Epilogue: The Price of Victory

Rtas 'Vadum folded his arms, looking down on the holograph of the planet Earth, lost in thought.

He had fought for the Covenant for his entire life. Generation after generation had followed the path laid out for them by the Prophets, marching willingly down to their own destruction.

The Sangheili had their greatest challenge still to come. They could no longer trust the Prophets to tell them where to go, how to act, what to do. They would have to dig, into their history and into their own hearts, and build a compass for themselves to guide their people forward. They would need to think long and hard on what they wished to be, and how to bring that dream into reality.

Rtas was still trying to puzzle out how he would lead them, or what he wished to lead them to. By the Ancestors, he hadn't set foot on Sanghelios in years.

In the midst of his thoughts, the Arbiter returned.

Rtas knew his consort was behind him, watching him, and before the Arbiter needed to ask, Rtas spoke what was on his mind.

"Things look clearer without the Prophets' lies." His mandibles twitched. "But I would like to see our own world, to know that it is safe."

"Fear not," the Arbiter said, reaching out to touch his partner's shoulder, "for we have made it so."

Rtas felt a flood of warmth, of confidence. He bowed his head, filled with trust—for together, they could do anything. "By your word, Arbiter."

The Arbiter settled into the Shipmaster's throne. "Take us home."

*

When the Arbiter entered the Shadow of Intent's storage depot, the Chief Quartermaster was sitting at a workbench tinkering with something that looked unpleasantly like a UNSC flamethrower, except with the nozzle done up as a stylized Sangheili head with painted mandibles and orange eyes. The nameplate over her desk now had the Covenant honourary suffix "ee" scratched out and a sloppy "y" carved over it.

Fil Storamy, unorthodox by any name at all.

The Arbiter cleared his throat. "Quartermaster. I need to ask you something."

Fil glanced up from the flamethrower. "All right. Shoot."

"Who in the Sangheili armed forces is qualified to perform bonding ceremonies?"

Storamy actually put down her tools to face him head-on. "Shipmasters… Kaidons…High Commanders…"

"How about a hypothetical situation where there are no available Kaidons and the aforementioned Shipmaster and High Commander have, er, other roles in said ceremony?"

Storamy got a big, predatory smirk on her face that made him debate the wisdom of asking her this question.

"Well, if you cut right down to the heart of the law, what it actually states is that an official has the right to perform bondings when in his or her sphere of absolute power. So a Shipmaster can do bondings, but only aboard his ship; a Kaidon can do bondings, but only in his own keep; a High Commander can do bondings, but only to the personnel under his command."

The Arbiter furrowed his brow. "Who else on this ship has a position of absolute command?"

Storamy's smirk grew into a big fangy grin. "I never resigned my job when I came along on 'Vadum's little ride." She rose to her feet, armour flashing. "In other words, Arbiter, you're standing in the stores of the Chief Quartermaster of the Sangheili Fleet of Retribution and this is my domain."

The Arbiter felt nervous for reasons he couldn't explain. "So you'll do it then?"

"Who's the lucky couple?"

He folded his arms. "As if you didn't know."

She smiled with all the sweetness of a Brute. "Humour me."

"It's myself and Rtas. Are you satisfied? Will you do it?"

She nodded. "Yes. But it'll cost you."

"Cost?" he demanded.

She folded her arms too. "Yeah. That isn't Fleet business, that's personal. So if you want the favour, you pay the price."

The Arbiter sighed. "You conniving pirate…done."

Fil smiled and the expression actually looked genuine, if still somewhat predatory. "Excellent."

"I'll contact you with the details," he said, and excused himself, feeling somewhat edgy. Some of it, doubtlessly, was nervousness at the magnitude of the step he was taking.

And some of it was a nagging voice asking if perhaps he should have asked what she had in mind for a price.

*

It wasn't really possible for the Arbiter and Rtas 'Vadum to escape from the world for a month of lounging and cuddling in between bouts of red-hot sex. Instead, though they both were active in the work of rebuilding Sangheili society and fighting the ongoing war against the remnants of the Covenant, they took a few hours every night to be with one another.

They'd been bonded just over a month when a fateful knock sounded on the door of their private quarters in the Vadam keep. Since they had a force of highly trained guards on round-the-clock alert—the last thing they wanted was to be assassinated by Brutes, crazed Covenant loyalists, overly ambitious Sangheili, or other unsavoury elements—their visitor had to be someone whom their security agents had approved.

The two Elites reluctantly untangled themselves from one another, straightened their clothing and went to the door to answer.

Fil Storamy stood before them in full lavender battle rig. Across her back she wore the gravity hammer she'd won in the battle against the Brutes on Delta Halo. The lavendar ribbons decorating its handle suggested that she had no intention of relinquishing it any time soon.

She eyed them both up and down, her eyes gleaming with a disturbing hunger. "So here's the happy couple who both owe me big favours."

Rtas turned to his new bondmate, his eyes wide with alarm. "You bargained with…"

"Do you think she bonded us out of the goodness of her heart?" the Arbiter retorted. "What I want to know is why you owe her something."

'Vadum spluttered, "That first time in the captain's cabin… I didn't have time to set up something like that myself in the middle of a war! And the flight to Earth to see you at Crow's Nest…she was flying…"

The Quartermaster's smile was getting bigger and bigger. "And it's almost time to collect. You boys have one more week," Fil said with a big grin. "Enjoy, but don't wear yourselves out too too much. You'll need at least some of your energy in reserve."

Rtas and the Arbiter exchanged nervous glances. "What happens next week?"

"Breeding season," Fil Storamy said, turning on her heel and swaggering away before she could see the Arbiter and the SpecOps commander's faces falling, mandibles drooping open, as they suddenly grasped the exact nature of the "big favours" they owed her.