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“People ask if I can feel him through the Light. I never answer. To anyone who truly wants to know, the answer is obvious: we’re still alive, aren’t we?”
- Ghost
I once had a name. I don’t remember what it was. Like him, my name became superfluous. There’s a ramen shop near the Tower, where Cayde used to go. Exos don't eat food, nor can they taste it. Cayde still swore it was the best food in the City. That shop became synonymous with the Idea of ramen. It was The Ramen Shop. Mr Kim became the most famous cook in the City.
That’s how it was for him. If anyone said “The Guardian”, there was only one person that meant. I don’t know how many actually knew his name. He gave me my name, which I now hold a secret. Even between us, we started using the titles, “Guardian” and “Ghost”. Some accused us of having an ego. That wasn’t it; we were trying to live up to the Idea.
Everyone alive knew of The Guardian and Ghost. Everyone believed in him. We knew that we carried the weight of a whole species with us into battle. He worked to be the Hero the City needed because he knew that Humanity needed that Hero. Children played, and their parents slept at night, even after the Red War, because of The Guardian.
He rarely spoke, and many wondered why. I never saw him reveal the pressure he felt. By being his voice, I helped to keep the façade. The Vanguard would casually tell him to enter another dimension or kill a God, and he would nod. Our enemies were slain, and Humanity was content not to wonder how.
Failsafe once joked that he did all the work, and I hid in his bag. That wasn’t entirely false (I hid in a cavity in his body that likely once housed Golden Age munitions). It was also not entirely true. The Guardian was a Hero, in the most real sense of the word. Yet, every Hero needs their humble friend, to relate to the pressures of the world.
It was my honour to be his friend.