Additionally, do they have an exotic (armor or weapon) themed after them?
Schala has a tendency to take up long-range weapons, like snipers and scouts. But then she also tends to swipe things from Drifter's Gambit arsenal because they're feel so tactile. Less energy based.
Feros likes heavy hitters like shotguns and low rpm machine guns.
I haven't ever thought about personalised exotics for them, I'm not good at that sort of design, so I will have to think on it!
Do your Guardians have an affinity to any of the hostile factions?
HMM, that depends on if you mean affinity for killing them or getting along...
Feros has a long nursed hatred for the Hive, he was there for Burning Lake and Mare Imbrium and that's where he lost his first fireteam and saw far too many Guardians die at Crota's hand, and he's become very good at cutting them down since.
He also has a... complicated relationship with the Eliksni. In the beginning of his life as a Guardian, one of his biggest fears was to see humanity fall like they did, lose their home and all they've struggled to pull from the ashes of the Collapse and the Eliksni reminded him of that possibility every single day. It's not the case anymore, there's more hope to be had.
Schala has always just been friendly with some Eliksni Houses whether they like it or not. Sometimes to everyone else's ire. On the other side of the coin, she enjoys throwing wrenches in the plans of the Vex.
I think both Fee and Schala avoid thinking of their shortcomings. Feros dealt with losing people by turning to drink and overworking himself until collapse, at which point he was forced to come to terms with his awful ways of coping and processing grief. I don't think he considers being overprotective a bad thing until somebody he cares about goes off without him and he flounders horribly and gets angry with them. It takes a while to work through that.
Schala cannot let things go, thinks she can do it better if she has enough goes at it. Save people, stop a disaster, keep the peace... Only they forget that they only have one go at things, no matter how far ahead and how many branches of time they can see in advance. So they also tend to linger on the past too long, living through it again and again and again, both the good times and the bad, like punishment and atonement and grief and missing someone all rolled into one.
It's a disaster no matter who brings up these bad choices to either. No matter if it's Ikora or Shaxx talking to their student and protege. Shiro bringing it up because Feros has been slipping. It's just a total shutdown until they figure it out themselves.
THROWS THIS BACK AT YOU (for whoever you want, if you want <3)
Feros decidedly does not. He tries, by the Light he tries, to be nice and helpful and glad the world hasn't burnt down to a crisp beneath his feet, but it takes him a long time to come to terms with his own hurts, brusque attitude and tendency to be overprotective/overbearing instead of helpful. To curb his crushing pessimism to just brute realism. He knows he will never stamp out his own thirst for vengeance, like he'll never entirely let go of his own grief.
Schala on the other hand is perfectly content to try their best, but also know they won't always be on time to prevent disaster, no matter how well she reads timelines. Knows she gets too lost in the Before and the After to be in the Now. They forget to be considerate, forget that some things are not the same in the Now no matter how many times she's seen it in the After.
37. Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?
Schala doesn't need one, if there's one useful thing about seeing the Past, Present and Future(s) unfold all at once, it's this!
Feros just condenses things down to the mere basics until he remembers. Strike details, cache locations he hasn't needed in decades. But he makes a point of keeping his gun maintenance tools in tip-top shape and in a specific order/location, otherwise he flounders and goes to Banshee all moody to ask for help. Putting it all back together after the Red War was not pleasant...
chewing my guardians and how they met by driving each other up the wall in the crucible day after day but the first time they actually talked to each other was in the middle of Twilight Gap
Schala kept saving Feros over and over and over until their memories of the timelines where they save him and make it through get muddied and then Feros has to save Schala instead and it's suddenly no longer a rivalry or an annoyance, it's a partnership
and when the call to fall back and Shaxx decided to make a stand, Schala was torn between running to the Gap because she knew the City would survive, she knew Shaxx and the rest would make it, but the breach would get overwhelmed without cover and Feros trusted her enough to chase her off to do what had to be done and she had to believe that he would hold the line and pull through to see the next day
THEIR BOND IS BUILT ON TRUST AND HOPE AND I FEEL SICK ABOUT IT
Wrote a small blurb hurt/comfort for my Guardians and im crying over them q-q
tl;dr Feros-8 stayed on Io at the end of Arrivals and got eaten by the Darkness and later resurfaced on Europa and his Ghost, Mia, took a long time to recover from it. Meanwhile, Schala-2 was the only one who asked friends and the Vanguard to let him go, let him face his fear and his trauma instead of continuing to spiral until he 'fell'. (They are a fireteam/poly partners.)
Feros is still scrubbing dust from between the segments of his toes. An entire week after they came back from the Spire and he still hasn't managed to clean all his crevices, much less their weapons.
He broods over a scout rifle, its varnished wood and polished synth brass covered in dust and all the grime that got picked up by radiolaria splashes all along its length.
He doesn't even hear Schala come in.
Only notices they're there when their thin hands come between the barrel he's polishing and his face.
He blinks at her and puts it all down.
She lingers, hands awkwardly hovering in front of them like they haven't decided what to say, if to even say it.
It's a rare time that he sees her hesitate.
Apprehension gathers in his muscles as he watches her hands twitch, abandoned motion after abandoned motion. Then her throat lights catch his eye, just for their sudden appearance.
But not even a trace of her raspy voice filters through.
He wipes his hands and reaches for their hands, slowly. Giving ample time to pull back, not let him cut off their 'voice' even for the sake of comfort.
But they don't move, and he pulls them gently around to sit on the couch with him, shoving the low table with his supplies to the side.
