#pre-freija

[titanicfreija]

"The news of the massacre was kept quiet, but well-documented, with eleven perpetrators being caught and brought to justice. No recorded specific number of guests, but the dead in the home numbered fifty and fifty seven escaped to die outside. Five people survived the attack. Bodies outside the home scattered from the bluffs to the neighbor's garden half a click that way."

"I was a lot farther along than the bluffs," Freija remarked, looking down the hills to the cliffside, down which she had apparently scrambled to make a last stand about ten years ago.

"You were."

"Only five survivors?"

"Only five that came forth. There were more than a hundred and ten people there, so there were probably more that escaped farther than searched, or never came out of hiding after the attack. The five weren't identified anywhere, but the name appears eleven times in flight logs across the next year or so, and all but two disappear entirely after that, apparently having changed. The two that kept them both became pilots for the vanguard. One was shot down by Cabal forces during the Red War, and the other retired after losing an arm last year, and he lives in the Last City. Third cousins and unlikely to have ever seen her."

"So even if anyone knew where I was, they would be afraid to tell," muttered Freija.

"You don't like that you were left out like that?"

"Ten years? Six between dying and you finding me? Barely two clicks from the city I fled? Yeah, hurts my feelings. Being literally murdered as a political statement kinda sucks, you know?"

Sunny spun in place. "Sorry."

Freija cried out and covered her helmet with her hands. "I didn't want to fucking know!" The Titan stormed down the grassy hill and checked her guns out of habit, eventually perching on a ledge overlooking the clouds. Sunny let her get the space she wanted and kept an eye out.

"Never before have I encountered a guardian," said a strange voice. Sunny looked to see an Awoken woman with purple skin and purple hair and orange eyes she played up with an orange ascot. "My son wanted to meet the guardian. Is that okay?"

They were a lot closer to a civilian estate than Sunny realized, seeing the manor around a hillside. "Give her some time," Sunny requested. "I've been looking into who she was before she died the first time. We figured out she was murdered and she's kind of upset about it."

The woman swiveled to the distant figure on the cliff and put her hand to her chest. "I imagine so. I would hate to find out I was murdered."

"She gets murdered a lot," Sunny objected irritably. I mean really.

"Is the first death not different to the guardians?" the woman asked, tilting her head curiously. "I have not had a chance to ask but it seems like it should be formative."

"That's what I said," Sunny agreed. "I still think her death has something to do with who she is now. But the first one wipes their memories, so they don't remember it. So it's more like being conceived to them-- that time before consciousness. How they feel varies. She's always been kind of uncomfortable with her first death, so maybe I'm being mean a little, but she doesn't remember this stuff to be upset by it. She wasn't Saris."

"Is she sad she lost her family? You don't have to have something to feel like you lost it, sometimes."

"I did that when I couldn't find her," Sunny chuckled, then she felt a pang of sympathy. "Oh, if she feels like I did back then, I don't blame her."

Sunny flew over to Freija's side and bonked into her helmet before diving into her armor at her collar. "I'm sorry. I knew you didn't like it, but I didn't realize how bad."

Freija placed a hand on Sunny gently, cupping her close. "S'alright. I don't listen to you when you're begging me to stop, either. Getting what I deserve all over."

Sunny nudged gently. "Sarah didn't deserve being gunned down just because you do," she repeated.

Freija and Sunny laughed together and the Awoken got to her feet. "Is this my most impressive Guardian of Humanity, Bearer of Light outfit handy? I heard lady ask me to be Arisen at her son."

"Your armor is on fire."

"Awesome."

The woman waited at the top of the hill with her child standing at her side. He looked the human version of ten-ish, but they weren't sure about Awoken aging. Freija picked up her posture and checked her guns out of habit.

The round-faced child swayed on his toes and watched Freija approach, eyes bouncing from fire to fire on her armor. Rise had dressed her, so she looked fabulous, of course, but Freija forgot until now that it really was impressive. The Tower skewed her standard.

"Aren't you hot?" he asked first, unable to contain himself long enough for her to get close.

She stopped about ten steps off and made a show of brushing her flaming shoulders off. "Nope!" Sunny declared for her.

"Are you really immortal?"

"Technically, she dies and I get her back up."

The shining orange eyes matched his mother's, and he had the start of his family tattoo on his chin, a little line down the center in purple that matched his hair. Freija wondered how much longer he had breathed than she had.

"Can she talk?"

Freija nodded and Sunny said, "She lets me talk when her helmet's on. It's easier."

The boy nodded wide and hesitated for several moments, mustering up the courage to ask, "Can I touch your fire?"

Freija grinned under her helm and stepped closer to kneel. As he got closer, she offered the top of her helmet and one shoulder. He reached slowly and tentatively toward the small, low flames.

The Light glittered when he touched it, so he more bravely reached to the fire on top of her head. His palm glittered as a scabbed-over scrape dissipated. He withdrew quickly, examining the former wound.

"I didn't know my helmet fire could do that," Freija remarked to Sunny. "Figured only Phoenix Cradle would let me do that."

Sunny agreed via private channel. "There's other occasions. Those little fire pips. It's probably limited to scratches and scrapes, but apparently it's perfect for that. We hardly need a full sunspot, it's not a gunshot wound."

The boy bounced with his hands folded when she nodded to him. He put his other hand in the fire for a flash to watch the healing flesh. "Whoa..."

Freija stood up and nodded with Sunny's happy bob.

The boy flexed his hand and turned it for examination before he turned the awestruck gaze back to the guardian. "Are you here to fight with the Taken?"

"She's actually here to help me," Sunny sang, flying to his eye level and whirling her petals. She enjoyed watching his mouth hang open as he examined her motions. "Her name is Freija. I woke her up a few years ago on the shore down there," she said. Freija pointed over the cliff. "I found her bones and rebuilt her and brought her to life."

The little boy looked between them with his mouth agape. Sunny whirled again and hovered in a pleased circle. "I did, I did! From toe to tip!"

"Was it gross?" he asked, smile scrunching mischievously.

Sunny got close and whispered, "A little."

"Did her guts--"

"Hey!" Freija cried, swatting at Sunny playfully at the same time the boy's mother declared, "That's enough." She pulled her son back by the shoulder and shoved him behind her, muffling his objections.

"It's okay," Sunny promised. Freija put her hand over the front of her helmet and mimed laughing.

"Does she ever take the helmet off?" asked the woman. "If she was raised near here, I might have known her."

"We are trying to avoid people that might remember her face, so she's not gonna do that," Sunny explained quickly.

"That's fine. Was she a Pojin? I wasn't close with them, but the family was nothing but wonderful, was the biggest shock."

Freija whirled with her hands over her 'ears'.

"I think she was," Sunny whispered to the woman, temporarily cutting off the connection to Freija's helmet. "She's not interested. Anyway. Thank you! We enjoyed meeting your son! If I come back later for information, is--"

Freija lifted a hand to Sunny, somewhere between trying to push her sideways in the air and hold out a palm to say "stop".

Sunny dodged sideways and flitted over her head. "Okay, fine, no more. Anyway, thank you!"

"Thank you."

"Thank you!" echoed the boy, holding out his healed hands. "That was fascinating!"

Sunny giggled and bobbed as Freija gave a courteous bow before she turned and walked away.

"That wasn't so bad," Freija admitted.

"No?"

"Still not allowed to do it anymore."

~

Another dramatic miniseries

Sarah's Death (long)

Curious (medium)

Search (long)

Uncover (medium)

Insisting (medium)

Learn (medium)

Move on (long) <- you are here

Every Second (short)

[missfreija]

title: memory 1

fandom: pandora hearts

pairing: gilbert/oz + ada

tags: fluff, pre-canon

[titanicfreija]

Thomas's turn!

1. Rex. The Ghost named himself before he met Thomas

2. The cosmodrome

3. Post Crota, pre Red War

4. he's not picky, he likes a little of everything and can do anything

5. He's treated it with a degree of curiosity and fascination.

6. Actually, kinda yeah. Something about it just isn't as easy to him. The running joke is that he was meant to be a Titan (because I play him the same way I play my Titan and try to use rift defensively and forget which grenade I'm using and I can platform pretty well but just...)

