“HELP! Volt shouted as he sped through the greenery up to the little enclave where he and his Tenno friends normally hanged out. “HELP, THERE ARE EXCALIBURS EVERYWHERE!”
Ember though ignored him. She was busy staring out into the depths of space. In the distance, Pluto could be seen, as well as the solar rail for the Outer Terminus. Volt spotted Ember and immediately stopped being silly, wandering over to comfort her.
“She’s gone, Volt.”
“Who? Is someone else gone?”
Ember turned to Volt and hissed. “The Lotus, you idiot.”
“Well, uh, yeah. It was kinda obvious…”
Volt stepped away from Ember and looked out of the window. Ember continued to stare at Volt. Behind them, Frost had appeared, carrying a familiar sword.
“She’s gone, right?”
Ember nodded.
“I didn’t expect that…” Frost sighed.
“Really?” Volt seemed vaguely annoyed. “I don’t get why I’m the only person who expected that the Lotus wouldn’t come back to us. She was mind-controlled or whatever, you don’t just magically fix that. Okay I didn’t think she’d bugger off back to the Tau system but…”
Frost glared at Volt. “How can you be so… I don’t know… weird about all of this?”
Volt shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just obvious but not obvious to me. This isn’t some sort of fairy tale where you snap your fingers, off a baddie and everything’s fixed… It never was. We have been tortured and had our minds messed with for so long. You really don’t think the Lotus hasn’t had the same thing happen to her? Plus, she’s a sentient, we all knew that!”
“That is true…” Frost admitted. “She said she was a Sentient. She admitted that to us. And she was pretty scared of other Sentients.”
“Hunhow went into her mind!” Volt exclaimed. “Hunhow saw into her mind. Ballas saw into her mind. They both had some control over her! We were naive to think that she’d snap out of it and come back to lead us again.”
“But…” Ember whimpered. “What are we going to do now? We’ve got no one to-”
“Ordis has been taking care of all of that for ages!” Frost butted in. “Well I assume so. Him and the Tenno Council and other sorts of things like that.”
“We’ve coped without the Lotus for the last six months!” Volt nearly shouted, more angrily than he had intended. “This is no different. Heck, when I saw that very first vision, I knew that was the Lotus.”
“HOW?” Ember screeched in disbelief. “HOW DID YOU KNOW?”
“It was a massive, purple Sentient, with a Lotus-shaped head. Of course it was the Lotus!” Volt tutted. “I’d have been more surprised if it wasn’t the Lotus.”
Ember sighed then went back to staring outside. Frost and Volt glanced at each other, then stood by her side. Volt pulled something out of a small void pocket and handed it to Ember.
“What is that?” Ember asked.
“A lotus.”
Ember stared at Volt.
“You know, the actual flower? Found it on Earth.”
Ember took the flower and nodded her head. “Thank you. I appreciate it. But I got some thinking to do…”
Volt and Frost watched as Ember wandered off, then went back to staring out into space.
“So, what about Umbra?” Frost asked, breaking the silence.
“What about him?”
“What are we going to do with him?”
Volt shrugged. “I just left him roaming around my Orbiter with Ordis. Couldn’t bring myself to put him into storage.”
“You just… left him on your ship?” Frost exclaimed. “Are you insane?”
Volt laughed. “You worry too much. It’s all probably fine.
…
“Hm, what do you think about putting that Ayatan Statue there by the Navigation panel?” Ordis mumbled to himself as he lazily tidied up and redecorated the ship. A recent mission had left the place quite messed up.
“Raaaaaaaaargh!” Umbra shouted, waving his arms around.
“Yes, good point! It would look way better by the Codex!”
“Raaargh…” Umbra purred as he moved the statue.
“Ah, it’s nothing!” Ordis beamed. “Thank you, Umbra! Two heads certainly ARE better than one!”