he looks deep into the mirror. It’s opposed to the torment tearing through his throat, a featureless face made of angled ripples, a single light illuminating in the center with juts sticking out the sides of his face. A hand runs over his jaw as his senses feel one open – and feeling nothing against his palm or through the mirror.

A sigh breathes through his quiet vents, yielding at his side as his thoughts linger.

He’s already killed his longtime partner, one he considered his soulmate; severed his head from his body, stabbed him respectively in the back, carved out his heart with the cruel scythe they had managed to forge together, and now – he’s set to putting him on fire.

The tap turns off.

Hands hold at the edge of the basin, looking down over the stained knife left among the tinted water. It soaks there as his mind caves in on itself, over the things he could’ve done better, should’ve done better while the prime was still alive. The things he was receptive in trying, that maybe they should’ve taken more time to maintain their health more than what they had – but what steps should they have taken? They are – were – a millennia old, in bodies made when the Orokin empire was still on life-support. Strangers stuck into technorganic suits that let they live forever if they remained immune to the infestation, if they kept their head straight, they can survive for however long they needed.

The hunter can still remember the tremendous pain that surged through his former mortal body, tearing words from his lungs, seizing his heart as everything was made to ache. A searing pain blinding his senses as his consciousness was moved from one body to another – transference, they called it – brought awake again to see his body carted away.

He hated that body.

The sound of shattering porcelain brings his thoughts back, watching as water drains through a fresh fissure in the shape of his fist. In the water, between clenched fist and a holding palm, the knife lies still as the fluid pours at his feet.

“Pull yourself together,” he mumbles to himself, picking up the knife.

“Take it easy,” he reminds himself, looking up at his reflection.

Again, he’s only met with the rippled helm.

Stalker picks himself up and carries himself down the stairs, fingers fiddling with the serrated edge of the blade as he glances around the small dusty courtyard. Surveying the area, he recounts the size of pyre he needs to make – to reduce his partner’s body to ash. But before all that, he needs something to light, to hold the flames steady as the prime is consumed by the heat. A palm runs over the surface of an arboriform, feeling over the hard material, pressing at the splitting folds of meeting strands within the structure. He’s barely able to get a good hold of a segment, and even the portions he can are made null by their sturdy surroundings.

The dark hand wanders over the white skin of the faux foliage, tucking the knife away at his side to get a full sense of the material. It may be flammable, or at least able to hold a flame over a long period of time if not easily ignited. Digits seam through the smooth outer fibers to the inner strands, tugging at loose fragments until he’s able to find frayed ends – sticking out near the wall as it tried to crawl back into the main structure.

One hand holds the small branch steady as the other bites into it with the knife, jerking back and forth and slowly severing each portion of the congealing fibers. Through his feet he can feel the arboriform structure quake, recoiling as its senses are diluted by the removal.

Drawing back, he holds the thick yet light weight in his hand.

It’s as wide as his arm, almost as long except for the frayed fibers that mark the severed section. White sap drips from the material, stinging his skin as he runs a finger over the strange substance. He rubs the pain out against his thigh, looking out to the remaining structure that coils through to the ceiling.

And another sigh.

He tucks it against his side, careful to have the fluids pool inside the conglomerate as he starts back to corpse and their – his – ship. There might be something there to use to start a fire, if not, he’ll have to find something somewhere on the ship – and, if not even that – create an electrical fire. It’s risky, as he shifts the arboriform collective at his side. It’s not reacting well to the severing, coiling inward and dripping the biting sap against his skin. A quiet curse slips as he carries it the rest of the way, depositing it and the knife just outside of the airlock leading into his scouting ship – it’ll take some getting used to.

Referring to it as only his own.

He searches through the items they collected together – replacements for their over used tools, armament salvage for planned upgrades to their two-part scouting fleet. Items to modify components here and there, nothing that can be used as a fire starter for the arboriform fragment waiting for him outside the airlock. He can gleam the same thing as he pokes through the items they collected before the infestation chased them, careful to set the prime’s head off to the side carefully as not to damage it.

But he can feel it staring him in the back, feeling just so wrong to let it sit out like this. Laid out on the blanket in the open and out of his sight. Looking back, sights fixating on it… a crushing forming again in his chest.

