Hello everyone, and welcome to my first story for Rise Of The Guardians. I hope you'll like my story.

Disclaimer: I don't own RotG or any of the characters except for my OC.

Prologue

I was always told that I was born to dream my way into this world, to live my life to its fullest extend and not regret anything! Yet... in the end, I became nothing more but a dream.

I was pleasure and disease, an awefull dream and a beautifull nightmare. The chilling sensations of heat rushing through one's fingertips. Remembered for a second, forgotten the next. I was no person, not really alive yet too far away from death to freeze into an eternal slumber. A feeling so loved and needed that it could cause the greatest disasters, a feeling that could shatter even the strongest of hearts.

I was a blessing and a curse, hard to find but easy to fall into. A bump in the road towards one's future, an obstacle to overcome but an absolute essence to live with.

People would call me love. The name of my yet unknown center.

I detested the name, for I was merely the bringer and keeper of that heart-touching feeling. So I prefered to be called by my given name, not that anyone ever called me that. I could only guess I was nothing more but cupid, a forgotten name with an everlasting duty to bare on my fragile shoulders for all eternity.

My job, my purpose of living a dead life was to bring love and beauty into the world and hearts of the people living in it. No one was an exception to the rule, everyone with a living beating heart was meant to find love at some point in life, no matter how broken it could be. And as I managed to make other people's hearts beat harder and faster just by blinking, my own heart would remain untouched in it's eternal frozen state.

No matter how you looked at it, fate was either trying to be ironic or simply cruel.

I was always told that I was born to dream my way into this merciless world, to live my life to its fullest extend and not regret anything! Yet... in the end, my life had stopped right before it had even started.

- Cupid P.O.V. -

Before we are chosen as a new guardian, we are watched by the Man in the Moon for several years. At first, the way we live and act and sometimes believe is how we catch his interest. Then it's up to him to decide how and when we are reborn into our next immortal form. But the only way for our bodies and souls to accept such a change is to die first. By letting our bodies freeze into a temporarily slumber they can adjust to the task that lies ahead of us.

We never know we're chosen untill we're at the point of waking up.

Wether we accept our destiny and fullfill them is up to us. In most of the cases we deny what we have become in the beginning, because we still long to what we once had that we know for sure will never return to us. All that's once lost will never be revived. Only after a few hundred years of being ignored by everyone, simply because they can't see us because they have nothing to believe in yet, we tend to get a little lonely and a little more reasonable.

Once we understand we don't want to be alone for the rest of all eternity, we accept who we left behind and who we have become. We finally find and understand our center and become an official guardian.

I'm not that far yet.

I even think I'll never get there.

You see, my story is slightly different from the others. I didn't die a peacefull and above all painless death. No I suffered every hell of a second. So if you care enough you can hear my story. If not, too bad, I'm going to tell it anyway.

The beginning isn't as different from all the others. Because it started a long time ago. When I was still alive, I had a very normal life, nothing special really. I was your average sixteen-year-old girl, very lively and happy about the simplest things. Some would call me childish, others cute. Even in the old days I used to bring people together and gave advice of how to deal with a breakup or a broken heart. I was there for my friends and they were there for me.

Back then I was a member of a few afterschool clubs, such as the drama-club and the archery-club. As harmless as I was in daily life, once you gave me a bow and a couple of arrows I would become a hunter and I couldn't and refused to miss whatever target you'd name. So due to my habbits and abbilities I was given the nickname Cupid, I even went as far as to dress up as cupid every Valentines day. With a frily pink dress, a pair of plastic angel wings on my back and a kiddie toy bow and plastic arrows I'd run through the school delivering the Valentines cards to the people.

It wasn't untill that unfortunate day at archery practice did my world and everything in it collaps. I gathered the arrows that had missed or hit the target and was shot by the newby who hadn't seen me and hadn't known that when someone was out on the field you couldn't shoot because of the possible, very possible danger of hitting someone. It had never happened before, mainly because no one had been stupid enough to actually do it.

They had rushed me to the hospital, only to state there that the arrow, that had pierced my heart, was fatal and that I wouldn't make it to the next day and that it would be better for me and everyone else to let me go instead of letting me suffer till the very end.

That afternoon, every friend and family member that was close enough to be there in less than an hour or two came to say goodbye to me. And each and every one of them had to cry, why did they do that to me? I didn't want to leave while seeing them crying over me! So I asked them all to smile so I wouldn't remember them in the afterlife with their crying faces. And so they did, they smiled for me through their tears.

It would be the last time I'd see them as I was now. That night I saw the moon's silver beams shine through the curtains, the pale rays made its way to my hand traveling up to my face before vanishing together with my consciousness.

My damaged heart had stopped beating that night, and with a last soft thud it said goodbye to the warmth of live and envelopped itself into the cold hands of the dead. But I was far from dead itself on the contrary, in a weird fucked up way, I was alive. My body refused to move the way I wanted, as if I was paralized from head to toe, and I kept hearing them crying, through the memorial and the funeral. My heart ached the entire time, every salty tear that was shed for me only increased the pressure.

