Orange emanated from the figure of the Guardian. It bubbled and steamed, though none of the corruption plumed into the fog, its viscosity around the source unbroken. The transparency of the Guardian increased with every step closer, and Taiga stayed back as Mouse reached a hand towards their fur.
Despite the creature towering in front of their eyes, the plants beneath and within swayed with ease. They sang undisturbed by such a mass. Every blade of grass confused his senses, challenging his eyes and magics. This Guardian, by all accounts of magic and nature, was not there.
Yet his eyes drew over the feathers and quills. Mouse’s gaze poured over the same as his. What was this, if not a Guardian? A trick of the mind? Ghosts, like the builders suggested? A frog leapt onto his boot, and its weight made it undoubtedly real.
“What are you two doing?” Jule came up behind them, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
“What do you…” he blinked at her, who stared between he and Mouse. But a Guardian was surely a subject of monumental interest to her. Yet she didn’t give them a single glance? “Do you not see them?”
Her gaze focused on Taiga. “See who?”
Ellio nervously set a hand on her shoulder, face turning towards them from the builders huddled on the road. “What’s going on? You two are scaring them.”
Taiga let the silence hang for a moment, watching for any subtle lies. But their increasing tension told only the truth. He turned, the outline of the Guardian still unmoving. They didn’t see them. Were they in fact not present at all? If that was the case, what loomed before he and Mouse?
“Tell them everything’s fine. Mouse saw an animal approach, and thought it may have been a demon.” He turned from them, taking a step towards Mouse. “That’s all.”
“And the truth?” Jule spoke louder this time. Taiga drew his attention back to her. Ellio, who already stepped away, paused again.
“We’ll talk once they settle for the night.” He turned, and made his way into the mud. Her footsteps stirred after nearly a minute before returning to the builders. If they could handle the others for now, he’d have time to pull Mouse back to the group to talk.
“Mouse.” He set a hand on Mouse’s shoulder when he didn’t respond. “You heard them, right? Ellio and Jule don’t see anything here. Sounds like the other humans don’t either.”
“But they’re here. You see them.” His eyes didn’t waver from the half-transparent Guardian.
Taiga hesitated before speaking. “I do. But something isn’t right. Let’s pull back and—”
“No.” Mouse’s hand phased through the image of the Guardian. His face scrunched a moment, before his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“Mouse.” Taiga looked him over, pulling gently on the arm closest to him. “We’re not leaving. But humans are paranoid, jumpy creatures. Seeing something they can’t is entirely suspicious. They’re not moving, and we can stay in view of them. We can come back once the builders settle.”
“But…” Mouse held back something, though Taiga could gander at what.
“Let’s see what Jule and Ellio think. They may know something we don’t. Besides, if that bubble of corruption bursts around the Guardian and we’re standing so close, I could take injury.”
Mouse turned to face him. “Corruption?”
Taiga paused before nodding. “There’s an unpunctured layer of orange corruption around it. It’s hazy, but if it’s real, it could cause some problems if ruptured.”
Mouse slowly gazed once more over the Guardian before giving in. “Alright.”
When they’d returned to the wagon and builders, the humans welcomed help to move materials from the wagon and start a small camp despite a few awkward minutes of uneasiness at the start. The builders cleared a small area the last time they’d come through and used it as a makeshift camp. Taiga and Ellio set to work unloading supplies and materials as Jule and Mouse started a campfire and pitched covers in case of heavy wind or rain.
Mouse, through all the work, never took his eyes from the Guardian, even as fog set in as the builders predicted and the sun set early into evening. The cold seeped through Taiga’s layers as the temperatures dropped. Taiga searched through Mouse’s bag for his headscarf before Ellio appeared beside him.
“You get cold easily, right?” Ellio held out a worn, fleece blanket.
Taiga looked at it, then to Ellio’s gentle smile. “Is it not cold for you?”
He shook his head and set the blanket into Taiga’s hands. “Not as much as you. Jule and I can share, anyways.”
“You just carry thick blankets around?” One of the women asked, watching the exchange from near the fire. She busied her hands roasting pickled meat on a stick. The sourness wrinkled Taiga’s nose.
“Ah,” Ellio shrunk back a little from the question, glancing quickly between Taiga and Jule for a signal. “We lived in the mountains a while growing up. It’s easy to catch your death when underprepared.”
The woman nodded in somewhat satisfaction and confusion. When a child pulled her sleeve for attention, she shifted from them. Taiga unfolded the blanket, wrapping it over his back and shoulders, shuddering the cold from himself. Ellio sat beside him, shuffling through his pack.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“The mountains?” Taiga asked, mostly from curiosity. Though it’d be a lie if it wasn’t also from abject horror that they’d willingly live in a place which snowed nearly year-round.
“Yeah,” Ellio started, checking Jule once more for the ‘okay’. She brushed his concern off, preoccupied with setting her bed. “Our parents traveled for their research, so we lived in a lot of places. When they went missing—”
“Ellio.”
He flinched a bit at Jule’s tone, paused, then continued past the point he’d left off, “we stayed in a small mountain village for a long while. At least, until we decided to continue their research.”
Taiga said nothing. They’d mentioned their parents’ research before… magic laws, if he recalled correctly. When they’d mentioned it prior, it sounded like a way for humans to connect and categorize what they had little control of. Interesting, if nothing else.
To go missing, however… Perhaps there was more to their story than Taiga assumed. His eyes followed Jule as she put a little too much effort and force into her movements. The topic seemed to be a soft spot for at least one of them. He let it go. Instead, he snuggled into the blanket, and thanked Ellio for it.
