me screaming

The war room is darkened, lights either off entirely or switched to a power-conserving dim glow. Even in the Tower in the Last City, the witching hours are quiet. Shaxx has retired for the evening, and even Eris has disappeared from her haunt by the stairs. A lone frame sweeps the dust from a half-dozern planets into neat piles for the accompanying vacuumbot to suck up.
A bolt of lightning somewhere beyond the wall lights the room for a brief second, casting Cayde-6 in stark chiascuro before fading. Perched atop the war table, his fingers tap against a Vex's eye cupped carelessly in his palm: one-one thousand, two-two thousand...
An answering rumble of thunder rolls. It's been building all day, this storm. Muggy air and heat in the way that the City rarely experiences had gotten on everyone's nerves. Of course, the Consensus had held their quarterly meetings today. By the end of it, Zavala's fists had been clenched hard enough to crack fieldplace, and that one vein had throbbed in the hollow of Ikora's neck, just below her exquisitely sculpted jawline.
You know, the one that promised a swift death via void 'nade to the face.
Every little petty slight, every veiled antagonism had been magnified until even Cayde himself - the very model of propriety, of course! - was considering an elaborate, humiliating prank that verged on maliciousness. Not that he'd do it. Well, not personally. No, he had an army of eager minions - er, greenhorn hunters - thatg would carry out his vengeance with aplomb.
But! That's beside the point. Point is, he'd seen that tension (of course he had, that was his job) and shrugged it off. Maybe a little joke, a bit of physical comedy - and neatly taken the graveyard shift for himself. It had been Ikora's turn, but hey, he didn't need to sleep. And the guardians deserved better than to accidentally set off her temper by saying something dumb like - like--
Ah, who cares. (Cayde can personally think of a baker's dozen of things that would set the force of nature in a svelte form that is Ikora Rey off, but he's no longer young and dumb enough to try it. He remembers that Crucible match.)
Still, it's not often that the Tower gets this quiet. It's nice. Almost feels like he's out in a sniper's nest somewhere, waiting for a target to stroll by. Flash. One-one thousand, two-two thousand, three--
He exhales with the thunder, jaw lights brightening just a little. He turns the eye in his hand. This, he can do. Sentry duty. Ol' reliable, that's him. Stepping into the breach when no one else wants to. It's a hunter thing. Probably.
Cayde sits, perched atop the war table, and waits out the storm. It will pass. They always do.