Dark hands curl beneath the edges of the blanket, crawling inwards to cradle the head between his palms. They bundle it up in the blanket, carefully wrapping it in the folds as he brings it up against his chest as he moves back into a resting kneel. He lingers in the moment, holding the prime’s head between his arms as his mind goes elsewhere, reverting to comforting memories.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, again out of remorse.

He cradles it as he moves to stand, holding it firmly against his chest as he walks back into the scouting vessel. The hunter sets it down on the seat the chair, a hand lingering as he moves to exit the airlock and retrieve the salvaged items they collected. The small trinkets that were supposed to bring them comfort, the items that was to make their quarters even more a home. And he stacks the model ships he got so preoccupied over in an overhead compartment, always glancing back to where the head rests just out of his view.

With the items stored away, he needs to get back to creating the pyre.

Dark fingers cup against the shape of the gilded crest, over the trace shape of a crescent plate. Initially, he only whispers that he’ll be back; and is surprised when he hears it aloud.

It causes him to pause, digits lingering on the wrapped head, running over the creases.

He needs to make the funeral pyre – he can’t linger like this.

As the ship’s airlock door closes behind him it stalls, creaking behind his back and making him turn. It’s closed, or at least appears to be as his hand runs over the junction where the seals remain unlatched. His fingers easily slide between the door and the seal, pushing it open with ease.

A new sigh is half-hearted, shoving it open in a huff.

That’s why the prime never lead them into the ship; the door seal was worn down. If they had tried to seal it, seal the infested outside, they would’ve been overrun. Torn apart by infested claws rending them down to bare muscles.

He crosses back to the pilot seat, taking the bundle and head up in his arms again. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I should’ve checked that before we left. You were looking out… for the both of us.”

Again, he relinquishes the prime’s head, gently setting it back before he leaves once more.

He takes the bundle of arboriforms in hand with a cloth, careful to pick it up around the thick center as the sap oozes from the severed end. Wrapped in the fabric, he’s able to tuck it away against his left side without the sap sizzling at his skin; the knife easily tucks away at his right, patting it flat against his side before he continues out of the airlock tunnel.

The hunter wanders for hours as he searches for an ignition source, hopeful to find something he can just point and aim to begin a fire. A blow-torch, at the very least. But he finds only remains of their earlier search, items much too large for them to carry into the ship or to be useful for anything. He knocks over items as he curses, scavenging deep into refuse piles for even a semblance of a tool to put the arboriform section at his side ablaze. Dark fingers yank items end over end, throwing them unceremoniously into stacking piles until he figures there’s nothing left for him to search – and continues the same motion in the next maintenance room.

Even in the residential rooms he comes across nothing – just scraps of the minimal activity that preoccupied the ship before it was decommissioned. He sorts through thousands of empty drawers, finding not even a match in the entirety of the place.

A chair goes sailing over the side of the rail as he yells, huffing where he stands.

Eventually, he calms himself down. The only place he hasn’t searched yet is the storage hull – and that could be full of a thousand more crates to search through. It’s a ship classified as a civilian transport vessel but is still capable of carrying items around the system. He might be able to find at least something down there of use – clinging to that hope as he forces the locked door open with his shoulder.

It doesn’t take him too long to find something of use, as there is very little in the vast storage hull. And in the corner lies a small set of emergency generators, just off from the one crate of miscellaneous safety gear.

The hunter is quick to check the numeral branding on the side of the casing, dark fingers crawling over the chassis in search of the release pins. It’s similar in shape to the one he has at their – his – base; and he knows his way around it intimately. If his assumption is correct, it should be easy to rewire it to bake the arboriform strand; and if not, he can still figure out a way to rig it to work for him. Doesn’t take much know how to use jumper cables or make a splice.

He kicks on the power, feeling the machine hum under his fingertips as he searches through the warmup motions, digits searching for a looping wire. There’s a hiss from him as electricity bites through his skin, waving his seared fingertips away from the now retrieved wiring. He tugs on it gingerly, working the wire unwound till the vast majority of is free from the generator block. In the casing he drops the arboriform branch, waving the sticking sap over it as he shuts down the rumbling machine.

As the generator goes silent he strips the insulation from the test wire, spreading the fibers into their individual strands and painstakingly splitting copper insulation from the central wires. Split in half, one end goes over the arboriform’s severed heel, the other wound over the curling top. He doubles and triple checks that the lines are biting in, carving into the arboriform to let the wires penetrate deeper into the muted foliage husk. “Please work,” he mumbles, and flips the switch.

