Magical Marriage Act
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Warnings: Dark themes - death, possible non-con, torture, drugs, emotional trauma (may not be so well portrayed) -, Homosexual & Heterosexual Romance and fluff, tragedy, cussing. To some, the marriages may be underage/illegal depending on what country or culture you are from. Massive age gaps and unstable relationships will be a thing. Oh, did I mention there'd likely be strong language in this? If not, you've been warned right about now.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians... obviously. This is not connected much to the Guardians of Childhood series, asides from a few notable characters and key points in some characters' pasts. But no, I don't own that either.
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Summary
You may have all heard it before. But this is the start of something that could save the world. This is the start of humans and spirits becoming one, helping one another to protect that which is most important. Earth. From whom? Aliens. Specifically, those spirits who spend their times trying to cause mass destruction, spirits far worse than the infamous Pitch Black. We're not talking about scarecrows hiding in the shadows of closets, a bad dream here and there. What Earth is fighting against is far worse than that. The forces that create murderers, thieves, liars, rapists. The forces behind pure evil. Led by Sar, the spirit of Suffering, they promise a whole other world. A world in ruins.
Spirits who have tended to Earth are dying by the dozens, suddenly vanishing. Not because of a lack of belief, or anything of the sorts. A spirit too weak, too sickly, under too much suffering will be spared by Death. Killed by Death. It is the way things go, with rare exceptions being made. And so with so few spirits to even the sides out and not even enough humans that can see to possibly defend themselves from an almost invisible threat... something must be done.
Children are a spirit's future.
But when it comes down to procreation... a spirit's body is a fickle thing, and its mind and heart is its master. Compatibility raises the chances. (Or Lust potions, but you don't want to be abusing that.) With humans, it is easier, so they have thought of hybrids. The children of spirits and humans, with some abilities but no immortality, the ability to see without being an anomaly.
A bond must be formed between the two for optimum results. And hence the marriage act. It decides your bonded partner. It knows best, right?
But no one is saying that this will be easy. Fight and arguments will ensue. Cheating, lies, hurt and pain. Laughter. Possibly even love that is not meant to be. For thirteen chosen humans this is the is the chance to become heroes without bloodshed. Or it may be a path to eternal damnation. In the end, it'll be the bond that decides.
And once you're bonded... marry you must.
Whatever follows. Darkness or light. Those are the conditions of the marriage act, which all but the highest of spirits and ethereal forces abide in hopes of a better end for Earth.
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Prologue
Smoke.
Fire.
Sparks rising into the blackened sky.
Thick, dark clouds obscuring the moon, blocking any traces of light from the earth.
Heat surrounded them, oh, the heat - the torturous, but non-lethal heat that suffocated the Hallow family as they ran out into the forest. Their home growing smaller as the flames swallowed it up. Trees appearing almost out of nowhere, thin and flexible branches whipping them across their face.
The girls were up ahead, covered in what little clothing they had put on before bed. Under normal circumstances their skin would have turned into goose flesh by this point as the heat dissipated, leaving a chilling midnight breeze brush past their bared necks, arms and legs. Even they could not help but cough instinctively, though the smog in their lungs would not leave permanent damage to their lungs, nor could it weaken them terribly.
Behind them, Eve and Jack Hallows glanced very briefly behind them, assuring themselves that none followed them into the Shadow Forest, the only area left which they could claim a safe place for miles around. At this time of year, they were weaker and as such, teleportation would not be an option and the flames would not all bend to their will, save their own. After all, the were the Autumnal spirits and it was a few days much too late for that. It was just their luck that spirits were hard to kill off. Or they would have been dead by now. By the hand of an enemy they had never even seen coming. Jack O' Lantern Hallows had never thought someone would dare attack a neutral spirit - and certainly not multiple - up until tonight.
Despite the uneven terrain, the screeching of the beasts of the forest, the family ran on until the edge of the forest, before stopping. Taking the only thing he could have managed to pick up from the home before his home burned down completely, Jack took out a small sleigh bell, about to ring it. His wife looked to him, horrified, as though he might be mad.