7. He does care, very curious, but he respects the taboo and he also doesn't even know where to begin to look for himself. (He did check fingerprint data, but if he ever got printed, the data was destroyed.)

8. fire team. He likes Rise's Titan best

9. Dredgen if anything, but he doesn't really like the faction things

10. Space Magic

11. He shares suspicions of roommates and is pretty sure the Traveler is building an army, but he is also sure that Eido (Misraak's daughter) was right when she said the Eliksni would never be Guardians like us--and that's why the Traveler dipped on them. Our crucible, our grenades, throwing ourselves off the Tower sooner than using the stairs-- we are a good army to have. You take out the fear of death and humans will do whatever they want.

12. He's fond of his ghost. He regards Rex as his friend, and Rex is obviously attached to Tom, but Rex has a sense of duty that Thomas lacks that leads to bumping heads.

13. This, he lacks. He shoots back, same as Freija, but he has that, "everyone is the hero in their own story" idea in mind and knows everyone is just trying to live, so he wants to carve as a perfect a spot as he can for himself.

14. Himself as Rex would have him be. A strong sense of justice and genuine guardian of humanity, instead of an immortal slacker.

15. He likes all of them and loves to see everyone dress up for the occasions

16. Read Dark Age history books and explore Earth

17. Not a lot. He feels too far removed from the adults, but he likes to talk to kids, and he plays with the children of the city, human and eliksni

18. A little too much, and he's an impulse shopper

19. A small notebook and pen, several map datacards, and at least one book.

20. He is crushing horribly on Rise's Titan

21. He's also fond of Rise's Warlock.

20 Questions prompt list for Guardians! Download, yoink and repost away, add images of you like, tag me if you want cause I love hearing about everyone's guardians! ❤️

[ao3feed-lokiangst]

Saga til Loki ok Sigyn - The Story of Loki and Sigyn (ENG version)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2WHinAX

by Eruanna_or_Arnor

Have you ever thought about the fact that the world we know is nothing but a bundle of stories? They intertwine with each other, knotting, mingling with each other and there is no one who can know them in their entirety. But you, dear readers, are lucky because I am called Sága,I am the Lady of History and I will tell you a story of Mischieve and Fidelity which, as you can imagine, will also speak of chaos and storms, this being truly inevitable when two opposites meet. Loki/Sigyn

Words: 3314, Chapters: 2/12, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Norse Religion & Lore, Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Loki (TV 2021)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M

Characters: Loki (Marvel), Loki, Sigyn (Marvel), Sigyn (Norse Religion & Lore), Thor (Marvel), Odin (Marvel), Óðinn | Odin (Norse Religion & Lore), Frigga | Freyja (Marvel), Frigg | Frigga (Norse Religion & Lore), Freija, Freya (Marvel), Freyr | Frey (Norse Religion & Lore), Freyja | Freya (Norse Religion & Lore), Sif (Marvel), Hogun (Marvel), Fandral (Marvel), Volstagg (Marvel), Njord (Marvel), Njörðr | Njord (Norse Religion & Lore), Theoric (Marvel)

Relationships: Loki/Sigyn (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel), Frigga | Freyja/Odin (Marvel), Loki & Odin & Thor (Marvel), Loki & Thor, Loki & Odin (Marvel), Loki & Sif (Marvel)

Additional Tags: Love, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Marriage Proposal, Marriage, Arranged Marriage, Asgard, Asgard (Marvel), Gods, Pagan Gods, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Marvel Norse Lore, Magic, Pre-Thor (2011), Forbidden Love, Punishment, God(dess) of Mischief, Chaos, Regret, Young Love, True Love's Kiss, Drunken Kissing, Drunk Sex, Royalty, Intrigue

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2WHinAX

[auringal]

Los longobardos (Winnili, #lombardos) fueron una tribu escandinava pre-vikinga que emigró al sur hacia #Germania. Al llegar a Germania, los #winnili se enfrentaron a los poderosos #vándalos germánicos. Ambas partes apelaron a su dios principal #Odin por la victoria. Para lograrla contra los más numerosos Vándalos, la diosa #Freyja les dijo a las mujeres Winnili que se ataran el cabello para que parecieran barbas. Odin las vio de pie en el campo de batalla y preguntó quiénes eran estas largas barbas. Después de su victoria, los Winnili fueron llamados Barba Larga, que con el tiempo pasó a llamarse Longobardos / Lombardos. Al no encontrar los recursos alimenticios adecuados, se aventuraron en #Panonia en la actual #Hungría. Allí los longobardos se aliaron con los #ávaros para derrotar a los #gépidos el botín fue a parar a los ávaros. Como resultado, los longobardos del rey #Alboin abandonaron la región y se trasladaron al norte de #Italia, donde la tierra estaba madura y para entonces los longobardos tenían una reputación feroz.

Quizás #Tolkien se inspiró en este hecho para narrar de las famosas “Mujeres enanas barbadas” 😉

Imágenes: #EmilDoepler Odín y Freyja observan a las mujeres “barbudas” inspirada de la Origo gentis Langobardorum https://www.instagram.com/p/CQzodACsy4X/?utm_medium=tumblr

[titanicfreija]

Nightmares

Freija liked the food but she felt strange amongst these people, blue like her, so many redheads, varying stages of tattoo across foreheads.

"Are you okay?"

Freija looked up to see a familiar face that she couldn't name. It reminded her of herself, if herself gained some weight and grew her hair out.

"You would think people this rich would have better chairs," the other girl snickered, scrunching her nose mischievously.

Gunfire erupted and the wall exploded, sending a hailstorm of bullets and stone shards into the crowd sitting at the table. People screamed as blood sprayed across the food, across their family, several slumping across the table or collapsing next to it, clutching wounds or completely limp.

Freija watched herself drop to the ground and slide the table back, first to knock over everyone still up, then flip it over to create a barricade between them and the wall.

Easily half were already dead or dying. The scent of blood and gunpowder filled the air and screams continued. Several ducked or crawled behind Freija's makeshift wall.

Screaming down a hall and more gunfire told her they were surrounded.

Freija knew what she should do, but she watched herself follow the crowd to an exit, where several gathered and crushed each other, trying to get through the blocked door.

Freija grabbed someone and pushed them ahead of her, away from the dining room, into the kitchen. From there, she snuck successfully to the service corridor.

In the narrow, soap smelling hallway, a pale blue man with silver eyes stood next to the only window. Her father. Looking through, they had a drop, but they could be hidden by architecture and the garden and buy time.

The person ahead of her leapt through with no hesitation. Freija ran back toward the dining room. She found a some people close enough to direct to the window. Not many. Bodies littered the second corridor Freija could find, visibly fleeing a room where they had been playing a board game and getting picked off back to front.

A gunman spotted her as she peeked out of the kitchen.

Freija dashed down the hall, away from the kitchen and the escape route, dodging gunfire clumsily until she could get around another corner.

Two attackers stood with their backs turned to her, checking a datapad. Freija snatched the gun from one and ran down the hall, firing blind behind her until the clip ran empty.

A lounge or spare room or something stood open at the end of the hall, and big double door led to a deck outside. A voice rasped and gurgled from behind a chair. "Sarah!" Her sister, covered in blood from the bullet wound to her right side.

Freija dragged her by the shirt through the door, dropped her next to it, into the shadows, and kept running, but she was waking up now and aware of the soft bed beneath her but the moonlight and grass and pillow and why are my legs so...

~

The guardian opened her eyes and watched the dark for several long moments. The whir and blip of her ghost alerted her to Sunny's presence. "Do we have dreams about our previous lives?"

"I've never heard of it, but it seems strange that you wouldn't," Sunny replied from next to Freija's head. "I felt the nightmare. Are you okay?"

"I had a sister," Freija replied, sniffling. "I think she died. I couldn't save her. I could only run and hope they shot at me instead of finding her, but she was... Really hurt."

"At least eleven people survived," Sunny reminded her.

