The Guardian of Loch Cinder

The village of Cinderwood huddled at the edge of the great loch, its cottages like nervous sheep pressed against the dark, unmoving water. For generations, the people of Cinderwood had lived in the shadow of a story—a cautionary tale that had hardened into fact. They spoke of the Beast of Loch Cinder, a creature of immense size and insatiable hunger that dwelled in the cold, black depths. Fishermen patched their nets with trembling fingers, always staying within a hundred yards of the shore. Mothers called their children indoors as dusk bled across the sky, whispering that the Beast was most active in the gloaming.

The legend was painted in broad, terrifying strokes: tentacles thick as ancient oaks, a maw that could swallow a longboat whole, and eyes that glowed with malevolent, emerald fire. Every submerged log was a piece of its sinuous body, every ripple a sign of its approach. The fear was a tangible thing, a fog that clung to the village as stubbornly as the morning mist on the loch.

Only Ambrosia, a girl of ten summers with eyes the color of the summer sky and hair like spun flax, saw the story for what it was, a collection of whispers that no one living had ever verified. She didn't doubt that something lived in the loch—it was too deep, too vast to be empty—but she could not bring herself to believe it was evil. Evil, in her experience, had a human face - the sneer of the baker when a coin was short, the cold shoulder of the other children because her family was poor. Evil wasn't a lonely creature in a lake.

Her curiosity was a constant source of worry for her father, a fisherman whose own father had been lost to the loch. He never claimed it was the Beast, but the unspoken fear was there, etched in the lines around his eyes. "The loch gives, and the loch takes, Ambrosia," he would say, mending his nets by the fire. "Best not to ask too much of it."

One blustery afternoon, while skipping stones from the forbidden jetty, the silver locket her mother had given her—her only real treasure—slipped from its chain. It spun through the air, a flash of doomed light, before vanishing into the water with a soft plink.

Ambrosia’s heart seized. She fell to her knees, peering into the murky water, her reflection a wavering, distorted mask of panic. The locket was gone, swallowed by the very mystery she’d been so drawn to. Tears welled, hot and stinging in the cold wind. She didn't even notice the water begin to churn.

A series of large, concentric ripples spread from the center of the loch, not from the wind, but from something rising beneath. The surface broke, and a great, dark shape emerged, slick and vast. It wasn't a head, but a broad, obsidian plate of chitinous shell, glistening like wet slate. From beneath it, a thick, muscular tentacle, patterned with bioluminescent spirals of soft blue and green, unfurled with impossible grace. At its tip, nestled gently in the sensitive suckers, was her silver locket.

Ambrosia froze, her breath caught in her throat. The stories had been right about the size, but they had been wrong about everything else. There was no malice in the creature’s slow, deliberate movement. More of it surfaced—not a chaotic tangle of limbs, but a symmetrical, almost majestic form. A broad, smooth head with no discernible mouth rose above the armored plate. Six eyes, not of fire, but of a soft, glowing amber, blinked slowly, regarding her with an intelligence that was ancient and profound.

He was a monster, yes, but not the one from the stories.

He extended the tentacle, the locket held out like a peace offering. His other limbs, she could now see, were gently sweeping the water, nudging stray logs and debris away from a fragile bed of underwater reeds near the shore. He made a sound, a low, resonant thrumming that vibrated through the wooden jetty and into Ambrosia’s bones. It wasn’t a roar; it was a song, a question.

Hesitantly, Ambrosia reached out. Her small, trembling fingers brushed against the cool, smooth skin of the tentacle. The creature remained perfectly still. She uncurled her fingers and took the locket, its silver surface cold against her warm palm.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind.

The amber eyes blinked again. The great creature, which the village called Roel in their fearful tales, gave another low thrum and slowly, majestically, sank back into the depths, leaving only the gentle lapping of waves behind.

From that day on, Ambrosia was a girl with a secret. Every afternoon, she would steal away to the jetty, leaving a small gift on the weathered planks—a perfectly round skipping stone, a string of wildflowers, a small piece of quartz she’d found glinting in a stream. And every afternoon, Roel would surface.

He never came too close, respecting an invisible boundary. He would collect her gift with a gentle sweep of a tentacle and, in return, show her the wonders of his world. He would guide glowing fish to the surface, their scales shimmering like a sunken constellation. He would stir the silt at the bottom, releasing bubbles that caught the light in rainbow hues.

One day, he beckoned her with a slow curl of a limb, his amber eyes fixed on a narrow channel between two looming cliffs on the far side of the loch. Trusting him, Ambrosia untied her father’s smallest coracle and paddled across the still water. Roel swam beneath her, a vast, reassuring shadow.

