Zefrin didn't want to leave Earth. Oh, she had come and gone a dozen times in the last three centuries, but leaving permanently, abandoning this struggling world just when it needed help most, frustrated her. She crumpled the council's orders, the sepia scroll with its flourish of bronze lettering, unable to reread it. Earth's hourglasses had run their courses, and the council decided her efforts were better spent on a planet that hadn't depleted its natural resources before five thousand years of civilized existence.
       Just because other planets flourished unguided didn't mean Earth couldn't succeed with a little assistance. As creative as the humans were, they were visual creatures. Much like Zefrin and her people in their own youth eons ago.
       She sank onto a rock and closed her eyes, taking in the sounds of the jungle around her; the roar of a waterfall in the distance, the low-frequency reverberations of a meandering elephant herd, and the screeches of birds joyfully calling to one another. What would happen if humanity were abandoned? Life certainly wouldn't disappear overnight, but would nature thrive in its absence, or suffer the effects of a damaged planet? Or worse?
       Zefrin wasn't the first guardian to whisper into human minds, to punt celestial disasters aside, or convince the less civil races to leave this planet to its own existence. Leaving Earth would truly be abandoning it to the chaos of the universe around it and the impetuousness of its inhabitants.
       It didn't have to end like this.
       "Z?" Her apprentice, Eree, sat down beside her and sighed. "I've never left a planet alone before." His curly blond hair frizzed in the jungle humidity. The purple flowers of the Jacaranda tree behind him brought out the green in his eyes and brightened his pale skin in the shade.
       He could pass for human; they both could, by design. Her own skin was dark brown, and her hair sprang out from her head in tiny curls that had a life of their own. The universe was seeded with their likeness and that of the other celestial guardians. Even the flaws came through; the stubbornness, the superiority, the self-absorbed tendencies.
       "The council had me abandon two others before this one," Zefrin said. Overhead, the branches rustled noisily as the monkeys swung around and grunted.
       "What became of them afterward?"
       "Those worlds died." Zefrin sighed. This one would, as well, in time. She couldn't look at Eree and focused on a baby elephant bounding toward the stream below them. It trumpeted with glee and romped in the water.
       Her apprentice glowered. "Why can't the council give this world more time? It's so lovely here."
       "E, we're in the middle of India, just inside a valued preservation. Most of the world is not this lovely. If the humans cared for their entire planet like they cared for pockets of it like this, they wouldn't need us."
       "But time would help them do that."
       "If time were the only element, yes, but they are wasting their hourglasses."
       Zefrin waved her hand, and a faint image of two hourglasses floated before them; one blue, the other green. "Water and trees are this planet's hourglasses. Both were once healthy and in abundance, but the damage from the past one hundred years alone has broken the cycle of replenishment."
       She pulled off her silver boots and rolled up her matching pants, dangling her feet in the spray from the elephant's playing. Garments for celestial travel dimmed her sensations of the world around her. If this was to be her last day here, she wanted to take it all in.
       If.
       Zefrin chewed her lip. "Tell me, Eree, what slows the sands in the hourglass?"
       "Technology speeds them up, usually, but I don't think you want them to stop developing." Her trainee brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them. "I can't think of a single world where anyone slowed down the hourglasses."
       The silver of his garments sparkled even in the shade. The nature of an object did not change of its own volition, as an object lacked awareness. Humanity was mixed in its awareness. Some worked valiantly, while others denied and remained as clueless as these celestial garments. One group would eventually surpass the other.
       Sensing her focus, Eree grinned. "Are you planning to do something? Can I help?"
       "I've tried to tip the hourglasses on those other worlds, to slow them down, but it didn't work," Zefrin said, her shoulders sagging. "I tried moving them to different gravitational points on their planets, to no avail. Nothing will slow the sands. Once they are depleted, those worlds were doomed."
       "So, we just abandon them? That hardly seems fair." Eree reached into the air, and a kingfisher landed on his wrist. He winced. "Pain is life's greatest lesson. When we feel pain, we learn how to deal with it, what not to do. Z, if the dominant species was really created in our image, then they have the ability to change as we have. They need time to learn from their pain first."
       "That's the trouble, isn't it? They need time to learn, but time will not bend to their needs."
       The kingfisher spied a fish and launched, leaving tiny marks on Eree's wrist. "Just because they learn slower doesn't mean they won't learn the lesson."
       Zefrin pushed herself off the rock and dropped into the river beside the baby elephant. She rubbed its back, and when it pushed its head against her, she noticed a small lump behind its ear. A microchip. "The humans are caring for this creature."
       She put her hand on its side and studied it. "This one nearly died of a disease but was healed with medicine."
       The elephant splashed Zefrin, dousing her with cool river water, then rolled away as if laughing. All creatures deserved to play and be joyful. Eree leaped down to join them, laughing as he narrowly avoided the elephant's next shower.
       "Does that help?" he asked.
       "It does to me." Zefrin looked skyward, then around. She could sense the sands slipping away, sense the fragile glass on the verge of cracking even before the sands finished passing through. "If you knew that your pain would prevent someone else's, and not just prevent that pain, and ensure they not just survive, but thrive, and bring joy to the world around them, would you do it?"
       "In an instant," Eree said as he rubbed the elephant's side. "Many humans would, too. Some already are."
       It could work, Zefrin thought. She couldn't slow the sands, but she could add another element if she was brave enough. Could she sacrifice as other guardians have at each world's creation?
       "Hope is powerful," she whispered. "Hope can fix mistakes. It carries us from sunset to sunrise, every damned day."
       Her apprentice stood straight suddenly. "You're scaring me."
       "Eree, you will need to guide the humans in my stead."
       "Where will you be?"
       "I have witnessed the birth of worlds and the creation of their hourglasses," Zefrin said, her voice trembling. "I cannot slow the sands, but I can give Earth another hourglass, one worthy of the good its people have accomplished. Let that carry them into their future, which will be bright. Another hundred years, yes, it may be enough."
       "Another hourglass?" Eree came around the elephant and grasped Zefrin's hands. "How in the universe are you going to do that?"
       "This universe was created out of love, even if it has become a bit bureaucratic. I can transform my love for this world into an hourglass."
       Eree stepped back, tears glistening in his green eyes. "I stand as witness to your sacrifice and will so inform the council."
       "You have done well, my apprentice. I know you will protect your worlds well."
       Zefrin raised her hands over her head, bringing them together to gather her own celestial energy into a tight ball of light. It spun, throwing off sparks that flew into the sky and around the jungle. It grew until it enveloped her, and she spiraled and stretched. Her feet flattened into a base, her hands forming the top. Her core contorted, and her flesh transformed into two shiny bulbs of glass, tinted pink at their apex. Glistening white sands piled high in the upper globe for the hope Zefrin held in her heart and gifted to Earth.
       In the planet's nether plains, the hourglass of water and the hourglass of trees slowed slightly, pausing as they sensed the hourglass of hope.
       Zefrin's hourglass submerged into the river, out of sight of mortals, and slipped into the nether. Her final celestial thoughts were this: with hope, anything is possible. Her love for this world, her passion for its growth, were nothing compared to its potential. With Zefrin's sacrifice, Earth gained a little more time for hope to flourish, to blossom into change, to gain a future full of love and joy and replenishment.