"I-- ha, she. She tried to lead enemy fire away." She sobbed twice before she could stop. "I couldn't remember faces. I think I projected most of them. My... Her... Father. His face. I recalled that. And voice. He called me Sarah and I remember almost waking up then but the dream smelled like gunpowder and blood, settled me. Felt familiar. He found a window, and he wanted me to go, but I -- she went to lead the few she could find back to him. I don't know how many. I don't think she knew, either, it got real faceless and blurry. Dream time skipped. But then they caught her, saw her peeking, and she got away and got..."

Freija choked again and she had to breathe through the tears. "Fuck, this is hard. I don't know why. She--my sister, her sister, looked like me. Her hair was longer, face was softer, had most of her tattoo like mine. I don't remember her name. She was... Really hurt. She wasn't going to make it. But I couldn't just leave her there, they were chasing me and they would run right past if I left her. So I dragged her outside and put her in the shadows in the brush and I ran. I watched the dream run and it was so--it's what woke me up. I couldn't stand it. I wanted to put to put up a barricade and stand ground so bad. Obviously that was me-me. She didn't have any guns, I don't know what she would have done, my lightless body could hardly drag a single person, but I got so mad at the dream I woke up."

Sunny took a while to eventually ask, "Are you okay?"

Freija nodded and sniffled again. "Yeah. That was. Really. Real. Clear, even now, it isn't fading like real nightmares. Or at least as clear as it was when I had it, it was still a dream." She heaved a long breath. "She was so scared."

Sunny dipped then rose slowly, lights bunching cutely in the dark. "She died that night. She was right to be scared. And she still played hero." Sunny tapped her head lovingly. "Did you want to hear more? About your previous family?"

"No," Freija creaked, but then she tried to hold back a sob and released a pained squeak. "Except-- what was my sister's name? Do you think we can find her monument? A grave?"

"I'll look for you. It's okay."

"They both died alone because I--she ran away!" Freija curled into the bed and covered her head, then flung off the blanket and stormed around her room. "Oh for fuck's sake I don't want anyone else's bullshit, I have my own! Get over it, Sarah, it was ten years ago, you were outgunned fifty to one, you did everything you could. I'm sorry I yelled at you. Standing ground wouldn't have been any different. And dying next to the person you can't save is not better."

Sunny giggled softly. "Resurgence of old regrets. Might want to contact Crow for that one."

"Probably make him feel bad," she chuckled. "I can just hear it. 'Hey, Crow! You know how you fucked up in your previous life? How did you cope with it? Other than the badly we all saw? Oh, my regrets? I ran away from the massacre that killed eighty percent of my bloodline, instead of standing my ground alone and unarmed, because I didn't want to draw fire towards my dying sibling.'"

"Sounds a lot better when you put it that way," Sunny teased.

"It does. How far was I from the manor thing again? Couple clicks?"

"Something like that."

"Led at least one fucker two clicks. Took them out of the fight. See?"

Sunny hung silent in the air to wait on her Guardian, who eventually flopped back to the bed. "I had two sisters," she recalled. "I didn't see the second one in the dream. Lots of faceless redheads. She died during the first hit, sitting across from me. Took a bunch in the back and she fell. I think Mother... her mother died right then, too. Everyone on that side of the table."

Sunny didn't respond, knowing more details than Freija likely wanted.

"I probably killed some of them, finished them off," she admitted. "Probably crushed some with a table I knocked over for cover."

"No one got crushed by a table," Sunny assured her. "Any crushing happened at doors."

Freija went silent but the silver lights flicked in her head as she studied emptiness, and the glow wobbled when her eyes watered. "I know her father died, helping people escape. I didn't see it, she didn't either, but we both know it." She tried to breathe through it. "I don't like this."

"You're handling it a lot better than you would have even a year ago."

"Why did it wait?" she whined. "Why not when you were digging up shit? Ugh. And I still don't want to know. Keep going back and forth, calling her me, because it was my eyes but it doesn't feel like me. Don't even feel like my memories, they feel like a really lifelike hologram. That hurt. "

"It hurt?"

"I mean. Kind of. It's... Strange, actually. Not wearing armor, Lighted, I forgot what it was like. When little pieces hit my chest and arms, it stung like the methane on Neptune. That was through a dream. She probably thought she was shot. It... Was actually pretty normal to me. She didn't panic as much as I think a city born would, she just wanted cover, so she made it. She even tried to cover any survivors from the first wave. I kept thinking she was screwing up but she was working lightless, unarmed and unarmored, and it's been so long since I've had to deal with it, I would never know if she made the right choices. She was trying to run and get as many other people out as she could. Her father, too-- he found a way to run and stayed by it to call people over. I'm half sure they had a thing like that, it felt like they knew what they were doing."

"I don't know how much you want to know," Sunny murmured. "Did you want me to tell you anything?"

Freija rolled on her bed and sat back up. "Did they have a thing like that?"

"They-- Sarah and her family-- did a lot of work with civilians making their ways to the Tower. So it's very likely that they did have plans laid out for things like raids."

Unlike her usual response, Freija gave a cheerful hum. "Oh. That's. Actually really... I like that. Dunno why."

"Feel better not dying helpless?"

"I'm getting a real weird feeling that it's Sarah," Freija responded, watching the dark blankly. "She's the one upset when we look back at her death, and she's proud now, looking back on what she did. Would be why I felt like freaking out about her sister."

"Orla and Camilla were the sisters' names," Sunny said. "You know from experience, the thing about dying next to someone you can't save.

"The one I... She wanted to help. That was. Camilla. Did they both die? Among recorded dead? Actually, don't tell me. If the answer isn't yes, I'm gonna be stupid and I don't want it."

"The answer is yes. Orla was killed in the initial wave, as was Fira, the mother. Camilla succumbed to her injuries after being rescued but before they could get help. Sobu, the father, did die right next to the window. At least one survivor credited him with their escape. They also credited him with others, but they either got taken down before they got to safety, or else went into hiding."

Freija didn't respond for several moments, then slowly said, "You've got full on diagrams of bodies on the building layout, huh. Complete with little profiles. Pictures, autopsy reports. All of it."

"... Not all of it, but you're closer than you'd like to be. I had no intention of sharing those with you, even before you told me you didn't want to know. I'm not going to share them now, even if you ask."

"Good. We don't want to know."

Sunny bobbed around and the guardian watched her for a few minutes.

"I had a really shitty nightmare," Freija acknowledged dryly. "This is not a thing I want to be doing. I--who even cares! I mean, thanks for going for puberty so I wouldn't have to, but shit! Fuck off! We're me! I am being haunted by my own ghost--" Freija interrupted herself to laugh wildly. "Oh that's just fucking funny-- but seriously, I don't need two people being emotional here, I really am bad enough on my own."

"She might be why? I wonder if neural pathways alone will invite reactions of transmitters... "

"What?"

"Well, the death thing not so much, but I'm pondering --if Sarah was happy about the same thing over and over, would that make you happy in the same way without you having the positive association that Sarah had. Basic conditioning."

"Thomas would roll in that hypothetical," Freija snorted. "Would it double up if I got happy about it for my own reasons? But I'm not playing this game. I want to go to sleep, but I'm busy remembering being on the receiving end of one of my sprees."

"I think the closest you've come was The Empty Tank on the Tangled Shore, and most of the ones there knew you were coming," Sunny argued.

"Fair enough. I announce my presence for sure. Fuck.* She sucked a breath. "Everything exploded. Just. Laughing, chatting. Camilla just made a joke about the shitty chairs. Kaboom. Side of my face got cut up, blood splattered fucking everywhere. Everyone on that side of the table either fell on it or fell under it. Not even a second. And... I'm in the crucible, now. I'm familiar with those tiny fractions of seconds and reacting in them. She couldn't hear anything for a while. So much stuff went blurry, she could hardly see."

Sunny bobbed down to "kiss" Freija's head. "Do you want me to take biometrics to find the most relaxing music?"

"Neat trick. Let's see it."

[titanicfreija]

"I don't want to know," Freija told Sunny as she returned.

Sunny burned with the urge to tell her, but she kept it to herself.

