The snow fell in a solid curtain outside the cave mouth, piling in soft drifts across the rocks. It blocked the light from the flickering campfire far back inside, where a lone Hunter had set up a small camp. He sat on his sleeping bag, cross-legged, his yellow eyes glowing in the dimness. He was of the Awoken race, humans with skin tinted blue, energy racing through their veins.
A spool of gleaming wire filled his lap. He cut short lengths and bent them into shape with a small pair of pliers, twisting them together in pretty, jewelry-like designs.
His ghost floated nearby, warming herself by the fire. She was a small robot in an intricate, rose-patterned shell, her blue eye blinking from its center.
"Madrid, you don't have to make me a new shell," she ventured after a while. "This one is already beautiful."
"But this one is a lotus blossom, Rose," Madrid replied, weaving together more wires. "Besides, this wire is in too good of condition to waste. Sturdy stainless steel. No idea where those Fallen found it."
Madrid was on a supply patrol, meaning he tracked the spider-like aliens through the mountains and stole back the goods they had scavenged from wrecked human cities. As winter approached the Last City, more and more Hunters were being dispatched on patrols, looking for enough supplies to help the City survive. At these altitudes, hundreds of miles from the City, winter had already arrived, and it was only October.
Rose knew all this and accepted it. She watched her Guardian build her a new shell with vague interest. "Why must you make new shells all the time?"
He gave her a quick smile. "Don't you like them?"
"Yes, of course. But ... it seems too much, sometimes. The shells, the constant care ... I have three different beds at home."
Madrid twisted two wires together. "Are you saying you'd rather I neglect you?"
"No ..." Rose looked down, trying to frame her thoughts in a way that wouldn't hurt his feelings. "I only wish you'd let me heal you sometimes."
His smile returned. "I rarely let an enemy land a hit, Rosie. It's why I'm the best." This wasn't a boast, but a statement of fact. Madrid was one of the top-ranked Hunters in the Vanguard, with more patrols and salvages clocked than any other Hunter.
"I know," Rose said, proud of her Guardian, yet miserable at the same time. "You haven't been hurt by a thing in three months. It makes me feel useless."
"You're not useless," Madrid reassured her. "You're my closest friend. I'd lose my mind out here without you to talk to."
This was little comfort. A ghost's duty was to support their Guardian, and the act of sharing Light in a healing or resurrection bonded them. Rose couldn't articulate this. All she knew was that she desperately wanted to be needed. And she wasn't.
Madrid went on working, designing yet another beautiful shell that did nothing to appease the void in Rose's heart. To pass the time, she flew to the mouth of the cave and scanned the hillside, checking the snow level and atmospheric data. Already eleven inches had fallen, and the storm had barely begun.
An object appeared at the far edge of her scan - a tiny blur of static. Rose focused on it and narrowed her scan. An enemy? An animal?
A voice reached her, faint and full of static. "A ghost? Oh, please help me! I can't - and the snow -"
The voice of a dying ghost - it sent a wave of panic through her. Rose zipped back to Madrid. "Guardian, there's another ghost out there, and she's asking for help. Her spark is nearly gone."
Madrid set aside the wire and tools and pulled on his thick cloak. He picked up a long-barreled scout rifle from where he'd leaned it against the cave wall. "Lead the way."
Rose led him out of the cave into the blinding, whirling snow. Even with her flashlight beam, they could barely see. Madrid stumbled on the stones beneath the soft snow, slid ten feet, and stopped himself by digging the rifle butt into the ground. Rose checked him for injuries out of habit, but of course he was unhurt.
The other ghost's signal was far down the hill, where the forest began. Rose tracked it and flew in spirals until she found the exact spot where it came from. But there was nothing there but featureless snow.
"Here," Rose said, highlighting the spot with her light. "Dig gently."
Madrid plunged his gloved hands into the snow, pawing it aside and looking carefully into the hole. Nearly a foot down, he uncovered the star-shaped shell of another ghost. Her eye flickered on and gazed up at them, terrified.
"It's all right," Rose reassured her. "This is Madrid, my Guardian, and I'm Rose."
Madrid scooped up the ghost and brushed snow off her shell and eye. "Hello, little light. Where's your Guardian?"
"He killed him," the ghost said. "Then he threw me to his dogs. I can't ... I can't feel my Guardian's spark anymore."
Madrid and Rose exchanged a quick, worried glance.
"Let's get you back to camp," Madrid said. Sheltering the injured ghost under his cloak, he climbed back up the hill, his rifle ready in his other hand.
Paranoid, Rose scanned and scanned again, but they were the only living things out in such a snowstorm.
The firelight revealed the extent of the injured ghost's damage. Her shell was badly bent, with teeth marks scoring and puncturing the metal in many places. Her eye-lens was cracked and distorted.
Madrid silently set the ghost on his sleeping bag near the fire and opened his knapsack.
"You poor thing," Rose said, hovering above the injured ghost. She swept her with a healing beam, mending the crushed components, the damaged eye, the many little injuries that leaked Light like blood. But she couldn't fix the shell.
"Thank you," whispered the ghost. "I'm Zoe. My Guardian is Dustin, a Hunter. Have you seen him?"