He waits as the machine besides him rumbles to life, leeching off the ship’s remaining power to keep its central battery at max capacity. Sat in a crouch, hands crossed and the front of his helm against his palms – he stares at the twitching foliage as heat courses through it. A soft, shrill squeaking comes from the plant as it curls from the heat, tethered too well as the fibers restrict in the backing region, making it look alive as it writhes. He feels nothing as he waits, hoping for it to catch fire and not to just smolder as the sap begins to bubble out of the ends.

Barely, faintly, he can see a forming flame rising out of the wounded ends as the fluids catch fire in a muted white flame. Smoke rises through the creases in the branch, snaking up through the where the fibers split, wafting as he waits for the it to all ignite. It needs to catch fire; as he’s not certain if there is enough flammable material around the ship to make the pyre bedding without the arboriforms. It just has to work; hedging all his bets the white fibrous material ignites … he just has to wait.

And he does wait, watching as he sits back as the fiber screeches and begins to waft. He’s glad he’s unable to smell it as it creaks, folding in on itself as portions begin to twitch, the fired sap congealing and quivering through the structure and exhaling flames from the holes.

And then at once it bursts into fire, outshining the dim lighting with its brilliance.

The flame dances in dim blues and white, the arboriform fibers twisting and curling into the casing housing the flame. Stalker is quick to cut the power to the generator, trimming the wires just outside the casing as the heat gasps at his skin, lapping relentlessly as he draws back with a hiss.

Stalker rubs his hand as the fire screeches, watching the once congealed fibers split one from one, material unbinding and spreading against the metal surface. And he’s unsure of just how long he sits there, watching it burn, wanting to know just how long it can burn before the flame dies out – daunted by the prospect of only burning the pyre down half way before its all returned to ash.

His mind relents to the idea of scrambling to find more material to burn, trying to keep the fire burning as a half-charred corpse lies partly melted in the sizzling arboriform fires. Only able to watch as the body is burned grotesque in the inferno, unable to expedite the process. It’s the reason he’s doing this test, to see if the arboriforms burn, how long it burns, how hot it burns; how long he can expect to wait before collecting the prime’s ashes.

But it takes so long his knees start to fall sleep, crawling himself to stand as the fire continues to burn from a pile of grey smoldering ashes and fibers.

He folds the wires in on themselves as he stores it back around the generator’s housing, yanking on the ends of the jumper cables he left unused. He had figured using trimmed wires would be the safer bet when testing the flammability – not wanting to scorch his hands to retrieve the jumper cables only to find them rendered useless. Their toothed ends are the perfect shape to attach to larger branches, a lot better than the thin wiring he attached to the small arboriform segment.

Whiele the fire continues to burn he unlocks the wheels, pushing it away from the brilliant flame and back towards the entrance. He yanks the shear 200 kilos of machinery up the stairs one step at a time, each landing making it clunk and shutter, exposed wiring trembling as they dangle freely without the secure chassis. Once back in the hallway, his breathing heaves, looking down the vast emptiness towards where he plans to create the pyre.

He still has so much farther to go.

Stalker hoists the generator off to the side, wheeling it out of the path back into the storage hull.

As the fire continues to burn in the first generator’s housing, he yanks two more up the stairs and into the hallway. One wouldn’t have enough output to light the pyre by itself, but three combined would suffice to start a large blaze – well, from what he can gleam from the specs etched on the side.

But he’ll first have to get them to the site before even thinking of how to configure them.

The hunter heaves as he forces them one by one to the residential courtyard, letting himself rest before retrieving the next, and the final one. Once they sit in the open, he begins to move the heavy benches onto their sides, wrenching them out of position against the sloped center leading up against the large glass window. He takes his time putting them into position, scrounging the nearby room for other material he can build the basin from. Anything made of metal will suffice, even though he’s uncertain about the quality of the gleaming material as he wedges them together, rooting metal rods into the sides of the metal benches and linking them all together into a metal nest.

When he’s done, he looks up through the glass window, watching a distant ship drift between the ship and the distant sun. The light gleams off the metal nest, reflecting surfaces brought alight in the sun’s rays.

He walks away with his knife in hand, returning to the terminal for the cart.

Now, the arboriforms.

