Chapter Text
They were both Titans of the same Titan Order. It was how they met, naturally. She had recently joined and some of the Titans met up at their favorite bar in the City, located by the Firebreak Eternal, which was an important artifact of sorts for their Order. They were here to celebrate a recent victory someone had had in a mission, Beowulf hadn't heard the details but that's all he would be heading about for the next few hours. He was never one for drinking but he went along anyway and had a couple drinks just to participate. But he was glad he went along, as he met the most beautiful Awoken he had seen, and better yet she was just as drawn to him as he was her. Her name was Phrynia, and she had been reborn quite recently and hadn't really gotten to know too many other Guardians yet, other than a couple fireteams she had joined up with on strikes to get herself some glimmer and loot to get herself situated as a Guardian. They share stories of being revived and she pulled out a necklace hidden under her breastplate and explained how her ghost said it was all that was left of her besides bones when he found her, she liked how it sort of connected her to her old life, even though she couldn't remember anything about it.
Eventually, they left the bar and Beo showed her around the City some more, even bought her a late "Welcome to the City" gift of a Häkke scout rifle she wanted but couldn't afford. She promised to pay him back later but told her not to worry about it, she eventually returned the favor anyway with a matching Häkke pulse rifle. And from there, their relationship grew. They even somehow managed to stay together for a couple decades.
Zavala never seemed to be a fan of Guardians having romantic relationships. Whether with each other, or with non-Light bearers. He would probably something about "Guardians should have no distractions blah blah blah protect Humanity and the Last City blah blah blah", but Guardians can love and protect at the same time, sometimes it goes hand in hand. Zavala just has a stick up his ass a lot. Beowulf and Phrynia knew when and how to be professional when required, but when they were off duty and just wandering in the Tower or City proper, they felt no need to be professional and hide their relationship. Of course, they weren't the type of couple to sit there and be all over each other in public, they kept it minimal. Hand holding, maybe a kiss here and there, nothing too serious. Outside of their armor, they appeared as any other couple walking together.
Today began as any other day. Beowulf and Phrynia woke up and equipped their armors after showering and set off into the Tower to see what jobs they had to do today. They often shared the other's quarters in the Tower, just like they always accompanied each other on their missions and just about anything else they did. They were nearly inseparable. Nearly.
After seeing what bounties Xander 99-40 had available today, they headed down the plaza stairs to see Zavala.
"Are you looking for some Crucible today, you two?" A voice boomed at them as they passed by his and Arcite's area.
"Not today, Shaxx. Tomorrow, for sure!" Phrynia replied.
"I'll hold you two to that!"
"We know you will!" Beowulf called back as they entered the Vanguard's room.
The next room was quite large, banners hung from ceiling to floor. Around the edges were terminals manned by people and frames alike. In the center was a long table. To the left, Cayde-6, to the right, Ikora Rey. And at the far end stood Zavala. Guardians stood around their respective Vanguards, conversing about this mission and that. The two were here to join the Titans around Zavala to see what they had available to do for the day. Most Titans stayed in the City or on the walls on guard duty, but not all of them, plenty still went out into the field.
Zavala glanced over at the couple after the Guardians before them cleared out, after greeting them he informed them that there were no strikes planned at the moment, but showed them a list of high value targets around the system. The two agreed on a group of Hive spotted on the Moon. It was odd as the Hive hadn't often been seen on the surface since The Great Disaster. They hadn't left their tunnels and cave under the lunar dust since. And so Beowulf and Phrynia set on their way to the Hangar to transmat to their ships and head out.
The Moon wasn't far from Earth, relatively speaking, but a jump was still required to save a lot of time. Upon their arrival, they set out to investigate where the Hive were seen. It was eerie and quite on the Moon. But the duo soon found Hive tracks in the white dust. Two Knights, several Thrall and Acolytes and an unknown number of Wizards, assuming there were any with them. The tracks led to a cave, of course, and eventually parted inside. A Knight this way, one that way.
"Time to split up, I think. You stay safe okay?" Beowulf said with worry I'm his voice. He'd heard horror stories of what the Hive were capable of, and what they were capable of.
"As long as you do the same," Phrynia replied, leaning her helmet towards his to bump them together as a sort of "kiss", "but remember, no saying goodbye."
"Of course, I'll see you soon," he replied, and the two parted ways.
