THIS YEAR HAD BEEN one of particular unease for the Guardians.
Jack had kept to himself, which was his tendency under even normal circumstances. But this year he’d grown more distant. Since the establishment of the Earth Holidays, the Guardians had focused on their individual tasks, and their public identities had evolved. Their fame and influence had been smashing successes. They were known and revered the world over, and their devotion to guarding the spirit of Earth’s children was unmatched in ambition and effect. They brought a genuine hope to the world. Not just for the young, but for those who held hard to the notion of remaining what was called “young at heart.”
Sanderson Mansnoozie was now known simply as the Sandman. He not only used his Dreamsand to help children sleep when excited, afraid, or overstimulated, but he also dealt with the persistent battling of Pitch’s remaining Nightmare troops, though this chore was one that every Guardian shared.
Queen Toothiana was generally referred to as the Tooth Fairy or simply Tooth. From her headquarters in Punjam Hy Loo, she oversaw the vast exchange of the lost teeth of Earth’s children for various trinkets left under pillows. In her fortress stronghold she and her fairy armies catalogued and guarded these countless teeth and the childhood memories they contained.
E. Aster Bunnymund, the last of the tribe of giant rabbits called Pookas, was now known throughout the world as the Easter Bunny. It had been Jack himself who had suggested the reconfiguring of Bunnymund’s first initial, E., and his middle name, Aster, into “Easter,” as well as the delivering of eggs on that particular holiday Sunday in spring. This idea was, at first glance, a lark, but it quickly took hold. Chocolate eggs were Bunnymund’s specialty, but soon actual eggs dyed a multitude of colors were added to the occasion, and the hiding of these eggs (again, Jack’s suggestion) and their placement in baskets filled with grass evolved quickly. Bunnymund’s already intricate underground tunnel-highways became even more elaborate and made the delivery of the eggs much more possible in a single evening.
North, too, made his Christmas Day extravaganza with a similar all-in-one-night urgency and ingenuity, but now he made a point of always outdoing Bunnymund in scale and panache. Theirs was a friendly, joking rivalry, though Bunnymund never fully understood any joke. His Pookan mind had yet to grasp the idea of humor, though he tried.