The World of Rhune

Mae rolled her shoulders back, cracking her arms and yawned. She cracked her neck and looked down the frosty mountain from inside the castle that stood literally on a river at the edge of a cliff. It was her favorite spot, ever. She loved looking how the water fell almost a thousand feet down and swirled into rapids, and how… “Mae, Ivy left without saying anything,” She looked to Beoa tugging on her thick black cloak, her small pale hand a major difference against the coat’s color. Mae stroked the girl’s angel soft curls from her face. “Thank you, Beoa. You can go and stay safe with Klea, okay?” the little five year old princess scurried to her older sister’s side as they sat on the rich carpet surrounded by furs to keep the chilliness from them. Mae flicked her gaze to her partner, “I’ll go find Ivy,” she didn’t have to instruct anything else. The guardian quickly sped off in the direction little Beoa had pointed and listened for Ivy’s familiar sweep of skirts as she walked down the hall, cutting corners to quicken her pace. Mae ignored all other people and focused on Ivy. That girl was her job, what she literally lived to do, and it’d be really bad if Ivy got hurt or was lost…especially since it would cost her her neck. “Ivy?” she tried, it had worked sometimes and made her job easier when she needed to find one of the princesses of Folic. Mae sped up her step slightly, her black furs sweeping around her feet but not in the way, her leather boots echoed off the marble floors and servants dashed to get out of the guardian’s way. “Mae? Is that you?” a light girl’s voice asked, not frightened, just a question more of trust. “Yes, Ivy, it’s me. Why didn’t you tell one of us you were leaving?” Mae questioned and rounded a corner to a dead end with Ivy sitting on a window box, her skirts and thick coat in a bundle engulfing and surrounding her. “Because, I wanted to leave and be alone for once. But you would have found me out, and I would have gotten in trouble from father, so I gave myself away instead. You wont tell, will you?” Ivy looked out into the winter wonderland that served as her beautiful prison, and fumbled with her skirts as a way to deflect Mae’s attention. “Ivy, you’ve tried to be alone over and over, but it just can’t be the way you want it to be,” Mae knelt down next to her object. “I am sorry, Ivy. I wont tell though, sweetheart. Your father is a kind man though; he only does what is best for his daughters, which includes you.” Mae looked at the numb trees that stood outside. In another month, when spring was half way through, they’d start to melt and the land would be brisk instead of icy, but come the end of August it would return to winter. “Guardian, are you sure you wont tell on me? I don’t wish to be smacked, I just wanted to look at the pines.” Mae smiled and pulled an outer layer skirt into its proper position. “I promise not to tell your father, Princess Ivy. But he will be wondering where his little girl has gone shan’t you not be back to your sisters when he visits.” Ivy looked beaten, but sadly nodded and followed Mae from the window back to the heated room with her sisters. “Mae?” she asked after some time of walking, “Yes?” Mae eyed the servants and drew slightly closer to her object. “I just wanted to say I’m glad you’re my guardian instead of Ruphus. I know daddy almost chose him to guard all of us, but he chose you and I’m glad. Ruphus wouldn’t have kept track very well, and isn’t as good a guardian as you are,” Mae smiled on the little princess, who somehow had turned out far more mature than her age entitled. “Your welcome, little princess. I’m glad I’m your guardian too. Though you cause your guardian to be good at her job,” Mae smiled, and the little girl raised her thick lashes to reveal mint green eyes that glowed at the small praise, and the guardian turned back and entered into the hall. “Ivy, were have you been? Father is to be here in a few minutes, you had better hope he doesn’t ask Mae or Zepher if you have run off again. They’ll have no choice but to tell.” Ivy looked to her and her sisters’ guardian, and Mae sighed. She would have to tell. “I shall try my hardest not to tell your father, princess. But if I lie, I shall be silenced and taken away forever.” Mae knew her object didn’t understand death, or more so the death penalty. Her father wished to keep it from the little girls, so it was. They knew it as being silenced and taken away forever; they didn’t realize the person was actually killed. Ivy’s face dropped. “Of course, I’d rather get slapped rather than you get taken away, I’d never wish that upon you.” Ivy slumped to the floor, and a servant ran over quickly and covered the child in a fur from the floor. “I wish for water,” she asked simply, which sent havoc through the servants as they hurried to fill the small yet powerful princess’ glass with room temperature water, not icy from the tap. Mae walked over to the wall next to Haazzar. “Don’t you just love your job?” he smirked next to her, and looked at the objects they shared. Mae