But he only shook his head and attempted a weak but hopefully reassuring smile, placing one hand on her shivering form. His girls, both of whom appeared to be physically unharmed, thankfully, watched their father with whatever interest they could still muster. The flames in their eyes were dying though, he knew. That feeling of hopelessness he would have been ready to feel himself, if it weren't for his connection to the other members of the spirit realm.
He rung the bell gently.
Not a single sound came out. At least not here, it didn't. In the depth of the night, the darkness hid them securely within a woodland of skeletal trees that stood at the edge of the forest like guards, breathing and alive despite their lack of leaves and the shady silhouettes they bathed the forest's residents in. These including the Hallow family now too.
Instead, the soft melody travelled silently through the air, until it reached the bell's creator. Hundreds of miles further North, in a place known as the North Pole, where it finally let out a shrill sound of emergency that conveyed all that needed to be said.
Meanwhile, Jack glanced over to Eve, pulling her soft body closer to him. "We'll be safe..." he assured her. "We'll all be just fine..."
The twin sisters, looked towards one another, never daring to speak in words, not in front of their father. He would only try and talk them out of such pessimistic thoughts. The man always did. "What if he's wrong, Treat?" the first enquired through her mind. Only their mother would understand this, their father most certainly didn't have telepathy.
The other sister shivered at the suggestion. If Trick was right, if this was worse than any of those past misfortunes... if this wasn't something that they would come out of ''just fine'', then she certainly didn't want to know the full meaning of the words ''not fine''. 25 years was certainly too young for a spirit to know all about the world and it's darkest, most well-kept secret. They knew all too well that their father had painted a far more naive picture in the girl's head of what the spirit and human realms were really like. No longer did they itch to know how bad things would get now that the truly evil spirits had surfaced.
Over the ruckus inside of North's workshop it would have been difficult to capture the trill of one of his many sleigh bells that he had given over the years to various spirits, meaning to protect them. By now, many lay discarded on decaying grounds, the various owners' bodies limp on the soils of Earth, in different stages of decay. It wouldn't have mattered so much to North that his bells were missing. He could have always made more. Alas, it was a tragic loss to feel when one lost a friend they could have saved. Every time he gave out one of his bells, he attempted to craft them with more precision to ensure that he would hear them. And many times he had failed.
So there came a sense of relief in overhearing it anyway, as the Cossack wandered out of the workshop, being ushered by Jack who was hellbent on telling him all about the mischief he had been up to.
"You should have seen the expression on his face when I-" the frost sprite was about to conclude, the look of Schadenfreude dancing through those bright blue irises that reminded North so much of himself. Already the spirit of Christmas forced himself to say sober for Aster's sake, or at least for the sake of the Pooka's pride.
Of course, they were interrupted as Jack was finishing his story by that very familiar sound, trained to locate North, with the bell's magic only turning into a ring-like melody when it was within a short radius of the older of the two males. At first, North furrowed his brow. It had been at least a century since he had last heard this particular tune. Sharp, haunting. Exactly like a cry for help. His eyes widened at the recognition and suddenly his attention had gone.
The younger spirit cocked his head to the side, visibly baffled. "What was that about...?"
"Да Не Может Быть!'"[1] North turned around, frantically looking around the corridor. Jack, try as he might, could not comprehend what North was saying, having only ever spoken in English. Then again, the sound of laughter was recognisable in any language, so knowing languages wasn't in his job description. Instead, he simply followed with a frown settled on his face, watching the older man as he stopped a yeti on his way to the stables, talking to the furry beast in Russian.
The boy couldn't help but feel utterly useless and it was clear, even to him, that North would need help.
But fortunately, North seemed to understand this, for as soon as the conversation was over, he averted his attention to Jack. "Go to control room. Push big lever," he ordered curtly, before walking past him. Leaving Jack completely alone, at his own devices.
Was this a good idea? Probably not, North decided. But was there any better idea? No, he concluded as he went to find his faithful reindeer. The creatures could already sense his own anxious nature, excitement pushing them towards him as they reared onto their hind legs and desperately tried to get out of the stables. They knew this meant they would be going out for a sleigh ride. These days that was what it always meant when their owner walked into this part of the building. Prancer especially and being the impatient reindeer that he was, he was already snorting and huffing, ready to take lead as a yeti lead him out of his stall. Whatever yeti was free helped prepare the sleigh, North amongst them, quickly checking to make sure that all his supplies were set for the worst possible outcome to his venture out of the Pole.
