He listened to Jule and Ellio’s steps and shifts from behind him. He’d given them enough time to escape. He sighed. Humanity, huh?

  He surely didn’t have nor want it.

  But it didn’t take humanity to desire a different outcome than this. What the Guardian showed him… the chains, the dread, the fear, the hopelessness of ever being free… the Guardian’s soul held on long enough to know they could never gain freedom again. To be trapped in corruption beyond anything they could withstand.

  Taiga and Mouse would kill this Guardian, for their sake at the very least.

  “You’d better…” Mouse turned to the voice on his right, where Jule stood, “explain everything after this. No more lies. No more secrets.”

  He turned from her, and looked to the Guardian, tears of pink streaming from the slits in their mask. As the Guardian swiped around with their tail curled and preparing quills, Mouse stepped in front of her.

  “Get back to where the wagon was,” he snapped at them. How could he fight if he had to stay on the defensive with two squishy humans there?

  Footsteps ran up from behind, and Mouse nearly let his guard down, recognizing the deep thuds of the boots. Taiga. Mouse and Jule turned towards him, Sweet Bun in tow. His eyebrows furrowed together at Jule.

  “Go back to the wagon! Your head is injured, for purity’s sake. What are you doing running off into danger?” Taiga barked at her before shifting to Ellio, “and why didn’t you stop her?”

  The Guardian howled, shaking the ground with it, before flinging quills at them. Mouse shielded Jule while Taiga stepped in front of Ellio. Mouse bit back the stabs in his arm and shoulder blade. Taiga groaned a bit, bark spiking from his stomach and leg. Those humans would get he and Taiga killed at this rate.

  “Taiga, you good?” Mouse confirmed pain in his eyes and a nod from him before refocusing on the Guardian Spirit.

  It planned another attack, and Mouse took a swipe at it while running to the left, steering the Guardian’s attention from the others. He’d handle it all if he needed to until Taiga could get them to safety.

  Idiots.

  This is why he hated humans.

  Well, one of the reasons, anyways.

  “Make me understand this! You’re killing them? The Guardian Spirit?”

  “Not now, Jule—”

  Jule cut him off. “No, explain this to me! Or I won’t let you kill them.”

  Heat rose through Mouse. She couldn’t stop them from killing the Guardian more than she could save herself. The only thing she may accomplish with such idiocy is getting Taiga killed in her place. He whipped towards her, opening his mouth, but the Guardian lurched at him, splitting the ground beneath his feet.

  He jumped back, and the crack seemed to follow him. He stepped to the side, and the Guardian pounded down over him. A talon nicked his arm, and he held it to his chest as he twirled under its arm and ran towards the mask.

  “No!” Jule yelled, but Taiga yanked her back.

  “The Guardian is dead—”

  “How do you know? Just because what, Mouse can talk to them a little? You don’t know for sure! We can find a way to save them!” Jule snapped back, pushing him off.

  “Do you think we haven’t tried?” Taiga’s voice hardened. “We’re preventing as much loss of life as we can. If that means we have to put this Guardian down to do so, then we will. And we’ll take everything we learn to try and find a way to save the next one.”

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  Silence.

  Then Ellio’s voice, low enough that Mouse nearly missed what he said while running alongside the Guardian. “Does this… relate to your mission from your queen?”

  “You’re both… a little too keen for your own good.”

  The Guardian shifted, something catching their eye from the far left. Mouse paused, turning to see the light of dawn peaking over the horizon. The Guardian stared into the sliver of light. Their mask inched forward towards it, stretching from their great body of ruffled furs and feathers. A whimper.

  Mouse lowered his sword, putting a hand between the quills and resting his fingers against Nefedjukasb’s scales. “Shh, it’s alright. It’s only the day beginning.”

  Jule watched him a moment, not turning away even as Mouse locked eyes with her. When she finally broke her gaze, she shot a mix of frustration and defeat to Taiga. “What is your true goal? No lies.”

  Taiga paused before exchanging a glance with Mouse. “To save the Guardians.”

  The Guardian Spirit purred under Mouse’s touch, their mask watching the sun rise with such a whine of helplessness that Mouse’s chest squeezed to it. How long could they hold on for? Or was it better to kill them now, while they were still themselves? He hushed a shiver from them, soothing them through his grazing fingertips.

  “And what is the mission you were given?”

  When Taiga didn’t respond, Jule sighed. “If you go all in with us,” she looked up to the Guardian, and her lip trembled enough for even him to see from afar, “we’ll go all in with you.”

  Taiga and Mouse looked at each other. They needed help. A lot of it. Four Guardian Spirits corrupted, and they were no closer to curing them than when they started this mission. They’d learned the cause, and even that was only due to Jule and Ellio.

  Mouse nodded.

  “Our mission is to kill the Guardian Spirits before they create loss of life and spread further corruption. Even if that means killing every single one of them on the continent.” Taiga shifted his weight uneasily.

  The Guardian whimpered again, and Mouse walked towards the front of them, brushing his fingers through their fur the whole way. Nefedjukasb never looked his way, but they calmed as they stood, transfixed by the sun’s warmth and light.Tears of pink dripped to the ground in utter despair.

  “I made a deal with Queen Nolara to let us find a cure for them, as long as we followed her orders to protect Lanrians. We kill every Guardian that corrupts and we work to find a cure for their illness to save the rest.”

  Jule and Ellio said nothing for a long moment. Ellio finally broke the silence, “are you implying that your queen didn’t care whether or not the Guardians could be saved?”

  Taiga sighed. “Our queen… isn’t kind to non-humans. She does not consider the value the Guardian Spirits or any other species has. Only that they aren’t her people, and therefore she’s indifferent towards them at best. Or massacres them at worst.”

  Mouse ignored the clear break in Taiga’s voice. Surely Jule and Ellio heard it too, but no one said anything.

  “So this is how you’re protecting them?”

  “The best we can.”

  “If this is true, if she didn’t send you two, she’d have just sent someone else…” Jule tapped her foot, looking from the Guardian, to Mouse, then to Taiga. “This fucking sucks. But I get it.”

  The Guardian cried, their quills rippling across their body. Nefedjukasb’s time was running out. “Taiga,” Mouse waited until Taiga looked at him before continuing, “we should do it now. Before they lose themselves again.”

  Taiga’s eyes wandered towards where the overturned wagon laid, the farmers and builders huddled beneath a tree. “Jule, Ellio, you two get them back. Out of sight. They can’t see this. And if they ask—”

  “You lured the Guardian to the woods while they were distracted.” Jule felt her head, wincing with each touch. “I see why you lie so much.”

  They turned to leave. Taiga watched the two siblings a moment before calling out to them, making them pause, “we’ll go all in.”

  Jule nodded, and the two headed off. Mouse and Taiga stayed beside the Guardian until the humans were long out of sight. They whimpered and cried silently, and Mouse comforted them with gentle pats and hushes.

  He sat beside Nefedjukasb, who’s eyes never strayed from the sun. When he shut his eyes, the frogs sang and danced to Nefedjukasb’s hums. When he opened them, only cries remained.

  A croak made him turn, and the frog attendant hopped over Mouse’s legs and made its way to the Guardian’s taloned paw. It climbed onto Nefedjukasb’s middle talon, patting it, comforting.

  When Mouse closed his eyes again, the humming returned, and he hummed along so that when he opened his eyes and Nefedjukasb’s memory vanished, the song remained. The earth shivered and the sun rose over the horizon.

  Only after the sun’s reds had faded to orange and its outline full did Taiga unsheathe his sword.