Even the moon had left him tonight. The only light reflecting off of the snow at his feet was from street lights, orange beacons in a lonely darkness. He bared his teeth in hatred of them and what the represented - 'We will help you find your way home.' He snapped his fingers at the one direct;y in front of him, but it only flickered. Eight months, and he was still so weak.
"What goes together better than the cold and dark?" But even the dark, the very essence of his being, had abandoned him.
The children in this town weren't asleep yet, but they were getting ready to. Through the warm glow of a kitchen window, he saw the indistinct shapes of people moving crossed the street and went right up to the glass, not bothering with knew they couldn't see him.
"No? I don't know what it's like to be cast out? To not be believed in. To long for...a family."
A little girl spooned cocoa powder into a colourful mug. One, two, three, four, and then a fifth before her mother could stop her. Pitch watched her giggle as her mother tickled her ribs, but he couldn't hear her through the glass. He watched the makeshift pantomime with faked disinterest. The girl leapt away, squealing.
At the kitchen table, the father sat, reading his newspaper. A little boy, younger than his sister, was engrossed in a picture book, running his fingers over the large, mainly red image covering the left page. Pitch didn't need to squint to know that it was Santa Claus. Before, he might have felt hatred, like he had been wrong-footed, but now he couldn't stir up enough anger for that. He just felt...acceptance. He didn't even wish to be the child any more, like he once would have. Gone was his wonder, his dreams, his hope.
"All those years in the shadows I thought, no one else knows what this feels like."
After a brief exchange between mother and son, the woman took another mug out of the cupboard and started spooning more cocoa powder into it. He couldn't help but notice how similar to his nightmare sand it was in appearance, but the two couldn't have been more difference. That powder would give comfort, easy sleep. His sand could only bring troubled minds and fear. The little girl leaned over the counter, watching the water boil.
He stood at the window until the cocoa was made, until the mother had placed a small kiss atop the boy's head and placed the cocoa next to him. He could imagine her gentle warning - "Careful, it's hot." Then he walked away, not even glancing back.
"But now I see I was wrong."
Jack Frost had found his Guardians, but Pitch had been tossed aside again. And they had had the nerve to smile, to laugh, to play, while everything he had fought for was crushed into dust.
"We don't have to be alone, Jack."
Next time, he would not fail.