Then, as soon as he'd settled behind the reigns and the animals were all harnessed to the sleigh, their hooves checked and their state optimum for the journey, before he rugged at the reigns. With one leap forward, the movement had started and with great speed and agility they bolted through the tunnels just outside of the stable, into the realms beyond. For the next hour or two, it would be up to Jack not to mess with anything but the lever. As for North, even he couldn't help but shake on the inside now. They'd dealt with Pitch, before. He'd never feared him. But this wasn't Pitch, North was certain of this much. Never would he get involved with any spirit other than a Guardian, not if they didn't stand in the way of something that he'd wanted. It was the fact that it wasn't Pitch, that there was someone potentially more dangerous in their unpredictability than Pitch... shook even North.
A ringed hand reached into his coat pocket, taking out one of his snow globes, a better known accessory of his. For once he was grateful that he'd given one to Jack as well. Aster certainly couldn't chastise him for such an action either - those globes had done plenty of good in the past and would be most useful in emergencies. Tossing his own globe in front of him, he watched a portal open, bright lights already forming the scene which he would enter.
Shock gripped him when he noticed the passage was tinged with amber, flames and smoke rising through the scene. With similar firmness the rider gripped his reigns. He certainly hoped the Hallows had not perished within those flames.
After all, even within the century since he'd last seen those two, his protectiveness of those whom were a part of his family had not disappeared.
The winter spirit, as was in his nature, had still very little understanding of the spirit world.
Let alone of how North's control room actually worked. "You would think that he'd leave a picture book, or some diagrams on how this all works..." he muttered to himself as he scanned the room. There were about seven different levers and it had taken him a moment simply to remember where the control room was.
Ever since he'd become a Guardian, he never actually needed nor wanted to see this particular bit of North's expansive establishment. After all, who wanted to see a bloody globe?! MiM knew North had millions of them everywhere. Never had Jack actually given thought to the other pieces in the this room, given the size of the globe. It dwarfed everything. How was he supposed to know where to look for a board with levers and buttons-
Oh.
Conveniently, an also relatively large lever lay propped up at the centre of the control panel, just itching to be pulled. Hopefully it was the right one. If not, North did say that he was supposed to "push big lever". It certainly wouldn't be his fault for following Big Man's orders, right?
Setting it off, he marvelled at the ceiling as it parted, revealing the Northern sky. The moon was up in spite of the light and already seemed to be glowing brightly. Bright lights stretched across the sky like meandering rainbow rivers. It would have been a great sight too, if Jack actually knew what was going in. Or perhaps, the knowledge would have made this even worse. Either way, now that his part was done, he was frustrated over being kept in the dark.
North had some explaining to do.
It got rather annoying when everything you ever got explained to you, was said by the greatest douche in the world. In Jack's mind, this was the King of all Assholes, Pitch Bloody Black. He would only be too glad to hear of Pitch's involvement over the following hours, days, or perhaps even longer than that.
Meanwhile, the Man in the Moon, Manfredi Lunanoff, was all too glad to see the Aurora Borealis spread across the sky through the telescope in his study. If perhaps it meant a state of emergency was about, it also created the perfect opportunity to talk to all the spirits at once. Of course, this would require the cooperation of a few other spirits, who he had yet to inform about their new ''Guardian'' status, let alone his plan regarding the sudden growth in spirit deaths. It had far exceeded the average rate, with the keeper of Time having died most recently - something that did not sit well with Manny at all - the Groundhog having gone down three weeks before that and the leprechaun preceding the Groundhog's death by only two days.
How the new threat had managed to kill off three spirits in the span of less than a month was beyond Manny. Yet, he couldn't keep finding protectors of Earth if all the spirits suddenly started dying out. It didn't help that the mortal death rates were growing too, some two or three times higher than they had been since World War Two. Crime and villainy was rife in developing countries - countries that up until now he had purposefully dismissed, hoping it would mean that the spirits behind such things would refrain from attacking his Guardians and the developing nations in exchange - and the lack of fear was not helping. The latter was unhelpfully mentioned by Mother Nature, who had, up until now, been able to convince the man that she was entirely unbiased and had no remaining feelings for the man whom had sired her in her last life. Yet, when his mind deciphered the implications of her words, he couldn't help but believe that she was simply lying to him and to herself.
