Rise of the Guardians

Thanatos' Scribe

Chapter Three

"Lana! Lana! Wake up!" The young woman blinked out grit from her eyes, the haunting touch of a severe biting cold disappearing as she shifted and pushed up off the couch in their parents' living room. Helene was prancing around with glee. "You're awake! Yes! I was so worried you wouldn't!"

"I was just sleeping," Lana mumbled, rubbing at her eyes with irritation. Her teeth were chattering as her twin sister beamed at her. "What?"

"I'm so glad to finally have you here, I missed you so much, Lana!" Helene flung herself around Lana, hugging her tightly. As quickly as she was hugged, Helene was gone and dancing around the room. "Come on, let's go!"

"Go? Where?" Lana tried to stand up on her legs, but they were heavy like lead, her mind was captured in a dense fog, and she was trying to remember something. Something about brown eyes and dark hair. But there was something else in her mind, something that was very foreign, frightening. "My head hurts.."

Her head dropped in her hand as she peered up weakly to Helene whose eyes became sad and pained. There was a sound of a violent crash, screams, and pain wracked through Lana as she cried out.

"Lana.. I'm so sorry…" Helene looked to her, eyes spilling with tears. "Why, Lana? Why?"

"Why… why, what? Helene.. What's wrong?"

Helene's eyes dried up as her jaw tightened. Her blue-gray eyes turned black as she opened her mouth and screamed, everything around the two shattering like torn fabric, shadows forming from the shredded reality. Her scream grew only louder, filled with rage and desperation.

"Helene!" Lana reached out with a shout and found herself tumbling out of her bed in the home of Death. Her face planted to the ground, she couldn't breathe for a moment and when she could, her heart throbbed with deep, tearing emotional pain.

It took a longer moment to remember that attack that Thanatos' did, her body still hurting, the lining along her body burning with residual surges. She should've been afraid, terrified by the power of Death.

But she knew, just knew deep down, he reacted with fear and because of that, she was angry. You didn't have to attack when you were afraid, you could always just face it. She staggered to her feet and stumbled out the bedroom into the dark and looming hallway. It seemed like a longer trek than usual to get to where the living room was at, where she would find Thanatos.

She entered and was about to yell, to scream, to do something when she collapsed onto her knees and her sister's necklace fell off her person and in front of her. She stared at it, remembering the strange nightmare.

Lana started blindly at the necklace, acutely aware of the memory of her sister, so deeply saddened but she had been so angry about something Lana didn't understand. All she could remember was asking 'why?' and Helene never answering her.

It took a moment to see Thanatos' feet in front of her. "I hate you," Lana didn't mean it entirely but she was too angry to care at that particular moment. "I did nothing to you and you attacked me. Is that why you kill your minions? Because of slights that your mind makes up? If you want to get rid of me, then do it now before you hurt me again! I chose to be with you, you know, I sacrificed my life! Does that mean nothing to Death? Or do you think you're above it all?"

His eyes stared down, black and cold.

She met his frozen gaze with heated emotion. "You're … you're.. a bully, that's what you are! You don't get what you want, you don't understand something? You attack it instead of even trying! What is your deal?!"

"I do as I want, as I will, and as I should."

"Two of the three, that's all that is true. That last part, however, is surely not!" She grasped her necklace and surged up, her energy filling out, with her feeling relieved that it was doing so. She planted her feet apart and faced Thanatos face on. "You don't do as you should! You're cruel, hateful, painful! Death is supposed to bring peace, whether you die in your sleep or some monster shoots you. When bad things happen, Death should come gently, soothingly. Why do you like so much fear when you, yourself, is so terrified."

Thanatos's eyes hardened as he raised his arm threateningly. "Watch what you say, you serve me, not the other way around!"

Her jaw tightened as she loomed at him, leaning toward him with a glare. "Hit me. I know you want to."

Thanatos' face twisted. "Do not tempt me, child!"

"I am not a child! I am an adult, a person, a living being!"

"You are DEAD!"

