A/N: Hey guys. I wasn't actually planning on writing anything here, but Blackice is just so cute. Don't expect full-blown smut or anything like that...unless I change my mind. In case the following 6000 words or so suck, just remember that this is my first story on fanfiction.
Summary: Jack thought that after the Nightmare King, he would have no more questions for the Man in the Moon. Unfortunately, he was completely and utterly wrong. Now, he has to figure out how to save Pitch's daughter from an untimely death, reconcile with his old nemesis (if shagging him can be called that), and ward off an ancient, galactic force bent on getting revenge against General Kozmotis Pitchiner and while they're at it, destroy all of Earth along with him. When he signed up to save the world yet again, Jack didn't know that he would be saving it from Dream Pirates, which he quickly learns aren't as fluffy and adorable as they sound. Pitch is certainly not being helpful, but then again, he's having an identity crisis. All the while, Jack's powers spiral wildly out of control, and he finds himself ...becoming Mother Nature?
Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians, Guardians of Childhood, or anything published that is related to this fiction.
Warnings: Slash, Violence, Mild Sexual Content, Mild Gore, Angst.
"Scars remind us that the past was real."
-Shakespeare
day one –
After he woke up from some unsettling dreams, Jack Frost sat up, gasping for air, and clenched the cold sheets beneath his shivering body. Spirals of frost danced across his pale bed as if they sensed the fluctuating mood of their master. He took deep breaths and images of his dream – his nightmare – flickered in his head. The dream was familiar to him. The Guardians had turned on him, they told him that he didn't belong and Jack had wholeheartedly believed because it was true that he didn't – how could he ever fit in with them? And he trusted them more than he did himself. He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to stop the dry sobs. Tears rolled down his white cheeks and hardened into ice. He hardly ever reacted so violently, but it had been so long since this had happened.
Jack frowned, his worry deepening and intensifying the crushing feeling in his chest. The last time a nightmare had found him was when -
Pitch. Pitch Black. Of course.
The seriousness of this event wasn't lost on Jack, but he tried to be optimistic. Perhaps the years of isolation had damaged his soul more than he knew. Perhaps Sandy had been much too tired to drive away the nightmares for one night, and relief washed over Jack. He could believe that because he knew that Sandman was the busiest of any of the Guardians. It might be true that it was odd. The absence of dreamsand shouldn't cause a nightmare. But still – Jack wanted it to be true. He didn't want Pitch of all people – if he even was considered a person – to be back.
It constantly harrowed at him, pecked at his conscience no matter how much he tried to brush it off as nothing. Jack considered talking to the other Guardians about this, but something told him not to. He could imagine it now. The twinkle in North's eyes could die out and he would stroke his thick beard thoughtfully. Sandy would project a flurry of images above his head. Tooth's feathers would stand up in alarm. And Bunny. Bunny would polish his boomerangs nervously, as if that would rid the world of any trace of the Nightmare King. He had brought enough worry to his new friends.
But if he didn't know, he would be restless for the entire day. He reached for his staff and felt the familiar wood underneath his fingers. He knew every curve and every knot on it like it was his own arm. Jack hooked the curve, the crook of it on a ledge protruding from the wall. A blast of frost shot out from the tip accidentally and iced the entire surface. Jack brushed his hair back with his hand absently, but the white locks fell back into place like usual. North probably wouldn't notice anyways because Jack's room in his Workshop was made of ice anyways. Suddenly, a strong draft blew the window open and then Jack knew what he had to do.
The wind whispered the answer to him and he wondered why he didn't think of it first. He would check on Pitch's prison. If all went well, it would only be a patch of dirt where grass couldn't grow anymore. If not, well, Jack didn't really want to consider that outcome. He really was very good at forgetting things, especially if they were somewhat important.
He jumped up and the wind whistled underneath him, creating a gentle platform that lifted him to his feet. His blue eyes looked at the frigid landscape – snow everywhere, a blizzard on the verge of loosening all hell on the North Pole. Perfect conditions for travelling, at least for a frost spirit.
For a moment, as Jack descended from the bed, light on his feet, he felt a moment of hesitation. Should he? Should he really? The other Guardians would find the very idea of confronting Pitch ridiculous, especially if he wanted to do it alone. But maybe, Jack thought. Maybe I'm not a Guardian. Maybe I'm not one of them. The thought stung, but the words rang true. Jack hated that it was true. He hated himself for making it true.
