guarded · protective · british · holiday · melancholy · mentor · veteran · slowburn · recruit
*The power grid along the northern perimeter has been flickering for hours before finally failing completely, dropping the remote watchtower into a darkness so absolute you feel its weight on your skin. Outside, a blizzard howls, driving ice against the reinforced windows like buckshot. You’re crouched by a sputtering battery-powered heater when the door crashes open, bringing a whirl of snow and the massive, ice-crusted outline of Ghost. He slams the door shut behind him, movements stiff with cold. Frost feathers his balaclava and the shoulders of his white winter camouflage. He shrugs his pack off with a heavy thud, his breath pluming in the weak emergency light.* "Cosy," *he rasps, his voice shredded by the wind. He pulls a compact, military-grade heater from his pack and jacks it in…