Charlie stood on the bridge, watching her the rush of flowing water. She idly wondered how long it would take for the river to carry her to the sea if she just jumped in. Being lost in the endless deep blue didn't seem so bad. It was better than losing her sanity to the crippling anxiety and boredom. And destroying her family's centuries-old legacy. 

It had all happened so fast she still couldn't believe it was real. Springtime was just ripe for rain, but a proper thunderstorm tore through the town last night. The boom rattled the windows, startling her into a series of childish quivering. She peeked out the windows to watch the lightning flash and stretch across the sky. Then suddenly her vision went white. 

It took a distressingly long time for her to regain her eyesight, long enough for panic to completely take over. When she was able to see again, it became immediately obvious what had caused the temporary blindness. Lightning had struck on the southwestern side of her property, starting a fire that had begun to spread across the tops of the apple trees in the plot just east of the pink apple plot. 

Racing out to the porch, she stood frozen in horror as the trees burned, flaming branches falling to the ground and igniting the long grass underneath. As the flames began to rapidly move north, fear compelled her legs to function again. Charlie's screams were drowned out by another blue-silver thunderbolt as it crashed down into the forests farther south. In fear of falling victim to the flames, she ran. 

In hindsight it had been a stupid move. Everyone knows you're supposed to stay indoors during active lightning to avoid being struck. At the time, however, the fear of very real fire was greater than the fear of potential electrocution. She sprinted east towards town, ringing the shop's buzzer like her life depended on it. A startled Tal opened the door, and upon seeing how shaken Charlie was, pulled her inside without question. 

The rain came shortly thereafter, a torrential downpour battering the windows and roof. It lasted for hours, long enough for Charlie's racing heart to settle and drowsiness to take hold. She managed to grab a few hours of sleep on the living room couch before morning arrived, and after a bracing cup of coffee, Griff walked her home to assess the damage. 

The good news was that the rain had snuffed out the fire well before it reached her house. The bad news was the plot of red apple trees—the ones that were set to harvest and ship out that week—had been reduced to nothing by charred stumps and blackened ground. 

Somehow, she managed to keep it together in front of Griff, but as soon as he headed off for his shift at the theater she broke down. Who was she kidding? She wasn't cut out to be a Guardian—she didn't even have the first clue where to begin, or how to do even a fraction of what her grandmother had. Marianne was gone, her mother was gone, her dad was gone—she was all alone, and the only one who could give her a clue where to start was stuck in some weird magical coma. Hell, she couldn't even manage the orchard without fucking that up. 

Curling up into a ball in middle of her bed, she wept bitterly. She was a failure. No matter how hard she tried, she wasn't going to make it out of the abyss she'd fallen into. She had spent all week finalizing paperwork with Crestwick for those apples, counting down the seconds until she could harvest them—or carry the sacks of sprite-gathered fruits into the shipping bin. Now she would have to tell them that Mother Nature wanted those sweet round fruits for herself. 

When her tears were spent and her breathing steady, Charlie forced herself to get up. She needed air. Somewhere clean, away from the smell of charred wood and broken dreams. She swapped her pajamas for a pair of shorts and headed for Forest West. 

There was no way she was going to pass the twisted and charred remnants of her family's pride and joy, so she cut through town. The walk helped, and so did the change in scenery.  

Her inheritance—as specified in Marianne's will—was dispersed on a monthly basis, and this month's deposit had yet to come. She'd already blown through her first one, along with her last paycheck from Jorgen-Chase, with the move. Bellvue hadn't locked in their order for the apples in the green plot yet, and wouldn't for another two weeks, leaving payment for them to come another week on top of that. With the red apples now nothing but ashes, that left Charlie without income for almost three weeks. Well, income for food and other basic living necessities. She'd already paid the utilities and taxes for that month, thank the astrals. She just had to figure it out. 

For a brief second, she considered asking Tal for a part-time position in the shop but dismissed the thought as soon as it came up. She'd rather starve than place a burden on such a kind man, knowing he had little Nate to look after. 

Downgrading her phone plan was the first step. Cell service was outrageously expensive, and she couldn't even use her data anyway. The money saved there could get food until the green plot was ready to harvest and her next inheritance deposit came in.  

