Guardians

Full story that had to get cut for page limit in actual project |Part 2|

It took about half an hour, but eventually, Kai won. Which was admittedly the usual outcome of their duels. Kai was an extraordinary fighter. They usually dueled with quarter staffs, so they could hit each other without worrying too much about injury, but they trained with a variety of weapons.
After training, they usually went to lunch. Any normal being would probably have been tired and walked there slowly, but they weren't normal beings.
"Race You!" Kai yelled, running down the hall.
"Oh, you're on!" She calls, launching into the air. She enjoyed their races. Maybe because it was one of the things she could actually win. Kai was a fast runner, but while his small wings could give him a bit of a boost, he couldn't fly. Which was ultimately the reason he lost.
They almost tied, but Rose was able to pull just a bit ahead. She was a pretty fast flyer, so the fact that Kai can almost tie with her on foot is just downright impressive. He was getting better and better everyday, a fact that she very much admired.
She didn't improve much anymore. Her defensive skills were about as good as they could get, and she wasn't much of a fighter, in her opinion. So, the only skill she was improving in was flight. Since there was no one who could teach her new techniques and what not, she had to learn everything from books, and by messing around. Which she would do for hours, until she figured something out. Kai would help her as much as he could, providing her with mock attacks to dodge while in the air. Just yesterday, she figured out how to swoop really low to the ground and knock someone off their feet. They both got some bruises and scratches from that.

Today's lunch was rice and dumplings, along with these little weird looking green things, which she assumed to be a vegetable of some sort. She would never understand where the food came from. She knew it was neither her nor Kai who was making it, and no one else lived there.
But, it had showed up everyday at mealtimes for years. Kai thought that maybe the table was enchanted or something, and Rose didn't have any better theories.
"So, nice weather we're having, huh? I really like all the freezing sunshine." Kai said, grinning
"Why, Kai. Why do you do this? The weather up here has hardly ever changed!"
"I know, just trying to make small talk..."
"Find better small talk questions!"
"Only if you stop wearing that hoodie everywhere"
Dang it. Her weakness. Criticism of her outfit.
As guards, they technically had a uniform. Both of them had a shoulderless top, but Kai had long pants (with a lot of tears in them from messing around), and Rose had shorts. Neither of them had shoes, just these weird foot wrap things. It was probably because their feet were weird, and didn't fit very well into human shoes, but they were fine with it.
Now, technically, Rose did have the entire uniform on. She just also happened to have a large hoodie on over it. Which Kai insisted slowed her down, but who cares? Still, she was gonna need to change the subject.
"So... Remind me, what were you saying about Anteaters yesterday?"
She then had to listen to Kai rant about how Anteaters were weird, and shouldn't exist, for like over 20 minutes. She should've changed the subject to literally anything else. She could've asked about artifacts, or what he thought about the other guards.
There were in fact guards all along the path and at the base of each flight of stairs leading up to the temple grounds. They had just hardly ever seen them. There was one person who brought them supplies every month, and he never came through the gates. Tyler, his name was. Rose enjoyed his visits, even if he couldn't enter the grounds. He would often stand and talk to them for a while before leaving. It was nice to talk to someone other than Kai, every once in a while. Speaking of Tyler, it was probably about time he visited again...
CRACKSH
Tyler slammed through the door, bloody and panting. What the...? Why was he here..? And why was he bleeding?!? Rose and Kai rushed over to help him. He was sagging tremendously, and upon inspection, it was easy to see the large gash on his shoulder, as well as something definitely wrong with his foot.
"Rose, go grab that emergency medkit I put in the kitchen!"
Rose flew to the cabinet, cursing Kai for never keeping it cleaned, and dug through it for the medkit. Finding it, she rushed back to the dining hall.
"Tyler, what happened?!" She heard Kai ask, as she entered.
"We're under attack" was Tyler's response.
"What?!?" the siblings exclaimed.