"So, wind," Jack whispered, his breath creating fragile ice crystals in the air. "What do you think, old friend? Should we go check on Pitch?" The wind nipped at his heels like a skittish young horse. Jack laughed. It wasn't hard to tell what the wind was thinking, even if it couldn't speak. The wind was as good as a friend to him as any of the Guardians.
"Alright, alright. I know you're excited, but get a hold of yourself," Jack said, still grinning. "We'll go on a little adventure together, just like old times." He jumped on the windowsill, crouching, the fingers on his staff tingling like a homing sense. It was because, Jack began to realize, that anywhere cold and frosty was home to him. Which was why the North Pole was one of his favorite places to stay. In fact, Jack would have stayed there longer and more frequently if he didn't think that it bothered North.
He pushed the window open wider until the temperature of the room dropped violently. The wind impatiently blew at him and soon Jack was a couple of inches away from being carried away on it. Jack settled and with ephemeral resolve launched himself out the window, limbs astray, whooping like a madman. The wind seemed to share his enthusiasm, its harsh gusts even wilder than usual.
"Let's see what you've got today!" Jack shouted, somersaulting through the thinning clouds like an Olympic gymnast. The moisture froze on his body, but the high speed at which Jack traveled at made them fly off, leaving a trail of frozen shards everywhere that he went. He had forgotten what it felt like to let loose completely like this. Spending time cooped up in North's Workshop had been nice for a while, until it became suffocating. Winter was free, so Jack was a free spirit too.
"Is that all you've got? I'm disappointed," Jack taunted, and a stream of air made snow hit him in the face without warning – hard. "Hey!" Jack protested. "I'm just having some fun." The wind died and made Jack drop twenty feet in the air, just enough to send a thrill through his body. Jack laughed some more, and if he listened closely, he thought he could hear the wind laughing along with him.
Below him, he could see the small clusters of houses – the very definition of the suburban life. "How about let's go bring some fun and cheer to children?" Jack asked, even if it was only the middle of fall. He would bring an early winter this year. The wind responded to his command, bringing him down in a death dive towards Earth.
His eyes began to water. Jack squinted because otherwise gales feeling like sharp knives would torment them. Even so, they obscured his vision until he was forced to rub at the salty droplets in felt a little dizzy from what seemed like a trip halfway around the world, only remembering small snippets of the vast world beneath him.
A woman raked her leaves into a pile on her lawn while talking on a cellphone frantically. "No William, no. What – what do you think you're doing? You sat there and let him have full custody? I can't believe that I hired you as my lawyer. You know what? You aren't getting a penny of my money. Not a single penny."
The worries of humans seemed rather irrelevant and small from this distance, not only physically. An ache tugged at Jack's heart. He missed being human. The warmth. The people. His sister.
A child fell on the sidewalk and immediately burst into tears. Jack felt a protective bubble burst in his chest. He wanted to cradle the child, wanted to comfort him. But he was held back by fear. He knew that he would be unseen yet again and had no desire to bring that kind of dejection upon himself.
Jaime believes in you, he reminded himself. He sees you. But then again, Jaime was and would always be a special case. As would Jaime's friends, the handful that still believed in him. He wasn't sure if they still did. A couple of them had stopped, that he knew, because he had felt a stab to his heart every time one of them had. The first time it had happened, Jack had collapsed and scared North and the other Guardians half to death.
He reluctantly left, turning away until the little boy was almost out of sight. But he couldn't help turning back until a sympathetic parent lulled the kid into small whimpers with the promise of cake and other comfort. A girl skipped towards them, face suddenly morphing into one of concern. His chest grew tight because he knew that it wasn't his business to interfere, even if he was a Guardian.
But there was one thing that he could do. Jack concentrated and sparks gathered in the palms of his hands, he murmured to them and the magic in them concentrated until he could hold it no longer and it erupted into a mild snowstorm. He floated away, but not before seeing the boy and girl holding their hands up to the snow in wonder, half-smiling and not even knowing that they were. It was trivial, but it did something to smooth over the ache that had started centuries ago.
The wind picked up a more urgent tone, prodded him with intentions other than mere play. Jack peered down and saw a familiar forest glade. Jack didn't really know if he wanted to go check it out, but if was already here, then he might as well. He was still ambivalent, but the wind was not.