He’s careful in his selection for the pyre, picking chunks that are thick and held suspended for the bottom layer of the arboriform bedding he has planned. Strips of the material piles up on the cart before he transfers it into the pyre site. His hands burn after the first batch is transferred, holding his hands against his side as they tremble. They just wont stop shaking, even though he was sure there was no sap on the branches he handled – there must’ve been drippings, he figures, cradling his hands against his stomach, waiting for the pain to subside.

Once the feeling returns, he’s quick to pick up where he left off; careful this time to pick the fibrous nerves with a shred of fabric in place of his unprotected skin. When the cart is filled he returns again, leaving again to collect even more material to stack into the basin of the funeral pyre. And, eventually, he’s done – drawn exhausted and exiling himself to sit on a floor overlooking the now glowing pyre.

He leans back against the smooth structure that breaks up the railing, hands crossed against his stomach, legs kicking out from the short end table he had pulled out of one of the many surrounding rooms. His sights bounce between physical and mental; of events inevitable and things left only in his memories and in the items back at his now vastly empty cruiser vessel. He’ll be alone in it for now on – a ship ruined with scars of their spars, notches from their numerous tweaks to keep it running adrift in the omniscient void.

Hands fiddle with the knife as he plans out his next course of action – now that the arboriform bedding is in place. There’s the generators he still need to move into position, find attachment points for the jumper cables to the arboriforms and making current links from one to the other in a feedback loop. Once he has that sorted, he needs to move the body – clean it up a little, make it look decent and peaceful laid against the glowing fibers that will nestle at its back.

And lastly, retrieve the prime’s head, put it back where it belongs.

Before all that, he needs to grab something from the rooms.

Hoisting himself up, Stalker’s mind wanders as he guides himself to gather a container of fluid from beneath the sink he’s busted up earlier. Placing it down beside the spot a bench once stood, folding cloth over itself inside another container at the side of the first.

The hunter coaxes the generators into position around the pyre, snapping jumper cable ends on the largest fragments; one generator crosses into another, and into the other in a near completed loop as he puts them in a triangular arrangement. He’s unsure which oozing ends lead to the other, half remembering and half guessing as the presses the digging teeth to draw out the stinging sap that pools within the basin. Areas where thick fluid might’ve once oozed is halted by fabric scraps, the metal lined by dusty pristine cream and brilliant red against the shining mute blue of the strands.

Once he’s certain there’s no leaks in the structure, he dusts off his legs and rises to his feet, looking over the brilliant pyre fashioned by white and decades old generators; haphazardly slapped together with miscellaneous furnishings and scraps of bed sheets and thick blankets. Even though he despises the idea – incinerating the prime till there was nothing left of him – he encourages himself; this way he won’t be leaving the prime behind in ruin.

He would’ve wanted this.

Stalker pulls the remaining trims of clothing from a folded stack he prepared earlier after wrestling the arboriforms into place; throwing the far corners towards the top of the nestled pile as its shape is accentuated by the cloth. He pulls the edges outwards against rebellious fibers of the arboriforms, setting the center’s shape as a circular nest just large enough for someone his size to lie.

Another is pulled on top of the first, settled just as neatly before depositing dripping arboriform segments along the sides to keep them in place. He bites back the pain as the sap drips over the back of his hand, locking the fraying fibers among the stack. ‘The prime deserves a nice resting place,’ his thoughts quiver as he forces a rod through interlocking arboriforms. ‘He deserves some comfort even in death,’ his body sighs as he places the last one between pointed arboriform juts.

He steps back to admire his handy work half-heartedly, stoic as he looks over the sheets outlining the indentation, the glow of the arboriforms phasing through where the blankets don’t overlap, the metal protrusions along the rim that makes the ignition source. All that’s left is to retrieve the prime’s remains – his body and head, clean him up before igniting the pyre.

A dark hand fiddles with the cloth, persnickety in its placement as his thoughts disassociate.

He’s stalling.

He knows it.

There’s the dread of carrying the prime’s body to the pyre, using the push cart to move it through the hallway matted with infested bodies. He had casually tossed them aside as he moved around the ship for the arboriform fragments; shoved aside and covering himself with the infested blood. A pile of dirtied fabrics marks where he wiped himself off, and where he’ll have to stand once he retrieved the body.

Wouldn’t it be frozen solid by now? Made stiff by rigor mortis.

No; he shakes away the thought, pushing himself onto his feet.

