Hi, everyone!

I decided to publish my final Advent Tales, which I wrote all the way back in 2014. I just never got around to posting it... If you haven't already read Advent Tales #1 you might want to go back and read that before or after you read this. I will also post my 2013 Advent Tales soon (sorry everything is out of order right now…)

***There will be a slight crossover with Star Trek in Ch.3 because of certain events that happened in Advent Tales 2013. In 2013, the Guardians met the crew of the USS Enterprise, who had to travel back in time to collect polar bears and take them to the future (because polar bears became extinct in that fic before the 23rd century).

Disclaimer: "Advent Tales" is not meant to be offensive to any religion or spiritual practice. I do not own Rise of the Guardians or any of its characters mentioned in this story. I also do not own the Advent poem.

As always, hope you enjoy! :)

XxTMRxX

ADVENT TALES 2

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 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.

WEEK 1: Wonders of the Ancient World

Time: 3:18pm…Location: Jamie's Attic

It was the holiday season once again, and Jack Frost had made sure to bring extra snow to Burgess, Pennsylvania. It would be Christmas Eve in a couple of days. Everything that could be decorated was, and the whole town seemed to delight in the festive spirit. However, four issues still remained to be dealt with for the Bennett family, issues that Jamie and Sophie Bennett, and their mother Diane, weren't entirely sure how to approach. One was that there was another time portal in their attic. It was the ninth one, they'd been starting to appearing more and more frequently since October. The second, was that a medieval knights' helmet had somehow ended up in the portal, and had shot out of it, into their attic, with the force of a cannon ball. The third issue was that more objects had come flying out of the portal, like a glass dagger, half a spear and a medium sized volcanic rock. After the volcanic rock almost took out Jamie, and smashed a very old china tea set, Sophie was no longer allowed up into the attic. The fourth and final issue, was that unlike the other eight time portals, this newest one wasn't going away after a few hours. Jack Frost, and Diane, were currently standing in the attic, contemplating how to get rid of this particular time portal. It looked like a shimmering mirage on the wall.

"The last time I was in your attic," Jack reminisced, "was, like, a year ago. Back then, your attic and I were on mostly friendly terms. Then it injured me one too many times." A crate of empty milk cartons suddenly diverted his attention; all of them bore the company name "Winter Dairy Farms".

"I'm sure it was all the attic's fault for hurting you." Jamie responded, joining Jack and Diane in the attic.

Jamie's mom nodded at the box Jack was looking at and said, "That was my grandfather's, Jack. He was a milkman for Burgess in the 1930s. Oh, I just remembered I need to get Sophie to her play date, so, I'll be back soon. Then we can figure out how to get rid of it." She pointed at the portal, then climbed down the ladder to the kitchen. A few seconds later, there was a faint jingle of keys, and the sound of the front door being opened, then shut.

It was suddenly very quiet, and Jack didn't like it. Whenever one of the time portals appeared, it always felt like something, or someone, was observing them. Like the portal was a window through which somebody was watching them

The time portal shimmered again, and a silver-colored projectile flew into the room. Jamie ducked, knocking over some boxes in the process, and spilling their contents all over the floor, as the silver thing shot over his head, ramming itself forcefully into the wall behind him. Eyes widening in surprise, the 12 year-old slowly straightened up and cautiously walked toward the object. "It's a spatula." He announced, prying the kitchen utensil out of the wall, completely ignoring the elongated indent it left there. Jamie briefly inspected the oddly migrant kitchen utensil again, and was about to start picking up some of the boxes he had just knocked over until he noticed that Jack staring in shock at an large ancient-looking book in his hands.

"This is still around?" Jack exclaimed. He ran his right hand reverently over the front cover of the book.

"Yes, the 'Annoying Bennett Family Tree Book That Injuries Literally Everyone It Touches' is still here. Impossible to get rid of, I've tried. It's definitely enchanted. Hey, can you help me pick up these magazines so we can get back to the issue of the time portal? Please?" Jamie said.

Just then, with a loud 'CRACK', a flaming arrow burst out of the portal and shot across the attic towards Jack. He raised the book up to shield his face, and unexpectedly, the flaming arrow disappeared into the book's back cover, which rippled like water for a few moments before going still. Jamie stared at it. Jack lowered the family tree book, turning it around cautiously in his hands. "Did the arrow just disappear into the..." he began, and Jamie nodded. Jack dropped the book on a pile of folded sheets next to him and muttered, "Well that was unexpected."

"I guess the book's more magical then we thought..." Forgetting about the magazines, Jamie began to examine the spatula again. "Just when I thought we might get a break from these portals. I thought they'd actually stopped showing up for awhile there," he said, tossing the spatula back into the portal, "But apparently the universe likes messing with me."

"Wait!" Jack said as the spatula disappeared through the shimmering time barrier. "We don't know what time period it will end up in. What if it hits Leonardo da Vinci in the middle of painting the Mona Lisa, and that messes him up, and suddenly we don't have the Mona Lisa anymore? I mean, even if he did try a second time, it wouldn't be the same one as now."

"Well if you want to go back to the Renaissance and get the spatula…" Jamie huffed with exasperation. But Jack did have a good point. Would they actually have to go tell Father Time that Jamie had made Leonardo da Vinci mess up the Mona Lisa because he had accidentally thrown a spatula at him, due to the fact that he was really tired of time portals appearing in his attic and had therefore and had tossed the kitchen utensil back into the portal without indicating where said spatula should be sent?

