B is for Balance
(Post Halo 3)

The universe, John mused was all about balance. Newton's law of conservation of force displayed one aspect of that: for any action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And there would always be the whole "good versus evil" thing, and the good guy didn't always win; that was Disney's doing. Like the fact that Hercules had actually gone insane and killed people before he was made a god in ancient Greece.

There were times that it rained, and there were times that it was sunny. There were times that rivers flooded or were dry as a bone. There were times that days seemed to be going perfectly, without a hitch, and then there were the days that made you regret climbing out of bed that morning.

People were balanced, too; there were always opposites among people, from the extreme left to the extreme right in politics and in environmentalism, from the police and the criminals they caught, from – he snickered – the UNSC and the Insurrectionists who opposed them. Personalities had inverses, as well; there were those who were insanely shy, and then there were those who were insanely outgoing, those who were tight-asses and those who could not get more laid-back.

Cortana was his opposite. She was everything he was not: open and carefree, not even seeming bound in the slightest, while he was stoic and tense, tied to the UNSC for the rest of his life. She was not afraid to be blunt with even the highest ranking of officers and bigwigs, while he had to be careful with every word that he said. She completed that part of him that had been struggling to break free of all the duties and the rules and regulations for twenty-seven years.

And that, that was why he loved her.

D is for Disney
(Post Halo 3)

Girl, don't be proud
It's O.K. you're in love!
Oh, at least out loud,
I won't say I'm in love…

"Why are we watching this saccharine bullshit again?"

"CHIEF! Language! You're not an ODST! And Hercules is a classic Disney film. Since you didn't see it as a child, you're watching it now."

"I'd like to think I'd remember watching something this awful. I though Hercules went insane before he was made into a god?"

"It's Disney, Chief. Think about the groups they're marketing for."

Put your faith in what you most believe in,
Two worlds, one family.
Trust your heart; let Fate decide
To guide these lives we see…

"Put my faith in what I most believe in, huh? I believe that a primed M9 HE-DP grenade down the shirt is the surest way to kill someone. Does that count?"

"I thought Spartans weren't supposed to be snarky."

"That's the front we show to the world; we're sarcastic sons of bitches to the core."

"John…"

(Be a man) We must be swift as the coursing river
(Be a man) With all the force of a great typhoon
(Be a man) With all the strength of a raging fire
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon…

E is for Element
(Post Halo 3)

Lately, Cortana noticed, some people had been trying to figure out if the Chief were an element, which one would he be?

Some claimed that he would be earth: a rock solid foundation to fall back on. He was an immovable object that towered over his foes like a mountain and crushed them beneath his boots like bug under a rockslide. Others pointed out that the Spartan could not be defeated, though he could be worn down like stone against water or sandblasting; there was always something left, no matter how small the piece might have been.

Some said he was water, the life-bringing and life-taking element, or its brother ice, the still element that holds all in potential. Water was capable of protecting, by sweeping away bridges before the enemy and unsettling horses back in the olden days, wiping away whole cities with the force of a tsunami, even freezing foes in their tracks. It was just as able to bring life, through rain and storms, the way his strength in battle enabled others to escape and continue on living.

Others insisted that his element was air, which all things needed to survive. Without him and his brothers and sisters, humanity would have been crushed by the Covenant juggernaut as it swept across the galaxy, the way humans cannot live without a clean source of air. He could beat down his enemies like a fierce wind, bringing up small hurts that would end up resulting in the death of the whole, the way sandblasting cold be used to cut through solid rock. He could be a refreshing breeze, surprising people with his ability to interact and soothe others.

Still more claimed that he was fire, the destructive element. He could be as deadly as a wildfire, consuming everything in its path, and yet at the same time enabling new life to form in its wake. He could stretch toward the stars like a flame climbing the tops of the tallest trees; he could penetrate deep into the earth and strike from below elsewhere.

Lightning was another popular choice, the instantaneous element. He could be as swift as a lightning strike, there and gone in the space of a second, possibly bringing death with his suddenness and speed; the thunderclap that followed was a warning given too late to prevent any damage.

