I met Shin Malphur once, did you know that? It was only once, we weren't friends but that didn't matter. "All guardians are comrades" as Saladin says. What I remember most about Shin...was how quiet he was, and yet in that silence could tell you more than you would ever know with a question or an answer. This was long before the Vanguard roped me in. Long before I actually decided to be responsible. Yes I am responsible. Don't roll your eyes. I was in the tower and I was trying to perfect my knife when the word came in. A hunter was coming in from the wilds. In those days when only 40% of Hunters returned from the wilds, this was big. I was standing in the crowd trying to look over everyone when I saw him. The Shin Malphur. Of course I had heard the stories. How he had slain some rogue demon in the wilds. How he had avenged some great mentor. How he wielded a cannon that couldn't be beat. Of course I pushed through to him. So after jostling a half dozen Titans bigger than me, I reach the front and see him slowly walking through, like a predator that just caught his prey and was catching his breath. In one hand slung over his back was this little satchel and despite its size, weighing him down. His free hand just lay at his side clenched, in anger, despair, or triumph, I'll never know. We locked eyes and for just this instant, I saw something flash in his eyes. It was a déjà vu that emerged and disappeared in nanoseconds. It was later I would learn it was the look of a old man seeing a successor. Andal looked that way...right before Taniks got him. Sorry, old ghosts never die. Back to the story. After that nanosecond he walked off and suddenly I saw more in him. The slump in his shoulders. The grey streaks in his barely twenty something hair. The lead like heaviness that edged his light. The marks of a man broken long ago. I suddenly felt pity. He spent that whole night talking to the Speaker. About what I'll never know. Not that I couldn't try. I could just ask the Speaker. But I've decided a man is entitled to a few secrets in life. He left that very next morning. Never said goodbye to anyone. Never gave a warning. That was the last anyone ever heard of him. No one knows what happened next. I heard a Titan say he died going after some Fallen Kell. A Warlock I once met told me she saw him scouting tunnels under the moon. What do I think? I'll never tell, not my place to say. Still I know that it's dangerous out there and I've only this to say. If his death ever came, I hope it was quick. He earned that much. -[i]Cayde-6[/i]