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Chapter Text

Ammo aplenty to be recovered, but no guns in sight, the fireteam scavenged the pile of goods strewn from a camp that changed hands from human to whichever Eliksni House to whichever Uluran faction to whichever Eliksni House again before the Guardians reclaimed it. Thomas dug through the wreckage of a ketch wedded so forcibly to a thresher it probably happened midair. His fireteam, another Warlock assigned by the vanguard and a new Titan friend, dug around in other piles.

"You're not bad on the Strikes, but I can see the green," he remarked to Freija. This was the fourth time they worked together and by now had a decent combat chemistry that honed into an efficient, if hot, cleaning crew. The effort spent avoiding flinging fire at the needed supplies remained the hardest part of their jobs.

"What's that mean?" She looked to her Ghost, who wheeled, and they looked to Thomas from their salvage pile.

"Green means new or young. Old phrase referring to soft new branches on a tree, hard to break and bend, and still green just under the skin." The pile of empty tin cans might have been useful…

"I'm still new? Yeah. Ish. I like to think I'm a little better than I was."

"I have no doubt you are. My early days were. Uh. Embarrassing. Shut up, Rex."

The third of their number waved at them. Their comms were on a different channel, so their Ghost popped up. "Hey! Give us a hand!"

Freija and Thomas made their ways over to see a massive jet engine that might be in working condition. The Warlock pointed at it, then pointed to a spot on the ground away from its housing rubble. Their Ghost said, "Help move it clear so I can send it to the Tower."

Looking it over, Thomas determined they'd have to clear off the top before they got started, or else pull with something at a distance so nothing would land on them.

Before he could say anything, Freija wedged herself between the junk and the engine, and he barely cast his rift before she pushed.

Tons of steel slammed noisily as it tumbled, kicking up dust and sending parts flying and rolling. Thomas had to swat away some of the bigger shrapnel and several shards were caught by the overshield.

The oil kept the dust cloud small, so the survival of their teammate was not left to question-- no movement stirred the pile of metal that landed directly on top of her.

The Ghost worked her way out with a groan of frustration. "Sorry, I didn't realize what she was doing until too late." Freija appeared in a shower of scrap as she flung it off herself and leapt to her feet. "Sorry!"

The silent Warlock made a show of laughing, and Freija responded with animatedly brushing herself clean. As one, the three Guardians climbed to the top to clear the remaining mess so the Titan could try again without killing herself.

Thomas put in superficial help dragging the engine into place, mildly embarrassed that the Titan made it look so easy. "How long have you been in the Tower? Still running in orbit with the rest of the ring?" he asked. "I know a lot of people will drift along with gravity instead of landing, it looks like a ring from the moon. And Mars."

"I like Nessus, and Failsafe likes the company, so sometimes I'll land and camp there." Freija didn't seem to think anything of lifting the enormous engine to free up a stuck plate.

Thomas dug into the new available scrap to distract himself from the envy. And attraction. Rex chided him for his taste but he could hardly hear it anymore.

"Considered barracks in the Tower? It's pretty much a rule to cohabitate, they're set for three people. We lost a roommate to a relationship a while back and have an empty room. No one snitches if you don't have a fireteam, but it's frowned upon to have the space, they tend to assign at random. Figure you'd be a better option."

"We? You and your Ghost?"

"Hunter buddy. She just uses it for storage, mostly, I don't think she even has a bed in her room. We call her Three, I don't remember her given name. Grenade launcher connoisseur, kinda cheesy with the grim and brooding Hunter thing, but she's ancient so I figure it's not just put on. Sweet lady once you get to know what sweet is from her."

"Freija's one of those," teased the Ghost. "We can talk more about it later."

Chapter Text

"Holy shit and she brought a friend!"

Thomas grinned as the exos came through the door, dirty brown and green leading a surprisingly bright pink and blue. Both were dirty– Rise carried a blood-stained cloak tucked into one arm, and Three's boots left Taken-stained footprints, warping reality and leaving color-leached emptiness fading in her wake.

"We are gross and need showers," Three reported. "And Rise's ship doesn't have one either."

"Doesn't Rise have several ships?"

"The one we're flying right now doesn't, and this was closer," Rise's Ghost, Spectre, corrected as she swept through the den.

Thomas caught a whiff as she passed and he cried out, looking away and waving a hand for show. "Whhoof. What were you guys doing?!"

"Well, first it was gambit, and then Rise wanted to go to Altars to fuck with the Hive and we know how I feel about that, so we did that for a while, and then when she was done, we went to the EDZ to fuck around, and while we were doing that, she fell into a bog of something contaminated. I'm pretty sure it's actually deadly, you might want Rex to make sure you didn't just inhale a future tumor." Three paused to consider the couch, then strode off to her room.

Rise's refusal to remove her helmet no longer fazed Thomas, but now he wanted to know if she took it off to shower.

Three eventually returned, wearing an oversized t-shirt and nothing else, flopping onto the couch. "So how's your day?"

"Being distracted by some romance," he admitted. "Which is fine, I like the audience."

"Yeah?"

Thomas knew she only asked to pretend sociability, so he skipped that part and moved on. "Were you planning to find someone for Third Room?"

"Got someone in mind?" Three's face glowed when she redirected her red eyes to him. "You finally meet someone for real?"

"Rhys is the only girl for me until someone better comes along," Thomas chuckled, blushing and looking away. "Nah, Titan friend I made recently. She's not interested, prefers girls that can kick her ass, she said. Awoken lady, red hair, decent in combat, got a way of getting shot at."

Three snorted a laugh. "I do enjoy a good tank," she admitted.

"Volunteers for the vanguard, but she talks more about the Dreaming City and Nessus than anywhere else; still orbits, real early in her Rising, I know how you get about anyone younger than five hundred."

"The hard line is... Probably the Taken War," Three muttered. "Damn kids," she added with a smirk.

"Anyway. She's not bad and could use a room and if the vanguard finds out it's empty, it'll go on the list and we don't want that."

Three wagged her head. "I don't care. Keep her out of my room. It'll explode."

Thomas was not a hundred percent sure that wasn't true. "I'll tell her."

Chapter Text

"Three, Freija. Freija, Three," Thomas said when Three sauntered up.

At first Thomas had worried that the meeting might be inappropriate, as Freija reeked of gunpowder and charcoal and dirt covered everything except the soot; but Three appeared just as underdressed, clad in her Sixth Coyote and leaving Taken footprints.

The women looked each other up and down, and neither reacted visibly. Three turned on her heel and marched off. "Sure."

"Sure what?" Thomas called after her, jumping to his feet. He knew she was going to be a jerk as a test, but he thought she would at least sit down!

Three did turn around, but chose to shout the distance, "She can move in. Looks decent enough. Works hard, ain't a thief, and as long as she stays out of my room and replaces what she eats, I don't care. Sure."

Without another glance, she turned and continued her march away.

Freija, to Thomas's relief, apparently expected that. She hadn't moved and her lips twisted as she forced down a smirk. When he squinted at her, she let the smile through. "I met a friend of hers on a strike not long ago. Been running them with her since, so we've gotten to be friends. Told her about you inviting me to stay. She said that Three was a total asshole and a model Hunter. And then she said I would know what she meant when I met her. And she was right."

Thomas could have melted. "You know Rise?"

"Strikes. She saved my ass while I was cowering behind my barricade and I saved hers when she was in too deep and surrounded." Freija picked her helmet back up and grinned at him. "She also told me to go do something sweaty before I met her, the grime would win me points. And not to dress too fancy, she said looking clean made me look lazy and looking rich made me look dishonest."

Chapter Text

"I know you said you were usually home and Three never was, but I expected that to be a little less... True?"

Thomas glanced up from the screen and let his hands off the keyboard. "I don't get out much," he admitted. "That's how your Ghost met mine. He stays in the Ramen Shop ceiling. We've been out maybe a couple times in a couple months."

"Yeah, I don't get that either," she said, looking for somewhere to put her helmet before the Ghost dematted it. "Ghost said you don't like each other?*

"We don't," he agreed. "We don't agree on... Anything. You're lucky."

Freija continued standing there and Thomas waited. She was working up the nerve to say something. "She said I'd have to ask you because she didn't want to tell on you, but she said you had an. Issue? With being in the field? I guess?"

Thomas flinched, not realizing that his "issue" would be shared. "I guess Rex told her. I don't like being in the field 'cos nothing feels right. Like, how we talked about you working and how aggressive you get? And you said that's just what comes naturally? I haven't found a natural. I'm almost five hundred, I'm older than the Vanguard itself, and I still have not found anything that makes me feel at home with the Risen stuff."

Freija nodded slowly, frowning with thought, brow firm. "Kay?"

Thomas continued watching his new roommate as she studied him with searching silver eyes. "You don't believe me?" He asked.

"Well, you're not saying something. So I believe you but I know there's more to it."

Thomas couldn't know if her Ghost would tell. She might have already and Freija was just being nice in asking. He weighed it out and decided that he could bear the embarrassment from a New Light. "I think I should have been rezzed a Titan."

Freija's brow didn't soften. Her lips pursed and she frowned with what might have been concern.

He didn't feel judged but he didn't like the look. "I don't know what it is. In the field, I'm great at killing stuff, I'm a decent shot, and I can work with just about anything you hand me. But nothing feels natural, my rift feels weird to use, there's a lot of skill that still feels like I'm just copying instead of applying it, and just in general, I feel like I should have a barricade and brute strength instead."

Freija remained silent, but at least she looked away, mouth pulling to a side. "That sounds like it sucks," she finally managed.

"It does!" Thomas declared with a vicious grin that might have been a wince. "So I don't go out much and Rex practically lives in the Ramen Shop."

Freija flinched for him. "I'm sorry," she said eventually. "Sympathies," she added.

"Don't want 'em. Just know your own luck. You and your Ghost and your class all jive. I'm sure you'll have your ups and downs with her and your fire and so on, but I'm jealous and I know there's a bunch of cynics who think it's fake."

Freija frowned again. Her Ghost whirred near her head, and the Titan held a hand up to hold her. "I'll take my luck," she agreed. "How about Three? Where's she?"

"Three just keeps her stuff here and uses the address so she can send people here, so they can say they looked for her at her home," Thomas explained curtly, and he turned back to his keyboard.

"Ah."

"You still running Strikes?"

"I was looking at the iron banner stuff. Might do that next time it comes around."

Chapter Text

"Rise."

"What?"

"Rise-26."

"What?!"

"What. The fuck. Is that."

Rise looked to see where Freija had locked her eyes, finding a Long Shadow buried in amongst the vault data. Freija nudged Rise out of the way and flipped a page and gasped aloud. "This explains so fucking much! Go make dinner or something, I promise I will help you hunt down a new one if you miss literally anything I scrap. The glimmer stays yours."

"Some of them were popular," Rise complained, pouting at Freija. "Be nice."

"Long Shadow," Freija insisted, pointing at the screen. "I don't care what mods were on it, it's a shit gun. You have no excuse for having it." Freija dismantled it while the exo continued pouting at her. "And the toil--you have two Toil and Troubles why? Slideshot? You don't slide! You don't go into the Crucible! You don't even use shotguns! Why?"

Rise's mouth brightened and dimmed, then she spun on her toes and vanished. She appeared across the room, sprawling in front of the couch.

The shared living space remained empty the whole time, sparing Rise the embarrassment as Freija flipped through the pages of data, giggling, sighing, and faking outrage. "Light within, what is with this shotgun collection? It's very nice, don't get me wrong, but why do you have it?"

"Thank you, Freija," groaned Rise. "They were popular!"

"In crucible. Where you do not go. In close range combat in crucible, no less. Where you go even less. I am giving you homework, though. The ones that are easy to find need to be sorted out, picked through, and I want you to get rid of at least one, but preferably the bottom quarter or half."

Rise glanced over to see Freija gesturing at a list of five Night Watches and six Imperial Needles. "Take them all out and shoot them one at a time, pick your favorites and get rid of the rest. You'll feel the difference. They're good weapons with good mods, I'll let you pick through."

Rise didn't see what she moved to next, because she deleted it before it finished loading properly. "What was that?"

"Matador 64, I am leaving you very specific shotguns and that ain't one of 'em. Do you have this Dire Promise because I like it? You have three Seventh Seraphs, there is no reason whatsoever for you to have any other hand cannon that uses real bullets."

"You were right about how fun it was."

"You haven't used it since... Ever. It's gone." Freija glanced at her friend and smiled. "I know I'm being harsh, but the only thing I'm judging were those Toil and Troubles. My M5 recoils in horror."

