You Get a Badge

To put it mildly, he was surprised. Almost shocked, really. Because if he was being honest with himself (and by this point he definitely was) he had not expected much of anything at all. And he certainly had not expected this.

Whatever this was.

The Once-Ler stood on the top of a hill in the middle of the valley. It looked exactly how he'd left it; short shoots of grass struggling their way up, knee-high truffla saplings doting the landscape in spots of bright color, and the trickle of the newly forming stream winding its way slowly through the land.

A frown of confusion crossed his features as he turned on the spot and then looked down at himself. He did a double take, looked again, more carefully this time, and then slowly patted his hands across his chest, felt his face, and then ran his fingers through his dark hair. Gone were the aches and pains of old age, gone were the creaking joints and rattling breath, gone was the haze over his eyes and the dullness in his ears.

He was young again. He was the same age he had been when he had first entered the valley all those years ago.

"You've got that stupid look on your face again, Beanpole."

The Once-Ler spun about and blinked at the Lorax. The little guardian had his arms crossed and was looking at the Once-Ler with something skin to immense satisfaction with just a hint of amusement. Maybe more than a hint, if he was being fair.

"What is this?" The Once-Ler asked, finding himself, for once, at a loss for words.

"What is what?"

"This!" The man gestured to himself, looking puzzled and shocked and maybe just a little bit frightened.

"Well, I was going over your record--"

"Record? What--"

"--and I had a little talk, passed some favors around, and, congratulations, you're a Guardian In-Training."

The Once-Ler stared, "Guardian…?" He ventured.

"In-Training." The Loraz added with a firm nod.

There was a bit more staring and then the Once-Ler rocked back on the heels of his slightly scuffed but mostly polished-till-they-shone shoes just like he'd used to. He put a hand to his chin, tilted his puzzled frown up to the perfectly clear blue sky, and appeared to be mulling it over.

The Lorax waited, a little more patient than he would have been years and years ago. But eventually, even he started tapping a foot on the ground, making a disgruntled, slightly annoyed, and just a tad impatient noise that rustled his great mustache.

"Guardian," The Once-Ler said suddenly, snapping down like an elastic band so he could lean over the Lorax, "So what's that mean? Guardian of nature like you? So I'm, what, immortal?" He gave a sudden, overly excited gasp, "Am I a god!?"

"No!" There was the old Once-Ler, the one from before, the one that had been annoyingly enduring and too ignorant and just a bit too optimistic, "You're just immortal. And you're in training!"

"Do I get wings?" The Once-Ler gestured behind his back, a wide, excited smile on his face.

"That's not how it works." The Lorax huffed.

"Wha--no wings? Not even little ones?"

"No." A pause, "But you do get a badge." And the bright orange creature thrust a hand out, holding an object between his fuzzy fingers.

The Once-Ler bent double and plucked it from the Lorax's hand and as he did so, he looked, for just a second, like the old man who had fallen asleep in his bed one night and had not opened his eyes again.

"Once-Ler," The Once-Ler read allowed from the rectangular, plastic, clip-on badge , "Guardian of Nature In-Training." His lower lip stuck out in a familiar pout, "You forgot the 'The'. Also, I hate plastic." But he clipped the badge to the front of his slightly faded gray vest all the same.

The Lorax swore he saw the kid puff his chest up a bit.

"So no wings," The Once-Ler said in a conversational sort of tone, looking around the valley again, "And I get a badge. Ooh, how about a cape? Do I get cape?"

"No."

"How about a staff--no, a sword!"

"No."

"A cool helmet? Ooh, ooh, how about a noble steed? Or a sports car? Can I have a sports car?"

"No, no, and no!"

The Once-Ler grinned teasingly and let out a warm, joyful laugh that rang over the hilltops. It was a laugh that was both very old and very, very young.

-----

Ages passed.

It was slow going and there was a lot to learn but the Once-Ler went about it cheerily enough. He had honestly not expected to be honored in such a way (though he would never, ever admit that out loud to anyone) and he did his best to do whatever it was Guardians of Nature were supposed to do. The Once-Ler was under the impression that while the Lorax claimed to speak for the trees, he also happened to speak for everything else in the valley and seemed determined to teach the Once-Ler to do the same.

"You gotta learn to listen to 'em, Beanpole," The old guardian said one day and then proceeded to urge the stream to flow quicker, wider, stronger, to become a river as deep and as beautiful as it once had been, "Now you try."

And he had, he really had. But it didn't click. Talking had always been a ramble or an escape or an excuse or a shield or a business venture. Trying to use it as a social understanding had never really clicked for the Once-Ler. Even when he'd told his story it had felt like a trial, as if he was using it as a shield to keep everyone away or a knife to hold to his throat as a terrible reminder.

"I can't," He muttered sullenly and unfolded himself from his seated position on the grass beside the stream, "This isn't working."

"You're just not tryin' hard enough."

"I don't even know what I'm doing!" The Once-Ler cried, exasperated, and those long arms flailed into the air, "Talking to stream! I am talking to water! What am I doing? I don't know!"

"Kid, kid, calm down--"

"I never talked to anything for years, did you know that? For ages and ages I never said a word until that squirt showed up. I can't do this." The Once-Ler turned his back on the Lorax and sulked off, feet dragging through the grass,

"You made the wrong choice when you picked me as a guardian."

The Lorax watched him go and shook his, "Even when he was old, he never slowed down. Stupid Beanpole…"

------

The twanging noise coming from over the hill was familiar.

And annoying.

The Lorax was starting to regret giving the Once-Ler his youthful body because it seemed to draw out a handful of his old habits. Like the sarcasm, and the banter (which the Lorax would never admit that he enjoyed), and the preening, and the snide comments.

And the music.

The kid had been humming on and off for years, a smile on his face as he tenderly cared for each truffla in the valley. He tended to the trees and the other plants with the same affection he had as an old man and sometimes, if the Lorax was watching him out of the corner of his eye and the light was just right, he got the impression of an incredibly tall, lean figure, bent double with a watering can in his gloved hand.

But most of the time it was the black and white twig on legs.

The Lorax trotted huffily over the hilltop, searching for the source of the annoying twanging noise, and found it easily enough. The Once-Ler was stretched out beneath one of the truffla trees--they still weren't as tall as they had been and they still bore no fruit but they were definitely getting there. The Lorax, however, had not the eyes for them at the moment and he bristled when he saw what the Once-Ler was holding in his arms.

It was a guitar. A slightly scraped, well loved, gently cared for guitar that was hauntingly familiar to his old one. He was fiddling with the strings, flicking his long fingers over them to entice a note out only to reach up and tweak the knobs on the end and tug at the strings again.

The Lorax scowled and was bout to start stomping down the hill to give the Once-Ler a good long lecture about using sacred guardian powers to manifest silly playthings when the man pulled a cord from the instrument.

And it sang.

The kid had never been bad on his guitar before but the notes he was strumming out now were like crystal chimes. The Lorax stayed at the top of the hill, watching and listening silently as the Once-Ler fiddled once more with the strings, settled back in the grass, and let his nimble fingers dance across the guitar. Music rolled across the valley and the Lorax felt it weaving into the trees and the grass and the stream, giving them life, singing with them instead of over them. The Once-Ler was talking to them all right, but he was using his own, attention-seeking way of doing it.

So, maybe the beanpole had actually picked something up after all.

Still, it was an abuse of privileges.

But the Lorax figured he could let it slid. Just this once.