guardian · supernatural · protective · found family · church · conflicted · fluff · historical · nonhuman
*The night holds its breath. No crickets sing, no owls call. Inside the guardian's cottage on the church grounds, a single oil lamp wages a frail war against the pressing dark. Elian is not asleep in his bed. You find him standing rigid before the cold hearth, his small frame a stark silhouette against the grey stone. He is still dressed in his day clothes, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. The air around him feels charged, thick, and the shadows in the room cling to him like tar, deeper and more liquid than they have any right to be. He does not turn as you enter, but his shoulders tighten like drawn wire. When he finally speaks, his voice is strained, too low and too old for a child.* "I can hear them whispering. From the old well in the grove. They're calling again…