Alaia Skyhawk: Here's the next part :)

And I would like to thank Maybell's Stories for the great fanart cover she did for this story. Look for Maybellsspot on Deviantart it you'd like to see it.

Also HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Wilhelmina Grimm. You said today was going to be your birthday, and it so happens I planned to update yesterday once I got home from London. However, I delayed it a few hours to give you a birthday surprise! Hope you have a great day!

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians, the Guardians of Childhood, or any related characters etc. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes.

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Chapter 121: Reminiscence

It was a slightly harried-looking Pooka that emerged from the small meeting room two days after the weather incident. Leaving behind him several other much more flustered-looking fellows.

It was rather amazing really, in a very embarrassing way, just how many little but potentially catastrophic things had been missed in all the pre-training given to the various types of candidates to become immortals. Things that had slipped by the Pooka Brotherhood, but which were glaringly obvious to the one of their number who had been a Legend Immortal for over fifteen-thousand years.

Bunny ran a paw over his face and let out a sigh, before grimacing to himself and continuing towards one of the Citadel gardens. Sure they probably felt more embarrassed about this than he did, but it was still enough to make him wince when he thought about it. Probably because if he hadn't been an immortal all this time, and gained the knowledge and experience associated with it, he would have made the same mistakes himself.

It made the Pooka Brotherhood's 'no volunteering to become an immortal' policy into a recipe for misunderstanding... Which was why he'd now volunteered to be a consultant for them. Every new training method or alteration to existing ones would be run by him on Earth, before being distributed and used across the Allegiance. Extra work, yes, although it wouldn't be more than a few bits and pieces each year, and it would ward against any future incidents like the one with Emed.

Bunny winced at the thought, knowing exactly what it was like to be on the receiving end of one of Jack's lectures. And the fact he was so easy-going and cheerful most of the time, was part of why his lectures hit home so hard when he did come out with them. You never saw them coming, not from him.

Bunny reached the exit to the gardens, heading out along one of the winding paths among the depths of the greenery. Finding a place where a grove of trees left patches of dappled sunlight to stream through their leaves to the ground below. Beneath their shelter, among the grass, mossy rocks, and flowers around their roots, it was a lot like the Warren. And he had to admit to himself that, as much as a part of him hoped to one-day pay a visit back to the Pooka homeworld of Kanisarn, the Earth was the home of his heart now. Even if he wasn't a Legend Immortal now, he'd have chosen to stay there.

He sat among the rocks and closed his eyes, letting go of the stresses from his meetings with the other Pookas now on Lumeris. Settling into a half-doze within moments as he listened to the rustle of wind through leaves. As such he didn't hear her when she approached, what with Pooka's being one of the few creatures that can reliably sneak up on another Pooka. His only warning to her presence was when his sister sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.

Lilali sighed, giving him a hug.

"You've changed, and I don't just mean that you're a Legend Immortal." She glanced at him sidelong. "Wyatt, Jakub, and the others you've been meeting with the past two days... I've never seen another Pooka make any of them wince like chastised children, the way you've been making them during the meetings. Before the Fall, you were always the one to avoid things like that. You were always the observer to things, and never a participant. You had to be forced to attend formal gatherings, always preferring to stay in your quarters and study your books."

Bunny let out a sigh, gazing up at the branches overhead.

"I could say the same of you, that you've changed. I can understand all the young'uns born after the Fall, being less sure of things, but all the survivors I've met these past couple of weeks... None of you are as confident as you used to be. You've lost your sense of certainty."

"And you didn't." Lilali moved so that she could snuggle against his shoulder, his arm curling around her shoulders in response. "We spent fifteen thousand years unable to be certain, about Pitch Black or the Fearlings, if or when they would return. It seems so strange to think about it. We had all those years with peace, no fighting, just waiting, and it made us so weak and fearful. When you, who spent all that time living on a world alongside those threats, wasn't afraid at all."

Bunny hugged her, shaking his head.

"You're wrong, I was scared. Deep down I was terrified the whole time, it was just buried beneath my depression and my wish that could die." Lilali flinched, looking at him with eyes wide in shock, and he sighed. "Father Time is the only reason I'm still alive... Old Tsar Lunar I, he turned me into a Legend and used his belief to keep me alive. I shuffled around in my Warren for most of those fifteen thousand years, barely making any contact with the outside world. Even when Tsar Lunar XII recruited me to be a Guardian of Childhood, I didn't talk to people much. I'd just hide little gifts for children to find, now and then, and hide away the rest of the time. I wasn't just a recluse, I was a complete hermit, without a shred of hope in my heart. I had nothing to live for, and only did my job because I felt I had to. Not because I wanted to. I was a pathetic Guardian."

His sister frowned, nudging at him with a paw.

"You were never pathetic."

Bunny smiled sadly.

