Tihna lounged on the tattered couch, wishing for something interesting to happen. She supposed, as a guardian, that might not be the best idea, as the last time she'd wished for that was right before she'd decided to sign up for Drifter's Reckoning. She shivered. That hadn't been as fun as she'd hoped. Most things weren't, nowadays. Her reward, a Spare Rations, hadn't even had a good perk combo! She shoved the melancholy back.
"Hey, Fawkes!" she called.
"Yeah?" Came the reply from the makeshift kitchen.
"Anybody volunteer for lookout duty yet?"
"Tihna, the last time we needed that was during the Red War."
"What about supplies, do I need to go to the settlement?"
"You were there when I made inventory."
She tried again. "Need any help with the meat?"
A laugh.
"Hey!" She sat up, trying to look miffed, but she couldn't hold back the smile at the skeptical expression on Fawkes's face. "I can always get better, if you give me a chance!"
"With all due respect, Savior of the Last City," Tihna rolled her eyes at that, but he went on. "The last time you tried to 'help' cook we almost lost an entire room."
A flurry of gunfire erupted from the far side of the room, followed by a sudden curse, but neither Hunter was distracted.
"It was a mistake!" Tihna replied, then widened her eyes and looked at the human man imploringly. "What ever happened to second chances?"
"Second chances are for people who don't damage our living space." He made to continue, but was interrupted.
"By the bright-dusted snowball in the sky! Again!?" In the corner, another Hunter, red-haired and petite, held the grip of a recently-shattered hand cannon in her fist, scorched metal bits still rolling on the concrete floor from where they had fallen. Somewhere in the room, the metal barrel was still chiming as it ricocheted off the concrete walls.
Tihna rolled her eyes. "Liana, I don't see the point in modding your own guns if you're going to treat them like that."
"Three hundred rounds per minute is entirely possible!" she snapped in reply, then sighed, the empty grip drooping in the slim woman's hand. "Sorry, I'm just a bit frustrated."
"Is… was that a Pribina-D?"
Her emerald eyes shifted sideways. "Maybe."
"A one-ten RPM hand cannon."
"Ostensibly."
"You're ramping up the rate of fire… to three hundred!?"
"Yes!" There was a hint of a desperate wail in the reply. "It's not impossible!" She readjusted her grip on the handle, then remembered that it was empty and knelt to gather up the pieces. "I'm getting closer, this time it actually shot more than three bullets in a row!"
Tihna stood smoothly and turned back to Fawkes, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow. "What were you saying about damaging the living space again?"
"Hey!" came the protest, but they both ignored her.
Fawkes sighed, putting his back to the counter, his dark clothing clashing wildly with his colorful apron. "Look, Tihna, I appreciate that you want to help, I really do. It's just…"
Tihna approached and leaned against the bar between them.
He ran a hand through his long dark hair, moving it out of his eyes, which were shadowed and weary. "Doing things I'm good at helps, you know, and other people in the way just complicates things." He gave her a worn smile. "I promise, it's not you. Or, not as much as I made it sound."
She tilted her head. "Are you sure there's nothing I can help with?"
"You're not usually this eager. There something I need to know?" He gave her a loaded glance.
She sighed, slumping. "No. You're always stressed when you and Alessia are having a rough time, so I do genuinely want to help, but…" She stood and did a little pace back and forth. "I'm also just really bored! I feel so useless just sitting around," She turned back and raised her voice to reach the far side of the room, where Ghost was just sitting around. "No offense, Ghost!"
The huge exo nodded but otherwise made no movement from his chair, his sleek bass guitar leaning on the wall next to him.
That reminded Tihna that there was always practicing, but she didn't feel like music would help today. "Anyway…" She trailed off, coming to rest leaning next to him. "I guess I should just find something to do instead of bugging you."
A wry grin grew on Fawkes stubbled face, and he reached over and shoved her playfully. "You youngun's, always running circles around everyone. Go speed around on your sparrow or something, maybe the mountain air will clear your head."
She laughed, louder than she felt like, and pushed back, straightening. "You're right, old man. I'll try a ride." Tihna left the larger room, followed by a sharp banging echoing from Liana's workbench. Looked like it was going to be just them this week, attendance at their BBQs had been pretty sparse recently.
