Guardian's story chapter 1
I woke up to the light of a silvery moon shining down on my face. A voice from the moon told me two things, that my name was Conrí, and that I was the spirit of Imagination. Imagination is different from dreams; dreams are created by Sandman using a child's happiest moments. I simply help to bring a child's greatest ideas up to the front and sometimes make it come to life. I got up out of the snow and looked around. On the ground there were two swords, a quiver and a large four-foot bow, instinctively I knew they were mine and picked them up, slinging the quiver and swords up onto my back and over my shoulder. I took a second look around and saw the moonlight glint off of a small patch of what looked like ice. I headed towards it cautiously, unsure of just what I might find. As I walked I heard a voice laughing in delight, I looked around for the voice and saw a boy with pale skin and white hair flying high above. I watched him fly and I didn't realize then but I began to develop my empathic abilities. I could see the boy's emotions flickering over his head in, as best as I could describe, colors. They flashed and jumped as I began to feel his delight at a newfound game. As the delight swelled up inside me I couldn't help but begin to chuckle and then laughed my voice ringing through the air as great joy raced through my body. The boy heard me and lost control over the winds and fell hitting a tree branch with a whoosh of air. My laughter redoubled at the expression on his face. He smiled a large mischievous smile and swept a flash of snow into my face. I slipped backwards and fell on my back. I attempted to glare at him but we began to laugh even harder. I stood up and he got up as well, we walked across the pond and shook hands. " My name's Jack, Jack Frost." He said "Mine's Conrí, Conrí…" I frowned in frustration flipping through a list of last names that popped through my head, "Well… I guess for now just Conrí Phantasy" I replied. "With a ph not an f" He nodded and said, "can you fly?" I shrugged and reached into the wind, the wind sang but it felt… wrong for me to use the wind in such a menial manner. That when I felt them stir on my back. I smiled and felt them shift and begin to spread out through slits in the back of my cloak and extend and stretch. Jack stared as my jet-black, glossy wings flapped in the moonlight. "Maybe" I said with a mischievous smile. I ran and jumped into the air and felt a gush of wind behind me as Jack followed. We flew towards a small collection of light in the distance. We landed on the outskirts so we wouldn't frighten them. My wings folded in and we walked into the circle of light waving and smiling to the villagers. Soon Jack knelt down to ask a child "Excuse me do you know where- he was cut off as the child passed right through him. I stared and ran up to a man and opened my mouth as he passed right through me as well. Jack and I stared at each other and began to run around getting passed through by everyone of them. Soon we left, there was nothing there for us there and we flew into the bright moonlit night.
Many years have passed since that day and Jack and I have wandered for decades never leaving each other's side. We met several more spirits and played tricks on a good number of them. Neither of us forgot that night in the snow where we first met. We were inseparable until I found a place I had never imagined before. I call it simply, The Library; I discovered it using the key I found in my pocket on the 50th anniversary of our meeting. It was a plain key and has changed with the times but The Library remains the same, it came with a single note: Use me… If you dare. I had always been curious and showed Jack the key suggesting I might try it soon. I could see in his eyes his own curiosity weighed down with the feeling of being unnoticed by everyone, a pain I had seen his eyes since the night of our meeting. I did not take the pain so heavily because I felt no need to be noticed, I was there to give imagination a boost and the child's happiness was enough for me, but Jack was different. For him it was a need, a dream just beyond his grasp. One day, after existing for 75 years, we decided to go different ways. It was not a sudden thing and neither of us was surprised, ever since the key appeared had we felt our paths divide. We promised to visit each other at the same town we had first seen on the anniversary of our friendship.
My path took me to the use of my key, as the key had shown no directions to a specific door, I simply used a random one. The room beyond the door was the most beautiful thing I had ever and will ever see. The roof was a stain glass mural of every spirit I had ever known and some I hadn't. At the very top was a moon and immediately surrounding the moon were six panels. Four already held images in their frames, one a large man with a smile in a sleigh, North the Christmas spirit, A human humming bird with teeth in her hands, Toothinia queen of the tooth fairies, the next a large pooka with boomerangs, E. Aster bunnymund the spirit of Easter, a spirit who hated me upon sight even though I hadn't done anything. Finally there stood a large golden man with tendrils reaching around him, obviously Sandman, giver of dreams. Sandy was the one spirit to ever know the joy I felt from giving children happy thoughts. After staring for a few minutes I pulled the door closed and looked around. This was the most spectacular part of The Library, imagine every book thought of, every drawing created and every dream humanity has had or will have, and triple it. That isn't even a fraction of the books in this giant, seemingly endless room. The shelves went on for what seemed like miles, they were arranged in a square formation that got steadily larger with each new row. The books were leather and had names printed on them going in alphabetical order. On the single shelf I could see there were more than 200 of them. I walked towards them almost touching them, but decided against it, who knows what these books were here for?