Chapter Text

Three didn't express much. Overall, her personality got cheesy for its deliberate chill and while Thomas never felt like she was actually cold, it did take a lot to stir her passions.

Apparently, that lot had happened, and the passions had been enthusiastically stirred.

The overly swift, aggressive movements and impatient twitching took place between the Exo striding in circles around and occasionally over the furniture. Thomas watched as she 'matted all twelve of her personal grenade launchers to the table to clean and examine and probably load, then stormed into the kitchen without touching any of them.

He let her go about it until he finished editing his current chapter, then finally asked, "What's wrong?"

"Fucking Rise!" she bellowed, slamming a pot into the stove. "And her fucking stubborn bullshit double standards that ain't about shit except that she wants to do it the hard way!"

Thomas did not know that one could make noodles angrily, but the learning experience gave him notes for writing this kind of rage.

"Did you want to keep going off without explaining?" he asked. "I'm fine with that, but I don't know what you're talking about other than our friend being herself."

Three growled under her breath and slammed something else, splashing water everywhere. Thomas pretended not to see.

"Dredgen shit," she muttered. "Freija's not here, right? I don't want her giving me shit for caring, I'll kill her."

"As long as you clean up after yourself," he replied dryly. "She's in the crucible."

Three slowly calmed and continued her cooking. "It's title stuff, you helped me get it last season, remember? After all the shit with Savathun?"

"Yeah. You talked about it then, too. The one with the three-ways bit?"

Three groaned. "There are three fucking ways to get this fucking qualifier, and she picked the hardest fucking one, and won't even try the rest for any reason that doesn't apply to this one–" Three put her voice in her nose to mock her fellow hunter. "I can't do that reliably!" She returned to her normal voice to continue. "No shit but you can't do this reliably either dammit!" The Exo punctuated with a slammed lid. "And that asshole dared to tell me that she doesn't need my fucking help in a fucking team game to accomplish a feat that requires a win to count, she can go fuck herself with my witherhoard!"

"Did she actually say that?" Thomas asked with a flinch. "Were you guys fighting about this?"

"She said it cos I was trying to talk her into doing it another way! I hate the way she gets! I hate the way she hates gambit the whole time we're trying to do this! I start dreading going in with her! I don't want to do this again! I did it last season and she was fucking awful! And she will not try anything else! Refuses! Won't hear any fucking discussion on the matter because losing this way is better to her than losing any other way! And to make it worse, the way she does it, if she succeeds, it's all but a guaranteed loss of the match!"

Thomas blinked at the kitchen doorway from the couch. "Sounds intense," he offered eventually.

"I'm sick of her shit! I'm not going into Gambit with her again until she's done with that shit. I've got my own difficulties, but at least mine is just one part with one way and I might still need your help. Fucking shit, she could run motes and she just will fucking not."

Thomas nodded without remark and leaned back, taking the time to study his friend's upset and incorporate it into a character.

Chapter Text

"Didn't think you'd ever be caught dead in Gambit," remarked Three. She was only stopping by to clean guns and swap gear around, but the Night Watch disassembled on the table was gold and white, rather than Thomas's usual black or camo.

"I won't," replied Freija grumpily from the kitchen.

"This is a weapon you get from Gambit." Three pointed at it.

Freija peeked from the doorway, scowling as though her food had spoiled in her mouth. "I got it off the Tangled Shore, running Hunts with Crow," she said defensively. "I know you and Thomas had a few, too, but pretty sure that one's mine and been mine."

"Nice one, though. What's that, drop mag? Can't find those anywhere these days."

"Right? Proud of him. Just wish it hit harder."

Three smirked, then found her 'section' of the table to start working. "I see you've busted out your Explosive Personality, how'd that go?"

"What? Are you considering letting the deafening whisper out of your hands?"

Chapter Text

"Do you like to read?"

Freija blinked at her new roommate and bit her lips. "Uh. Not really? It feels like that's the wrong answer though."

Thomas smiled awkwardly. "I mean, there's no right and wrong answers with me. I am a little disappointed, and I'm gonna ask why not, but I'm not judging or anything. Plus you're always looking at the datapad."

Freija's mouth twisted to a side and she took a few deep breaths and sighed. "If you laugh, I'll kill you."

"Can't read well?" he suggested. "You won't be the first. Pretty sure half of everyone that died during the Dark Ages couldn't read at all."

Ghost and Guardian exchanged glances and Freija relaxed into Thomas's sofa. "We don't know when I died, but I can read English. I'm getting better but I was apparently out of practice? Ghost said, and doing it more has helped. But I can read German, Russian, and Chinese about as well as I could read English."

Thomas blinked at her and looked at her Ghost, who wheeled. "I have no idea," she admitted.

Freija seemed to find his confusion amusing. "I don't speak any of them and when I read them, I can only hear it in my head, I can't say it right, but I know the translation or interpretation most of the time. Signs, I can read a shitload of signs and words you see on signs. Might have other languages or words but we haven't found any. Ghost thinks any part of old Europe might have been my starting point, but we'll never know."

Thomas frowned with thought. "Sounds like travel," he said with a shrug. "So what are you reading on the datapad? You're on it all day when you're not working."

"Weapons stuff. Armor stuff. Occasionally Dreaming City stuff. But it takes me ages. So it looks like a lot but it's one thing really slow. I'm getting better."

"Is it really that hard for you?" He leaned over to see her screen, dominated mostly by stat bars instead of words, but it occurred to him that she might not have the list memorized.

"Ghost reads for me when we're in a hurry, but we both think I need to practice."

"I might not be able to help," he admitted, "but I can try. I write."

"What, like. Books?" Freija snickered. "And I was afraid of the Titan joke. We're just both stereotypes, huh?"

"I had to relearn how to read, too, actually. The old German I woke up reading and speaking was a thousand years out of date during the collapse," he laughed. "There's even lessons in the Tower, you are far from the only one. Language lessons, too, there's been a few waking up speaking languages so old that no one has heard of them."

"What do the Ghosts do when that happens?" Freija swiveled to her Ghost with her mouth open."

"Oddly enough, I don't know," she admitted. "I've only had a little dealing with living people outside the Tower-- but I've been able to fluently speak and read everything I've tried to. Old and ancient and dead as well as alien. But I can't interpret from one to another, except by reforming what I heard into a separate thought."

"That would be interpretation. The thing you can't do is translate," Thomas supplied. "Narrow but very present difference in communications, the gap between translation and interpretation."

"Fair enough. Either way, it takes me time but I can do it well enough. I expected to understand my Guardian, but I can't say I considered whether I'd have to teach them how to speak to others. Or read, actually."

The warlock smiled and nodded. "Yeah, Rex taught me how to speak English. And New German, actually, so we could go from old to new and then to current English. Reading, too, but as soon as he did that, I got into the library and the fighting started."

Freija and her Ghost flinched for him.

"And that's where I met Rhys, so it's not all bad." He grinned again.

"That's the weirdo in the wrapped up outfit with the glowy green stuff on her arms, isn't she?"

"That's the one. She just looks creepy."

Chapter Text

"So, you always get mad at me when I'm trying to tell you how to do a combat loop, and any time I'm trying to help, you tell me over and over again that you can't remember more than three steps," Rise-26 observed, watching a crucible vid from the back of Freija's couch.

"I can't. Too much to pay attention to. I'm trying to shoot shit, I can't keep track of what step I'm on, and if I lose it, I'm done for."

Rise grunted impatiently. "Yes, see, that is the thing you say, and yet you have a very nice, neat foxtrot you perform in crucible. To a beat. The arrangements change, depending on the map, but it always opens the same way."

Freija turned to her friend with the hardened brow featuring a raised eyebrow. "I keep telling you, I'm doing it all by what it feels like I'm supposed to do now--"

Rise snapped her fingers in time with her words. "Run-to-mid-point, put-up-barri-cade, shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot, and check-the-ra-dar."

Freija's face tried to hold a deadpan and failed as an embarrassed smile stole across her lips. "I can't argue because that's exactly what I do, but I couldn't have told you that before you sang it at me."

Rise broke the rhythm to say, "The first set of steps here changes. You check the radar, and if one wedge is lighting up, you throw your grenade in the general direction, and if two are lighting up, you run away. Without fail. So it becomes--" Rise snapped her fingers in time with her speech, "check-the-ra-dar, some-one-coming, throw-gre-nade; or check-the-ra-dar, get-ting-flanked, re-po-si-tion."

Freija bit her lips and awkwardly swayed where she sat. "See, but I couldn't have told you any of that. I can tell you why I do it, but if you sat me down and asked me to tell you what I do in there, I wouldn't have been able to tell you, especially like that."

Rise flipped backwards off the couch. "You always get so mad when I try to help you with a combat loop, and here you've got a ten-set foxtrot!"

"But I'm not counting my steps! I don't know which part of that I'm on! I can't do it on purpose!"

Rise laughed and flopped over the back of the couch to sprawl over the titan's lap. "There's also take-po-si-tion, shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot, now-we're-push-ing, start-a-gain, where you put your barricade up."

Freija nudged Rise's shoulder. "I still can't do it on purpose."

"I know. But you keep saying you can't do it at all."

"I can't do the complicated battle loops. Blame the Titan brain."

"Blame how lazy you are, you just don't like thinking."

"It's hard! I'm busy trying to guess my opponent's next move, I can't sit here and wonder if I'm charged with light!"

Rise only laughed at her friend.

Chapter Text

"What was that?!" laughed Rise, hopping from the couch and going to the kitchen door. Freija turned, ignoring the splat of dishwater hitting the floor, to see the screen Rise held out.

"Uh. A fail on my radar check while I was trying to stay out of the line of fire," she observed, frowning. "Wasn't my worst moment, but still kinda embarrassing."

"Freija, do you realize what you were doing?"

The Awoken woman's brow furrowed, and Sunny's petals twitched around. "Um. Shoulder check...? Get where you're going, I'm still too tired to think."

"This is incredible!"

"Huh?"

"They got you because it was four to one in a major middle spot, and you still kept them busy! You dodged bullets! That whole time!"

"I didn't kill anyone," she objected. The next several clips were much more impressive, Freija did well in that match, and she'd been getting better at the quick-swap.

"You're such a sweat! Do you remember what it was like to be as bad as me?"

"You're not bad, though!" Freija finally turned back to the dishes. "You keep up with me."

"No, I can't. I haven't in forever. You just don't notice because I fit in your backpack," Rise laughed. "I can't do that. I can't slide like that, I can't jump like that, I'm a Hunter and I can't even dodge like that."

Freija smiled crookedly. "Daw, thank you," she finally gushed. "Yeah, reflected on what a sweat I've become. I'm not all the way up yet, but I'm way better than I thought I could be." She grinned. "I go back and forth between focusing on my current stuff or swapping to other things to get better at, I'm sure I could learn a lot from swapping up my style."

"Do you hear yourself?"

Freija pouted. "Look, dammit, I know we took different paths here, but you went down Gambit's road, it's not my fault."

"Remember when we started? Iron banner? And we spent more time dead than alive? And I quit?"

Freija wagged her head. "A little? I still make rookie mistakes. I get caught out bad if someone's ducked down long enough." She wagged her head again.

Rise lifted the screen so Freija could watch herself be thoroughly impressive for about six seconds before she was gunned down by an auto rifle.

"Why do you keep picking clips from right before I die?"

"Because you get your most impressive right before you die," Rise teased, leaping across the den to flop across the couch. "Anyway. You are very good. And a sweat. Congratulations, Freija."

Chapter Text

Thomas glanced up when Freija stepped in, gimmicky pirate helmet under a Citan's-clad arm. The guns were presumably dematted, but the warlock already knew it was Mida Multitool and a crafted Explosive Personality and whatever sword she was carrying at the time.

"Have you really been in the crucible literally all day?"

"Yes," she replied briefly, and she collapsed to the sofa. "My body isn't tired, but my brain is toast. I can't think that fast that long."

The warlock kept his remarks to himself and instead leaned away from his word processor. "Any good stories?"

"Uh. Had to starve out a Jotun. Clutch win twice. Bounced a grenade off a wall to get it going the way I wanted it to go almost every time I tried. Finally quit when my allies didn't notice that we only had to stop for a few seconds and we would have won. Pissed me off so bad I left without showering or anything, I probably reek of blood and gunpowder."

"And charcoal," Thomas agreed. "I like it."

"Hosted a comeback. Badass, managed to pop a barricade just in time to block off a Jotun shot, allies got the kill while I ran to recover, got a second one up as they were running back to me, all six of us opened fire down this hallway, I throw a grenade, my barricade went almost immediately but we still got the kills. Ended up in three two-on-threes, one guy quit two rounds in twice and one time the third one just didn't show at all. Won one, lost the other two."

