Summery: Sandy wants to tell stories too. Fem!Sandy. Self-indulgent fic, my own birthday present.
A/N: Okay, my birthday was yesterday. I'll admit it. But I spent the day curled up in my room writing this fic, so... Yeah. This is my own birthday present. No hate. This has an open ending, unless you want me to create a sequel. Don't worry, I'll be back to Weaponry Wipes Away The Free soon.
Also, yay! I'm eleven now~
Jack tells his stories to them, sometimes. About how he grew up in the little village, about he plays he put on for the children and about his sister, the small blessings they came to love. So they gave back, Tooth showing him treasures from her past, North telling about the wars, and Bunnymund bragging about his pooka history.
Sandy never says anything when they share those stories. She knows them already- when she sets her fellow Guardians to sleep, she doesn't rest. A small golden figure sitting by the sides of her sleeping comrades, watching the sand shift into shapes and visions and beautiful spectacles that are both of her imagination and theirs.
She watches them, the grains sifting like an endless tide, and she lets go the control of the sand for seconds that shape into minutes, and then minutes that morph into hours. Then suddenly they wake, rubbing their eyes and Sandy asks them how they slept as they groan. But as they close their eyes to rub the sleep out of them, she wants them to close again for more hours, so she can see the stories they imagine or the memories they recalled.
Sandy yearns for more, but she already knows their tales. But she just wants to see them again, the story of her comrades. Watching the golden specks form dreams and watch the clock, silently praying that it would stop ticking, stop reminding her she needed to treasure those few peaceful moments.
But when they're sitting around the table with eggnog and fruitcake, and Sandy pouts in her rubber booster, she finds herself engrossed in the tales she'd seen before. There's something charming about the way they told their stories, the way Bunny vividly boasts his fighting skills, how North pauses to laugh and reminisce about memories of bars, of drinking with friends and baking gingerbread houses with children. The way Toothina slowly explains the history of a certain thing, painting a picture of the event in everyone's mind and suddenly it's 7:00 pm and they're still gathered around the table with the fire burning low, looking at a corroded brass-capped tooth.
Sandy can tell stories too, magnificent ones. But she's limited to shaping sand, watching the clock and biting her lip. Silence cannot tell a story by itself, so she creates images that fly, soar and float while the tale plays in her head. But then it's all up to Lady Luck to roll her dice and see if her friends will understand. (Lady Luck is mean. She really is. She breaks gingerbread houses whenever she visits.)
"Sandy! Do not fall asleep on fruitcake." North said, and she'd jolted from her musings and into a platter of dessert. "Is bad for health."
Symbols flashed into life over her head as the sandgirl reacted quite harshly from being pulled from her dreams, or at least, potential ones. An exclamation point, a clover and the number thirteen, all just barely missing the fruitcake when it exploded into a mini shower of golden sand.
'Sorry!' The words flashed into life over Sandy's red face, and she lowered her head to look at her intertwined hands shamefully.
"It's fine, Sandy," Tooth's voice was unusually soft as she forgave the small Guardian. "Okay, now, can you pass the salt Bunny?" Said pooka slid it over the table to where Tooth's plate was waiting.
"What were you thinking about?" Jack asked offhandedly, before reaching over the table to steal away the fruitcake Sandy almost fell into. North visibly paled at the question, as well as Bunny and Tooth.
"I don't think that's a good idea..." Tooth trailed off when she saw the calm eyes of the Sandgirl, as well as the small smile playing across her face.
A die flashes into existence before morphing into cards, then an open book. The pages vanish and form a word bubble with three periods in it.
"You're unlucky because you can't read?" Jack attempted to translate for the annoyed Guardian, who let out a puff of golden sand. "Uh, you-"
"Da sheila doesn't want you to translate, ya doofus!" Aster yelled, slamming his hands on the table. "She's saying that we can tell stories and she onl' watches." North made a skeptical face, and Sandy let out a silent sigh.
"Who are you calling a doofus, fluffy bunny?" Jack retaliates, narrowing his eyes at the rabbit.
"Blizzard of '68 will be avenged today..." Aster growled, standing up from the chair and sending it rocketing across the room with a kick.
"Don't fight!" Tooth flitted between the two standing boys, turning this way and that. "This is a meeting!"
"And you on da table, pixie." Tooth bristled at the comment, turning her head to Jack with a sniff.
"At least take this outside," she relented, sighing and sitting back down. North was deep in thought, pondering something.
"Thinking about it, how were you asked, Sandy?" North suddenly asked, turned to the tiny golden child. Tooth nearly fluttered out of her seat and clapped her hands, elated at the chance to hear the tiniest member of the Guardian's history. "Yes, yes!" She cheered, before setting back down in the carved chair with with a bright blush coating her cheeks.
"Stay for story, Bunnymund, Jack." North beckoned the two growling at each other, motioning for them to sit. Aster hopped back into the chair, eyes already turned to the small girl. It would be a lie if he said she wasn't his favorite Guardian out of them all- who couldn't love the anime chibi? She was taken right out of Japan, seriously!
"Yeah, yeah..." Jack sat down begrudgingly, but his eyes brightened as soon as he sat and he leaned on the edge of his chair. "Now, tell?"
A golden notebook shimmered into life above Sandy's head. "You want me to bring you a notebook?" The shiny girl nodded her head, though her own face was flushed with dark pink. The notepad still flickered over her head, but now a sharp pencil laid in the folds of the striped pages. "And a pencil too."
Soon, a dull pencil laid in the sandy hands of the tiny girl. Bunnymund held up the notepad in front of her face, and she pressed the pencil to it.
Golden words flowed into the pages, lighting up the inked stripes. A look of wonder made its way onto each and every one of their faces, as one thought went through their minds, repeating over and over as the small girl wrote on the pages- 'the Guardian Of Imagination. She used to be a writer.'