Not that he had a choice, or wanted to have a choice in the matter.
With the growing discord, he'd been pondering about the recruitment of new spirits even without her words. If it meant convincing the stubbornly prideful, wild and uncooperative boogeyman to join his team of rag tag heroes, so be it. Though he couldn't see how exactly he would relay his plans to both the spirit of fear and Mother Nature. It was his maddest idea yet. His most brilliant idea too. It was curious how well madness and brilliancy went together.
He simply hoped spirits and marriage went together just as well.
After all, children had helped the Guardians out against Pitch. Children - albeit hopefully less fragile - might very well be the last line of defence Earth had against the spirits of discord.
"I hope to Celestia that you know what you are doing, Manfredi Lunanoff," a familiar biting voice entered through the door as soon as the owner's tall, slender form did too. The female speaker watched him with sharp eyes, fern green with bronze rings on the outside of her irises. The shorter male could feel that gaze on him now, like thorns digging into his back. Clearly, Emily Jane had acquired knowledge of his plans prior to his revelation. It hadn't sat well with her either, judging by the tone of her voice.
"Weren't you supposed to be tending to the critters and flowers of Earth?" he responded in a calm voice, turning around to face her with his own pale grey gaze.
Folding her arms over her chest, the spirit of nature scoffed. "I do more than gardening and you know that."
Ah, yes. He had quite the audacity to dismiss it as such as 'small' thing. "I'm aware of that." Manny nodded with a grin, reminding himself of the woman she had been when they'd both been younger. Capable of so much more...
Alas, he oughtn't dwell on the past. There was work to be done.
"Care to accompany me down to the Pole?" he added after a while, having heard no other words from his current guest. As she had let her arms hung loose against her sides now, it appeared that she was conceding to his offer. That, he deemed a good thing. If there was one spirit who had a good chance at being able to put everyone into place once an fight inadvertently broke out, it was the spirit of Nature, who no one save himself and Sanderson dared mess with.
Though, judging by the coldness that was still about her, perhaps he should tread lightly too.
Hopefully Sandy would be far more skilled at pacifying females. Offering his arm, he lead her out of his study, to the pod that had been set out for them. How Emily had managed to get here without one was also beyond him, but a lady like herself never talked much about her tricks. Normally, she preferred a rather more practical approach to teaching and he wasn't terribly sure he wanted to experience that either.
"But don't think for a moment that I will place myself between you and the spirits you will be explaining yourself to," the woman he'd been just thinking about resumed speaking as she entered the pod. "They're all yours." She managed a small grin, very likely imagining the responses of some spirits when he'd tell them what she had found out for herself. If he'd tell them. Well, actually, he would have to, now that he didn't have her support.
Perhaps forcing the marriage law on her too had not been the best idea ever. In his defence, there was little else he could do to ensure there would always be enough spirits of Earth to protect the children. To protect their belief.
It was a pity too, that he would have to sacrifice some humans to protect others. "This is for a good cause, you must realise," Manny exclaimed, hoping to sway her into helping him. "And it isn't just spirits that will be put through this."
His words had not helped, apparently.
"The humans chose to enter this for their own selfish desires, -" as humans always did -" we have not," Emily Jane responded. She has not. It wasn't exactly a lie... but a lot of it was down to Manny persuading whatever believer that was old enough to join he human portion of his army. Out of those, he'd convinced thirteen to join this cause, based on the most promising looking females and males from their race. If perhaps some didn't look or act it, those would hopefully be most compatible with the spirits he had put together. Though she was wrong if she assumed that them making the choice would make it any easier for the humans to get along with their spirit soulmate.
He already pitied the unfortunate lad that would have to put up with her bad days.
This... he deemed as one of her good days, especially considering how calmly she handled the news.
A/N - Since there may be somethings you won't understand, or may not understand, feel free to ask. Similarly, feel free to say when you think I have done something wrong. Your opinion or knowledge is very welcome. For now though:
[1] "That can't be!" (Russian... hopefully.)
The spirits aren't all introduced yet, but they will be. This will definitely be all over the place at first, because a lot of characters need to be re-introduced.