Thomas nodded, but he was studying the Titan where she sat. Her face fell slack and her eyes fixed ahead as her breathing slowed and became more shallow.

"Status report?"

"Coming down," she replied. "I had to move very fast a lot, today. There were a couple of matches where that was all I could do while my allies took out the opponents. I'm sure I looked silly as hell, but I know I did good."

She grinned. "Literally, one time, was just running in a circle."

After several moments, the grin faded and the Awoken's eyes drooped. "Nah, what it is, is people start getting real fucking strategic, and. Uh, if I take the time, if I have time to take, I'm pretty good at heading them off and taking care of it, and if my allies are really good, they're either on their radar as hard as I am, or they follow my glances well. So we can usually keep them from getting around us. And my launcher is working out great.

"That's good."

"But yeah. I'm brain tired."

Sunny giggled as she 'matted. "We did great, today. Didn't earn as many points with Shaxx's ranking system as we would have liked, but we were facing some pretty tough opponents."

"Yeah, gods, fuck, uh, shit," Freija agreed distantly, and her eyes closed slowly and stayed that way. "Fuck," she repeated, and she put her hands over her face.

"You okay?"

"Coming down," she repeated. "I died a lot," she added. "Think that does some sort of long-term damage to our brains?"

"I think you're just stubborn and don't like thinking much," Thomas teased. "Any physical sensations going along with it?"

"You interviewing me for a book?"

"Uh. A little." He smiled toothlessly at his roommate. "Though?"

"Uh. Hands are. Tingly?" she said, and she held one up to show him some mild trembling. "Heart still. Doing the thing. Flutter. Brain feels. Like. A muscle you've worked really hard and are stretching out, I guess?"

Thomas nodded sagely and made the note, and he sat back again. "Good day?"

"Good day," she agreed. "Got a girl's number, butch Titan lady, cute as hell. If she swings your way and we don't work out, I'll direct her to you?"

"Maybe?" Thomas agreed.

Chapter Text

"I promise I won't tell her, I'm just dying to know."

Sunny flickered as she turned her attention to Thomas where he sat at his desk. "I'm not hiding anything from her. Right now," she objected.

The orange-haired human shook his head and pointed at the sand table. "What's the story in the sand? I can see the beginning peace, the early-middle conflict, a dull stretch of unpleasant, and a happy ending, but what story is it?"

Sunny wheeled. "A second by second of the event that almost killed us. It was on my mind and I got to tell Caiatl, but it was lurking, so I drew it all out."

Thomas crossed the room to study, thoughtfully stroking his chin. "So we've got..... the path, tracing the outside as it goes in, I'll call them vertical. Horizontal, then, is the... Second?" Sunny bobbed and hovered silently near his head, knowing he wouldn't judge but still feeling bashful. He continued observing, drawing in the air with his finger. "Each second is angled, curved or pointed Dots and lines mark near many of them. So. Other than the obvious, curved is good, spike is bad, and I think the lines indicate the number of people? And the dots... I dunno."

"The dots are my senses and which side of the line they're on is a yes-no. I marked them on change."

"Internal-external? Any sensory intake in particular? There's what looks like five."

"The vertex is our Light. Sight and hearing are the external of the horizontal', touch and fear are the inside. The bottom one only changes a few times, but I had to take the fear out of the overall for effect."

Thomas nodded thoughtfully. "From here to here is just you and Freija. Here's the attack. The pain and fear. Quiet again, but your lines change anyway. That was a while. Two minutes?"

"Thereabouts," Sunny agreed.

"This is when she noticed," Thomas said, pointing.

"Yeah."

"That's cute, I like how it went from spikes to bubbles, the contrast there. The dots moved a lot."

"I was afraid that if I was weak, so was Freija, and that she wouldn't be able to kill the acolyte. The sight dot jumps are where she used her hand to cover me."

"... Oh, you guys nearly died," he said with a wide nod. "Yeah, I can... she wasn't? Weakened, I mean? You guys still smelled like dirt, you were so young."

"She had a fire after I got hit, so I think she was okay. Or maybe she just brute-strengthed it. I wouldn't put it past her."

"Lights on," Thomas said, pointing. "You guys talking? Hearing on and off?"

"Yes."

"Your Light coming back," he observed. "Fear relieved. You stayed touching, I assume letting her carry you. She made it through you getting scratched by a relic?"

"Did you think we made it up?"

"I thought she was exaggerating. Didn't think you'd be making whole art pieces about it," he admitted. "I never looked before, but you actually have a mark don't you?"

"Yep."

"I liked the relief when she noticed," he said, pointing at one of the few changes of the 'fear dot, where the points became curves. "That's cute.

"Caiatl mentioned how far apart our experiences are," Sunny murmured. "But a few things are parallel, just at different times. Like this time, it was one of the times I really felt like she was my Guardian. Not just me being her Ghost and her being the person I resurrected, but genuinely, my Guardian, the Lightbearer meant to fight alongside me, the warrior meant to hold the walls. It felt like leading a child around for a long time, and I knew she was a strong fighter, but I hadn't seen her real war face, not much. Sometimes angry, but not with a spun up drive to beat our enemies into death or submission.

"That Knight hurt us and it lit her eyes like her fire and I could see that there would never be a threat to me as long as she stood." Thomas pointed at a segment where the fear dot came and went several times along with sight and sound flickers.

"Yeah"

"I like how even Freija could see the happy ending. I think you did a good job telling it."

"Thank you."

"Can I use some of it?"

"I am not going to answer any questions about the scratch.

Thomas grinned at the Ghost, but blood crept into his cheeks as he shuffled in place. "L'righ."

"Don't tell Freija, it'll upset her."

"It will," he agreed. "I won't. Next fit she has will set that couch alight." Sunny rolled back and dropped a few inches. "Thank you."

Chapter Text

"Hey, Thomas."

"One of these days, someone is going to notice that I'm not you," he chuckled.

"Do you think he cares?"

"Guess not, seeing as we're years into this practice, but I don't know why he's doing it in the first place. What's the challenge this time?"

"Hand cannons."

"Ooh."

"Sunshot?"

"Sunshot."

"You and that damn Titan." Three shook her head and strode into the kitchen to raid the fridge. "Fire everywhere. Don't think I didn't notice the couch."

"You're never home, why do you care?" Thomas peeked into the vault on his datapad and chuckled again. "Of course she has it." He glanced up at Three, who glared at him from the fridge. "Yes, fire everywhere. It's a good gun. Hand cannons are notoriously bad at killing lots of things at once, and that's exactly what Gambit is for."

"Yeah yeah yeah," she teased, flapping a limp hand. "Anyway, need you to pick up my name and number to finish that task for me."

Chapter Text

"Hey, Three, fancy meeting you here," teased Thomas. He didn't move from his desk, but he did peek up at the Hunter. "Is... That a... Sidearm? Are those Tricksleeves? Where's the real Three?"

"Fuck off, Thomas, I'm just playing. Rise dressed it."

"You reek of arc, too. Found something fun?"

Three ducked her head and tucked her chin as her lights dimmed. "I mean," she murmured, swinging an arm. "Eh? I like the chain lightning thing when I can get the arc to flow. The sidearm helps keep it up when I've lost my step, when I can remember how to use one. My uh. My wrists are out of practice, I got used to bracing everything."

"You know that, that's why you wouldn't pick up a sidearm," he teased. "Rise teach you to punch the lightning in?"

"And kick off to pull the ions back on, yep!"

Chapter Text

"Hey! You came back!"

The dancer Litriks sidled up, regenerating lower stumps on display in the cut of his dancing costume.

"It's been a while!" Freija agreed. Sunny bobbed in greeting as the dancer waved to her. "Where's Namrask? And the loom?"

Litriks pointed at the Tower overhead and chittered through the translator before he could talk clearly. "He was called to meet with your Ada-1. He's very scared, so if you could visit him, he would be happy to see a familiar friendly face."

Freija nodded with a thoughtful frown, turning her lip up as she lifted her eyes to the Tower. "Good for him," she said eventually, not sure what else to say

He bobbed his head affirmatively. "Lasrak will be here later, we dance... twos?" He gestured with his longer arms to the space next to him.

"I get it. Gonna be a drum this time?"

Litriks nodded happily, almost standing at his full height on the bigger bounces. "It will be loud, call to answer."

Freija nodded with a pleased bounce on her toes, matching his happy bob, and she waved. "I'll be back when it's time."

Sunny whirled excitedly, flying around Freija's head. "I hope Tiix will be here again, too, I wanted a translation."

"Will I suffice?"

Freija and Sunny wheeled to see Eido hugging a datapad. The purple-pink Eliksni in her floppy-eared hood swayed on her feet while her lower hands wrung fingers. "I've been teaching the little ones on the casual days, and I'd be happy to have you in-- heehee! Class."

Sunny practically jumped, flying several inches up before she bounced happily in small circles. "That sounds great! Thank you!"

Eido turned her attention to Freija, who smiled awkwardly. "Guardian!"

"Eido!" she replied in matching tones. "I'm gonna listen in, if that's okay?"

"That's excellent!" the scholar cheered, nimbly catching a falling book as she dropped it from one arm. "It's delightful to have as many as will learn!"

Freija froze for a second, then actually patted the bony Eliksni arm excitedly. "Actually-- will you do this again? When? Three would love this."

"Three? I will return in three days, there will be another set, a wedding ritual dance, but there's three dancers."

Freija grinned. "Fantastic."

Chapter Text

"You know there's a reward for hand cannon kills in Gambit?"

Freija narrowed her eyes at Thomas from the front door. "Did you want to borrow Sunshot?"

"Not so much as I wanted to invite you to a match so you could unload with her and Path like we all know you like doing."

The Awoken face could not have hardened more if she were a statue. "Thomas Whatever-the-fuck-you-have-for-the-rest-of-a-name. Have you eaten something that made you swap yourself with another you on another timeline? Where I'm the gambit player and Three is a frontline thug?"

"Aww, don't be so hard on yourself. You like the blood sports, too." He smiled toothily and sat back with his hands behind his head. "Really, though. Just thought you'd try it if you had a good reason, and getting rewarded for doing stuff you like doing is a good reason."

She strode into the room and dropped her guns on the table. "Not when it's gambit. I'm not even gonna pretend it's actually something he's done that I know about. He creeps me out. And I don't mean the weird food thing. I think it's his Ghost or something, maybe."

Thomas stretched with a deliberately casual groan. "Alright. Thought I'd offer. Three gets me to do the jobs that aren't grenade friendly, which is weapon specialization and invading to kill the other team. Way more your thing than mine."

Freija frowned at him and cocked a hip as she turned to her "Yep and you guys can work with that 'cos the Derelict smells like what it would smell like if the Taken shat Hive magic. I'll be in with the real blood and sweat in the crucible."

Chapter Text

"So! You been digging with Eido for this Hall Between thing?" Freija inquired. "What's your theories?"

"Well, the main thing that's got me puzzled is the completely separate natures of their origins, in addition to the various other undead that appear with them," he said, propping his feet up. "Common elements exist, but the horrors are not replicated individually. The Vex ones were disassembled, the moon miners were. Uh." Thomas's mouth twisted as he considered his words. "I guess disassembled, and the team on Nessus," he finished. "But the miners' insomnia, the Vex obsession with the tower in the ice-- those have to stretch, and then there's the completely sideways attack from a common source of attack which for all evidence seems to be fairly typical of most events, unless there's more to it than recorded."

"So those stories are true?"

"Yep! You can track the sleeploss symptoms in the miners' accounts, there's records of the investigation on Nessus, as far as we could get back in. You've been in there before."

Freija nodded. "Got a good ways in, but I can only go so far down before the smart ones start sneaking off and stabbing me and running away until it's too annoying to keep going.

"Sunshot no good for a one on one, huh?"

"Heavy baby," Freija agreed. "So why wasn't I attacked by flaming zombie Eliksni then?" She suddenly stood up and flung her arms. "Actually, no. No, no, what I wanna know. What I wanna know-- is what the fuck is up with the confetti?!"

"Look!" Freija cheered. "I'm a warlock!"

Thomas looked up to see Freija in a purple and white paper mask, along with some synthed armor that did indeed look very much like warlock robes.

If warlock robes hugged one leg and had extremely metallic pants.

"I mean. Yeah, you cut the silhouette. I can't figure out why you'd wanna, but alright."

Freija chuckled and tossed him the red and yellow Titan mask. "I thought about going as a Titan, in the Tower set, but decided not to. So here I am."

