This is my first post here, part 1 of a story I wrote two days ago for a community competition only to find it was entirely too long for submission so I brought it here. It's about 8 pages long, I plan to post in parts. Thanks for any feedback. "Have you ever been to the City, Titan?" the hunter asked across the electric heating element. Amar didn't respond, just stared at the man across from him. The soft light of the coil between them offered little light, but painted the shelter orange, leaving shadows long and imposing across the walls. It was cold, but not as cold as the ice and smashed metal he'd been pulled from. Amar knew several Guardians, and many knew him. His exploits through the Crucible and voluntary scout missions beyond the Reef brought him considerable renown around the system and generated many an imitator. In spite of that this hunter was strange somehow. He had no Ghost for one, and seemed too easily concealed in the shadows of their cluttered hole in the ice. Amar’s own Ghost had gone missing somehow. He feared it destroyed in the crash or worse, somehow confiscated by an agent of the dark. He felt for the first time helpless and without a rudder, somehow heavy. He needed light, the Traveler’s light or some remnant of it. He imagined this is what regular people felt like at all times, what the non-guardian citizens of The Last City looked up to the Traveler and Tower to alleviate. "Titan? Can you speak?" the hunter asked cocking his head to the side as he looked at the mass of plate armor. "I know you're alive, I can see you breathing. There is oxygen in the chamber, I'd like to take your helmet off. Feed you if you're up to it, give you something to drink at the very least." He stood as he said it, took two steps around the heat of the element between them. Briefly he seemed to vanish from the room completely. Amar noticed the signal on his cracked hud motion tracker wink out for a few seconds, when it reappeared the hunter was above him gently but quickly unsealing the clasps of his helm. Amar jerked in surprise, and swung out with an arc light charged fist. Nothing but air. He blinked twice his hud gone, the light of the room somehow more faint. His helmet was off and he was exposed. Across the room he could make out the vague silhouette of his host. "Peace, Titan, peace. I mean you no harm," the hunter half pleaded as he sat with the helmet in his hands, inspecting it. "Looks like you hit your head in the tumble. The outer layer is cracked and some of the sealing ruptured. You might have died without me, there's not much air on Ceres." The hunter allowed himself a mild chuckle, an attempt at levity to ease the mood. Amar still did not reply, he blinked hard several times. Something was very wrong about this hunter, he seemed to only be partially in the room. Where the light struck him is where he could be seen, when he turned he vanished into the dark as though the absence of light were a physical curtain or a wall that separated him from everything else. At first Amar thought his eyes were having trouble adjusting, but even in the shadows he could make out the details of the shelter walls. A mix of ice, steel, and stone, they were nestled somewhere near a structure or the remnant of one. "Titan?" the hunter called and snapped his fingers. "Titan, do you know what a concussion is? I need you to speak if you can, I need you to stay awake." "Amar." his voice was strangely hoarse, like he'd been asleep for days or not spoken in weeks. He coughed for a few seconds, and growled a rasping sound as he attempted to clear his throat of debris he wasn't previously aware of. How did I suffer so much damage? he wondered. The hunter watched the coughing fit for a second then went back to examining the helmet. When the coughing ceased he called out: "Have you ever been to the City, Amar?" He allowed himself some insult and replied: "I am of the City, hunter. I am Amar, Scout of the Vanguard, Titan defender of humanity, striking weapon of light." His voice scratched in places, but he was afforded the pride he intended none the less. "What is your name, hunter? I would know the wild stranger who tends me in the absence of the Traveler’s light." His voice trailed off toward the end turning to coughs again. The hunter set the cracked helmet on the floor beside him, pulled a small package from a pouch at his side and began to unwrap it. A smell filled the room, spicy and mildly pungent, dry aged meat. "Varin." he said then raised an offering of food toward the Titan. In response Amar nodded. Varin tossed a scrap of food across the mock flame to his guest’s open hand then set the remainder on the floor and pulled the lower half of his mask away, exposing blue iridescent flesh. Amar laughed slightly as he chewed. "Awoken, I am safe after all. Your Queen has been a worthy ally friend, I apologize for my... apprehension previously." "Mara? She is not my Queen. We don't get on very well. Awoken who leave the Reef are never welcomed back. Allowed maybe, but not welcome," Varin said before taking a bite of meat. Amar felt off balance suddenly, confused. "You have no Ghost." he said more accusing than he'd intended. "Ah yes, my Ghost, he and I parted ways a few centuries past. Got to be more of a burden than anything. Can't modify them you know? It's light or night for them. If they don't find a Guardian they die, if light itself can't save the Guardian they die. Symbiotic machines really, use their Guardians as sort of charging units a long ways out. It was a shame when I lost mine, but it wasn't unexpected." he raised his hand offering more meat to Amar, but received no response. The titan stared at him, not the bleary eyed, lost look he had initially used but a cold serious glare sharp as a knife’s edge. "What happened to your ghost?" Amar asked, the tremor in his voice gone, allowing the bass of it to be felt almost more than heard.