For those of you enjoying this story, I am pleased to say that this piece was written alongside with my friend, writergirl142.
Prologue
You've heard of the Guardians: Nicholas St. North, E. Aster Bunnymund, Toothiana, and Sandman. You know their nemesis, Pitch Black. Pitch and Sandy have been around long before any of us was born, long before the Guardians became who they are today. But did you know that there was another who the Man in the Moon chose along with them?
Her name was Angel Moon. She was the Guardian of Truth.
Before the Man in the Moon chose her to be a Guardian, she was known as Mary Gregory, descendant of her great-great-great grandfather, St. Paul Gregory the I. Despite her religious upbringing, Mary was a true interpreter of the arts and knew the beauty of it well. Thanks to her father's experiments in astronomy, Mary learned to count the stars before she could walk and sketch the auras of conceptual issues before she could talk. Sending her to a remote society school for girls at the age of eight, Mary learned the requirements in basic education of the arts and literature.
However, while she excelled in every subject, she would often sneak off to her private balcony every night to watch the starfalls of the night. Her father often called them shooting stars, but to Mary, they were something better. They sent her educational mind soaring up into the sky high upon imaginary wings of imagination. And, every night, she would see the Moon. She told the Moon everything that came into her heart - all her secrets and troubles, but most importantly, she whispered to the Moon of her wish to fly away from her controlled life.
It all started with her mother. When she married, she expected to settle down and raise a simple family of the upright society, as was of the rich society of which she was raised. Her father, however, was the complete opposite - he believed in adventure and exploring the unknown, and finding out the truth. With that philosophy in his head, her mother and her father would often not agree on everything eye to eye. The only thing her mother believed in was the prospect of enjoying life to the fullest as one of the society. Her father, inspired by Christian teachings and art, explored every stretch of sky he could see. He often claimed that he had once seen Heaven hidden somewhere in the clouds, but Mary often went along with him, hoping to see the skies herself. Her mother called her a "dreamer" because she was taught that "a person cannot get anywhere just by staring off into space." So, despite her daughter's protests about leaving home, her mother soon shipped them both away, her and Mary, and entered into England, where she immediately enrolled into an expensive boarding school.
Over the years, her and her father exchanged telegrams, her telling him of the things she was finding out in school and him telling of his discoveries in the sky. His words were often said with "I miss you my shooting star," "don't blame your mother for what has happened," "keep dreaming, not just for me, but for yourself," and "shoot for the stars, because that is where I will see you every night."
About a year later, she received a single letter from her mother that simply asked her to tea. So, excusing herself from lessons for the day, she crossed the streets of England to her mother's apartment, where her mother was delicately stirring a single cup of tea as she talked with a Scottish gentleman of noble blood.
Receiving a cup from her mother's butler, Mary spent almost an hour fixing her cup of tea before she sat waiting for her mother to speak to her. So, after settling down with her carefully mixed cup of tea, Mary was daintily fixing to take a sip before her mother finally turned to her in an expectant gesture, and in just four words, Mary's perfect cup of tea went crashing to the floor.
Looking at her daughter for a moment with sadden eyes, her mother said to her, "Your father is dead."
While her still emerald brown eyes gazed forward, the cup of tea slipped from her careful fingers and slowly falling in the air crashed down onto the floor next to her mother's favorite dress. A shriek shook Mary from her silent stare as she tilted off of the chair and onto her shaky feet. The next thing she knew was that she was being ushered away from a firm hand as she shut into her room. In the darkened room, she quietly ambled forward to her bed and looked out towards the rustling curtain. The sun shone solemnly out at her as day turned to dark. Opening her curtain to let the night flood in, she stuck her hand out to feel the twilight air as tears of sadness ran down her gentle face. The night brought along comfort, she was told, and that was one of the only things she ever learned from her father. But now, she would learn no more. There was no one to teach her about the beauty of the stars and the secrets of the night. No one but the Moon.
Although comforting, the night passed slowly as Mary buried her tears into her covers. Only after the morning rays of sun touched her quivering eyelids did Mary hear a quiet knock at her door. As the door creaked open, she soulfully turned her eyes over to her mother as she sat down next to her daughter.
"Mary, come now, it's ok," her mother said in a soft voice, placing a hand upon her cheek.
To Mary, this was unnatural. Her mother never comforted her, never a day in her life. As she looked up into her Mother's eyes, she suddenly realized something. She never really knew her mother, because she had spent all her time with her father. She was his shadow, his sidekick as he shot himself off at the stars, never seeming to look back. With Mary by his side, she was often caught up in his fantasizes and ventures, but it was her mother that brought her back down to Earth, that kept her grounded. Mary didn't know what to do with that.
