Oliver had seen this before. Traveler’s blessing, he had felt this before. No wonder this young Guardian was working in a coffee shop instead of fighting, she probably needed to feel grounded again, to have some semblance of control over her life. Or even if she was just hard up for glimmer, she probably had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to, not even memories of her past to comfort or direct her.
Without hesitation, he tugged off his gauntlets and offered his bare, calloused hands for her to hold. The comforting warmth of his solar light caused the burnished, pitted gold ring on his left hand to almost glow in invitation. His paternal smile was no less warm or welcoming, broad and bright as a roaring hearth after a day out in the snow.
“If I may confide in you…it terrified me. If I had hesitated another moment, I would have run in the opposite direction, and my Ghost would be tied to a worthless craven, rather than the knight in shining armor he’d dreamed of finding.”
Assuming the shaken employee had taken his outstretched hands, he gently rotated his left to bring his ring back into view. “La Valette was not embellishing, he truly did find me in my grave. I know it’s forbidden for us to look into our pasts, but I was brought back with the marker right against my nose before I learned the rule, so I can hardly be blamed for reading what was before me, right?” He chuckled at the absurdity of his own rationalization.
“Oliver was not the name I saw on that grave. I merely improvised it from the letters on my tags you saw earlier. The man I was died before he turned thirty, with the strange words, “Come and fight a Gurkha” and “John 15:13″ as his last memorials. His wife, who probably put this ring on his finger, was buried next to him, forty years later, still bearing his name. Their descendants were also nearby, all long dead before the Golden Age even started.” His tone grew distant, solemn, as he stared at the ring, before meeting the young woman’s eyes again.
“I thought it best to let that man, and his name, keep resting. He had earned it. But when I heard a child scream in fear, I asked myself what that man would do. If whoever I was back then would want me to shrink back now, after all he had sacrificed.” He gave the young lady’s hands a gentle squeeze for emphasis. “After that, I had no other option. I thank the Traveler that my Ghost did not, in fact, choose a coward, and granted me the opportunity to serve and protect once more.”
“We all have something that drew the Light to us, something that our Ghosts desired or knew that our people would need.” The Titan’s head tilted once more in thought. “So, now I have a question for you, young Guardian. Have you found your fireteam yet? I don’t mean two other bored Guardians with a vaguely common goal, but friends, true friends that you can count on?”
It doesn’t take long into the story - just about to the comparison of a worthless craven and a knight in shining armour, that Nicole’s face falls and her shoulders start drooping. But she listens. It’s a good story, after all.
The question on whether or not she’s found a fireteam she answers with a one-shouldered shrug before she points at Oliver’s drink. “How’s the coffee?”
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