He rubs careful circles over her palms and her head slowly hangs. Feros' jaw twists, sits awkwardly against his upper lip. He hates not knowing what to do.
They sit, knee to knee, in the heady light of noon. The silence isn't a stranger to them, Schala almost never speaks and Feros is more inclined to doing than telling.
Between the two of them, it's a miracle they communicate.
He bites down a bitter chuckle on how all his previous relationships and fireteams fell apart, if they didn't die first, from that same lack, but here seems to work just fine. For all that all of those people were infinitely more talkative than both of them combined.
He entertains the idea that Schala probably has lived through every single of their interactions over an impossible amount of lives spent together, she might as well know his every thought, so he might as well have no need to speak ever again, and immediately scraps the thought.
'I am human, I can't save everyone. I have to accept that; my mistakes.'
She said that, when he'd told her that chasing after Saint-14 in the Infinite Forest was suicide. And then she chased after him anyway. They did it; Schala and Osiris. But she had just as readily accepted that, this time, they might fail.
He sighs, keeps rubbing soothing circles into their palms and realigns his jaw to sit properly.
"I'm sorry."
It's so quiet, he nearly misses it. Whispered low enough the slight ruckus of the nearest street spilling in from the open window almost covers it.
He leans closer, trying to get a clear look at their downcast face, "What for?"
They pull their hands away, the motions as they form words careful, Not being here
Feros tilts his head at that, "What?"
They repeat the words, forcefully, Not being here
"Where, firefly?"
And there's anger and grief at the choked voice they let out, "When the Darkness came. I let you go."
And it feels like the air was knocked out of him.
He reaches awkwardly to their hands, but they pull back, going through more words, I should have stayed, I should have helped but I just abandoned you, like you didn't matter or I didn't care but that's not true I worry and I care and I love you more than this life will let me and I can't forgive my mistakes, not when it hurt you and hurt Mia and-
And his chest feels constricted, the air cut off, like a fist was shoved through his heart and he can no longer breathe. She speaks like she condemned him, when it was his choice to take the dive.
His hands shake as he slips them over their cheeks, and their hands still.
It had been like dreaming. Letting the cool dark wash over him.
It had him confront so many of his failings. Pahanin, Mare Imbrium, the Gap, letting down Ana, Tevis, Andal, Cayde-
Eris, at least, he knew lived and scorned the fatalism he'd plunged himself in, as he'd gone on to tear down the Crimson Keep and burn clean the Moon's depths.
But he would have never lived through life as it has become now, with Darkness curling fingers in Guardians if he hadn't let the ghosts of his regrets haunt him. If he hadn't let himself go through the Dark like crossing a river.
He knows, Shin would have planted a blazing bullet between his eyes ages ago, if the man had the balls to show his face again, after all the seeds he planted that the Darkness now sows.
But it had been his choice and he would have fought anyone that would have tried to stop him, "I'm not sorry. I would do it again, Schala, again and again and you can't say you let me go. You can't go down that way, please."
And she looks at him like she would break down from the weight of his words alone.
He crushes them to his chest, still missing a breath he can't catch and wanting for the life of him to just take this pain away from them.
"You didn't abandon me, you didn't, I swear to you and the Light and the Dark, you didn't."
They shake against him, small fist weakly grasping at his shirt and he just holds tighter.
She hiccups and pushes back until she can move her hands between them he looks helplessly as the torrent continues unabated. Hands moving jerkily and sloppy as their shoulders tremble, And I always let you go, every time I let you slip away and you don't always come back, you don't, and it's my fault for not holding on for not saying anything
"And someone will always say, you did wrong. That it's not how fireteams work and it's not how partners work but that's not true."
And he wills her into understanding, "You have to push sometimes, you have to let others fall, let them fail and yes, it's not your fault, but they need it, to try."
His fingers tighten on their shoulders, "You can't save me every time."
And then they start crying in earnest, crumbling in his arms like a house of cards.
There's no tears that exos truly shed. But the laboured breathing, the choked keening, all the motions and exertions hit the body just as hard. Even down to the lightheadedness from lack of oxygen.
Feros shushes them, rubbing his hand down their back, and up again. Rocks them gently. He knows that feeling. Tearing you apart from the inside like an infestation. And you have to cut it out.
"Shh, I'm here, I'm always here somehow aren't I? Too stubborn to stay away. Shhh, it's okay. I love, you know that? You always try so hard, I love that about you. Shhh."
It takes time for their sobs to die down. For the trembling to cease. And Feros whispers softly and rubs down their back until they both petter into silence again.
His fingers trail up to her tense neck, pushing carefully into the synthcord muscle and smoothing it out.
He stills when they curl up against him instead of just just collapsing, fitting their head to the crook of his neck. And he holds them, until the sun starts dipping from its zenith and the breeze coming in from the open windows changes direction.
Until his back hurts and his shoulders ache.
He leans to whisper softly in their earwing, "I'll move us to the bed ok?" and waits to feel the nod against his neck to hook his arms under her.
Sheis small, he always forgets.
Small and slight and doesn't hesitate to headbutt people to death in the Crucible, the same way she doesn't hesitate to look down a god and grind them beneath her boot.
Larger than life. More than a single life, especially when she looks at you and sees all you ever were and could be, good and bad. All the times he succumbed to the Dark instead to walking out like he took a dip in the ocean, when entire planets didn't survive it.
And she barely takes up room on the bed as he tucks the covers around them both.
"I'm sorry," he whispers into the sheets. "I forgive you," he whispers against their knuckles as he presses his mouth to them. "Thank you," he whispers when they finally manage to look him in the eye.