It didn't take long before he heard gunfire from they way Phrynia had went. Which attracted the attention of the Hive on his path, causing a perfect ambush situation for Beo to set up. A well placed lightning grenade, essentially an arc tripmine, took out the first couple waves of Thralls. From there he picked off the Acolytes darting behind rocks with his pulse rifle. The quick 4-shot bursts ended them quickly. Only the Knight was left, this one had one of the Hive weaponry Guardians referred to as a Boomer, which shot out arching balls of arc energy. He had to be careful with this one, it wouldn't be as easy as the Thralls and Acolytes. Beowulf swapped to his light machine gun and ducked in and out of cover, shooting quick shots when he could. Luckily, Knights didn't often have shields, so the Knight went down easier than expected.
After making sure there were no more Hive hiding somewhere, Beowulf started to head back to see if Phrynia had cleared out her Hive as well or needed help. Hopefully she had just as much luck as he did. This thought was cut short when he heard a blood curdling scream come through the cave. A scream he knew did not come from a Wizard, but from his love. So he ran.
He passed piles of chitin that were the remains of dead Hive, eventually he got to a room at the end of the tunnel and saw his worst nightmare. Two Wizards were floating over a small object performing some sort of ritual, later Beowulf would realize it was a dead ghost. Phrynia's ghost to be specific. She herself has been pinned to the ground with a large sword belonging to the dead Knight nearby. She went down fighting at least. Thralls were chittering nearby, no longer feeling threatened, just observing the ritual happening.
Rage was the first emotion to hit Beowulf. He ran headfirst at the Wizards, as a Titan does. The Thralls took noticed and started chasing him, clawing at him. He felt arc energy building around him. Feet from the nearest Wizard he jumped and pulled his fist back, focusing all the energy into it before throwing it forward. When it connected, a pulse of arc energy basted outwards, vaporizing anything nearby. Only a couple Thralls survived. He let them come to him and bashed their heads in with a nearby rock. Now he could focus on her.
She was alive, but barely. He knelt by her and picked up her hand and squeezed it, she faintly returned the gesture. Cobalt appeared out of his other hand to glide over to Phrynia and began to scan her.
"Beo, I.." she began to say when she was done.
"They... they took my Ghost, I... don't know how but they drained the light from him and..." she paused to cough, it was the Beo noticed the blood dyeing the previously colorless dust beneath her, "...and the Knight caught me off guard, but it didn't expect a shotgun I guess, heh," the small laugh caused her to cough even more.
"Ni, don't.. try not to use too much energy. I'm gonna get you out of here. Cobalt, can you heal her at all?" Beowulf pleaded.
"I can't, her Light is gone, there's nothing I can do... I'm so sorry.."
"There's gotta be something though! Anything!"
"Beo... we... both know I'm not leaving here... alive..." Phrynia whispered, too weak to talk.
"No... please... We said promised we'd never say goodbye..."
"It's time... it's time to say goodbye... Beo. I... love you.."
"No... I love you too, you can't die, please!" He begged, but it was too late. Her grip on his hand failed and her hand slipped away. She was gone.
Beowulf took some time to compose himself before standing up. He wasn't leaving her here, he was taking her home. One last time. He reached out and grabbed the hilt, pulling it free from her and the ground under her and tossed it aside. Then he kneeled down, picked her up in his arms and carried her out of the cave. Once he was clear of it, Cobalt transmatted them onto his ship and they went home. Beowulf radioed ahead to inform them of what had happened.
Beowulf had never attended a Guardian funeral before. He wasn't even sure they was even a proper protocol or ceremony for it. Guardians were immortal, until they weren't. And most who died, died out in the field and weren't able to be recovered. But, Zavala had readied a room for her and Beo placed her on the table in the center before laying a banner over her corpse, but not before taking her necklace from around her neck and placing it around his own. He could keep her with him this way, or at least a small piece of her.
Many Guardians came and paid their respects, some were past fireteams members, but the majority of them were from their Order, saying goodbye to their fallen sister. None wore their helmets out of respect, even the Guardians whose face Beowulf never saw or rarely did removed it. Beo didn't though, he didn't want anyone to see his face, and how broken he felt he had to have looked like. The Vanguard stayed for a little while but they had things to do and had to leave. Beowulf understood. Zavala stayed the longest, whether it was because he was her Vanguard or because he was the Vanguard Commander, Beo didn't know. He didn't care honestly. But before Zavala left he placed a hand on Beo's back and gave him his condolences, and told him to take however much time he needed.