He shoves the makeshift chock out from beneath the casters as his mind reverts – preoccupied in the haunting thought of carrying the corpse into the push cart covered in bloody hand prints made in his earlier bout of mania, stained with white sap and dusted with small arboriform frays that he had left behind. It’s trashy, not suitable for any more supply runs, expecting to leave it as refuse when the pyre is nothing but ash.

His sight moves from the disgusting cart to a slim storage container sitting at the edge of a short ramp, waiting for him to fill it wish ash. Once upon a time it would’ve once been something of a center piece, a priceless heirloom for someone of a much higher caste, something he wouldn’t have even dared of touching before the collapse. But now, as his dark fingers trace over the gilding along the throat and sides, colored with gleams of cream and gold in the air of self-righteous decadence – neither histories pay for any significance nor formal value of the ceramic lid vase than any it will be suited for. The prime’s final resting place held between his palms.

And he forces himself to set it down, shoving the cart back towards the hallway and towards the terminal; preparing himself to tend to the lifeless husk.

Cracks form in the prime’s dried blood as the caster wheels roll to a stop, motion hitching as the hunter releases the push end with shaking hands. His palms roam over the bloody skin made cold, feeling the rough of the festering below his fingertips. The infestation is still deep within the corpse, writhing and trying in vain to put force on muscles drawn limp.

It’s been several hours since the initial attack; since the decapitation; since the harsh mania that shook his nerves; since he made his partner’s body finally go still in full body death. He’s never really counted the hours, nor had any notion to care do so in the long grueling spurts of consciousness – and his body aches from yanking the metal benches, from cutting the arboriforms, from dragging the generators across the uneven floor notches.

He just can’t wait to find peace; and yet he’s nowhere close as his hands moves across a red stained chest, hoisting the corpse upwards into a lopsided sit. He moves himself into a squat, reaffirming his hands and locking them around a chest once adorned with cream and soft grey, matted and gored with exit holes from the tearing at the oozing heart leaking down Stalker’s front. A grunt slips from him as his legs shake as he begins the lift, throwing his shoulders as the blood slickens his grip. Orokin curses leave him as he almost falls off balance – only catching himself to let the body flop needlessly against the cart.

The hunter moves back into position, poised and stable as his hands hold at each other tight, the corpse’ gilded spine plates against his front. It scratches at his skin as his legs and back aches, screaming as he pushes the body to lean on the cart. In front of him the cart shifts, skidding in the blood and becoming snagged by a broken tile – much to Stalker’s relief.

He finds its easier to move the body as its weight leans into the cart, carefully rolling it back first with its hands in his own to prevent any unneeded damaged to the gilded juts protruding from the forearms. Slowly, his hands move down to work the hips and legs inside the bin, letting them dangle as he moves back around to adjust the body’s torso – to lie closer against the head of the cart. It’s only when he thinks the corpse appears ‘comfortable’ does he move the legs over properly, letting the shins rest against the rounded edge and hanging over limp.

Rounding back to the handles of the cart… Stalker stalls, and stares down at his partner’s corpse.

Emotions swell inside him that he’s quick to extinguish, repressing the aching in his chest as his left hand feels over the blood-stained fiberglass cart. He doesn’t think, letting his body move to cup around a limp wrist that once laid crooked against a punctured chest. Fingers curl around the cold and numb, kneeling and pulling it up against his face. There’s a moment of pause, a question about himself and his state of mind that gets shoved into the same dark pit winding in his gut. Then, quietly, he holds the cold hand in two, pressing down his face in a mocking kiss – smearing blood over his ridged helm.

Another goodbye.

“I won’t let you be left for ruin,” he whispers his partner’s name, nerves trembling as he holds the hand tight. “I will make this right – and take vengeance on those that allowed this to happen – let it happen to people like us. Those Tenno have no idea what terror they wrought; in the system as a whole; they abandoned everyone they were sworn to protect. Our lives were tough, always could’ve been better … but they left the entire system for dead, for what?” He can hear his voice trembling. “Myth or not; whatever those factions say – I saw them, I’ve seen what they’ve done.” And as he pulls the hand away he can see himself shaking – he needs to calm down, to breathe.

The funeral pyre comes first.

He can save the declaration of vengeance for later.

The hunter sets the made curled fist back down against the prime’s cold chest, crossing his hands against another in a sleeping fold. And, once he moves back to the handles, begins to push the car back into the residential pyre.

