Disclaimer:I do not own ROTG or any of it's characters. Dreamworks and William Joyce get that honorable claim.
*I will do this probably every year for I don't know how long. But it will be my annual 'Guardians Christmas story!
ADVENT TALES – 2012
Week One-Honors stones,crystals, seashells and bones
It had been many years since the Guardians of Childhood had celebrated Advent together. North (aka Santa Claus), the Guardian of Wonder, was going crazy with all of the work creating toys for Christmas though, making gatherings quite hard in November and December.
When the Sandman (aka Sandy), who was the Guardian of Dreams, realized that the other Guardians had forgotten the celebration of Advent, he suggested that the tradition be reinstated. He soon realized that this was easier said than done, owing to the blank looks on his friends faces. Sandy made up a game to reintroduce his fellow Guardians to this celebration the coming of the light, mentally face palming the whole time.
One night, the Guardians were gathered at the North Pole in North's palace after finally convincing him to take the night off. They had fun drinking eggnog and playing Snow and Dreamsand, their version of apples to apples when Sandy communicated through silent golden sand images that he wanted to explain his Advent game. It took a long time to guess what Sandy was trying to get across because only the Tooth Fairy enjoyed this kind of guessing game. She was the Guardian of Memories and was older than the mountains, yet younger then ocean.
After half an hour of dream sand flying everywhere and elves being shaken to bring order, the Tooth Fairy had to interrupt an argument between Jack Frost, the Guardian of Fun, and E. Aster Bunnymund (aka the Easter Bunny). Bunnymund was the Guardian of Hope. Finally, the Guardians figured out that Sandy had planned a treasure hunt/hide-and-seek. His idea went like this: The Sandman would leave clues in the shape of either diamonds or stones with pictures on them to point them in the right direction and eventually the trail would lead to him.
This was no ordinary treasure hunt around the North Pole, though. This game would take the Guardians around the world. There was one rule. They couldn't use the Globe of Belief to locate the Sandman. "Ay…genial," Tooth knew every language in the world. Sandy asked his friends to count to one thousand and he disappeared with a whoosh of golden dream sand.
When the four other Guardians opened their eyes, a giant diamond with two pictures on it floated in front of them. One picture showed an arrow pointing up and the second was an Easter Egg. After staring at the diamond for some time, Bunny asked, "What the bloody hell does that mean?" North replied skeptically, "You're the one with the Easter eggs, remember?"
After circling the floating diamond made of golden dream sand, Tooth observed, "Doesn't an arrow pointing up on a map mean 'north'?" Jack rolled his eyes and said sarcastically, "Yeah, but we're pretty much as far north as you can get."
"Does that mean we're supposed to follow an Easter egg north?", North asked emphatically.
"But my Easter eggs hate the cold so they wouldn't go north," replied Bunnymund, glaring at Jack Frost.
"Well, we could start where the Easter eggs are stored," suggested Jack.
Tooth exclaimed cheerfully, "Oh, that makes perfect sense!"
"Hey Kangaroo, er…Bunnymund," asked Jack, "what's in the northern part of your warren again?"
"That section has the eight tunnels to each continent, don't ya remember?" answered Bunnymund.
With that, even though North protested against using the tunnels, the Guardians fell through a hole in the floor along tunnels into Bunnymund's warren. Unfortunately for Phil the giant yeti, he fell down the tunnel, too.
Upon arriving at the eight dividing tunnels, sure enough, there was another clue in the form of a pyramid floating above their heads. One of the hummingbird like tooth fairies called Baby Tooth indicated that instead of two pictures, there were now four on the bottom of the pyramid.
"I think that's Africa," said Jack. "And that one's North America. Oh, Europe is over there with Greenland nearby."
In the end, the four Guardians determined that they should split up to look for the rest of the clues. Lots were drawn and Jack went to Greenland, North got Europe, Bunny got North America, and Tooth would be flying to Africa. Although they thought that they were headed in the right direction, three of them were very wrong…
After thirty minutes of flying in the tunnel to South Africa, Tooth began to get the feeling that something wasn't quite right when she ran into a dead end that she didn't remember being there last Easter. After searching for a way around, Tooth was left with no other choice but to return to Bunny's warren. She sighed, thinking of the teeth she could be admiring instead.
