//------------------------------//
// Stress 
// Story: The S.R.G: Phantom Girl 
// by SaphireHoyt 
//------------------------------//

I had noticed more and more now that time was slowing down for me. I was no longer spending nights in a strange black out state, but I was instead starting to detect things moving in the shadows. I sensed things during the night and during the day that weren't there before. Strange eerie shadows. I vaguely remember dealing with something like these. It was a long time ago, and I could barely recall it, but this was definitely not the first time. I started to fear sundown, feeling my chest begin to swell with fear. However, nothing made a move to harm. They just watched. Waited. Waited for an opportunity to strike. I won't let that happen.

She's mine to protect, and I'm her's to... Well, I didn't know what yet, but I definitely knew that I was here to protect her. I would stand guard, holding myself high with tense shoulders, and body always ready to fill with energy, every night until sunrise. I swear once, I got the instinct to reach out and grab something from the air, but I didn't respond to the instinct.

Then, I would relax after the stranger had started to come around. The shadows didn't always come around all the time. But they did, enough that I was scared of letting my guard drop. Day by day, the shadows slowly went away, but then returned on occasion, as if to spy on us.

I was preoccupied with playing with Celectia right now, to much so to worry about the shadows, but when she looked at me with a look of fear and dread, I knew something was wrong. I slowly turned around and kept an eye out, watching for the darkness that seemed to twist and melt in and out of the shadows of everything in the room. Instead, I found a tall monster, standing there in the middle of the room, red eyes and tar dripping from it. I stood up and felt a burst of energy fill me. I reached out and grabbed something that materialized into being from the air around me. I launched myself into the being head first, holding the strange weapon that had materialized from thin air out before me, holding a silent snarl on my face as I worked carefully.

It dodged around the room, trudging it's filthy tar all around the room, but it melted away a few moments later. I slammed my sword into the monster, trying to kick and claw it into the darkness. None of this started happening until the Stranger had arrived. The shadows had never appeared, the monsters never attacked at all, and nothing bad like this had ever happened. I punched the monster in the stomach and it started absorbing my arm into it's black tar. I got panicked, kicking it as it absorbed my arm slowly. It got hold of my foot and started to absorb there too, and I felt fear rising in my heart. Dread filled me. I'm not ready. I stabbed the monster with my sword, and it let out a silent flinch. It started to glow where I had stabbed it. I began to wildly move the sword, twisting and swirling and slicing until there was nothing but bright light.

I pulled back, tears in my eyes when I dropped the sword and it disappeared. I started smelling flowers, very strong scented flowers. Celectia was sobbing loudly, her horn glowing. This had never happened before, and I watched her carefully. I felt the tar that was left on my body be blown off by the huge burst of light that came from her horn. I blinked and felt my mind link with hers, my body flooding with dozens of different emotions I never expected from someone her age.

I floated down and gently hugged her, happy that I was invisible to the eye's of on lookers. She nudged gently, nuzzling my hand as I stroked her tiny cotton candy colored mane. I just laid like that, my head gently laying on top of hers. She had gotten larger, able to walk relatively well by herself, and she was even getting random spurts of magic that she liked to use to play with. She was good with her magic, but not perfect. She was able to float me up, and that's hard, considering I'm always floating.

I heard the door open, and I looked up, along with Celectia. She sobbed again, and stood up. I let her go and floated back up, allowing her to run to her Mother. Her Mother made a strange face and looked around the room, making me freeze when her eyes locked on me. I wasn't covered in the black tar, but she could smell the scent of flowers, I knew. Her gaze softened when she saw me, and she slowly moved her eyes back down to the little one who was crying and nuzzling up to her. She pulled her in and leaned down, nuzzling her and telling her to calm down as she levitated her onto her back, and levitated her to her side when she went back to lay down. Celectia continued to sob, curled up in her mothers front legs. I watched, keeping my distance from her so she could have her space.

I kept catching her glancing at me, watching my mood, my facial expression. I lowered to the surface of the blanket laid on the floor for Celectia to play on and sat, watching, my knees pulled close to my chest and my eyes trained on her, my arms curled tightly around my knees to watch them. My face was somewhat covered by my own actions. I felt the bond between our minds break, and I just sat, lost in my own thoughts. The more i heard Celectia cry, the more I felt tears of my own form. Is that even possible? For me to cry?

First it started off quietly. Then it got slowly louder. I didn't know what exactly it was, but I quickly figured it out. It was my own sobbing. Separate from Celectia's, and it gave a small eerie echo as I tried not to let my sobbing be heard. I failed, and her Mother's eyes locked on me again, as she watched me. I was tired of sitting alone in the dark, hovering over Celectia's bed all by myself. I was tired of sitting so tensely. I was tired in general. She levitated the blanket up- and me with it, considering I couldn't float away from the blanket as it hovered closer and closer to her -and set us both down. The blanket was levitated back up. She had laid Celectia next to me, and covered us with the blanket- herself included.

"Everything's going to be OK... Everything's going to be just fine. I promise." She nuzzled Celectia, and for the first time in quite a while, I was able to shut down like I had for the first few days of my time here. Peace filled my mind as Celectia fell asleep next to me. Actual rest. Actual peace.