Tihna made her way down the wide hall to the door that led outside, but with every step a lethargy came over her. What was wrong with her? She'd been bored before, but this felt… different. Even the stories about Emperor Calus's Menagerie weren't getting her excited for new adventures. She passed the memorial room on her right, and something gravitated her inside it instead of just walking past like she planned.
The far wall was lined with photos, reinforced with waxglass to keep the colors bright, each fragment of the past filled with a face of someone's friend, someone's lover, all Hunters, brothers and sisters, Risen in the Light. There were weightier momentos as well; guns, a pack of cards, a crystal someone had found somewhere, the eye of a Vex Hobgoblin, and a burned-out toaster all sharing space on shelves and racks.
This room had been a part of the Hunter hideout ever since it had been set up, over a hundred years ago now. She was a lot younger than that, but even in her short time Risen, she still knew some mementos of what, and who, had been lost, in this room.
Catya. Jace. Mako-3. Those were the ones she had known, two friends lost in the Red War, caught lightless by Ghaul and his legion, the last lost in a Scorn raid on the Reef.
And Cayde. His picture was in the center of the wall, just under another photo of his old friend, Andal Brask. Two hunter Vanguards, dead within a hundred years of each other. Tihna had missed Andal by almost a century, but Cayde had been her friend, just like he had been a friend to every guardian.
Her hand crept down to her side, where the heavy hand cannon rested. It was weighted with more than lead and history; there was also expectation, regret, and uncertainty in this particular pellet-shooter. Maybe, if she'd been faster or stronger, she could have saved him.
Tihna Greandelsdottir drew out the Ace of Spades, and remembered killing a man in vengeance. That had been when it started, she knew. This feeling of apathy, of wanting to help but never quite feeling like she was doing enough; it had begun ever since she'd pulled that trigger. And she was scared that it would never go away; that she'd feel like this when the next great threat arose to try and overshadow the City and the Traveler protecting it.
She sighed, and put the Ace back in its holster. Just sitting here, no matter how well it worked for Ghost, wouldn't help her at all. She just had to move on. She just had to jump off this tower, get on her sparrow, and feel the wind in her hair again; no matter how bad Fawkes was at picking girlfriends, he did know how to help get someone's head back in the game, however temporarily.
She left the room with a fabricated spring in her step. Maybe she should pick up another hobby, take Liana's advice. Get back to the city more often, meet some new people. Tihna flung the door open, and didn't bother with the ladder.
She alighted the railing and jumped over the edge of the watchtower, the wind pushing her face into a smile as she soared thirty feet down to the ground below. She activated the jumpjets right before impact, body braced for the shock, and rolled smoothly from the landing. She shook the leaves out of her hair and set off towards the line of sparrows, hidden from above by a simple garage adorned with camouflage. Did they need it? No. But it was kinda cool, seeing the sleek vehicles lined up like that.
And then she realized there was somebody there.
The guardian –it had to be, they wore a cloak like a Hunter would– was just getting off a plain sparrow, it didn't really even have a paint job, she noted in surprise. Were they a New Light? They seemed… weighed down by something.
She took a deep breath. She'd wanted something interesting, and here it was! A new person. "Hello!" she called, waving and smiling. They turned to look at her, and didn't remove their helmet. She kept walking, they seemed cautious, but not overly so. "Are you here for the barbeque?"
"Yes." It was a man's voice. He was dressed plainly too, simple armor, with a rare-class hand cannon on his hip, an Allegro, she noted, not a bad choice. It made her feel gaudy by comparison.
"Wait, I recognize you," she said, stopping a few feet away. "I invited you about a week ago!"
"Yeah. I… recognize you too." Small movements of his head showed her that he was checking his surroundings. Kinda jumpy, wasn't he.
"I'm Tihna, welcome to the Black Cliffs hideout." She reached out a hand.
It took him a moment. "I'm Arren." He shook her hand, with a firm grip.
She caught the slight movement of his head, looking down at her waist. At the Ace. Tihna worried for a second that her reputation would scare him off, but he gave no further reaction.
She gave her most welcoming smile. "Well, come on in, whenever you're ready, I think the meat's almost done, but we have plenty of space to wait around or throw darts or something. Just watch out for Liana, she's messing around with guns again."