"Mary, please," she heard her mother murmur as she was gently rapped in her mother's embrace. "Let me be a part of your now, as I never was."
Resting her head against her mother's chest for a second, Mary closed her eyes in a sigh as she listened.
"Mary, you have to know that I did love your father. I was just brought up in a different light than he was, but …" her voice faltered, "… maybe that can change."
Looking up into her mother's eyes, she saw something that never heeded before in her. Tears.
Her mother's voice softened even more so as she bent to touch her daughter's head with her own. "About your father … I'm sorry … if I knew … I would have never left the British Nile."
"Mother," Mary finally sighed as she embraced her truly. "It wasn't your fault … it wasn't your fault. You didn't know that Papa was sick."
The tears fell heavier now as Mother and Daughter held on tighter than they ever had before.
"Mary," her mother murmured as she smiled down at her daughter through loving arms. Raising her head up, she brushed a hand up into her daughter's bangs.
Without trial, Mary smiled up at her mother, touched that she was seeing a true side of her mother that she never did see. With that thought, she looked back down. "I never really knew you, did I?"
Her mother didn't say anything as she hugged Mary once more. "I didn't either until I saw you with your father."
"No, Mother," she said, clutching her hands. "It was my fault for not spending any time with you. I got caught up in Dad's stories and fantasies about the skies and I …"
"You were dreaming, Mary," her mother said with a smile. "There's no shame in that, none at all." Chuckling a little herself, she said, "Why even I dreamed a little when I was younger."
"But … didn't you want me to …?"
"I thought I did, as my mother had taught me, but the truth is …" her mother said with a secret gleam in her eye. "I liked to dream, too, when I was your age. But, it ended for me when your grandfather died, and from there my mother sent me away to an expensive boarding school where I was submerged with figures after figures until I lost that side of my imagination. The fantasies soon died after that, and it wasn't until your father that I found that part of me yet again."
Mary continued to stare into her mother's eyes as her mother kissed her forehead. "Really?"
Her mother nodded as she let go of Mary. Her hand trailed down to the side of her dress as she said, "And, I was wondering if you do something for me?"
"What?"
"Can you teach me?"
Mary smiled as a giggle ambled out of her lips. "Sure, but where shall we start?"
"Well, I had a thought," her mother said softly, taking something out of her pocket. "Have about we start we this?"
Mary gasped as her mother held it up to the light for both of them to see. "Dad's Cross," Mary said softly, a tear trickling down her cheek.
"It was your father's, and he wanted you to have it so that anywhere you go, he'd always be there by your side," her mother said reverently, folding it into her daughter's hands.
"Mom, do you think Dad found Heaven?"
"I'm sure he did, dear," her mother said as they embraced again.
The next twenty years proved to be loving for both Mary and her mother, but to Mary the time seemed to pass too quickly. Her mother was no longer concerned with the high society she was raised in, and, to prove her devotion to her daughter, she moved them back to their old sheltered home near the British Shore. There, they spent the nights studying the skies like Mary's father did before them. Mary taught her mother the patterns and secrets of the stars so efficiently, she was sure that she had seen her mother's eyes sparkle with evanescence and innocent wonder. She even introduced her to her friend the Moon, and the smile on her mother's face proved to be one of familiarity, for she had seen the Moon, too, when she was young.
One night in the blooms of May, as Mother and Daughter laid out in the light of the Moon, Mary noticed something dreadfully wrong with her mother, but she didn't get the chance to ask that night as her mother said something that took her mind off the thought.
"Do you know what your father told me one time?"
"No, what was it?"
"Now, I'm sure you would remember this, you were only three at the time, and even then you were tagging after your father."
"Exactly, Mother, I was only three. What was it?"
Starring back up at the stars, she said, "Your father told me that the stars were full of life's wishes and emblems of truth."
"What did he mean by that?"
"It's after that what he said. He said, 'the truest threads of life's stories are etched in the starlight, but the real truth is found in the heart."
Looking up into the sky, Mary said, "You mean that life's truths aren't found in the sky?"
"They can be, but the truest place he taught me was to look in the heart."
Mary then looked quizzically at her mother.
"He meant to look for life's truths with your heart, because your heart is the most strongest of your senses. If your love is threatened, then so is your sanity and true being."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm just saying that you have to be careful when you search for just anything that could represent being the truth. If you look at society with a keen and discerning eye, then you will understand the world."