As I walked along the shelves began to become fewer and fewer and the moon in the center was almost above my head. I had, unconsciously, made my way towards the middle. Suddenly, as I rounded a corner, a large iron gate appeared. Beyond the gate were more shelves, but these were different, these were thicker, more heavily embossed with gold. Through the grate a single book caught my eye. Upon it read Nicholas St. North, a spirit that I had met before and who was even now staring down upon the shelves of the library. A feeling stirred in my chest, a chill of foreboding, as if opening that book would show me the soul of the spirit inside and grant me access to his deepest thoughts. This feeling warred with another, a child-like curiosity; this feeling was one I knew well, I felt it everyday, wanting to learn new things, see new places, explore new worlds I never knew existed. These feelings fought each other as I reached out to touch the gate; luckily, Fate intervened. Fate, the spirit of the world, had never been seen in a thousand years. Some say he died, others said that he was in hiding, working his magic from an unknown place. I honestly never cared; my curiosity was never sparked enough. Even so, there he was striding down the aisle on the other side of the gate, coming towards me at a rapid pace. I instinctively stepped back a few feet as he opened the gate. His face was ageless, looking youthful and full of life, but wise as if he had seen the world a thousand times over and knew it's secrets. I didn't look in his eye, if I had I would have seen everything he'd ever imagined and every memory altered by his own thoughts, another ability of mine. Normally I could hold back from this, but in certain cases an aura comes from a person as old as Fate that prevented me from looking in his eyes, as if looking in them held so much of everything that if I stared long enough I would be lost. Only one other person ever had this effect on me, and he was stuck in the moon.
Fate nodded to me and said, "Welcome Phantasy, I've been waiting." I stood dumbstruck for a few seconds, wondering how he had known my name and replied
"Hello, Fate" He smiled and chuckled saying "Just call me Alexander, I dislike my… spirit name"
"Then you can call me Conrí" I replied holding out my hand, he took it and said "Don't worry about that Sight of yours, I'll restrain myself"
"My Sight sir?" I asked, He raised an eyebrow and said, "Yes, it's what happens when you look in someone's eyes, I have it too so I can actually control it" I tentatively looked into his eyes, thankfully there was nothing there. I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding, "How did you do that?" I asked, "I've always had trouble with it"
"It's simple" he replied "think of it as a window, you can close the shutters at anytime, here try it" I focused feeling through my mind, looking for the "shutters" to my mind. I felt something click in my brain and looked towards Alexander. "Excellent" he said "Can't see a thing, good to know you're a fast learner" He motioned and said "This way" He lead me deep into the Library to a single building in the very center of the room, past three more gates and past a book that held the name Man in the Moon, "Is that…" I asked pointing. Alexander stopped and looked, his face growing serious "Never read that book Conrí, it contains secrets you may not want to know." Now my curiosity was at an all time high, but I controlled myself; knowing that Alexander may just kick me out if I disobeyed him. He took me inside the building, where we ended up in his living room, where a fire was roaring in the fireplace and two chairs sat around it with warm tea on a table. He Motioned to the chairs, "Have a seat, I took the liberty of preparing some tea." We sat down and began to drink. After a few minutes of silence I asked the question that had been on my mind since I walked through the door, "What is this place?" He smiled and raised an eyebrow,
"An, impatient one aren't we? I didn't ask that question until the second cup of tea"
"Not impatient just curious" I replied, he smiled and said,
"Of course you are spirits of our nature always are"
"Spirits of our nature?" I asked, frowning
"Yes the spirits of the human mind, it is, after all, one of humanity's greatest aspects."
"Ok… so back to my original question" I said, hopeful. He sighed and said,
"This is The Library, a collection of all human knowledge, wishes, dreams, hopes and beliefs all filed away by name." I raised my eyebrow, "Really? All of it? But what about-
He raised his hand, cutting me off,
"All answers come in time, for now just sort your thoughts."
After that sentence he began to tell me the history of the library, how it was created by the Man in the Moon, how it adapted over time, how every lost thing always found it's way here. Finally after hours of history he took me on a tour, showing me everything there ever was. This took months, and before I knew it, a year had almost gone by. I prepared to leave to see Jack and Alexander let me go. Jack and I caught up and I described to him the library, he found it fascinating as I did. When I returned Alexander and I began to work for years of my powers and abilities, developing them, growing them. Each year I kept my promise and visited Jack. Finally, after 25 years of training Alexander left me in charge leaving me four keys, one carved of black obsidian for the darker section of humanity, one silver as moonlight for the spirit section, another a plain steel one that opened the armory that I could access anywhere and the last a golden Key that would open any door and that could take me anywhere in a blink of an eye. Where did Alexander go, I do not know, but he always visits once in awhile ad we'd always sit and chat over tea.