The Weeping Willow [Rise of the Guardians]

Chapter 12

Dedicated to Hollowolf for making me laugh ;)~

My Summer has been crazy hectic (I'm uploading this chapter in February, so.... go figure. This is how terrible my writer's block has been on this story :c); I seriously never knew my boring life would ever get so busy. Thank you for everyone who has helped TWW get as far as it is currently, even those ghost readers every story has ;) I think I'll save the rest of my Author's Note for the end of the chappy, just to see which of you read the beginning part before the rest. Comment your favorite ice cream flavor so I know you read this ;)

Now read on, lovies~

~~~

Willow's hair whipped around her face as she shook her head, desperate for the memories to leave her tormented mind. The past was in the past, there was nothing she could do to change what had been done, nothing she could have fixed to stop what had happened back then.

Back when she was still a naive new spirit, who just as a child, could not tell right from wrong. She had lived back then for herself, but that was no longer who she was, so why then should she dwell on it? She had others to live for now, just as she had others to live for before.

With a staggering leap forward, Willow pushed through the flurry of leaves, arriving at the perimeter of the oldest willow tree of all. It's great boughs creaked wearily to the side, allowing her to enter the very heart of the cascading leaves and walk tenderly towards the trunk of the ancient tree.

Placing her hand against the wood, the base began to glow. Slowly yet surely the old branches began to spin over her head, the moonlight that filtered through the leaves was replaced with a warm candlelight, and the dirt beneath her feet quivered into a great slab of black marble with a thin layer of water coating its surface.

Turning away from the trunk she looked around her, a small smile gracing her lips.

She was home.

~~~

"...And right now our main priority is to convince Willow that she's meant to be a Guardian and then kick Pitch out of the picture that he somehow found a way back into," Jack summed his tale up, very aware that over the course of his story, he'd gained quite the audience.

For one, a two foot tall rat sat next to his foot, running a paw over his whiskers as though he was 'stroking his beard' in a thoughtful, contemplative gesture.

For another thing, Head Sister Dýr now had a child-sized dryad on either knee, and another had slung his arms around her shoulders. Head Brother SaTanom likewise had a handful of young dryads gathered around his legs, though he seemed to pay them little to no mind unlike his doting sister.

Behind the Head Siblings stood Kiburi, the lion dryad Jack had noticed before, and perched on his left shoulder sat Dusky, the dryad of the dusk langurs.

In all, Jack's audience had grown from five listeners, to about thirty listeners, making the spirit suddenly rather self-conscious when he took in how stately a few of them stood. Others, like the apple tree dryad he'd spotted before, were sat criss-cross applesauce on the floor before him, like children bubbling with excitement for story time.

"A bit of advice from one spirit to the next," Head Brother SaTanom's voice rumbled, "when it comes to dealing with creatures such as the Weeping Willow, by wary."

Jack paused for a moment. "Wary? Wary why?"

"Well-"

"It's not our story to tell," Head Sister Dýr's voice cut through her brother's as she laid a delicate hand on his arm and looked him straight in the eye. A silent conversation passed between the two, words traveling from one to the other in a simple gaze. Head Brother SaTanom nodded discretely causing a tiny smile to pull at his sister's lips.