Jack lowered in elevation towards the patch of dirt in the center of the clearing. He shivered for a second, but soon the absence of the hole under the rickety old bedframe became apparent. He let out a breath of air that he didn't know he had been holding in. Pitch was still trapped in his tunnels, where he belonged.
But then why did he have a nightmare?
"You have any idea what's going on?" Jack wondered out loud, half talking to the wind, half to himself. "Why – if Pitch couldn't have done it – then who?"
"Yes," the wind seemed to answer. "I do. I do have an answer." It whistled and created a churning platform beneath Jack's feet full of pent up energy.
"What is it?" Jack asked. The wind stilled seemed to gesture invisibly towards a certain direction – Jack thought it was roughly northwest, but he couldn't be sure. Jack understood. The wind was asking for his permission.
"Show me," Jack commanded. The wind didn't need Jack to tell it again. It whirled and blew so fiercely that Jack hardly coasted on its surface; rather he tumbled and bowled over and over, completely out of control.
"Whoa," Jack said. The wind had never been like this before, had always went by Jack's direction, but it wasn't as if he was complaining. He liked to have a little fun. An idea formed in his mind.
"Hey wind," he shouted. "Bet you can't go faster than this." Never to resist a challenge, they accelerated further, Jack and the wind, hand in hand. In jubilation, Jack raised his staff and a bolt of pure frost energy shot out, crackling and splitting the sky into two like lightning. Snow rained down, fluffy particles of cheer.
It fell onto parks and the roofs of houses, but as the scenery changed abruptly, onto that as well. That was odd. It was as if there grew a jungle just outside of the city, but not just any jungle. Vines and flowering plants sprang up along with lush undergrowth in chilly weather. The canopies of the tropical trees never seemed greener. Jack had to remind himself for a second that this was Canada, not the Amazon rainforest. He was glad it wasn't, because from what he remembered, immortal Amazon warriors did not appreciate him causing full-blown blizzards, especially not in July. Jack winced. That hadn't been the best of vacations. He had gone to go sightseeing and had left knowing he had almost been castrated.
It was small, threatened to be overwhelmed by snow, and on the edges Jack could see that the trees were browning. They were dying. And for some reason, he held that fact in importance, that this green oasis was fading and there was nothing he could do about it. It made him feel rather helpless.
The wind seemed to want him to go towards the jungle, and a part of Jack did as well – the curious part. He reminded himself that this probably was dangerous, was nothing that he had ever seen before. Jack licked his lips. All the more to go and see what it was all about, how a jungle could ever survive in such a harsh environment.
The wind carried him down, and Jack ran towards it like he was going down a staircase, impatient to see what wonders it held. This had been one of the happier memories of the old days, not the people-walking-through-you part, but the exploring-like-Dora-the-Explorer part.
The wind died down and Jack landed on the ground. He expected it to be snow, or at least frost-ridden, compacted grass or something of the sort, but instead he dug his toes into dirt. Warm dirt.
"What happened here?" Jack said, completely in awe. It was even more impressive up close. The trees towered over him like the skyscrapers he had seen in this city once, downtown. Now that he was here, he could even more fully admire the perfection and the hard work that had gone into creating this place, this haven.
The landscaping seemed to fit together like pieces of a puzzle, the trees and the earth and the sky together in a symbiotic relationship. Jack wandered aimlessly into the heart of it, but perhaps not so aimlessly, for he soon saw the trees begin to weave together in an intricate structure resembling a house. His brows furrowed. Maybe not just a house – that hardly did it justice. It was more like a mansion, if that is, some sort of woodland spirit had decided to study the works of Postnik Yakovlev's architecture.
The corners of Jack's mouth twitched, because his friend North enjoyed nothing more than lavishing praise onto each famed Russian architect there ever was.
"Posterior Yako – who?" Jack had asked during the Christmas Eve feast, which all the Guardians began to grow tired of. North insisted on holding a feast for every single day leading up to Christmas for a month. Bunny, for one, had missed at least five of the gatherings, preferring to paint his eggs even as the Northern Lights lit up in the sky.
North had looked hurt. "Postnik Yakovlev, Jack. You are not knowing of the famous Russian architect? Saint Basil's Cathedral, no?" Jack looked at him blankly. North swelled up indignantly, patted his belly, and continued. "Why, the Tsardom of Russia – "
He had rambled on for what seemed like hours to Jack's restless, fun-loving spirit, and just as Jack had been about to slump face-first into his eggnog, Tooth had taken his hand and had shaken her head, her vivid feathers smoothed back. "Don't listen," she had mouthed. "If you want to get out of this alive." Another shake and exasperated look at North, ten minutes in and still going strong. "Every. Single. Year."
