Chapter Text
Candle, candle, burning bright, share with us your golden light;
The First light of Advent is the light of stones,
stones that make crystals, seashells, and our bones;
The Second light of Advent is the light of plants,
green plants that grow, and seed, and in the breezes dance;
The Third light of Advent is for animals of the Earth,
great and small, steadily they live, and bring the soul to birth;
The Fourth light of Advent is the light of Humanity,
those who can choose to bring goodness to every living thing.
It had been many years since the Guardians of Childhood had celebrated the holiday season together. Nicholas St. North, the Guardian of Wonder, was going crazy with all of the work he and his yetis still had to do to finish making presents for the world's children. This fact alone made scheduling Guardian meetings quite hard in November and December.
The real chaos began when the Sandman (aka Sandy), the Guardian of Dreams, discovered that the other Guardians had never heard of celebrating Advent the way Mother Nature once told him about. Recalling that he had enjoyed learning about it, Sandy suggested that the nature-based Advent tradition be instated as an annual Guardian event.
He soon realized that this this would be easier said than done, when he saw the utterly bewildered looks on his fellow Guardians' faces. After some consideration, he decided that a game would be the best way to introduce his fellow Guardians to Mother Nature's Advent celebration.
A few nights later, the Guardians were gathered at the North Pole in North's Workshop after finally convincing him to take a short break from his work. They had fun drinking eggnog and playing various board games, some of which had been taught to them just this year by Jack Frost, the Guardian of Fun and newest addition to the Guardians of Childhood.
It was this night that Sandy introduced his idea for an Advent game, attempting (with some frustration) to explain it all through a series of dreamsand images. It took the other Guardians a long time to guess what Sandy was trying to get across, mostly because Tooth, the Tooth Fairy and Guardian of Memories, was the only one in the group who didn't give up trying to guess what his images meant after a few minutes.
After half an hour of dreamsand flying everywhere and elves being shaken to bring order, the Guardians finally figured out that Sandy had planned an Advent treasure hunt/hide-and-seek.
His overall plan was this: He would leave the rest of the Guardians clues in the shape of stones, crystals, seashells, or bones, which would have pictures etched on them to point the Guardians in the right direction. Eventually the trail of clues would lead to Sandy himself.
However, this was no ordinary treasure hunt. This game would take the Guardians around the world. There was only one rule: They couldn't use the Globe of Belief to locate Sandy.
The other Guardians collectively rolled their eyes, but begrudgingly agreed.
Sandy asked them to cover their eyes and count to 100, then he flew out of the Workshop on a cloud of golden dreamsand as fast as he could.
When the four other Guardians opened their eyes, a giant dreamsand diamond with two pictures on it floated in front of them. One picture showed an arrow pointing up, and the second was an Easter egg.
After staring at the diamond for some time, Bunnymund, the Easter Bunny and Guardian of Hope, asked, "What the bloody hell does that mean?"
North replied skeptically, "I don't know. You're the one with the Easter eggs!"
After circling the floating diamond a few times, Tooth wondered aloud, "Doesn't an arrow pointing up on a map mean north, as in the direction north?"
"Yeah, but we're pretty much as far north as you can get," Jack pointed out
"Does that mean we're supposed to follow an Easter egg north, or does it mean there is an egg hidden at the North Pole? And which North Pole does it refer to, the magnetic or geographic…" North asked, staring intently at the clue as though his gaze might force it to reveal its hidden meanings.
"My Easter eggs hate the cold, so they wouldn't go this far north," Bunny muttered, glaring at Jack.
"Well, we could start where the Easter eggs are stored," Jack suggested.
Tooth nodded in agreement. "Oh, that would make sense!"
"So, Bunny." Jack looked over at the Guardian of Hope. "I guess the question now is, what's in the northern part of your warren?"
"The tunnels to each continent. Don't you remember?" Bunny replied, raising an eyebrow.
Jack rolled his eyes. “Come on, I’ve only been there a couple times. I’m still the new guy.”
“Yeah, and don’t I know it…”
Even though North protested, the Guardians took a shortcut to Bunny's Warren through one of Bunny's magical tunnels that led directly from the Workshop to his Warren. (Unfortunately for Phil the yeti, he fell into Bunny's tunnel along with the Guardians.)
Upon arriving at the seven dividing tunnels in the Warren, the Guardians found another clue in the form of a dreamsand pyramid floating above their heads. Baby Tooth, who was tagging along with Tooth for their Advent treasure hunt game, indicated that instead of two pictures, there were now four images etched on the bottom of the pyramid.
"I think this is supposed to be Africa," said Jack, tracing the outline of one of the four, roughly drawn landmasses depicted on the pyramid as he spoke. "And that one's North America. Oh, Europe is over there, and Greenland is there…"
In the end, the four Guardians determined that they should split up to look for the rest of the clues. Lots were drawn, and Jack went to Greenland, North got Europe, Bunny got North America, and Tooth would be flying to Africa. Although they thought that they were headed in the right direction, three of them were very wrong…
After thirty minutes of flying down the tunnel to Africa, Tooth began to get the feeling that something wasn't quite right when she ran into a dead end that she didn't remember being there last Easter. After searching for a way around, Tooth was left with no other choice but to return to Bunny's warren. She sighed, thinking of all the children's teeth she could be collecting and admiring instead.