punched him in the shoulder, “Shut up, at least they like me better,” she trained her eyes back to the girls on the floor. “And who said that?” Haazar kicked her shin making her clench her teeth. “A third of the vote,” Mae moved out of kicking distance, but not out of fake-glaring distance. Haazar barely moved an eyebrow, but it told Mae everything. He thought that was totally ridiculous, and to get back to her job. You are too good at your job Mae thought and watched as Ivy drank the cool water, making sure she didn’t choke. Mae’s thoughts started to wander, more to her job of guardian more than anything. Only certain people could train to become guardians, and about five percent ever make it through the training. They’re given an object, or objects in her case, that they protect with their lives and watch them until they can no longer serve. I’m basically just a super special guard Mae thought, I’m not a nanny but I watch them more than their parents. The guardian’s gaze flickered to her objects and watched as a small quarrel erupted between Ivy and Beoa from who’s their part of the story was better. A nursemaid quickly stepped up to them and calmed the girls, and slipped both a small mint chocolate. Klea sat by watching, and Mae knew what she was thinking. She was too old for stories, sitting on the floor in furs, being watched by her nursemaid. Mae nearly smiled, Klea was thirteen, had been for a couple months now. Her sisters were a few years younger than her, and though the princess loved her sisters, she was old enough to start acting more grown up. “Announcing his rrrroyal majesty, King Vladimir Anuce Hezen of Folic,” The announcer gratefully accepted a glass of water from a near by maid. The king walked in, surrounded by black-clad men all looking dangerous and deadly, just like Mae and Haazar. He was chubby, to say the least, and his hair and beard where well past his shoulders, though this king was still young. All the people in the room instantly fell to their knees and bowed low, including the princesses. All except the guardians, they connected their fist to their hearts, but didn’t move other than that. The princesses were the first to rise, their skirts falling heavily around them and their furs slipping from their petite shoulders. “Father,” they greeted, even little Beoa. The king smiled at his small little princesses. “Children, thank you, come and give your father a hug.” The king opened his arms and Beoa shot into them before her sisters had even taken a step. “Oh, well hello my beloved Beoa, and how was your day?” The king picked his smallest up, squeezed her slightly, and quickly set her back down, leaving his hand upon her small head in hopes of nonchalantly easing the child’s bouncing. “Very nice, father. We had fun and made up a story about Mae and Haazar saving us from dragons that evil Ralea sent to hurt us and blow fire everywhere so the trees became green again instead of white!” the little girl piped, still bouncing. “How entertaining, did Mae and Haazar win?” He hugged his other two, Klea looking somewhat annoyed at Beoa, but Mae knew the king was asking his daughter a serious question. “Of course! Mae and Haazar can beat anything! They saved me from the great Favaleaon last night!” Mae wanted to groan out loud, and Haazar met eyes with her. They’d both been summoned at midnight from their sleep because Beoa wanted them to defeat the monster under her bed that she said was named Favaleaon, which was from the story Klea had scared her with by telling the story before bed. The king eyed his subjects, Mae and Haazzar bent their heads under the gaze. “Well then, I guess if they can beat the…erm…Favalan…Favalaen? Then they can beat anything.” The king walked to the middle of the room, walking around the furs and to the great chair at the end. “Come dears, your guardians have made up a show for us tonight,” Even Klea couldn’t object, they gracefully but quickly ran to the little thrones that surrounded the great king’s and sat their behinds down in a jumble. Mae breathed in a sigh of pleasure, a rare sign for a guardian. She shrugged her thick cloak from her shoulders and refrained from showing how cold it was, even with three fires and insulated walls. Must be the windows she decided, but all the guardians stepped to the middle of the floor except for the king’s head guard, who was still on the job. “Everyone remember?” everyone stayed completely still, but they all were trained to read faces. “Good, go,” the words were barely more than a breath, but they all departed to parts of the room, some climbing into the wooden rafters others starting in the corners while Mae, Haazar, and Ruphus stepped onto the mantle places silently and waiting for the three guardians in the middle to do their part before it was hers. A soft lyre started to play and the guardians moved to the sweet beat. They raised to their toes, gracefully swirling in bended motions and using twin swords to elongate their arms. Then the music became faster, hardier, and the guardians made a harder beat, and their