Disclaimer: I do not own ROTG - it rightfully belongs to DreamWorks. I only own the plot and the OCs.

So, another week has gone by... how time flies...

And it's getting to that inevitable point (or so it seems) in my stories when I realise that I'm running out of pre-written chapters... I am so screwed, I've barely written anything since I started posting this story...

In any case I thought I should mention, as I think I may have forgotten to do so, that my ROTG fanfictions do not follow the stories of the Guardians of Childhood books - my FanFictions are entirely inspired by the film, and my thoughts about what could have happened in the past, what could happen after, ect ect... In fact, I've never read the books (I know, I know, I really should... but I'm not getting much time to read either...). So, what I'm trying to say is... just don't get confused when the story of the past April will be telling is nothing like the story some of you may have read in the books.

Also, some of you may be a tad confused, if you've read Friend or Foe, as to why I'm suddenly calling Pitch's minions (WHATEVER you want to call them) 'Fearlings', when all through FoF I called them 'Nightmares'. There is a reason for the change - a while back, I read an excellent point about the creatures the Guardians fight in ROTG, which was that Sandy and the others had been surprised when they realised that Pitch had been turning dreams into Nightmares, which suggested that he had never done it before. That got me thinking - what would Pitch have had before the events of the film? He must have had some kind of army, surely? Of course, by this point I had read a heck of a lot of ROTG FanFictions, and I had seen Pitch's minions referred to as both 'Nightmares' and 'Fearlings', which got me thinking - what if, before the events of ROTG, Pitch had made creatures entirely out of pure fear, instead of converting dreams? This, in my mind, would be more difficult for him to do, which would be why, when he discovers his ability to convert dreams, he does so. To distinguish between the two types of creature, I am calling the converted dreams 'Nightmares' (as Pitch does in the film), and the creatures in this story (as it is set before) 'Fearlings'. Hope that cleared it up for you (though I have a feeling it just made matters even more confusing... let me know in a review if that's the case, and I'll try and explain it better in the next chapter)

So, thank you to TheShapeshifter100 for reviewing: I'm glad you like April (does she seem wildly different from Friend or Foe? That's been worrying me), and it's good to know that I haven't completely messed up with Loki... I wasn't really sure how to have him reacting, I had several scenarios running through my head, and it was a matter of pick and choose what I thought would work best (which doesn't often happen - most the time, I have an idea as to how I want important scenes such as that to play out). And you seem to have described my life in a nutshell there - though school seem to think that we don't need to sleep at all (they're telling us to do twenty hours of revision a week on top of all the homework we do... I barely have time for the homework and sleeping, let alone all that! :/ Sorry, I'm beginning to rant again...).


Chapter 3 - Explanations

April's POV

Okay, so maybe I should have given him a bit more warning before I flew off with him. Perhaps I should have mentioned I was a prankster, so that the trick I just pulled wouldn't have frightened him so much? I shook my head, a little ashamed. Sometimes I could be as bad as that fairy in the Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream... What was his name again? Puck. That was it. Sometimes I could be as bad as Puck, with my carefree attitude and love of tricks and pranks.

I hadn't always been like this - when I was mortal, I'd always been very careful. Nobody had ever suspected me, or had reason to suspect me, of being the one behind the frequent pranks my brother and I pulled - my brother always received all the credit, and that was how I had liked it.

I guessed that the reason I had become so open about my true nature as a prankster since my death was simply because I could be - back when I was mortal, I knew that the people of my village would deeply disapprove of the idea of me, a girl, doing such things.

Yet, sometimes, I regretted the way I presented myself these days. Right now was one of those times - I had a feeling I'd just lost Loki's trust, which wasn't very helpful considering the fact that I was supposed to be explaining the whole 'you're an immortal now' thing to him. Not to mention, I had already taken a liking to him - one that I was sure wouldn't be mutual, after the trick I'd just pulled.

Even though he had just told me he was also a trickster of sorts, I still doubted the wisdom in the Man in the Moon's decision to send me to find him. I was impulsive, irresponsible and not very good with words - particularly when explaining things - and I was pretty sure Loki must have realised as much by now.

Still, I lead him into the house, and directed him to one of the guest rooms, where there'd be an en suite bathroom. I then left him to sort himself out. As I retreated down the corridor, I could hear the sound of running water as the bathtub was filled.

The house was large and old, but well kept. The occupants were usually: myself; Samhain, who we all called 'Sam'; his adoptive daughter Nocturne, who, by blood, was the daughter of the Man in the Moon; and Sam's actual son, Jack O'Lantern. Occasionally Nocturne's twin brother, Daniel, would visit - but due to the pressures of his job as an immortal, these visits were few and far between.

However, for the moment, there seemed to be no one else home. My best guess was that, with the exception of Daniel, who would be doing his own job, they were out fighting Fearlings.