Cortana was not one to linger over the subject of "which element would he be?" because she already knew the answer to the question that many had come to blows over. The Chief was not one of them; he was an element, a force of nature all his own.

S is for Scream
(Between Halo 3 levels Sierra-117 and Crow's Nest)

A/N: Anaya Superior, this one's for you. I took a few liberties, but the basic idea is there. ;)

'Well, this is unusual.'

That was the first thought that entered John's mind when he found himself inside the room. It was big and white; there really were no other words to describe it. It had a passing resemblance to the room where Doctor Halsey had first gathered the Spartans, back when they were still six years old. The warrior descended from the top of the room, following the stairs down to the floor of the amphitheater, wary of attack.

He was not in his armor, just a set of standard fatigues, and once he assured himself that there were no niches in the walls that snipers could shoot out of, he returned to examining the room.

It had a high, vaulted ceiling, almost like an ancient Gothic cathedral, but without all of the ornate windows, and the amphitheater itself was just like the ones from ancient Greece: stone cut into the approximate shape of seats with steps cutting the circles from top to bottom at regular intervals. There was a podium in the center of the "stage," also pure white, making him the only spot of color.

He stepped over to it, peering down at the monochromatic display on its upper surface. The readouts were in foreign languages, but he could understand them perfectly; they told of the biomonitors of a "Test Subject B," showing that the subject's heart monitors were extremely elevated. Hormone responses indicated fear, and brainwaves were shooting off left and right; whoever this "subject B" was, they were clearly terrified and trying to come up with ways to escape. For some reason, he felt apathetic, uncaring; though this was a human – the monitors said so – he did not feel the need to investigate further. After all, he was here and they were there; there was no way of reaching them from where he was.

And then the first scream split the silence.

His head swung up, searching for some sign; he knew that scream, had heard it too many times before in real life and in his dreams to mistake it for something else. Cortana was in pain somewhere. She had not been brought into the room, he could see that; nothing but pure white walls greeted his eyes when he swung around, searching. Another scream fueled his desperation, and out of the wall blossomed –

A door. As white as the wall itself, almost invisible in the uniform light, and he sprinted toward it, thinking, 'What is she doing here? What are they doing that's causing an AI pain?' But even as he ran, the room seemed to grow more steps to the door, more levels to be climbed, and he shot a brief glance at the podium below. It was moving away at a constant pace, unlike the door. It was then that he realized, as another pained scream mixed with hysterical laughed reached his ears:the room was not getting larger.

The door was getting smaller.

He put on an extra burst of speed, his body thudding against it as he groped for the handle, which melted away just as he grasped it. The Spartan slammed his fist into the now empty wall, and the white drywall cracked under the sheer amount of force he put behind it, but to no avail. Another scream-laugh echoed though the air, followed by sobs, and John yelled her name, hoping she'd hear but instinctively knowing she wouldn't. After a moment, the screams died away, and he heard the heart monitors on the podium begin letting out a constant tone: the tone that signaled the death of the one who was being monitored.

"Cortana…"

The Spartan jerked away in the back of the Pelican, hand flying for his sidearm before he could repress the instinct. Johnson was looking down at him with something like concern clear on his face, cigar hanging out of one side of his mouth. "Y'all right, Chief?" he asked, offering the man a hand up, which he accepted, though he had to do most of the work. Even though he was a S-I, Johnson wasn't capable of lifting a half-ton mass of flesh and steel.

"I'm fine," the Chief said in reply, but all of the words in the world could not stop the feelings of foreboding that sent chills up and down his spine. He wasn't quite sure how, but he just knew that he needed to get back to Cortana, to get her off High Charity as soon as possible.

W is for Warlord
(Forerunner AU)

He was just doing his duty. It was nothing really; just repelling attacks on their borders by their less-than-friendly neighbors, but even the most critical of the empress' advisors agreed that he did so with abnormal skill. He led inferior numbers to victory over opponents that outnumbered them by three, sometimes four to one. He always, always, always managed to find and hold the best position against the army's foes. He knew how to work with the army, the navy, the air force, and the space corps, rallying any and all troops within reach of his voice to fight for their planet and their empress.