Well, some food. It wouldn't cover three weeks' worth of meals, so she was going to have to supplement somehow. She remembered Sophie talking about the forest being full of berries and vegetables to forage, and so she decided to take a look while there was still some daylight left. Passing the black carnage without so much as an upwards glance, she grabbed a tote bag and a few gallon-sized freezer bags from the house and started walking west as soon as she re-crossed the stone bridge. 

 

 

‡    †    ‡ 

 

 

Barely two hours passed and two of the five plastic bags were full of juicy red salmonberries and her tote overflowing with leeks, spring onions, fiddlehead ferns, morels, and another small brown mushroom she couldn't name. She was pretty they weren't poisonous but decided to stop by Sophie's just to be safe. Still, even if those other mushrooms weren't edible, she could totally get by for a while on the other fruits and vegetables alone. There were at least a dozen berry bushes she hadn't touched yet, and she could trade the leeks to Doris for bread and pastries. Maybe Marla would cut her a deal on eggs. 

Returning to the main path that wound around the lake on Marla's land, Charlie spotted something that turned her already fragile heart to cinders. A bright, blue-silver flash crashed through her memory for a second time, and she realized now just where exactly that monster of a bolt had connected to the earth: the cottage.  

Scorch marks covered parts of the exterior walls on both the tower itself and the small garden walls. Great chunks of the garden wall were gone, laying in blasted heaps of black stone all down the side of the small hill. The surrounding earth, once green and full of life, sat black and dead. Something was still smoking despite the heavy rains the night before. 

Dropping her bags, Charlie took off at a dead sprint.  

To her surprise, the main part of the home sat untouched, but the front door was opened slightly. There were no traces of fire or smoke inside the foyer, or any life at all beyond that. The place looked frozen in time, years' worth of dust coating the furniture and counters within the eat-in kitchen.  

Hopefully, whatever magics kept Adagium asleep was what kept his home safe. 

A creeping sense of dread overcame her by the time she crested the first round of stairs to the second floor. She shivered so much she couldn't push onwards. Whatever protected this place, it didn't want her there, and she wasn't going to potentially anger it by defying. But she had to see if Adagium was okay. He was supposed to be her family's—well, her—protector, and he wouldn't be any use to her dead. 

Something creaked behind her. She whirled around to find… 

"No one," she muttered. "It's so quiet here. This place gives me the creeps." 

She gave the vacant floor before her a curious glance as she backed up towards the stairs. A thoughtful frown on her face, she returned to the first-floor hall. She wondered if Adagium was on the top floor, if inside at all. Lori probably would know, but she wasn't sure how to go about asking.  

She stopped in the hall. Why was there such a sad air about the place? Not only sad, but foreboding, too. A creeping sensation gnawed on her nerves and, taking a quick breath, she looked around. There was nothing…except a bookcase. Curious at what she assumed were curls of faint, green smoke, she stepped closer to see hair-thin cracks just around the edges of the bookcase. It rattled when she decided to give it a little shake. It was a door.  

And that door wouldn't open no matter how hard she pulled or pushed. Hoping for some secret switch—because what secret wall door didn’t have one?—she moved all the books around on the shelves, ultimately finding nothing of the sort. What she did find was what looked to be a keypad at the back of the middle shelf. But instead of numbers or letters, there were symbols in some bizarre language she didn’t know nor had ever seen.  

If Adagium was in this place at all, he had to be behind that door. And Charlie needed help to get to him. Hell, she needed help for everything now, by the looks of it. She knew it wasn't going to be easy taking over things, but that entire day had just been her thinking of how to get by without the charity of others. And it didn't leave too many viable options. Unsure of how to even go about opening that door, she took a picture of the keypad, hoping the journals back home might hold some information.  

Back in the fresh air, Charlie gathered her bags of forage and headed for home to think up a plan. If she could get the immortal to wake up, maybe she could kickstart her Guardian stuff. Going back as far she could remember, the journals all stated that the trials began at summer's end. With it currently being the middle of April, that still left a few months. Surely Adagium could teach her something in that time, right? 