The Titan glanced at the ghost and snorted a laugh. "You're going to explode. Tell me, then." She fixed her elbows to her knees and looked over the horizon. "You should see the way your flaps undulate when you're trying not to say something."

Sunny's flaps were indeed swimming an inch off her main body and bobbing in time. "Your family name matches the crest on your buttons and the tattoo on your face is apparently a family thing, because everyone else with the name and an image has the same one."

Freija grunted, but didn't say anything unkind. Sunny waited to see if she was going to act out, but she kept it down.

"The family... Did stuff. And you don't want to know this much detail. And I don't know if I want to give your this much detail."

"Did the family kill me? Prior me?"

"A political faction did."

"Figures." Freija sighed again. "I mean. I want to get all offended but I have used the phrase 'target practice' in reference to living people."

"Enemy soldiers, but yeah," Sunny agreed distantly. Then she giggled. "But just because you deserve to be gunned down doesn't mean she did."

"Yeah, I guess." Freija couldn't hide the snicker.

"So, what I've learned from your previous history, is that it's entirely possible for you to have been Earthborn and come to the Dreaming City."

"What's the significance of that?"

"It seemed extremely unlikely, but it was the only explanation I had for your literacy. The Dreaming City has never been open for civilian exchange, so you would have been smuggled in or well-connected, maybe even friends with a guardian that brought you over. In this case, family. But the education and behavior you woke up with is definitely more Earthling than Reefborn-- like sparrow riding skill, hardly reading in five Earth languages, none of which you speak, the swearing-- it all speaks to Earthborn."

"Okay?"

"It just always puzzled me that I would find an Earthborn on the Reef. I finally have an answer."

"Is that good enough for you?"

Sunny paused and considered it. "Well. I had several questions. I wanted to know if you were Earthborn. I wanted to know how long ago you died. I wanted to know more about how you died. I do want to look into who you were on Earth, though. Pre-you. Who your parents were, because apparently they were pretty neat, too."

Freija giggled suddenly. "Oh, I was worried it would be weird to see someone that knew me--what if I look just like a parent or something and we can tell--but they're Risen, too and we can't remember each other."

Sunny wheeled her petals, horrified at the idea and not wanting to address it. "I won't share if you don't want me to."

"I'm almost desensitized," Freija promised. "I just gotta think about all the ways it can go until I think they're funny."

"Funny?"

"I mean, what else is it?"

Sunny didn't have a good answer and instead dedicated her attention to the information she drew from the Awoken.

Freija apparently didn't mind, as she settled where she sat. "Gimme some of the guns I've found recently," she requested.

~

Another dramatic miniseries

Sarah's Death (long)

Curious (medium)

Search (long)

Uncover (medium)

Insisting (medium)

Learn (medium) <- you are here

Move on (long)

Every Second (short)

[titanicfreija]

The Ghost scanned the ID visible in the window of the small fold for it. No barcode, so it was Awoken, and did have an image and a name.

"The name--"

"I don't want to know!" Freija dropped the card carry and whirled away throwing her hands up.

"That doesn't have anything to do with someone else knowing you," objected Sunny, stretching her petals in outrage. "Why not?!"

"Why?!" Freija flung an arm back to hold it wide, gesturing broadly at a city in the distance. "I'm not them! I'm me! I'm--a blank slate, where the shit that made that person them stayed but all its framework died so now I'm helpful and a good sparrow flier and simple like you keep calling me but I don't have the same trauma hangups or family ties or so many ideas of 'things you don't do'."

"That's Thomas I'm hearing you parrot," sighed Sunny. "What's wrong? Really?"

Freija put her hands on her head and moaned. "Look, I can't explain it, okay? It just has this big cloud of "no" all over it. Thinking about it makes me feel weird and sad, like that time I found out about the Fall of the Sunbreakers, and I just really don't want to know who I was or what happened to me. I died alone on the shore. I was never found."

"Are you afraid you'll miss it?" Sunny guessed, still confused.

The tears struck but Freija seemed annoyed and surprised by them, shaking her head and fighting them down under the helmet. "It's not mine to miss!"

The fall of the Sunbreakers had hurt Freija's feelings because she identified as a Sunbreaker. She hardly identified herself as Awoken, let alone the details here. "I'm comfortable guessing that you miss the Sunbreakers more than you'd miss the previous family."

Sunny watched Freija's motion stutter, not sure what to do. "I guess? I still. I just don't like it."

"Try and calm down, please? Deep breath?"

Freija obeyed, clearly annoyed with the effectiveness, and she crossed her arms again. "I still don't like it."

"But you're okay now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay enough to let me go ask a Corsair for database access?"

Sunny was impressed with Freija when she took the deep breath on her own, then turned and sat where she stood. "Go."

~

Another dramatic miniseries

Sarah's Death (long)

Curious (medium)

Search (long)

Uncover (medium)

Insisting (medium) <- you are here

Learn (medium)

Move on (long)

Every Second (short)

[titanicfreija]

Freija was being generously quiet as she dug the coat up, finding the stiff, muddy garment about five inches down. Bloodstains marred the front, one sleeve was torn at the shoulder, and one bullet hole marked the collar of the mantle, confirming murder.

The pair were silent as Freija laid the coat out on the ground, but she still stepped away like it was a snake. "'kay, pre-me was shot. Happy?"

"Not really. I already knew you were murdered. I wanted the family crest and the purse in the pocket. I want you to have a past that isn't me leading you headfirst into death over and over," sighed Sunny, scanning the garment. Not very worn, so still new-ish. Family crest on the buttons and a patch on the front, along with a set of symbols that Sunny had to translate into the name Saris.

Freija scowled at her ghost over her shoulder. "I lead me into death. You've been trying to help me survive it."

"We could just as easily get a job as a shopkeeper."

Freija laughed before she finished, and Sunny could hardly hold hers.

"Fair enough," Sunny admitted. "But it's still... It bothers me that you've never known peace. Telling Caiatl, even she seemed to feel bad about the way guardians are born into war. They still have a war culture as children but it starts as play. You guys wake up and have the world out to kill you."

Freija held a hand out for Sunny to land on. Sunny could see the scowl under her helmet, knowing the slump in her shoulders.

"So please?" The ghost looked back at the bloody coat of the person that once bore the body of her guardian. "I want to know. Pre-you deserves to be known."

Freija refused to look at the coat, clearly uncomfortable. "I don't understand. I'm sorry to make you feel bad, but no matter how I try to look at it, I can't see why you'd even care."

Sunny couldn't be sure, either, but it was almost as undeniable as the call to find her. "There's a lot of questions that you can't answer. What is the significance of your tattoo? Why could you hardly read the language you speak and five more you don't? Why would anyone on the Reef swear like that? I love you. The person you used to be isn't here anymore, she's dead, and you're here now. You, Freija, are my guardian. But you came from a full life, with maybe half a century more than you have now. Parents. Maybe siblings. On Earth, you could have been born on the road, in the City. Could have been born here and taken to Earth and brought back. Who you were shaped who you are. I want to know her."

"But why? She's dead and gone." Freija's voice cracked when she said, "No one even remembered to look for her."

Sunny slowly grasped that she was completely unable to imagine what Freija was feeling anymore. Mourning herself, maybe? "I don't think it was about being forgotten. She smashed a helmet, took at least one bullet, and still needed to be beaten to death-- I'm pretty sure she was running and no one knew how far to look."

"She was a badass for sure," Freija agreed, but Sunny could still hear the hurt. "I think she didn't have a choice. It doesn't matter."

"She had a good point to stand ground," Sunny pointed out. "I don't think it was a coincidence that you were under cover. And it does matter. Why she was left here was just as important as everything else. She had a family. She even wore their symbol." She pointed with a light at the crest and name below it. "Maybe you were entirely alone and no one knew you made it down here.

"No bodies near me? Her?"

"They'd clear their own."

"Fair enough." Freija heaved a sigh, listening to Sunny's petals whir faster as she worked herself up. "You can't. Ask. Anyone."

"But I want to! So bad!"

"See if you can find a journal or something! No interviews!"

"I'll say my guardian is doing research on the Reef's politics! Or that I don't have one and I'm looking on my own!"

