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It came in pieces. The first a memory, old and well-worn like a book re-read a hundred times:
A passing Light called his attention to the valley and he listened as a Ghost and their Guardian talked. Later, he would learn to call what they had camaraderie. But at the time all he saw was their closeness, the ease of their comfort with each other. The way the Guardian’s Light swirled like a tempest when she laughed and the Ghost’s energies swelled in response, delighted at being the cause. The way the silence hung in the air after their passing.
Second a call, worried and not-quite frantic, to the remains of a ruined ship that was still home to its AI and her chosen captain.
Like many Ghosts, Isaac answered the summons. To meet the hero of the Red War, to honor the memory of the Ghost that carried the Light back to her, to look and to see. And Isaac saw what he had seen all those years ago in that nameless valley: a resonance, a sense of sameness, familiarity, homecoming. So he stayed. He stayed in the room housing Failsafe’s core and began to familiarize himself with her. He stayed in the room Shry barely ventured out of and made himself available. Other Ghosts came and went. Isaac never left unless they asked him to do so. He always came back.
Finally he returned one day to find Shry watching him with eyes that actually saw him. Finally she said, “Alright. I accept.” Finally.
Third. Third. He learned how it felt when she fell. He learned the visceral relief of bringing her back. He learned that she had decided to become a Thanatonaut. He learned to avoid her left. He learned that her pain was a burning, enduring thing that he would never be able to heal. He learned that she was cunning and insightful, that she saw an existence far larger than he had ever considered and that she was almost entirely alone in opposing the threats she saw at that scale. He saw that when she chose to give everything she had to the defense of people she hardly cared for she gave up on herself.
It came in pieces but still it came. Isaac had known from the beginning, from the first time he heard her laugh that he wanted a relationship like that with his Guardian. He had known what he was doing when he answered Failsafe’s call for potential Ghosts for that very same Guardian. He had known what he was choosing when he stayed. He had known it would happen but that did not prepare him for the reality of it, the inescapable constant that was his Guardian. His life, his existence was now inextricably tied to the energies of a Guardian named Shry. Thoughts of her consumed everything he had at all times and he found that he enjoyed it, craved it, delighted in it, in her.
In the end, all the pieces came together into him and into her, together. He had what he wanted. She was his. Now it was time to keep her.