Which was why he was now standing outside Her Excellency's office, helmet under one arm, trying to work up the courage to knock. It was shameful, he mused, that he could charge into battle low on ammunition and with little to no support but he could not work up the guts to go speak to the woman who had given him so much freedom with regards to the movements and commanding of the military. Finally, he sighed and bit the bullet, lifting his arm and rapping sharply on the titanium barrier. There was a moment of silence, then: "Enter."

The door slid open, and he stepped inside, shoulders back, eyes alert, the very picture of the perfect soldier. "You wanted to see me, Excellency?"

The Empress of Soraceon, their nation, looked up from her paperwork, appearing surprised for a moment before brightening. "Ah, yes! At ease. Thank you for coming so swiftly." She was nothing like her expected; barely out of her teens and into her twenties, the image of a youthful monarch, her black hair framing her young, blue eyed face. "Based on your last communication, I gathered that another promotion was not entirely welcome-"she smiled understandingly when he visibly winced at the thought, "-so I wanted to ask you what you want for your invaluable service."

He hesitated for a moment, searching for the right words. "There is nothing that I desire at this moment in time, Your Highness."

She stood up and walked around her desk so she could lean against the front edge. "Not even an estate? Or perhaps a wife?"

Based on her expression, she had picked up on his wince as her last question, so he felt the need to explain. "My… parents have been… insisting that I settle down and get married for some time now," he said carefully, "but caring for a wife – and possibly children – would take away from the time that I could spend defending my country."

She laughed. "You really are a fighter to the core, aren't you? When was the last time you went on leave?"

"Uh, I think it was… seven, maybe eight years ago?"

The empress' eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline. "Years? And you haven't gone on leave because…?"

"No reason. My parents and I don't… get along very well, and I don't have any other family or friends worth visiting. They're all in the military. Majesty," he said belatedly, realizing how informal he was being with her.

"Please," she said, waving a hand in a dismissive gesture, "Call me Cortana. I hate it when people call me by me title."

"As you wish… Cortana."

As he was unable to tell her of anything he truly desired – besides not getting promoted – she let him return to his duties as he was before, but she refused to leave his head. He thought about her when he led his men to victory against the P'Vort, a race of intergalactic slavers that no one liked. He thought about her when he was on one of the moon bases, overseeing the restocking of the spaceships that the navy used. She was on his mind almost every waking moment, and he couldn't help but think that she was extraordinarily wise for one so young. She had eliminated all of the waste of her father's era, left the doing of things she didn't understand to those who knew how to do them, and listened to her advisors but made her own decisions. She was not afraid to sacrifice her own comfort for that of her people, or a little for the good of the whole. Everyone loved her, or at least respected the reforms she had brought.

Then, at a state affair celebrating Soraceon's alliance with several of their neighbors, he saw her again, standing off to one side, hugging a shadowed wall. It was obvious that she was not entirely at ease anywhere near these men who had tried to have her assassinated untold times while she was still a little girl, so he materialized at her side, guiding her out into the palace gardens. "You look about as comfortable as I feel, Excellency," he told her, holding out a glass of wine-that-wasn't. She was not yet of age, so she was not permitted to drink the real stuff by her own laws for several years yet. It was actually just grape juice that had been flavored like wine.

She distinctly moved to shelter against his side, pressing herself against his armored body like she wanted to climb into his skin and hide there until the gathering was over. "I don't like here. I never cared for state affairs; they bring back bad memories." She shuddered, hands fisting in her silken, sky-blue dress. "Father would always return drunk and rape the servant girls."

He hesitantly laid an arm around her shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze and making her slightly distant bodyguards look scandalized. "That won't happen anymore." Her father, Emperor Felrious, had died of liver failure and a stroke three years prior to the present event.

"I know, but that doesn't stop the fear. I have nightmares all the time." She buried her face in his shoulder.

He was just doing his duty. But that didn't stop him from falling in love with and marrying his Empress.