Being able to hear everyone breaking down but unable to comfort them was litteraly mindwrecking! I would've done anything if I could've just woken up that very moment, assuring everyone that I was ok, as if I was in another one of the drama plays. And all of this would've been nothing more but a performance. We would bow at the public, gratefully and happily accepting their applause. We would smile, we would laugh and bow again before leaving the stage only to come back once more because the crowd called us back.

But that didn't happen, because it was nothing more but a wish that moment. A desperate plead for something that I knew very well would never happen.

The real process of rebirth started when the last hump of dirt was thrown onto my grave, when the last cries of pain had faded into the distance and the pale moon once again shone onto the earth with its gentle beams giving everything a silver touch.

And after years of painfull stabs in my heart, the same rays that normally carressed the surface of the earth, finally reached down into the earth. I was lifted from my cold grave and into the cold winter air. Icy snowflakes softly kissing my skin as I gasped for air at the sight before my eyes. The full moon floating at the star-filled sky in all its shining glory. It was then I understood what I was now and what I had to do.

...

And now, years and years later I wandered around aimlessly. Randomly using my arrows on potential and unpotential couples. Flying as far as my given wings, real wings this time, could carry me on every type of wind. I didn't have to play Cupid anymore, I wasn't wearing the frilly pink dress anymore, for it lied somewhere long forgotten in an empty closet. My kiddie toy bow and plastic arrows had been replaced with the real ones, all of them very powerfull but dangerous unless in the hands of its mistress. But the biggest change I had to go through had been my appearance.

Yes my shoulderblade-length hair was still as curly as it had been before my death, it had been the color that had changed. I remembered how my hair used to be strawberry blond, well, it had turned a light shade of pink. My skin had become lighter as well, I was very pale, almost luminent except for my pink dusted cheeks and rose red lips. But non of those bright colors really stood out against my pale skintone in comparison with my dark pink eyes.

I had looked at myself, I had wondered who that stranger had been, for I hadn't recognized myself at all. At first I had thought I stood eye in eye with an angel, because she had a small pair of angel wings dangling on her back. The snow white feathers had a slight touch of soft pink on the edges, giving them a soft look.

It had taken a while for me to get a little more familiar with my appearance, though I could still surprise myself at some points. I never knew about what I was capable of untill I accidentally did something new. It was never common knowledge or anything, no, no, no. It was always me being clumsy enough to do something incredibly stupid what turned out into something pretty awesome. And it would usually take a couple of failures and missers and many, oh so many, false starts to redo that thing I did by accident.

And it wasn't like I had a mentor or a guidance by any chance. Yes, I had met a few of the guardians, just in case you're wondering, and I like Sandy the most. Very quiet and peacefull, but very badass when necesarry. It also happened that I ran into Santa Clause on a chilly Christmas eve, he had offered me a ride in the sleigh, and I couldn't help but accept.

"Everyone loves the sleigh," He chuckled in a heavy, Russian accent.

I had seen the world in one night, I had seen every child on earth asleep in their beds.

North had made me check the list, had made me check the damn thing twice. That way he could see who was naughty or nice. In the end he had shown me the famous North-pole, had introduced me to every single elf and yeti that worked in the giant toy factory. And as the elves simply waved at me as I pased by every yeti would firmly grab my hand and shake it with immense power that left me shaking minutes after they had letten go of me.

In the end he had shown me the globe, with small, golden lights for every believing kid out there. There were so many of them, most parts of the continents were filled with them. He told me the story of the Man in the Moon while we sat in his office, surrounded by his realized dreams of new and old toys, in front of the fireplace with a cup of warm cocoa and whipped cream, sugar for north and cinamon for me.

He told me about his center as he showed me the matroesjka that represented his many layers that covered his true center. Wonder, big eyes filled with wonder.

I had stayed only two days at the North pole untill I felt my wings itch to leave, I had started to think about leaving more often. Untill one morning, after I had said my goodbyes to North and had almost taken my leave, he had stopped me.

"Everyone chosen by Man in Moon is destined you know." He said. "You are destined for something big, I can feel it, in my belly." He laid his big hands on his even bigger belly and smiled kindly at me.

"You think so?" I asked.

"I'm sure of it!" He replied. "My belly's never wrong!"

I had smiled at him before turning my back on him and walking towards the grand doors and into the cold, freshly fallen snow.

"You know, I once met someone like you." He called after me. "He too didn't want to become a guardian, didn't knew his center and didn't care at all about duties as he flew from place to place playing with children that couldn't even see him."

"And who might this person be?" I called back as I stepped further.

"That person eventually became a guardian," North shouted to me. "He became the spirit of Winter and fun after he found his way back into reality, a believer is what we call it."

As last words were spoken I spread my wings and took of into the cold winter morning.

The end of this chapter.

I really do hope you liked it and bother to leave a small review.

Untill next time.