A/N: I totally, totally ship Bedtime Stories, and I have been wanting to write a story, be it a oneshot, tentative oneshot, or a full-blown series for them. Note: I do not own the cover image, I found it on deviantArt, but that was a while ago and I couldn't figure out how to contact the artist. I mean no disrespect, the photo was just perfect for this and inspired the ending of this.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, not the Guardians of Childhood, nor Rise of the Guardians, I own only the plot, a copy of the movie and all the current books, and my belief. Set after the battle to get Katherine back, but before everyone falls asleep.
Third Person POV:
Bedtime, sleeping, none of these were new to Nightlight in one way, but a whole other universe in another.
He had never been able to sleep before, but that mean he wasn't acquainted with it. Sleep was the realm that Prince, who was nowTsar, Lunar had been in whenever he had guarded him. He had sung a lullaby to the prince in order to keep him in that place. Sleep was the land that his Katherine went to that he could not follow her to. And dreams, and subsequently sleep, were the realm of the Sandman, who had upon greeting the others with the joyous news that Katherine was safe had insisted that they call him Sandy. It fit him.
But he himself had never slept, he had only watched others do so. Now, he was being introduced to the rituals and patterns of bedtime and be trained in the art of falling asleep, mostly by Sandy, the others chimed in.
He had gone through the whole schedule, and now Katherine was taking him to his room.
"The Yetis prepared it for you, it's nice, a little bare, but you'll be able to fill it up with things over time." Katherine said as she led him inside the room.
It was nice, with soft white walls, large windows that he could easily exit and enter from, and something that Katherine said that North called a skylight, which was basically a huge window in the ceiling that covered almost all of it. With both the skylight and the huge windows on the east and west walls, the light of the sun and that of his old friend the Moon could always be seen.
Now, Katherine was turning to go, saying something about telling North that he liked the room when he called to her, mentally, to stay, not go.
She stopped, turned around and smiled. "Alright, I'll stay, though we'd better be careful or North will have your head," she joked.
He tried to relax sitting next to Katherine on one of the window seats, but he couldn't. He was tired, but not the type of tired where he could just fall instantly to sleep as soon as he stopped moving and going places, especially since Katherine was right here.
Suddenly, he thought of an idea to make him tired. Sending his thoughts to Katherine, he asked her to read to him. Parents and Mr. Qwerty back in Santoff Clausen were always using her stories to lull children to sleep, maybe it would work for him?
And even if it didn't it was a good excuse to have Katherine stay with him for just a little longer.
She heard him, and smiled before running to go get a copy of her stories. The Yetis had been making copies of them, and North had made a special one just for her.
When she came back she settled right next to him, leaning on him a bit, (Not that he minded, or wanted her to lean on him some more.), and balanced the book on both their laps before she began to read to him.
She read the stories of their adventures in the Himalayas, the ones at the Earths Core, and Pun Jam Hyloo. By the end of the last story, Nightlight was ready to sleep, (That bed looked wonderful.), before he realized that Katherine had beat him to it.
Now leaning fully on him, her head rested on his shoulder, her breathing was gentle and regular, and her eyes were closed. She looked exhausted, despite the sleep she had had for so long, and he could see that she had probably been putting off rest for fear of nightmares. What she had been through meant that Pitch had cursed her to suffer nightmares, not forever he hoped, but certainly for a few months.
Acting on impulse, Nightlight gently closed her book with its stories and illustrations of their adventures, gently picked her up bridal-style, pulled back the covers on his bed, laid her down and pulled the covers back over her before going to the chest where Katherine had said there were more blankets and comforters, took some and laid them out on the floor next to the foot of the bed, placed his staff on the hooks made especially for it, said goodnight to the Moonbeam, and went to go lie down.
When the Moon Clipper rose to it's peak, the Tsar, who Nightlight had sung to sleep every night eons ago, found his kind gaze falling upon two sleeping not-quite-children, and he smiled.
All was well, as far as he knew.
A/N: By the end of this I have decided to continue this to at least a chapter two, but this may be becoming the Bedtime Stories oneshot and mini-arc collection that I've been wanting to write for a long time.