Meanwhile, in the tunnel to France, North was trudging along trying to shake off a stray elf that had somehow followed him. Eventually, North looked down to grab the elf off his foot and tripped. You might have expected that North would have learned not to leave snow globes in his pockets after previous incidences, but once again, a snow globe rolled out of North's pocket. It broke open when it hit the stones. With a burst of light and a yell, the elf was left standing holding onto nothing.
Tooth, who'd been kneeling in the grass having a conversation with Baby Tooth, looked up as a snowglobe portal appeared in front of her. She ducked as a red giant flew out of the portal yelling at the top of his lungs.
Tooth cringed when she realized who it was, peeking through her fingers at a very disgruntled North. "Oh my goodness, are you OK?" she gasped, flying over to him.
The Guardian of Wonder nodded and replied that he was fine as he stood up.
After a quick summary of each other's adventures, Tooth asked, "I wonder what happened to Jack and Bunny?"
(Little did she know that she would soon find out.)
Meanwhile, in Greenland, Jack was getting more frustrated by the minute. He'd been following a trail of dreamsand for ages, but could simply not find the end of it. It wove gracefully through the air, sparkling and taunting him with its endlessness.
"I bet the Easter Kangaroo is already at the next clue by now," Jack grumbled.
Sighing defeatedly, he pulled out one of the emergency snow globes that he kept in his hoodie pocket and commanded, "Take me to Bunny's Warren!"
Sadly, the snowglobe did not register the end of his request because his words were carried away by a gust of wind.
Jack thought he'd be going back to Bunny's Warren, but once he went through the portal and came out the other side, he found that was nowhere near the Warren.
Not at all.
Meanwhile, in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the Easter Bunny was bounding up a mountain peak, chasing a very confused Easter egg that was trying to run away from him on its tiny, temporary legs. Too busy focusing on the egg to survey the area ahead of him, Bunny stumbled over a rock and ran head first into a pine tree.
"OWW!" He cried, stumbling back with his paws clutching his head.
While slowly recovering from his accidental collision, the Guardian of Hope finally managed to grab the stray egg as it tried to dart past him. A few moments later, he had to dash away and hide behind another tree as the ground began to rumble.
A magic portal abruptly spun into being on the other side of the tree and a long flying thing shot out of it. As he ducked, Bunny caught a of glimpse of what almost looked like Jack Frost's staff.
"No way!" the Guardian of Hope muttered, hopping over to the staff with the rogue egg still clutch in his paws.
It was Jack's staff! But....if Jack's staff was here in the Rocky Mountains, then where was it's incredibly annoying owner?
After scanning the pine forest around him, Bunny found no sign of his fellow Guardian.
"I'll bet Jack's just hiding to try to scare me," he mused. However, after waiting another ten minutes, Bunny began to grow truly concerned. Jack would never willingly be separated from his staff. So, what could have possibly happened to him?!
That was when a whistling sound filled the air. The last thing that Bunny saw before he lost consciousness was a golden ball of dreamsand flying toward his face.
Sandy had thrown his dreamsand baseball at Bunny for a reason. His Guardian had been too close to finding the next clue. Since the other Guardians had yet to catch up with Bunny, Sandy found a nice “solution” to stall Bunny temporarily.
Back in the warren, Tooth and North were debating about whether they should use their last emergency snow globe portal to locate their friends. Eventually, they decided that it was essential to find at least one of the missing Guardians.
"We should probably find Jack since he's the most likely to go almost anywhere but where we expect him to be, as long as it’s cold enough," suggested North.
Tooth agreed, and dashed the snow globe on the ground as their feet.
"Show us Jack Frost!" she commanded it. What the snow globe revealed was the probably one of the most surprising things that either of the Guardians had ever seen.
Jack Frost was sitting on the ground looking almost like a child with the flu. He was absent-mindedly tracing patterns into the dirt and behind him was a sign with the name of the city where he'd landed.
"Wichita? As in, Kansas?" North burst out. "I stand corrected. Why on earth would Jack be there?"
"And where is his staff?" Tooth wondered.
Suddenly, with a loud pop, the portal disappeared. "Where did it go?" Tooth asked, turning to North.
"The emergency portals don't usually last as long as the standard ones. I forgot," North said.
"Does that mean that we're stuck here because we no longer have a portal? The tunnels don't work so well for me…" Tooth said, gesturing to her wings.
"We are not necessarily stuck here forever," North replied, with a glint in his eye that Tooth didn’t like the look of one bit.
"Really?" she asked, a little warily.
"Yes! We wouldn't have to travel as far in the tunnels either, which would be good for you."
“Ok…fine," Tooth relented. "But after this, no more tunnels!”
