Serene, Tranquil. Violent, Hurtful.

Carman snatched the report from Ikora's hands, glancing over it. She set it on the table, shaking with fury. The room was already stifling hot. It had been from the moment Carman had walked in to Zavala's office. "And what, exactly, has been done to locate them?" she asked. "Anything, or are we just all sitting around on our asses waiting for both of them to drop dead out of the sky?"

"Carman, I promise you-."

"Promise me? Their ghosts are with us, in case you forgot!" Carman angrily gestured to Jason and Glint, who were both floating there, slightly worried. No, not slightly. Hella worried. "Last time Yetta went in there without a ghost, she almost didn't come back! And now both of them are in there! Ghostless! If I can hold a grudge here, you bet your shiny bald heads I can hold a grudge there too!"

Carman stepped back for a minute. Dear Traveler. Yetta was wearing off on her. She cleared her throat. "Apologies. I'm not sure where that insult came from."

Drifter snorted in the back. "Was a damn good insult," he muttered, ignoring the quick glare sent his way. Clearing his throat, he stood up. "Want my advice? I propose we send a team into wherever they are, led by Carman, of course. These are her charges we're talkin' about. Well, Yetta's her charge, Crow is debatable."

"And just how do you propose we get there?" Ikora asked, placing her hands on the table. "Vex portals are already unstable as it is, at least for us. Making one is…unheard of."

"We get Elsie and Osiris on this task. Elsie knows her way around time travel, Osiris knows the vex inside and out. If anybody can create a stable vex portal to where we need to go, it's them." He tapped his fingers on the journals. "Don't forget, we have these here. Yetta thinks they can hold clues? We look for clues."

Carman straightened up, picking a journal up and flipping through it. "We don't know how much time we have," she began.

"If your corrupted self likes to toy with her prey, we have time. If the kids are smart, they'll split up. Make it harder for Corrupted to find them both."

"You mean give her options." Zavala leaned back in his chair. 

"Precisely. Give her options, and keep her occupado while the other hunter works on getting them out. Confuse her. Tag team it." Carman kept her eyes on the alternate Yetta's handwriting. She had detailed the workings of a Vex portal, taking notes on her experiments with it. 

"I know where we can start."

. . .

"We can re-program an already existing portal," Osiris began. "Vex are nothing but a complex computer system. If we can crack the code-."

"We can reprogram the location." Elsie flipped through the notes. Carman stood by her side, nearly buzzing with energy. "The problem would be the return trip. Although if Yetta's blipping in and out of here, she may hold the ability to return all of us with no issue."

"That hasn't been explored yet," Osiris cut in. 

"But it *is* a possibility, with a very high chance." Elsie typed something in to her datapad. 

"Because of the Vex in her system, and her blips, it's fair for me to assume she's like a walking portal, only unable to control when she goes in and out. It'll be something to learn and study, for sure," Elsie continued.

"Can we not talk about my student like she's a project?" Carman took the salt from Saint's hands, thanking him as she salted the goulash. She knew Saint, he made this if something big and emotional was going on. When Yetta had come to visit, he'd made it then because he'd caught the way Osiris' brow had furrowed. Now, he had made it because not only was Yetta missing, she's unintentionally taken Crow with her. 

She was surprised he hadn't made enough for the entire vanguard, light and dark both. A quick look at the pot told her she was wrong, and that he had. "Thinking food," he called it. "Mixed with comfort." She didn't need to eat it, of course. But the warmth was, indeed, a comfort, especially now. The tower needed to hold a potluck of some sort, soon. Community building and whatnot. Maybe during the summer, when everybody could stand to be outside and it wasn't snowing.

"We all know she is more to you than student," Saint told her, quietly. Carman was grateful. She didn't need to explain where her and Yetta stood in terms of attachments. Osiris and Elsie were still bickering amongst themselves. At this point, Carman wasn't sure they would reach a solution tonight.

. . . 

Yetta pushed open the door, almost frozen shut. Crow had draped his coat over her bare arms, trying to keep her some semblance of warm. She still shivered, breath coming out in short, foggy clouds. Crow stood close behind her, hands on her shoulders, rubbing comforting circles into her skin. She finally got it to open, rubbing her shoulder from the impact.

Yanking one of the light sticks out of the ground, Crow held it in front of her, wrapping an arm around her as he came to her side. "Until we figure out how to get home, we can hide here," he said. "Or until she finds us. This is a decent sized planet. We should have time."

She smiled at him, gratefully. "I really didn't mean to pull you-," she began.

"I know." He sat on the ground, snapping a bit of Solar onto the ground in front of him. "You can't control the blips, can you?"

"No." She sat beside him, basking in the warmth from the small fire. "We'll have to get supplies," she admitted.

"In the morning," he said. "In the morning."