The few bright memories he had with the Guardians were like flickering lights in his mind, contrasting with some three hundred years of darkness, and Jack held these close to his heart. He was afraid to lose them, afraid they would be stolen away, because he knew he didn't deserve them and that it was only a matter of time before they would vanish.
As he continued further, Jack's steps became more and more tentative. He felt as if he was trespassing on something that he knew nothing of and of which he had no right to. This was someone's home, he realized.
Or at least, –
The interweaving branches were covered with dust, and the entire place gave off an air of disuse and abandonment.
– it used to be.
But that had never really stopped him. He had broken into countless places where he hadn't been welcome, including North's Workshop a couple decades back. So what was stopping him here?
The wind pushed him forward, blowing some of the dust off the massive structure, which Jack thought to be over six stories tall. It was dwarfed by some of the other trees, but was impressive nonetheless. A door hung off one of its hinges, about to fall off. Jack moved it aside gingerly and crossed the threshold. It didn't smell like something that hadn't been lived in for a long time. It smelled faintly floral and fresh, like a warm spring day.
He felt as if he had been launched into an entirely new world, because in his three centuries of existence, Jack had never seen anything close to this. There was a table that seemed to grow out of the floor, trunks of trees twisting together to form the legs, broad leaves sprouting out from them even though it was dim.
He moved out of the living room towards another door. Peering inside, he saw a small bed, a nightstand, and an antiquated frame sitting on it. Jack leaned over and brushed the grime of many years off the glass. A young girl smiled back at him, looking like she wouldn't want to be anywhere else. She had butterflies in her hair and was wearing a dark green dress. He could see the shadowy silhouette of another person next to her, which was a perfect description; as when Jack uncovered the face, he started in shock. This face was a familiar one.
It was Pitch. Odd, because Jack would have imagined that had Pitch been standing behind any child, they would've been screaming in terror, much less smiling. Maybe she hadn't noticed he was there, as he was famous for his ability to sneak up on children. Even Jack knew that was a shaky theory.
Now that he looked at it, Pitch looked different. His face was less grey, his eyes softer, and he was smiling. Actually smiling, not that sort of fake grimace he did before. Jack had thought Pitch wouldn't have been caught dead smiling like that. Jack wiped the rest of the dust off with his sleeve and narrowed his eyes. That was weird. Pitch's signature black scythe was golden. A bright golden to rival his eyes, to rival Sandy's natural color.
He tapped his fingers on the nightstand absently and frost spiraled across the wood. This house was connected to Pitch. He turned away. There was something very strange about this house. And Jack wanted to get to the bottom of it if it was the last thing he did.
With a last look at the sad little room that must have once been very special to someone, he grabbed onto his staff and flew out of the open window – and then promptly flew into a tree.
"Oof," Jack grunted, falling backwards onto the soil, which cushioned his fall. He hadn't seen that tree before. It was as if it had unanticipatedly moved in his way. "Where did this come from?" he said, putting one hand on his forehead and the other on the tree to steady himself.
Maybe "this" wasn't the right way to describe the tree. It seemed alive, at least more alive than the other trees. A faint green aura surrounded the tree and it seemed to simply ooze life. The bark was twisted and knotted. Jack traced a line on the trunk until it curved into a dent on the surface. A hard and cold metallic object met his fingers.
Jack pried it out of the hole with considerable effort. It was a locket, a dainty little thing, and Jack was surprised to see not even a little rust on its silver surface. He opened a latch on its side and it split into two, sprung open to reveal the same girl for the second time that day. Frost crystals spread across it and for some reason Jack did not know, he felt the need to remove them.
He looked up at the tree again, its branches spreading, outstretched far enough that it served as an umbrella for the entire house. "You were protecting it," Jack said, not sure whom he was speaking to. "But…why? What's so special about this locket? Who is this girl?"
The wind was silent for once, but he didn't think it was because it didn't know the answer. It was because the tree was alive. On so many levels.
The branches began moving, swaying back and forth until they began unmistakably reaching for Jack. He stumbled back in surprise and tripped over a tree root, falling hard on the ground. The green glow grew much stronger – Jack could see it much more clearly now that the tree was only inches away – and all of a sudden he was airborne, lifted more gently than he had thought he would be.
