Since becoming a Guardian, I was relishing in the newfound peace I discovered. Peace within myself mostly. I learned to accept my anger and resentment of what happened with my family and other indigenous tribes. And being accepted in a family was really all I needed to reform myself; well, being accepted into two families, the Guardians, and Kim's family.
Kim was a treasure, and over time, many kids within her neighborhood could see me as well, and I filled them in on some extra history that I knew they would never be taught in school. That was the one thing I loved; teaching the kids about their history and helping them be proud of their heritage.
My bonds with my other Guardian friends had strengthened, Heath found love in a nature pixie from England named Fern, who also found a best friend in Eshe through their love of nature and plants. Akilina was a free bird as always, and the Guardians themselves were very pleased with how well things turned out despite what had happened over the past year or so.
Overall, things were pretty great. And as for my relationship with Jack, I found myself loving his company. Turns out, the complete opposites trope worked out well between us. Heath made fun of us for it, but he meant well.
But lately, there was a problem I'd noticed that got progressively worse since becoming a Guardian. All the hundreds of other native spirits from all over the country had heard about my Guardianship, and they were far from happy about it.
The native spirits I was already close with, Ashkii, Thunderbird, Coyote, Bluebird, Nascha, they were happy for me, and supportive, but all the others out there, they weren't.
I discovered this when I was going to visit Heath in Masschusetts to discuss something, but I never got to his place, because I encountered a group of Jogah, little people of the Iroquois. Over the past 140 years, I'd learned about the stories and legends of other tribes, and each tribe seemed to have their own variation of little people.
The Jogah stopped me in my tracks while walking through the forest. One started talking to me in their native tongue, but I couldn't fully understand what they were saying. I caught my name thrown in there a few times, along with a string of curse words. This issue continued wherever I went, I encountered unhappy spirits (oddly mostly little people of different variations), and I didn't know why everyone suddenly had a vendetta against me.
Several trickster spirits even tried to physically harm me, but my fire held them back, thankfully.
And I remember the first time I saw a Wendigo. I knew the name itself spelled death, but considering that I was already dead, I would probably only have to physically fight the thing.
When it saw me, I felt my blood run cold. I knew Wendigo's were scary as all hell. Kim had told me a surprising number of people in the United States were well aware of how frightening a Wendigo was, and Skinwalkers as well!
Luckily, I walked away without having to fight it, or even speak to it, but I wouldn't forget that experience. Months went by of me dealing with these unpleasant, unhappy spirits before I finally talked to Ashkii about it.
Ashkii suspected it had to do with me becoming a Guardian. Since he could sense things, he felt that other native spirits felt that I betrayed them in joining the Guardians.
"I betrayed them? By joining the Guardians?" Ashkii nodded.
"It seems so. Think about it. The indigenous peoples of this country have suffered for hundreds of years, and they believed in alliances with each other as supports. They believe you've fallen into a trap or been brainwashed, fallen for the enemy."
"But, the Guardians aren't the enemy."
"They do not understand what the Guardians are, or what they do."
"So it's a misunderstanding?"
"Partially." I took a moment to think about it, then it hit me.
"Of course… They're afraid of losing what they have." It was a difficult thing to explain to someone who hadn't experienced the kind of loss the natives had, but the concept wasn't difficult, at least that's what I believed.
"Humans, and spirits are stubborn to varying degrees. I don't think many of them want to accept the Guardians as good." Ashkii explained.
My other native spirit friends were here to talk about it as well.
"It's anger and resentment," Nascha said, "it's what you and I have gone through. Though I don't think you can convince every spirit to accept them."
"I don't plan to convince them. I'm going to let them go about their business, and I won't interfere, I know what's on their minds. Plus, I'm not really interesting in confronting the harassment."
"I think it's probably for the best." Bluebird said.
She was right. I wouldn't deny that, same with Nascha. We all shared a mutual understanding, but they assured me they would still support me as a Guardian, even if others wouldn't.
I told Jack about it too.
"Good on you keeping your head high. Although, I would think you being a Guardian would be representation as a whole for the Natives, right?"
"I see where you're going with it, and I don't disagree, unfortunately, you have hundreds of spirits of all shapes, sizes and variations depending on the tribe who do disagree. Many, not all, have feelings of resentment for what happened to their people, and it's understandable, they simply think I'm just another who fell for the enemy and betrayed them." It did kind of bother me, but I was going to move on.
I knew I wasn't hurting anyone, so that reassurance helped. If I couldn't stop the harassment, I would ignore it, and that was that.
So, good news, Hurricane Florence has been downgraded to a Cate 1 (though still causing damage, it's not as severe as it was a couple days ago), so I'm going to be updating my fics and such, especially the Watching The Movie: Moana, so I'll finish up the newest chapter for that and get it submitted on Sunday.