Icarus

Guardian

Guardian

        The celestial beings slid silently between white clouds on their way to the meeting, their voices echoed off walls featuring full-length murals of star fields. Whispering filled the room with a rising tension. The twelve kings and queens making up the group of Guardians stood in a circle, eleven of them deep in conversation, using their unusual black hands expressively, their faces ripe with worry. One of them, though, stood quiet, silent, his tired eyes closed and his hands together and crossed in front of him.

"Piero," called a feminine voice next to him, "are we here to discuss Cassie? Please, we want to know what you think." 

 Piero turned to see the beautiful Helena, with her dark hair in braids intricately woven all over her head, Her apple-green eyes sparkling brighter than a million suns. She stood there impatiently expecting an answer.

"Yes, Piero, how do you feel about Cassie failing her assigned mission?" Piero's younger brother, Alexander asked, staring at him, arms folded at his chest. He could still see a few lines of black slithering up his arm, like spilled ink soaking into parchment paper.

"She is not failing," Piero insisted. "The curse our ancestors put on Icarus is now resting on one of us, Cascadia." 

 They all cringed quietly, though it wasn't a surprise because everyone knew a girl would be cursed next and that Cascadia might be the one.

 Piero paused to reflect on a vivid memory when, along with the other Guardians, he studied the Asterderis which foretold the fate of every being—Guardian, immortal, human or animal. An intricate map of constellations and celestial figures, the Asterderis alignments formed images, one being of a white rose standing out brilliantly in the deep blue sea of endless space.

"Listen, Cassie is admittedly a young Guardian, but as my apprentice I taught her well. I'm asking the council to give her a few more days to fulfill her mission and convince Icarus to kill himself," Piero requested, but carrying the weight of someone in authority who was highly respected.

 His motion did not go unchallenged.

"But so much can go wrong. Icarus was meant to fall in love with a human, not a Guardian. We are immortal. If Cascadia isn't able to break the curse, will she die?" Helena warned, turning to address the group.

"No one knows, but that isn't important right now," Piero replied strongly in support of his position.

"And no one will ever know," Heron shot back while staring down each of the other Guardians.

 His black lines so thick they covered both his arms and were beginning to grow up his neck. Arching his white eyebrows, he turned to Piero.

"We'll give her two weeks. If she doesn't convince Icarus to leave this world once and for all, we will have to assign another Guardian apprentice to the Icarus mission."

"Oh, and just what mission did you have in mind for Cassie?" Piero challenged.

"The fact that Cassie is now part of the curse changes the entire game plan," boasted Alexander, as if his insight represented a brilliant chess move and the issue of what to do with Cassie was part of a hotly-contested chess match.

"I submit that Cassie must be kept away from Icarus. I propose that she be brought back here and not given access to the human world. That's the only way to keep Icarus from falling in love with her," Alexander boldly insisted.    

"You have no idea what you are talking about," Piero spat back. "You are just too young to understand the depth of what's going on with them."

 Though Alexander was 1,000 years old, that was young for Guardians.