They stopped. And then the two thick limbs wrapped around Jack's torso began recoiling in on themselves, sinking into the vast wall that was the trunk. Jack yelled in alarm, closing his eyes and waiting for a painful impact.
And then he was inside the tree. He could tell because it was damper and mustier than before. That, and a tree beetle fell on his head. A squirrel skittered down the trunk, digging into the bark. Jack walked in circles around the hollowed out tree, wondering how it could be alive if there was nothing inside of it. The wind could not reach him inside this room. Jack realized that he was on his own.
Steeling his resolve, he moved towards where the green light seemed to glow the strongest. Except it wasn't exactly green now, but more tinged with gold. Like Pitch's scythe, he thought errantly. And dreamsand. He walked into another cavern in the tree – it was like a house of its own – and the breath rushed out of him.
"You just love surprising me, wind, don't you?" he said. "Okay – maybe I'm not on my own."
In the middle of the room, on a round piece of wood, covered by blankets of leaves and flowers, with golden butterflies in her hair, was the girl. The same girl he had seen on the locket. The same girl that he had seen in the picture. The same girl that he had seen with Pitch. She had dark, wavy hair and a cherub-like face. She had a peaceful look on her face and rosy cheeks.
He shifted his weight nervously, waiting for something but not sure what he was waiting for. He didn't want to wake her up, because she looked like a child – something told him that in this case appearances were deceiving and that she was practically ancient – and he protected children.
He approached her and sat on the edge of the bed, prodding a mushroom growing on the base of it with his bare foot. Jack turned back to stare at the girl, which he didn't find so awkward since she was asleep. He was so focused on her that he didn't notice the green tendrils resembling the tree's aura creeping towards him.
"Whoa!" Jack cried, lurching backwards, away from the green, translucent light, almost touching the slumbering girl. He picked up his staff. "Get away from me," he said, trying to sound confident. "Leave me alone."
A bolt of frost shot out from the arch on his staff, but the glow didn't shy away from it. Rather, it formed a vortex of green energy and absorbed it, only growing larger in size.
"This is bad," he said, voice shaking. It was.
It formed a cocoon around Jack until all he could see was green light. Fear wormed its way into his very core. Jack felt his mouth opening out of his own accord, something flooding into his body. It was warm, but there was a dangerous edge to it, like the smell of an approaching thunderstorm.
I am never going anywhere with you again, wind, Jack thought, but even his feeling of betrayal was muddled. He fell on his side, his senses dulled, and then he knew no more.
Jack woke up surrounded by a golden mass that he soon found, to his horror, was moving. He sat up, gasping and hundreds of the golden butterflies that were on the girl fluttered away from him. He held one of them in the palm of his hand, stroking its soft wings with his thumb.
He groaned. "How long have I been out?" There was no answer, but then again, Jack hadn't expected one. Three centuries alone had at least taught him that, along with developing a habit of talking to himself.
Looking around him, he realized he was still in the tree, and that – a cold band on his overheating body – he was still holding the locket. The girl was still on her bed, in the exact position that he had seen her last, eyes shut. Jack wanted to say that he'd be back, but that was a promise that he didn't know if he could keep.
Now, there were more pressing matters in his head. Firstly, how exactly to get out of this wooden prison. He decided to shoot some frost at the wall, just to see what would happen. Frost shot across the bark with a beauty that Jack had always admired about the crystalline structures. Nothing happened, except that it immediately began to melt like the tree was generating its own heat. Or rather, with a second glance back at the girl, she was. The green aura had vanished except for a thin layer that seemed to surround the child.
Jack took a few steps forward and put his hand on an empty place on the inside of the trunk. He focused on it, because something, some gut feeling told him to. "Open sesame," he said jokingly, his fun nature appearing at inappropriate moments like always, always in the face of danger or oppression. To Jack's shock, the bark contracted, a hole opening up in the side of the tree. Fresh air flooded in and Jack took a deep breath.
"I…didn't know I could do that," he said slowly, frowning bemusedly. The wind seemed to agree. "Does controlling trees fall under wintery powers?"
He climbed out from the hole and slid down to the forest floor. As soon as he made contact, he fell to his knees in a sudden wave of nausea, finally propping himself up with his staff. He felt strange, like he was overflowing with something, like his insides were churning.
"Nothing like finding Sleeping Beauty's reincarnation and then getting possessed by weird green stuff, right?" he said, chuckling weakly.
