I'm back and here's chapter two! Thank you so much for the reviews, favourites and follows, almost nothing makes me happier than waking up, checking my email and seeing that I have a fanfiction notification!
And to the guest Ruby12, maybe we'll find out later on :) nowhere near soon though. I'll try to make this chapter a bit longer, and that's all I can think of to say for now, so enjoy!
~3P~
I don't own Rise of the Guardians etc etc you get it
(Oh and for some reason my iPad won't let me do line breaks, so sorry)
The sun was close to setting, the sky was was a beautiful shade of gold, to everyone else this could've been a nice ending to a good day, but not to the young girl lying still on the forest floor. She was starting to wake up, but for some reason opening her eyes seemed harder than usual. She forced herself to wake, and her eyes slowly opened.
She blinked, trying to adjust to the bright light. Trying to look around, she seemed to be in some sort of clearing.
She tried to move, why did it feel like she was being held down by chains? She put both her arms on the ground and tried to lift herself. It felt like someone was clenching onto her stomach while she was doing so, but she managed to sit up straight.
'W-Where am I?' She wondered, but then she realised something, 'Who am I?'
She didn't have any memory of who she was or where she came from, but she must've been someone right? Was this just a temporary memory loss?
Not knowing who she was frightened her, and that somehow made her forget how tired she was, so she stood up.
She walked over to a puddle of water at the edge of the clearing and saw that she had black hair that reached her shoulders, and a long fringe that covered most of her left eye. She was really pale, almost fully white, and had soft, light red eyes. She was wearing a white shirt under a black vest, a sort of black band/chocker necklace around her neck with a glowing red jewel in the middle, and fingerless black patterned gloves.
Her pants were black and ended just below the knees, and were made to look like they were sort of ripped, like vines around a tree reaching her ankles at the bottom, the right leg had a big white star with a blue tint at the top, converse shoes, and a belt with all sorts of objects attached to it, most of which she had no clue what they were or did.
She was trying so hard to remember stuff that she was starting to get a headache.
'Come on! Remember something!' Her brain was racing with questions, 'Where do you live? Do you have a family? What if this isn't temporary...?'
For the first time actually saying something out loud she yelled,
"What's my name?! At least tell me that!" Out of frustration.
"Your name..." Said a deep voice, and the girl nearly jumped a mile, it didn't seem to be coming from anywhere, "...is Katherine Hallows."
"Katherine...?" But she didn't hear anything else, "Wait! I need to know more!" No reply came, "Please? Where are you?" Still nothing, she was all on her own.
"Great." She said to herself. She might as well start trying to figure out what was going on. She turned around, and was really surprised at what she saw, and how she didn't notice it earlier. About 150 yards away half a dozen police officers were scanning the area, probably looking for something.
"H-Hey! Officer!" She called out to one of them, but he still had his head down. "Excuse me? I could use some help!" None of them took any notice of her, as if she wasn't there. One of them was kneeling down, examining something, and she walked closer to him.
"Uh, sir? I don't know where I am and I-" he stood up, half jogged straight ahead, and Katherine put her arms in front of her to block herself, but... he passed right through her. She yelled out in shock.
"Wha... What just happened?! He..." then she thought something, "Can anybody here see me?" Nobody so much as glanced in her direction. "No... This isn't h-happening..." It couldn't be happening. She just stood there, unable to believe any of it, like it was all just a bad dream. Just a nightmare...
She didn't know how long she had been standing there, but it must've been a while because all the police officers were starting to head back, and the sky had gone dark. Katherine didn't have the faintest idea of what she was supposed to be doing, so she just walked along with them, oblivious to just about everything.
As they continued walking, light could faintly be seen in the distance, probably coming from nearby houses. She couldn't concentrate properly, she could hear the voices coming from the police but didn't pay attention to what they were saying. Probably talking about the case they were dealing with. Right now Katherine couldn't care less. Her mind was racing with so many questions she was finding it hard to keep up, all she knew about herself was her name, how did she just appear in that forest clearing? That's not normal, right?
They finally emerged out of the thick woods, the soft light of the moon lighting up the area. Two of the policeman split up from the rest of the group who were all getting into their cars, and slowly driving off.
They steadily walked up to one of the wooden cabins, took off their caps and knocked on the door. There were a few footsteps, when a man and a woman walked out. Both with brown hair and blue eyes, although the woman's eyes had gone all red, as if she had been recently crying.
"Lillian and Clayton Johnson?" One of the police gently asked the couple.
