Howdy and thank you for clicking my work!
You're new around this story aren't cha? Golly, you must be so confused.
Someone ought to teach you how things work around here!
I guess little old me will have to do:
English isn't my mother tongue, so please, could you be a good child and inform me if you find something that doesn't make any sense at all? I would love that. If you have any suggestions for this story, feel free to inform me about them! I don't yet have a clear picture of how this timeline is going to play out in my head... so bear with me, okay?
I might use some Finnish phrases or songs in the future, but for now there's just this one called Suojelusenkeli (Guardian Angel) and, like the smart kid you are, you probably already figured out that the fic is named after it. I'll add translations in the end notes. Ps. These chapters probably aren't going to be all that lengthy, I hope that you won't mind some light reading now and then. Enjoy.
Chapter one: Guardian angels and grannies
The forest was dark and cold when a young girl made her way towards the Mount Ebott.
The half-melted snow glittered faintly before her when the light of her flashlight reached it, and the girl kept her eyes strictly on the road before her.
She didn't want to look at the shadows the old oaks and pines cast on her both sides.
The darkness terrified her, but not because she would have thought anything to be there.
She was just afraid of the things her mind might create from the shapes she could barely see in the dark.
If she would look at the shadows she would think too much, and if she thought too much, she would start to believe that there might actually be something lurking in there, waiting for the light of her flashlight turn off so it could slowly creep behind her and… and… and now she was thinking too much.
The girl's grip on her pig shaped flashlight tightened and her eyes were open wide. No, no, no she should think of something nice, she couldn't turn back now.
No-one else believed her, so she was the only one who could help him… she alone could find him and bring him home… she didn't need help. She could do this alone, yes… all by herself.
The girl sniffed silently and quickened her steps.
Alone… all alone… she didn't like that. She didn't like to be lonely.
So that's why she would find her brother, so they could play together again. He hadn't just ran off, she knew it, there must have been a reason for his disappearance.
It was said that those who climbed the Mt. Ebott never came back… so perhaps… even if there was just a slightest chance that he had gone there…
She would find him, she decided. She would search the mountain, up and down, inside out. She would be strong enough and she wouldn't be scared. Not at all.
The girl heard a loud snap under her feet and she shrieked, almost dropping her flashlight.
She turned the light quickly towards the ground and noticed that she had stepped on a small stick.
Okay, she was just a little bit scared. Or maybe a bit more than a little.
She stood there for a moment, shaking slightly and pointing accusingly at the broken stick with her flashlight, as if it could have moved or changed into something horrible if she turned her back at it.
However, the broken stick remained as a stick.
The girl let out a weak sigh and sniffed again. Her idea had sounded much better in the safety of her own bright room, but still, she wasn't going to back down.
She had gone this far already.
Mother had called her stubborn sometimes, and it almost sounded like a bad word when she used it, but there was another person who had called her 'stubborn' too. Yes, Granny had called her that once or twice, but it sounded like a compliment when it came from her.
Granny could never be mad at her or her brother for a long time, so the girl thought that it must have been the case with most of grannies. It was a bit funny. She had yet to meet a really angry granny, therefore it must have been really hard for old grannies to be angry. Grannies were safe. At least the girl's own Granny was a very safe person, so now she thought of her.
The girl picked the longer part of the stick from the ground. She felt a bit bad for being angry at it. After all, It wasn't the stick's fault that she had stepped on it.
"Sorry...", she mumbled, and after a short moment of consideration, she put it in her small green backpack. Then she kept moving forward.
...
Soon the girl found herself from the base of the mountain. She was shaking again.
It was still cold and the trees had started to take even more space from the small road the girl had followed.
The girl was starting to feel lonely.
Unfortunately, there was only so much a person could think about their granny before starting to miss her terribly, so now the girl didn't only miss her brother but she missed her granny too. Even worse, when the child felt her tummy crumble and complain about the lack of food, she also started to miss her mother.
There was no-one with her now and she finally admitted to herself that she was scared.
She should have left home during daytime. Every small rustle of the leaves made the girl wince and every silent sound made her turn around and point her flashlight towards the trees.
There was now too many dark shapes around the girl for her to ignore, and her imagination soon started turning the cracks on the rocks into smiling faces and the dents on the trees into shouting mouths.
It was awful, terrifying.
She almost decided to stop her journey there and head home... But then the girl remembered a song Granny had often sang to her and brother when they went to sleep.
The song sounded sad, but Granny had told them that it actually told about an angel, guardian angel that helped the children home. The girl felt that it would actually be quite appropriate song for the occasion, so she tried to remember how it went.
She didn't remember all the words... they felt a bit hard and foreign on her tongue, so she hummed some parts and sang the others.
She could remember fully only the first verse.
"Maan korvessa kulkevi lapsosen tie…", the girl started, barely loud enough for even herself to hear.
The road turned up and the darkness around her felt almost suffocating.
"Hänt' ihana enkeli kotihin vie...", she whispered, still a bit unsure, and took small steps forward. Enkeli... that meant 'an angel', right?
"Niin pitkä on matka ei kotia näy..." , came next. The girl quickened her pace slightly.
"Vaan ihana enkeli vierellä käy..." , she sang a bit louder now.
There was the word again, the one that meant 'an angel'. That must have been the part in the song where the angel looked after the child.
The girl liked the thought... maybe she wasn't so alone either.
Maybe she had a guardian angel too, one that surely wouldn't let anything mean creep behind her or turn off her flashlight. Yes, her very own guardian angel.
She wasn't sure what guardian angels looked like though, so she decided that hers would look a bit like her granny. But It would look like a young granny, because an old guardian angel would just nap all the time.
The idea gave her strength, so she decided to sing the last phrase again.
"Vaan ihana enkeli vierellä käy… " , the girl sang to the forest with a small smile on her face.
... and so she kept going, eyes glued to the small road, her mind full of... determination.
"dOn'T WoRry dArLinG... "
The translation to the first verse that 'the girl' sang in this chapter:
"Maan korvessa kulkevi lapsosen tie,
hänt' ihana enkeli kotihin vie.
Niin pitkä on matka, ei kotia näy,
vaan ihana enkeli vierellä käy. "
"Through the wilds of the earth runs the road of the little child,
A marvelous angel is taking *her home.
So long is the journey, the home can't be seen,
but the marvelous angel walks beside her."
*In Finnish, females and males aren't addressed differently, so if you'd want to speak about someone you'd just need to say: hän,
So, I changed the 'hänt'-word into 'her', since it was the girl who was singing it.*
I suppose that this Finnish hymn can be sung as a lullaby, but it is actually also a funeral song. So, we are getting right in the fun stuff already, aren't we?
Pfft... Aren't I despicable? Making you learn things while you'd just rather enjoy doing absolutely nothing, like one bonely guy I know.
You'll meet him sooner or later... don't worry.
We have just begun.
You can listen the song from this link: /xJl5Fa5CJZs
Or this link: /ydmqloJ2SQI
Leave a comment if ya feel like it! Hopefully I'll see you soon!