And the walk is long, leaving his thoughts to wander and tear across his mind.

Faults in his past crop up as he tries to think of anything besides the corps laid out before him; the legs bumping against the edge as casters roll over the uneven ground; the rattle of gilded spine plates splattered with blood; just the thought of him lingering around his partner’s corpse, moving it to be burned. It tears into a part of him he never much cared for, a part of him he considered dead for centuries.

He feels disgusting.

The thoughts waifs through as he sets the cart at its side, hitching it close to the pyre and the oozing white that drips along the sides of the barriers. He waits for it to settle into place before releasing the cart, making himself move slow to retrieve the water filled basin and the tub of cleaning fabrics.

Stalker is careful as he wipes the blood from torn cream skin, letting the relaxed skin cling against the numb muscles as a damp towel chafes dark stains. His hand, though showing signs of trembling, works nimble as he washes off the blood. It easily comes off over the dark stains, drenching the water red in each successive dip. And, he begins to alternate, steps away to fill the second at the dripping sink and to pour out the stained water to refill it all again.

While he waits for them to be filled, he brushes cloth over the damp skin, working ringing stains from the prime’s forearm, revealing a gleam of the gilded metal skin once coated in gore. When the strip of fabric is coating in nothing but red, permanently stained and dark in the mute blue light, he tosses it into a corner, stacking the material higher as carefully wipes at the skin with other fabrics. The process of water staining and fabric strokes repeats in the slow drawn process, the hunter wanting his partner to look pristine, peaceful for once he’s finally set off on the funeral pyre.

It’s a goal that’s made harder as he tries to reach down into the cart to reach around the deep scar made into the prime’s side, the area of infestation that brings him to the realization of trying to clean the prime in the waste of a cart.

The liquid pooling beneath the body is stained deep red, deeper than the fluids that made its mark dripping down the sides of the drainage a shower room as he filled one container for another.

Instead of usual rage, the hunter can only feel hollow as he begins to lift the headless corpse, his bloody hands pawing around the chest as he drags it out of the drenched cart. It’s feet thump against the ground as he pulls it backwards, over the dusty steps and closer still to the awaiting pyre. The dull ache in his chest persists as he guides the body down against the ground, hands rolling back on their palms as they flop, body moving like jelly in every delicate motion as he returns for the basins.

Eventually he finds satisfaction with his persistence, cleaning off all the visible traces of blood with a last brush of a towel over damp skin. The gilding in the forearms shine in the low light, thigh juts glinting as he carefully rolls it over onto its side to look at its back. He only pays enough mind to wipe blood that would be visible from the front, never caring to put his attention to the gapping tears beside the gilded spine.

Stalker stills his thoughts as he puts them to disposing of the cleaning material, tossing them aside as he goes to clear his minds, washes himself off, takes a short walk before he’s to carry the body up and onto the arboriform pyre.

The white sap stings his steps as he walks over it, carrying himself back to his ship to linger in thought, to hug his long-time lover just one more time against his chest. He cowers inside the pilot seat as he watches the ship’s readings, the overheard transmissions from across the system as he goes numb again. Muffled words drip as he speaks to the head wrapped between his arms, mumbling as he speaks in disparaging terms, vows of vengeance as he remembers the crumbling Orokin empire.

How lost every field was, directionless and fending for themselves as region upon region cannibalized themselves for absolute control in an uncontrolled system. Where even regal decadence was torn apart by the wronged underclass finally able to rage back against the corruption imposed. He was one of the few given the chance, mind pivoted to a near immortal body as sectors fought one another for control of personnel and resources.

He wasn’t going to let anyone rule over him again; and fled at the first chance he had control of a scouting vessel.

It was all a blur after that; where he bounced around the warring system, able to flee oppressing warships with their hull turned into ruin, their only tactic to try and ram the smaller vessel as their weapons have long worn dry. He can’t remember the sequence of events that lead them to cross paths, but, he’s never one to reminisce beside helping each other escape once. It’s been far too long.

His hands curl against the fabric covered crest, another pawing against a barely gape mouth as he sits from his lean.

He can’t linger here forever.

With the head curled against his chest, he leaves the vessel once more, wandering back to the pyre with a heaving in his heart, an ache worming through his gut.

