NORTH TO SOUTH, EAST TO WEST
Chapter: Let's Talk About Forever
Prompt: Beginning (Day 1)
Characters: The Guardians (North, Sandy, Tooth, Bunnymund, Jack)
a/n: I'm pretty sure I've crossed the line with this movie from liking to an obsession so I'm going to start the 30 Day Challenge…watch this space! Let me know what you think, thanks for reading...
LET'S TALK ABOUT FOREVER
When you've existed for long enough, life begins to feel like forever, with no beginning and no end.
Nobody is really sure how anything started. They've just always been there, lingering in the shadows or watching from above like guardian angels. Because that's what they are, guardians. North, Bunnymund, Tooth, Sandy and now Jack, they're all guardians.
Yet nobody remembers how they began.
North's past life hits him in flashbacks. Perhaps the yetis will be painting a toy that triggers memories, or the elves will bring him baked treats familiar to him, chocolate cookies or pumpkin pie. When it happens, he shakes his head, blinks and gets this distant look in his eyes.
He remembers only his grandchildren, the three of them. He remembers bringing them presents upon presents every Christmas. It was his greatest joy to see the wonder in their faces when they opened them to reveal the surprise inside - and that one moment plays over and over in his head, in times of both recollection and nostalgia.
Tooth remembers even less. A faint lullaby, soft and sweet, sung by a woman; maybe a mother, or a sister she once had – she hums it sometimes in children's ears to keep them in slumber. Her memories only consist of that single melody, although at times she wishes it was more.
But time and time again she's steeled her resolve and walked away from her desire, her reasoning being? She doesn't need to know what her past life was. She's living in this life; she's making the best memories she ever could in this life. She need not know the ones of her past, unknown their nature, joyous or hurtful. The risk is not worth taking.
As for Bunnymund, he only remembers Australia. Not who he was, not what he did, but where he made his home. Dry, bland Australia, where bright sun and tumultuous rain come one after the other, where people called each other dills and dingbats, the place he loves most of all to this day. But he doesn't know where his home is in his favorite place, on the coast or in the outback. Sometimes when he returns down under, he just feels misplaced and lost.
And Sandy remembers nothing at all, he is the oldest. He's spent too many nights sending children to dreamland to worry about himself when the sun goes down. The other guardians know he works the hardest; anywhere in the world, at least one child is asleep, and the Sandman gives them sweet dreams no matter who they are.
The other guardians, they know he's the most selfless, too. To think of his job and nothing else is a great burden to bear. He never speaks, so they don't know what he thinks about day to day, but it's certainly not of himself. It leaves them wondering if, as well as being the oldest, Sandy might be the most lonely behind that smile.
Jack's the only one who remembers his beginning – darkness. It's the first thing he remembers; it was the start of everything. Darkness, the frost, and the light of the moon; his body breaking the thick layer of ice and his gasp for air. Then he picked up his staff, how he knew of its power he doesn't remember, and watched the icicles curl across the surface of the frozen pond. Suddenly, it was pure joy. He had leaped and yelled, celebrating his new-found power, the nonexistent boundaries of possibilities open to him.
It was the one magical moment he would experience before being thrust back into the shadows for the next three hundred years.
Being invisible for three hundred years is a long time. It had felt like forever.
Back at the start, it might've seemed like the beginning of the end. Unable to be seen day after day, he was trapped in a nonexistent dimension, the change of the world around him incessant while he stood stock still.
But now he's real. Now he's here, and he's alive, and he's believed in. He's not just a story anymore. And neither are the guardians – North, Tooth, Sandy and Bunnymund – they have something to live for, they can wait out until the end of time. And when the children of the world grow up and their lights disappear from the globe, they'll live for each other.
Even if it is forever.