My main concern for the moment was finding Loki something to wear - his clothes were at a loss, being torn, ragged and covered in dirt and blood. However Loki had died, I had a feeling it hadn't been pleasant.

I thought for a moment. I could hardly give him something of mine, since I only owned dresses - and I was about a head shorter than him anyway. If I were to give him something of one of my family members, they'd notice and wonder where it went. I couldn't steal from a mortal - that would be immoral, and probably against the whole idea of immortals existing to help and protect mortals.

Suddenly, I was struck by an idea. I started walking faster, knowing now where I was going...


A while later, I returned to the guest room where I had left Loki, some clothes in my hand.

I knocked on the door. "Loki? You still in there?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't suggest coming in, if I were you," came his reply.

"I've sorted you out some clothes, since the ones you were wearing are pretty much in shreds."

"Oh!" He seemed surprised. "Um... Thank you."

I shrugged by way of reply, before remembering that he couldn't see me. "It's nothing," I told him.

"Hang on, if you pass them round the door, I'll take them off of you," he suggested. He then added, hastily, "I mean, open the door a little, so you don't-"

I laughed. "It's all right, I know what you mean."

Turning my head away from the door, I opened it just wide enough to slip my hand round and pass him the clothes. I felt his hand take them, and I withdrew my own, closing the door again as I did so.

"I'm afraid it's not much compared to what Sam would be able to make, but he's not here so I did the best I could," I told him.

"Thank you... Hang on, you didn't make these, did you?"

I shrugged. "Back when he was mortal, Sam - one of the people I share this house with - was a tailor, so now he makes us all clothes. I've seen him work often enough to know the basics, and a bit of help from my powers made quick work of it. I'm no seamstress, and it's not as good as what Sam could make, but... it's something."

"Well, I think it's great. Thank you."

"Really."

"Yes! If you don't believe me, then at least believe me when I say this: It's certainly a lot better than I'm used to. My family hasn't been able to afford something as high quality as this since..." He trailed off. "Since father died."

"Oh." I didn't know what to say to that. "I'm... I'm so sorry."

"Whatever for?"

"You know... For your father."

A silent pause, in which I could almost feel the shock radiating from within the room on the other side of the door - though why he'd be shocked, I did not know.

Finally, he spoke, sounding shaken and suspicious. "How the Hell did you know about that?"

I frowned, confused. "About what?"

"About my father!"

"You just said it!"

"When?!"

I blinked. Did he really not remember? "Just now - you said that your family hadn't been able to afford clothes like those since your father died."

"No, I didn't... I stopped at 'since'..."

"But I swear I heard you say it, clear as day." What was going on here?

Then, I was struck by a thought. Oh... I opened my mind and projected my next thought, testing my theory.

'I think I know what's going on here...'

"What? What's going on here?" he asked, confused.

Well. That settled it.

"That is what's going on. You just heard me say 'I think I know what's going on here', didn't you?"

"Yeah..." Now it was his turn to be confused. "So?"

"I never said those words out loud. I thought them, just as you thought about your father."

"But if that's the case, then how did I hear you say it?"

"You heard me say it, because we have a telepathic link - it sometimes happens."

"Wait, a telepathic link? That's fiction!"

"And half of fiction comes from immortals. For immortals, a lot of things are possible, including telepathic links. That's a part of the 'everything' I said I'd explain."

"Well ," he said, opening the door, now fully dressed. "I guess now would be the time to explain it all."


After a few minutes, we found ourselves in the living room, sat opposite each other in cushioned chairs with a small table between us, on which was a plate of biscuits and two cups of tea.

"All right, so... What do you want to know?"

He thought for a moment. "How about you start from the beginning."

"The very beginning?"

He nodded. "How did this whole thing with immortals start?"

I picked up a cup of tea and sipped it as I thought how to answer. "Well... So far as we know, it all started somewhere around 11,000 BC. There was a time that was known as 'The Golden Age' - a time of peace, unity, prosperity et cetera, et cetera. This lasted for about a thousand years - and towards the end was when things started to go downhill. And, so we believe, the Earth itself made an effort to try and preserve this Golden Age. Whether or not it was the Earth's doing, a man came into being - a man who became known as the Man in the Moon. He was the world's first immortal. But, it turned out that he had an extremely large disadvantage in the whole 'save the world' idea - nobody could see him. Over the years, immortals have worked out that we can only be seen by people who believe that we are real.

"In any case, many years later, he met a woman, by the name of Elainor. She was the first mortal to ever see him, and they quickly became friends. She convinced her adoptive brother, Samuel Hainin, to believe in the Man, and so he too saw him and became his friend.

"Over time, Elainor and the Man became more than just friends. They fell in love, and Elainor became pregnant. She gave birth to twins - Daniel and Nocturne - but sadly, she died in childbirth. And so, at the Man's request, Sam raised the children, caring for them as though they were his own.