Meanwhile, in the tunnel to France, North was trudging along trying to shake off a stray elf that had somehow followed him. Eventually, North looked down to grab the elf off his foot and tripped. You might have expected that North would have learned not to leave snow globes in his pockets after previous incidences, but once again, a snow globe rolled out of North's pocket. It broke open when it hit the stones. With a burst of light and a yell, the elf was left standing holding onto - nothing.
Tooth, who'd been kneeling in the grass having a conversation with Baby Tooth, looked up as the end of a portal appeared in front of her. She ducked as a red giant flew out of the portal yelling at the top of his lungs. Tooth cringed peeking through her fingers at a very disgruntled North.
"Oh goodness, are you OK?", Tooth gasped, running over to North. He nodded as he stood up. After a quick summary of each other's adventures, Tooth asked, "I wonder what happened to Jack and Bunny?" Little did she know that she would find out soon after.
Meanwhile, far away in Greenland, Jack was getting seriously frustrated. He'd been following a trail of dreamsand but could not find the end of it. It sparkled and seemed to taunt him. "Great! I bet the Kangaroo is already at the next clue by now," Jack complained to himself.
Sighing, Jack removed one of the emergency snow globes that he kept in his pocket and commanded, "Take me to Bunny's warren." Sadly, the snow globe did not catch the end of his directions, they were gone with the wind. Although Jack thought he'd be going back to the meeting place of the eight dividing tunnels, when he opened his eyes again, he was no where near there. Not even close.
In the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the Easter Bunny was bounding down Pike's Peak chasing an Easter egg that was rolling away. Not noticing where he was going, Bunny ran head first into a pine tree. "Owww." Shaking himself out of his tumble, he grabbed the stray egg and dashed behind another pine tree to hide as he felt the ground rumble below him.
Bunny backed up slowly as a portal opened on the ground and a long flying thing shot out of it. As he ducked, he caught of glimpse of what almost looked like, Jack's staff. "No way!" exclaimed Bunnymund, hopping over to the stick as he held the struggling egg. But it was Jack's staff. And if it was Jack's staff, then where was it's incredibly annoying counter-part?
After scanning through the pine forest, Bunnymund saw no sign of Jack Frost.
"I'll bet he's just hiding to try to scare me," mused the Easter Bunny. After waiting for ten minutes with no sign of Jack, Bunnymund became worried. Suddenly, a whistling sound filled the air. The last thing that Bunny saw before he lost consciousness was a golden dream-sand baseball five centimeters from his face.
Sandy had thrown his dream-sand baseball at Bunny for a reason. His Guardian friend had been too close to finding the next clue. Since the other Guardians had yet to catch up with Bunny, Sandy found a solution to stall Bunny temporarily.
Back in the warren, Tooth and North were debating about whether they should use their last snow globe to locate their friends. Eventually, they decided that it was essential to find at least one of the missing Guardians.
"We should probably find Jack since he's the least reliable," suggested North. Tooth agreed and dashed the snow globe on the green grass as their feet.
"Show us Jack Frost!," she commanded it. What the snow globe revealed was the probably one of the most surprising things that either of the Guardians had ever seen.
Jack Frost was sitting on the ground looking almost like a child with the flu. He was absent-mindedly tracing patterns into the dirt and behind him was a sign with the name of the city where he'd landed.
"Wichita? As in, KANSAS?!" North burst out. "Why would Jack be there?"
"And where, is his staff?," Tooth muttered to herself.
Suddenly, with a loud pop, the portal disappeared. "Where did it go? " Tooth asked, turning to North.
"The emergency portals don't usually last as long as the standard ones, I forgot," explained North.
"Does that mean that we're stuck here because we no longer have a portal, because the tunnels don't work so well for me," Tooth said, gesturing to her wings.
