Guardian funerals rarely had a body to inter, and though Eris no longer stood among the ranks of Lightbearers, she was not unique in that manner. So, they simply gathered, those few who had loved her well, packing themselves three deep into the cramped apartment even Eris had sometimes forgotten she owned.

There was Mara Sov, starlight in her eyes, Petra Venj at her elbow—no particular friend of Eris herself, but where the Queen went, she liked to follow. "Little" Eido, taller than the Queen of the Awoken, tucking her second arms around herself and taking care not to disturb any of Eris's bones and relics while peering at everything. Crow, serious as he moved toward Mara; Zavala, quiet, occupying a corner. Here to witness, not rip himself open. Some small assortment of Guardians who had corresponded with Eris over one matter or another, study of the Taken or Hive—Awoken, Human, and Exo faces alike, some distraught and some somberly set, determined to witness though they might not weep.

The Drifter did not show his face. Ikora had wondered how he would bear it, and she had her answer: he would not. He would simply go, careening into the dark of space with his pain alone to guide him.

Ikora sympathized, with an unavoidable bitter chaser of resentment. This was not the first time she'd been left to manage a funeral on her own.

Senseless. It was always senseless, death among the immortal. She had not grown any more used to it. She hoped she never would.

"We are here to celebrate Eris Morn," Ikora said to the surrounding group, drawing herself up and making steel her spine. "Mourn by carrying her with you, if you must. But in her own words, her life was a bright and victorious one, despite everything she endured. She ought to be remembered thus."

For Cayde's sake, she allowed herself two jokes in the eulogy; for Eris's, she did not cry.