I feel...almost disappointed in myself with the way this turned out. I feel I've been building this story up to be something epic and I'm kinda scared I won't pull it off :( But I'll try my best, okay people? :)

PLEASE NOTE That this is an important installment in a series and if you don't read the other fics your WILL be confused beyond all reason.

The list is here (don't worry they're not all giant stories XD)

There Must Be A Rule.

A Blackened Memory

Nightmare Dust and the Silver Sands

Scarred

Of Silver Horses

Sandman's Wisdom

The Spirit of the Thaw

Tricks and Treats and Forget-Me-Nots

The Shadow at the Side.

Guardians

Please note that updates will be slow- Unluckily I'm incredibly busy with other things and getting writing done is going to be hard. Bear with me, folks. Just so you know, this is post-movie, a re-write with elements added in from me, the books, and other things. Come on, they didn't mention anything about Pitch's past or ever say 'FEARLING' in the movie. Ah well.

Please review, and enjoy the Prologue/ Chapter 1.

BTW, Fanart for the title is better n my Devientart Account. Some other pics to do with the stories too if your interested :)

Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Prologue, Cold.

It was dark.

And it was cold.

The darkness was all around. Everywhere. Everything.

A single, still silhouette fell against the watery darkness, hair drifting upwards as they hovered in the shadows. A single hand was raised in a forgotten stretch, as if it had once moved up towards something, reaching.

Freezing cold, everywhere. And so dark.

Black, blurry, black. His eyes opened and closed, over and cover, as the numbing chill of the darkness around him closed in, his eyes squinting as the dull sound of shifting water moved around him in quiet and gentle swirls, as if coaxing him out into the cold depths.

He knew nothing. Everything was so blank, so new, so unfamiliar...and the darkness around him was too cold, so frightening...he was scared.

The figure drifted quietly in the midst of the after, slanted eyes dull and barely recognizing anything...just the darkness, the nothingness that gripped at his chest and frightened him to the core.

Then, something flickered like a timid candlelight. His eyes, heavy and narrowed, shifted up and focused on the world above. A dark, grey ceiling...and behind it, something bright, something so beautiful...that the darkness seemed to fled from its very gaze.

He was moving now, slipping through the waters, hovering up towards that light, his eyes closing gently as the fear began to ebb away at last. Then, his cheek touched the ceiling and a cool feel tickled his face. Then, it broke around him, as did the silence. Crackling shards of ice fell away, and he raised from the water depths.

He rose into the air, taking a small, uneasy breath as the air flooded his empty lungs, eyes blinking almost sleepily as he drifted even higher. Then, he saw it.

The Moon. Big, bright, glowing. A blue tine surrounded it's edges, and its ray shone down on him as if...watching. He stared up at it in wonder, as curious and innocent as a newborn child. A small, wondrous smile adorned his face and his wide eyes blinked again.

"Do you know who you are?"

The words came and were understood though the silver-haired boy couldn't fathom how. All he did was shake his head a little, gaze still locked in awe up at the Moon. The voice was smooth, deep...calming. It made him feel so safe...away from the darkness itself.

"You are Jack Frost."

The boy found himself mouthing the name to himself, barley a whisper of the words making it off his tongue. He had words now...and he almost spoke some.

"Jack Frost."

A breathless laugh escaped his chest, and he found himself being lowered to the ground. The lake beneath him- what a strange place- and landed on the smooth ice with strange grace. The snow coated the land outside the lakes, sprinkled upon barren trees. It was all so new, so strange. Jack Frost barley looked around, however, before he tried to take a step, only to slip, and gasp in alarm at the phenomenon. His foot collided gently with something- and his found himself blinking yet again when he saw a long stick lying at his feet. Long, with a crooked curve at its edge. Curiously, he prodded it with his foot- and something white and glistening curved around it. His eyes widened. Something so bright, so pretty and light...it was like the moon.

He reached down to pick up this stick, to see if it would glisten like that again, when flash traveled through his pale fingers and through the wood itself, and he dropped it in alarm.

With a loud crack, on edge hit the ice, and he watched in pure wonder as a fern-like pattern, glimmering on the moonlight, traveled over the blank ice like a ripple through the water.

A smile stretched across his face- and he did it again and again, running along the ice and trailing the long stick behind him, twirling in excitement, laughing loudly, unaware of anything else but the whoosh in the air as the ice traveled all around him- twirling so fast, that his feet launched off the ground and into the sky itself.

His heart leaped and he wobbled like a frightened young bird before crashing into the trees- and began laughing again at the novelty of it all.

Then, he heard something. It sounded like...voices. And, as he hauled himself onto a crouching position upon the branch, he saw something different from the pale colours all around him: S new type of light...orange and red and yellow. He didn't know how to describe them.

Excitedly, he began hopping unsteadily towards the soarce of the voices. The Man in the Moon had a voice...and it had been so friendly. Perhaps someone would talk to him there.

He stumbled at the edge of a strange place were the snow was gone from the earthy ground, and many embers were lit around the houses and streets. Odd figures, like himself, wandered around. He laughed quite happily to himself, passing words of greeting to the fast-walking people.

Then, when he was about to ask one of them something, a laugh caught his attention. He turned, and saw a small figure rushing towards him, a small furry creature running in front. He smiled kindly.

"Hey there, could you tell me-"

The excitement, the novelty and wonder was gone when the child ran right through him. It was a like a freezing jolt through his chest, a cold grip knocking his breath from his lungs. He panted, stumbling back, only to relive the horrid feeling when another person wandered right through him, right through him, as if he wasn't even there.