"We're not necessarily stuck here permanently," replied North with a glint in his eye. "We wouldn't have to travel as far in the tunnels."
After forty-five minutes of walking and partial flying, two very disgruntled Guardians burst out of Bunny's tunnels back into North's workshop. They both agreed that this had not been one of the more comfortable experiences they'd had in their long lives, walking from Australia to the North Pole.
Launching the sleigh was always a big deal at Santa's workshop. After going through the loop – de – loops and zigzags through the uphill launch tube, Tooth and North began the long flight to Kansas. "Every time North?" Tooth groaned. "What? Is fun, yes?" North laughed despite himself.
Jack was beginning to feel uncomfortably warm, although it was winter in Wichita. His usual body temperature was 32 degrees Fahrenheit but now his body temperature was about 40 degrees. Without a staff, Jack was unable to use the wind to fly away from Wichita so he sat in the shade of a tree in a park drawing frost patterns in the ground. He hoped that one of the other Guardians would realize soon what had happened to him.
The wait seemed like eternity to Jack Frost, although only two hours had passed. He shook his head, trying the clear the dizziness that was starting to overcome him. Looking up at the sound of bells, Jack was surprised to see North's sleigh speeding toward him. Finally, he'd be able to get out of Wichita!
Before they could bombard him with questions, Jack said, "Don't even ask. It's a long story…" Suddenly, a sparkling speck of dream-sand floated in front of them. "After it!" Jack yelled. Tooth soon realized that they were being led west to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
"Stop! Look down there!," Jack called out, looking at a lump of grey fur in the forest below them. Soon, they realized that it was Bunnymund and they landed. Almost reluctantly, North gave Jack the honor of waking the Easter Bunny up, which probably wasn't the best idea in the world. Excited at seeing his staff near Bunny, Jack laughed silently and frosted the ground surrounding Bunny.
Feeling the cold, the Easter Guardian shot nearly ten feet into the air.
"Mother of Nature! What was THAT for?!", Bunny yelled at Jack who'd jumped up into the tree branches above him. "Well, I had to wake you up somehow," Jack retorted.
Tooth and North tried not to laugh at their friends' squabble.
"Why were you asleep?" Tooth asked Bunny.
"I'm not quite sure. I think something hit me in the head," Bunny rubbed his eyes as he gazed around them. Before anyone else could speak, a shout sounded. "Hey! Look you guys!," Jack pointed at a shell made of dream-sand.
Scrambling over to the golden shell, the four Guardians stared at the picture, tying to decipher what it meant. The image was a shell with a candle in the middle. Going to the other side of the floating dream=sand shell, North leaned closer to see the picture of an arrow pointing up and a Christmas present.
"It's come full circle," North muttered. Tooth flew over to North to see what he was looking at and said, "Well, there's only one place where that's pointing to!" Jack looked at it skeptically, then asked "Where?" Bunny rolled his eyes.
The four tired Guardians stumbled into North's living room only to find the Sandman smiling at them, holding a cup of eggnog. Four other cups were on the coffee table. "Please don't tell me that you've been here the whole time," Jack whined. Sandy simply shrugged. Although not satisfied with Sandy's answer, the Guardians slumped onto the couch and enjoyed warm cups of eggnog. Silently, Sandy gave them pleasant dreams and left his exhausted friends to sleep peacefully.
Almost…all four sleeping Guardians didn't realize that the small sunflower walking behind them in their dreams was really the Sandman and not part of some crazy dream until they woke up again the next day. "SANDY! FOR THE LOVE OF CUPID, WERE YOU IN MY DREAMS!? GET BACK HERE!" (Then the Sandman hid in North's fruitcake cupboard for the rest of the week)
REVIEW AND ALSO RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU THINK THIS WAS PRETTY RANDOM!
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I kinda need a random, humor filled story to do cause we all need more laughter 'round here so if anybody is feeling happy and helpful today, story time SOS!
XxTheMoonRiddlexX
