Another chapter! Because I love you people.
Today, I buried Loki the hamster, my little baby, not even 4 months old, went into hibernation and died of shock waking up. I love him, and may he be with the Norse gods now, kicking Avenger butt. Amen.
Anyways, hope you like, and if you're checking out my other RotG fic 'Slave to Darkness' then I'm currently writing more, thanks to encouragement from aquodox and if you haven't checked out HerLittleSecret's fic 'Never Alone' then I recommend it, because she's really good for such a young writer :)
That is all folks, please review!
He'd never fully recovered from her death, never been able to convince himself that it wasn't his fault she died, never managed to tell himself that he couldn't physically move... so couldn't help her. He felt terribly, lay there every night thinking about the girl he'd let down ten and a half years ago. His heart wrenched as he realised what month it was, and how in just three and a half weeks she would have been twenty seven, possibly with a husband and children, and a home of her own. How she would be so beautiful, and they'd all be happy... or perhaps he'd have given into his want, and he'd have her now, she'd be lay here beside him, face buried in his chest, fingers tangled in his fur...
His sunflower.
Rolling out of his nest he crawled up the rabbit hole to the Warren and looked out across the pond where she'd laid and spoke to him, and he could still see those beautiful brown eyes when he blinked, see that long brown hair framing her face and how soft it was to touch.
Shaking his head he made one giant leap and landing on the other side of the pond on the banks, and shook himself, yawning as he looked about at the Warren and frowned. Walking out for a bit he stretched his legs and back, yawning widely and looking about. It looked like dusk, but it was morning, and the fireflies he'd introduced to the place ten years ago were thriving, but instead of their usual orange glow they'd adopted different colours – such as pinks, purples and reds. It gave a bit more colour to the place, made it seem a bit nicer, and he liked them. They were like his own version of fairy lights, and he always laughed about them with North because he had the slight advantage that they didn't have to be plugged in. However despite the warm glow from the insects and the fact that it was early morning, it seemed cold. It had been cold all over the world for ten years, it seemed, even here beneath Australia this time of year, and it had been odd, but since the end of the war there hadn't seemed to be a decent summer yet, but he felt it in his whiskers that something was changing.
He was Guardian of Hope, Spring and Earth, he knew when something was happening, but he needed a second opinion, however much he didn't want to go there. Tapping his foot on the ground he dived down the tunnel and ran fast, coming up moments later in the ice where his fur chilled through.
"Bloody Nora!" he cried without thinking, but upon saying the name while cursing – just an average phrase really – his heart dropped, and he felt miserable running through the snow to the North Pole. In he scampered through the cave, up the flight of stairs past some bewildered looking yetis, and he saw the fireplace crackling away in the main room where he could overlook the globe. He sat by it, warming his feet, and he head someone heavy coming his way, and turned his head to see North looking at him carefully.
"Is not often I see you, least this time of month," he noted, his normally booming voice very soft and quiet.
"Yeah, well I need to know something," he said quickly, standing up. Despite him standing at six foot one, North towered above him, almost like some kind of Russian giant. The older man was easily seven feet tall, if not more.
"What is that?" the bearded man asked, smiling warmly down at him, and slyly kicking an elf to the side that was pulling at his pants leg.
"Do you feel a change?" Aster asked, watching the small creature bounce away. "In the air..."
"A change? Yes, but not in the air," he chuckled, and Aster waved his hand at him as the older bloke tapped his stomach.
"Yeah, yeah, in your belly. I heard that one before mate," he said stiffly, looking about at all the elves that were suddenly swarming about them, tugging at North's pants and – somewhat painfully – his fur. "what that-?"
"Always underfoot!" North cried, but when they looked where the elves were pointing to, they saw Tooth and Sandy in the doorway, looking slightly awestruck.
"Tooth! Sandy!" North cried, bounding forward and welcoming their friends in with gusto, while Aster took in their expressions and the way they seemed so stiff and anxious. "What brings you here my friends? You feeling change too?"
Sandy nodded vigorously, while Tooth 'um'ed about it.
"Well, I only sense something changing, but Sandy... saw something. He says the moon told him Summer is coming, something is bringing Summer back."
"Summer?" Bunnymund whispered, eyes narrowing before he bound forward and looked up through the skylight to the moon. The Pooka looked up, while the moon looked down, big and bold, and as if he was holding something back. "You've brought Summer back?"
"No, Bunny, not Summer... but Summer," Tooth corrected him, biting her lip.
"It's... Tooth that's the same thing," Aster said quietly, rubbing his temple between his eyes.
"No, it's not. One is the season, the other is the personification of the season. We think. He saw a bird flying through Canada last night too, one with amazing red feathers-"
"A parrot?" he replied sarcastically, and Tooth slapped his forearm in frustration.
"No! Ugh... Sandy, you tell him."
