Fear. The smell, the taste of fear. It was spectacular. Every moment of every day, the Nightmare King existed for one purpose: to rule that fear. To control it, to mold it into something beautiful in the palm of his hand. To feel it's every writhing attempt to break free of its prison in the hearts of humanity. Pitch took long, slow steps across the enormous stone tomb that he had been forced by the Guardians to call not home, but prison. Jack Frost. Hah. Surely it couldn't have been the addition of that… that… boy who caused his defeat. He was Pitch Black; the addition of a boy wouldn't stop him. He was the Boogeyman. The Nightmare King. And, somewhere in his past, he was… someone else. He banished the memories that threatened to surface. Somehow, Jack made the memories even more furious, banging at the corners of his skull, screaming, creating a deafening cacophony of inaudible sounds which he hoped he wouldn't ever have to consciously recognize again. The Boogeyman shook his head, fighting the urge to sit down and dig his fingers into his flesh and just scream. Scream until the pain went away. He couldn't though, of course. He didn't have time for this. Promptly beginning to walk again, having not even realized that he'd paused, Pitch sank into a shadow and resurfaced above the ground. The sun was shining brightly, the Man in the Moon's brother. "Hateful," he muttered under his breath. "Positively hateful." Having nothing much better to do, he traveled to the side of the godforsaken rock that he was forced into calling his home in which children were dreaming.
Weakened, yes. Indeed, he had been rather weakened by his defeat. Pitch hadn't quite been incapacitated, however. He still took quite large amounts of joy (and rather unmentioned pride) in tearing apart the dreams of children. Obliterating their hope. Scattering fear in his wake. Yes, he loved his job. Sure, it hadn't been his choice when he'd been chosen by the Man in the Moon. Yet ever since, he'd grown to love being this twisted form of a guardian. Escaping his mind for a moment to take in the bedroom and the rest of his surroundings, his golden eyes practically glowed in the thick darkness of the room. Golden sand formed images of flowers waving in a shining, grainy breeze. Pitch licked his lips. One touch and that lovely dream would shatter in the palm of his hand. Oh, how he loved that. He extended his arm almost gingerly, then letting only his index finger trail onwards, and then suddenly the flowers split in two. The black sand corroded the dream, spreading and spreading until it had completely consumed the remnants of the plants that had once lived in this child's imagination. Pitch looked on, cherishing the moment as he always did, where the dream morphed into a nightmare. After only a few moments, the child's face beneath him contorted in terror, and her lips parted for a moment to show gritted teeth and tears rimming her eyelashes. "Don't cry, dearest," he whispered into the dream. The girl's mouth flew open, clearly an attempt in the dream to scream and wake yourself up, (as one seems to do in nightmares) "Surely this nightmare is better than any dream."
The one thing that the Guardians knew but would never, ever admit, was that fear would always be the purest emotion expressible. No amount of joy, elation, euphoria, creativity, or even anger could ever be felt more strongly than the protruding fingers of fear raking down one's spine, tearing through one's soul, and scarring the mind as though only a layer of flesh and not the source of divine life. Yes. The Boogeyman enjoyed his work.
A tiny, nearly inaudible crackling, fizzing sort of sound met the Nightmare King's ears. A frost flower bloomed on the window, and with a slight breeze, who else than the boy that had caused his earlier pain stepped in.
"Jack. Ah, yes, Jack Frost. Lovely to see you again. How are the Guardians? Oh, and mind if I ask how this nightmare looks? Personally I think I've done a spectacular job, this time around." "Pitch, shut up," Jack sad, and Pitch was almost taken aback by the statement. "What?" he practically choked out. "Did you just tell me to shut up?" "Yes, please. Now, leave. Walk out of here. Leave this kid alone." "Jack, surely you can understand me. You remember the time when children didn't see you, or believe in you, or even think you were anything beyond a figure of speech, yes?" Jack visibly tensed and was clearly biting back his words. "Know you'll say something you'll later regret, eh? Well, that's beside the point. Can't you see what I'm doing here is to simply survive? Can't you recall how hopeless you felt? Your fear, Jack," Pitch said, stepping closer and looming over the boy, "Has not entirely left you like you think it has. I don't think that you're even sure it has, are you?" Jack clutched his staff, and his knuckles grew ever paler. "Just because you and the other Guardians weakened me doesn't mean that I just stopped being able to sense fear," he continued, with a quiet airy laugh, "And yours seems to be growing ever stronger even now that I've brought it up. Isn't it, Jack? Don't you remember the loneliness, the hopelessness…?" Pitch paused, expecting a sarcastic response, either that or to be beaten senseless across the room while the lovely nightmare he'd crafted raged on.
"What, nervous to wake the child?" he inquired, the intense darkness of his shadow over Jack nearly consuming him. "Or nervous to respond? You know it's all true, Ja—" Jack Frost slammed his staff on the girl's floor in the middle of his name being spoken, and a violent wind spiraled outwards from the spot the staff connected with the floor, carrying snowflakes with a wind just as frosty to match. The girl only stirred, her chest still violently expanding and contracting. "No," Jack responded bitterly. There was a dangerous edge to his voice. It was… violently calm. Pitch couldn't say that he'd ever heard anyone speak like that. His tone was completely monotone, but laced with an acidic malice which was unmistakably meant for the Boogeyman.
Sometimes, no matter how much someone smiles, or laughs, or talks happily, their hurt or anger or depression or sadness just radiates off of them. This was one of those times. "Leave," he repeated. "Do I not have permission to see how this gorgeous nightmare ends?" he asked, gesturing widely across the room towards the girl, who seemed to be on the brink of waking, if not screaming.
Jack pulled his staff off the ground and thrust it towards Pitch, jabbing him in the chest and making him stagger. Pitch clutched at his chest, already registering the blooming feeling of warmth and a sort of detached pain that you get where there will be a bruise. "Get out," Jack barked, and the girl made tiny distressed cries on the bed. Above her head, the black sand danced to the methodic rhythm of fear, playing to her greatest weaknesses and catering to her greatest fears. Pitch was confused to say the least. Was the Guardian of fun in a bad mood? This didn't happen. Not that he'd seen, at least. He couldn't say that he'd ever seen Jack at a time where he was at a loss for sarcastic responses.
Every instinct in him screamed to fight back, crush this Guardian. The two were rivals, after all. To say the least he'd been going fairly easy on Jack so far; one because he knew he couldn't beat him, and two he knew that he'd been weakened by his earlier defeat. Fury made him want to spit at Jack. Carve him up into thousands of tiny pieces so he could feel the same ache as he did; the ache to be believed in, to be known, to be seen. Yes, Jack had known this feeling, but for now he was a stranger to it. It took an instantaneous recognition of this feeling and to currently be feeling it yourself to have there be any sort of a connection. For it was impossible to describe, and even if Pitch had the words he wasn't sure that the nightmares they'd induce even he'd be able to bear.
"Alright, Jack," he said after what felt like years. "You can have your way. Please, stay and watch the nightmare. Don't wake her, though. Something interesting I happen to know: wake a child during a nightmare, and the first thing they see is what they associate with that fear. You don't want that to become yourself, do you? You can't want to end up like yours truly." He said, and with that he sank into shadow and appeared again in his prison, relishing in the pang of realization and fear that echoed onto Jack Frost's face for the split second before his practically sickly yellow gaze vanished with himself.