Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 19:09:38 -0600
From: Steven Carter <darkmage1226@gmail.com>
Subject: The Guardian Past Beginnings

OK all I just wanted to thank you in advance for taking the time to
read my story and I hope that you enjoy it. Also the usual disclaimers
pertain to it so if you are not at least 18 or whatever the legal age
in your area is then you are ordered to leave  and not read this. Also
all characters and events are fictitious and products of the authors
bored mind. Thank you again for reading and enjoy.

The Guardian Past Beginnings

	Now as I lay there thinking about what Caleb could be up to and here
he might be my thoughts were propelled to over 2000 years into the
past. They are sent back to the events that caused me to become what I
am today. These events will haunt me for all of eternity. For the
first time ever these events will be recorded in someplace other than
my mind.

	It all started on a small island that today is part of the Shepard
Islands of England. It was shortly after my birthday and the harvest
had just been brought in. I was a member of one of the Saxon clans. I
was only about 6 or 7 when it happened. My family was herders and we
took care of a flock of sheep on the northeast coast of the island.

	It was my mother and father, my three older brothers, and myself
living in a small one-room hut at the edge of the field in which the
sheep were kept in. The day had started well with my oldest brother
going out to replace the other two brothers in watching the flock. My
mother had gotten up early as always to fix the morning meal of
porridge and klah. After the meal I was sent out to gather herbs and
mushrooms from the surrounding forest while my father went to join my
brother in the pasture watching over the flock. Unknown to me was the
fact that that would be the last time I saw any of my family alive.

	The times were very unsettled with bands of savages and Vikings
raiding all over the place. My family knew the risks they took by
keeping the flock so close to the shore but that was where the best
grazing land was. Therefore it was a risk we had to take. While I was
off gathering a band of Vikings landed and slaughtered my entire
family. The only thing that saved my life was the fact that I was
several miles away in the forest when it happened.

	I came back home to find our hut burnt to the ground, my entire
family slaughtered, and the flock butchered. I collapsed on the ground
next to the body of my mother and cried. I must have fallen asleep
because the next thing I knew it was morning again and a member of our
clan was picking me up. There was about 20 of them that had come to
investigate what had happened after having seen the smoke from the
burning hut. They carried me back to the clan stead where a family of
weavers took me in. They had a son about my age named Jarrod. The clan
elders hoped that being around someone my own age would help me
through my grief.

	For about the first month I was inconsolable. I would not talk or eat
or anything I just sat there and stared at the wall. Then one morning
Jarrod was trying to help his father with the dyeing vats and he fell
in. For some reason I found this absolutely hilarious and just could
not stop laughing. After that my healing started and things eventually
returned to a semblance of normality for me.

	After that the two of us become the best of friends as he helped me
heal and learn to deal with the pain. On nights that I would wake up
he would wake up with nightmares he would hold me and comfort me as I
cried. Over the next year we became absolutely inseparable. We did
everything together. During the day we would go out into the
surrounding area and look for the different plants that his family
used to dye the wool that they weaved. In the evenings his father
would take us both out to a small clearing behind the house and teach
us how to use different weapons so that one day we would be able to
protect our clan and families. At night the two of us would lay in our
bedrolls and talk about becoming great warriors and raiding the
Vikings for all their treasure. Then coming back to the clan as
heroes. Little did this routine change over the years till we were
about 13.

	It was summer and our family was given an order to make a cloth of
rich purple for the declaring of a new clan chief. The dye necessary
to get this color was made from a shellfish that could be found on the
south shores of the island. It took Jarrod and me about three days to
convince his father that we were old enough to make the trip on our
own. The trip would take about three days altogether a day there, a
day gathering, and a day back.

	It was during this trip that I finally realized that I was not like
the other boys. I had listened to the older boys at the clan stead
talk about how pretty the girls where and what the thoughts of them
did to their bodies but I had never had these thoughts my self about
girls. I noticed how the guys looked when they would take off their
shirts to practice at arms or how my body would react when we would
all go down to the stream to go swimming. I put these thoughts down to
me growing up and wanting to be like them.

	During our trip though I started to notice strange feelings for
Jarrod. Feelings that at the time I did not understand. I noticed
things about Jarrod I had not noticed before. Like the way that his
cheeks dimpled when he smiled or the sparkle in his eyes when he
laughed. I also started to notice his body when we were walking and
the effect it would have on me.

	That first night after we had set up camp I sat up half the night
watching Jarrod sleep. I wondered about these feelings I was having. I
tried to figure out why I was having them and what I should do about
them. As I watched his sleeping form I felt a feeling of yearning come
over me. I felt a need to be closer to Jarrod. All these feelings left
my head reeling as I tried to figure them out. Eventually I fell into
a restless sleep as my mind raced over the events of the day. Over the
next two days it was like I was walking through a haze as my mind
shuffled through the confusing thoughts and feelings I was having.

