This Festival is about remembering those we have lost, is it not? About sharing the tales of passed loved ones? So, Guardian, if you have the time: won’t you entertain an old woman with a story to share? Of course I have many; that is a fact that comes with age. But in this instance I have one particularly suited to the current festivities… Yes… Thank you. Take a seat, won’t you? Please, make yourself comfortable… Now then. They say the best place to start is with beginnings, and so I shall. [spoiler] In times gone past--- indeed, you would not remember them; you were still dead--- there was a Guardian by the name of Gwyndoln Samara. Of inky locks and dark complexion she was raised by her Ghost, Salam, who breathed life into her far beyond the realm in which this usually occurs. She awoke in the Reef among the tattered past and between the Light and Dark; born once more in human form. She did not know why she was snatched from the dreamless sleep of death but could not dispute her new reality. Gwyn avoided death at the hands of Awoken patrols and Fallen pirates. By all odds the sleep should have taken her there, out beyond the Traveller’s reach. But through luck or wit or strength (and I assume it took a fair measure of the three) she arrived at the Tower. By that time I was freshly arrived, my heart and head full of pain and sorrow. The Speaker, hand on my shoulder, said few could have survived what I had. But his words turned bitter in my ears; I knew it to be true. Few did survive the trials I endured. Only I survived. My husband, my friends… my… my dearest Angelica, blood of my blood. I was given no time to sob before my only child’s broken body: fate had other plans. But that is not the story I tell you today. It is not one I shall tell any day. My sorrow is my own to bear and I would not wish it upon anyone. No, I tell you of Gwyndoln the Fair. That is the name she took for herself shortly after her arrival. It wasn’t by her design of course; she was not that vain. The refugees she saved by the score were the ones to gift her that title. No Guardian before her was as full of compassion as that radiant soul. She devoted her endless lives to saving the loss of others’ first lives--- their only lives. Though she suffered for it, death after death after death, she bore each lapse of life like a medal. For her it was never about the foes slain or the glory earned. She counted the deaths she suffered as the cost for the lives she saved. Every time she felt herself fade from existence, even for the most fleeting moment, she knew it meant another ten deaths had been stymied before they had the chance to act. I grew close to her in time. She was peculiar in the best fashion. Most Guardians come to me, buy my wares, and part ways without a word. And once they discover the hidden and legendary shaders across the solar system, what use am I to them? But Gwyn… she stayed. She spoke to me. ‘How are you?’ she would say. She was always interested in what I had to say. She was attentive, well-spoken, and amiable; she became my first friend in a City where I knew nobody. I showed her the techniques I used to spin light into different patterns. She regaled me with tales of the frontier. I asked this of her. I have no doubt that knowing my past she would have never broached the subject with me. But I needed to know. I needed to know that there was good in the world. I needed the knowledge that other families would not suffer the fate of mine. Over the years I saw her grow disillusioned with her work. Her deaths were not enough to save everyone. For each soul she lost her heart grew heavier and I could see it in the fading light of her emerald eyes. I tried my best to put her troubled mind at ease, but she had become bitterly frustrated with the state of existence. ‘Why do I fight and die and fight and die each and every day, yet evil still persists and death befalls the innocent?’ she exclaimed one night as we sat by the fire together. I said to her that death is a constant, as unyielding as the march of time itself. I reassured her that her efforts were not in vain, that the lives she saved were invaluable. I imagine sometimes, somewhat bitterly, that should I have been more persuasive I might have stayed her hand. Perhaps… but such far-flung fantasies are the same that ended Gwyndoln the Fair. She became convinced that there was a way to stop death. I could only watch as she fell into obsession; my pleas were as silent to her as a moth’s whisper. I was powerless to save her. One night as I was packing my wares at the end of a busy day, the Speaker happened by. He was interested in commissioning a cloak of impeccable needlework, modeled after the same that Ana Bray wore during Twilight Gap (a feat he knew I was capable of). I agreed and he gave me the template to work from. As he turned to leave I caught his arm. I told him I feared for Gwyn and informed him of her dreams of stopping death itself. He became instantly troubled; I knew then that she was already lost. He regretfully imparted to me the knowledge that just earlier that day he had approved a special mission request from Gwyn herself. She claimed to have discovered evidence of Fallen activity outside the House of Winter on Venus. The mission was supposed to be simple reconnaissance, but upon checking with the Hangar it became clear that Gwyndoln’s ship had not logged back in. I confess that for the first time in years I allowed myself to shed tears. Gwyn never did return. She died a solitary death past the Traveller’s reach--- a death that bore ironic similarity to the circumstances of her rebirth. It was her last death. Pointless. Where all her other deaths had the benefit of saving others, her final one served not a thing but her own misguided dream.[/spoiler] We must take care, Guardian, to remember the dead exactly as they were in life. We must write each flaw in stone, you see, for as much as we are defined by our virtues we are equally described and honored by our misdeeds. No being is perfect and yet we find the capacity to love one another nonetheless. This is what the Festival is really about. Solemn and caring remembrance not in spite of our lost ones’ flaws, but in loving memory of all that made them who they were. To erase the mistakes would be to erase the memory. To be forgotten is to truly die. Do not let those you love die again.