Lysandra

—Prince Uldren Sov

**Lysandra**, also known as **Dredgen Flare**, was an Awoken female Hunter, gunslinger, outlander, bandit and cultist; a Risen Guardian with a grey morality. She was most notable for her entangled history with the death-cult known as the **Shadows of Yor**, as well as with the stories of the hunters **Pahanin** and **Shin Malphur**, and was notable for her ability to walk the line between light and dark.

### Born

resurrected in the Northwest Territories Dead Zone

### Known For

conquering the Vault of Glass; becoming one of the Shadows of Yor; wielding the Last Word, the original Thorn, and the Ace of Spades

### Allegiance

Shadows of Yor, the Drifter, the Iron Lords, the Vanguard (waveringly), House Light

## Hands-On Work

> *'This fireteam... they show a truly stellar standard of hands-on work... it has the kind of regularity we could barely get Frames to replicate, yet they manage to perform consistently and beyond satisfactorily. Keep it up.'*
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- Ikora Rey's evaluation of Lysandra's fireteam.

Lysandra was resurrected in the Northwest Territories Dead Zone of what was once Labrador, Canada. Her Ghost wore a black shell like the petals of a flower, and he had named himself Redkite. The pair journeyed to the Last City, and Lysandra commenced helping on Vanguard operations. During this time, she performed numerous patrols for the Vanguard mostly in the Cosmodrome and on the Moon alongside her closest friend and associate, a lovely Exo Titan named Fish-12' who she also called 'Threesixty'. The two were downright inseparable for several years, and went on countless missions together. Other regular friends and associates of hers included an indomitable heavy Exo titan, Cold-01, and a Human guerilla and coordinator, Supernovae. Supernovae and Lysandra worked together to acquire the banned Red Death rifle, which was due to be destroyed for its use as a Guardian killer. Though Lysandra felt some awe at holding such a dark weapon, she let Supernovae take it instead - she took the other rifle they had stolen, a long gun called Patience and Time, confiscated from a group of frontier bandits.

## Six In, Four Out

> *'After my next beacon, I'm cashin' in. Word on the radio is there's a cavern full of ancient gods that not even the Vanguard wants to go near. I reckon I could make a killing on the supply chain, eh?'*
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- Archer-5, Cosmodrome patroller.

During her time working as a patroller for the Vanguard, Lysandra heard via campfire stories and tales out in the wilds, of a mysterious Vex bastion deep within the Ishtar Sink. The hold was called the Vault of Glass, and she heard of a lost fireteam who fell to an uncertain fate. Hooked by fellow rangers, huddled around campfires in the Baikonur Cosmodrome of Old Russia on cold nights, Lysandra became intrigued by the tales of the Vault and its inhabitants. It was here that she first met the Defender Titan Speiro briefly, out in the wastes - they would cross paths much later.

She spent weeks preparing to journey into the Vault, joining a new fireteam briefly, led by a hunter named Plum. During this time, Fish-12 and the others joked that they hardly saw Lysandra any more - her obsession with the Vault was consuming her. Alongside Plum and four others, she entered the Vault. There, they took what felt like months, yet on the outside was a mere day. The group entered the domain of the Vex, where Lysandra herself took up the Aegis of Kabr, forged from his own sacrifice, and helped her fireteam vanquish the Templar after it wiped one of her fireteam from existence. In the maze of the Gorgons, another one of her fireteam was wiped from memory, yet the group still made it to the throne room of Atheon, Time's Conflux. It was a long and grueling battle, but they finally stood shoulder-to-shoulder and vanquished Atheon from this dimension, before backtracking to leave the Vault with only four members.

## Pahanin's Legacy

> *'I don't like this. Something feels wrong. We should just walk away-'*
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> *'What, and leave him to the sands of time? C'mon, Red. Something's speaking to me here. I feel it.'*
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> *'I know, but I'm afraid.'*
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- Lysandra and Redkite arguing as they found Pahanin's corpse.

Upon her exit, Lysandra wished to know more about the Aegis shield she had held in her own hands, and about the man who was rumoured to have created it from his own dying body - Kabr. As soon as she had reconvened with her friends, Lysandra left Fish-12 for a while again and set off to find the hunter Pahanin - the only person before her fireteam who had seen within the Vault and lived. Rumour told that Pahanin, Kabr and their sniper, Praedyth, had watched three of their friends be wiped from existence in front of them too. (Legends also told that Praedyth was locked in the Vault in a time prison somewhere, but Lysandra would only find him much later in her life).

