Archive of Our Own ^beta

For the longest time, he thought, no, he believed himself to be a relic. A washed up holdover from an older age, a being left behind when times changed and the world shifted, who had no place in the new age. He thought his skills and stories unimportant, unneeded and wasted. He was the last of his kind, a lone sentinel over an ancient evil that had killed all of his friends long ago. He was old and tired and worn down. 

Tragedy had brought him to his knees, and he couldn’t find reason to stand back up. They didn’t need the wildfire that scoured the forests of Felwinter Peak clean, didn’t need the demon who traipsed to the scattered settlements and desperate communities clinging to life in the midst of disaster. They didn’t need his recollection of what times had been like. They didn’t want the reminder of how far they had once fallen, and how high they climbed since. They didn’t need him.

Saladin was an Iron Lord, a title from a distance age denoting a power and responsibility to people who no longer existed. It was an empty claim, allocating to him one wind torn and battle scarred mountain full of ghosts. Crops didn’t grow there, water froze more often than it ran. The only creatures were the wolves, slinking through stone hallways that once rang with noise. The Iron Temple sat deserted and alone, forgotten like he had been. Every few moons, he made the journey to the City and ran his competition; the one he designed with once friends before they fell apart. He saw the current crop of lightbearers- guardians as they called themselves- and doled out what scraps of his old compatriots were left.

HIs days were long and empty, cold and lonely patrols of empty forests and ruined highways where nothing moved but his wolves and the rubble. Anything with sense stayed far away from these places. THe few he’d talked to since felt uneasy on these roads, unable to place a finger or word for it, but unnerved all the same. He knew what they were sensing, though he never told them. They sensed the death. 

Saladin spent his days making sure the graves of his friends and family stayed undisturbed. They were buried under rubble and metal and horror. When the Iron Lords had fallen in earnest, there was no one left to drag the bodies out and lay them to rest. They laid in unhallowed graves beneath his feet and cursed him for surviving, he knew.

It was years, decades later before his patrols turned up something new. He found disturbances, scrap cut and hauled away, paths worn through frost that had stayed undisturbed for years. Someone was intruding in his mourning, and his fury mounted.

Saladin tracked down the interlopers with undying fury and unceasing hatred. He neither slept nor ate while he followed the tracks for miles and miles, days and days, until he found himself on long untread but familiar ground. His feet shook in his boots as he walked under misshapen doors and punctured walls. Every step was a transgression, a trap. Any moment and they would burst from the earth and the walls and the ceiling- an angry buzz of trillions of machines coming to consume him like they had his friends. 

Eventually, he found his prey. Saladin found his worst nightmares come to life. The Fallen and SIVA. 

He called everyone, at that moment. When the ground was painted with their blood, the machines burned out via solar light, everything around him scorched to ash and glass, Saladin sent out a transmission and begged for help. He didn’t care who heard him, who responded, nothing mattered except closing this breach. The last time, it had cost them everything. SIVA killed the Iron Lords- all but him. He knew it was his duty to protect them, his duty to stop the plague from rising from the graves of his past life, but he couldn’t do it alone. He just couldn’t.

The Guardians came, and SIVA was contained. The complex destroyed and the processes halted, everything laid to rest as it should be. The panicked thrum in his veins eased up for the first time in years, and Saladin breathed a tired breath wondering how long he’d been under that weight. Efrideet coming back was a blessing, a joyous realization that he was not alone in his memory. But it also came with accusations and dark thoughts and questions. Questions about where she had been, how she could have left, how she could smile and be happy when they were dead and gone and it was all their fault? 

Saladin had to do a lot of patrols to work through it all. A lot of patrols alone in the wilderness. 

Just when he finally thought he had a grasp on things, when he accepted that he was a relic, an old weapon placed in reserve for when they needed him, the Cabal came. The light fell, and Saladin was afraid once again. All the things he knew, the things he had seen- he had warnings to give, teachings to pass on, and now he had but one life to do so. He couldn’t risk the journey to the city, couldn’t risk trying to fight the cabal. Instead, Saladin started writing. He’d learned how to make paper from a village far away from the Iron Temple, and though he thought it useless then, it had value now. 

It rankled to be in the courtyard splitting trees and pulping the wood while others were fighting and dying to stop the threat, but he was more important here. It would be better for them in the long run to have these things than one more old fighter.

