Chapter 3
Sapphire glanced at the rising sun as she pulled on her boots. Today, she will try her luck again on the Ledge.
'I just hope there aren't any more of those black horses roaming about…' she thought shuddering as she quietly tiptoed out of her room.
Her parents were still asleep since it was only five AM in the morning. If she was quick enough, she could do the jump and be back home with a few minutes to spare.
"This time…I will conquer the Ledge." she whispered excitedly to herself as she went downstairs.
Little did she know that a certain five year old was watching her…
Donnie giggled softly, putting on his winter coat and silently followed his sister as she trudged through the snow, headed for Dropout Hill.
It was really chilly. Donnie shivered and before he could stop himself…
"Ah-choo!"
Sapphire spun around to find her baby brother right behind her.
"Good grief! Donnie, why aren't you in bed?" she exclaimed in shock. "I wanna see you go down the hill." Donnie grinned playfully. "No way mister, you go straight home right this instant." Sapphire ordered him. "Okay, then I'll go tell mom and dad you snuck out again!" Donnie stuck his tongue out at her.
Sighing, Sapphire shook her head. She didn't really have much of a choice.
"Alright, fine. One try down Dropout Hill and that's it. As soon as that's done, you go home." She said, gently lifting Donnie up to carry him. "Deal." Donnie grinned and wrapped his arms around his sister's neck.
Then the two of them made their way over to the hill. But suddenly, a loud whinny echoed through the frigid air, making the two siblings stop.
"What was that?" Donnie cautiously whispered.
Sapphire tensed when the sound of hooves pounding the ground suddenly reached her ears. A dark shadow suddenly loomed over them both.
"Hello there, little kiddies." Pitch Black coldly laughed as they turned around to see him and his Nightmares.
Sapphire put Donnie down and stepped out in front to protect him. But deep down inside, she felt scared. Pitch's dark gold eyes seemed to drill right into her very soul.
"What's the matter? Scared?" Pitch snickered as his Nightmares began to snort viciously. Donnie bravely jumped out in front of Sapphire. "No, we're not! So leave us alone!" he shouted.
A Nightmare suddenly raised its hooves, startling him into backing away as it stomped on the ground.
"Boo!" Pitch cackled and his Nightmares prepared to charge.
"Donnie, RUN!" Sapphire yelled, taking her brother's hand and rushing off.
"Run where? Where?!" Donnie panted as he tried to keep up. "Just run!" his big sister shouted, giving him a shove to hurry up.
The Nightmares raced after them neighing loudly. Brother and sister scrambled to keep ahead of them. Seeing Dropout Hill and the Ledge, Sapphire perked up.
"Come on!" she shouted, leading her brother up the hill.
Jack sat on a tree branch and took out a pencil and the drawing. Sapphire's drawing of him only took up one side of the paper so he was drawing a portrait of Sapphire on the other side. He had stayed up late last night, working hard on the sketch. And now, he was just gonna put the finishing touches.
"Alright…Almost…done!" he said to himself, pleased with his work.
The drawing was absolutely perfect. Sapphire was gonna like it for sure.
Smiling, Jack rested on the tree for a few minutes. Suddenly a shrill scream split the air. A little startled, Jack grabbed his staff.
What he saw down below the tree nearly made him fall out of it.
Sapphire and her brother were running as if their lives depended on it, followed by Pitch and his Nightmares!
"Oh no…" the winter Guardian mumbled, seeing them go up Dropout Hill.
Quickly, Jack grabbed a breeze and followed them.
Finally making it to the top, Sapphire hoisted Donnie onto her back and readied her snowboard.
"Hang on tight. And no matter what happens, don't let go." She ordered sternly looking at him in the eye. Trembling, Donnie clung onto his big sister's neck.
Then Sapphire boarded down the slope, the Nightmares in hot pursuit.
'I gotta make that jump! It's our only chance!' she thought worriedly to herself as they neared the Ledge.
A Nightmare managed to catch up and kicked Sapphire's board out of her.
"Ahhh!" Donnie yelled as they sailed through the air, landing in the snow with a loud thud.
Groaning, Sapphire retrieved her board only to find that she and Donnie were surrounded by Pitch and Nightmares.
And they were standing on the Ledge.
"Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. To think, the Man in the Moon chose you to be a Guardian. What can you do anyway?" Pitch sneered as a Nightmare began to stomp on the Ledge, making cracks appear on the icy rock. "'Guardian'?" Donnie said, confused. Pitch pointed at his sister.
"…Me?" Sapphire breathed as more cracks appeared on the Ledge.
Yelping, Donnie hugged his sister. Sapphire frantically looked around for an escape.
But there wasn't any.
A Nightmare was just about to charge at them when suddenly, a blast of ice froze it in place.
Pitch turned around to see Jack Frost glaring at him. "Why, Jack! Long time, no see!" he said, smiling evilly. "Leave them alone, Pitch." Jack warned, pointing his staff at the Boogeyman.
