/FALLING
The only thing he could remember was fear. From the very moment he woke up. And darkness.
He was surrounded in it. Drowning in it. There was no way of escape.
Fear gripped at his chest, clawing up his throat and he wanted to scream.
But he couldn't.
How did he get there? What happened?
… Who was he?
Now that was something that could not seem to come to him. Faint feelings of demons clawing at him, pulling him into the darkness. A faint scream, a shrill shriek of a little girl and a plea for help. His head ached at the thought.
He, whoever he was, steeled himself to get away from the darkness.
"Pitch Black."
The darkness called. It called over and over to him.
Pitch Black.
Was that his name? He brushed off the hisses and whispers and tried to get out of the inky blackness that surrounded him, preventing him from seeing even his own nose.
After long moments, his fear left him and the dark began to hold comfort for him. The cold biting black was comforting around him. Not as fearsome as he thought. Inviting and even soft.
The black let him move, showing him some light source that helped Pitch accentuate his surroundings.
He couldn't help but taking a gander of his new surroundings. Everywhere he looked, the darkness around him was prevalent. There were scarce others around him.
However, when they took a gander towards Pitch, they coward away from him and skitter from him. And for some reason, he felt an overwhelming sense of happiness. Of power.
Throughout the years, he had felt more magnificent than he could ever remember.
Too bad he could not remember. It might have made his experience all the better.
Throughout the "Dark Ages", as the humans so nicely put it, he had been having so much fun devouring the fears of the living.
And then the man came to live on the moon. And changed everything.
Got these so called "Guardians" together to stop his reign and plunge the world in light. Force him into submission and back into the lair he had learned to call him home. His prison.
Years later, Pitch came to learn a new technique to send his nightmares. Turning those precious little gifts of his into sand. And he set forth on revenge.
It was easy enough to get the four of the Guardians together. Even easier to gather Toothiana's forces and all those teeth she collected throughout the years. Letting his Nightmares take care of the rest.
"Hang on. Is that Jack Frost?" Pitch asked, moving from shadow to shadow with ease and slight boredom. He gave a chuckle. "Since when are you all so chummy?"
"We're not." Jack replied, searching for the source of the voice.
"Oh good," there was slight sarcasm in his voice as he continued. "Then I'm going to ignore you. But, you must be used to that by now."
There was a cruelly amused smirk on his lips. But that statement of his struck to close to his own home for him to utter it so carelessly. There was a painful squeeze in his heart at his own words.
"There's no such thing as the Boogeyman." Pitch mimicked the words of mothers gone passed telling their children. "Well, that's all about to change." There was a smirk on his lips and a chuckle deep in his throat.
He didn't want to be ignored anymore. He didn't want to be alone.
"There will be nothing but fear, and darkness."
The things he woke up too. The things he eventually let comfort him, because he had had no one else.
"And me." He added as an afterthought, rubbing his hands together. "It's your turn not to be believed in."
Sandy and Jack advanced on him in the road as he pleaded with them.
"I'll tell you what," Pitch said and his demeanor changed. Eyebrows brought together and his lips turned upwards in a cruel smirk. "You can have them back."
Pitch's nightmares took flight when the other guardians appeared. Most keeping everybody but Sanderson busy as Pitch got ready to shoot his arrow.
"I'd say sweet dreams, but there aren't any left.."
It had been going so great, so great. So far so good in his plan to rid the world of all that goodness and hope shenanigans.
If only, if only… He could get Jack on his side.
The spectacle they made after he had gotten rid of the sandman, he couldn't let go of how right it felt. The black sand caught between the frost and being broken like black snowflakes.
Pitch was pleasantly surprised Jack had arrived in his lair.
But he knew what the frost spirit was looking for.
"Well, fear not." Pitch began as je cornered Jack against a wall. "For the answer to that is right here." He held out the golden capsule to Jack.
"Of course I know! You're Jack Frost! You make a mess wherever you go." Pitch smiled in amusement. "Why, you're doing it right now."
"What did you do?"
Pitch watched as Jack tried to throw his golden capsule of memories off the cliff.
"But I understand." Pitch matched Jack's frost with black sand, match for match.
"You don't understand anything!"
"No? I don't know what it's like to be cast out?" Pitch argued back, emotions running high. "To not be believed in?"
Pitch appeared before Jack, arms down by his thighs as he tried to tell Jack he knew how it felt.
"To long for a family.." His voice was almost desperate as Jack aimed his scepter at him. "All those years in the shadows, I thought, no one else knows what this feels like." He stares at the ground and shakes his head. He was letting himself out in the open too much and didn't realize how much he was putting on the line. His line. Pitch's voice had been so lonely, despondent, melancholic.
"But now I see that I was wrong." Childish hope filled him as he saw Jack put down his septer. The way he looked at Jack, the one who could understand the feelings.
"You don't have to be alone, Jack." Pitch tried, seeing the boy lower his weapon. "I believe in you. And I know children will, too."