He picked up the paper mask and studied it, then chuckled. "You did good. How'd you get your arms in those sleeves?"

"They're actually mine, be nice."

Chapter Text

"I don't like killing Eliksni anymore. Even Wolves and Devils."

"Single out their Kell? We could probably even get out with minimal damage to us, let alone the bystanders. They are still hostile, desperate or not."

"Eh. I'll go for the Kell. Try to keep the fire down."

"Three will be delighted."

"Don't tell her, she'll never stop!"

Freija pulled the Wastelander M5 off her back and charged into the tunnel. She'd been here before. It went further in to a different point, and was almost always host to a cadre or two of Eliksni. A bounty head was said to be here, a Captain, and Freija was collecting.

Normally, these kinds of jobs would see a full extermination, but recent changes in attitude made thinking of it that way, even to counter hostility feel...icky. (Three said, "what are they really gonna do to us?" And it stuck.) So she was less interested in wholesale slaughter than she was a year ago, but still intent on killing the fighting spirit. War is war, there's only two endings, and she knew which one she was going for. Leverage was leverage.

The Light gathered in her body as she charged in, but she brushed past all the standing guards, sweeping through the room before most of them had time to see what was happening.

The Kell was easy to find, and Freija singled him out, taking to the air at full speed, and then sending a flaming knee up to catch his chin. He staggered back, firing his flamethrower blindly as Freija landed and lifted the shotgun, leveled it, and blasted off his head. The mess fell backwards, and Freija snatched the cloak and decorative pin holding it on, and she turned to leave.

The crowd had time to gather behind her, but that just made it easier to jump over their heads. A spear struck her boot, barely scratching it, and she slid in the mud as she tried to turn too sharp, hopped to a ledge, and fled. Freija's armor was dinged at worst, and half of that was her own doing.

"That was clean!" cheered Sunny. "Not even collateral from the fire!"

Freija hadn't thought of that. She was just used to there not being an idea of collateral. "I. Am. Extremely destructive," she remarked hopelessly. "I should probably stick to actual battlefields."

"Yeah, or we could try on being a Sentinel?"

"You're still on that kick?"

Sunny gave an exasperated sigh. "I will forever be on that kick. Fire feels good to me, too, but it's just so much more practical to have extra shields!"

"Practical is not fun," Freija joked.

They were interrupted by Devrim's voice on an open channel. "Could any of you Guardians please remove this glimmer drill on my grounds? They're ruining the lawn."

Chapter Text

Freija knew everyone had kind of been talking about helping the Eliksni get their home cleaned up, but the way the everyone cleaned out the apartment building looked like nothing so much as ants creating a new tunnel.

In a sense, she considered, they were indeed.

She wasn't allowed in until she cleaned herself up but she liked watching from the top of the Empty Tank. It didn't look like a lot of changes from outside, but if they were actually rebuilding anything in there, just electrical wiring alone...

Freija laughed to herself when she realized that there were a limited number of Guardians that could rewire their own ship, let alone a whole apartment building. It was mostly living humans in there doing the work.

Well of course. The Guardians were off hunting treasure where normal humans couldn't.

"I've heard talk, but I think Spider actually taking the lead is what's got everyone working," Sunny observed. "No one knew where to really begin. More comfortable stuff? Where to put it? Bet all kinds of arguments started about what counts as trash to humans."

Freija snickered. "Shhh! I agree, someone taking the lead was important. No stereotyping."

"They take great pride in their craftsmanship! We call it scrapworking, but you know that's because we don't have a more reverent word in this language."

"Fair enough," Freija agreed. "Humans are actually pretty ingenious, but I think the plain physical strength lends more to the metal work."

"We need to invent a harness so a human can cling like the one in the Helm."

"Shit, I want something like that, let me use my hands and feet to crawl on walls," Freija chuckled. Sunny giggled with her.

"You'd die a lot," Rise pointed out as she approached. "Jumping off and missing the landing."

"You were one of the ones gambling, weren't you?" Freija challenged, turning to face her friend. "I know that smug swagger. I heard, I wasn't gonna do it. I'm still going for bounty heads around the EDZ, but seriously?"

"It wasn't like it was rigged, it was just. You know. An easy return on an investment," she said slowly, swaying again and shrugging.

"You're a fiend," Freija remarked. "I'm pretty sure most of the money went into hiring people for the wiring, rather than working on it sideways and upside down. Get it to where we could turn this one back on or something. Clean out the building. Give them work and living space indoors."

Rise nodded and smirked. "I don't think Spider thought we were gonna use his own tables against him."

"I think he did, I think he thought he'd win."

Chapter Text

"Hey, Thomas!"

The human looked up to see his Awoken roommate coming through the library doors. And shouting. Of course.

"I can't decide if I want to call on the Titan stereotype or not, 'cos I think the Titans in here would be mad," he teased as he walked toward her. He checked the room to see if there actually were any other Titans here and found none.

She apparently had the same thought, because she stopped to check the room, even looking over her shoulder and he saw her eyes track up and to the left-- habitually checking her radar. On the helmet she wasn't wearing.

"You just get out of the crucible?" he asked, looking her over. Citan's and Mida, yep. "Why'd you come here? The apartment blow up?"

"Needed to stop and eat, got academic historical questions rolling in my head," she announced all at once. "Had some thoughts, considered how freely we teach each other the hammers, how much for granted I take my firebaths, especially since we learned the splash, and my favorite gun, thought I'd look into the Old Order of the Sunbreakers. And as I am not at all so handy with a catalogue of old books as I am literally anything else, I thought I'd ask my nearby brains. You're even wearing the bracers."

He glanced at his sunbracers and wagged his head. "I like them," he said with a shrug. "There's not a lot I'm good at, but throwing fire is definitely one of them."

Freija grinned merrily, concurring without a word.

~

"Alright, Sunbreakers," he hummed, leading her into the basement stacks. Most of the data here was remnants of useless information salvaged after the Red War. It wasn't particularly valuable but no one wanted to entirely eliminate it, and so rows and rows of databanks lined shelves, each compiled on the end into its own databanks that had to be booted up manually. It was outdated, but most of the information on them was either common knowledge or there was so little to know that it was hardly worth looking up. Somehow, the Sunbreakers had become both.

Freija offered Sunny forward to let her access the stuff as Thomas started flipping switches, and Sunny blinked at him.

"You want to do it?" they said together.

"Sure?" they replied together, and all three laughed, and Sunny perched on Freija's mark. "Go ahead."

Thomas waited for the old computer to boot up and then pulled the set of "books" to the screen. At the top of the screen, in tiny print, it said, "this archive is complete" followed by the date of its completion, shortly after the Red War.

"The stories we have are mostly scraps that survived by being blasted away from their archives, probably a diary or a personal memoir autobigraphy thing, following the ascent of Ourus, the last Empyreal Magistrate, through the order's power structure.

"Stories became attached to Liu Feng's tools, of their creation and design, but-- and this is why I think the other one is a private work-- it's all purple prose and very sweet to Liu, and I think Ourus was fond in a really deep way. There's also a sweet bit about their facing off against a pair of Ahamkara.

"The Sunbreakers were an old Order of Titans wielding Solar Light, often shaped like hammers, working outside the vanguard and, in their words, 'forging their own path'. The first bunch got overzealous and it really thinned out the whole Order, from what I can tell-- One of the stories about the ascent includes sunspots burning allies when allyship lost meaning, and was part of why they had to leave the City.

"Osiris and Zavala fought about including their help during the Taken War, they really didn't like Zavala's attitude about it, and they only allowed The Guardian to enter the forge because when they found it overrun by Vex, they killed everything.

"After that, the secrets of the Forge became known and eventually common knowledge, and some of the earliest lessons for a Solar-wielding Titan.

"The Order fell in the Red War. After the fires went out, they held on as long as they could, and the last message of Ourus, the Third Empyreal Magistrate, was 'Remember the forge. Remember the Hammers. Remember the Sunbreakers'. Last records indicate that the Cabal still held it when Mercury disappeared."

Thomas stopped reading and looked to Freija, who was frowning away and refusing to look at him, blood rising in her face and leaving a strangely purple undertone. "You okay?"

It took her a second to answer, mouth twisting twice before she finally opened it. "It. Feels. Like. I lost something?" Her eye watered but she wiped it away immediately.

The warlock didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't, and instead rocked to his heels and tried to look like he was listening intently. "I knew I was taking it for granted," she said quickly, and she took a clumsy step backwards. "I feel like I miss something." She shrugged, but Thomas saw the armor crackle, giving away how unsettled she really was.

Sunny was uncharacteristically quiet on her perch, but he only glanced to see her looking up at him from Freija's hip.

Thomas turned his attention back to the computer, not sure what else to do. "There's a few records you can look into. Great Guardian of Legend, the one that brought the Hammer back to the Vanguard, that's a whole thing we've got in this bank. I think there's a few things fished out of the Ishtar Collective? More details on the construction and function of the gear. Shaxx has a great story about holding Twilight Gap with several Sunbreakers."

Freija shrugged again, sending another ripple of Light along the blades of the redecorated armor. "Call it Titanic, but I don't think learning anymore history is gonna help. Not 'til Mercury comes back and I need to start triangulating landing zones to look for the Forge."

"Yeah?" Thomas chuckled. "Wanna 'Find the Forge'?"

The sound the awoken woman made could have been a laugh or a sob, or a really disturbing hiccup, and she turned a smooth one eighty to stomp off. "Thanks," she remembered to shout before she slammed the door.

Well, at least they were in the basement.

Chapter Text

"You like sparrows, why don't you like these?"

Freija held the Skimmer out between her hands and examined the hoverboard with suspicion. "I don't like anywhere that won't let me plant my heels." She turned in place and toed Mars's red sand. "Like here, I don't like it here."

"That.... Explains a lot," Sunny said. "Maybe watching everyone else use it will help?"

Rise circled Freija and did a flip over her, then zoomed off with a giddy laugh.

Freija sighed and put it down, then stepped on it. She held balance, but her center of gravity visibly changed.

"Just put my weight forward?" Freija asked, easing weight to the front of her foot and rocking with the motion. The board handled it well.

"Accelerating is on your front toe, turn your foot a little... there."

Freija felt the edge of a button on her boot and she pushed. The skimmer jumped forward and she had to readjust before she lost the accelerator and threw herself further off balance. The back of the board gently grabbed her foot with some kind of mechanism, which made it easier to hang onto. Getting adjusted after that was easy, but it still felt exposed and unsteady.

Steady did come to her after some practice, wiggling her back foot and turning a flip,

"It's fun," she admitted to Sunny and Rise, "but not my ideal mode of local transportation."

"Aww," laughed Rise, zipping around behind the Titan and jumping to spin in the air.

"I am gonna see what tricks I can learn before I put it down," she told Sunny as she bolted over the dunes to get the best margin of error for her air grind.

Chapter Text

Freija initially tried to weave through the market crowds, but it was generally safer for the public if she simply plowed forward and let them get out of her way. She gave up on making sure Three was still behind her, eventually learning to trust her to keep up.

The road from the Tower to the Eliksni Quarter usually looked more and more bombed out, but apparently some work had been done since Freija last visited.

"Sunny said Eido asked us to meet her at the Quarter, before they went to the alley. I was worried they want an escort," Freija told Three in her comms. "But now I think she just wanted me to see this. It looks great."

"Bunch of mixed crowds," observed Three.

"That is correct!" cheered Eido. She wasn't visibly the leader of this crowd, but everyone kept checking her as the Guardians approached.

Until Three lunged into the crowd to hug the neck of one, exchanging fearful anxiety for awkwardness, allowing the crowd to relax and expand.

"Guardian Freija," Eido said cheerfully. "My father has a question for you. And one of our newest house members."

Freija didn't have to wait long- apparently the commotion was enough to get Miisraaks's attention. He swept forth and bent into a bow with two hands to his chest. "Guardian Freija," he said, centering on her. "Did you truly tell a Kell to watch her own hands?"

Freija's mouth pursed as her face flooded with heat. "I couldn't think of anything else to say," she mumbled weakly. "I was trying to get out of a fight."

The noise Miisraaks made might have been a laugh as garbled through the translator. "Your actions that day brought several Eliksni to our home, arriving in stages over time, all with the same story of a Guardian who did not kill anyone. I did not know what Guardian it could be until I heard that phrase. I do not know what led to this action, but I am grateful for this mercy on their behalf."

Freija didn't know what to say. She did it out of cowardice, not nobility. It felt weird to accept the thanks but she didn't want to admit the truth.