"I'm alive in a matter of speaking," Lana said dismissively. "You do not have to attack me! I didn't leave, I was doing my damn job! Far better than you, by the way!" She added snidely and as she expected, she felt his hand move quickly as she dodged his slap. "Bully! Bully! I spent my entire childhood surrounded by them and you, sir, are the biggest one I have ever had the misfortune to know!"

His hand had fallen and fisted as he glowered at her.

"I. Didn't. Leave. If you paid attention to all the good that I do, maybe you wouldn't be so quick to retaliate against me, to hurt me. I know you don't want to."

"You don't know what I want."

"I know you reacted with fear when I asked you if you feared Death."

"I -AM- Death!"

"As always?"

His jaw worked, unwilling to answer.

"You were like me once, human, living. What made you so cold?"

His eyes turned bright with power. "They did. All of them."

"Who is 'they'?"

"The world. Everyone fears Death, runs from it, hides from it. They blind themselves so that I am not seen, not heard, not felt, not experienced. And in the end, they seek not me but what lay beyond my touch. Why should I be kind to those who are not kind to me?"

"Because it's the right thing to do."

"So?"

"It's karma, Thanatos. What goes around, comes around. You treat others as you want to be treated. I can't guarantee that all of the world will do it because I know what it's like to be nice to others and yet be treated cruelly. Even still, I try each and every day to be better than those who don't think I can be."

Again, she met his eyes, fiery versus his luke-warm gaze. "Please, don't do that to me again, Thanatos. You didn't need to hurt me, you don't need to make me afraid of you. I chose this life and I intend on keeping to it because it was what you asked."

There was a long pause of silence before his head tilted away with a slow frown. "We have company."

She was befuddled, still engrossed in her one-sided conversation. "What?"

"Stay here."

He left the room and in seconds, she was behind him, scurrying after with sudden curiosity.

He exited the home where the skies seemed to lighten to dangerous brightness. Lana blinked furiously at the sharp exposure as she then frowned from the vision in front of her. She could have sworn that her childhood heroes of the holidays were standing right in front of her. "Is that.. Santa Claus?"

All of them looked ready to attack. Thanatos' hand raised as a scythe formed silently, its gigantic curved blade frightening to look at. "Who dares to trespass?"

"We've come to stop you!" North called out. "You who brings unnecessary death! We found your… home and intend on keeping you here until it stops!"

"Really?" Thanatos began to walk toward them, as all of them took several, obvious steps back in growing fright. "You who fears Death, as you…"

"It's not him!"

Thanatos found Lana rushing forward. "I'm with him nearly all the time and I have experienced his works! He may be cruel but he is not unnecessary."

"Who are you?" Jack poked her with his staff cautiously. "You're too.. Alive to be dead."

"I am dead, trust me," Lana said with a droll sniff. "I'm one of his… minions, so to speak."

"With.. Him? You live here, with him?" Jack asked skeptically.

"Ah, yes, the Guardian of Fun. I had come for your death only to be told to leave you be," Thanatos quipped, getting behind Lana. "Your soul lay in unrest for so long, it was no wonder you sought to be seen."

Jack glowered at him.

"Look!" Lana began, imploring to North. "It's not him. I swear on my life that it's not!"

"You're dead, so what does it matter to us if you swear on your life?" Bunny growled.

"Because I'm being honest and you can tell that," Lana protested. "What's your deal?"

Thanatos stepped forward again and once more, all of them stepped back. Lana looked up to see Thanatos' eyes darken with emotion as she moved to stand in front of him, looking to the Guardians with complete and undivided attention.

"You fear the wrong thing," She told them all softly. "As I said, he may be cruel but he has been doing his job for as long as Death has existed. How dare you come here and accuse him of performing unnecessary deaths? There must be someone else who is doing it!"

"Yea, maybe you," Jack again poked at her.

"There has been unnecessary deaths," Thanatos said slowly, looking up with a reflective gaze. "There is a minion out there, not of my doing. It feels.. As if you, Lana."

"Me, but I didn't…!"

