Okay, from here on out I was unsure about publishing, but MysteriousSherlock encouraged me to put it up, so here we go. This will also have me writing Tara, which I hope I did okay.
Also once again, spoilers again! If you don't want to be spoiled, go read Friend or Foe!
Two weeks later saw me in the bookshop, sitting by my table coated in my various art works. Each one of them showed various elemental actions, or things to do with the Guardians, sometimes both. The links weren't always obvious, I suppose you'd have to have my memory to know each link.
For example, there was one of the Antarctic landscape, and one with me with my hood up fighting Paura in the motorway services. Specifically the moment when we locked hands.
Business was slow, so I was sketching a new piece, one for the ones who had fallen.
We'd lost about fifty from HOG alone, and two from Tracey's pack, and each of them were getting a place on the paper. I had photos of each of them and I was drawing them sitting in the Main Cavern, looking relaxed and not as if they had just died.
I hadn't had proper sleep in those two weeks due to nightmares and war preparations, but I was just with it enough to keep my pencil steady.
All Descendants that were eighteen and over had been called in for intensive training in hand to hand combat and weaponry. Most of them were already pretty good, but we were stepping it up. We were already planning raids, and I wasn't sure when we'd stop, probably when the Descendants of Pitch had surrendered. After that we'd probably go back to shaky peace for a few decades, and honestly, I was tired. I could use some peace that lasted for longer than seven years.
The only reason I was sitting here was because we had a message from North that the new Guardian was going to drop by Burgess, and since Burgess was where I was, it made sense that I'd be here. I wanted to be at work rather than in my flat just to keep myself occupied, and not think about the upcoming war. I wasn't doing myself any favours.
I'd been here a few days, but nightmares and the updates and away work were keeping me tired.
The bell above the shop door went and I looked up from my work to see if I was needed.
In walked in Jack and a girl with pale skin, curly blonde hair and golden eyes. She was dressed in jeans and a grey jumper, almost exactly as I remembered. Except I'm pretty sure she didn't have large, white wings before.
Tara Lumen, the new Guardian.
I put my pencil down and stood up. My bad leg was stiff after sitting there for so long, so I had to use the table to ease myself up.
"Hello there, how can I help?" I asked, giving the standard greeting and trying not to sound as exhausted as I felt.
Jack seemed to be almost in shock. No, I looked closer and saw a lot of relief.
"You're okay." He said, and those two words seemed to lift some weight off his shoulders.
"'Course I am." I said with a grin, Jack had probably guessed that something had been up our end. I hadn't managed to contact him to tell him what happened, he never answered his SPARK anyway. "Takes a lot to get rid of me. After nineteen years I thought you'd know that."
Tara was looking between us, clearly confused. "You two know each other?"
Jack flew forward and hovered upside next to me. "Can't you see the family resemblance?"
"You are asking to have snow dumped on top of you." I said, grin widening.
"No way you can make that much snow so quickly." Jack teased.
"How do know I don't keep some stored up there." I asked, pointing up.
"Jackie! You should be helping customers, not messing around with Jack Frost!" Called Tina from the back room.
"Jack is the customer!" I called back. "Can we use the upstairs room?"
"What do you need the upstairs room for?" Tina poked her head around the door and looked at me and Jack, but seemed to miss Tara.
"Head stuff." I said, and Tina sighed.
"Alright, but I find that you two are messing around up there I'll dock your wages."
I smiled and nodded, knowing she'd never actually do it. "Yes ma'am."
Tina smiled and went back to getting stock from the back room, calling to Sally to be on the shop floor in my place.
"Alright you two." I said, moving forward and motioning to the stairs. "Let's head upstairs."
Jack righted himself, but Tara had become distracted by my artwork, as she often did whenever I'd seen her in the shop.
"So you were drawing things to do with the Guardians the whole time." She said softly.
I looked back at my table to see that she was looking at a popular piece of mine, that I'd had to make copies of. 'Palace of Wonder' was painting of the outside of North's Workshop.
"Yeah, why do you think I didn't do what most adults did, and told you to keep believing."
Tara's head shot up. "You can see me?"
"I have a lot of contacts. I know what happened, and I knew you were coming."
"North and Jamie told you." Said Jack, smirking.
"Still contacts."
"... I really love your work." Said Tara, looking a little embarrassed. "I never said it, especially 'Entrance to Spring'."
I nodded and smiled, that piece was the entrance to Bunnymund's Warren.
"So, you two know each other as well." Said Jack, pleased. "I won't have to waste introducing you."
"Anyway." I said, clapping my hands together. "I know why you're here, so let's head upstairs" I was glad that Tara had finally come, although I knew after this it was back to the war.