The three Guardians turned to the eldest of them, and the golden little man gaped at them before shrugging and conjuring a question mark above his head.
"I don't know how you're going to explain it, but he's just not understanding me," Tooth moaned, rubbing the back of her neck while Aster and North shared a questioning look and rolled their eyes.
"Yeah, so send in the mute to tell me what's going on..." he muttered, low enough so Tooth wouldn't hear but North would, and he set the older man off into laughter.
He watched Sandy intently though, watching as he conjured up a cloud of sand that half morphed into images, but changed midway so he never got a clear image of what it was. Then a look of inspiration lit his face, and he morphed the sand above his head, so slowly it shaped one of the most beautiful birds he could have imagined. He knew of legends, knew of mythical creatures seeing as he was technically one as well. This bird... this was a phoenix, a creature of the sun and flame and eternal life. What it was doing flying around the globe was beyond him, but he sure as hell wanted to find out.
"What about it, Sandy?" he asked, and then Tooth chipped in.
"It's bringing Summer... but we need to know where it came from."
"Wouldn't it be more easy to ask Mani?" North asked, his voice booming out.
"Can do. It was like this with that damned Groundhog donkeys ago, remember? Let him get used to things on his own for a bit before he sent us in to welcome him over," Aster added, his face sour. He really hated the Groundhog, and the others knew, and snickered slightly to themselves as he relived the memory of their first meeting. The creature was, admittedly, very annoying.
"Then we ask Mani!" North bellowed happily, turning to look up at the hatch the moon shone through. Each Guardian looked up in curiosity, and slowly the moon grew brighter. "Mani, you have brought us new spirit, no?" North asked with a wide smile on his face. And from the stone flooring where their murals were, rose the podium, the clear crystal shining in the moonlight and their eyes widened as a figure formed in the light upon the tip of the crystal.
Each Guardian approached to inspect the figure of a girl more closely, looking at her knee length dress and short choppy hair. Then Aster looked at the girls face, looking into those eyes, and he reeled back in shock. The others gave him a strange look, and continued inspecting the look of this girl, muttering about how she looked nice, friendly enough, and the bunny shuffled further away from them, sat on the ground and struggled to control his breathing. It couldn't be her, there was no way, and as he looked over again at the light he tried to tell himself that he was just fooling himself into believing that, he was thinking about her too much and he was imagining her face on this new person. And the others had seen her too, they knew how she looked, they'd have recognised her if it was her...
But he'd known her better, saw her more... he'd recognise that face and those eyes anywhere. He was only vaguely aware that North had approached him, was knelt beside him with one hand on his shoulder.
"You okay Bunny?" he asked again, gently, his voice very soft. There was something Aster saw in those blue eyes that made him wonder, but he ignored it, nodded his head sharply and whispered a 'yeah'.
"Mate, there's something I need to do," he said quietly, and North nodded a little before backing off and watching the Pooka Guardian. "But we... we should keep an eyes out for the girl, and I have an idea."
Both Tooth and Sandy had methods of looking about for such an outstanding bird all over the world, and it wouldn't take a minute for him to get there with his tunnels. North too, he could use his magic portals to get there whence he was made aware of where the girl was. He explained his plan to them, how Tooth and Sandy could keep feelers out there with the mini fairies and the sand and he'd get there as soon as possible when he was made aware the location. They all went about chattering about it, and he slipped away, looking out the window and sighing slightly as let his mind wander back to the topic that made his heart hurt that morning. He needed to do it more now, since seeing the face in the light, he needed to check...
It hadn't felt the same without Eleanor these past ten years, and he decided he should go and pay his respects to her today while he had the chance. He couldn't have managed it later in the month, he knew that. Tapping his foot lightly on the ground, he opened a tunnel and leapt down it, not looking at his friends who had been watching him carefully, noting how sad he looked and letting him be as he went about doing what he needed to do.
When Aster had disappeared down the hole North shared a sad look with Tooth and Sandy. Of course they all remembered the child who had become such close friends with Bunny those years ago, the girl who grew and saw them all, believed so strongly. They each remembered that night she had died, how her light on the globe flickered and went out, and how when they looked into it they were horrified to find out she was dead. It was a few hours later that Aster appeared, standing in the doorway looking shell shocked and broken. How he never said a word, because he knew they already knew, and how when he thought they'd left him to grieve he'd broken down in tears, and didn't even care that Tooth had him in her arms, hushing him and stroking his head, swallowing a lump in her own throat.
The Russian walked to a cabinet and pulled out one long, thin candle, set it up on a golden candlestick and lit it, watching the flame for a small while. They did it every year, lit one candle for her at the start of her birth month that would burn all the way through. Because never had one child touched them so much, loved them so much, and believed so strongly. They loved her, respected her, and paid tribute to her memory.
"Sleep well, Eleanor," North whispered, while Tooth echoed his words and Sandy nodded slightly, each staring into the yellow flame as it burned.