He beamed. “I can get another one for you if you need.”
Taiga nodded uneasily to the kindness. As the others settled for the evening, Taiga’s eyes followed the flickers and rising embers of the campfire the others so easily sat around. Its light flittered over his bundled blanket and shadows loomed their frost behind him. Their snares of cold clawed over his shoulders until Ellio handed him a bowl of soup.
Sweet Bun nestled behind him, resting her head beneath his elbow. He slid chilled fingers over her plumaged neck. She purred in nestled chirps deep in her throat. White speckled feathers vibrated against his back, and he leaned into her. She snuggled into his small caresses and refused to leave his side even as night fell over their camp and the builders took to their beds.
“Are you alright without the fire?” Ellio checked on him.
Taiga gave him a small smile. “Warm enough. I have Sweet Bun with me, after all.”
Ellio took a quick glance around before lowering his voice. “Are linlao more keen about…”
Taiga nodded his reply. “Creatures of magic are more sensitive to this sort of thing. And linlao are naturally intelligent.”
Ellio’s shoulders relaxed. “I’m glad. Let me know if you need another blanket.”
“That aside.” Jule plopped down between Taiga and the doused fire. “Talk.”
Mouse remained unmoving from the tree he perched beneath, his gaze only on the outline of the Guardian. So, he didn’t want to join the conversation. Taiga sighed, sitting up a little higher against Sweet Bun. He’d talk for both of them, then.
“I’m supposing it’s because we’re not human. But I take it neither of you see the big figure in the field?”
Ellio blinked a few times before shaking his head. Jule glanced in the direction Mouse watched before turning back to Taiga. “Obviously not.”
She seemed to wait for him to continue, so he did. “Have either of you ever seen a Guardian Spirit before?”
“I don’t think—” Ellio started.
“We haven’t.” Jule cut him off. “And you’re saying you have? I guess that would make sense, since you’re both balancers, in a way. But I’ve never heard of them being invisible before.”
“Well, neither have we.” Taiga shrugged. “We’ve seen several, so we’d recognize one without mistake…”
He debated. How much could he tell them? Or should he, at all? They were useful in their knowledge of magics and already knew of the magical imbalance existed before either he or Mouse. But even interfering with the work of a Guardian was against the law in every country on the continent. There was a reason the queen couldn’t risk their mission getting tied back to her.
“Mouse was raised by a Guardian Spirit… one whose territory is in the northern part of Leryn Forest and into the corrupted lands.” This, at least, wasn’t a secret. Several knights and soldiers were already aware of this fact. “They’re his family, so to speak.”
Jule’s jaw slacked before she shook it off. Taiga opened his mouth to continue, but she held up a hand. “Nope. Nope, no, no, no. Hold on. I absolutely have to write this down.”
“Can he communicate with them?” Ellio asked after giving Jule sufficient time to scramble to her bag and fish out her notebook from within.
Mouse still showed no interest in their conversation, despite certainly sitting in earshot. Taiga supposed Mouse left it up to him, then. The answer was also no secret. “He can.”
“I’m sorry, back up.” Jule put a few fingers up again, pausing after having scribbled into an already filled page. “Why are you telling us this? I mean, I appreciate it. But what’s your goal in telling us something this sensitive? And out of nowhere?”
Why, indeed? Sure, he wanted to know anything and everything these two knew about the Guardians. He wanted them to know just enough so that any research they do would be beneficial to their needs. But also… they may need assistance figuring out this phantom. And…
He needed them to know enough to be of any use in preventing this Guardian from corrupting.
But to tell them that? He bit his lip. “Do you remember when we first met, Jule? You mentioned symptoms of imbalance, and asked us if we’d seen any signs of it?”
“Yeah, and you did. You knew about the rip.”
“We didn’t know about the rip back then.” He glanced back towards Mouse, who rose to his feet. “What we knew was that the Guardians were getting sick.”
Ellio and Jule froze, eyes studying him, processing the information before even daring to search him for lies. Suddenly, Jule whipped around and scanned the camp before turning back to him. “Are you fucking with me right now?”
Taiga focused his eyes on Sweet Bun’s warm head. He grazed his fingertips over her feathers. “What do you think?”
“I think you shoulda told us way the fuck sooner.” She scrunched her eyes shut. “I mean, I get why you didn’t. But for the love of all things pure, I shoulda been researching that instead of the rip.”
“Are you sure they’re sick? What symptoms are they showing?”
“Well,” Taiga cleared his throat, snuggling into Sweet Bun as a gust ripped through the camp. “They’re corrupting.”
“What,” Jule’s tone hardened, “exactly was your mission from Queen Nolara?”
He forced a smile. These siblings were both too keen. “I can’t tell you that.”
After several long moments of Jule’s gaze trying to crack his, she stood. “I’ll review a few things I have on me. See what we find. I’ll also check the library when we’re back in Winolin.”
She waited for Ellio, though he didn’t stir. “So, you see a Guardian in the field? Do you know why they’re there? Since Mouse can speak to them?”
Taiga shook his head. “They’re not moving. And the closer we get, the more transparent they become. That’s why I’m telling you this. Because we need to figure out what’s wrong.”
Ellio turned and looked at Jule. “This will be a long night.” He stood, and the two of them spoke until they reached their beds. Mouse sloshed into the mud and made his way back to the Guardian’s phantom. He plopped down in front of it, and didn’t move until Taiga’s eyes slid closed.