Snickering, Pitch waved his hand to his horses and shouted, "Attack!"
The Nightmares charged at the young Guardian.
But Jack was ready for them.
Safely up in the air, he blasted snow and ice at them as Sapphire and Donnie watched, awestruck. "Cool…" Donnie gasped.
Suddenly the Ledge began to wobble.
It was going to snap in half!
Quickly Sapphire spotted a safe route for her brother to cross and pushed him away from her.
"Donnie, go! Run and don't look back!" she yelled at him.
Donnie just stared at her in shock.
"Don't worry, I'll be fine! While Pitch's distracted, hurry!" Sapphire shouted.
Nodding shakily, Donnie ran off just as Pitch noticed him.
"Shame, there goes one victim. Sorry Jack but we'll fight again another day." He replied, snapping his fingers. The Nightmares vanished along with him.
Confused, Jack spun around to see the Ledge wobble. Donnie had turned around just to check on his sister and saw to his horror, the part of the Ledge his sister was standing on give way!
"Sapphire!" Jack shouted in alarm, thrusting his staff toward her. Vainly, Sapphire tried to grab hold.
But it was too late.
She fell off the edge and hit the creek hard.
"…NOO!" Donnie screamed, falling to his knees with a sob.
Jack zipped over to the kid and tried to comfort him but Donnie just stood up and ran off, crying. Then Jack flew down to the creek, hoping that Sapphire had managed to get out of there okay. But there was no sign of the young girl and Jack found out that the creek was a lot deeper than he originally thought.
"Sapphire! Can you hear me?! SAPPHIRE!" Jack shouted into the water, hoping she could hear him.
Sapphire struggled to keep her eyes open. Every muscle and bone in her body ached. And her lungs were burning from the freezing cold water. Then she heard a voice calling out to her from above the water. She couldn't hear really well due to the pressure in her ears as she sank but Sapphire could hear the voice worriedly calling her name. She desperately kicked her legs and began to slowly swim up to the surface. Finally she managed to lift her head out of the water, gasping violently for air.
Jack had been seriously thinking of diving in to save her (although he knew that it was a bad idea since water turned into ice wherever he went) when he saw her head poke out of the water. Immediately he held his staff out to her. Sapphire clawed through the water and latched onto it. Making sure she had a decent grip, Jack hoisted her onto the bank of the creek. Coughing, Sapphire collapsed onto the ground, shaking violently. Too weak to even hear Jack's frantic voice as he tried to make her stay awake, Sapphire let her eyes close and she lost consciousness.
"Oh no…What do I do? What do I do…?" Jack muttered, starting to panic. The girl had fainted but was still shivering so she had to have a bad case of hypothermia.
Suddenly a rabbit hole opened up in the ground and Bunny hopped out of it.
"Where've you been, mate? North's not happy about you sneaking out at the crack of dawn, just so you know." He glared at the winter spirit.
But his expression softened when he saw Sapphire on the ground. "What…" he began to say before Jack cut him off. "No time to explain, Kangaroo. We need to get her out of here before she freezes to death." Jack informed him, now seriously regretting his decision to make winter in Burgess a little bit colder in the mornings.
Nodding, Bunny hoisted Sapphire onto his back followed by Jack. "Keep her steady. It's a long way back to the Pole." He reminded the winter spirit. Jack nodded and tightly held onto Sapphire's shaking form as Bunny hopped back into his tunnels and raced through them as fast as his paws could go. Sapphire stirred slightly and moaned weakly.
"Just hang in there, Sapphire…Please." Jack whispered, squeezing her hand as they headed to the North Pole.
Donnie ran back to his house, crying hysterically the whole way. He just couldn't believe that Sapphire was gone and probably never coming back…
He would never forget the look in his sister's eyes as she sacrificed herself to save him.
The mere thought of that made Donnie cry even harder.
When he arrived at his house, his parents had already woken up and they were about to head out in their car to look for their kids when they had checked on their rooms to find that they weren't there at all.
was the first to see Donnie running over to them. "Donnie there you are! Sweetie what's wrong?" she said worriedly, seeing the tears running down Donnie's face. His dad looked around to find one person missing.
"Where's your sister?" At the mention of Sapphire, Donnie sobbed even harder. "We were chased by…m-monsters up the hill a-and then we were st-st-standing on the L-Ledge…Sapphire saved me…But she…!" he managed to choke out before completely breaking down.
His mom just hugged him tightly as she looked at her husband fearfully. After calming Donnie down, the couple went to Dropout Hill and found Sapphire's snowboard lying in the snow, next to the Ledge. The two parents panicked and called the police to have them search for their daughter in the surrounding area.
But after days of searching without finding any trace of the young girl, the Aquamarie family went into grieving.
They had hoped but now lost hope. Sapphire was…gone.