"The fuck did you do, Titan?" demanded Three. She gave Miisraaks a look-over and nodded firmly. "Miisraakskel."

"Hunter," he replied shortly. He didn't step away from her but only because he was being a leader. Freija wasn't sure of the history here but she left it alone.

"I didn't tell you this because I was an idiot--" Three cut her off with a snort and Freija rolled her eyes. "But I got lost in the Dark and they found my ship and stripped it, but then they got hit and crashed, so I could steal my stuff back. But I didn't kill anyone while I did it. Pretty sure I almost got one with my barricade."

"Indeed. She is here, too," said Miisraaks. "She was brought by others for medical treatment."

Freija flinched and ducked her head. "It's a reflex," she mumbled, kicking the ground awkwardly. "She's really lucky the fire didn't get her."

"Indeed," agreed Miisraaks. "It is a defensive maneuver with offensive capacity." His entire head bobbed with his nod. "Rare is the story of mercy from a Guardian. Your actions will not be forgotten."

Someone chittered to Freija's left and Eido piped in, "Especially telling Fikikskel to watch her own hands while running away," with a giggle.

Freija blushed furiously. "I couldn't think of anything else to say!" she objected.

Chapter Text

Thomas watched his young roommate pace, mentally calculating how much heat she was generating by the change in temperature as she moved toward and away.

It was always the crucible. She would go in too hard, drain herself until she could hardly remember how to breathe, then come home and build back up. Once she recovered, she struggled to get her momentum back. Sometimes it was discouragement, sometimes it was anxiety, but she would freeze up and stay home.

So far, neither Ghost nor Guardian noticed the pattern. Thomas, home and audience every time, couldn't miss it.

Freija home with the crucible calling would put her in a state Thomas referred to as "squirrelly", where she was hypervigilant and ready to run, and in this particular Sunbreaker's case, feverish in the way a volcano coming out of dormancy might be. She'd escalate until someone could give her enough of a kick to just go.

This run took two recovery days before the buildup started, and Day Three of the buildup had Thomas wondering how much of their apartment was heat-resistant.

"You are going to work the climate control to death," he told her, testing her mood.

"Am I?" She looked toward the device, then at her hands as if she could see how hot she was. She eventually realized that was silly and gave a cautious poke to the closest wall before she snapped her hand away. Thomas didn't look so he couldn't confirm the scorch marks he expected. "Sorry," the Titan mumbled, lowering her head between her shoulders.

"When are you going back into the crucible?" he asked, hoping that making it sound obvious would help.

"The crucible?" she asked, blinking at him. Nope.

"Yeah. You need to go, you're going to melt the windows." He folded his hands over his belly. "Or at least take your heat wave outside, but you really need to go. Go clean out some Hive nests on the moon, the Vex out of Nessus, if you have to. I think it's Mayhem in the crucible right now, you like that one. Just something. You are going to burn the entire apartment to a crisp without a single flame."

The silver Guardian looked at her hands again and frowned, pouting at the Warlock. "Sunny's out and about."

That was an easy fix and she knew it. "Exactly why aren't you going?" It shouldn't be so annoying, but this was the third time she had done this very thing, it was practically annual. And she still hadn't even noticed. He didn't wait for an answer before he rocked to his feet, strode across the apartment, took her shoulders between his hands, and guided her to the door. "You can't stay here. I'm about to line up with Stasis just for the duskfield; you are a living heating element.

Freija didn't resist initially, only leaning her weight against him, but she eventually planted a heel, effectively becoming a brick wall. The warlock almost hurt himself, putting his chest into her shoulder. "I worked the anxiety back up," she admitted, looking over her shoulder at him from the corner of her eye. "I'm scared."

"It makes perfect sense that someone would be scared of deliberately placing themselves into the line of fire," he agreed, taking his time in the playful pushing war now that she was coming clean. "But you have to go. You know you love it, you know you'll forget all about the fear once you get in there. Go tell Shaxx you need some encouragement." She let him push her to the door and kindly opened it for them. He steered her into the hallway where he gave a playful shove. "Go before you spontaneously combust!" She took her own weight and turned to face him. He showed her his reddened palms before he shook and blew on them. Not horribly burned, but he certainly felt like he pulled a dish out of the oven barehanded.

"Sorry," she said again, lowering her head bashfully. He pushed her shoulder and she let the force turn her around, and she shuffled down the hall. "Thank you."

The warlock had to use his sleeve to touch the still-hot doorknob. "You're welcome. Don't come back until you've gone through a few matches, please. You're becoming a fire hazard for this entire side of the barracks."

Chapter Text

"Freija."

"Hn?"

"You are melting the furniture."

"Sorry."

"Not sorry. Go. Crucible. Now."

"...Yes, sir...."

Chapter Text

"Hey, Three."

"What do you want?"

"You hate Solar, right? Same way I hate arc?"

"I guess?"

"What's it feel like to use to you?"

".... Are you high?"

"I.... have always wondered but I don't get high. I don't even get drunk that much, I do stupid shit."

"..... Kid."

"You're the only person I know that hates it. I asked Rise but she said she liked it."

"...."

"I was telling Caiatl what it was like to use them, and I thought of the good and bad of arc and I can pro and con the rest, but I don't know what solar feels like to someone who feels toward it like I do arc."

".... Why are you describing using our Light to the Empress of the Cabal?"

"She asked. But I wanted to know this one."

"Oh for-- It's fuckin' hot! Shit's like being in-- like being a volcano!"

"Oh. Good one! Thank you!"

"You're welcome. Fuck off."

Chapter Text

"Titans don't give a shit. I saw one on the Tangled Shore the other day, she just started beating this servitor to death, had to have punched it ten times! Just determined! It kept trying to hit her and it even did a couple of times, but she didn't care! Punched it over and over until her arm went right through!"

Rise turned to look at Freija, who had slouched over the bar top, turning purple.

"What's up?"

"I think they're talking about me," the Titan whispered. "I did that. I ran out of ammo and it got me real bad while I tried to reload, so I punched the shit out of it to stun it, right? But it took me too long to reload. So I kept hitting it, hard enough to keep it from hitting back, until I finally killed it."

Rise's raspy laugh hissed in her comm and Freija put her head to the bar. "It's a reflex! Gun goes click, I'm gonna throw a hammer at it or I'm gonna punch it!"

"Titan."

"Yeah! I know!"

Chapter Text

"Tell me about them."

Freija didn't clarify at all. She had excused herself from the Tower, not liking the crowds when she was in a mood, and she was looking for somewhere to be, flying low and scanning landscape.

"About who?" asked Sunny. "Amanda?"

Freija heaved a sigh. "My.... my family."

Sunny 'matted into view over the control panel and wheeled at her Guardian, but she didn't say anything. Freija glanced down at her and heaved another sigh. "I've been thinking and it's weighing on me and l feel like I owe it to them to mourn them at least a little, pay respects to the people they were and the person I used to be."

"Oh..."

"Wait 'til I land. Actually. Let me get a bonfire together."

The deciduous forest whispered in the cooling summer winds, and the trees swallowed what little sunlight remained as Freija and her Ghost hiked and gathered firewood.

"I have some records, and several were written by the same person, a Sentinel with the Pilgrim Guard," Sunny said. "I hunted her down for an interview. She described them as trouble and the best things that ever happened to the Guard. First the couple, but then the kids were born and they didn't get any better, she said. When I told her you were my Guardian, she said she wasn't surprised, and that if anyone was going to be, it would have been Sarah or Fira. Fira, she said, would have made a good Hunter. She also said that Sarah didn't like Guardians and didn't want to be one. Orla, the middle one, did want to be a Guardian, in electrifying ways."

"I knew she didn't want to be," Freija replied. "She told me in a dream."

Sunny briefly tapped Freija's shoulder and Freija nudged her in response. "So, was there anything you wanted to know in particular?"

"Did she give you any good stories of them being heroic? Reason for the event and all."

Sunny paused for several seconds, and her light flickered briefly as she searched for the data. "I asked her for more details around several of the reports. Being a decade, she forgot a lot of it, but she remembered a few. She told me you got burned pretty bad one time. Your tattoo hides some of the scar, but your hands probably still show some burns."

"Oh, my hands are all kinds of marked up. She has scars for days, I probably couldn't count them all. Lost a fingertip, I can't spot scars from creases in my palms, she worked with her hands hard and she never wore any fucking gloves."

"She probably did and they got damaged beyond their capacity," Sunny argued. "Fira was a scout when she was out and about, and a cartographer. She could sneak as well as some Hunters, Cassandra said. She would leave a drawing of a face with its tongue sticking out to lead others either on the right path or to somewhere dangerous. The code was apparently in the shape somewhere."

Freija snickered. "I like that."

"Sobu was a medic, and an engineer. They'd come across ruined contraptions of his, all rope and weights and counterweights, and none of them could tell if they were supposed to be traps or what. Guessing by what Petra told me about him, they were temporary shelters."

The Titan stopped in a glade and kicked the underbrush down to the loam, and stacked the firewood into a baby pyre to light.

"Cassandra said he was so relieved when Sarah started out-lifting him. He was stronger than Fira, but more often than not, they just couldn't do heavy lifting on their own. They said she could wrestle a bear by the time she was sixteen."

Freija snickered and fed the fire. Sunny kept low as she circled the fire and the Guardian. "Orla was smart. Sarah could see everything and figure out what was going on, but Orla knew what was going to happen. Cassandra said she almost got herself arrested, one time, screaming about having to evacuate a shelter, after listening in on talk about House Dusk. She, and a lot of other people, got saved by a Warlock who stepped in, he could see her logic."

The flames danced off the wood and illuminated the glade, the leaves above and trees around. She checked the area and the radar on her data pad. The simple hand cannon on her lower back was all she needed for the occasion, she hoped, but she had more.

"Camilla, Millie, had a lot to live up to, but she was taking to sharpshooting. Sarah was teaching her. She was good enough that Cassandra called it embarrassing.

"They all ventured into the Dark specifically because the Guardians couldn't go, and, as Cassandra said it, 'They kept coming back out! With people!'"

Freija laughed. Sunny whirled around the fire, white sparkles mixing with the orange sparks, and she pushed against Freija's chest.

"She said it made them look like cowards, and they had to make new rules about letting mortals join the Guard. They were really remarkable people. Heroes for sure."

"Heroes for sure."

Chapter Text

The fire felt good. It always did.

Her first solstice, she listened and understood what it meant to the others, but it didn't have meaning. She just liked the fire, the rituals, and she liked listening to the fond remembrances of people she would never meet. Why the event rarely included the real calendar solstice never got answered to Freija's satisfaction, but she got point of the ritual. Something something, the peak of a hero's rise before their fall. She got it. Mostly she just liked the fire.

Her second was more sincere. She'd encountered dead Guardians, drained by Savathûn. She learned about Zavala's family and had begun to grasp what it meant to be immortal in a world that wasn't, and she knew full well that this grasp wouldn't help if she got hit with it.

Last year's... Hurt. She had just learned about her first life and her family, and the true meaning of fallen hero. Amanda's loss was closer than most others. It wasn't a story of those long past, it wasn't the corpse of someone that wasn't supposed to die. Someone she knew and liked had given the only life she had to help others. It reframed the entire word "hero."

This year....

The fire felt good. Warmed her heart. Fed her Light. Fed her Light in ways that made her feel like losing it that time was impossible, as though she couldn't have. How could something held so far in as this be taken away?

Sunny died a hero. Freija knew she always wanted to. Freija got so fucking lucky. Not a hero lost, but her Ghost certainly fell.

A lot of others did, too.

Stories of her own. The line popped into her head from time to time after Thomas said it her second year. She complained about being expected to listen to everyone like this and she felt like she wasn't allowed to talk. Thomas said she was allowed, but it wasn't really pertinent. This event was for sharing stories of the past, and she didn't have a past. She needed to collect stories of her own, and that took time.

She got a good one. Another one. If she could ever tell them without screaming.

"Guardian?"

Saladin on comms.

She hopped to her feet and brushed herself off, stepping away from the fire. She cut herself off at a sound, waiting for command.

"As you were," he said then. Shortly after, he said, "The Empress wishes to hold audience with your Ghost after today's activities."

Freija didn't say anything after that, either, having too many thoughts to pick one.

"Thank you, Lord Saladin," Sunny said for them. "I'll see her later this afternoon."

He grunted roughly in response and closed comms. Freija sat back down, but she checked the skies for enemies before she settled.

"He was checking on you."

"I figured it out."

"I wonder how she knew it was you."

"She's seen this armor set."

"Are you okay, though? You've been watching the fire for a long time."

"Thinking."