When Pitch talked about their possible future, he was radiating joy and hope. Of that oh so seemingly promising land consisting of all that is Pitch Black and Jack Frost, motioning up to the giant spiked formation of ice and black dream sand.
"What goes together better than cold and dark? We can make them believe!" Ecstatic, he couldn't form a sentence cohesive enough to sound convincing. "We'll give them a world where everything, everything is…" He tried to find the word. Something that could fit. Something along the lines of them, and beauty, freedom. Perfection.
".. And that's not what I want."
When Jack turned around to leave Pitch, demanding to be left alone. He was glad that the frost spirit didn't see that little spark of hope die, stomped out like good dreams were with his nightmares.
When Pitch had propositioned Jack, he had thought… even for an inkling of a second, maybe more, that they could..
Pitch was not prepared for a rejection. And that rejection hurt more than anything he had experienced. More than what he felt when he suddenly woke up. Disbelief ran high on his features, eyebrows knit together in remorse.
The Nightmare King's lips pursed and a scowl came to his face. It was time to get serious.
For a moment, he was having the most amazing dream that he could not remember. He dreamt of warmth and happy times. Light…now… when had that been?
How could this have failed?
Jack Frost… he had happened.
When he had awoken, he was frightened to see the children having so much fun and running and laughing. Throwing snowballs and smiling.
Disbelief coursed through his body.
When the child ran through him, he felt a cold chill at his core. His heart wrenched and he clutched at his chest, the first fear he had felt returning to him.
He was alone again.
Everything he worked so hard for… everything he had worked to achieve in the years passed..
And then he ran. He didn't know where he was running. All he knew was he had to run. Get away. Animalistic instincts telling him to run before he got killed.
He had lost a tooth, but what does that compare to when he lost all his power?
"There will always be fear." A last ditch effort to make them just fear him, if even a tiny bit.
"It looks like it's your fear they smell." Jack Frost had responded with a signature quirk of his lips.
That had hurt, too. Because he had felt rejection yet another time. Pitch froze, looking around at the nightmares riling up. He could only take a breath before he took off running again.
Running away from these demons of the nights seemed so familiar. Where had this happened? But the encroaching fear grew and grew. He knew he would get swallowed up by the darkness.
Would he remember who he was this time around?
Pitch could only chant his mantra of "no, no!" as the fearlings took after him. They had swallowed him up in a black sandstorm and carried him back to the hole in the ground that lead to his lair.
He fought, all the while, as best he could. Flailing his arms and legs, raking his nails on the ground and getting dirt underneath them. The bed broke when they dragged him inside. His arms and hands being cut and bloodied as he continued to grasp anything, anything, to keep him on the surface.
Don't let them get me.
Splinters dug into his skin and sharp rocks cut him as he was thrashed from one side of the hole to the other.
He no longer felt that comfort of the dark. He felt fear again.
The nightmares dragged him more into the ground. Into the darkness; from where he was born.
He felt the familiar feeling of drowning in that murky ink, the black abyss. Pitch's body got progressively colder until he could barely his arms and legs.
The chilling was almost welcome.
But that only made him feel more alone… because the cold reminded him of Jack and what happened at Antarctica. It made him sad. He felt a plethora of emotions as he lost himself in the black sea.
Pitch could feel his sub consciousness slipping away. He didn't think he could stay awake much longer. He tried desperately to hold on to the sight of the black sea.
But another type of darkness intruded on the corners of his only black vision. He could feel a pressure at the front of his lobe, signs he can't stay awake. They pressed and pressed and pressed…
Pitch finally gave in and closed his eyes. Letting the loneliness of the darkness overcome him, the fear neutralized to replace disappointment and trepidation.
He didn't think he would remember who he was next time he woke up… Just like last time.
The Nightmare King supposed it was because of his own foolishness; how could he even think he could have a comrade? A companion? Someone to believe in him and tell him there was nothing to be afraid of…
It was foolish and stupid and naïve of him. He vowed that when he awoke and he remembered who he was, to not trust anyone except his army of nightmare creatures.
Just once, he wanted to know what having the warmth of a family felt like. But it looked like he was never going to find out.
And he resigned to his fate and let the black engulf him.
Pitch hoped it would last forever…
A/N: Okay. Well, here you are. I suppose this is my first ROTG fic, posted at least... I had thought I wanted to write the composition differently, but until I remember how I wanted it this will do. I wanted something to contribute to Pitch. Because he's one of my favorites. And I love him (not as much as Jack, i mean, c'mon, the main reason I went to see the movie was because of him), and I want people to know him for what he really is.
A tragic hero.
This should be a one-shot, but I might branch off from here for a second shot.. Maybe.. If one of my other ideas are able to shine in this darkness. (AHA THAT WAS FUNNYYYY-nvm..)
Thank you for reading.**hearts
CoffeeCup out!