Baby Tooth chirped excitedly as Sapphire's eyes flicked open. "Huh…Wha…?" the young girl mumbled, woozily gazing around.
She was in a really warm living room, lying on a red velvet couch and covered in a soft quilt. A fire crackled in a fireplace although outside, she could see that it was still day time. Baby Tooth flew closer to Sapphire's face, twittering excitedly.
"Uhh…Hello…" Sapphire said groggily as she sat up, rubbing her eyes.
A Yeti then entered the room with a plate of cookies and a mug of hot chocolate. "Arghbagl?" it grunted, offering Sapphire the food. "Thanks…I think." The girl mumbled uneasily before taking a bite out of a chocolate chip cookie while the Yeti left.
She helped herself to a few bites before trying to stand up.
"Ack!" she yelped, falling back on the couch as her legs buckled.
Apparently she was still a little wobbly on her legs.
"Okay…Stretch first. That should do it." She murmured to herself as she did her routine stretches, like she always did before catching some waves back home in Florida.
After her warm ups, Sapphire prepared to stand. Baby Tooth flew behind her to help her up.
"Yes!" Sapphire said triumphantly as she got off the couch and stood straight. Then she took a few careful steps around the room. After making sure her legs wouldn't buckle while walking, Sapphire went over to the nearest door and pushed it open. Finding herself in a hallway, Sapphire silently padded down the hall with Baby Tooth close behind. After a few twists and turns, they found themselves in the inner workshop of Santoff Claussen.
"Wow…" Sapphire breathed, eyes widening in amazement as she looked around at all the toys and the busy rush of activity.
Yetis rushed to and fro, making preparations and the elves…let's just say in their own way, they were doing their best to help. Baby Tooth then chirped to Sapphire for her to follow.
"Where are we going?" she asked curiously as she passed by the yetis and elves and got on an elevator. She followed the little fairy until she reached a door. Hearing voices on the other side, Sapphire pressed her ear to the keyhole.
"Alright, who's going to tell her?" a female voice said.
"Let's not be getting ahead of ourselves, guys. We don't even know when she'll wake up." A heavily Russian-accented male voice boomed.
"Well in my opinion, I think Frostbite here should tell her." Another male voice, this time with an Australian accent, piped up.
Then, Sapphire heard a familiar voice speak. "What? Why me?"
"Jack?" Sapphire wondered out loud, looking at Baby Tooth, surprised.
Curious, she peered into the keyhole and saw a stream of sparkly gold sand through the hole. Then before she could react, the door swung open.
"Ah!" Sapphire yelped as she tipped forward and fell to the floor.
Looking up, she saw Sandy looming over her with a confused expression on his face.
"…Sapphire?" she then noticed Jack walking over to her. "You're awake?" Tooth was surprised. Sapphire merely nodded, staring at her multicolored form in awe.
Jack offered the young girl his hand and helped her up. "…Thanks…" she mumbled shyly. Jack just blushed, giving her a sheepish grin.
"Glad to see you awake, little missy." Bunny hopped over to her.
North started examining her. "Any chills? Fever? Broken bones?" he asked, concerned if she was ill or injured by any chance. "Um…no I'm fine…I guess…" Sapphire replied awkwardly.
"Maybe you have a toothache!" Tooth then started flying towards her to check out her teeth.
Sapphire gave Jack a confused and bewildered look. All this attention was making her feel kind of uncomfortable.
"Alright, hang on! Give her some space!" Jack tapped his staff on the floor.
The Guardians immediately hushed up and backed off.
That's when Sapphire found the courage to speak up.
"Okay, for starters, where am I? Who are you guys? And how did I get here?" she asked, utterly confused.
"You're at Santoff Claussen AKA the North Pole." North replied.
"Wha…?" Sapphire gasped, realizing she was miles away from home.
"As for who we are, we're the Guardians. I'm Tooth. He's Bunny. He's Santa Clause or North, as we call him. And that's Sandy. Jack here's also a Guardian." Tooth pointed to herself and to the other Guardians one-by-one.
"Okay, I get that. But how did I end up here? In the North Pole?" Sapphire slowly asked while trying to process all this information. "You had a bad case of hypothermia. Jack and I brought you here to recover, mate. Although to be honest with you, it would have been better if Jack took you home." Bunny told her, throwing a sideward glance at Jack.
The winter spirit rolled his eyes. "She was freezing to death. What if she couldn't make it in time for me to bring her home? And what if Pitch is still after her?" he countered.
Then he added, "And…I was…really worried about you." He mumbled, looking at Sapphire.
The young girl looked at him in shock for a few seconds before she finally smiled. "Thanks for saving me…" she said shyly. Jack blushed a little and smiled.
"Love bug." Bunny whispered to some elves, who began to giggle. Luckily Sandy shushed them up with a sprinkle of dream sand.