He gasped, stumbling away from the people, their unseeing gazes and the bright colours, moving back into the cold, into the blank and listless silence. He kept looking back over his shoulder, a bewildered and confused frown upon his face. He kept looking up at the moon...but no matter how many times he called or begged, he never heard that deep, comforting voice ever again.

That morning, a boy had drowned in the lake. The whole village had heard of the news- such a small community was tight-knit after all, like a small quilt. And no-one could believe it.

Jack Overland, the funny boy, the trickster whom everyone had seen time and time again laughing and playing...a pure light in the winter, had fallen through the ice. It was a cruel fate for someone so good of heart.

And he'd been saving his sister, they said. Poor soul...

Nothing could be done to safe him. The moment he fell into the water, his life was over. The cold gripped him tightly the second he slipped into the depths, and all his little sister could do was reach out to him and cry out his name.

"Jack!"

The saying of Jack Frost was barely believed or acknowledged. Wouldn't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose- a mere expression for that feeling when the cold bites at your nose, and a little fairytale about the patterns in the ice.

No-one say the thin youth wandering around Burgess, as it slowly changed time and time again as the centuries began to pass. And all that time, the Man in the Moon never spoke to him. Neither did the 'others' as he recalled- other creatures that could see him. But they could be seen- the thing was, he learned, that if people didn't believe in you...then you were nothing.

That was reserved for the Guardians- the 'Protectors of Childhood' as some called them- that is, what he heard the Easter Kangaroo say.

They protected everything children held dear- a detail Jack didn't really pay attention to that much. The Big 4. Powerful beings adorned and know by everyone, everywhere. Jack would be lying if he said he didn't feel a twinge of jealously. He wondered if other legends, ones he hadn't encountered like the Leprechaun, felt the same way. But in the end, it didn't matter. No one believed in him.

And so, he was alone. A cold feeling grew in his chest sometimes- and some nights the fun brought by flying, snowball fights and spreading winter would no longer keep him from gazing up and just asking. Why? Just an answer was all he needed. Still nothing.

And so...he was alone.

Jo Mgeeth was staring out his window that night, and as luck would have it, the moon was upon him too. He had no notion of the lonely figure that was wandering along his rooftop, hood up and staff held tight. His blond hair fluttering past his eyes, the moonlight blurry in his sight. He yawned softly, only to jumped when something shifted above.

A gust of wind flew from above, moving away from his roof and along the streets. Snow cluttered clumsily from the shingles of the roof, and for a split second he felt as if someone had been walking up there.

A cold chill nipped at his noise, and he rubbed at it with a bemused brown. Then, he closed the windows and blocked out the light. The moonlight, that had shone into the room and upon the wall opposite. Had Jo turned around at that moment, he would have seen the shadow cast by the moon, the shadow that had seemingly been his, was too tall, to thin, and the curling hair was too messy. But the light was covered as the cold nipped at his skin, and the silhouette vanished. It slipped out from the crack in the windowpane, and drifted long the snowy streets and frost rooftops. Following the blue hooded figure as he hopped along like a certain rival of his.

Jack Frost came to a stop, perching himself by the statue of Burgess. A Man was carved from stone, tall and straight, and woman clutching a girl child to her. A small boy held a curving staff not unlike his own, his face calm in the smooth rock.

He sighed gently and rested his back against the stature, unaware of the eerie, still figure watching him from the side. That is, until he caught it out of the corner of his eye just before his heavy eyelids slid over.

His eyes shot open and he sat up, an alarmed gasp jolting his body as he looked over...only to find it was gone. He almost pulled a face at himself. It was nothing...

The shadow moved away and back into the darkness cast by the building. Further away, far from earshot, the shadow stopped and slipped from the ground- presenting a dark, masked figure in its wake. The shadow character remained still upon a flat rooftop, gaze fixed at the buildings ahead, avoiding the moonlight resting on one side of his face.

"You are Cruel to him." Was all he stated. It was not furious it was an even tone coated with sorrow...but just a pinch of anger, of disagreement. The Moon did not answer.

Anguish didn't look at him. That alone said enough, and he slipped into the shadows. As he did, he couldn't help but think to himself that someone else, more important than the Man in the Moon, would have told him what he should already know. Sometimes things weren't fair.

Still, Anguish mused to himself, it didn't mean you couldn't feel just a little angry.

Just a little.

He wished he could have done more for Jack Frost. That in mind, a guilt began to weigh on him. Perhaps he was as much to blame as others- but he had to do what he was told.

Far, far, far away, below the depths of the earth, a dark domain echoed with restless, distorted neighs and shadows shifted all around. Awake. Ready. Alive. Dark glares were present in pale yellow eyes stared through the domain, the clatter of hooves echoing like a faded thought.

A tall, looming, ominous figure stood still and calm in the midst of the shadows, the darkness, pale features sharp and cold. Bright, venomous eyes glinted in the dim lighting. A sharp grin spread across the Nightmare King's face as thoughts, and plans ran through his head.

And, as the black sand slithered around him, building up through the domain, he allowed a slow laugh. It escalated into an almost insane and malicious cackle, and his head tilted back at the sudden strain. The malevolent figures of nightmares gathered all around, whispers of yearlings reverberating through the shadows.

He drew a long, deep breath and regained his composure, settled grin flashing in the darkness.

"My army's ready."

Dun, dun, dun.

Please review.