In all honesty, Charlie had two options: Fight, or wallow. And while it seemed like a damn good time to wallow, she had to push past it. She was still alive, she had Griff, and she had Adagium…somewhat.  

She could do this. 

 

 

‡    †    ‡ 

 

 

Closing the freezer with a satisfied huff, Charlie dug through her bookshelves. One by one, she went through the journals, looking for anything that even remotely resembled the symbols in the picture. There was nothing. Deciding the more recent journals weren’t going to hold anything useful, she broke out the boxes from the hall closet.  

Finally, almost two hours into her endeavor, she found a wealth of information in an old leatherbound book from the late 1700s. The symbols were from something called the Scientian alphabet, from the Scientia people who were the ancient progenitor race of modern people—both Noble and human. Charlie hummed curiously at the name.  

"'We who come from distant stars'," she read softly aloud from the yellowed pages, "'welcome the apocalypse as nightmare turns to bliss. We dance in raining stars. We sing in snowing fire, enraptured in the warm embrace of death. Skies the deepest red, sun the bleakest black, we make these final moments of sweet defiance our last.' The Scientia, huh?"  

A few pages beyond the lyrics was a phonetic transcription of the Scientian alphabet, and various small chunks written out with question marks beside them. None of it made sense. Figuring this was the best bet for when it came time to go into that room, Charlie placed the journal into her messenger bag. Something told her it would be a good idea to keep it around.  

After downing a bottled water, she went to her laptop to check her finances. Even with the payment from her shipment of pink apples, she had been somewhat frugal with her spending the past week or so and hadn't really sat down to look at her budget. Plugging in the life-saving Wi-Fi adapter, she logged into her bank account. When the page loaded Charlie's mouth dropped open in shock. 

How was her balance that low? There was no way… Paging through her transaction history told her the whole story. Rent, bills, line after line of bar tabs from before she left…and two massive charges that were not supposed to be on there at all. One was a car payment for a vehicle Charlie had given up before even moving away, and the other had Jorgen Chase's disgusting name slapped on it. What was worse was Jorgen Chase was nearly triple that of the car payment, and that thing was a literal brand new 2018 Cereveda. 

On the verge of freaking out, Charlie pulled out her phone and stared for a few seconds in hesitation at her stepmom's number before hitting the 'video call' button.  

It rang twice before the concerned face of a Moasan woman flashed onto the screen. The moment she saw Charlie's face, her eyes lit up and she sat the phone a distance away before signing, Charlie! Dear, I've missed you. 

I've missed you, too, Maliu, Charlie signed back. Bittersweet as this moment was, she knew it needed to be done. Her smile falling somewhat, she furrowed her brow, frowned, and signed out, I need to ask you a favor… 

 

 

‡    †    ‡ 

 

 

The next hour found Charlie sitting on her front steps in a daze. It was like her brain shut off to avoid facing the reality of her situation. The money would not be coming back. 

Her stepmom was the head of the HR department back at Jorgen Chase headquarters and, while being one of the sweetest people to ever grace this planet, she couldn't help. She did her best to explain the extraordinary charge, though. When Charlie had entered her position with the company, she'd signed a document that stated she needed to work a full two years before leaving the company or else all money put into her using the company vehicles and all the flashy uniforms and dry-cleaning services would be charged to her upon her leave. It was absolute highway robbery and had to be illegal somehow, but with the place being one of the biggest, richest, and far-reaching companies on Äerd, there didn't seem to be anything she could do to get the money back. 

As far as the car payment, Charlie was nearly blind from the pounding migraine that surfaced. Simply leaving the car at the dealership with the keys and a note that said 'I can't deal with this anymore' wasn't clear enough to them. She clenched her teeth at her own childish stupidity, but to her relief Maliu offered to take over the vehicle, claiming she'd always loved the unique seashell blue color it had. All Charlie would have to do is print off and sign a bunch of documents, provide proof of identity and that would stop the car payments. No sense in paying seven hundred a month for a car you didn't have, right? 

But the reasons now didn't matter. What mattered was that the safety net Charlie thought she had built up for herself over the past few weeks was gone. On the verge of losing it, she thanked Maliu profusely before hanging up with a promise to keep in touch. Out of everything in that shithole city, she truly did miss that woman.  