"Believe me, I was, as hard as that is for you to imagine when seeing me now. It took a warrior fairy, a loud-mouthed sword-swinging wizard, another wizard, a little girl, and a child of starlight to bring me out of it. When they came to me, seeking help to fight the Nightmare King who had broken free of his prison. I was this close to turning them away, but they managed to convince me. They reawakened the warrior in me, the fierce spirit of a Pooka with something to fight for. They taught me to hope again."

He chuckled. "And then there was that Permitted Paradox. I may have been unable to remember it until recently, but Jack helped me too. He was the one who tricked Pitch into becoming a Legend Immortal, weakening him so much it took over all those years for him to gain the strength to attack us again. I was a jerk to Jack for so long, because of events I couldn't even remember and which from his perspective he hadn't taken part in yet. But he proved himself to me, and has been like kid brother to me ever since. The Guardians from Planet Earth became my family, at a time when I believed I had no one else left."

Lilali raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Jack was sent back in time to help you?"

Bunny nodded.

"Aye. Instead of us being the experts at being Guardians, as it was for him during his early life, it was all flipped on it's head. He was sent back to a time before his own birth, and he was the expert and we were the ones in need of teaching. We were fighting Pitch, force with force, the completely wrong thing to do. Jack and Tsar Lunar won that fight for us, as part of Father Time's plan. The paradox ended once Jack went home, but I get the impression that there was more to things than he lets on, that there are parts to the paradox that he hasn't told us about. But if Father Time and Tsar Lunar want him to keep them to himself, that's fine by me. Chances are it's something I wouldn't want to know."

Lilali went quiet, still snuggled against him. Her expression thoughtful as she mulled over what he'd said. She saw what her brother didn't.

"Then Tsar Lunar was the Witness for the paradox?"

"Aye, he was. Who else could it have been, under the circumstances?"

Lilali got to her feet, pacing a little before facing her brother.

"Then Tsar Lunar already knew who he was looking for, when he chose Jack to be an immortal and a Guardian. The paradox wouldn't have ended when he returned to the future, it was still in progress. It wouldn't have ended until he arrived back home in the future. How far back did Father Time send him?"

Bunny went utterly still, and was blanching white beneath his fur at the implications.

"...Over four-hundred years." He let out a strangled choke, leaping to his feet, wide-eyed. "Father Time created a paradox over four-hundred years long? Did he even consider the dangers of that?!"

Lilali hastened to his side, preventing him from heading off to confront said immortal.

"He must have, or he wouldn't have done it! It worked, didn't it? Pitch Black was destroyed, the Fearlings were stopped. What does it matter now, how he did it? The paradox has ended, there's no danger from it anymore, and without it we wouldn't be stood here having this conversation." She smiled. "You said it yourself, Jack won you that fight. If you had lost that battle, you wouldn't be here now. So I for one am not going to be angry at Father Time... Although I think I will ask him never to do anything that reckless ever again."

She hugged her brother. "Do you think Jack knows? About how long the paradox really was."

Bunny frowned in thought, then sighed.

"He knows. There's no way he wouldn't, poor kid. For him, to find out he'd been manipulated for his entire life up until that point... Yet he never held a grudge for it. First thing he did after he got back, he and me brought Tsar Lunar down to the surface of the Earth for the first time. The first time he'd seen sky, or walked on grass, for over fifteen thousand years. Damn Jack, he puts everyone else to shame without even trying. I suppose it's just as well there'll never be another like him. I don't think the Allegiance could handle having two of him."

Lilali nodded.

"An immortal who is both Guardian and a Spirit of the Seasons, who was created as the heart and focus of a four-century long paradox. I agree, two of him would be a bit much. I have the feeling that even having one of him around, will keep my work lively on Earth."

Her brother went rigid, blinking in confusion.

"Your work... on Earth?"

She smiled at him, eyes lit up with laughter.

"Yes, my work. The Earth won't be joining the Allegiance for a few more years, but that doesn't mean I can't get a head-start as the Pooka Brotherhood's representative there... I asked to transfer. The Earth is, after all, the Capital for Constellation Solus. We cannot neglect to have a representative there, and you have your own duties to consider, Guardian of Hope."

Bunny regarded her with dawning realisation.

"You're coming back to Earth with me?"

She laughed and hugged him tight.

"I lost you once, after you left to lead Tsar Lunar XI and his family into hiding, and then I lost our parents to the battle that Father Time forbid me from going to. I'm not going to stand by and watch my family leave me behind again."

The two of them sat down again against the mossy rocks. Bunny now smiling.

"Then I guess I'd better tell you about my 'niece'."

The two of them stayed there beneath the trees for the rest of the afternoon. Lilali listening with joy and wonderment to the stories her brother told her about Earth and his 'family' there.

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: Yep, Lilali is coming back to Earth with them. Cue fluff and warm fuzzies :)