Then the light was returned, and Saladin once more had to ask himself what he was doing. HIs frantic rush to record his knowledge was irrelevant once he was immortal again. He sent the drafts to Zavala and stewed. If he had descended his mountain and fought the cabal, had mobilized people and led a rebellion, how much faster would they have regained the traveler? How many more would they have saved, and fewer they lost? He couldn’t answer those questions, and it left him once more off center. 

The years passed and he was brought back into the fold with the Vanguard. The next time the Cabal invaded, he was there. He was front and center and made himself known. Unlike the others, Saladin had commanded war before. Zavala thought he had, but what Zavala faced was a skirmish, a siege. Saladin had led war, both defending and attacking. He understood the Cabal. As he read the reports and dossiers, saw the remnants of their engagements and walked the halls of their bases, he understood them more and more and found himself pleased. 

They were brutal and harsh, sharpened iron and fire, and it reminded him of, well, himself. Sometimes, watching the feed of the battle, he found himself smiling at their movements. The precise nature of their charges and counterplays- it was simple in execution but masterful. He liked them. They fought with honor and might, not sneaking around like the fallen, nor blindly rushing as the Hive did. They did not have the mystery and cheating the vex did, but embodied military strategy and might at its finest. They fought like he did- front and center and with overwhelming power. 

Their war was a success. The Cabal were turned away, and a cease fire formed. Then later, after the treachery of the Witch Queen, an alliance. 

And finally, after so many years, he found his student, hands dripping with the blood of an innocent. 

“It was an accident.” Crow insisted. “I- I didn’t know.” 

It wouldn’t matter. He knew the Cabal, knew their leader Caiatl. She would demand as much as she could from the Vanguard, gain as much ground as she could for her people.  It was their way, and the exact strategy he used at their negotiations. He knew what she would demand, what it would come down to, and knew Zavala couldn’t make the decision. He only saw one path forward.

“I will take his place.” Saladin said, stepping forward at the meeting. All eyes were on him, but he was firm. More resolute than any other point in his life. “ I will serve under you, Empress.” Saladin took a knee, but he would not bow. He looked her in the eye, and she him.

They had fought through proxies for a long time, then over a negotiation table. He knew she demanded truth and loyalty, and even a flicker of doubt would see his offer refused and the alliance broken. She could read him just as well, the pride and strength backing his claim. She recognized the offer for what it was, understood the value she was being offered, and had to decide if it was worth it to her. 

He would not bow, would never bow. It was not in his nature, and no one could ever make him. She could strip him of his weapons, bind him from his light and freedom, cut him off from everything and everyone he knew- and still he would be an Iron Lord. It was something he earned through blood and sweat and tears. Through gunpowder and ash, lighting and fury, through cold and negation and loss- he was and always would be Lord Saladin. 

“I accept.” Caiatl growled. She felt the shock ripple through everyone at the meeting, everyone but Saladin. He just smiled, knowing her too well. She couldn't resist taking the bait he offered, and they both knew it.  

Saladin stood on the deck of a Cabal cruiser, observing the planet below. He’d grown since then, learned from the Cabal just as much as he taught them. They both had a lot to offer each other, and as the guardians fought through his newest version of the Iron Banner, Saladin realized somewhere along the way he’d gathered his strength and stood up. He was proud of his power, proud of his accomplishments. The man he was today was a far cry from the man who miserably walked the Iron Temple for so many years. This was better. He had purpose once more, had a reason to fight beyond the painful memory of his family. Saladin Forge stood tall and smirked. 

“They’re having too much fun down there, learning how the game is played. It’s becoming too easy. What shall we subject them to next time?” he asks.

“I have a few ideas.” Caiatl grumbles.

“Do share, Empress.” Saladin smirks. Their relationship has flourished for the past almost year as he’s learned how to use his rank and won the respect of her legions. He’d found her judgment sound, and was pleased that she recognized his wisdom and experience. She knew her troops and their capabilities better than he did so far, but his tactical advice for any foes they would fight was invaluable. They had a respectful friendship, bonding over his little war game after he had been so adamant it would not end even though his allegiance had changed. (Though that was a sham, and they both knew it. Everyone knew it. Saladin had been fighting for humanity, for an ideal of humanity for centuries. He would never falter from being humanity's oldest and staunchest defender.)

“I was thinking about drop pods…”