A/N: The universe of Rise of the Guardians doesn't belong to me, but any concept or characters that you can't recognise do.

As I am a slow writer and that I am right now occupied with other stories, it might stay a one-shot.

XXX

They used to be those who served and fought for the Nightmare King.

Back then, their King's powers were great, even after he was left aside by the humans, and his powers were theirs as well. He was who gave them a purpose, thanks to his drive for power and his own ambitions.

They respected him for that, and for how he knew the people's fears and how to use it, to provoke it. But they also feared him, as he was a prison for greater evils, things that eat souls, steal the death from the dead or even worse.

For their Master, they terrorized children in their sleep, changing dream into something horrible, not quite like natural bad dreams, and haunted the shadows of their bedroom during daytime. The fear they created increased their King's power and their own at the same time.

They were his weapons, his army, and if the Master were to win the war, they would have been on the winner side; witch means more power and having his favours. They were afraid of him, after all.

But Pitch Black was disgraced, beaten by the White Light Bulb's warriors. He was now unfit to rule them, too full of his own fears to control the Nightmares.

They made that quite clear, chasing him back to his hole.

Yet, even if he was feeble, he was still their King and will always be. It was only a question of time before he gets powerful again.

Pitch Black's powers were theirs as well, and his defeat had taken its toll on the dark creatures.

Strong daylight was now dangerous to them, even if the strongest Nightmares were sill able to dwell into the sunlight without risking to disintegrate like simple golden sand. Most of them now needed to hide in the shadows until the night, in witch another danger awaited them. The hunt for nightmares was open for the Guardians, who seemed to have taken a personnel interest into eliminating them.

Their numbers were decimated, and refilling their ranks next to impossible, Sandman was making sure of that.

If dark sand was to touch the dream of a child, or even of an adult, the guardian would feel it and attacked the offending Nightmare, and if the golden sand under the control of the little spirit caught it, the captured black sand would be changed to golden. In that situation, it was better to leave some of its own sand behind and hide than trying to leave with all of it, and risk that the sand already changed finish the job of their enemy.

The results were that the nightmares were losing more and more of their sand to both the exposure to daylight and to the golden guardian, with no way of gaining more sand, except by absorbing a smaller and more feeble Nightmare.

Without Pitch, they were disorganized, without greater purpose than surviving.

They still lurked in the shadows to give a small fright to children, but they were mostly hiding until things calm down and until the Guardians were to stop hunting them so intensely.

They were shadows, and there was many ways for them to keep out of sight, besides hiding in dark rooms and under the beds.

They can wait.