"Y-Yes..." The woman apparently called Lillian answered shakily. Katherine couldn't hear the rest of the conversation. She could've moved closer but she felt that since they couldn't see her it'd be a bit of an invasion of privacy.
There was a bit more talking, then Lillian collapsed to her knees and cried so much it could flood the entire house. Clayton wrapped his arms around her and carried her back inside.
'Poor woman' Katherine thought. She watched as the officers got into their car and drove off in the same direction as the others.
Once again she found herself not knowing what to do.
She looked at the equipment latched on her belt, but the only thing that she could identify was a dagger and she took it out to examine it. It had a red ruby looking thing by the bottom of the black handle, and the blade was stainless steel and razor sharp. Hopefully she wouldn't have to use it. She put it back and looked at what looked like a little container. She opened the lid and there were heaps of little black spheres in there. She grabbed one, but it slipped out of her hand. When it hit the ground a black mist surrounded her with about a 5 meter diameter. She coughed and tried to wave it away from her, she supposed it was in case you needed to make a quick getaway. What's with all of this? Nobody could see her, how much trouble could she get into?
She reached for the last thing on her belt, it was black and almost looked like a double sided microphone. The rims of the semi-spheres were silver with gold spikes. What was this meant to do? She tried shaking it and tapping it but nothing happened.
"Am I meant to do something with this?" She asked nobody in particular, kinda hoping maybe that voice would come back, but it never did.
She tried to walk around the place for a bit, but walking past all of the people with none of them noticing her felt really unsettling. It hurt, not knowing if she'd ever talk to someone again. Especially since the only person that did talk to her was now ignoring her completely. She didn't even know if it was a person, maybe she just imagined it. Either way, she was alone.
She turned around, and walked back into the dark forest. She didn't have a home or anything, and a tree is as a good a place as any to set up camp, right?
She didn't see anything special on the way; just trees, shrubs and a bat here and there. She passed the clearing where she woke up, but she felt uneasy there too, so she continued.
She stopped when she saw a pretty much perfect tree. There were lots of big branches making it easy to climb and to sit on, and there were plenty of leaves that would act as cover a if it rained.
She grabbed the lowest branch, pulled herself up and noticed it was surprisingly easy. She definitely didn't feel like the athletic type, but climbing was a piece of cake. Soon she was about halfway up the huge tree, and decided it was fine for now.
She sat on one of the branches and leaned against the tree. She'd just stay for the night, and figure out what to do tomorrow. She had no idea how she would do this, but she supposed she'd make it up as she goes along.
She took one more look at the bright shining moon, then closed her eyes, slowly drifting back off to sleep.
-MEANWHILE-
A young looking boy with snow white hair, blue eyes, brown pants, a staff and a frosted up blue hoodie was flying around a large room, a bored expression on his face. It had been years since he became a Guardian, and Jack Frost was waiting for some other big event to take place. Sure it was fun to make all the kids happy with snow and ice, and he visited Jamie from time to time who helped him to get more believers, but nothing really action packed happened. The most action he ever saw anymore was another argument with the Kangaroo. There were even a couple disagreements with the rest of the Guardians but North was usually the one who ended it.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" North asked Jack with his Russian accent.
"Hey, you think of something, I'm all ears." He answered, still flying around the globe.
"Vell you are Guardian, you could go... guard."
"There's nothing to guard! Everything is so peaceful..." He trailed off for a moment in thought. "...You ever think of setting Pitch Black free? It'd give us something to do." But North shot him a look, "I was kidding!"
Jack let out a long sigh, "Don't YOU have anything better to do? Like...I don't know, preparing for Christmas? It's only a little more than two months away."
"You think I don't know that? The Yetis are busy building, and I've already checked list twice. And besides, I..." Jack waited for him to continue, but he didn't.
"I'm listening."
"Man in Moon!"
"What?" He looked up, and the moon was shining brightly through the latch on the ceiling on to the floor. "Yes! Finally something to liven the place up a bit, what's up?"
It acted like a projector, a blurry blue image of a young girl by herself sleeping in a tree came up.
"Vhat is this, Manny?" He asked.
"You think she's another spirit?" Jack wondered out loud.
"Could be. Vhat do you want us to do?" He again asked up at the moon, but no reply came.
"He's not very helpful is he?" North ignored him, "Wait, what if he wants her to be the next Guardian?"
"No, this isn't vhat happens for that."
They both stood there for a while, unsure of what exactly they were meant to do with this.
The light and the picture faded and North spoke up, "I think I'll go get her; see vhat this is about. I'll take the sleigh."
