you peeled an orange in that honey-yellow light, and fed it to me wedge by wedge, icy cold and dripping juice—and your fingers were soft on my lower lip, your eyes warm on my face, and I wanted to kiss you. there were bubbles in the bath, and the kettle on the stove, and your hair piled high on your head, and I said “I love oranges,” and you said “I remembered,” and of course you did.
I’ve seen people refer to the Traveler a few times as ‘ours’ or how the Hive tried to ‘take it from us’. Which would follow, since that was pretty much the reaction of the Vanguard in-game and the angle Bungie took with the marketing for the expansion.
The Light isn’t ours. Nor is the Sky. Nor is the Traveler. Merely because the Traveler chose to make her stand at Earth does not give humanity the ultimate right to make decisions for the Traveler or to exert our control of her. The Traveler giftedus the Light, it didn’t swear to be ours and ours alone.
Consider the wager. The Sky stands as gentle complexity. A good kingdom ringed by spears, where the strong defend the weak and life blooms in multiplicity. The Deep stands as the blade edge, the kingdom of war, that eliminates all life until there is only the last man standing.
By that Wager, the Traveler gifted us the Light. Upon us were weighed no demands and restrictions were not emplaced. The Light is to do with as we will, because it is willthat the Sky loves. Choice and the freedom of it. When warlords rampaged in the Dark Ages - did the Traveler chastise them and tell them no? When Rezzyl Azir threw down his burden and turned his face from the Sky, did the Traveler yank hard his reins and tell him ‘no’? When the Iron Lords slaughtered the warlords, when they crushed ghosts underfoot to break the cycle of violence, did the Traveler chastise them for not finding another way?
What we do with the Light is what is meaningful. For good or evil, right or wrong, each action and choice we take is precious and so the Traveler cannot, will not, speak. To speak would be to influence us and tarnish that precious choice.
By contrast the Deep commands. Though it gave us stasis, it constantly speaks to us, gives us hints, eggs us on, teases and leads us. It has demands of its own and what we want is not secondary - it is immaterial.
This may seem an aside, to explore the purpose of Deep and Sky, but I am illustrating a picture.
The Sky wishes for rich life and vibrancy of disagreement, of concord, of strife and peace. The Sky wishes for life, in all it’s beauty and pain.
When we claim the Traveler as ours, when we claim the Light as ours, when we look at the Lucent Hive with trembling limbs and curling lips and find palms on stocks and blades aquiver, we are asserting the Deep claim.
We are saying that “We alone are right. We alone are mighty. We alone may be the only Shape.” The Deep demands a single champion, the Light cherishes a billion. For us to jealously hoard the Light and the Traveler is to make us into the only champion of the Light. We are perverting it’s purpose.
Does it mean it is wrong that we fought off the Fallen, that we warred with the Cabal, that we threw down the Osmium Dynasty?
No.
For that is the freedom of choice the Sky desires for us. And besides - they wanted us dead first. It is never morally wrong to fight for your life.
But the Traveler is showing us a truth. We are beloved, we are precious - and so is all life. Perhaps humans did indeed have a spark that caught the Traveler’s eye, all those centuries ago, which is why She laid down here to fight.
But it was hubris to ever think that the Light would be ours alone. Ghaul was not deserving of it, because he demanded it, because he tried to steal it, because he impugned on free will.
Savathun chose to die. She accepted her fate, she took all her cards off the table, she threw them away. She wanted the Light, yes, but she did not demand it. She did not hold the Traveler at gunpoint, she did not try to tear Light from it’s body. She asked, and she died.
At the end of her long, long life, Savathun finally had faith.
Now the Lucent Hive are blessed. Truly blessed. No tricks, no stealing, no magics. And we war on them.
Again, that is not inherently wrong. The Light is freedom. For us to clash is natural. But the other side of the coin demands recognition too. The Lucent Hive are just as worthy as we to wield the Light. So while we may fight and while we may be at odds, the day will come when we must expect, and should expect, not to be. For the Light is not ours, and it is not theirs. It is the Light, it is given, and none can claim it solely. To do otherwise is to mantle the Deep, and that is a path none should tread.
We were asked to survive the truth, and it was not what was implied. The truth to survive was that all things change and that our humility should be reminded to us. The truth that our precepts were wrong. The truth that we always knew, but maybe had set aside.
This one is a small preview for the angsty minicomics you will see in @darkomenszine vol. 2
Meanwhile you can “enjoy” this one, in which past and present of our Messenger and Prince of Hell contrast painfully. Will be they able to fix the misunderstandings of their past and look to the future?
In a cold dark room, There is you and me. Whispers are hollow, As the air we breathe. I touch your surface - Here comes the surprise. Faint light emerges, From your hands and eyes. My fingers pass through, As though I’m a ghost. I am a shadow, And your light - the host.