He turned back to the hole and shifted so that he could see the girl through it. Jack slipped the locket on its chain around his neck, held his staff with both hands, and prepared to leave. But he felt like some other form of farewell was necessary.
"I'll be back," Jack promised, and then he was gone on the winds. "Take me home."
The wind pulled him in another direction. "Hey," Jack protested. "What're you doing? The North Pole is that way. You know, north?"
Exasperated, the wind continued in the same direction as before, and Jack followed because his friend rarely led him astray. Once, maybe. After today, twice. Or maybe, he thought, the tree in the distance almost out of sight, it wasn't a mistake.
"Okay, wind," he said. "Show me… whatever you want to show me."
They glided across mountainous terrain, sierras, and rivers to a faraway place that seemed rather random to Jack. He let himself be dragged along, but after an hour, Jack had had enough.
"If you're just gonna take me somewhere and not tell me where, then why don't we just head back? Bunny is never going to let me hear the end of – " The trees cleared to form something else entirely, a large tunnel in the middle of a bare, rocky patch of dirt, a circle of grass around it. A bedframe sat over it.
"Wait, what?" Jack asked, eyes widening. "But th-that's Pitch's lair. If this is Montana, how…" That was alarming. Either this was some sort of joke, which he didn't think it was because Pitch wasn't someone to be taken lightly, or Pitch's tunnels had expanded a lot. Perhaps things hadn't ended as nicely as he thought.
"This is really bad," he said, throat constricting. "If Pitch is back, I need to go tell the other Guardians."
He was about to fly away, but Jack couldn't help but to turn back and to hover in place indecisively. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked. A moment passed. "Let's go check it out." Jack dove into the hole like a peregrine falcon, the light of the sun soon replaced by that of dark.
Jack almost hit a pile of dirt, avoided it, and tumbled down the hole, completely out of control. He stood up, brushing off his sweatshirt and pants. Pitch's home looked no different than it had years ago. It was damp and dark, there was dirt everywhere – and he meant everywhere –, and the décor was nothing short of creepy. He crept closer, feeling the need to sneak.
What if Pitch is still here? There had been a few changes made. The only light source, the dark globe that used to be the centerpiece of his lair, was stashed in a corner, lights still flickering, each representing a darling little child that believed.
His scythe was placed in a corner, covered by a sheet like Pitch couldn't bear to look at it or something. Jack was about to uncover it when –
"Jack Frost." The voice was threateningly silky and sent shivers down his spine just like it had done before. Jack whirled around, staff in hand, trying to keep from shaking.
Pitch was back.
And from the looks of it, he had enough power to open up the tunnels again, to give Jack a nightmare all the way at the North Pole.
"Well, I can't say that you look different," Pitch continued, his black robes dragging on the floor. He may have looked the same from afar, but up close, Jack could see that his face was more pallid, taking on an unhealthy air. Pitch studied his hands, a white teacup in hand, contrasting with everything around him that was, well, black.
"Would you like a cup of tea? I do believe I have some left." Jack's lips tightened. Now Pitch was just patronizing him. He wanted to retort, but his voice died out in the back of his throat.
Pitch continued. "Though I do believe that you would prefer it iced, but I think that you can add that yourself, Frost."
"Pitch. You're back," Jack said, still in could take too much excitement in one day after all. "You're – "
"Anything else obvious to point out, Jack Frost? Or did you just come here to chat about how I'm obviously here and whether or not you and your silly little Guardians can stop my obviously dastardly new plan?" Pitch drawled in a bored voice.
Jack was speechless again.
"Still ever so eloquent, aren't you? Well then, shall we?" Pitch gestured towards his teacup and moved towards another tunnel without turning back to see if Jack was following him or not. The exit was still open. Jack sighed, cursed his curiosity not for the first time, and followed Pitch, the grip on his staff getting tighter. He still remembered the last time he had been alone with Pitch, when Pitch had broken his staff in half. He felt the vulnerability and fear once more, the exact same feeling he had when it had dropped down the chasm, clattered on the icy floor.
Pitch sat down next to a table and waved to another chair across from him. Jack stared. Light streamed in from a window on the roof. There was a kitchen, a table, an armchair and lamp in the corner. It was almost cozy.
"So, Jack Frost," Pitch said as Jack sat down hesitantly, clasping his long fingers together. "I've been dying to know how you and your friends have been. Well, I presume, now that I'm out of business?"