"No!"

~

Another dramatic miniseries

Sarah's Death (long)

Curious (medium)

Search (long)

Uncover (medium) <- you are here

Insisting (medium)

Learn (medium)

Move on (long)

Every Second (short)

[titanicfreija]

Sunny wasn't sure what she was looking for, but she hoped she would know when she found it.

Freija's corpse had been out here alone, mostly buried by the sand blown into the narrow inlet where she died the first time. She was lying on her back between a cave wall and a massive stone. Her arm was broken. So was one hand and every rib along with a flail chest break, indicating pre-Freija had been crushed. Skull was intact, teeth were not, which was odd, but could have been a lot of things.

The ghost suffered a pang of resent that she spent over eight hundred years looking for someone that hadn't been born yet. Nine hundred for someone that wasn't dead.

Actually, maybe. Her age was impossible to tell.

I would have spent nine hundred years looking no matter what. If I didn't start until she died, I'd never find her. Most guardians found in the last five hundred years probably died post-collapse.

Still.

Sunny scanned the area for signs or traces of the person that once carried the image of her guardian. Sunny remembered her being softer at the time, the smile was shy and awkward. A robe over a plain shirt and trousers looked more Warlock than Titan until it tore on one side. Decidedly civilian Awoken and probably an older fashion. There was a helmet with a visor, but that could have been for riding a sparrow, which did come naturally to Freija...

Pieces of the shattered helmet remained, even after the few years since Freija's rising. Sunny scanned the ground, checking density deeper and deeper until she found what she hoped was every last fragment.

Scanning and putting them together didn't show any symbols that might have been painted on, but it was about fifty years old and was associated with militia groups in the Reef. It didn't belong to the body of civilian, unarmed pre-Freija.

Sunny was saddened to recognize the murder. She fought back hard and lost.

Sunny hoped for a fall. A sparrow accident. She couldn't be certain, maybe it was stolen or came from a different incident in the same spot...?

She discovered a long coat buried the same depth as the helmet. The buttons were also old, and these did have a family crest carved into the front. She didn't have enough data about the Awoken and their history and bloodlines to know whose the crest was, but an information network was only a few steps away.

She wondered if Freija would dig it up as she scanned the area for pockets of density. She found a few stray, unspent bullets but nothing else. No bones, so no other corpses.

Freija clambered up, knowing this place from their trips for Sunny's Found-My-Guardian Day, and she stood on the dirt path without saying anything, rocking side to side and chewing on her tongue.

As much as Sunny knew she wouldn't like the idea, she didn't expect the stiffness in her guardian. "Kay, I was short about it because I feel like it's stupid that I feel this way, but at the same time, I'm gonna actually throw up the first time someone calls me the wrong name and looks hurt when I'm confused. I don't want it."

Sunny hovered to meet Freija's eyes and blinked. "You really feel that way?"

Freija reeled away, taking several steps before she spun to face Sunny again. "Can you imagine? What if I had children? They call me Mom? Even adults? They get to see me stare at them like I've never seen them before in my life because I haven't. I might even recognize someone as looking like me and at best I'll have that sense where I fucking swear I can almost remember it and I can't. Or I won't, and they won't even bother me like that, I'll just be confused and sorry."

Sunny could imagine. "If I--"

"If you contact them, they'll know you're mine and they'll want to see me. And they'll even think they're ready to see me not know them."

"Did you hear a horror story?" Sunny asked, wondering where that came from.

"Yes."

Even under the helmet, Sunny could imagine the firm scowl. She wanted to argue but she hadn't heard any stories that weren't horror. "Then I won't ask anyone. I'll just see if I can find any identity indicators and look you up in written accounts."

Freija settled on her feet but set her spine and shoulders. "Okay." She hesitated and looked under Sunny to see the big rock and narrow space between it and the wall. "Did you want me to dig up... my.... Well, I'm using my bones. I dropped those clothes on the shore as soon as I found some real armor." She looked around awkwardly and swung her arms again. "I don't remember what that was, either. I remember I had those thin boots, fancy indoor stuff with the busted soles, I hated those."

"You also had a robe, a shirt, and trousers. I remember what they look like, but I don't think you're interested, are you?"

"Nope." Freija put her hands on her hips and leveled her chin with her ghost. "I really, really do not want to know."

"I believe there are scraps of coat and buttons about five inches down," Sunny sighed, hoping to move to business.

"Anything that looked like an ID? Anything to aim for or avoid?"

"A block of soft organic material near the buttons may have carried personal belongings, a purse or card carry. Approximately here." Sunny pointed a light at the ground.

"If we actually find anything, I'm not gonna help anymore," the guardian lied.

~

Another dramatic miniseries

Sarah's Death (long)

Curious (medium)

Search (long) <- you are here

Uncover (medium)

Insisting (medium)

Learn (medium)

Move on (long)

Every Second (short)

[titanicfreija]

"So what's the quiet about?"

Sunny didn't realize she was being quiet, but that happened when she was lost in thought. She was just following Freija through their usual self-appointed duties, lately fulfilling bounties for Banshee with the Vex in Neomuna.

The Thrilladrome was quiet, except for the sparks flying off the remains of Vex lying scattered across the arcade.

"You don't wanna talk about it."

Freija hesitated, silently considering whether or not she was ready for whatever it could be. "Go ahead."

Sunny flipped over and spun while she transmatted into view. "I've been wondering who you were."

Freija watched Sunny watch her and the pair remained motionless for several seconds. Eventually, she said, "Okay...?"

Sunny bobbed in the air, not sure what else to say.

Freija crossed her arms and fixed her feet. "That's this whole big nope thing, isn't it? And plus I don't wanna know."

"That you don't want to know makes the subject safe to look into. I just have some questions. Like why you could only sort of read English, but could also sort of read German and Russian and Chinese. If you're from Earth, you shouldn't have been on the Reef. And I kinda want to see if you died a Titan."

"Wanna see if my fellow dead people are on the shore near my first final resting place?" the guardian asked, badly hiding the frustration.

Sunny drooped lower in the air. "Kinda yeah."

Freija was in no way softened by the admission. "Hoping for a heroic death? Titanic last stand? You'll never find proof. I was probably just slowest when an Abomination caught up to me."

Sunny didn't speak again, flapping her petals in small rocking motions.

"What?"

"Well. Yes, I am sort of hoping to see you died making a last stand to hold the line. No, I won't find proof. But I want to see. Maybe it'll just be a sparrow crash, there was a broken helmet nearby. I can see you getting smashed by your own sparrow."

"It's happened before," Freija grumbled. "I was probably an asshole."

Sunny bobbed up with a merry bounce. "You're still an asshole. That's exactly my point. Maybe that carried over."

~

Another dramatic miniseries

Sarah's Death (long)

Curious (medium) <- you are here

Search (long)

Uncover (medium)

Insisting (medium)

Learn (medium)

Move on (long)

Every Second (short)

[titanicfreija]

~good old violence, by the way

~

She wanted her guns. She wanted her guns so bad, she wanted her guns, and they were in her dad's ship in the fucking hangar who knew where--

Saris swept in circles and changed pace randomly as she sprinted away from the manor, feet pounding through the tall grass as she set a course for the cove. Ages away, hiding spots, cover, maybe--

The trip down the cliffs was way too slow, but she was out of line of sight and line of fire. She scrambled along the narrow ledges on boots made for marble floors. And she still didn't have a gun.

The first shot that hit was to the back of her shoulder, through to the top of her chest, and she staggered but kept her footing. That was probably going to kill her all by itself. They were still shooting but missed.

The run was going to kill her, she was certain of it. Another shot hit her calf and sent her tumbling down the cliffs. She barrel rolled as best she could, continuing into the mists.

"You. Idiot," gasped a voice. The sun was behind a cliff, she could keep that to her left...

"I thought there was more than one!"

"Why?!"

Saris wondered briefly if she was at least distracting these two from every else. Too late for her family. Too late for a lot of the family. Too late. They were dead already.

She was dying, too.