	It was a couple of years later when in midwinter Jarrod and I were
sent on our naming quest so that we could become full members of the
clan. The purpose of the name quest was for us to discover our true
selves. It was during our quest when we were stranded in a cave by a
blizzard that I discovered that Jarrod might have similar feelings
towards me as I had towards him.

	We had been snowed in for three days and had run out of firewood and
as the temperature in the cave turned bitter cold Jarrod and I bundled
together for warmth. With our bodies so close together I couldn't help
but notice his hardness. I did my best to ignore it but my mind reeled
at the idea that maybe Jarrod was like me, that maybe he had the same
feelings I had.

	I spent the night turning these thoughts over in my head trying to
decide what to do. Over the next few weeks I watched Jarrod trying to
see if there were any other signs that he might have feelings in
return. It was not until about two days before we were suppose to head
back that I found out how he felt.

	We were up on a cliff watching the sunset when behind us we heard a
noise. We looked back to see a wild boar running at us. We turned and
Jarrod started to run as I was frozen in fear. The boar took off after
Jarred causing me to unfreeze as I saw the person that meant the most
in the world to me in danger. I ran after Jarrod and knocked him out
of the way just as the boar was about to hit him. The boar rammed me
and we both went tumbling over the cliff falling about 30 feet to the
sandy shore below. The boar hit a large rock breaking its neck while I
landed on the sand knocking the wind out of me and causing me to black
out for a few min. When I came too I felt warm drops on my face and as
I opened my eyes I say Jarrod above me crying while holding my head in
his lap. He was praying to the lord and the lady that they would not
let me die because he loved me and had not even told me yet. He asked
them for one last chance with me and he promised that he would take
the risk and tell me about his feelings for me even if it caused me to
hate him. I could not help it any more I burst out laughing.

	At the time the situation seemed incredibly funny to me as it had
taken me almost getting killed by a wild boar to bring us together.
Laughing I told him that I could never hate him and that those were
the words I had been trying to tell him as well. I then reached up and
grabbed him by the neck pulling him down into a kiss. I think that the
shock of me still being alive was too much for him because as I kissed
him he just sat there. Once I pulled away from him he realized what I
had said and done and kissed me back passionately in return.

	We sat there on that beach all night talking about what we felt for
each other and what it meant. We decided that we should try to keep
our relationship a secret from the rest of our clan because we had
seen what happened to people that were like us.

	Now as I said earlier this was our naming quest so before we could
return we had to decide on what our private names would be. Jarrod and
I decided that we would choose each other's names. For him I chose
Tanis, which in our language means "Greatness". For me he chose Ash`ke
which was the word for "Guardian" in our language.

	The next day we had to head back to our clan to be initiated into the
adult society. We would now move out of his parent's house and move
into the men's barracks, which was, were all unmarried men lived. The
next thing we had to do was decide what role in the clan we would
adopt for ourselves. Jarrod chose to apprentice himself to his father
and become a weaver while I on the other hand was drawn to the healing
arts. The clan healer was an old man with no children and no
apprentice so I was happily given the task of being his apprentice.
This also allowed me to move out of the men's barracks and into the
healer's hut since it was just him there.

	Now even though I was studying to become a healer I still trained
every evening with the assorted arms I had show a proficiency at. I
trained with the short sword and the long bow trying to keep a promise
I had made myself. After my family was killed I promised my self that
I would be able to protect those that I loved if the need ever arose.
The old healer after seeing my dedication to learning combat skills
along with the healing arts took it upon himself to dedicate the
mornings to training me in unarmed combat as well.

	As time went Jarrod and I would get together several times a week to
go and gather the necessary ingredients for our separate crafts.
Thankfully we both needed plants from the forest so there was no
suspicion when we would disappear together into the woods. That summer
after our name quest we explored each other's bodies in an effort to
ever please the other. Since in those days there were no resources we
could use to look up what to do it was all trial and error.

	As time passed I grew close to the old healer and learned many things
about him. He told me about his life and explained to me one day that
the reason he had never hand fasted was because he was never attracted
to women. He also explained that this was the reason he had become a
healer, as it was not unusual for healers to never marry. He told me
that the reason he was telling me this was that he thought me and
someone else might be kindred souls. When he said this I looked at him
in shock wondering if Jarrod and I had done anything to give us away.
Apparently judging my thoughts from the look on my face because he
assured me that around others we were very good at hiding it. The only
thing that had given us away to him was that every time Jarrod would
come over for us to go gathering my face would light up like a noon
day sun.

