Green Fingers Tips and Beetle-Black Eyes

Fingers mingling in ebony locks, Nicholas St. North scrutinizes the marble-white countenance they surround. He takes the time to memorize every bit of it; from the dimpled apple-red lips, to the cliff-sharp cheekbones, and further up, the sooty black lashes that hide her equally black eyes. With a thick thumb, he strokes the canyon that dimples her chin and lets his hand wander further down...

Eyes blink open, unimpressed and unamused, they stare at North. Grinning roguishly, the man remarks, "You awake."

"And every time I do you look ages older," she jabs.

North retracts his hand and feigns pains. "Ah, but you see, it good that I age; makes me more distinguished!" He proclaims with a jovial smirk.

She sniffs and pushes herself from his sheets.

Watching with lavish attention as the stark white sheets pool around her concave stomach, it's moments such as now North wishes Mother Nature felt the same passion he feels for her. Teasingly, she raises her arms above her head and arches her small breast out. North swallows. Sneaking a sultry glance his way, the woman crawls out from the sheets baring herself whole as she settles herself in North's lap.

Taking his ruddy cheeks between her verdant fingers, Mother Nature leans her face in, whispering in husky tones, "No matter." Brushing kisses up and down his jaw, she hums. "As long you look at me as you do, I shall come to you."

North takes is as a promises and with an overflow of hot feelings, he grips Mother Nature's arms in a bruising hold and kisses her - hard.

Between quick kisses and rough touches, the woman pants, gasps and sighs. Somewhere in the haze, her green fingers cup his face and draw North's attention to her strikingly serious beetle-black eyes. Between puffs of breath, she says to him, "There's a new spirit."

North grunts uninterested and presses closer to her.

She throws her head back, but it does not stop her focus. "He's a winter spirit," Mother Nature insists.

Heaving a frustrated groan, North snaps his gaze to her and demands, "What does it matter, M? There many spirits born, many die, why this one different?"

Her eyes grow distant for a moment and North eagerly takes the time to trace her timeless beauty with his eyes.

"I saw him born," she murmurs. "The Man in the Moon raised him up from death and I..."

Nuzzling his beard in the hollow between her neck and breast, North smirks against the warm skin. "You did same for me, raised me from dead," he mumbles.

Fingers weaving in between them, she pulls North away with an irritated noise and hisses, "I kept you from dying, I didn't revive you."

North shrugs and falls sideways. Snaking a thick arm around the narrow waist, he pulls her down against him and into her hair, he whispers, "You saved me still."

With a weary sigh, she falls disjointed against him and murmurs to no one as North begins to caress her again, "This one, he's special, I feel it in my veins."

"You say same about me," North reminds her, squeezing a bit stronger than necessary.

Her eyes meet his and with a tiny smirk she imparts to North. "He's just a boy, you on the other hand..." North grins wickedly and takes up the challenge issued.

It's a short time after Pitch's defeat that he sees her, but the unreadable twinkle that's he come accustomed to seeing in her eyes when they meet is dead. Instead, all he finds in the beetle-black eyes is stony resolve.

"You let them drag him away," she comments.

North raises his head from his books and papers. "Hm? Pitch, you mean?" he inquires in confusion.

Something furious alights in her eyes, and with a sudden spurt of fluidity, she's in front of his desk. Her face becomes twisted and gnarled into an image not that dissimilar to the man they speak of. "Whom else could I mean?" she demands.

North frowns. "Why it have you so worked up? Pitch's no good; did you see what he want to do? You stopped him yourself before," he remarks, feeling a tad indignant at her anger.

Green fingers splintering his desk, Mother Nature hisses, "Stopped, not eradicate!"

Falling back in his chair, the old man surveys the woman with keenly worried eye. "You do not love him, do you?" he asks, quiet and steady; yet despite his efforts, jealousy still creeps in.

Mother Nature barks a mocking laugh. "No worries, Nicholas St. North, you're the only one I've ever lavished such attention on." She comes around the desk then, straddling him, she begins to place a tender kiss to his neck, quickly, though, it turns stinging and cruel. Yanking away, he's stopped from moving much further by fingers that have taken root in his collar. "But, you see, you are not the only one I care for," she growls against his throat. "I am not biased in my views, I am Mother Nature, I am balance, and I love all parts of nature, worldly or human, good or bad."

Heart beating wild like a cornered beast, North gazes up with shock at Mother Nature, fearing all the while she'll take the life she saved. But her eyes, betrayed and sorrowful, glimmer instead. Then with the saddest of trembles, she presses her bloodstained lips to his own. North stays still as she retracts her body and steps away before disappearing whence she came.

Long after she's left, his lips throb.

He runs into her some many years later, but things are different. Jack Frost stands lean and tall on her left and between them, a shadow of a boy stands, his wan face raised up to the skies. Jack smiles, and with a guiding arm brings both Mother Nature and the boy forward.

(North won't admit it, but it hurts to see her, hurts to know she's found someone that's not him).

"North! Long time no see!" Jack grins, reaching out to shake hands.

North takes up the offer and gives the man's (when had he grown up?) hand a shake. "Not my fault, you disappear after Pitch's defeat."

The boy flinches, and Mother Nature's eyes smolder while Jack sighs. Clasping a hand on the boy's shoulder Jack tells North, "This is Pitch."

North Blinks. "Ah," he mumbles when he realizes there's nothing left to say.

Mother Nature offers him a displeased smile. "We've been protecting Pitch as he gains believers," she explains. Then she pointedly says to him, "It's been hard with you Guardians squashing down every Nightmare that comes up."

"I'm a Guardian too," Jack reminds her calmly, one hand on Pitch's back.

"Not as much," Pitch whispers. Fidgeting, he then says to the nature spirits, "Dawn comes soon."

Jack exhales and whisks the child up in his arms. "We'll meet up in China?" he inquires of Mother Nature, she nods her head, but her beetle-black eyes never leave North. Jack Frost and Pitch Black rise up and away on a gust of wind leaving Mother Nature and Nicholas St. North to sort their business.

"He not as dead as you make him to be," North comments with little malice.

She shrugs. "Close enough when you can't even scare a bunny rabbit," she bites.

North opens his hands helplessly. "Are you happy like this?" he questions.

Her eyes shimmer with something more than he's ever seen and in a voice so quiet he thought it just in his mind; she breathes, "As happy as I can be these days."

"I miss you" North confides in her.

Mother Nature gives him a pitying stare. "I do too some days, but..." She fades off, eyes gazing off in the direction her boys went.

Seeing the reflections that lay in the beetle-black eyes, North nods his head in understanding. "You have them, I need to move on as well."

Mother Nature hums lowly. "I hear Katherine's been asking after you for sometime."

North smirks. "Goodbye, M."

With open eyes that speak her sadness, Mother Nature descends her head. "Goodbye, North," she returns.

They part.

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