swords started clashing, a dagger slipped out here and there, a trip turned into a flip as the guardians turned around and around in a figure eight. Five, four, three, two, Mae counted in her head…one. She, Ruphus, and Haazar jumped up from the mantle, flipped and landed onto the awaiting arms of the three original guardians. Then the real battle started, Mae’s favorite part. The music sped even faster, at a desperate pace to deepen the battle, Mae loved it. She raised on foot, balancing on one foot held up above a sole guardian’s head, and kicked Ruphus, spinning and then landed again on the same guardian, deflecting loudly and making the on watchers cringe yet grin goofily. She heard Ruphus swipe at Haazar but missed and Haazar kick his sorry aire, making him jumped and start to share Mae’s guardian as well as keep a foot on his own. Mae kneed him making the audience ooh and then sprung up before Ruphus could even touch her. Mae’s eyes flicked up for a second and she opened, starting to go down, her hair rushing to meet the ground when her ankle was caught by a guardian an she was swung to the next, knocking Haazar off balance and laughing as she was caught by the next one, but he swung down and caught her with his legs, and sung them both through Ruphus and Haazar’s deafening clash of metal biting itself, just barely missing each bit of metal as it sliced the air clean, making little Beoa shout slightly before relaxing. Mae grabbed the ceiling and hoisted the two of them up only to jump into the chaos that had erupted from the two levels of fighting. They all stopped, and Mae gestured to her own practice, being the only female Guardian in the elite rank. She stepped on the hands of guardians as if descending stairs and then the fight continued in slow motion to give a look at the real skills. Mae just looked simply and the music played a soft sound that she spun and twisted to for a second, and the fighting behind her stopped. She backed into the pool of men, looked into each of their eyes, and then fell back into their arms. They engulfed her for a second before throwing her up into the air and everyone watched as she double flipped and landed on her hand, which landed on another hand, that held her up. Mae was the master of balance. Under her everything stopped, and then she flipped to the front and all the guardians formed into a lined, their boots stomping against the floor and Mae in the middle. They completed a series of knife and sword demonstrations together, relishing the slicing of metal upon metal as they were drawn in and out of their sheaths. After about a minute of basic, but neat looking sword forms, they started swirling in and out of each other, clanging swords, and then the finale. Four guardians climbed to the ceiling white six stayed on the floor. Haazar and Mae climbed to the mantles again, and she wrinkled her nose in the anticipation of the smell that would come next. A drum started playing, finally, and without a known cue, all the guardians jumped, dropped, or raised they’re arms and Mae and Haazar caught them, swirled round and round in a ball on the sides, and the two left over guardians in the lower pack set of small fireworks used only by Guardians. It was truly amazing and awing. It made Mae love her job. Servants quickly opened the windows while another set rushed to set furs upon the royals to keep the cold out of their bones. The guardians returned to their positions and cloaks solemnly but thankfully, and left smiles on all the faces. “Good job, Guardians! You are truly splendid.” The chunky king stood, and so did everyone else. “Mae, you are to see me later about your job, understood?” he commanded, not looking at her but his off-spring. “Of course, your most high,” Mae bowed. “Good then, now have my little ducks been swell lately?” the king asked to no one in particular. Mae looked at Haazar. “They were lovely today, but miss Ivy did slip off for a breath of fresh air this afternoon, but all was right and princess was completely fine and better actually.” Haazar twisted words like a Ralean. Uh, Raleans, hate them. Mae thought, and looked at Ivy. “Ivy! I’ve told you time and time again don’t go off without your guardians.” The king looked disprovingly at his daughter. She fell to her knees. “I am sorry, father, but I, I couldn’t think straight and the air seemed like a good option. I didn’t want to bother them, father, so I took care of myself.” She begged, and the king looked at his daughter annoyed. “Darling, they are here to serve you. They’re life’s been dedicated to serving you, it’s okay to use them, sweet. Don’t do it again, understood young lady?” her father wasn’t going to punish her this time. Ivy smiled brilliantly at her father. “Of course, I would never think of doing such a thing again!” Ivy watched her father leave the room in a big charade, and ran to Mae and Haazar, hugging their waists. “Thank you so much for not getting me smacked!” the little girl nearly wept. Mae smiled down on her, but was interrupted by Haazar. “Your welcome, little princess,”