The Guardian

You have heard the tales of when our Grandfathers went mad, yes? Well, back then there were two twins, a girl named Ivy, and her twin brother. Ivy was a trickster and a shapeshifter, but when she saw the destruction the Grandfathers had wrought in their madness, she grew incensed.

She went to the Grandfathers and scolded them, saying, “Can you not see what you are doing?” But they were under Grass’s spell, and all they said was, “Yes, isn’t it beautiful? All that forest that was just going to waste, now it’s all beautiful Grass!”

So next Ivy went to Grass, and demanded, “What have you done? You know that humans are not Grass like you, why would you make them like you?” Grass laughed and sighed, and told Ivy to go away; the Cow had his Beloved, the mighty Oak had Squirrel, and flowers had their bees. Why shouldn’t Grass finally have an animal at its beck and call?

The next morning, some of the Grandfathers walked out to one of the fields they had dug up so the Grass would grow, and they found a strange new plant growing along its perimeter. “What is this?” they asked, and they investigated it. Soon after, they were covered in a red, uncomfortable rash that itched severely. That night, as they writhed in agony, Ivy appeared before them.

“The plant was me,” Ivy confessed, “and I gave you this rash. Wherever you turn up the soil, I will grow, and I will guard that land until it has had time to heal from the damage you have done. Wherever you harm the living soil that is the foundation of all life, I will spring up to ward you off, to guard it and watch over it until it has had time to heal. If you try to violate that space, you will brush up against my leaves, and where I touch you I will afflict you as I have now. If you try to gather me up and burn me, the smoke will stop up your lungs and kill you. I stand against you, and I will see to it that the land you wound has time to heal.”

For this, the mad Grandfathers called her “Poison Ivy,” but those who could see through that to her true purpose respected her fierce spirit, and called her the Guardian, honored the task she had taken up, and respected the boundaries she drew. Wherever the Guardian grows, she protects a land that is healing, and that is a place to avoid. Sometimes she can still be a trickster and a shapeshifter, changing her shape slightly and deliberately, so you must always be on the lookout for her.

Source
Attribution
 * Copied from The Guardian by Jason Godesky's The Storied Landscape series licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0