"I'm ready!" The winter spirit said energetically.
"No, you stay here. In case Manny comes back." Jack was about to start sulking, but then managed to mumble a 'fine' under his breath. "Good, I recognise the area. I von't be long." He walked off towards where the sleigh was kept, leaving Jack in charge of the Pole.
-BACK IN THE FOREST-
*BANG*
Katherine woke up with a jolt, simultaneously forgetting the dream she was having. The loud bang came from nearby. It sounded like something had crashed. Usually she probably would've tried to stay low, and try to not be seen, but considering that wasn't exactly a problem right now, she jumped down from the tree, once again surprised by how easy it was, and went to see what made the loud noise.
It wasn't hard, when she got a bit closer she heard someone yell what sounded like 'Damn trees!' in a Russian accent.
She pushed some hedges out of her way, and was AGAIN surprised by what she saw. Today was just full of surprises, wasn't it? She saw a big, red and what looked like a baddass version of Santa's sleigh.
Wait, why where there reindeer tied to the front? Whoever was trying to be a Santa cosplay was definitely dedicated.
"Ah! There you are!" The same voice from before said loudly from right behind her. Katherine spun around and saw a large man dressed in red with a white beard and sparkling blue eyes, smiling. "And you would be?" He asked.
Katherine looked behind her, but nobody was there. Was he speaking to her?
"Can you talk at all?"
"Uh, yeah, but... You can see me?" She asked uncertainly, which confirmed North's suspicions.
"Yes. My name is Nicholas St. North, but just call me North." He said reassuringly. "Who are you?"
"Well...uh..." She was still a little dumbfounded and found it hard to say anything properly, "...apparently it's Katherine. Katherine Hallows."
North frowned slightly, not only was she also chosen by Man in Moon to be like them, but she died before that. That was why she couldn't remember, just like Jack. He pushed that aside, and went back to the case at hand.
"Vell I vant you to know you're not alone, there are others. Ve cannot be seen unless ve are believed in."
"Really? That's weird..." She stopped to think for a moment, "How am I supposed to get believers if they have no idea I exist, and I have no way of telling them?"
"To be honest, I have no idea. It's been hundreds of years since I had to do that, but I know that ve can see each other." He disclosed.
"What?!" Katherin exclaimed, almost bouncing a bit on the spot, "What do you mean, 'hundreds of years'?"
"Vell, I thought that was kind of obvious..."
"Not to me! I just woke up here!"
North rubbed the back of his neck, "Look, I think you know ve are not like other people. Ve vere chosen to be this way and living, vell, forever is sort of part of deal."
"F-Forever?" Katherine found it hard to process this information, apparently they were 'chosen' by someone, but she was focusing more on the part that she'd live forever to worry about that now. She didn't know whether she liked it or not, sure it'd be cool to never die (at least not from age) but like this? Only being seen by people like her? She assumed they weren't exactly around every corner, and that they'd be a little hard to find.
North gave her a comforting smile. He knew what it was like finding out all this for the first time, it wasn't easy.
"You know," he started, "you could stay vith us for a while, If you vant to."
Katherine looked up at him, "Us?"
"Yes, some of us vere made Guardians. Ve protect the children of the world. It's a big place, there's room enough for you to stay until you find better."
Katherine was considering it in her head. True she only just met this guy, but he seems alright and it's not like she has anything to lose.
Maybe she'd learn more about people like her, and it felt good having someone to talk to. Thinking about it, she couldn't really think of a reason not to.
"Are you sure I won't be any trouble?"
"I'm sure." He reassured.
"Well then, ok. Th-Thank you so much! I don't really know what to say..."
"You don't have to." He put his hand on her shoulder, which was surprisingly heavy. He turned around and headed towards the sleigh, "Ok! Let's go!"
She leaned sideways to try and see where he was going. North jumped in which bounced it a bit, grabbed hold of the reins and got ready, "Vell come on, get in!"
Katherine's eyes widened,
"Wait... What?"
(Pretend there's a line break)
Well I hope you guys liked it! I'm sorry it took a while, but I'm like that. By the way I'm actually going to draw Katherine and post a link so you have a better idea of what her clothes look like and stuff, but for now the cover image is her from the shoulders up so that's something I guess (I used an anime character creator, I didn't animate it myself).
Ok the next story to be updated will be "Hanging with the ROTG crew" but that might take a while too because I really need to think of some ideas. But anyway, thank you all so much for reading! Please review and have a great day! ~3P~