"It was around this time that another immortal came into being, formed from the increasing fear of the people of the world, as the Golden Age slowly fell apart. This man - if one could call him a man - was named 'Pitch Black'. He ended the Golden Age and plunged the world into an age of fear. Eventually he was defeated by a group of immortals called the 'Guardians', but we'll get to that later.

"Before his defeat, before the Guardians were even created, Pitch was hell-bent on getting revenge on the Man in the Moon. And since he couldn't kill the Man himself, he realised that he could kill the Man's family. And that is exactly what he did - he hunted down Sam, Daniel and Nocturne and killed them all. The Man was so full of grief that he couldn't contain it all, and so it became power, a power that healed the Man's dead family, brining them back to life as the world's first Man-made immortals. With this knowledge, the Man then created the Guardians. They were created to defeat Pitch, which they did. Now their purpose is to protect the children of the world, and bring certain qualities to them.

"But anyway, that's not important. The important thing is, the Man in the Moon had learnt how to create immortals, and so, over the years, he chose people to become immortals, to carry out jobs. Samuel Hainin became Samhain, the Spirit of Halloween, Nocturne Hainin became Nocturne Moon, the Spirit of the Night, and Daniel Hainin became Daniel Moon - and he was given the hardest task if all. He has to guide the souls of the newly dead to their rightful places - or at least, he has to guide the souls who don't know where to go."

"So basically," Loki concluded, "he's what mortals call 'Death'."

I nodded. "He absolutely hates it."

"So what happened after they became immortal?" Loki asked.

I continued the story. "Years passed. Sam built this house, and he and Nocturne lived alone here, except on the rare occasions Daniel visited.

"Then, a few hundred years before I was born, Sam met a woman. Lily Smith, her name was. She was mortal, and married - but her husband was cruel and abusive. Sam found her, one Halloween, beaten and bloody at the side of a road, having been left for dead by her husband. He brought her here to heal her, and then she returned to her home - she had a baby son to look after. They remained friends, however, and they soon fell in love. Then Lily became pregnant with Sam's child, and nine months later she died in childbirth, just as Elainor - Nocturne and Daniel's mother - had done. Lily's husband took the baby boy, Jack, and hid, raising the son himself - though not kindly.

"Eventually Sam found Jack. I'm not entirely sure what exactly happened with Jack, only that he got on the wrong side of the Devil, got in a fight with him, and died. That's when the Man in the Moon brought him back - and so he joined Sam and Nocturne here.

"A few hundred years later, I was born, and sixteen years after that, I died. Daniel - Nocturne's brother - found me and brought me here. Sam, Nocturne and Jack welcomed me into the family. Hundreds of years passed, and now here we are. That's a brief history of my family, and of immortals - though there are hundreds of us out there, so obviously I haven't mentioned them all."

"Right..." Loki seemed to be taking it in okay so far, for which I was glad - I didn't want to have to explain the whole thing again.

"Sorry," I apologised. "I know it's a lot to take in."

He laughed. "No kidding. But I'm okay, I think. I'll tell you if it gets too much."

"That's good to know..."

"So... What about immortals themselves? I mean... What are they - I mean, we - exactly?"

"Well..." I'd never really thought about it. "It... Depends on the immortal, I guess. The things we all have in common are that, once we're immortal, we don't age, and that it takes a lot to kill us. We don't get ill, we don't need to eat or sleep - though it does help us to get energy - and we heal very quickly. We can be severely hurt, but there are only a few kinds of rare weapons and poisons that can actually kill us. Also, we can all tell if someone is mortal or immortal."

"And what about mortals?" Loki asked. "Why can't they see us?"

"Some can," I answered. "Immortals can only be seen by mortals who believe in them. So it really depends on the mortal, and on the immortal. Children are much more likely to believe in us than adults, and the Guardians are more likely to be believed in than most of the rest of us. Those who have just become immortal - like yourself - very rarely have believers straight off, and so they aren't often seen at first."

"But mother and Iris - my family..." Loki swallowed, and I could sense that this was a hard subject for him. "They couldn't see me, but they know me, they know I'm real."

"But they don't believe you are a supernatural creature with magical powers," I explained. "They probably believe you're... Well... dead."

He hung his head. "How long until people will start to see me... Until my family will see me again?"

"Loki..." I struggled to find the right words to explain, without hurting him. "I'm sorry, but... they may never see you... Some immortals go for hundreds of years without being seen."

"But they're my family... Surely they'd be able to, given time..."

"I don't know. I'm trying to be honest, and, well, the truth is... it's different for everyone. Your family, given time, may well see you. Or they may never see you."

"What do you suggest I do?" he asked.