Stalker is careful to place the bundle down besides the ceramic vase chosen to use as an urn, returning himself to moving the body onto the pile of stinging sap. Hitching his arms beneath, he drags it towards the pile, climbing on top even as traces of sap drags along his skin. He bares it as the body is shoved upwards onto the fabrics he laid out earlier, moving the body into a comfortable lay as he pulls the fabric straight beneath the limp pelvis. It’s long enough for the torso to lay among the prepared fabric, the legs upon the stacked arboriforms he made into the curled hold as he kneels above the corpse. One by one, he lays the hands over its stomach, hissing as the sap burns his knees, careful as he moves back to the ground and stare.

There’s only one thing missing; and he undresses the prime’s head from the bundle.

For one final kiss, he presses his helm against the cream scalp, whispering a final goodbye as – for the last time – he crawls onto the burning pile. He places the head firmly where it belongs, nestling it into palace with a small blanket he had thrown up on the stack prior – used only to hold the head in place.

With white stinging his knees and his elbows, biting back the pain in his forearms, he flips the on switch on all the machines, walking towards the stairs to preside over the burning pile.

And he waits for a long time before the white fire begins to burn.

Once more he’s glad he’s unable to smell as the sap begins to light, fuming beneath the fabric cloth as the arboriforms becoming ridged and restrict, arching beneath the resting body as the fibers begin to separate, pooling beneath the body with shrill creaks that pierces his ears. But soon enough he has those receptors turned off, relishing in the bliss of silence as he lies against the pillar wall as flames begin to surge and consume the prime’s skin.

He watches as cream skin ignites, the gleams of a golden crest reflecting the flames shifting white to brilliant cyan. The flames dance shadows around him as it burns the corpse and arboriforms, overpowering the worn lighting fixtures in the curled courtyard. Fingers grip at deep red skin, dull digits digging as his emotions swell as he watches the body burn among the crackling of arboriforms and the torching of the fabric laid flat.

In dread his thoughts tear away from the crumbling in his chest, where his arms squeeze elbows tight and against him as his breathing shakes.

He can remember when they barely knew each other, awkward and misunderstanding other’s terminology. They bickered over the smallest of things; one a mechanic, one a neurological engineer; different backgrounds, different castes, neither mattered when it came to their survival. It was raw – salvaging what they could before huddling back to the safety of a cruiser they commandeered from the void. It was all theirs for years, for centuries as the system tore itself apart.

There were faux nights when they’d fall asleep in each other’s arms, breathing steady as they just basked in the comfort of their solitude. They never really needed sleep – a carry over of their mortal forms lost to the ages. The two of them would talk over their links, getting comfortable with each other till one faltered into a dreamless sleep. Hands would curl against his chest, pulling him close in a sleeping tug.

But it was only his hands now, only his arms to hug him as the fire burns to shimmering ash.

Dark arms hug around a trembling stomach, holding himself as his senses ached and sobbed; chin curling against an inward shoulder as his emotions work out some form of relief. He can’t sob, he can’t ferociously scream with a fused face His body shakes, trembling, senses coiling and contorting as his entire body runs numb and cries over the happy memories he’s been left. Faltering against the railing and gripping its slim inner structure as his forehead rolls back and forth.

And he finds himself lost, coiling and aching against the railing until sleep becomes his only relief.

Romanticism swarms in his thoughts as he slips into dreams. In it he’s holding the prime close, caught in an embrace in vast hanger of their Orokin vessel. There’s a serenade as they meander hand in hand, confiscated music swarming through loud speakers echoing through the empty halls. Time passes fast as they watch a star system be made calm; intense survivor squabbles leading to more ruins to salvage and pick through in dead space. Items begin to collect as their vessels are tuned and perfected, their meeting talents making their tactics sharp, their skills unmatched as he works machinery, the prime amending systems of electricity and trace arboriforms.

He knew so much bout them; and it made Stalker wonder what he did before the transference.

Neither of them had the capabilities to draw from the bodies innate energy pool, ones left abandoned for their deemed inadequacies by the empire before its collapse. Stalker never needed them, even as he faced those wielding the manic might. It was his tactics that made his edge, relentless in the struggle of survival before they found one another in a fateful escape. Together they only grew sharper, sparing in earnest blow for blow, merely a game between them set and match before it became pure bloodshed. And, as he slept against the railing, body leaning against the smooth supporting pillar, his systems revert to hear again; the sheer crackling and sharp squeals of the arboriforms invading his reminiscence of better days. But, it doesn’t wake him, vents in his chest breathing in red as his body works itself calm, relenting to calming dreams as the prime’s corpse is consumed and cannibalized by the rage of flames.

