(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: anxiety)

-Ranya-

Seeing the Guardians on my doorstep was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. Even greater than getting a hundred favorites on one of my fanfictions, or if I one day solved the mysteries of Windshallow. I breathed in the Guardians' magic and mystery and, well, awesomeness. North—Santa; Bunny—the Easter Bunny; Sandy—the Sandman; Tooth—the Tooth Fairy; and Jack Frost. Sandy wore a glittering robe of what I knew to be glowing golden Dreamsand, his expression pleasant. Tooth's insect-like wings hummed as she hovered, and her multicolored iridescent feathers shone like her smile. North, his body large and covered in what I knew to be a red fur-lined coat, stood nearly two feet taller than I, and he also grinned, while Bunny, with his furry rabbit ears, stood a little taller. His humanoid body was covered in soft blue fur, though he scowled. The immortal teenage Jack's staff, sweatshirt, and tight-fitting pants glistened with frost. His expression was blank.

I wished I could see them not as a spiraling rave party, but hopefully they'd spend the night.

As I tried to stand, I realized I shook. My smile felt like it was stretched wide enough to be a maniac's. I have to calm down. I somehow pulled myself to my feet, but the world slid out from beneath me, and I fell again.

"Mrs. Kirkwood," North said in his Russian accent. Hearing his voice in real life made me laugh with hysteria. It was a loud, uncontrollable sound.

Bunny's eyes widened as he looked at me, and he took a step back. His stare darted from his fellow Guardians to my mom. "What's she doing?" His accent was a twangy Australian.

"She's excited." Isabelle took a few steps toward the Guardians. Her hands pressed together.

North—the Guardians' official leader below the Man in the Moon—strode toward her. My mom let him through. "You're Isabelle, correct?"

She nodded. "And this is my sister, Ranya." She gestured at me.

Zachary ran from her side around legs to Bunny. "Hi!" Zachary grinned. "I'm Zachary. Are you a monster?"

Bunny shook his head, and smiled. "I'm the Easter Bunny."

"That sucks."

Bunny's face took on the same expression he'd looked at me with as Zachary ran back.

My dad strode toward the five immortal beings, rubbing his hands together in the cold. "You must be the Guardians."

North nodded. "May we come in?" Despite the fact that he already stood inside.

"Yes."

I struggled to stand again, and this time I managed to stay on my feet, though I swayed. But I couldn't force my mad smile down.

"Is she all right?" North glanced at me with a raised eyebrow.

"The Watcher appears in my dreams, and when he does, he makes me hallucinate that day," I said as I careened back to the floor.

As the world spun, hands gripped my armpits and lifted me from the scratchy carpet. Before I could process, I was on the stiff couch in the living room.

"What do you hallucinate?" Through the whirling, I could just make out Tooth hovering a foot from my face.

"Everything flashes neon colors," I explained, "and the world spins beneath me. Words move when I try to read them. The Watcher wipes my memory of him every time he sees me watching, too," I added. Tooth was the Guardian of Memories, after all. She might want to know.

Her eyebrows furrowed deeply, and she touched my arm. "Who's the Watcher?"

"He's this guy who's been stalking my family since I was at least eight if not younger, even when we moved from Haineston to Windshallow. He has black and gold armor, and a gold staff and markings on his face. I don't know all his powers, but from what I've seen, they have to do with death. And mindwiping and traveling into people's dreams."

As my vision settled, I noticed the other Guardians standing around me.

"I've seen him work with Pitch," I continued.

"When?" North took Tooth's place in front of me, and he looked over my face with his bright supposed-to-be-blue eyes.

I glanced over at where Isabelle sat in a chair at the dining table. She had clutched her hands to her chest, but stared at me with an accusatory look.

I focused back on North. "The day Isabelle's Guardian Angel died six years ago." Isabelle gasped, and I continued, "He was trying to warn me. He said he was being hunted. He barely gave me the message before Pitch and the Watcher appeared. I saw the Watcher, but I know Pitch was there because Black Sand attacked me. I didn't even believe in Pitch back then, so I shouldn't have been able to see it, but I did. Neither Isabelle nor I heard from her Guardian Angel after that, so I presumed him dead."

North's face morphed into what looked like forced blankness.

"You knew it happened?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Ranya, I think Sandy should look into your dreams." He stepped to the side, and Sandy floated in front of me. Two Dreamsand bowls formed above his head.

"Huh?" I said. Interpreting his symbols sounded a lot easier in fanfictions.

"Close your eyes," Tooth said behind me, so I did.

I stared into the blackness lit with red from the living room lights. A hand pressed lightly on either side of my temple.