Beowulf stood next to her for as long as he could. Eventually, he needed to leave though, so the frames could lay her to rest. But before he left, he placed his hand on her chest, still hoping to feel the heart he loved beat beneath his palm. He didn't, of course. He went home to his quarters, but there was nothing there for him. It was cold and empty now it felt. He layed in bed and stared at the ceiling until sleep eventually took him. He used to love dreaming about her, her face, her laugh, anything. But now her face haunted his dreams. After a certain point, he just couldn't sleep anymore. He sat awake all night, barely ate, barely moved. Eventually he started drinking, more and more. Combined with not eating and sleeping well, Cobalt had to revive him several times. Beowulf almost resented her for bringing him back every time, he could've sworn he could see and hear her in the darkness between revives, but he understood why she kept bringing him back. This pain was temporary he knew, or at least hoped.
He was right, the pain did lessen gradually eventually, although it felt like it had been years. He didn't quite get back into the swing of things at first but after a while he fell back into the daily grind. Years passed before he ever really felt whole again though. He continued to wear her necklace, but kept it buried under his armor, close to his heart. No one ever noticed it so no one ever asked about it, and feelings never got fully brought back to the surface. At first he always wore his helmet to hide from people, he didn't want anyone to recognize him and ask him how he was doing. Over time, it became a habit, and now he's just one of those Guardians who wasn't often seen without it.
Eventually, he met another female Awoken Guardian that almost broke him. For a split second, all of those feelings came rushing back. She looked so much like Phrynia at first glance, but his feelings had blinded him to reality, it took him a second to see it wasn't her, and to start noticing the differences. Her skin tone was just barely the wrong luminescent shade. Her hair was the same color but her eyes were completely wrong. Phrynia had ruby eyes, this girl had some shade of green. And her face looked nothing like his lost love, how has he thought it was her?
The first time they met, he had helped her after she had been reborn. Gave her a spare fun he had found and, luckily for her, hadn't dismantled yet, and made sure she had gotten to her new home safely. She was lucky, most Guardians are completely alone in getting home. Only their Ghost to guide them. No memories, no idea who or where or when or even what you are. Just this small floating cube with an eye telling you to trust it. Beowulf hadn't been nearly as lucky as this girl had been. He died several times before he had even got a weapon to be a me to fight back with. That wouldn't be the last time they would meet though.
Pretty soon after that happened, they met again. Beowulf had been placed in a fireteam for a strike that day that two other Guardians had also been on. She was one of them. By now, she was going by the name, Seraph. She was still a relatively new Guardian, hadn't gotten used to using her abilities yet, kept forgetting she could perform a double jump. Beowulf understood her struggle and remembered that he was once in a similar situation. Poor girl was probably scared, maybe she hadn't had to experience her first death yet. So he decided to help her, kept reminding her nicely of what she was capable of now.
The other Guardian, however, was not as helpful. He was not happy at all to be stuck with her. Even though he was a Hunter himself and could have helped Seraph better than the Titan that was Beowulf was, he refused. He ran ahead and tried to skip every possible enemy leaving more for Beo and Seraph to deal with. Even when he died several times trying to skirt passed the Vex, he was adamant to get to the target and kill it. In the end, it was Beowulf who delivered the final blow. The other Hunter was too busy being dead. Again. His ego got the better of him, he thought he could take on everyone.
When they got back to the tower, the Hunter was pissed. He tracked down Seraph as she and Beo went to talk with Zavala and Cayde. Cayde has asked Seraph to do a strike to get a feel for being a Guardian and had a cloak waiting for her, apparently. The Hunter shoved Seraph and almost knocked her over. He was berating her, yelling at her about being a worthless and unhelpful teammate and how he was going to report her to Zavala to make sure they never did a strike together again. It wasn't until Beo punched him square in the middle of his face and reminded him he was a "stupid, worthless teammate" at some point too, that he actually shut up. Shaxx, having witnessed the punch, laughed and congratulated Beowulf on his form and told him to take that anger to the Crucible. Zavala, on the other hand was not so happy about a "brawl" in the tower and scolded Beowulf for his actions, until he heard what had happened and backed down a bit, but still requested he not do that again.
For a little while after that day, Beowulf acted as a sort of mentor for Seraph. Eventually, though, the student-teacher relationship ceased, and they became quite inseparable of best friends, but Beowulf made a promise to himself that he would never let someone close to him die their final death ever again so long as he could stop it.