The wind plucked at her jacket, cold and sharp through the thin fabric, as she knelt to run her fingers across the headstone of the grave. The laser-etched letters were sharp, despite the decade it had languished here while she was in transit, playing catch-up with the person buried beneath it. She found herself mouthing the words, almost silent, as she touched them. "Here lies Kenaida Warden, returned home at last. Died 1806 NE."
Kenaida? She looked the name over, a small bit of wonder caught in the haze of grief. I never knew her as anything but Archon. Her hand dipped into the pocket of her jacket, and she pulled out a piece of metal - a medal of valor, the edges melted and the details blurred from intense heat. "Hey, Archon. Sorry I'm late - they wouldn't let us ship out to follow you until the last of the HADES kitbashers were put down."
She placed the medal on top of the headstone, gently, as if trying to avoid waking a light sleeper. "We managed to find your old medal, the one you carried for luck-" Her voice cracked on that word. Luck, something Archon had only ever joked about, but which everyone in the Blackthorn Squad knew she believed in, the medal a talisman all but rubbed smooth by her thumb across the years. "Anyhow. Yeah. We found it in your mech's chassis, after it cooled, and I drew the straw to bring it." She'd fought to draw the short straw. None of the others wanted to be reminded of a fallen comrade, but she felt like she owed it to Archon.
She touched the medal again, lightly, and rose to her feet, turning away. "We'll be shipping out again tomorrow. We had to fight to get even this much downtime, you know how it is. Don't know when we'll be this way again, but I'll try and stop in to catch you up when we do." She took a step, hesitated, and added, "And don't worry. Mask is tracking all the leads we can find on the actual HADES squad that set the kitbashers up. We'll get vengeance for you, sister."