"There you are," growled one, and Saris felt a fist close on her coat. A second joined it and together they dragged her back to the cliffs. They didn't want to get lost in the mist, she guessed.

Saris could hardly feel her legs anymore, but she kept her knees after they dropped her. She had been here every day the last month--even wounded and staggering, she followed the jagged path up the cliff. She wanted to die somewhere nice, dammit.

I'm going to die.

I did good things. I helped.

I don't want to die.

Too bad.

The path got worse before it got better. A fall wouldn't kill them but it would finish her. She had to watch the horizon to manage the vertigo. It was a nice view of the sun falling over the clouds.

She reached the cove and stopped, knowing it was over and still wanting to die somewhere nice. She waited for the gunshot wounds to do the job, listening to her heart slow.

The sluggish push quickened when Saris heard her pursuants on their way after her. They must have fallen down the cliff at some point to take that long. Saris hoped they gave up.

She closed her hand on a sharp stone, dragged herself to her feet, and hid behind a rock formation.

One ran right into her. She slammed her improvised weapon into his head with all her might, shattering the rock, smashing the helmet, and gouging his forehead. The other pursuant lunged and tackled Saris, taking her down.

The woman's fist met her cheek so hard she saw stars. Her vision flooded with red light as her assailant struck again and again. Her teeth cut the inside of her cheek and lips, her eyes swelled, her vision filled with spots and stars. Her mouth filled with blood.

The other kicked at Saris's legs, apparently having recovered. He tried to stomp on her hip but couldn't get a good shot with his partner in the way.

The purple woman got up and kicked Saris's back, driving her a foot along the rocks on her side. She tried to crawl away but one kicked her shoulder, knocking her sprawling. The other stepped on her arm to push her flat.

One stomped on her head until it bounced. Stars flashed red and black in her vision and the pain grew so much that she found herself unable to feel it anymore, taken out of her body by the sheer overwhelm. The other one was stomping on her hands and arms, moving on to the next part only when they were satisfied with the crunching.

Her ribs broke. She wasn't sure when. Her legs never did but it didn't matter, she wasn't going anywhere.

She couldn't be sure when they stopped. The pain no longer faded between strikes, she could hardly move, and her vision was blurry in the eye that worked.

Her broken hands trembled as she rocked side to side. She couldn't even tell if she was on her back or her belly. Slowly, she got her elbows under her, trying with all her might just to sit up.

Her murderers dropped an enormous boulder on her torso. The resultant crunch and squeal of pain satisfied their sadism, and they nodded to one another before walking off.

She couldn't cry out. She couldn't cry. She couldn't breathe. It hurt. She lay in a tiny cove on the cliffside of the Dreaming City, broken and bloody, crushed. She was alone. Her parents and sisters were probably dead. She would never find out, and soon she would be too dead to care.

Maybe someone got lucky.

She pushed the rock with her elbow and wiggled until it rolled off her, but breathing didn't get any easier. A cough wracked her body, striking like lightning. She tried to cry out, producing only a weak moan.

She wanted to worry about her family but didn't have the strength. The cold ache was winning. She missed Earth. Her heart was the only sound. Breathing didn't hurt because she couldn't anymore. She had a good time. She loved. Was loved. Helped.

Say goodbye, Sarah. Then rest.

Goodbye, Sarah. Ha ha.

Her working eye locked on the moonrise, foggy and obscured. The clouds shimmered, shining beneath dancing starlight, warm glows enveloping them all, ripples of brilliant pastel colors stretching into the infinite beyond.

Nice.

~

~

Another dramatic miniseries

Sarah's Death (long) <- you are here

Curious (medium)

Search (long)

Uncover (medium)

Insisting (medium)

Learn (medium)

Move on (long)

Every Second (short)

[titanicfreija]

Sunny, having finally understood Freija's upset around mourning a family she never met, decided that she would indeed stop and continue her search without Freija's involvement.

Fortunately, Thomas was more than happy to help. His access to the old data banks in the "basement" was practically unlimited and he liked being helpful.

"So, the surname appears for the first time about fifty years ago. Fira and Sobu were a married couple and they wanted to work with the vanguard. Only one record actually mentioned more than that, being a receipt for a civilian cruiser ship and a sparrow. After that, they reappear periodically with lists of survivors."

"Helping people get to the Tower," Sunny guessed.

"Likely." He paused and snickered. Sunny looked over his shoulder. "It's cute, you can see the pregnancies. Every ten years or so, for about a year at a time, her cartography got a lot more prolific, frequent Tower trips. Sobu starts working in the Tower doing freelance stuff. Three times."

Sunny giggled. "I saw them on a flight log. Girl names, I think."

"Pre-Freija's birth is on record."

Sunny almost ran into the screen, trying to get a closer look before she could zoom in. Thomas laughed. "You guys are cute. I wish Rex got that excited about me. You guys do a Found-Day, too, don't you?"

"That's for me. We go for a walk where I found her every year. And I tell her the story. I didn't mean to do it the second and third time, and she pointed it out but then she asked me to do it again the fourth. So."

Thomas's face was indecipherable. "You guys are cute," he repeated. "Anyway. Yeah, they showed up about fifty years ago, disappeared about ten years ago. Helped rebuild, helped make trails. Apparently half the scouted areas were pioneered by Fira Pojin, bunch of the hidden paths around here were their doing along with some botanist and a geologist, both of whom apparently got punished for doing it."

"What? Why?"

"They weren't with the vanguard. The Pojins were independent agents. The vanguard said they didn't want civilians, they didn't want a random renegade couple to think it was a good idea, and they really didn't have the logistics nor resources in place to support them. So Vanguard agents were going renegade. It's actually really nice work. They left a whole diagram of both tunnels and lots of the hills over here." Thomas grinned. "I like 'em."

"Me, too," Sunny chirped. "I hope Sarah was as much like them as Freija."

"No doubt. There's some medical records for Sarah Pojin. I can access them with some doing, since she's dead, but I would still have to do."

"Oh, you don't have to tell me any of that stuff anyway."

Thomas smiled again. "Do you leave the left over damage and healing or do you repair those, too?"

"I don't think I could have left them out. I do heal it when the broken foot or torn shoulder start to ache. I try not to let her notice." Sunny wondered if that was rude or not and decided it didn't matter.

"Huh. Anyway. Not a lot of her in the records. She just starts appearing after the first map-making hiatus by Ms. Pojin. So she's the oldest. Her little sister almost died, I think, listed in infirmary for a month when she was an adolescent."

"How do you figure she almost died?" Sunny couldn't see anything specific on the record without hacking and it wasn't really worth the trouble. Probably.

"That's a long time to be down when you're young. I'm guessing injury but I'd have to dig into records and it's not necessary. I can check to see if any of the gatesmen from her lifetime are still active?" He didn't wait for her to answer, swapping to a different screen and pulling up a few lists. Sunny let him, busying herself with studying her father's brief profile.

"Two. One's gonna retire soon. Several retirees also still live in the city."

"Fantastic," Sunny hummed, looking over to collect the data.

"What're you looking at?" he asked. "Legal record?"

"He was caught trespassing in a library," Sunny giggled. "Our first day, we were caught breaking into a private library."

Thomas's indecipherable smile twitched to his face. "You guys really are the cutest," he muttered. "Are you in love? "

Sunny's flaps undulated unevenly as she turned to him. "That would be weird," she eventually said. "Of all the ways I would say I love her, romantically isn't on the list." She giggled. "I've never heard of it, but I'm certain it has, a ghost and guardian in love. I don't think I would read that book, though."

"Well I wouldn't be writing it for you," Thomas laughed, but then he blew air through pursed lips and shook his head. "Whuff, if I wrote it, it would be one of those enemies to lovers things and blatant wish fulfillment on my part, including the apology bit a third from the end. Probably wouldn't be a ghost and their guardian, but a different guardian. Would be a whole jealousy arc, great fun."

Sunny flapped at him slowly. "I know it's cliché to say it at this point, but you're weird. Is it a writer thing, a warlock thing...?"

"I think this time it's writer," he chuckled. "Anyway. You guys are cute."