When Lysandra followed a trail of hearsay, she found the frozen, sandswept, and most importantly *Lightless* corpse of Pahanin in Meridian Bay, Mars. The mystery sent her on a trail - *where was Pahanin's ghost, and how did he die?* The trail took her across the system and she spent months piecing together evidence, finding shards of thornlike bullets and talking to people who knew Pahanin. At one point on Mars in the ruins of the city of Freehold, she came into contact with Pahanin's old machine gun, Super Good Advice - and it was this encounter with the uniquely talking rifle that told her the final piece of the puzzle. A name. *Dredgen Yor*.

## Fall to Temptation

> *"To rend one's enemies is to see them not as equals, but objects—hollow of spirit and meaning."*
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— 13th Understanding, 7th Book of Sorrow.

Armed with a name, Lysandra searched the archives of the World's Grave on the Moon. This led her to a fragment of the 7th Book of Sorrow. Determined to find out how Pahanin died, Lysandra became enthralled with the book. She was exhausted and hungry, wasting away all the time, yet fervently studying the pages for its secrets until she learnt of a weapon - a revolver, Thorn. Perhaps it was the whispers of the Worm Gods, perhaps something darker, but she took it upon herself to replicate the corruption.

Taking her own trusty Vanguard-issue revolver, The Devil You Know, she followed the teachings of the seventh book. First, she slaughtered Hive in the depths of the Moon's caves, feeding the gun as per the Hive's own Sword Logic. Next, she entered The Crucible, and with the well-meaning help of the hunter Supernovae, they spent weeks vanquishing guardians with her pistol and its dark energy. After that, she took the gun to the pits of the Moon and used it to slay the powerful Hive Wizard called Xyor the Unwed, cementing her place in the Sword Logic. Finally, the gun was sated, corrupted and dark, with withered black spines and a hissing green glow emanating from its chambers.

Lysandra now held in her hands a copy of Thorn, the weapon of Dredgen Yor. A mimicry of the weapon that killed Pahanin, Thalor, and Jaren Ward. Her mind was forever changed. Corrupted, even. Her body was weakened and aching, her mind full of darkness. She stopped heeding the call of the Vanguard, and went off the grid for a while.

## Becoming Dredgen Flare

> *'Rise, my child. Who are you?' came the wavering voice of Dredgen Vale, his unchanging mask staring down at Lysandra. Bowing her head still, she raised herself from a kneeling position. as her black cloak whipped in the wind. A single tear rolled down her grimy, ash-stained azure cheek, as she stared determinedly into Vale's blinding green eyes. Around the pair, countless figures in black cloaks hummed a low tune, encircling her like vultures.*
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> *'I am Dredgen Flare' she whispered.*
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- Lysandra is initiated into the Shadows of Yor by Dredgen Vale.

In the wastes of the Manhattan Nuclear Zone, Lysandra shared a fire with a bandit who named himself only as Dredgen Vale. A shady man who also carried a similar gun to her copy of Thorn, he offered Lysandra salvation from her weakness. Seeming to be a devotee of the legacy of Dredgen Yor, Vale claimed he could teach her to turn the darkness in her mind into a weapon of its own. She agreed, and he inducted her into his sect, the Shadows of Yor. As part of her induction, Vale and the other Shadows ordered Lysandra to prove herself. Her task was to kill a hunter called Hazulbut using her corrupted weapon.

She accepted the test, and caught up with Hazulbut in the Saharan Contested Zone, a windswept desert ruled only by scattered warlords, rogue bandits, and Fallen scavengers. The pair had a brief confrontation in the sands outside the ruins of a city before drawing down. Lysandra's draw was quick and true, and Hazulbut collapsed into the sand bleeding. Feeling almost nothing, Lysandra stood over him and pulled the trigger again, as a second jagged needle found its mark in his chest. She took his bloodstained cloak, slung it over her shoulder, and returned to the Shadows of Yor.

Impressed with her blind devotion, Dredgen Vale and the others named Lysandra as **Dredgen Flare** and initiated her into the Shadows of Yor. During this time, she crossed paths with Dredgen Hope. As Dredgen Flare, Lysandra carried out many missions for the Shadows, but Dredgen Vale noted that sometimes, she would seem to be able to control both Light and Dark, a somewhat noteworthy skill. Under the Shadows, Lysandra also became versed in the works of Toland the Shattered, and repaired the remnants of his pulse rifle, Bad Juju. She used his teachings to finally understand the Sword Logic that had helped her forge her copy of Thorn.

