Gladekeeper’s Call - another book in the battle of Gladekeeper and her sister the Plaguebringer.

The deity of the lush woodlands had long hoped that her isolation from the conflict of the world, that had brought such devastation, would keep her people safe. But her sister was well-named, her plague, harrying at her, taking away the peace she had intended for her haven.
“You will never be alone, sister, you cannot be alone! I will prove it!” the mistress of decay hissed.
“I have already listened.” The words of the mistress of life seemed to come from all the leaves of all the foliage of the domain that was part of her. “You hate life - “
“No, you have not!” The Plaguebringer shrieked, and attacked again and again. The Gladekeeper looked towards the Pillar of the World and the Sky beyond, and made her plea.
Stone was slow, imbued with his nature, but he had long seen this, and had only been waiting. Earthshaker was the first to answer.

chapter 1 - Sap’s Search
The young Guardian had not come of age quite yet. The outline of adulthood had only just formed from hatchling shape. But he was precocious in his yearning and it was that alone that had his sister and parents joining him to spend the night in vigil at the Pillar of the World.

It was the morning and he was restless. He turned to his brilliant Progenitors and shining sister, such bright jewels, and none had to ask what they had seen. Only, how.

“I saw him content. Looking to a future only he could see,” said dark Cristina. “The lairs will prosper well, before I am gone from here.”

“I saw him weeping,” the young male said quietly. “But he looked east, not south. I will be gone ere sundown.”

Dreamwalker looked at his mate, who nuzzled against his beard, neither able to fully contain their sorrow or their joy. Their children ready to find their own way, even young. Proof that they could now heed the call to theirs. Tincture spoke. “We both saw his eyes bright with welcome, head high. We go to the Earthshaker...together.”

The day was precious to them, and full of shared memory, of grands and greats, the living gems of Earth.

On the way east in the growing dark away from where the sun set, the young male was not lonely. The sky shown with all the night-rich colors of his loved ones, from all the generations behind him. And young as he was, the yearning that his sister felt afar off, pulled him ever more insistently, pulled him away from the bedrock and broken stone. Surely it must be a strong charge awaiting him. An immense need, for the Search to have wrested him from Dragonhome so early in life!

By the time he felt the need to sleep, the false dawn hinted at alien contours. The night sounds rustled softly, muffled, without the echo of rocky walls, and the breeze promised a lushness he had never smelled before.

He woke to a sound he had never imagined could exist. He had never heard the sound of wood, aside from the snapping and crackling of the gnarled rock brush in a fire. This had a solid low thick sound, round yet sharp, like and yet unlike the cracking together of stones. And if it wasn’t happening right outside his ear, he might even have liked it. He shook his head, huffed in mild annoyance, and saw a flicker of something impossibly bright, out of the corner of his eye, just as the constant tok-tok-tok ceased. He rolled over and stretched, fanning out his chest fins and sniffed at the sweet minty scent of the foliage crushed under his bulk. He had found a sweet bed indeed.

And all around him, green. He had not imagined this many shades could be, and it mesmerized him.

“Oh-you-are-so-much-bigger-than-I-thought-great-one!” Said a voice so like the sound before, that he almost thought them from the same source. Toktoktoktoktok, so fast it was hard to make words out of it, except the last.

“Great one?” He rumbled. He was still small among his people. “Don’t talk so fast. And what are you anyway?” The darting figure that spoke to him. Was it moth or bug or sprite or spirit? A mouse with wings of fire, a living flower? All the things travellers to the Pillar talked of. It was so tiny! He rolled over again, so that he could try to swing his head around fast enough to follow it.

“Hey! Stop for a minute!” He forgot what little annoyance he had, chuckling low at the tiny thing who talked a mile a minute. He wanted to see it, and he was all but cross-eyed trying. And it did, by abruptly plopping itself on the tip of his nose. He felt a tiny claw in a nostril and sneezed, and the little thing grasped hard along the opaline edge in front of one eye.

“Oooh- I -can -see -myself-!” It tok-tokked again, chittering excitedly at his reflection in the facets.

“Good, now I can see you too.” His earth yellow eyes widened. “You - you are a toy? A made thing?” It had to be magic, a manikin in the shape of a dragonish sprite. That would explain the curious clacking monotone.

“No!” And the curious fins around it’s head bristled, and became just a shade darker. “I-am-a-Fae!”

“A fairy?”

“A fae, silly!” And it stuck out its tongue and blew a raspberry. A very very very tiny one, then made a sound like so many clacking wooden wind chimes. “And I know what you are! A, ah -“ it suddenly disappeared, and the young dragon heard the sound of its wings receding, following his length before zipping back and hovering gracefully in front of him. “I...don’t know what you are…” There was something plaintive in the way he hung before he brightened. “But I will call you ‘Sap’!” He announced brightly. “Because you are all the colors of the tree sap I love!”

“Oh will you now? Then I will call you Tok, because you sound like it!”

“Ooooooh,” The little one hummed. “I didn’t have a name yet.”

Sap lumbered to his feet. “It was good to meet you, but I must continue my Search.” He said, not unkindly. It burned inside him, it would not let him linger another moment. He surged forward, into the dark stand of trees in front of him.

Even though it was full morning now, the way inside was dim and he was heading downwards. The little Fae followed, he could tell by the sound of wings as Tok darted hither and yon, unafraid in the company of his new friend.

There was a gash in the softening ground, where forest gave way to marsh, then dankish swamp. Sap wrinkled his nose and sneezed again, hoping this place was not going to be his destined guarding place. But the Search was a hard ache. There was something about this place….

*Earthshaker, Father, where have you sent me?*

There was a snap and a sudden squeak, as before his eyes some reddish ropy foulness grabbed the fragile little thing midair. The ache became a roaring in his ears. His own, as he stumbled into a tangle of ropy mess, and saw the sudden flash of green light ahead of him.

He saw legend come to life. Who had not heard of the Gladekeeper’s constant battle with the Plaguebringer? Each one struggling for purchase, winning, losing, in the wild edgelands.

And here, in front of him, and how did he not know? A fledgling mage, Gladekeeper’s child, struggled in the choking grasp of Plague.

His charge. His guardianship, was this. To protect, this one small thing.

He thought his charge would be vast. Important. And he saw that it was, and more.

The tiny thing did not give up, not for a moment. Fearless, even as his light grew dimmer. Sap drove forward, jaws pulling, ripping, grinding, legs trampling, squelching in the stinking mud. Backwinging with all his strength, as his jaws closed ever so gently around the tiny mage, he moved backwards away from the trap, til he saw light behind him.

He lay the little mage in the sweet grass in the morning light, and folded himself to watch Tok breathing.

“Now I know why my Father sent me east so soon,” he said, in the softest rumble. “I had to get to you in time.”

The tiny one, the fledgling, who hadn’t even come into his power and had fought anyway, knowing his duty, opened his eyes and smiled. “I know what you are. You are my Guardian.”

(Origin lair: Schingiuire)
[Of Clans and Shade protagonist]
(originally written for the Writer’s Hatchery)