Originally written in the lead-up to Beyond Light, imagining what the lore tabs for the new Stasis subclasses might look like.

BEHEMOTH

You think I don't know what people say about Titans like me? I get it.

Hunters are swift and nimble, they can outrun a lightning strike, jump over an Ogre in the blink of an eye. They can shoot a Vex in the juice box with a twitch of their hand, or pin a Shank to the wall with an arrow through its turbines without killing it, or dance around with a staff and send all your bullets right back at you.

Warlocks are cunning and studious, they can tie the laws of reality into knots, figure out everything that makes you tick. They can fly around on wings of sunfire, walk into the fury of a thunderstorm and bend it to their will, or traverse the very boundaries of time and space between Light and Dark.

I may be slow and plodding compared to the Hunter. I may be thick and stupid compared to the Warlock. But while the Hunter prances around me, going for those precision shots, I am weathering the hail of gunfire, advancing inexorably toward them, the very ground quaking where I walk. The Warlock may be faster on the uptake, I may be a slow learner, but I do get there.

Let me show you what I have learned.

For I bring with me the crushing force of a glacier. Where can you run, Hunter, when I shape the very landscape around you to block you in? How much will your cunning save you, Warlock, when you cannot move from my inevitable fist?

Go ahead and speak now. But remember that you cannot plead with an avalanche.

REVENANT

Do you know, I am often asked how I could possibly survive out in the wilds?

Soft, safe "good people of the City," some of whom never set foot outside the wall, until the Red Legion forced them to. Who found the world outside was dangerous and that all the comforts they took for granted were gone. Whose eyes were opened after a few weeks of famine and fear.

They weren't there when I delved into the ruins of the old world left by the Collapse. They weren't there as I braved places so far from safety, facing horrors their simple little brains couldn't imagine. They've never seen the fetid maw of a monster born out of the Darkness as it hungered for me and my Light, never had to face off against a Fallen Captain snarling hate and spite, never had to dash for cover from the barrage of a Cabal fortress, never had to look a Vex Minotaur in its eye and see nothing but cold calculated dispassionate murder looking back.

They can only imagine such things, colored by their paltry experience with hardship. But I don't hate them for their narrow concerns.

I reserve it for the Titans, who glare as I walk by, who envy me for my cape, who call me coward for being quick to dodge. They throw up their little bubble shields when I snap out my Golden Gun, while their buddy comes around the corner to shoulder charge me into the wall, bellowing about how they bring the thunder, bragging about the victory they had fixed for them in the Guardian Games.

I reserve it for the Warlocks, with their arrogant smirks, who think they have all the answers, who preen about their robes, who act smug about their ability to blink about the battlefield, and boast about how they can command the fury of the tempest. They look down at me and scoff that I cannot withstand the storm.

Shhh.

None of them understand. I am faster than the Titan, especially when I slow time around them. I silence their thunder and their fury with a cold snap. I am more cunning than the Warlock, especially when I know the battlefield better than them and shape it to my needs. I silence their empty words and their sneering pride with a frigid blade.

I cannot withstand the storm? No.

I AM the storm.

SHADEBINDER

Wielding an elemental force of creation and destruction is different for me.

Titans and Hunters see the paracausal forces we wield as mere tools, unfazed by the sheer fury of the storm or the raw power of the sun or the sapping nothingness of the void. They can pick them up and put them down, shape them into tools and weapons to be used.

They don't know what it means to embody the element itself, to draw it into oneself and become it. To straddle that line between light and dark, and step outside the bounds of time and space. To hear the song of the solar fire and shape it into a sword. To step into the eye of the gale with serenity and let the storm dance within.

I see them now, bearing these new powers born of the primordial ur-predator, and none of them understand what it is they're using. They think it is merely another tool in their kit, another weapon in their arsenal. Look at them now, plodding and proud with their newfound power, sneering and smug with their sharpened sickles. They don't know what it is they're wielding.

Not like I do.

I have steeped myself in it. As I did with the void, I moved outside boundaries- those imposed by the dogmas of the Light. As I did with solar fire, I have heard the song- the rhythm and rime of a song of silence. As I did with the gale, I stepped into the storm and looked into its eye as it looked into me.

What good are your tools and weapons when I can reach out and make them heed my will? What good is your glacial force when I can halt you in your tracks? What good is your withering squall when I can silence it with a whisper?

The Dark is merely your tool. But I have truly harnessed it. Encompassed it.

Binded it.