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(Original prompt: "magical guardian with an unfortunate source of power")
It's pretty rare they call on me, you know. You'd think I'd be excited.
No one knows me outside of the Guardians, which is probably for the best. It seems like the kind of thing I'd get kidnapped for in a movie, or something, or where someone would try and force me to use my powers for them.
It's probably also a kindness; after all, it's not like it would help anyone to know what I do. People get a glimpse of the sparkly champions that saved the day, and I go home, turn on Netflix, get some ice cream, and let myself have some distance before I think about it.
This makes the sixth time. I remember each one keenly, doing then what I do now—staff in hand, resting on the bare earth, taking a deep breath. The familiar weight of the diadem upon my head the fanciest part of my costume—compared to the others, I look downright plain and unadorned. A little bit of frills on my half-apron, a hem that trails longer in the back, a pair of gloves just long enough to look fancy.
I tie my hair back in a ponytail. It works up a little bit of a sweat, you know.
The thing is, sometimes the horrors are too big, and the light isn't bright enough, and someone makes a mistake here or there, and—that's okay. Everyone does. And I think that's the important part of life—to keep going, to learn from those mistakes, to not just let it end because you faltered. It's what I tell them, every time, when I take this cohort's leader's hands and tell her that it's going to be all right under the shadowed skies.
On the horizon, the figure of the Empress Nevermore stretches up toward the sky, shadows coalescing around her and becoming part of her; color draining from the earth in a wide circle moving rapidly toward us. Time to get to work.
One last breath in, filling my lungs, and then I close my eyes, focus my heart, and tap my staff once, twice, thrice against the ground.
I can almost see it, even through my closed eyes—the overwhelming sense of green, the warmth of the earth, the surge of *life* and all that it bears with it. Pain and hope and perseverance, bursting forth from the ground in great luminous vines, surrounding the shadows and driving through the heart of it. Dispelling the darkness.
The first few times I kept my eyes closed, but I've started opening them, once I no longer need to focus. It seems like the right way to honor the situation—to watch that light climb and climb and grow until no shadow remains, and the lance of it shoots up and parts the clouds before disappearing into the dawn.
I turn to nod to the girls clustered behind me. "It's done," I say, and again for emphasis: "It'll be all right."
Blossoming Peony, at the center of them, nods—in a combination of awe and horror, clutching her wand to her chest, the rest of her friends glued to her shoulders. They have each other—I'm not worried about them. They'll go home, and back to their lives soon enough, and the memory of today will fade for them.
And hopefully, by the time it matters, they'll barely even notice the year missing off each of their lives, just like every other person on Earth.
I, instead, set off toward the sunrise, through the surge of plant growth and wild blooms. There's one thing left for me to do.
At the center of the circle of new wilderness, the plants flatten into a wide circle. And there, at the center, is a single seed, jet black and the size of the pad of my thumb.
I've never known what to do with them; my teacher never knew, either. But like everything, I hope someday they'll be worth something.