Colors flashed across my vision like a thousand lasers, forming images—dreams in their right colors, but the ones where I had seen the Watcher. One was when, exploring the Windshallow mists, I'd come up with a fantastic story idea that I realized was awful upon waking. An unfamiliar dream where a bottomless pit layered with tall Black Sand spikes opened up beneath me as I ran through a forest with dying trees, the Watcher's powers' sharp smell singing through the air. Another where I planted a garden of large, blooming jungle plants.

Hundreds of dreams passed my eyes, each a few seconds long before it flickered out and another took its place. Eventually, the one from last night came into view. I had been running across a creaking wooden bridge over roaring rapids in search of a potion that would turn me into North. I was halfway across before I saw the Watcher out of the corner of my eye.

The dream and its sights and sounds vanished, and suddenly, the Watcher's face took the center of my vision. His gold eyes glowed unrelentingly.

A piercing pain behind mine quickly grew.

I tried to take it for as long as I could, but I didn't last a few seconds before I opened my eyes and threw Sandy's hands off my head with a, "Stop!"

The Guardians stared at me as I rubbed my face. The pain soon faded.

"I saw the Watcher at the end, and then it burned," I explained before they could ask.

Sandy furrowed his eyebrows at me, and tapped his chin. He shook his head.

"You don't know what happened?" North said.

Sandy nodded.

"Does it worry you?" Tooth asked from my right. It took me a second to realize she was asking me.

"Well, it's the reason I have no friends," I replied. Normally, my tongue would nearly sting from the bitterness of these words, but with the Guardians here, a wash of bright sparks lit my chest, bursting over the painful memories so I couldn't feel them. "No one believes why I walk around like I'm drugged sometimes. But… I fear he may attack my family one day."

The Guardians watched me for a second, and then North nodded and stepped back. He glanced over at the rest of my family. "Perhaps it's time we tell you why we're here."

"Are you going to protect us from Pitch?" Isabelle asked.

"While we're here, yes."

"How long will you stay?"

"Until… First, we'll explain why we came."

"All right…"

The Guardians stepped away from me and congregated in the middle of the living room. The rest of my family sat—Isabelle and my dad on the couch with me, and Zachary sitting on my mom's lap in the matching chair. My fingers still trembled with electrical excitement at my sides. I wasn't sure how I would ever get to sleep tonight. But I could finally make myself frown because the Guardians' announcement would put my sister in danger.

North stood at the front of the group, but he gave Jack a little push to join him. "Would you like to tell story?" North asked, omitting the "the" like he sometimes did.

"Sure." Jack looked around at my family seated in a semicircle. He gave a grim smile. "Do you all know who Pitch is?"

My mom nodded. "Due to Ranya's love for your books and movie. Can't he manipulate nightmares and shadows in his attacks?"

Jack returned the nod. "He feeds off of fear. He can teleport through shadows, too." Jack cast a glance around the group, not settling on one person, before beginning his story. "This morning, I was giving snow to a town in Argentina when something caught my eye: a news story about some strange storms. One of them had hit my hometown, Burgess. I flew over as fast as I could. My friends were fine, but one of them, Jamie, told me how the hallucinations had tried to kill.

"I immediately suspected Pitch—I didn't know who else it could be. I was about to go tell North when a suspicious shadow appeared in an alley. When I investigated, Pitch revealed himself to me. He threatened that he was going to kill a girl named Isabelle Faber Kirkwood if she ever became a spirit. He said he had a way of tracking her."

"Jack!" North interrupted as Isabelle froze. He gripped Jack's shoulder and gave him a reproachful look. "Why didn't you tell us about that threat?"

Jack blinked and grimaced. He seemed to stare inward at himself. Then he looked up at North. "I… I didn't realize it at first. Only now that it's gone… It disappeared just a few seconds ago. Some force convinced me not to tell you. It… soothed me."

I strained my eyes for anyone dangerous nearby, and everyone fell silent. Isabelle sat stock still. My parents craned their necks, searching, while Zachary tried to wriggle free of my mom's grasp.

Then North looked to me. "Do you think the Watcher could have caused this 'soothing'?"

I frowned. "I've never noticed him doing anything like that before, but I wouldn't rule it out."

"Pitch has never mitigated someone's fears before… I don't believe he can."

A breeze scuttled around the house. The floor creaked. Beside me, Isabelle's breaths were short and quick.

Then Jack continued, "Pitch also said that he'd already released his Terror Storms and Fear Angels, but that he's waiting until later for the rest. It seemed suspicious to me; I flew to North's workshop to tell him, and he gathered the other Guardians. When we asked the Man in the Moon what to do, he chose a new member to help. That's why we think your family can see us."

"How could Pitch have known…?" North mumbled.

Jack turned to my sister, the tendons on his neck visible, said, "The Man in the Moon chose you, Isabelle."

(A/N: All favorites, comments, and follows are greatly appreciated!)