"Ah."

She considered everything she thought about for the last while and wondered about a poem or something for her Ghost. She got a chance that no one else with these stories got-- she could say everything she meant to that she hadn't. Only she couldn't think of anything in particular. Felt like a wasted opportunity.

"I'll take a break from the vigil when you go see Caiatl. I'm gonna stay here otherwise," the Guardian said, settling.

"I said afternoon. Hey, Saladin, tell Caiatl around 1500? Or whatever that would mean to her?"

"She anticipated this and the appointment is made. She will meet you in the EAZ come time. She expects to be interrupted by enemy attack."

"That'll be fun," Freija chuckled. "I like fighting with her."

Chapter Text

Today was just a bad day. Freija didn't know why, but she couldn't stop remembering and it kept bugging her and no matter what she tried to think of, if it wasn't the same, it was a different memory, all coming back and haunting her.

She did know why. At least it was real life. But it was just a battered chest plate. Reminded her of a time she took a shotgun like that, blasted half her guts out and ruined the other half with lead pellets and didn't have the fucking courtesy to kill her, leaving her to scramble through a door and barricade it off so Sunny could heal her while she tried to stop screaming. Sunny hated when she screamed but she couldn't help it, her body made her scream. Thomas said it was reflexive, either calling for help or warning of danger.

He also said that you can tell the difference if you hear enough of them, but Freija couldn't imagine a scream that would make her run away.

Sunny said she never heard her own, but that wasn't true. Not always.

Just a fucking chest plate with a few pellet holes, and she was back in a barricaded hallway in the crucible, cowering in a corner, bleeding shit into her hands.

She hated it, just stupid, small things, they'd remind her and she would be fucked up for days. Sometimes combat would take it out, new pain to replace the echoes of the old, something to concentrate on and put the pain out of her mind, but it didn't work this time. She should have gone to Banner instead of Nessus, that just made it all worse.

She still had to get back to that, too. There was more to dig into. Rise was still looking into the gun mods, those were in deep, but she couldn't hold the fire off Rise and shoot at the big ones down there, last time got Freija's entire arm blasted off from the shoulder down, left a blackened --

She ran her fingers through her hair, then let her arm flop back to the bed. The sheet underneath felt ice cold. Freija recognized her temperature spike and wondered if Thomas was home, because if he was, she needed to swap to strand.

Actually. That was just a good idea.

Can't hurt when I'm a bunch of thread.

Bullshit.

But I am, and it doesn't hurt because I'm lying in bed and fine, actually, so green strings or not. Nothing hurts. Nothing is scary. All the scary shit died and exploded, or exploded and died--

--just like me

Freija launched out of bed and stormed to the shower. Running water helped her feel the flow. The sound of water hitting floor was kind of annoying, but it drowned out everything else and didn't remind her of anything.

The water felt good, too. The way it ran on her skin helped her let go of herself and fall in with the stream. It would flow down and she would join it as it fell, on down the drain where she could spread out into the metal and stop being herself...

...the water let her slide down the drain and...

I swear to fuck can I just stop existing in a meaningful way? For maybe forty five minutes?

Chapter Text

"So, I've been meaning to ask..." Thomas trailed off and waited to see how Freija responded. The Titan, relaxing on the couch and looking through her vault, lifted an eyebrow at him curiously. She seemed in a decent mood. "If your Light use is so natural, why can't you stop the heatwaves?"

She smirked. "It's natural to use. It feels good and right to use. I'm good at letting it do what it wants to do. What works for me feels... Right." She glanced at his well-disguised flinch, then watched to see what he did when she said, "But none of that actually translates to real control. I can call on it to channel on accident. I also have had to try really hard to learn to make it not do that."

The hiding wince relaxed into a thoughtful frown. "What would you say it's like when you try to use it? Go ahead with any analogies."

She frowned at him. He glanced at her a few times, patient and curious. She finally smiled wryly and sat back. "Fine, you can hear the weak points. In my earlier days, I started manifesting shit in my sleep, real ass flames or even little sprinkles of this... Rock that reminds me of gunpowder."

He flinched and laughed. "That never happened here! You still warmed up during your nightmares but you never manifested, you actually used to sleep-hammer?"

Freija giggled nervously with him. "I was still in orbit back then. Wasn't even camping, yet. I've had a running joke in my mind that it's getting ready to fight, but I don't think it's a joke." The Titan settled deeper into the couch. "I have to guess, because I don't know how it is for anyone else. But I think there's a wall most people have that I don't. Or maybe mine is weaker, or my Light can push past, I don't know. But it's the wall between the Light and the Real, manifestations, this fold of reality where Light can become manifest, right? It has to come through us as we manifest it, we have to get it through that wall. So we meditate, we sink into ourselves and go to the wall and we call the Light to us and send it out."

He blinked at her, surprised at this particular metaphor. He wouldn't have called it a wall, but with that phrasing, he understood.

She wagged her head and turned a palm up uncomfortably. "I'm guessing, because when there's meditation lessons, there's a lot that people tell each other about reaching in, but not about controlling too much. Your problem is more common than mine. And I figure it's a gradient, not a toggle, so while it's harder for you and others, and it's easy for me and others, there's everyone in between. So it's… I guess a wall with.... Maybe it's got a window for most people or something, they can open and close it on purpose. Or doors. Or both. Got walls made of brick, out of glass. I don't know. I'm guessing."

Thomas gave her a nod. "So if you don't have a wall, what do you have?"

She cocked her head to a side and considered the ceiling for a few seconds before she smiled. "My wall is a waterfall," she laughed. "Like, I don't have to reach very hard at all to get at it, and when I do, it goes everywhere, like when you stick your hand in a waterfall and it splashes everywhere? And you can use your hands to guide it, right, I can, but I can only guide it. If I try to grab it or stop it or even hold it, I just make a mess. Can we torture this metaphor a little and say the walls are like holding in water? Everyone's water-Light lives in these houses except for weirdos like me where I don't have walls and weirdos like you who are stuck riding around on a tank that locked you out."

He blinked at her. "Your metaphor is sufficiently tortured. I get it. So the Light is water here, and everyone has their own containers of it, and these containers have various openings, membranes, holes, whatever, and the effectiveness as an aperture depends on the container and the Lightbearer."

Freija nodded quickly. "That sounds right, we can go with that, but when you say container like that, it sounds small, and I don't have a good way to translate my waterfall analogy to that one."

Thomas already imagined it, though. "I was fine with making your container non-existent and instead allowing this metaphorical you to hold her Light-water like a bubble."

She giggled. "Ah. Good one. So how's that for figuring it out?"

He could appreciate her understanding of it, but couldn't imagine what it would be like. The metaphor worked, and he could even relate to it--he very much was stuck on the wrong side of a wall, and finding the gaps to reach in and pull from was hard; where every time she so much as shook hers, the water would lose integrity and get everywhere. "You literally can't not? Like. Against your will? Not just subconscious use that you have to consciously turn off?"

"Would you believe me if I told you anything else?" She smiled at him again.

He would, but not much less.

Huh.

He thought she was losing control; it hadn't occurred to him that she never had any and her Light was otherwise well-behaved. Where he had to meditate for hours before he went into the field, her Light was trying to burn a hole in the couch for funsies.

He couldn't decide if he would want to swap. He would have to try it first.

"I don't think I'd trade," Freija said, as if she read his mind. Probably just asked herself the same question. "I get cold just swapping to strand, I wouldn't want to put it any deeper in."

He knew what she meant. "Don't suppose you'll give me a Q&A for Light-use sensations, would you?"

"It always hurts your feelings," she objected, sitting up and stretching.

"That was before I knew you were as stuck as I am," the Warlock said cheerfully. "I don't think I'd swap, either, I can just feel the threadlings crawling." He pretended to shudder. "The Void hunger is bad enough."

"I don't really get that one," Freija said with a shrug. "I do feel kinda... Okay, you know how you say a planet has mass and that's why gravitational pull kinda shit?"

The warlock resisted the urge to give her another look. "That was not a sentence, but I know what you're referring to."

"Okay, can you imagine being the center of a gravity well? Like a planet isn't in the spot where gravity is being pulled, I am."

Thomas took a long, slow breath and tilted his head thoughtfully. "Okay. You know what, I think I can work with that. Start with the meditation mindset, please."

Freija furrowed her brow at her roommate. "You know every trick to meditating. Why are you asking me?"

"They don't work for me like they do for you, and I can only wonder if you ever actually feel it when you start glittering."

Freija pressed her lips and looked guiltily aside. "Usually but only by the glitter. Build-up usually goes unnoticed."

He nodded and smiled. "So, yeah, o Chosen One of the Light--"

"Shut up!"

"Help me out and give me some fun metaphors." He grinned at her.

She narrowed her eyes at him and tried to fight the wry smile. "You're gonna put it in porn, aren't you."

He didn't bat an eye. "Yes, but also the non-erotic fiction and I'm honestly hoping that you'll say something that makes enough sense to help."

He hated when she flinched for him. He planned to flinch at her getting spiky, then realized that he already did, and she was usually embarrassed about it.

"What was that face about?" she asked him.

He resettled in his computer chair and leaned over the keyboard. "Bunch of puzzle pieces got rotated just right and I saw the picture. You are going to need to use a word besides "warm" for solar, I'm afraid."

The Titan grinned merrily. "I do have a new one! Three said it was like being a volcano! I've been giggling ever since, because it's one of those things where she hates what I love, so I'm wondering if that itchy crackling feeling of arc is just as present for Rise and she just likes what I hate."

"That wouldn't surprise me. Am wondering if it's class-dependent, though."

"Might be more about how we use it specifically but yeah, lots of people talk about void making them hungry but I just get heavy in a really weird way."

"Let me get a recording going."

Chapter Text

"Have you done the wood-burning finger paint? Lately?" Thomas asked.

Freija still stewed around the apartment and it became more and more clear that she had no way to let it out that wasn't pacing, screaming, or blowing things up, and apparently those were still not working.

"No."

The Warlock didn't bother with any further ceremony and handed her a panel of wood, about eighteen inches square and an inch thick. "Didn't think so. You need to express yourself."

The Titan took it from him and eventually saw the plank in her hand. "What's that mean?"

"It means, put the scream into the plank. Pace through a picture, with your hands and your Light, the way you always want to kick and fight. Try not to break it too fast, but the break will be part of the art, too." He relaxed in his seat and drummed his hands on the arms. "If it doesn't help, you'll still have a piece of wood to burn for fun, which might."

Freija scowled at the empty panel. "I'm too tired. I don't want to feel anything anymore. She isn't dead. She died, but she isn't dead."

"Correct," Thomas said. "Draw that."

"How?" Freija demanded.

He shrugged. "Use an analogy. Phoenixes are popular for creatures like us."

"We're zombies," Freija chuckled darkly, slouching into the couch with the panel on her knees.

"Draw that, then."

"Gonna draw a dead fucking Ghost," Freija growled. "All rippling with Light and Dark. She looked just like my fucking arm, only her white wasn't swimming, either."

"Sounds great," Thomas said. "It's literally all good ideas, the only way you can do it wrong is hurting someone to make it. Which is funny, because half the time, the goal is to hurt them with the result."

"Trying to hurt people with a picture?" Freija asked. "Nevermind, you told me."

He grinned. "Make people feel things. Or at least feel things all over stuff and let 'em look at it if you want. Burn it if you want. Hide it under your bed until you think you can see it again. But it's a way to scream quietly and hopefully it'll count for getting it out."

Freija was not an artist. Not a visual one. At best she was an untrained poet. So the first thing she burned in was a metaphor, her hands on front and back in her grip, charred completely black. This shit wouldn't let go.

The tears stung before she even got really started, while her hands were still heating up.

Clumsy outline of the normal shell but then Freija impressed the Winter Lotus over the top of it, and gave it her ears.

Center eye completely charred over, leaving a blackened pit halfway into the wood.

The work of lightly singeing the top layer, leaving strips untouched, took a lot of effort. It wasn't perfect but it left what she needed to leave and made the shape she needed. A Ghost shell with whispy streaks of white.

More char for the Darkness ripples.

Twice, she had to stop to curl into a ball and bury her head and cry. She kind of remembered Thomas was there, but he was literally telling her to do this, so it wasn't so embarrassing but it still felt stupid.

She stopped there, not knowing what else to do, and she put it on the center table. She couldn't stop herself from curling back into a ball. "Am I done?"

Thomas glanced over at it, then leaned to look at her past the monitor. "Dunno. Is there anything else?"

She stared at it as though it hurt her. "M… no. Thought about my hands but that's not… no. This is… yeah. This is done." She blinked more tears down.