Shrill beeps of low-power generators that rouse him at last, feeling the indentation of metal against his back and shoulder. He finds himself wedged between the pillar and railing, wrenching himself out of the encampment as his sights move elsewhere. His vision roams over the messy pile made of brilliant ash.

It glimmers in the low light of the presiding floors above, where white dust has waifed and coated in a fine film. It makes him brush his skin of the arboriform ash as he crawls over at his side, standing as he dusts himself off with gentle pats. It floats around him in a dreary haze as he looks back to the pit of greys, catching a gleam in a malformed stack of a deep color among the center – where the prime has once been laid bare.

His steps are slow as he returns to the floor, looking over the patches of ash, where a glint retains his focus – a shape sticking up among the pile of gray.

The hunter heaves the tilted benches away from the stacked ash, brushing away the bright arboriform remnants before pauses, sets himself upright, and grabs the vase turned urn. The top of the ceramic easily slides free from the mouth, set among the bright pile as Stalker’s hands cup around the darker as that would mark his partner’s place. Even though the golden glimmer takes his focus, he’s deliberate in his movements, collecting as much as the prime’s worn ashes as the generators around him turn mute with low power – their hums silenced and leaving Stalker alone with his thoughts once more.

He cups each handful of the fine powdering unto the funeral urn, never brushing his hands of the material as he scoops them over and over, kneeling through the arboriform remains as he collects his partner.

Nearing the center of the malformed shape in ash, he picks through to the gilding peering up through the white arboriform dusting – a fragment of a gilded jut that was once attached to the prime’s forearm. And, as he continues to collect the fragile remains, he collects the gilding from the other arm; and small back plate plating as he digs into the fist deep stacks of ash. Each part he finds he struggles to set them aside, forcing down emotions as he trains his sights to his task.

Even then he is rendered to nervous trembling, withdrawing himself from collecting the ashes in search of a fabric packaging for the gilded remains. His work is made quick by his prior scavenging, collecting the buffed metal into a pile upon smooth cloth. Each piece he finds there after is set in the stack, picking through the ashes as he collects them, feeling the metal prick his fingers as they dig into the white ash for the softer tone grey.

Stalker sits back as he cups the last handful of the prime into the ceramic vase, locking the smooth top into place with affirming metal clasps. At his side, the collection of golden fragments waits, his fingers grazing over the crescent arch that once made the front of his partner’s face. He feels over the scratches made by prior contact between their faces, the notches made with the passage of time as he slips into reminiscing once more. And he pulls himself out of it, hands grasping the edges firm and knotting them end over end until it sits in a neat package. He’ll get a better container for them later, but it is suitable for now – as he collects them both in perpetration to leave for good.

But he still has one more thing left to do, reminding himself as he secures the vase within the ship, setting the baggage of prime fragments nearby.

He’s going to torch the entire ship.

With his emotional baggage left on the ship his movements are quick, tethering handmade explosives to vulnerable parts of the structure the prime and marked out on the salvaging map as he waited. It’s not the first time he’s done this, nor will it be his last as he straps himself into the scouting vessel. He flips the airlock into a forceful seal – certain it wont budge as the locks disengage. His hands move quickly as he sets the vessel to hum through the dark, his vision only set by external cameras as the ship falls behind him.

And ignites.

Explosions rock the haul as the series of explosions are triggered by the long-distance transmission welded into the ship – a function Stalker had installed to make his quick escapes a many times before in the earlier days of the empire collapse.

There’s a mark of triumph in his throat as he watches the arboriform torn vessel implode on itself, scattering itself outward in the oppressive silence. And he starts to speak a usual phrase of triumph, that he sets to pause.

Quietly, his hands return to the steering column, setting the autopilot to guide the ship back towards the fissure in space to return home – his now lonely, derelict home.

With the systems set, he turns in the pilot seat, rising himself to hold the bundle of prime parts in his hands. He holds them as he lands back on the cushioning, fingers brushing over the shape of a former face plate. “I miss you,” he whispers, releasing a sigh as his head tilts back.

He wants to sleep.

And he does so within the cradle of the pilot seat, huddling the prime’s remains close as his ship whispers into its void cloak.