"Dustin?" Madrid said. "He was dispatched the same time I was. Wasn't he stalking moose?"
"Yes," Zoe said proudly. "We took three. I transmatted them home, myself."
Madrid shook his head. "We haven't seen anyone except a band of Fallen, about ten miles east of here." He produced a small toolbox for ghost maintenance. From inside, he lifted the parts that composed a spare shell - dark green camouflage.
Zoe studied Madrid and Rose. "I think I remember you. Madrid, the Hunter ... but I don't think I've ever met you," she added to Rose.
Rose looked away.
"Shy," Madrid said. He gently lifted Zoe and set to work removing her mangled shell.
Zoe closed her eye and let him work. "There's a single Cabal hunter with a pack of war beasts. I think he was supposed to hunt Guardians during the Red War, but he's abandoned his legion. All he does is hunt people - Fallen, humans, Guardians, he doesn't care."
"And he found Dustin?" Madrid said, struggling with a warped screw.
"Five days ago," Zoe said, "we had tracked a moose herd to this side of the mountains. But we weren't the only ones hunting them. This Cabal hunter picked up our trail. At first, Dustin laughed. It was only one guy and his war beasts. But the Cabal trapped us in a blind canyon. He held back his beasts until Dustin had exhausted his super charge, trying to shoot down the Cabal. Dustin is an excellent shot, and he couldn't hit this guy. Then, when he was weak, the Cabal shot his legs and turned the war beasts on him. I tried to heal him, but he was already dead. Then I tried to resurrect him." Her voice broke. It was a long moment before she could continue. "The alien grabbed me out of the air. He laughed and threw me to his beasts. They chewed me, but ... but not very well. My shell's shape wasn't easy to bite. I tried to phase, but the first bite cracked something, and I couldn't. They carried me for miles. One beast would drop me and another would pick me up." Her voice shook.
Rose gazed at the awful teeth marks in each segment of Zoe's shell as Madrid detached them. "How did you survive?"
"I don't know," Zoe whispered. "Just thinking about it scares me so bad. I'll never be able to stand war beasts again. The sounds they make ... and their teeth ..."
"Hush, now," Madrid told her. "Let me repair you, then you can rest. Once this storm lets up, we'll go find Dustin."
"I can't feel his spark," Zoe whispered. "I can't feel it at all."
Rose watched her Guardian's hands deftly attach the new shell to the injured ghost, her heart aching with pity. What a horrible thing to endure. But deep down, Rose was confident that it could never happen to her Guardian. Not Madrid. He was too good.
But being unable to feel her Guardian's spark ... that was serious. The spark, the living soul of a Guardian, didn't last long after death. Most ghosts resurrected them within a few minutes or hours. Would Dustin's spark have persisted for five days, or longer? Rose doubted it.
She gazed at Zoe with new sorrow. Zoe might be a severed ghost - a ghost who had lost her Guardian. Sometimes they bonded to a new person and infused them with Light, creating a new Guardian. But most often, the lonely ghost simply returned to the Traveler, broken by grief, and merged back into the Great Consciousness.
Madrid attached the new shell, then let Rose inspect it to make sure everything was attached correctly. When she nodded, he released Zoe. "Can you fly?"
The ghost floated into the air in her new camouflage shell. "I feel ... I feel so much better. Thank you both very much. But now, I ..."
Madrid caught her before she could zip out of the cave. "Don't go out there, Zoe. Tomorrow you can lead us to your Guardian. Don't go alone."
"But his spark," she whispered urgently, blinking at him from between his fingers.
"Zoe," Madrid said very gently, "it's been five days."
He released the ghost. She floated there for a moment, then dropped down, landed on the sleeping bag, and stared into the fire.
Madrid put away his supplies, then pulled out the particular soft blanket where Rose slept. He made her a nest beside his pillow.
Rose settled into it. "Zoe? Would you like to sleep here?"
Zoe flew over and landed beside Rose without a word. Madrid rolled himself in his sleeping bag and was soon asleep.
"Do you sleep in a bed like this every night?" Zoe asked silently, using the Light-powered network that all ghosts shared.
"Only while on patrols," Rose replied. "I have much nicer ones at home."
Zoe blinked. "No ... I mean, why don't you phase and sleep with your Guardian?"
"I used to," Rose said sadly. "A long time ago, when he was still a young Guardian. He needed me, then. But not anymore."
Zoe drew her shell down in a puzzled expression. "You don't love him?"
"He's almost never injured," Rose said. "And he never dies. So I'm just ... here. I don't do much."
Zoe gazed at Madrid, then Rose. "I wondered why the Light you shared was so cold. I was afraid I'd been rescued by a corrupted Guardian."
"He's not corrupted," Rose said indignantly. "Neither am I."
"Of course not," Zoe said hurriedly. "I sense no Darkness from either of you. Your Light is just ... cold."
Rose didn't know how to respond, so she said nothing.
After a while, Zoe's eye blinked off as she fell into an exhausted sleep. But Rose remained awake, watching the cave mouth, thinking of war beasts, and wondering about cold Light.