Her friend crossed the room to hug her shoulders and took the piece into his hand.

She leaned up to snatch it from him. "Wait." She turned it backwards and lined up her fingers on the front to imitate the back, and gently scorched in their shape. The result looked like she was burning her way through from the other side.

She then handed it back and flopped to curl back up on the couch. "There."

He nodded firmly. "Good job." He lowered it and rocked back to see her eyes. "Did that help?"

She nodded, and even offered him a fleeting smile. "Yeah. Way more than I thought it would."

He smiled chipperly. "Good! That's great, actually. I worry a lot. We need to lean more into that. Whatever you want done with it, let me know, but I'm hiding it from everyone until you're ready."

She nodded, grateful that he knew how to handle that. She didn't want to see it again for a long time but she also didn't want to get rid of it.

"You're a really strange person," Freija told him. "I mean that in the best way possible. I don't know what kind of person you'd be without it."

"Thank you," Thomas replied sincerely.

Chapter Text

"Tee-Hee! I'm Sunny!" Rex bounced jerkily in the plushie sunshine shell, little clouds wriggling around. "I don't know how to think quietly!"

Thomas chuckled at his Ghost and placed his mask into the box for storage. "Were you going to give it back to her?" He held up the Fundament shell.

"She didn't even want it back," huffed Rex. "She only intended to wear it for the festival. We can break it down."

Thomas chortled. "I'm glad you had a good time. I thought you were going to run out of insults for sure."

"I didn't even get started on her capricious choice of shell for the event!" he cried. "I wouldn't have had this glorious opportunity had she not been a perfect example of that which I mock!"

He wasn't wrong. Sunny had chosen the plushie Sunny Day shell six weeks ago and changed her mind the moment she saw the traditional ghost costume of a shell. Rex was only seizing an opportunity.

"Gimme the shell, we need to give it back." Thomas held his hand out insistently.

Rex picked up his pillars at the same time as dematting, then breaking down, the Sunny Day shell.

"Rex," Thomas sighed.

"They won't mind," the Ghost insisted.

Chapter Text

Maybe it was all the Darkness in the Echoes or something, but Freija's bones chilled.

She ignored it at first, thinking it was psychosomatic and would go away. It got deeper.

Thomas noticed, and she knew he did because he kept asking if she was feeling okay, and she brushed it off as more upset about the Eliksni. Sunny noticed but she hadn't said anything yet. Freija wasn't sure why not.

She tried to work through it, but her body wore down, moved as though Lightless, exhausted and aching, even after healing. Her mind would slow and her coordination would falter after only a little fieldwork.

She pushed through it for weeks, until she couldn't and finally went to the barracks and crawled into bed.

"Are you okay?" Sunny asked.

"Is our Light being disrupted?" She didn't bother trying to mince words about it. She could feel the ice creeping in from outside, sending needle fingers into her skin until it reached her bones and clutched with their tips.

"Yeah," Sunny said softly. "I was wondering if you could feel it. I think you might even be feeling it more than me."

"I can't keep doing this," she moaned, rolling on her bed and pulling the blankets close. "What's happening? Is it the Totems?"

"It could be. I can't imagine this much time spent with them is any good for you. You said you feel it come out of your mouth."

"You don't feel anything?"

"Not me. I wonder if our connection is what's suffering in those areas?"

"What, like the physical space between you and me is dropping the connection?"

"I don't know."

Freija lay in her covers and stared at the ceiling, aching in ways she didn't know she could.

"I don't actually sense anything wrong," Sunny said. "I didn't know Lightbearers could catch a cold."

"I have been," Freija groaned. "Cold, I mean."

"Maybe picking up strand will help? Darkness instead of Light until you get the fires stoked?"

Freija blinked and picked her head up. "Not strand," she muttered, and she buried her head to fall into herself.

"What are you doing?"

"Meditating."

"Why?"

"I need to talk to us."

'us' was not an us but simply placeholders for the many angles she needed to examine a thing.

Freija's headspace was usually her barracks, with the collection of sturdy shelves she'd made herself and Sunny and the simple bed and draped fabrics on request of Sunny. The shelves would change sizes and contents, though there were usually Sunshot. Sometimes the fish tank would take up a wall.

Today, it was a room in a cabin somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere in a deciduous-evergreen forest with a creek running by and a leather stretched and drying. Freija assumed it was something of Sarah's.

The simple room looked very homey with soft cushions and an autumnal color scheme. A daybed sat against a wall with Sunny's home on the wall near the headboard. Photos of her few loved ones hung on the wall opposite the windows.

The fish tank was back again, that was nice.

A huge fireplace, present no matter where she was, took up an entire wall, standing as tall as she was.

The fire was low and dim and no fuel could be seen. Trying to will it larger earned a few breaths of glow but it couldn't feed on ash.

"Well if that's not a symbolism," she huffed.

Void's shield hung on the wall. Strand's banner was draped over the foot of the bed. Arc and Stasis sat in jars on the mantle over her fireplace.

Freija plucked the stasis jar from its place and sauntered to her bed and she put the jar on her chest to study.

"It's stronger," she said. "There's an ebb in solar, from solar, to stasis."

"I didn't know you knew that word."

"Me, neither."

The chill lingered.

Freija's first experience with Stasis hadn't been good. She was responding to the distress signal and got caught up in everything. She hardly knew her own name and she hadn't yet learned about her strength.

Stasis took her away from her power. Even in the beginning, Solar Light was Home. So she resisted the demands of the Darkness…

But then it started fucking with Sunny.

She probably would have hung Eramis from the walls back then. Freija remembered how angry she was. How much work it took to cool her blood when her Ghost froze over and dropped like that.

Cold was a bad word for it. It wasn't just a lack of heat, it sucked the life and love out of everything. It was a wonder that Eramis held onto her rage through its influence.

Stasis was… thorough. Utter and complete. Inexorable. It controlled the battlefield with a command that rivaled a Broodweaver. Regardless of how little she liked it, she didn't deny its strength.

Freija let go of the Light, took the lid off the jar, and let the ice crawl out.

The part of her between the mindscape and the world could feel it. The sensation crawled on her skin and into her flesh, encased her bones.

In the scape, the sensation took on a visual display; white-blue crystals crawled from the jar, spilling over the Titan. Tendrils wrapped around silver limbs; it froze over, a prickle like sensation returning to a numbed extremity.

It never felt right. It fit, but it felt forced. New boots that didn't hold her heel right.

Her natural force was all growth and motion and change. Of course this didn't come naturally.

The familiar sense of being swaddled in a blanket of empty stillness and held too tight...

She moved and broke the encasement but did not shed the ice, instead now coated in a layer of crystals sparkling by the millions.

She felt weighed down. It demanded deliberation, planning. Any hesitation would make it harder to get started again. She had to move carefully and take her time and think ahead.

She still had some of the armor pieces in her vault, they'd probably need refitting.

She let it freeze over again, crystals joining together and encasing once more.

She felt less fatigued. The fire in her fireplace glowed, but did not grow. But she needed to let it feed, she guessed.

"Do I still have an Icefall Mantle set? I really liked that one."

"Yeah. I've heard there was some new finds amongst the cryptarchy, too, that might line up with it?"

"Keep an ear out for me."

"You okay?" Thomas asked from the den. "I can't tell if your room is actually cooler or if you've just got your heat under control."

"I swapped to stasis."

He paused, and Freija heard his steps to her door where he stopped. "You okay?" he asked again cautiously.

"Yeah," she replied dryly. "My Light is feeling spread thin and something about the ice is calling me. Maybe I'll like it this time."

"Let me know," he chuckled.

Chapter Text

"Nope," Freija announced, trudging into the barracks. "Which sucks. It's strong. It really is. I can even feel it in ways I do like. Sometimes. But I do. Not. Like it."

"Yeah?" asked Thomas airily.

"It's too stiff! Holding me down! I hate it! And it's cold!"

"I'm sure there's some grand joke in your distaste for discipline and control," he said, rocking back in his seat to smile at the Titan. "I'm not gonna be the one to take a hammer in the head for it."

"Nah. Sunny did it first, but now she's getting sorry for me, too."

"It is pretty pitiful," Sunny said. "We do great, and every time afterwards, she sulks. She even stopped whining about it."

Thomas chuckled. "That sounds terrible," he joked, but then he saw what she meant and he was caught between being annoyed and genuinely sympathetic. "Wow that puppy face is strong for a soldier of your caliber," he said. "If you hate it so much, why are you doing it?"

"Stoking the flames," she sighed. "Rise is gonna help later. She's got an idea with strand that Two couldn't use right."

"Oh, I bet Two is loving this paracausal snowstorm," Thomas said. "He took to Stasis like I did to Strand. Maybe even before it got popular, I haven't asked."

"He has, and it's incredible to watch him work, but he's always giving himself shit for staying in the back like a smart person."

"You're a pretty impressive force," Thomas agreed with a palm up. "Always in the thick of it like that. Glad you're there, keeps their eyes off me."

"That's the task."

Chapter Text

"Do not take my plate off. Give me greaves. Real greaves. And cuisses."

"What is a cuisse?"

"The ones on my thighs! You keep taking them off!"

"But you can't move in those!"

"I have no intention of moving."

Chapter Text

Thomas woke up to a loud thump in the den and decided that if it was a problem, it would let him know soon enough, and instead rolled over to listen for Freija or Three to make sure.

Sunny and Freija. They were trying to be quiet, so he couldn't pick up words, just tones. They were bickering in the half-loving-dig-half-angry-jab voices.

About...?

Shaders. On the ship.

Another thump. Thomas tried to guess if she was having trouble decorating or just being louder than she thought she was.

"Oh of course you like that one," Freija said too loud.

"Of course you don't like something because I like it," replied Sunny unhappily. "Our favorite colors aren't even that far apart, why don't you like any of it."

"Pink and blue are opposites."

"Colors don't have opposites!"

They did, but Thomas wasn't about to get involved. He needed breakfast and probably something intoxicating before he interfered in any of their discussions.

Why the hell is a full grown woman, four years risen or not, getting this kind of energy burst for a celebration she has no cultural background for?

Then again maybe Sarah did or something.

"I like the velvet one."

"But not the shiny one in the same color?"

"We are gonna have to let one of us pick one and the other pick something else," sighed Freija. "Please. We don't have to agree or split the difference. We can take turns."

Thomas couldn't hear what Sunny said, but she sounded sad. That was a thing he'd noticed, that Sunny expected even more harmony between them than they already had; but they really just did not enjoy the same things. He thought it was funny half the time and annoying the other half.

"I'm gonna decorate your table, that is going to be entirely of your design, so get started on that," Freija commanded. "We need to start gathering ingredients. Didn't we say we were gonna take Marco last time? He was in Banner with me a few times last week, remembered it came up."

"Did you get to his level?" asked Sunny loudly. She still didn't cover the bang of Freija accidentally shoulder-checking her own doorframe.

"And he sank to mine at the same time," Freija laughed. "But we need to contact them, I remember you telling me about his Ghost hating fieldwork."

"He said you're mean," Sunny replied.

"I make him feel weak," Freija corrected. "He's not, he just refuses to act like he's not fighting Guardians even though he's not fighting Guardians and it's completely different. He can use his Light, right?"

Sunny giggled. "I'm gonna play a recording of this conversation for This One, he'll feel so much better."

"You changed out of your Dawning shell into this one?"

"I knew you were going to say something."

The barracks door closed.

Thomas dragged himself out of bed to check on the state of the barracks. It was either going to be a godly mess or glorious spectacle, and both would involve him having to move things out of the way for breakfast.

Looked good. He couldn't wait to see what they did to the table. They were getting better with every passing year and Sunny's love for sparkling, shining things were healthily tempered by Freija's preference for richer, deeper colors, and they were landing on a balance that hurt his eyes only a little when all the lights were on.

Lights off, with only the ambient lights of the various electronics and decorative baubles, the gold and silver against the deep blue and red made for a magical scene in the increasingly homey barracks den, and this time didn't block the path to the toaster.

He never really bothered much before. Decorating for the holidays, or at all, was never a thing for him. Seeing how much his roommates enjoyed it was peripherally embarrassing at first, but he'd gotten to appreciate it, especially since she seemed to have no problem spilling her colors into the den. She'd accidentally home-ified it more than Thomas managed to in the entire time he'd been here.

Might get her a gift or something as a way to say thank you.

Chapter Text

"Oh this is disgusting," Three announced as she came in. To her disappointment, the Titan wasn't in to hear her assessment, but Thomas was in his usual spot at his desk. "You live like this now?"