"Well, I wouldn't suggest following them around, trying to make them see you - sometimes, even with their best efforts, immortals find that mortals can't see them. Heck, I know of a Winter Spirit - Jack Frost, or something like that - who has been trying to get people to see him for over a hundred years now, with no luck. My suggestion, if you really want to see them, is visit every so often. It'll most likely hurt, seeing them, but if that's what you want to do, then that's how I suggest you do it. But, to be honest? I'm not the best person to give advice on this."

He frowned. "What makes you say that?"

I shrugged. "I was too afraid of what I might find. I never went back."

I could feel his shock and disbelief through the telepathic link - I made a mental note to teach him to control the link. I could feel how he couldn't believe anyone wouldn't want to go back to their family.

"But why wouldn't you go back? You had a family, didn't you? And friends?"

I nodded. "Sure. But the circumstances of my death weren't exactly normal for an immortal. I was actually relieved when I realised no one could see me."

"I don't understand..."

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, but... I don't talk about my death. Not to anyone."

"But why would you be relieved? It terrified me when I realised no-one could see me..."

"Well... Let's just say I had reason to be afraid of what would happen if members of my home village found me."

Flashes of memory surfaced in my mind, memories I'd give anything to forget: A room full of people, a dark cell, the village square, walking to a platform, a hooded man, a rope-

"April? Are you all right?"

I shook myself out of the daze. "Yeah, fine," I lied. "Where was I?"

He clearly didn't believe me, but he didn't press the matter, for which I was grateful. "You were telling me about immortals, what we are. You said that 'it depends on the immortal' - what did you mean?"

"I meant... Well..." I thought for a moment. Where to start? "Well, for a start, we all have different powers, different amounts of powers, and different strengths of powers. For example, you remember the Guardians I mentioned?"

He nodded.

"They're different to most of us in that the more people believe in them, the stronger they are. But, in normal terms, the Man in the Moon is the strongest immortal, and immortals like me are not so strong. As for powers... Some of us have lots of powers - like I do, to an extent - and others have very few. These powers also vary - the Winter Spirit I mentioned, Jack Frost? He can control ice, snow, wind et cetera, from what I've heard. But then there are other spirits, such as the Summer Spirit, whose name escapes me, who, apparently, can control fire, heat, sunlight et cetera."

"You say 'from what you've heard' and 'apparently'," Loki noticed. "Haven't you met them?"

"There are so many immortals in the world - what you're saying would be like someone telling you that, because you're from Sussex, you should know everyone who lives in that county."

"Ah, I see. So... What happens to me?"

I shrugged. "It depends. What do you want to happen?"

He thought for a moment. "Well... I don't really know. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now, I don't know what powers I have - well, besides the power of exploding Fearlings, and I've no clue how I did that... I don't know who I am anymore."

"You're still you," I told him. "As for the rest... You'll figure it out. Everyone does, and everyone does so quite quickly - it takes a few weeks, at the very most."

'But what if it doesn't work that way for me? What if I'm here by mistake? What if I'm not even supposed to be like this?' He was so worried that his thoughts rang through the link, loud and clear.

"It will work that way," I reassured. "And you are supposed to be one of us. The Man in the Moon chose you - and he chose you for a reason."

He looked surprised for a moment. "Wait... Can you hear everything I'm thinking?"

I shook my head. "No. I could if I wanted to, but I don't, so I can't. At the moment, I can only hear things that get through my mental barrier - in other words, thoughts associated with strong emotions."

"Do all immortals share telepathic links?" he asked, curiously.

I shook my head. "No. A telepathic link only forms between two immortals if they are similar in some way - similar powers, perhaps, or similar personalities, or if you are related... there are loads of possibilities."

"Any idea why we have one?"

"Well..." I considered the question. "You mentioned you were a bit of a trickster, and I'm a prankster, so that could be it."

"Can you teach me how to control the link? To shut off my mind?"

He seemed uncomfortable with the idea of the link - and I couldn't blame him. If I were in his position, I would be nervous about the idea of a complete stranger lurking around in my head.

"I can," I nodded, "and depending on what powers you develop, I might be able to help you there too."

"Thank you..."

I shrugged. "It's nothing. Heck, if you want to, I'm sure the others won't mind you staying here, if you want."

His eyes grew wide. "Really? As in... live here?"

"If that's what you want. It's entirely up to you. Though I should add, it's safer than most places - this house is practically a living thing... if a few lost souls attaching themselves to the house counts as it being alive... Sorry, I digress - the point is, the souls I mentioned, who we refer to as 'House', protect the place - it's safe, and if you want to stay here, you can."

But before Loki could answer, the room seemed to explode in a flash of blinding silver-white light.


So, can any of you guess what that's about?

I have to admit, the next chapter didn't quite go as planned... but I guess, looking back on how things would have happened according to my original plan, I think that it probably makes more sense...

In any case, that's for next week. This week, I'm curious to know what you think ;) ...

*cough* Please review! *cough*

;)

Until next time!

MS.