Pitch Black scrambled desperately across the pearly mass of ice and permafrost known as the North Pole. He felt as if no matter how fast he ran he could never move far enough forward. He knew it was a risk coming here of all places but what choice did he have? To be hounded down and perused like a fox in the hunt with the famished jaws of a thousand hell hounds snapping at his mangy tail? No, he couldn't! He had already been running and diving through foxholes far too long now and he couldn't avoid it any longer. If he didn't surrender to those who were once his enemies his fate wouldn't be worth nearly as much as he'd like it to be. He hated it but he was desperate. He needed sanctuary, even if it was a jail cell.
The fallen king could feel the icy atmosphere being smothered out by the excited pungent breath of his pursuers, poisonous with the carnality and fire of the chase. What were these unholy and demonic savages that hunted their pitiful prey with all the zeal of a pride of ravenous lionesses? What demonic stygian devils would whoop and howl with laughter as they jabbed and jested at their stumbling game, occasionally falling back just to prolong their cruel diversion as the maddened cries of the subject of their enjoyment echoed hollowly off the glassy cliffs like the untuned pealing of tarnished church bells?
Some would assume the excommunicated shadow man was the satisfaction of his own ebony inventions, the candle eyed war horses which had, no more than three years ago, thundered across starless skies, trampling dreams under hoof in one lividly colossal stampeding cavalry. Yes the erotic deadly beauties which had turned on him like Frankenstein's Monster would be anybody's first guess. But sadly the shadowy mares had all vanished, become extinct, and fallen prey to a much greater evil.
It started slow at first, the steeds dispersing one by one to continue feeding off of other hosts from above the earth's crust. But after a while fewer and fewer came back to hound him until one day he was alone. It was as if the emptiness of space had simply swallowed them up. But no, something else had, and now it was after him.
Pitch panted as he staggered down an enormous frigid dune of biting silver powder, snow whipping through the air like the grit of a desert dust storm as he tumbled head over heels down the slope, rolling like a pinwheel until he crashed face first at the bottom. As quickly as he could, Pitch scrambled to regain footing in the loose snow banks, but it wasn't easy.
The glacial wind whipped the snow and ice into his eyes, making him squint with bleary vision. His feet would occasionally falter and break through the slopes, taking him even longer to reach his destination. He couldn't feel anything; pins and needles pecked his legs continuously and his flesh had faded from its usual grey to an unhealthy and startling shade of icy blue.
But then again it was hard to tell, the moon shone so brightly upon the whole scene that the entire world appeared to have been painted from the same palate. Everything shone like an ocean of alabaster bleeding veins of white gold and was showered in crystal making the pole look like some sort of twisted winter fairytale that promised to hold him gently in its lovely down blankets and sing him a lullaby on flutes of arctic wind as the snowflakes danced their ethereal ballet around him, kissing him gently with venomous ice so that they could keep him all to themselves, forever. How nice that sounded.
Pitch Jolted as he felt something startlingly similar to talons nearly miss his foot. No! What an idiot he was! In his wandering reverie he had slowed down! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! But he couldn't help it, he was just so tired and weak, his stomach felt light from hunger and yet his body was as heavy as lead. And the moon, oh yes the moon; ever since he had entered the pole it had taken up arms, trying it's best to push against the dreaded invisible forces howling for his blood, and no doubt if not for his old rival's mercy he would have been a dead man long ago but damn if it's light didn't surround his eyes like a cool translucent veil and make him want to surrender to his fatigue and just collapse in the soft chilling snow.
Yes, the moon wanted him to live, desperately from what he could tell. But in the pit of his stomach he just couldn't help but hate it for that! It made his pride hiss like a two headed viper. But he had no time for pride now. He could feel his legs quivering beneath him and feel the hunger of his huntsmen bearing down on him as a blaring chorus of hyena laughter urged him forward.
Pitch risked wiping his once sleek now ragged black sleeve over his eyes but it was no good, his vision was beginning to blur around the edges like frost creeping onto a window pane, the only thing that he could still make out, clear as crystal was a large flickering yellow star over the horizon.
Pitch almost stopped in his tracks with realization and newfound hope as his foggy mind remembered that stars didn't flicker, nor were they so large and yellow.
About a hundred meters in front of him, just over the next snow drift, standing proud and hearty on the edge of an icy cliff was a window belonging to the home of the one man Pitch black never thought his accursed pride would ever allow for him to willingly go to for help.
Nicholas St. North.
Pitch let out a startled shriek as he felt a pair of large angry jaws of something he didn't dare give so much as a glace rip into the hem of his ragged cape. The rest of the pack was just behind it, if Pitch didn't do something quick it would all be over. He closed his eyes, summoning the last of his strength as he made one final gamble and melted into the weak, sickly shadows of the night before tumbling out just short of the goliath workshops front door.
He laid there, half his face in the snow and unable to get up, he had used all of his strength and he hadn't even managed to get inside. The creatures surrounded him, snapping and growling at him in victory as they circled their reward like sharks in bloody water. His vision was much worse now; all he could see was shapes and shadows as if he had opened his eyes underwater. His fuzzy vision soon revealed what seemed to be a large, burly, red figure bursting through the doors in front of him, yelling loudly in a thick robust accent. He couldn't tell what he was saying though. His hearing was just as bad as his vision; like he had cotton shoved in his ears. What he could tell was that the figure which his mind was too tired to put a name to was driving the creatures back away from him, warding them off.
As he watched the blurred bruise colored pelts of his oppressors disappear from his peripheral (for he could not turn his head). A stomach churningly familiar voice slithered its way into his skull, whispering in a lulling tone so sickeningly sweat that it didn't even try to hide its true intensions as it spoke a broken rhyme that he knew was meant only for him.
Run, run, run as fast as you can. I'll catch you soon enough, my little shadow man.
At this point pitch's mind was too unfocused and weary to understand much of what was going on around him. All he could see was the snow beneath him which sparkled like silver stardust in the moonlight. With the last of his strength pitch gently combed his fingers through the cool powder before fisting it lightly and uttering out loud a final coherent thought.
"Pretty"
Everything went black.