Thomas didn't dignify the snark, in part because he suspected she was simply defending herself from the warm fuzzy feelings.

Except there was no way she didn't know this was here.

"What's that face for?" she demanded as she finished coming in. She threw her cloak over the couch, ignoring the damage done to the ribbons dangling off the back, and strode through to her room

"I just realized why you came to visit," he said with a deliberately wry smile.

"Why's that."

"You wanted to be disgusted," he said, not bothering to look at her. "Day after Eva showed up and everything."

She didn't respond, but the shuffling in her room got louder.

"Anyway, yes, I live like this now. As much as I indulged on creature comforts, I did stop there."

Three snorted. "You wouldn't have put up with this shit from any of the other stoppers-by."

"None of them built me furniture," he chuckled. "Dawning decorations would be a small price to pay, even if I felt it was one. And I don't." He peeked around to see her door still open. "She doesn't mess with my stuff and I have a desk that will withstand a second collapse, she can paint it pink and gold all year round if she wants. The greatest sacrifice has been the space of the den being taken up by an art piece that has yet to offend."

Three's shuffling became full on banging around and he wondered if there was actually something wrong or if she was being antagonistic.

"Why is it bothering you?" he asked, finally leaning to get a look at her cracked-open door. "You still mad about how much you like her?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Mad that she took time off the Eliksni rescue?" he asked then.

"Yes. To do this dumb shit."

"She's back on the field already," he said, biting down the laugh when she slammed something down. "Just give it up. Enjoy the pretty ribbons, they're not in your way and you don't have to clean it up." She slammed something else. "Happy Dawning, Three. I'm glad your stuff is in the third room."

Chapter Text

"What...?"

Freija had six boxes of apple pastries on the table sorted by type. One of the pies was half eaten; one forkful at a time, guessing by the fork still in it.

At the moment, the Titan was putting on her boots next to the door.

"That is a full pie," Thomas pointed out. "Or was, why are you...."

"Guy who gave them to me is trying to use a shitload of apples," Freija said with a shrug. "It's tasty, I didn't feel like cutting it up when there's a whole other one and he said there was more. Sunny suggested I get ice cream to eat with the rest."

He studied the boxes and sniffed. "They smell good." He looked in and picked out a small fried dumpling. "Taste good, too." He picked up three more to carry back into the den.

"Right? Friendly guy. Hunter. Dunno how old but he mentioned being involved when the City fell."

Thomas shrugged. "Age tells you nothing but it can explain some stuff."

Freija cut him a look. "Anyway, I'm gonna go get ice cream."

"Can you eat ice cream? Or carry it?"

Freija was about to get mad but that second one was a good point. She grabbed a thermal bag and tucked it under her arm on her way out.

Chapter Text

"Kid."

Freija was half-asleep on the couch and Three's voice startled her awake. "Shit, fuck, what-- Three." She barely sat back down. "Sunny?"

"I'm here," the Ghost replied from her 'house' on the wall.

The relief melted the Titan's stiff posture and she rubbed her eyes. "Three," she repeated.

"Help me out." The Hunter didn't move, merely stared down at Freija coldly.

"You need my help?" Freija asked, confused.

Three let her Ghost into the den and pain crossed her face in a flash that faded immediately. "I've been fucked up since the Pale Heart. Ghost is setting it off."

Freija rubbed her eyes and gestured at it with her palm. "That's not weird. It was scary," Freija said. "Was the Ghost okay?"

Three tossed an arm dismissively. "It isn't that."

"What was it?"

"It's been acting funny!" she griped. "You said your Ghost talks to it, and..."

In fact, they were talking together in Sunny's apartment, eyes flashing back and forth. Freija glanced over and lifted a brow, waiting for Sunny to notice. She did turn and bob a little, but she didn't speak up yet.

"They're doing what we're doing," Freija said. She flopped back to the couch and let Three sit next to her. "I reckon it had a few revelations, but it doesn't know how to talk to you about them."

"It probably doesn't know how to talk to Sunny about them either. It's gone a thousand years without using any of those words to talk about itself. Scared. Confused. Proud. Whatever it's feeling."

Three looked to her Ghost. Freija followed her eyes. "That's a new Shell," Freija noticed. "Dawning thing?"

"Yep. It's never asked before. Just wanted to be the Traveler again. Found that little ball shell, shaded it white, it hasn't worn anything else. This one's still got its ball but it's got stuff on it."

"Never asked, or you ignored it?"

Three shot a narrow look at the Titan. "Never asked, kid. It's wanted to be the Traveler again since it found me. It missed all its selves and it wanted to go be a million and one things at once. Until that day. And it's been weird since, and so have I."

Freija blinked. "Ohh. Sunny said it was weird. I wondered what she meant."

"It's still talking... like it always has, but it wanted to get dressed, and it said something was beautiful a week ago."

"It's never called anything beautiful?" Freija asked softly.

"Not that I can remember. It's said 'I disagree with this decision', and that is the closest it's ever had to an opinion. It offered to let me kill it if I didn't want to be a Lightbearer. The little bastard has followed me my whole life and the whole time, it's been a good little machine and now, after a thousand years, it's noticed that something was beautiful. It's asking for new Shells. A thousand. Years. You cannot comprehend how fucking long that is, kid. This is a fact that has changed. It's weirding me out."

Freija listened silently, watching her feet. "That sounds like it sucks," she eventually muttered. "The, going so long with it being a good little computer thing."

She heaved a long breath, a habit Freija learned to recognize as distress in Three. "It. Finally. Told me that it would miss me if it died. And it broke my fucking heart."

Freija couldn't be sure if it had told her and she just didn't understand or if it really was just that cold their whole lives-- and it would have been the Ghost's whole life, too. The idea was so far beyond what she could imagine.

"And now I'm messed up." She gestured at the apartment on the wall.

"Maybe it's growing a self. It might not have wanted one before. I dunno. Or maybe it was ignoring who it was, or maybe it didn't like that it wasn't the taveler and was pretending not to, or something."

"Wasn't pretend," Three grunted. "Might've been on purpose. But it wasn't pretend."

Freija grunted back and ran her hand through her hair. "Well. I'm glad it's decided, or maybe noticed, that it's not a broken piece of Traveler. Or not just a broken piece of Traveler."

Chapter Text

"Hey."

"They teach you that comms protocol in Soldier School?"

"I'm not sure what you're talking about. I wanted to talk to you about your Ghost."

"I don't want to talk to anyone about anything."

"But-- just this one thing-- did you think anything was wrong with it? Did you see other Ghosts and think yours was weird?"

"I avoided the other Ghosts. Not as much as Guardians but it's easier anyway. I didn't expect them to think it was weird. It always said it didn't talk much to other Ghosts but then you told me it was lying--"

"I just said it did talk to the others, but I don't think it happened much. It wasn't a lie."

"...Yeah. Anyway, I thought they were all like mine and faking it. I thought mine was bad at faking it."

"Faking.... What? How much people they are?"

"Yep. Thought your little bundle of sparkles was just as much a hollow machine as mine and yours had a better personality module or some shit."

"... What changed your mind?"

"The art."

"What???"

"Art, kid. You need a Self to make art. You gotta have a thing to take in and you gotta have a part to filter it and make the experience yours. Everything is noise but it's not music until it hits someone in the mind that hears it. You have to have a mind that hears music so you can make music."

"I always wondered why you liked Thomas."

"And I still wonder why he likes you."

"You wonder why you like me, too, that's not a surprise. But so.... You thought all of them were machines? Just machines?"

"You are gonna be reeling from this for decades to come, aren't you?"

"I.... Uh. I guess so, shit, I really am just.... Sunny's been a.... A force, all by herself, she's not even a whole person, she's a whole person and a half!"

"She needed that half to handle you."

"It probably helped, yeah."

Chapter Text

"Hey, Rise."

".... Hey."

"Don't look at me like that."

"Saladin is in the Tower."

"I haven't been in, either. No, I have a fashion question."

"You?"

"Yeah, someone else asked and I didn't have an answer. What kind of dress would look good on me? Formal?"

"....."

"....What is it...?"

"I can't do it. I can't take the armor that far off, and I can't make my mind solve a puzzle for no reason."

"You can!"

"Nope. If they come up with some pretty dresses with armor, that. Add a skirt to your Reverie Dawn plate and those pointy boots you refuse to wear."

"..... Point taken. You're right, I'm not gonna wear it, I just wanted to know."

"Yep and that's an exercise in futility we can engage in later when I'm not busy."

Chapter Text

The ever present fires of Freija's mindscape had been down to ashes for months. No matter where the fire wsa supposed to be, campfire, pyre, fireplace, they had nothing to feed on, and the smouldering embers were barely clinging to life.

She was almost used to the chill. Almost. (She'd been saying it the whole time.) She still felt sick and empty. Aligning with Stasis felt better, which made her feel awful on principle.

She'd even tried arc, lured by a new item to learn, and it worked but it felt like shit to use. The snapping resounded through her body and hurt every time, even when the Light itself fed back into her and healed her wounds. Rise could love it all she wanted, Freija missed her fire.

Dreaming and lucid dreaming and mindscape meditation all sat on the same spectrum. Freija often retreated to her mindscape to help sleep. She had never started with dreaming before.

But that was happening. She wasn't quite waking up, but she was becoming aware of her dream, and the ruins on Europa surrounding her and the ice cave and the flickering orange light ahead.

It was too bright to see but the Titan felt the beckoning heat. Creeping closer, she felt the warmth begin dancing across her face, down her chest and arms, almost burning.

The cave reflected and refracted the fire, obscuring the identity of the source, but Freija knew that sense of warmth as it reached into her heart. A Sunspot.

It was almost a reflex to dash to it and stand in the center.

The cave became the campsite at the Relic on Mars and Freija danced excitedly as warmth sank in and the embers in her heart gasped in a breath of Light, and finally, finally, finally, after what felt like years, Freija felt her lungs filling with warmth; she breathed in the flames and breathed out the flames, feeding the sunspot as it fed her, cycling the energy through herself. She could have wept for joy.

Chapter Text

"Freija."

"I don't know what to wear!"

Thomas stopped short and frowned at her. "What happened to the spiky dragon stuff with the mark from the Traveler?"

Freija paced irritably and pulled the heatwave in and lost control several times, as though the room itself was breathing. "It's still there and still functional but I don't like the way I have to fight, it plays to none of my strengths. I'm proud of how much skill I've gained, but it's an uphill fight to get better and I don't like it."

"Okay, so...."

"So there's a thousand combinations of who fucking knows how much stuff, I want mid-to-long range with a good emergency short-range thing, as shit as I am at that-- and I want a fucking piece that'll help me keep that."

"You really hate that rule change, huh."

Freija's burst of heat almost hurt, but then she pulled it in, and even managed to pull in the heat from the room itself, returning it to a tolerable temperature, and finally held it there. "Sorry. I get it. He was right, it did slow things down, but that was something I liked about it-- I had control over the field with that shit. It didn't hold up in Trials, because they usually had the skill and firepower to negate that shit--" she paused to shudder. "Fuckin' Warlocks. No offense."

"None taken," Thomas chuckled. She waxed eloquent about being shot from above on many occasions.

"Anyway, Shaxx was right, it was unfair, and we said for a long time that as soon as everyone caught on to how unfair they really were, Shaxx was gonna change the rules, and he fuckin' did." She sighed and dropped her head against the wall. "Dammit. Anyway." She shrugged irritably, as if shedding a coat. "But I was so good at it!"

"You definitely used it effectively."

"And as soon as Rise told me about Mida, and I could see when I was getting flanked? She made fun of me, called it a dance."

"It was," Thomas laughed. "I can see why you'd want that back."

"I gotta learn a new dance, and right now it's all freestyle and I'm no good at freestyle."

She moaned and leaned against the wall. "So I'm sorry I'm trying to cook you, I am aware of it and I know why, there's just not much I can do for it."

"I'm glad for that. I'm gonna go get some lunch, I'll bring you back something."

"Something crunchy."

"Yep."

Chapter Text

"Freija."

"Thomas. Why are you mad?"

"There is an apple pie in our barracks."

"... Okay? I'm in orbit--"

"I confess that I've never experienced a reverse burglary, but I don't appreciate whatever you've done to invite it."

"... So there was a pie? Is? There's suddenly a pie? An apple pie?"

"It was not on the table and then it was on the table. I am absolutely certain that this is something you caused."

"Oh... Uh. Yeah. It was probably Ellis. I helped him with a broken window not long ago, I guess that's his way of saying thank you."

".... Hunters. I'm eating this pie. You can have whatever is left when you get home."