A smile was slowly forming on Jack's face. "Come on, Jamie, where's your sense of fun?" the spirit asked, "It'll be awesome! If I'm going, you're going with me. We'll come back with hundreds of tales to tell. Just because you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning doesn't mean you have to stay that way."

"Sure." Jamie looked down, suddenly finding the grain of worn floorboards immensely interesting. He heard Jack walking towards him, and then the winter spirit squatted down in front him.

"You ok?" Jack asked. Jamie nodded, but it was unenthusiastic. The last time they'd gone though a portal in Jamie's attic…well, sometimes Jamie felt like he'd never fully recover from that. It was NOT as fun as one might think to accidentally appear in the middle of a druid ritual and gain magical powers related to nature because of that, and then go through another portal only to get caught in the middle of a gladiator battle in the Roman Colosseum.

Without warning, Jack grabbed the wary Believer's arm and pulled him into the time portal. Jamie's last thought before the attic disappeared from sight, was 'Good thing it's winter break.' At least getting lost in time was, if he dared to admit it, much more exciting than cleaning out the attic again, and getting ride of another portal. He just wasn't one of those 'sitting around doing nothing is totally awesome!' types of people, AND he had finished his schoolwork days ago.

Streaks of gold, red, green, and blue, and hazy outlines of objects that felt somewhat familiar began to whirl around them in a dizzying vortex, warping time and space (and Jamie's attic) apart until there was nothing left, except a distant light. Jamie looked over at Jack with his mouth agape, to check what the other's reaction was...but the winter spirit had disappeared! A spike of fear shot through the 12 year-old as he saw the distant light coming closer, and he couldn't see Jack anywhere. "JACK!" He tried to shout, but strangely, the sound never reached his ears. There was no air for it to travel though.

Great swaths of color rushed past him, and he saw that they were actually nebulas and galaxies, all of them stretched out across time like threads woven into a fabric. Mostly though, there was an empty blackness.

It was the space between the stars.

The distant light, faint blue in color, was coming closer and closer with every passing moment, all the other colors and shapes disappearing behind him. The outline of an elongated object, possibly a ship's oar, came flying straight at him from out of the blue light. He didn't remember if that was the reason he ended up unconscious, or if it was actually his rather hard impact with the ground at the end of the portal.

He only remembered being enveloped by the blue light, and then something painful clocked him in the head, and he lost consciousness.

Time: Unknown...Location: Unknown

The first thing that Jamie became aware of was the smell of flowers. The sweet fragrance lulled him towards sleep. He never got there though, as he was jolted awake by cool water being poured over his head. Jamie, sputtering, lurched upright and hastily wiped water from his eyes. He blinked in the bright sunlight, and found two girls who appeared to be his age standing in front of him, staring curiously at him. One girl giggled softly behind her hand. Beside Jamie, Jack was holding a small clay pot in one of his hands. The pot was decorated with gold and black designs, and beads of water were dripping down its sides.

Jamie looked over the Guardian's shoulder, and his jaw dropped when he saw one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world: the hanging gardens of Babylon. Many terraces with cascading greenery rose high above them.

The girls were wearing white tunics, and their thick black hair hung to their waists in braids. One of the girls wore a golden cuff on her slender wrist, on which was an engraving of a dragon. Remembering that dragons were a symbol of the chief god of Babylonia, Jamie was glad he was wearing a t-shirt with a dragon on it.

Soon, he and Jack were following the girls through an archway on one side of the terraces. They entered a shadowed corridor, which seemed to stretch endlessly before them. The sound of massive stone water wheels turning surrounded them, growing louder with each step they took.

Suddenly, the corridor came to an abrupt end, and Jamie would have walked right into the stone wall had Jack not grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back in time. The girls however, seemed to have no trouble finding their way through the pitch dark.

"I wonder where they're taking us," Jack whispered cautiously. He sensed some kind of barrier in their way.

"And why? " Jamie whispered back.

There was the sound of grinding stones, and then a crack of light appeared in front of them through what Jack assumed to be a wall. The crack grew larger, widening into a doorway. They all squinted in the bright light, which emanated from the hundreds of brilliant, pulsing crystals that made up the walls of a huge cavern. Mesmerized, Jack and Jamie were led into the cave by the girls. Walking deeper into the cave, they were awed by the glowing crystals that became all the colors of the rainbow as they pulsed. The cave dramatically opened into a vast sphere. Their walkway became a bridge across a brilliant abyss of multi-colored crystals.

In the center of the bridge, the girls stopped. The one with the golden dragon bracelet held her left hand over the abyss and sang five high, clear notes. A crack resounded sharply through the cavern, and two small crystals flew up from the abyss into her palm, which she then gave to Jack and Jamie. As soon as the crystals touched their hands, a warm breeze whistled through the cavern, gently whisking Jack and Jamie into another time portal. The girl's melody followed them all the way through time, until they arrived at their next destination. Hopefully their destination included the spatula.

***Author's Note: Because of the mentioned previous time portal adventure with Jack to Europe in the 6th Century (CE), Jamie has the ability to do "small magic" related to nature, like lighting a campfire by pointing at it, etc. Also, yes, Diane believes in and can see Jack.