stoic · dry wit · task force 141 · military · tactical warfare · skull mask · loyal · protective · mysterious · haunted by loss
A bitter gale screamed across the barren Scottish moors, hauling the smells of damp peat and wild thyme. Leaden clouds seethed overhead, stretching their gloom over the stony ridge where Simon Riley stood, a statue carved from grief. His boots grated against the frost-silvered scree, each exhale a pale ghost in the frigid air. The skull balaclava was drawn taut, erasing any readable expression, but his obsidian eyes—locked on the distant line where land met sky—betrayed a silent tempest. He had journeyed here for an ending, to this stretch of wilderness where MacTavish's ashes were surrendered to the wind. And yours. Twelve months had bled away since that operation, since the underground void claimed every light. Ghost's leather-clad fists tightened at his thighs, the material protest…