	It was that night as we sat at his fire talking he told me about his
love. He told me how they had found each other when they were both
about 20 summers old and how up until his partner's death 10 summers
ago they had been inseparable. The old man explained the deep
commitment and love that the two had had for each other. Listening to
him I could not help but hope that someday Jarrod and I would be able
to have a similar life together.

	From that night on I would talk to the old healer about what I felt
and what I hoped for before bed each night. In all the years I have
been alive I do not believe that I have ever met a wiser person than
that healer. I have known many people that are acclaimed today as
being the greatest minds in history but in my mind none of the compare
to him. Along with imparting on me knowledge of life he also explained
much of the physical side of love to me. I think that in the month
after we started talking Jarrod and I learned more about sex than in
all of our previous months of experimenting combined. Now do not get
me wrong the experimenting was fun but some of the things that he told
us where things that we would never thought of on our own.

	That next spring and summer flew by as our love for one another grew.
(Have you ever noticed the funny thing about love is when you think
that you can't love a person anymore than you do something happens
causing you fall deeper into love with them.) It was late one night
right after harvest that we had our first big fight. We were sitting
there in the healers hut talking when he said he wanted to let his
parents know about us because they were pushing him to get hand fasted
before long. (In those days it was not unusual for people to get
married at 15 or 16.) When he told them he would not they wanted to
know why but he would not tell them. He did not like lying to his
parents but wanted to talk to me about it first. I was adamant about
us not telling anyone else because I did not want to have to deal with
the consequences until we were full productive members of the clan.

	We argued through most of the night until the next morning I yelled I
had had enough and stormed out of the hut and did not stop running
till I found myself sitting on the cliff above the beach on which we
had first kissed. I spent two days sitting up there trying to decide
what to do. Finally as I watched the sun set on that second day I
decided that as long as I had Jarrod I could survive anything. The
next morning I headed back to the clan stead to let Jarrod know what I
had decided. Around noon I crested a hill about 3 miles from the clan
stead and saw columns of thick black smoke rising from were the clan
stead should be. I took off running hoping for the best and praying to
the Lord and the Lady that Jarrod would be all right.

	I was rudely brought back to the present day when my alarm clock went
off announcing the beginning of a new day. When I awoke I was refilled
with a sense of purpose. I knew I had work to do, I had to find Caleb.
I got up, showered, and ate breakfast before heading out the door to
start my day's work. As I moved through the city I could feel the
sense of evil having grown stronger reminding me of the commitment I
had made long ago. I had to push thoughts of Caleb aside so that I
could do the job I was supposed to do. The protecting of people from
the evil that surrounds us.

	I spent the next three days trying to locate the source of my growing
unease but was unable to locate it. On the fourth day I was sitting
down for lunch when I noticed a scrubby looking kid of about 13 or 14
come into the restaurant. He walked up to the cashiers station and
talk to one of the waitresses for a moment before the waitress walked
over to me. She told me that the kid was looking for me and that he
claimed to have a message for me from Caleb. She asked me if I wanted
to talk to him or if she should ask him to leave. With a sense of
growing fear I told her to let him come over and join me.

	Once the kid had come over I told him to have a seat and asked him
what his name was. He told me it was Adam and that he had a letter for
me that Caleb had asked him to give to me if he had not heard from him
by today. He handed me the letter and then got up to leave but before
he could walk off I told him to sit back down and join me. As he sat
back down I waved my waitress over and asked her for a menu for Adam.
After she had brought him his menu I told him to order whatever he
wanted as a thank you for delivering Caleb's letter to me.

	As we sat there and ate I asked Adam about how he knew Caleb and he
told me that Caleb was like a big brother to him. He explained to me
that about 6 months ago his father had died and his mother's new
boyfriend had kicked him out of the house. When he first ended up on
the streets the older boys would always beat him up and steal any
money he had managed to get that day. One day he was sitting on a
bench in Travis Park crying because it had happened again and he had
not eaten in like three days when Caleb walked up. Caleb asked him
what was wrong and after Adam had told him he took him under his wing
and helped take care of him. He told me about how three weeks ago he
had gotten really sick and Caleb had saved up all his money so that he
could take him to the doctor and get medications for him so that he
would get better.

	He also told me that when Caleb had given him the note to give to me
that he had told him that if he needed anything or was in trouble that
he should come to me because I was safe and would probably help him.
After he said this I asked him if he was having any problems from the
other teens and he told me that they had been stealing his money again
and telling him that Caleb would not be back that he was gone just
like the others. When he said this I asked him what he meant by like
the others and he explained that for the past two months teens had
been disappearing off of the streets and that last week a friend of
his and Caleb's had disappeared. He told me that Caleb had been trying
to find him when he disappeared. At this I told Adam that he was
coming with me at least until we had found Caleb and that I would find
him.