They ascended the ladder in silence, and Tihna realized she hadn't shut the door. She laughed nervously, holding it open and gesturing for the newcomer, Arren, to enter first. "Looks like Fawkes forgot to close the door again, haha…"
He didn't reply, just analyzed the old weather station. "You live here?"
"When I'm in the area," she replied, surprised. "I have an apartment back in the city. Liana's the one that stays here the most."
"How many are you?"
"Four, five with you, but it varies. Room for thirty in a pinch, though."
A quiet moment.
He grunted. "Nice place." Then he walked in.
Tihna blinked, then followed him. "Thanks?"
He looked into the rooms to the left and right, the storage room and the memorial room, and then he stopped. Arren looked at her, the squinting eyes of the mask asking for permission.
"Yeah, go ahead."
He entered the room, slowly, cautiously, as if he didn't feel like he belonged here. Arren's gaze moved along all the pictures on the walls. "All these people you knew?"
"Only a few." Her reply was soft, but somehow, she didn't feel uncomfortable talking to a complete stranger about her losses. "I'm pretty young, relatively."
"Me too." Then his gaze stopped on Cayde's. His shoulders lowered.
A bloom of sympathy rose in her, and she touched his shoulder. "He was a friend to all of us."
He looked down, and she felt his shoulder shake, once. "Yeah." His reply was soft, fragile. "I knew someone like that."
"Are… are you ok?" she asked, but she already knew the gist of the answer.
The young guardian seemed to be struggling with himself, but she could see the emotions surging through him. He looked left, right, and for a moment she thought he might bolt. But instead, he lowered himself to the ground, sitting cross-legged.
This was not what she'd been expecting. But Tihna realized something as she watched the sad guardian struggle with himself. Here was something she could do. It wasn't exciting, it wasn't distracting. But instead, it was someone she could help. And she wasn't about to let this opportunity pass her by. She followed him down, sitting gently on the ancient rug covering the dusty concrete.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"She was only thirteen." The words came, and they were shattered, like a vase smashed by a storm of unrelenting grief. Whatever struggle was within Arren the Hunter, one of the sides had won. "She died in my arms. I couldn't do anything to stop it."
A moment of shock. Oh. He'd lost a lightless friend. And then, that same tide of grief rose to cover Tihna as well. She'd already been broken by it, eleven long months ago, and she thought she'd put herself together. Apparently she'd been wrong. Arren continued.
"She was my only friend, she trusted me to keep her safe. I failed her."
Tihna remembered crying over a broken body, her tears running down the metal head of her mentor, her friend, long after the opportunity to save him had passed her by. After that, back then, she'd been filled with rage. Vengeance, to cover the pain, to give direction to it. But now, there was nothing to hide behind. And in this poor man, Tihna saw herself.
Tihna, Savior of the Last City, reached out and held the young Hunter. He was frozen in shock for a moment before softening, allowing his helmeted head to be pressed against her shoulder. A sob shook him. "Sorry," he muttered. "I didn't… I…"
"Quiet. No shame in the grief. That only shames those that left. No shame, you hear?" She clutched him tighter, and they remained that way until Tihna's lower legs fell asleep.
A call echoed through the halls that dinner was ready, and a small ping echoed in Tihna's communication network. Arren pulled away, hand moving instinctively to his helmeted face as if to wipe the tears away.
It must have been miserably wet in there, an errant thought mentioned, but she shook it off. "Arren."
He looked to her.
"We live on, but we're not alone, ok? That's what helped me, eventually. You don't have to talk about it any more right now, I know we just met, but if you want to talk, I'm here."
His helmeted gaze met hers, and then he looked away. "Thank you, Tihna." He looked back, and forced a laugh. "I promise I didn't intend to impose on you like this."
"Oh, quiet," she said with a smile, and stood, feeling returning to her legs in a rush. "Dinner's ready, but we don't have a start time or anything. Bathroom's down the hall, on the left."
He nodded and stood.
She moved to walk out, filled with a strange energy, sadness and purpose and that strange emotion that came from sharing those things, when she remembered something. "Oh! And,"
"Yes?" Arren replied.
She smiled. "If you want to keep your helmet on, we totally get it. We can't all be Lord Shaxx, but some of us have to try, right?"