To Ally with the Guardians

Chapter 21: What Once Had Been

"Mallory?"

Mallory looked behind him, away from the documents in his hands, to see Whisper hiding behind the pink tree his kids were playing around. Everyone had to wait to put the plan into action until the afternoon, when her powers would be completely back.

"I want to talk to you about something. Follow me." She began walking away, weaving around the children that were half-heartedly playing and the Yetis watching over them.

Mallory got a couple of Yetis to watch his kids before telling Jamie and Sophie, "I'll be right back." He then followed Whisper with his translated records.

Mallory went with her around the very edges of the Warren, and they soon made it to a small dark cave behind a large rock. Slipping inside after her, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the blackness.

The human sat down on the cool stone floor, but he heard no noises that would indicate that Whisper did the same. Instead, he heard pacing footsteps and saw a slowly-sharpening shape moving around the cave. Whisper stuck her hand in one of her pockets and pulled out what Mallory assumed to be Matt's grandpa's thermometer, looked at it, and then put it back. Had her Monitor looked similar?

She breathed in and out and then turned, now standing perfectly still in a single location as she faced him. "To begin, I am only telling you this because I no longer need to hide this information from you. All of the Fearlings are now on Earth and aren't likely to leave, for although they are strong, they are too forever weak to break through the barrier around this planet, they have destroyed a lot of what they would be interested in in other places, and they want to seek revenge against the Guardians and others. I wouldn't be telling you what I am about to if these facts weren't true."

Mallory didn't exactly know what to think about Whisper's statement, but he had a feeling it would make sense later.

She took another shuddering breath and continued, blinking excessively. "I was...um...hoping you could help me. Like you offered earlier." Mallory nodded, though he wasn't sure she could see it in the dark.

"Don't worry. You can talk to me. I won't tell anyone about this if you don't want me to." He wasn't allowed to inform people about his former clients without permission except in certain circumstances anyway. While this wasn't a professional counseling session with pay and laws, it would still bother his conscious if he didn't abide by them now.

A tear slipped down Whisper's cheek. "I...I don't know if I want other people to know or not. You decide if...it would be beneficial." She paced around the room again, her chest rising and falling. Mallory let her take her time. Although he was anxious to continue working on the cure just in case, he knew that he had to be patient. Whatever Whisper was planning to talk about was clearly a sensitive subject, and it would be best not to rush her. She just needed some time to gather her courage.

Her hands fiddled with the thermometer again, and then she stopped pacing.

*/*/*/*

Whisper concentrated on Mallory's toes, unable to look at anything closer to his face. Memories bubbled up as she thought of what she would say. She tried to partially push them down, pretend she hadn't lost anything, but it was difficult to maintain that half-consciousness.

"The Prophecy I Monitored was that...was that..." She grasped the thermometer in her pocket and pretended that it held white and black liquid instead of red. Pretended that along one side, in Latin, was the phrase, "One shall triumph in the end." Yet tears still threatened to fall. "It was that either darkness or light would prevail completely over the Golden Age." She pretended that the contents of her "Monitor" changed not based on the temperature around it but based on how much power each side had. A couple of tears escaped from her eyes, despite how much she tried to keep them from falling.