"If you want, you can blame the time I got to spend obsessing without her and loving the idea."

"I'm convinced he just had a real narrow idea of what his guardian was supposed to be." Thomas stiffened and tilted his chin. "Could be argued that I also have a narrow idea of what I'm supposed to be, too, but that's kinda my point. Our ideas clash."

Sunny tilted sadly. "I never know what to think except that I'm glad Freija and I don't have the same problems."

Thomas grumbled. "I'll be a warning, then. Anyway. You've got her birthday, now, and the day she died. A basic history. Short of a diary, I don't know what else you could look for."

"I looked for a cousin and regretted it," Sunny admitted. "He survived the massacre and resents the family. Not Freija herself, not even Saris, but the whole family."

Thomas nodded sadly. "Was it Sarah or Saris? You've used both, but all the records say Sarah."

Sunny wheeled. "I've been swapping because I'm not sure what she used. I don't know how she got Saris, but it amounts to an Awoken name she picked up in the Dreaming City, I think. Sarah was the Earth name her parents gave her. Both ways, I'm pretty sure it was for trying to blend in. She might well have used a nickname with the paper names being for official use only."

Thomas nodded shortly and turned back to the screens. "Fair enough. No property listed, no ships or anything, not for the names. Listed as leaving on a jump ship. Not much besides that. There's probably more but it's scattered across databases at this point, I'd have to start cranking up the old ones. Pre-Red War stuff is hard to find as it is."

Sunny bobbed merrily and flew in a happy circle. "You've been an excellent help, Thomas, thank you very much!

[titanicfreija]

"Karma! No!"

Freija ducked when she heard the charging blaster, then scrambled left when the shot passed overhead.

"Please don't hurt her!" cried the voice and Freija emerged from hiding to see a hive acolyte. The wrapping around it was whole, the body was alive, but Freija knew it was the one she unimpaled.

Don't hurt her. Right.

"You can disarm," Sunny suggested. "Maybe she'll stop if she thinks you won't hurt her."

The other guardian was already going to fire again, but Freija lunged forward, shoving the gun aside, and she pushed the hive down, pinning without trying to damage.

The Lucent Hive had no such peace-- it flailed madly, scratching at Freija's armor and summoning little snare bombs to scatter by force of Light. Their detonation hurt, but Freija kept her hold, refusing to let go.

Apparently, the Hive had the same problems as human guardians-- she was as stunned by the bombs as Freija.

The ghost shouted something in what Freija assumed was Hive language. The guardian beneath Freija froze and as they blinked the stars from their eyes, they finally saw one another.

The ghost continued talking to the acolyte. "She's not going to hurt you," Sunny translated. "Loosen your grip."

Freija obediently relaxed her grip, and the acolyte, Karma, fell back. Freija let go and stood up. The acolyte stayed down.

The ghost said something and Karma grumbled in response. The ghost spoke again and laughed, leading the Hive to sit up. She looked up at Freija and froze.

"She thinks you're going to kill her," Sunny explained. Freija wasn't even holding a weapon. She fixed her stance and she let her helmet down. The Hive blinked, puzzled by her new appearance.

"I think she might kill me, too?" Freija admitted.

The ghost chittered when she bobbed forward. "I've talked her out of the sword logic. But she's not sure what else she can do and I'm... I don't know what to say. I... I always thought it was for the humans but..."

"It's for the Traveler," Freija said succinctly. "We're here for her, to protect what she loves. Including the Hive."

The ghost translated practically in time with her words, and Karma glanced skyward with a frown on the twisted chitinous face.

"She's not in our sky anymore, either."

Karma muttered, and the ghost translated, "I hear her cry."

Freija offered a hand down to her and the guardian flinched away. Freija stayed. It looked at her hand, confused, until the ghost said something. It still took several seconds of weighing out the decision before it finally took her hand and let the Titan pull her up.

"My name is Jynx," the ghost said. "This is Karma."

"I'm Freija. Sunny is my ghost," Freija said. "I'm. Uh. How intelligent? What am I working with? A dog?"

"Maybe a human pre-teen."

"Okay." She pointed at herself. "Freija?"

"Rei'ya," echoed the Hive. It pointed at itself. "Ka'ur. Ba."

"Karma," Freija said, and the Hive nodded but it had a frown on again. Freija didn't have to ask why. "I don't think she likes it, it's hard for her to say. What's a good Hive set of noises?"

The ghost scoffed, but Sunny volunteered, speaking in whatever Hive language. The acolyte fixed on Sunny, then blinked slowly and her mouth moved.

"Ka, Ur," it said, but then she paused again. "Yol! Ur'ka Yol!"

"Yol?" Freija echoed.

"Yol!" It repeated firmly.

"The translation isn't direct, but it's an idea around rebirth," Sunny explained. "All those sounds together."

The hive chattered to her ghost, and the ghost chattered back. Freija glanced at Sunny who said, "It's rude to eavesdrop."

The ghost flapped at them and spun her spines. "She said thank you," she said. She flapped again. "And thank you for helping out. We're going to go! Thank you!"

The ghost led the newly-renamed Yol away, leaving Freija and Sunny where they stood in the Throne World court.

"So..."

"Hm?"

Sunny touched her Guardian lightly on the collar to put Freija's helmet back up. "You got philosophical right there. How long has that been rolling around in your head?"

"Hm?"

"The thing about the Traveler?"

"Well. When we discussed the thing about defending her, because of Savathun, and we came around to the thing where I would help restore and recover. Only that still didn't sit right. Because when I woke up, you said that we protected humanity. And then Savathun said we protect the Traveler.

"Both of those felt off. It doesn't feel like I'm defending humanity a lot of times. I'm removed from them. So I tried to think of what I would do if I was going to die, if I had the chance to send my Light to someone who needed it at my last moment... I would give it to someone who could use it to keep going when I couldn't. I know the Traveler loved us. I'm even sure it loved the Eliksni and the Hive, too. Anyone else it blessed.

"So she gave us power because the job to do was not over, and she couldn't keep going. So she let us keep going for her.

"So we protect humans, but it's not just humans. Humans were just the ones we knew about. It's not about humanity, it's about the Traveler. What she loved and wanted kept safe. So. That was where that thought came up. And so. I guess it's good enough."

Yol's ghost shouted from somewhere and Freija turned on her heel to march off.

[titanicfreija]

A New Angle

"Empress! Would you like to select a frequency to call ours? It's a thing Ghosts do when we make friends, keep a low level scan on a channel to stay in contact."

"Perhaps pre-arranged events, consistency will be easily traced."

"Fair enough."

"Your Guardian held up well, today."

"Sorry about the swearing."

"I have been on the battlefield. I can think of only a few things she could say that I would find truly offensive."

"I know, but still."

"I doubt she learned any respect for authority from you."

".... Rude."

"Truth can be."

"Rude!"

~

"I did not expect the intensity with which your Guardian speaks of you..."

"...?"

"I apologized for ordering her to kill you. I now apologize for bringing harm to your Guardian in that act. I continue underestimating the effect of my actions."

"What?"

"I am sorry."

"Oh, that's not necessary. She's okay, and I know you didn't know. That's why we're friends, now!"

"I appreciate your willingness to come forth. Is this love between Guardian and Ghost typical? She mentioned luck, and that others do not, but also treated a similar bond as expected."

"Well. If there's a scale. And one was pure hate and ten was pure love, more than seventy percent are at least at a five, and twenty percent could be at an eight or higher. Me and Freija land in eight, comfy. Most of the time."

"Are there any ones?"

"Not that I know of."

"What would you say is the lowest number you've witnessed?"

"Rex and Thomas, easy, occilate between a three and a four."

"You have mentioned these before. I did not expect the empathy."

"Why not?"

"I did not think they would find commonality between each other and their bonds with their Ghosts. Each is individual, as you have stated. The constants seem limited to the resurrection. The connection is consistent?"

"From... Pair to pair? I think so? The same thing that calls us to them, I think, is that tie between us."

"You are more casual about this connection."

"I lived without her for a very long time. Having it is special to me but it's not as... Big, I guess? As it is for the Guardians. They never lived without us, so that connection is one of the biggest things in their lives. So empathizing with each other is also big."