He led her into a hidden cove, shielded from the wind and the world. The water here was crystal clear, and what lay beneath took her breath away. It was a garden of impossible life. Fluorescent mosses clung to the rocks, pulsing with a soft, ethereal light. Strange, delicate polyps, like flowers made of spun glass, swayed in the gentle current. Tiny, silver-finned creatures with no eyes navigated by the light of the glowing flora. It was a secret, fragile world of breathtaking beauty.

Ambrosia finally understood. Roel wasn't a beast of destruction. He was a guardian. He patrolled the loch not to terrorize, but to protect this delicate, unique ecosystem from the carelessness of the world above. The fishing nets that snagged on the bottom, the anchors that dragged through the silt, the waste from the village—these were the true monsters. His frightening displays were merely a deterrent, a desperate attempt to keep humans and their destructive habits at bay.

Their secret friendship flourished through the autumn. But as the first winter snows began to dust the high peaks, a new fear gripped Cinderwood. A boat belonging to a travelling merchant had been found capsized near the center of the loch. The man was missing. Immediately, the old stories were resurrected, sharper and more vicious than ever. The Beast had finally shown its true colors.

A man named Borin, a barrel-chested hunter with a grim face and a need to prove his courage, seized on the village’s terror. "For too long, we have lived in fear!" he bellowed in the village square. "I say we end it! We hunt the Beast and reclaim our loch!"

A grim mob, armed with fishing harpoons, torches, and heavy-gauge nets, assembled at the shore. Ambrosia’s father, his face pale with worry, forbade her from leaving the cottage. But as she watched the flotilla of small boats push out onto the water, their torches cutting angry orange gashes in the twilight, she knew she couldn't stay hidden. Roel wouldn't understand. He would see them as a threat to his garden, and he would defend it. Someone would be hurt.

Slipping out the back, she ran along the shoreline until she was ahead of the hunting party, her small legs pumping, her lungs burning. She reached the old jetty and screamed his name, not the fearful title the villagers used, but the one she had given him in her heart.

"Roel! They're coming! You have to hide!"

The water stirred. He rose, his amber eyes blinking in confusion. He saw the approaching boats, the glint of metal, the fire. A low, warning rumble started in his chest.

The hunters saw him, too. A cry of mingled terror and excitement went up. Borin stood at the prow of the lead boat, leveling a massive, barbed harpoon. "There it is! Slay the beast!"

"No!" Ambrosia screamed, running to the very end of the jetty, placing her small body between Roel and the hunters. "You don't understand! He's not what you think!"

"Get out of the way, child!" Borin roared. "It's bewitched you!"

Roel saw the harpoon aimed not just at him, but in the direction of the small, fierce creature who brought him wildflowers. A different rumble echoed from him now—not a song, not a warning, but a deep, protective roar that shook the very air. He rose higher and higher from the water, revealing his true, magnificent size. He was larger than any boat, a living island of shell and muscle. He drew back a great tentacle and slammed it flat against the surface of the loch.

A wave, immense and powerful, surged outwards. It wasn't meant to crush, but to shove. The boats were thrown back, spinning and colliding, their occupants shouting in panic as the icy water washed over their gunwales. The wave drove them back towards the village shore, away from him, away from Ambrosia.

Then, with the mob’s attention now fully on him, Roel did something extraordinary. He turned and, with a series of gentle, beckoning gestures, guided a soft, pulsing light from the depths towards the surface. He swam slowly towards the hidden cove, the light following him.

Hesitantly, the villagers, having righted their boats, followed. They saw Ambrosia get into her coracle and paddle after the giant creature without a shred of fear. Bewildered and cowed, they rowed behind.

Roel led them into the secret garden.

As they passed between the cliffs, a collective gasp went through the group. They saw what Ambrosia had seen: the impossible, glowing world that had thrived, hidden, in their very own loch for centuries. They watched as Roel gently nudged a piece of a drifting, torn net away from the glass-like polyps, his movements as delicate as a surgeon's.

Borin stared, his harpoon hanging limply in his hand. The merchant, who they thought was dead, was there, huddled on a small, dry ledge, wrapped in thick, glowing moss for warmth. He explained how his boat had overturned in the squall and how the creature had saved him, pushing him to the cove and keeping him safe.

The legend of the Beast of Loch Cinder died that night, washed away by the soft, bioluminescent light. In its place, a new story was born: the story of Roel, the Guardian. The villagers of Cinderwood learned to see their loch not as a place of fear, but as a treasure to be protected. They pulled their old nets from the depths, set new rules for fishing, and taught their children to respect the water.

And at the center of it all was Ambrosia, the girl who had dared to look past the monster and see the friend. She became the bridge between her world and his, a small, brave ambassador for a deep and ancient magic. She would forever be known as the Guardian's friend, the girl who had taught a whole village that the most monstrous things are not the ones that live in the dark, but the fears we keep in our own hearts.