## On Blackened Wings

> *'Cull? Totalus? Vane? Anyone read, repeat, anyone read? This is Dredgen Flare. I've been stranded sixteen levels below the hull breach. Requesting urgent transmat as soon as solar storm allows. Please copy.'*
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- Lysandra attempts to radio the Shadows during the solar storm.

After her initiation, Lysandra reappeared on the Vanguard radar and joined in with several noteworthy operations. This included being part of the fireteam to banish Crota's soul in the Ascendant Plane alongside a team led by her old acquaintance, the Defender titan Speiro, who gifted her his replica of the Crux-Lomar rocket launcher Gjallarhorn. It also included fighting once again alongside Supernovae in the Prison of Elders in the Reef. Lysandra also aided in the Taken War and the assault on the Dreadnaught, carrying out Cayde-6's plan of scouting the ship before the arrival of most of the other Guardians. Aboard the Dreadnaught, she also collected intel and samples for the Shadows of Yor.

One night aboard the Dreadnaught, a solar storm hit Saturn, throwing ring debris into orbit and knocking the Vanguard's comm systems out of alignment. Lysandra was exploring an ancient underground Hive tomb on orders from Dredgen Cull, and thus she missed the evac order. When the solar storm hit, Lysandra and Redkite were separated by the tomb collapsing, and she was left with only her knife. Using the scraps and spare parts she scavenged off the dead body of another Guardian within the tomb's antechamber, huddled within the doorway as the solar storm raged outside, she crafted herself a rudimentary sniper rifle, using a transmitter, binoculars, and a railgun chassis. She named her makeshift rifle the Hereafter, and used it to fend off a group of Hive Knights until Redkite could find his way to her again.

## Old Wounds, Older Friends

On a later mission, Lysandra entered the now-empty Vault of Glass once again, following a broken transmission. The signal led her through the silent vault to the skeletal corpse of the legendary hunter Praedyth, whom she laid to rest after his temporal ordeal.

During the SIVA crisis, Lysandra was contacted by Fish-12, the first time she had heard from him in a while. The Shadows of Yor at this point wished for her to complete her training and fully commit to the Darkness, which involved the ultimate personal sacrifice.

Dredgens Vane and Cull ordered her to kill Fish.

Lysandra accepted the mission. She met once again with Fish, sharing a few drinks in the Tower before the pair followed a transmission that Fish wished to investigate, all the way to Felwinter's Peak. The pair aided Lord Saladin Forge to combat the House of Devils Splicers. They spent a couple weeks cleaning up the Cosmodrome Plaguelands. It was odd to return to the place they used to patrol some three years earlier, only to find it corrupted and diseased. They aided the remaining Iron Lords successfully, and Lysandra almost forgot about her mission. She was enjoying herself again for the first time in a while, but it was not to last.

Dredgens Vane and Cull contacted her again, reminding her of her task. She followed Fish to the Moon.

## Rend One's Enemies

> *Spluttering as his mouthpiece flickered with a fading electrical glow, the bulky android dragged himself forward with a mechanical hand, across the dusty lunar surface. His eyes glowing ever dimmer, he coughed as he pulled himself forward. There in the grey-blue dust, half-buried, was his pearly SUROS Regime assault rifle, leant against a blinking beacon. With a monumental effort, he reached out again, but then groaned. A boot kicked him in the side, and he rolled over, coughing more. Gasping for mercy, he could barely form the words. He rolled over and looked up. Backlit by the silhouette of Earth in all its azure glory, wrought with pale clouds, a figure stood. Two green glowing eyes shone from beneath her black hood, her ash-grey armour scrawled with black symbols. The figure shushed him as he tried to assure his innocence. Reflected sunlight glinted off a jagged, heavy revolver as the figure brought it up from her side and levelled it at the Exo. In her strong hand, the Hunter held a dead rose, and her aura burned dark. Yet beneath the mask, her voice wavered as the Titan’s flickering eyes looked up, widening at the Hunter’s appearance.*
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> *‘You’re a… Shadow of Yor? What-’ he groaned, only to be shushed gently again.*
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> *‘Please… don’t make this harder than it has to be. I have to…’ she whispered, trailing off. Beneath her mask, a tear rolled down her pale cheek, her visor display misting up. One eye extinguished, the Exo looked up at her, frown almost softening at the sound of her voice.*
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> *‘Lysandra?’ he managed, with monumental effort. Dredgen Flare closed her eyes. Across the surface of the Moon, a single, piercing shot rang out silently.*
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## under constrction

She was most notable for wielding The Last Word. which was passed down from Jaren Ward to Shin Malphur, then to her.