After forty-five minutes of walking and partially flying, the two Guardians finally burst out of Bunny's tunnels back into North's workshop. They both agreed that this had not been one of the more comfortable experiences they'd had in their long lives, walking from Australia to the North Pole.
Launching North's sleigh was always a big deal at the workshop, and the yetis and elves had it ready to fly in no time. After going through the loop–de-loops and zigzags built into the sleigh's the launch tube, Tooth and North began their flight to Kansas.
"Every time, North?" Tooth groaned, referring to the dizzying loops they had just gone through.
"What? Is fun, yes?" North laughed in spite of Tooth's resulting frown.
Jack was beginning to feel uncomfortably warm, although it was windy and cold in Wichita this particular winter day.
The winter spirit's usual body temperature was around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but without the full range of winter related powers that he wielded with his staff, Jack's body temperature was slowly destabilizing. Without his staff, he was also unable to use the wind to fly away from Wichita.
Thus stranded, Jack resigned himself to sitting on a tree branch in a public park and drawing frost patterns in the tree trunk. He hoped that one of the other Guardians would eventually realize what had happened to him.
The wait felt like an eternity, although technically only two hours passed. Jack kept having to shake his head and rub his eyes to fight the fatigue and dizziness starting to overtake him.
He almost thought he was dreaming when he heard the sound of sleigh bells. Raising his head and peering through the bare tree branches above him, Jack was surprised to see North's sleigh speeding toward the park.
Finally! Thank the Man in the Moon, he would no longer be stranded in Kansas!
Before Tooth and North could bombard him with questions when they landed in the park, Jack cut them off. "Don't even ask. It's a long story…"
He trailed off when hen spotted a sparkling speck of dreamsand floating over the sleigh.
"Dreamsand! Quick, follow it!" Jack yelled.
The three Guardian quickly took off in North’s sleigh and chased after the speck. It wasn't long before they found themselves flying over the Colorado Rocky Mountains..
"Hey, look down there!" Jack called out, leaning over the side of the sleigh and gesturing to an odd, fuzzy, grey lump on the forest floor below them.
They all realized the lump of fur was actually Bunny when they landed the sleigh next the him. Almost reluctantly, North gave Jack the honor of waking the Easter Bunny up (which probably wasn't the best idea in the world).
Excited at seeing his staff near the Guardian of Hope, Jack picked up his trusty, wooden conduit and frosted the ground around Bunny with a stifled laugh.
As if on cue, the Easter Guardian immediately jerked upright as the cold frost reached his fur."Mother of Nature! What was THAT for?!" he shouted, glaring at Jack as the spirit flew up into the treetops to escape the range of Bunny's boomerangs.
"Well, I had to wake you up somehow," Jack called back as he alighted on a branch high over Bunny's head.
Tooth and North tried not to laugh, but they didn't quite manage it.
"Why were you asleep in the first place?" Tooth asked Bunny, once her laughter faded.
He sighed. "I’m not exactly sure. I think something hit me in the head." Then he frowned and gazed around them, searching for any indication of what had hit him.
Before he could say more, Jack spotted something glimmering over the pine trees a short distance away,
"There's another clue!" he exclaimed, pointing to the giant dreamsand seashell spiraling in mid-air.
Racing over to the golden shell, they all stared at the dreamsand clue, trying to decipher what its shape and the image etched onto it meant. The image was of a burning candle, which was engraved on both sides of the shell.
Walking around the floating dreamsand shell, North noticed two smaller images under the candle. These image were of an arrow pointing upward, and a Christmas present.
"It seems to have come full circle." North muttered, realizing where the final clue would take them.
Tooth flew over to North to see what he was looking at, and added, "There's only one place that could be pointing to!"
Jack studied the clues more skeptically. "What? Where?"
Bunny rolled his eyes, and stayed silent. (Jack would either figure it out, or he would find out soon enough. Either way, they were all more than ready to return to North’s Workshop.)
The four tired Guardians FINALLY stumbled out of North’s sleigh and went upstairs to the Globe Room, where they found the Sandman sitting on one of the couches sipping a cup of eggnog. Four other cups were set out on the coffee table in front if him, ready for the other Guardians to enjoy once they returned.
"Please tell me you haven't been here the whole time," Jack groaned.
Sandy simply grinned and raised his cup of eggnog in a silent, celebratory toast.
Although they were less than satisfied with Sandy's non-answer, the other Guardians slumped onto their preferred couches and armchairs to enjoy their warm cups of eggnog. Before they could realized what he was doing, Sandy quietly sent them to sleep and left his exhausted friends to rest and dream pleasant dreams.
Well, almost.
The sleeping Guardians didn't realize that the small sunflower walking beside them in their dreams was really the Sandman and not part of a crazy, eggnog-induced hallucination until they woke up the next day.
"SANDY!"
"FOR THE LOVE OF CUPID, WERE YOU IN MY DREAMS!? GET BACK HERE!"
(The Sandman hid in North's fruitcake cupboard for the rest of the week.)