His hand raised slowly. "No, not intentional. It is a spirit in rage, stirred by you. However, as you have given those of the dying a death of calm serenity, I don't see how you could have created such an angry spirit."

Helene suddenly surfaced in her memory. "Helene."

"No one returns from limbo, Lana. Ever."

"But.."

"It's not her, she is gone!" He snapped very loudly.

Lana dropped her gaze, tears falling.

"Leave. This is our business now. Leave, now, before I make you leave." Thanatos turned away and began to walk with a heavy step.

Jack made a face at his back as Lana slowly reached for her sister's necklace. She turned toward Jack and her blue-gray markings turned a bright red for a few moments before turning blue-gray again.

"Get out of here," She bit out and turned away.

"Is unnecessary death that needs to be stopped!" North told her as she started to leave the group.

"Then go find the one who is doing it and take it out yourselves, if you are so intrigued about it. Or better yet, seem to think you can do what Death does if you think you can come here and bitch about it!" She ended on a shout.

For a long moment, she saw herself as her twin sister, vibrant, emotional, loud. Lana rarely shouted but that day, she just seemed as if unable to not to raise her voice. She resumed walking away, hurrying to avoid any more words stemming from the group.

The guardians stood in the dimming light. "Should leave before the darkness takes out everything and we wander forever," Jack muttered as he tapped the ground and flipped around, walking off with a swagger.

"That's it? That was Death?" Tooth was skeptical. "Didn't seem like such a… scary bad guy. Just scary."

"We not dwell with Death," North shrugged. "Perhaps our impressions are wrong."

Bunny was rubbing his arms. "Still freaking scary, though, to be this close.."

"Aww, is the wittle bunny-wunny scared?" Jack cooed to Bunny who ran after the laughing boy with a shout of rage.

Lana reached the front entrance and stilled, her hand only inches from the doorknob. She thought of her sister suddenly, not too sure that she was truly in limbo. Maybe she was trying to tell her something in that dream she had. She then slowly opened the door, wanting to talk to someone and knowing that she had no one to do so with.

She came to the living room, the fireplace roaring as Thanatos stood in front, looking into the bright orange flames with a blank gaze. Lana wanted to hug him, to make him feel better but there was no way he'd let her that close to her. He wouldn't even let her be a few feet from her, so fearful did he seem about being touched.

Still, she slowly inched toward him from the side, trying to get his attention without having to actually speak up. Finally, however, she had no choice. "Thanatos?"

"It's gone. I cannot feel it anymore."

"What's gone?"

Thanatos gave her a side look. "The angry spirit."

"Is is.. Gone forever?"

"No. I simply cannot feel it anymore. It feels very much like you."

He turned suddenly, startling her as he raised a hand. She felt her markings begin to burn as she took several hard steps back. "Hey, wait, we talked about this! You don't have to hurt me!"

"I'm not going to."

"Really? This feels like how it started before! Only in slow motion! If you're going to do it, at least make it quick!"

His hand twisted, curling his fingers as she felt a tug and nothing more. His frown grew as he repeated this action several times before giving up. "Where did you go?"

"Uh.. I was just out there with you."

"Before, when you disappeared from my power."

"Oh… the Beyond, you know. The three Fates?"

"You… saw them?"

"Yea, talked to them too."

His eyes narrowed. "This is their magic, then."

"Magic?"

"I cannot remove you."

Her gaze became conflicted. "You.. You were trying to get rid of me?"

"Not.. Like that," He grew flustered. "I.."

"You were trying to get rid of me?! What about all that I said, did that mean nothing to you?!" Her markings flared red and stayed that color as she stared at him, aghast.

When he didn't say anything, she turned away sharply. "Going to bed. Not hungry. Good night… Master," She added, brutally harsh as she disappeared from the room.

Thanatos rubbed the back of his head, looking a little strained. "Wasn't trying to get rid of her. Seeing if I had full control… I do not…but she doesn't know. What have the Fates done to her?"

He turned to the fireplace once more, looking into the flames until the blaze, heat, and dueling colors took over his mind, allowing him some time to close off everything, if only for a little while.