(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: depression-like thing)
--Ranya--
When the disc collapsed in on itself and Lotus's words faded, I recalled the thing about the soothing, or, an instance of it, hidden deep in my mind—I had been soothed back at the high school, when I was about to tell Tooth about Isabelle's first Guardian Angel's warning. But the thing was, Dakota had widened her eyes at me. She could sense the soothing. She'd said she couldn't do so with the Watcher, so it had to have come from someone else—a woman, according to Lotus.
We all stared at the spot where Lotus's portal-whatever had hovered. Then we collectively took a breath and glanced around at each other.
"So the soother isn't the Watcher," I spoke first.
North nodded. "More information about our enemies."
"Now we have four. Pitch, the Watcher, whoever controls the vanishing white mist, and the soother."
Bunny crossed his arms. "I still don't know if we can trust Lotus."
"We must be prepared," said my dad. He strode forward and gripped Isabelle's shoulder. "For whatever comes for my daughter."
"And we will be." North looked to his fellow Guardians with a grave expression on his face. "Perhaps we should be trying to contact this Lotus. See where in the future they live, and find out what they know."
Bunny's eyes narrowed. "Even if I agreed with you, North, there's no way to reach the future. Isabelle's and my powers and the clock at the Lunar Lamadary are as close to control over time as I've ever seen, and even then we can only reach the past. Then we still don't know if we can trust Lotus."
"They warned me about the Fear Angels at my school," Isabelle said quietly. "I think they're a good person."
"So far, they've seemed trustworthy," North said, stroking his long white beard. "Based on the unstable nature of these portals—"
"They're Time Rifts," said Isabelle.
"Did Lotus tell you?" Bunny's lips were pressed flat.
Isabelle shook her head softly. "It's just something I know instinctively. I think it has something to do with my powers."
"So based on the unstable nature of these Time Rifts," North said, "it seems Lotus is going through a lot of trouble to reach Isabelle. They're not even able to deliver their full message. Whatever they're trying to do, it's important."
"They could be faking it." Tooth bit her lip, and the twittering of her wings rose higher.
"If they are, they are a very convincing actor. I personally don't believe they mean any harm."
"Neither do I," said Isabelle.
---
That night, after finishing the last batch of cookies with North, putting it in yet another large plastic bag, and leaving it in the pantry, I didn't have the motivation to shower, so I just changed, slipping Dreamsand into my pocket for tonight, and brushed my teeth. My thin hair would feel disgusting tomorrow without a wash, but just thinking about bathing made me feel heavy and exhausted, so I opted to just deal with it the next day.
While in the bathroom, Tooth suddenly darted from my side and zipped toward a corner in the hall, slicing her thin, iridescent wings through the air. Then she spun back around and her face grew red. She retreated to me. "I thought I saw something."
After I did my routine care of my plants, I lay in bed playing on my phone. I didn't really want to do anything else, even though I hadn't worked on my fanfiction all day. What I really wanted was to go to sleep, even this early, but setting an alarm to go off at 10 would be weird. I didn't want Tooth to think I was doing something suspicious again.
When I checked my email after playing mindless tycoon apps for an hour, I discovered my message had blown up. My heart raced as I read through the responses. No fewer than forty-five people had said they'd be willing to come to a meeting. I quickly replied, collected their phone numbers, and the group chat began. The first gathering would be at 10:30 tonight. A girl named Lori agreed to host because Dakota refused, though she'd emailed me she'd come. A group of four people would pick me up for extra cookies to avoid the white mist appearing again.
It became clear that mostly people were just interested in the food and if I was going to put on a show like I did at lunch, but at least they were going along with it at all this time.
(A/N: Please vote, comment, add this story to your library, and follow to support me! And you can still join my Discord server! Join to talk about RotG and my and others' fanworks, share your own RotG fanworks, and make friends with like-minded people, including me! Copy and paste this link to join: https://discord.gg/TjRGST4k (Go to the latest chapter for a link that works; Discord disables them after a week))