Drifter sat back, kicking his feet up on a nearby console. He wiggled his large toe through a hole in his sock.

"So it's a living memory… of a dead guy?" Drifter recapped.

"A dead god," Eris corrected him, as she continued to rummaged through the piles of junk littering the floor of the Derelict, Drifter's ship. She tossed aside bits of old food, Sparrow parts, and stray ammunition. "Aurash, the Osmium King, Lord of Shapes, and First Navigator of the Hive."

She held up a moldy clump of Glacial Starwort at arm's length. Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "You said you had a calcified Hive worm in this cesspit. Produce it."

"It's around here somewhere," Drifter assured her. "If you relax a little, I bet it'll come right to you. I reckoned a top-notch occultist like you woulda figured that out."

Eris ignored his jab and poked another pile of detritus with her foot. A tiny croak and some gentle rustling issued from beneath the pile. Eris's mouth formed a thin line of annoyance.

"Anyway," Drifter continued, "while Oryx was stompin' around—drumming up Taken from everything he could get his greedy mitts on—his memories were stored in the Darkness."

"They became interwoven with the fabric of our shared meta-consciousness," Eris elaborated.

"That's what I said!" the rogue Lightbearer exclaimed. "Then, after the Guardian killed the Witness, Oryx's memories combined with the Light… to make the Echo."

"Yes. That's very nearly correct," Eris humored him.

She pulled back an Ether-stained banner to reveal a small stone statuette of a plump, fish-like creature. She held it up to the light, examining it closely.

"This is it. Now let's depart before I contract something more pernicious than your company."

"There's no such thing," Drifter chortled. "Trust."