Ex Diris

The cards gleamed in Eris Morn's hands, each one a taut web of meanings pinned down in place so that its signifier, in all its instability, could be held and comprehended.

She lay the first card on the table. Blades. Of course, she thought. The Hive's childish logic. But, like all childish things, it was persistent. They were all ensnared in its thesis. For now, it was their purpose as much as the Hive's.

The second card over the first. The Adherent. Xivu Arath. The greatest and most committed proponent of her brother's grand theory. Xivu Arath guarded the Blades card with her life. It held her with all the great lies she told herself.

Eris placed the third card below the others. The Sisters. Aurash, Sathona, Xi Ro. The Hive Gods' first names and first selves.

But the fourth card made her hesitate. She looked at it, and it stared back. The Harbinger. It could be no one but herself. She placed it to the left of the others. Perhaps now she counted among those sisters. Savathûn, Xivu Arath, and Eris Morn. A game between siblings. A love that sharpens.

Another card to the right of the first two. The Lie. Eris furrowed her brow. The cards had manifested through Hive magic; perhaps it denoted how the Hive see the Guardians. Liars denying the all-edged truth of the sword logic. Or was it the lie of that logic itself? The lie of the Deep, the lie of worms?

Three cards above the rest, one beside the other. Liminal. Ascension. Lacuna. All the aspects of a Guardian's Light. She had not held it for centuries. The Hive sisters below beckoned more loudly than the Light did.

Eris made a column of the remaining cards. At the bottom, The Witch. Above that, The Truth. Then Lament. Then The Wish.

Who was the Witch? Savathûn, or herself? The thought gave her pause. From whom did the Truth flow? There were too many truths for any one to triumph. But Lament, she knew: the slaying of Oryx, Xivu Arath's greatest loss.

Would the truth lead to another Hive sibling's death?

Eris looked to the last card. The Wish puzzled her. A wish is desire, the greatest power in this universe. Eris had wished before. It had led her here. Would she be asked to wish again? What else would her desire wrought?

Turning away, Eris left the cards on the table and took her questions with her.