My Sister's a Guardian (RotG Fanfiction)

Chapter 2: What Fear Did to Me

(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: anxiety, family member reacting negatively to anxiety)

**Isabelle**

Windshallow was broken, like me. We both created mist for our secrets, and had cracks in our hearts, and sometimes thought the world was a dark and dangerous night when it was actually washed in rays of sun.

Mist still clung to the air that noon, yet it was more of a pale haze than usual, and that made my chest tighten. The vanishing of the mist meant night was coming.

The sun gleamed off the exposed metal on the sad, rusting playground surrounding us on the soggy woodchips. Peels of paint and plastic drifted slightly in the wind like friends ousted from a friend group. I watched the playground in case anyone fell off again, as I sat on the end of one of the slides.

Surrounding me stood a crowd of perhaps 15 other fourth and fifth graders, while the rest ran around on the creaking playground equipment. My eyelids were heavy; I'd only been able to sleep six hours last night, four less than Mom and Janice said I should.

Yet, I forced a smile on my face and smoothed my dress. These people had come to me for help. There were only a few minutes left of recess, and I was going to talk to as many as I could. Their shouting over one another to try to get my attention made my head throb and my blood grow hot, but I tried to push it down. I promised myself it would just be a few minutes longer.

I faced a small girl who was in my class and had shiny brown hair that reached her bum. She wasn't shouting at me.

"What's your question, Loren?" I had to yell over the others.

Loren wove her hair between her fingers and looked down, and using a voice so quiet I could hardly hear, said, "Myra is mad at me because I made a new friend. How can I make her not mad anymore?"

I couldn't imagine if that happened with Zo or Cathey. "I'm sorry," I said. "Be patient. Perhaps Myra just has other problems right now and is taking them out on you." I'd learned a lot from helping others over the years. "If that doesn't work, then..." I sighed. "I'm sorry, but perhaps you shouldn't be friends with her anymore. It's mean to control other people."

"Perhaps," someone in the crowd snickered. My blood grew hotter.

Loren tugged hard at her shirt. "But Myra has been my best friend for three years... I don't want it to end!"

"But she's being mean to you," I said. "Is she usually kind?"

"Yeah."

"Then she likely has other problems. Try asking her what's wrong."

"Likely," someone giggled. My hot blood grew prickly.

That was when a boy lost his grip on a rusted spiral climber and began to fall.

I threw my arm out without thinking. Azure filigree chains bloomed from my fingers and entwined themselves around the boy. Sparkling blue hourglasses blossomed from the chinks like flowers, and the boy froze in his position. His hair, nearly as light as his fair skin, was frozen in a blown mess. His pale eyes were wide.

He looked like a fourth grader. Not all fourth graders came to me for advice, so I didn't know who he was.

Brian, who towered half a foot over the tallest fifth grader, strode over and held his wiry arms out under the pale boy. I felt more than controlled the chains snap with a clinking sound and drift back into my fingers. The pale boy unfroze and dropped right into Brian's arms.