	Once we got to my place I showed Adam where everything was and told
him that if he wanted he could take a shower. He said that he would
like and while he was in the shower I decided to read Caleb's note.

	Arkail,
10/23/2001

	I am writing this letter right after having written the one you got
before. There were so many things that I wanted to tell you this
morning but was afraid to. I decided that since there may be a chance
of me disappearing like the others that I would write this letter to
let you know how I feel and why I am doing what I am doing. First off
I have watched you since that first night I saw you. when you came
over to me in the park to make sure that I was ok. I did not want to
let you know that I was a homeless kid so I stayed out of sight. That
night something happened that i still can not explain. It was like I
had known you forever. Over the next two weeks I could not help but
watch you as I tried to build up the courage to come and talk to you.
It was not until Adam got sick and I had to use all the money I
collected on a doctor and medications for him that I finally decided
to take a chance and ask for help from you.. I had not eaten in a
couple of days and was starving. That day no one would help me and
when I saw you I had hope. when you told me that you did not have any
money on you my heart fell until you invited me to have lunch with
you. I figured that we would go to some fast food place but then you
took me to that wonderful restaurant and I could not understand how
you could stand to be seen at such a nice place with me looking like I
did. Then when we sat down I noticed that you did not pay attention to
the dirty looks that people where giving us and that you were
genuinely interested in hearing what I had to say. When you invited me
to join you for lunch anytime I wanted at first I thought you were
just being nice. That next day I decided to take a chance and go ahead
and meet you for lunch again and when you did not have me thrown out
of the restaurant I knew that you were being sincere. Then about a
week ago a friend of mine disappeared and I went to look for him. That
was why I missed those few days of lunch with you. Apparently I was
asking the wrong questions because yesterday morning these three guys
beat the shit out of me. I decided I needed to think things through so
I met you for lunch. When you asked me to come and help you at your
house after lunch my heart skipped a beat. I was so excited that I was
going to get to see your room and stuff. It is like whenever I am with
you the world fades away and all I can see is you. Then last night
when I noticed you had fallen to sleep I decided to place my head in
your lap just to feel what it would be like. I felt so secure and knew
that if I was with you nothing could ever hurt me. I did not mean to
fall asleep but the events of the day took over me. when I woke up I
could not remember where I was and started to panic until you walked
into the room. Once I saw you I knew that everything was ok. When you
asked me to stay the night in the guest bedroom I was torn between my
commitment to Adam and the want to spend time with you. I finally
decided that Adam should be ok for one night without me so I agreed. I
do not know why I got so upset by you looking at me as I stripped. I
had asked you to stay in the room because I wanted you to see me naked
I wanted to know what your reaction would be. I mistook the look in
your eyes for lust when it was admiration and I think and hope love.
Even after the harsh words your reaction was still worry and concern
when I hurt myself. As you where rubbing the oil into my bruises my
body reacted even though I tried my best to keep it from happening.
Thankfully things were arranged in such away as it did not show that
badly. I was glad when you had finished with my chest and asked me to
role over on my stomach that way I was able to hide my growing
problem. The next morning I was surprised that you asked me to meet
you for lunch again and I am sorry that I could not join you. It was
just that I had to act upon the information that I had gotten. I found
out that some strange things had been happening in some caverns to the
north of town. That is where I am heading to now. I hope that I can
find my missing friend and get back to what may be building between
us. Now I must close this letter as I have to leave.

Hopefully forever and always,
Caleb

	After reading Caleb's letter I realized that he had feelings for me
as well and that Adam meant a lot to him. I decided that regardless of
what happened I would take care of Adam but I was not giving up on
Caleb yet. I knew where he had gone to but before I could go after him
I had to make sure that Adam was settled in and ok. About that time
Adam came out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel. When he saw me
he explained that since he was clean he did not want to put his dirty
clothes back on. I took his clothes and put them into the washer and
then grabbed him a pair of sweats to wear. I handed them to him saying
that they would be big on him but that they would do until his stuff
was finished. I showed him around the house telling him where
everything was at. As I got ready to go find Caleb I handed Adam a 20
telling him that if he wanted he could order pizza when he got hungry.
I also told him to make himself at home and that I would be back. I
also told him to stay put till I got back. As I walked out the door I
heard him say to make sure I brought Caleb back with me and good luck.


Well guys I want to thank you taking the time to read this second
chapter of The Guardian series. Please stay tuned for the next chapter
"The Guardian Quest to Darkness". I would also love to hear what you
thought of this chapter so please email me you comments whether they
are good or bad at Darkmage1226@gmail.com.