Astéri Somniorum

The Guardian

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The sound of hushed giggles and whispers reached Rue's ears. Rue squints her eyes to find small childlike beings huddled up together staring at her in innocent curiosity. Rue's eyes widen when her eyes settle, she sits up quickly in surprise, startling the small spirits into hiding. Rue finds herself surrounded by a field of white flowers that continues past her view. 

Rue looks around confused, deciding to continue forward, the flowers shifting to the side to clear out of her path.  

"Where am I?" Rue mutters to herself in awe. A mature feminine voice takes her out of her thoughts, "You are in the link between reality and dreams." Rue turned around and saw a tall feminine being in white clothing smiling warmly at her. 

Rue stared at the woman in astonishment, "Who are you?" The woman walks up to Rue, still holding her welcoming smile, "I am the Guardian of the Starlight plains, as well as the protector of the Starlilies that grow here." The Guardian motions to the meadow of flowers that surround them. "The little ones who are hiding are my little helpers the Starlight's."  Rue looks at her area to see the Starlight's peeking out from the flowers in the field. Rue waves a humble greeting to them, to which they shyly hide backing to field, small giggles giving away their location. 

Rue laughs a little at their behavior, she soon takes notice of large amounts of flowers that were black, she asks what is wrong with those flowers. 

The Guardian frowns, quoting, "Those are Starlilies corrupted by the Nightmares, who have stolen the Wish Stars of dreamers, this allows the nightmares to hide within dreamers to find their next target making patches like this." 

Rue absently begins to walk over to them but is stopped by Starlight's surrounding her, disallowing her to continue. One walks up looking more of a higher rank than the other Starlight's and explains that it's dangerous for a Dreamer to be in close contact with corrupt Starlilies without proper protection. Rue looks back at the Guardian and asks, "Can't you fix it?"   

"We are," the Guardian answers. "However, each patch that is purified, another one is made. For now, our temporary method of action is placing seals around the patches that have grown to stop the corruption from spreading all over the meadow until the StarNight's purify that patch." 

"How many StarNight's are there?" Rue asks. The Guardian looks down for a moment, before looking up again. "There are two currently in this region, there used to be more. However, after six of my Soldiers went missing, the number has dwindled over the years." 

They were last seen going with Gatekeeper, to banish a Nightmare known as 'Malacow'. 

"However, over time I felt their connection was faltering, so I called for there Starlilies to watch them closely, to see what was wrong." A Starlight walks up to the Guardian leaning on her side, The Guardian smiles at the action patting its head. "One by one there Starlilies darkened, and I could no longer feel a connection to them. That never happened before and I started to fear for the worst but still had hope that Gatekeeper would bring them back but only Gatekeeper returned, telling me he couldn't find them."  

"Does that mean there...?" Rue hesitantly asks. The Guardian shakes her head, "No thankfully, I just no longer feel their presence, through the Starlilies" The Guardian looks up at Rue, "However I feel a familiar presence inside of you." Rue looks up in confusion pointing to herself, "Me?" The Guardian nods leaning forward, "May I look at your Wish Star for a moment?" Rue looks confused but nods, suddenly out of her chest is a four-pointed star with four more floating shards.