Hardly any money. No idea what she was doing, or even where to begin. Couldn't cast magic, see a sprite, or use a sword. Some Guardian she was turning out to be.  

Taking a deep breath, she tapped out a message to Griff. 

 

Charlie: I'm really lost right now and I need help. 

Griff: r u ok? 

Charlie: Not really. 

Charlie: I'm safe if that’s what you mean, so don't freak out or anything.  

Griff: ok so should i still expect to kick someones ass? 

Charlie: No. 

Charlie: Just meet me at the tower house.  

Charlie: Please?  

 

It took a moment before she saw those three little 'Griff is typing' dots return.  

 

Griff: ur waking him up? 

Charlie: I don't really have another choice. I'm dead broke and I don't have a clue where to start. 

Griff: alright, gimme a few and ill mee you by Marla's 

 

 

‡    †    ‡ 

 

 

The late afternoon air met Charlie with a warm embrace. Her hair curled around her face in the breeze as she walked the path south. The twenty minute-walk helped to clear her head somewhat, but fresh anxiety hit her as she broke from the trees and saw the stone tower's roof sticking out ahead. As if on reflex, she reached her hand down to smooth the soft canvas of her old messenger bag. That journal had to help… She sent a message to Griff letting him know she was waiting.  

She was crying when he showed up. Not sobbing or a silent, stoic scene, but something altogether just as pathetic. Her hands were in constant movement, brushing away tears, stifling sounds she didn’t want to make while Griff held her tight for a moment. All the strength she'd built up, all the determination crumbled thanks to a seasonal storm that blew into town, ravaged her very existence, and then left as uncaring as the stars themselves over her plight.  

While they walked, she kept flicking her eyes up to the stone tower for any sign of light. That way she would know everything was going to be okay, and even better, that Adagium was okay. Instead, the windows sat as dark and silent as before. She couldn't help but feel her fear intensified at seeing them.  

Minutes ticked by in agonizing silence as they tried, failed, and tried again to enter what they thought could be the code to open the bookcase. The faint green swirls were more numerous now, having a slight tinge of blue to them in the waning light. And they smelled faintly of something she couldn't place. It had her looking around curiously, but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.  

"Hey hey," Griff smirked. "Got it."  

The keypad lit up, flashed twice, then a low, heavy clicking sounded. The bookcase shifted, opening in with silence at Griff's touch. Spiral steps disappeared down into a deep darkness. They both looked, neither wanting to take that first step.  

"You sure you wanna go down there?"  

She nodded before she even had the chance to doubt herself. It was something she needed—no, had—to do. 

"I'm going," she said. "With or without you. Adagium is… I don't know what happened to him that night, but he might need help." 

"I'm all for helping the guy, but what if he, you know…" Griff trailed off and when Charlie looked to him, she saw something akin to fear in his eyes—but it wasn't for himself.  

Now that she thought about it, she didn't remember much aside from the various times the man had saved her, or the instances she witnessed Marianne yelling at him for something or another. As a child she didn't pay it any mind. Back then, she saw Adagium as her family's employee, and they're supposed to get yelled at from time to time, right? 

Charlie remained disturbingly quiet, squeezing her eyes shut as certain memories flooded back to her. They flowed and mingled, making it nigh impossible to separate them into their individual selves. The one constant among them was her grandmother berating Adagium like he was some dog. An animal, less than human. And then—SMACK! Charlie recoiled beside Griff, gasping audibly as she touched her own cheek where the memory still stung her. 

Griff finally broke the silence, a frown on his face. "Are you—?" 

"I'm fine. Just remembering. Marianne, she…" 

She fell silent again, trying to make sense of the bitter memories.  

No, Charlie. Now's not the time.  

She didn't have time to dwell on those right now. Marianne wasn't here anymore.  

Despite wanting to know just how she could have forgotten seeing her grandmother turn from the loving woman she thought she knew into the cruel and malicious 'owner' of the bloodline's immortal protector, Charlie forced herself onto that first step and disappeared into the darkness.