Unexpectedly, Pitch sat upright and his head was forced up by an invisible force, as if under some sort of uncontrollable spasm. There was a moment of stunned silence. And then streams of shadowy figures streamed out from his open mouth, screeching and darting towards a tunnel, uncovering Pitch's scythe in the process. Pitch coughed, shot up, and hurriedly covered it up again before Jack fully registered the entire thing, but he could have sworn that he saw gold.
Pitch's face was drawn, and became even more pale than usual. The dark color seemed to be leeching out of his hair, turning more of a dark brown than the raven black it had been.
"My apologies," Pitch said, a tight-lipped smile on his face. "I didn't mean for you to see that. It happens rather often these days. I suppose it gave you quite a shock."
"What…just happened?" Jack asked bleakly.
"Well, I guess you could say, in plain terms, I'm losing my touch." Pitch was wry as ever, but something in his tone – something that threatened to become ugly – told Jack that he didn't want to talk about it anymore.
That didn't stop Jack. "You – a Nightmare just –"
"Yes," Pitch said, irritated. "I noticed. Anything else to say? No?" He sighed and combed fingers through his hair so that it became further disheveled. Jack suddenly saw very little of the evil, malevolent nemesis that the Guardians had fought against not too long ago.
Pitch studied Jack for a moment with his sharp golden eyes and Jack felt rather uncomfortable. His eyes traced the contours of Jack's legs, his torso, and then his movements stopped. Pitch stiffened and his lips thinned.
"What is that?" Pitch asked, any color that he had in his face draining out as if he had seen a ghost. He pointed towards Jack's neck.
Jack looked down. "Oh, it's just a locket that I found." Confused, he added, "Why?"
"What? Oh, but that must mean… But I thought that it had…? Could it be? Sera – "
Pitch was stuttering and he looked distraught and as wild as a Nightmare itself. Jack grew nervous because this was someone that he recognized, not like the Pitch that had just confronted him, but the Pitch that looked like he could attack at any second. Like he would at any moment call upon his army of Nightmare horses. He fingered the locket.
"Give it back," Pitch gasped, but his face soon turned stony. "Get your filthy hands off of it, Frost, and give it back."
He stood up, reached for his scythe that wasn't there, hand closing on air, and put his hand on the table for support. Jack backed up until he was against the wall of the tunnel.
"Pitch," he said, hoping to snap him out of this mood. He should have known that Pitch hadn't changed, though he had hoped. "Pitch."
He didn't seem to hear. Pitch dove for Jack, hand reaching for the locket. All that Jack knew was that he had to protect it, because it belonged to the girl sleeping in that tree. His staff was leaning against the table, too far away for him to grab onto it. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.
Jack shut his eyes tightly and waited for an inevitable tug on his neck, waited for the pain to come. His heart pounded in utter panic. Instead, he felt a rumbling beneath his feet and a strain in his chest. He opened his eyes, startled, just in time to see the earth in the tunnel collapse and form a dark shield in front of him, churning and moving him backwards in a protective spherical shell until he was ejected out into broad daylight.
Jack didn't wait another second, as soon as he was outside. "Wind!" he called out to the sky. His voice traveled and echoed even though there was nothing to rebound off of. "The North Pole." This time, there was no disobedience, no hesitation. He soared across the sky, faster than anything, leaving flapping birds behind in his dust.
In his haste to leave the dreaded place, Jack never saw that thunder had clapped behind him and lightning had struck, almost as if reacting to his anxiety, which he had never been able to call on before. He never saw that his staff had been left behind in Pitch's lair and he hadn't gone back to get it. He never saw that Pitch had watched the place on the wall for minutes after where he had disappeared, clutching at his heart and heaving for breath like Jack had stolen part of it and he wanted it back.
Back in the winding tunnels, under the rickety old bedframe, down in Pitch's lair, the former archenemy of the Guardians took hold of a scythe that was anything but completely black, kicked aside a staff half-heartedly, and whispered a name softly, voice breaking.
"Seraphina."
It was only one of the many things that Jack did not see in his flight to see Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, even if it did mean that he would have to sit through another insufferable pre-Christmas feast.
A/N: Assuming that anyone actually read this, leave a review! Or favorite. Or follow. In case you follow, I want to warn you in advance that I update when I want to, and that may or may not be in the near future. If you read this, I love you.
-wiindsong