"If the bond is similar, why are the relationships so different?"

"Why wouldn't they be? Your love at a seven on that scale looks different from mine. It probably even looks different for you depending on who you love!"

"Fair. Is the empathy common?"

"I think hers is intense but everyone that hears about a Ghost-Guardian separation where someone can't resurrect or be resurrected for whatever reason-- everyone that hears about it would flinch."

"Interesting. Tangentially, what is this mercy directed at the Hive Ghosts?"

"The Throne World-- since we're the invaders, she leaves them up when we visit. She'll kill the Lightbearer and run away. She decided to do that on her own."

"You Ghosts are quite valued. Almost revered. And yet they speak to you with so little respect."

"We're friends and I've seen her entrails; respect and dignity are both long gone."

"..."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong. I am merely pensive. This revelation has grown to a full dawning and yet I learn more still. Would you agree that killing one permanently without the other is sadistic?"

"Depends. Trying to save one because you can't save both? No. But doing it for the sake of it is. And it wouldn't surprise me to hear about suicidal ones."

"Have there been occasions where the Ghost could no longer resurrect their Guardians?"

"The Hive have some nasty stuff in their arsenals that can bypass our healing."

"Ah."

"Yeah, there's... It's ugly. We usually die without our Guardians. If something has killed them beyond our saving, we are likely somewhere dangerous to us and can't escape."

"Hm."

"What is it?"

"... I am again considering the mistake of my command."

"It's okay, really. You didn't know."

"My ignorance went without correction for quite some time. Why?"

"If you want me to guess-- cos that's all it is-- Commander Zavala didn't feel the need to correct you and no one else knows what happened. The few people Freija told never heard about you. Commander Zavala wouldn't have told anyone, either, to spare any possible consequences, even just personal or political ones. He didn't talk about it with Freija until I asked, too. I think it made him uncomfortable."

"Likely."

"What did he say to explain?"

"That neither he nor any other Guardian could have done it. I asked you shortly after."

"Oh yeah."

"... Would the other Guardians forgive this mistake?"

"... Ahh... Immediately? Ikora would, Eris would understand but probably be sick. Shaxx would try and so would Saint, but Saint and Gepetto are close, so they'd take a minute. Osiris.... I don't know, you'd have to ask him, I think he was busy being mad at Freija like you were. All of us understand you didn't know, there was no reason for you to."

"Is it hidden intentionally?"

"No, but there's no way to see it without following a single Guardian literally everywhere constantly."

"I feel foolish."

"I'm glad I got to help with that! I mean.... Um. "

"Ha!"

~~~

Hard Questions

New Angle <-

Honest

Radio Chat

Scripted Questions

Battlefield

Fear

Enlightening

More like Interrogation

(In)humanity

Underlying

Ghost Affection

[titanicfreija]

Stubborn Recovery

"I appreciate the effort, but I don't think I want to remember how to dance."

Sunny considered killing her guardian. Freija had either taken the idea to heart and mind somewhere or else had simply engaged in her usual enthusiasm around a new idea and therefore was overdoing it, but the result consisted of a wide collection of music samples that Thomas helped her put together without telling her, at any point, the degree of overkill and lack of necessity.

Easily six terabytes of data sat in the metal cube on the table, next to a speaker and what looked like Thomas's handiwork on either a converter, adapter, or both to plug them in together. Any intended interface was hidden.

"I won't look," Freija promised. "If I tell you it's for me to listen to, will you put up with it?"

"I have every song I could possibly have in my active memory right now," Sunny told her. "If I wanted music and dancing, I could play it and dance whenever I wanted."

"You forgot wanting to," the guardian told her, as though she would know. "You can't freak out because my entire life is war and then act like this when I drag you with me to fix it. Dancing is fun. We all like dancing. We can dance whenever and wherever, it's not like drawing."

Sunny couldn't argue but she didn't want to dance, she didn't feel like dancing and doubted she would ever again. She also didn't want to leave Freija's side right now, having developed a weird sense of distance even when there wasn't one.

"Just show me? I've seen a few ghosts do what I would call dancing but not you. Most pulse with a strong beat, like humans nodding and tapping, and a couple that liked to windmill and spin. Do you need a different shell?"

Sunny dropped a foot in exasperation. "I don't want to!"

"Fine, then the music is for me," Freija announced. "And I'm staying in all day doing the wood burning thing, so you're stuck listening to it unless you go somewhere."

Sunny knocked a cup off the table in the kitchen as she retreated to the top of the fridge, frustrated with her guardian.

~

Watching Freija do "the wood burning thing" wasn't as boring nor frustrating to Sunny as she expected. Watching Freija do things wrong usually frustrated Sunny until she accepted Freija's... Freija.

But this time the refusal to do it properly and to adapt the method to her available skill and tools meant a whole new effect, and she could draw things that fell short of realistic but still captured the intended result. Mostly. She also taught herself to heat small metal pieces around the house, like a shotgun shell casing and a nail, for fine detail.

While she was at that, she played music.

The breadth of the collection spanned about a hundred years pre-collapse with a few pre-golden age works remastered; cultural stuff from smaller localities; children's songs; and a variety of golden age pop music, including from a genre Sunny could only call Bubblegum after a massive argument with Rex (that she lost because he knew what bubblegum was, historically).

Rex couldn't have snitched, could he?

Freija knew, too, that it would work-- Sunny saw her interest in the burning wood waning as a cheerful, bouncing song played. Sunny knew that because she peeked at her guardian to see if she noticed.

The ghost knew putting on the Hareball shell was an announcement of her failure, but it was that or give in without a fight. Freija took the victory and settled back into the couch with her art.

Unfortunately, that didn't mean Sunny would be left alone. "Why don't you want to cheer up? You want to be upset?"

Rex did snitch. He almost never came home but apparently did just for this occasion.

The ghost in his tall blue shell hovered still in the air, pieces slowly revolving around his body about an inch off. "A hundred years ago, this song would have you bouncing all over the Tower, more suited to your ears then than now."

"A hundred years ago, I was still lonely and wandering," she grumped. "How could you?"

"She loves you and wants what's best for you, even if she has no idea what that is," Rex replied dryly. "I refuse to be a good person, but that's no reason to leave flail someone that I know means well for a friend."

Sunny thought about it, then decided to follow through, and she bonked Rex with an ear without a word, returning to the fridge to sulk.

"Perhaps it is my limited perspective, but your guardian is making it sound like you've lost faith in the fight."

"In a sense. It's just a very broad feeling of 'what am I even doing' and then when I look at all of it, I see a lot of smoke and hear Freija screaming and the burning and blood, and I just... It sucks. I hate it."

Rex followed her up. "Do you know how long it has been since you visited the Ramen shelf?"

"No."

"Almost a year. And despite this, Harmony and This One came by to look for you. They haven't seen you in months, either. Not since the Games, and only briefly then. You've all but vanished in half a year. If you weren't burned out when you left, it is perfectly possible for you to be burned out now."

"What would you know about burning out?"

"Thomas burns out in days, I am fully cognizant of the exhaustion of will to care and force one through motions when the reason why or sight of effect has been lost. I have not yet learned how to correct this, but I know a stubborn recovery when I see it."

Sunny huffed.

"Therefore, I put forth my diagnosis as burnout, and I recommend you listen to your guardian. She's stupid, I will not spare you that judgement, but she wants to help you because she loves you, and she's had a few pulls in the right directions. You would do better to accept the help."

She didn't quite hear what he said after that, somehow obscuring the word behind an electric gurgle.

"What?"

Rex hovered away and made the noise again, but this time Sunny caught, "besides" and "dancer".

"You have a voice modulator, and we share a commlink, you're doing that on purpose!"

He didn't respond until well after Sunny gave up on getting one. Probably sitting on the Ramen shelf.

"Besides, you're not a bad dancer."

War Drums (med-long)

Lost (long)

No comfort (long)

Real Purpose (long)

Slipped Truth (med)

Still Sulking (med)

Stubborn Recovery (med)<-

Freija's Waltz (short)