"Huh?"
Her mother laughed. "I know, I didn't get it at first either, but what it means is that the world is not just built on truth, unfortunately the world is also mixed with lies."
"Lies?"
"Distractions that draw you draw you away from the truths you need to know," her mother said, emphasizing to her daughter's cross. "Never forget what that cross represents."
"Forgiveness?"
"And salvation. Now, you know where you can find your truth, but don't forget what your father also taught you. You can find your truth in the sky and in the stars, because you know who made them. Your father wanted you to know you could find truth in the sky, but he also wanted you to know that you could always hold it in your heart."
Closing her hand over her cross, Mary then asked, "What else can you hold in it?"
Her mother then closed her hand over her daughter's. "Me," she said simply, "because I love you very much. Your father is there, too, not forget it. And, one day, when I'm not here to guide you, I will be there, too."
Those last words proved to be truly inspirational to Mary, but she was still too young to heed what they truly meant.
The following years proved to be the hardest for Mary because she was right about her mother being sick. The nights grew empty as her mother's health began to decline drastically during the following changing seasons. There were even days when her mother failed to get out of bed, and those were the nights when Mary didn't make the nighty visits to converse with her old friend, the Moon.
Days seemed to melt into the other as she watched her mother fade away. Mary soon became unaware of anything else as she sat day by day and night by night by her beloved mother's bedside. Holding her mother's hands, her tears would often wash against her mother's tender fingers as her breaths became quiet.
Then, one night before Mary's twenty-second birthday, her mother soon passed away as she finished whispering one final thing in her daughter's ear …
'I am so prove of you. And, always remember, trust your heart and look to our stars.'
That night, filled with nothing but sadness, Mary saddled a skiff and rolled off into the night on the coastline of the British Nile.
All she knew was that she wanted to get away from the house that held so many memories. Her tears told her story to anyone who saw her gliding down the river that night. So, nobody questioned as the downcast girl just floated by with silence.
Mary was now truly on her own. Her two favorite people in the world were taken away from her, and one that she had truly just started to know.
As the night continued on, Mary had crossed out of the Nile and out to sea.
The chilly wind blew at her long hair and teary eyes, and she did not see as the Moon came out above her.
It watched her as she floated along, saw the way she clutched at her cross and thrashed the water with her oar. No one should feel that much sadness, but it is expected when one loses a loved one.
Hearing a faint whisper, Mary looked up into the night as the Moon filled her eyes. Manny?
She knew his name because he had silently whispered it to her before.
It's time, Mary, she heard again as the Moon moved over her.
Time? She wondered, watching as shiny moonbeams engulfed her. From where she sat, a light seemed to illuminate all around her to touch the gentle surface of the silent sea as the skiff began to turn on its side. To anyone that was watching, all they would see was a bright light which would have made them turn away. If they happened to turn back, all they would see would the quiet skiff as it bobbed its last seconds along the nearby shore.
Way above the night, bathed in the white moon rays of the night, a white and translucent figure fluttered high into the night upon angelic wings. A golden encrusted diamond framed her hair as her long brown hair fluttered out into the wind. Her long iridescent ivory white celestial gown hugged her slight curves as she hovered in the Moon's light. Her brown eyes smiled up into the eyes of the Moon as she was guided to another life similar to the one she had before, her cross pendant now engraved with that of the crescent moon – a promise of remembrance and peace. Flying higher into the Moon's light, her cross-moon pendent glowed like a star, filling her with all the knowledge she would need to know.
In those moments of silent time, Mary Gregory was no more. Now, she was Angel Moon, the Guardian of Truth.
Angel Moon, according to this short one-shot, was one of the Guardians hand-picked by the Man in the Moon during the early times in history to help keep the kids of the world safe. Now, a little more has happened, due to what is happening in the sequences of writergirl142's, arielkatze's, and our sequels with the Guardians. This is a basic setup to show you what she was like as a human before she was chosen by Manny to become a Guardian. If you would like to know more about how she became Angel Moon, the Mistress of Deception, I'll talk to my cowriters on this and I may write more on her life as a Guardian. If so, then please review about it, or, if not, then it's going to be brought out in our sequels "RotG: Dusty, Spirit of Wishes," "RotG: Snow Mist, Guardian of Imagination," and "RotG: Aurora, Guardian of Harmony."
Until then, please enjoy this excerpt into Angel Moon's tale. :)