Solitude and Darkness

Ch. 4.

EDITED by the lovely The Fallen Angel of Pain!

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North's sleigh was not to be their method of transportation, or so Mother Nature had said. Without any preamble or thought, Nature had demanded North to use one of his snow globes to take them to Burgess and to the entrance of Pitch's lair. But only after she drew them all closer to her face with her binding vines and hissing,

"If your Moon and little sand-fly are not there, I will feed you all to my flytraps. Alive."

The threat was only made more real by the hissing of some rather large-looking Venus Flytraps just at the entrance of the tunnel they had arrived through. North had one of his arms briefly released so he could take a globe out of his coat. Mother Nature snatched the globe away and clutched it in one of her hands before she turned back to the crowding spirits behind her.

"As for the rest of you, any and all of whom have been affected by these imbecile's actions, I urge you to remain in The Eden for your own safety," Nature announced, "You will be able to continue your jobs from here with the help of my nymphs."

Confirming murmurs and nods were given as the crowd steadily broke up, various spirits going to find a place to rest off their illness and fatigue, while the darker souls vanished into the shadows. Once she was sure everyone was settling or leaving, Nature scowled back at the Guardians.

The vines detached themselves from the ground but still bound the Guardians in a slightly weaker hold.

"Hal," Nature called, not taking her eyes off the Guardians.

The weary Homunculus, still hiding in the refuge of Patrick's suit jacket and muscular arm, nodded at the silent request and propped his broom up against a tree. He pushed out of the Leprechaun's hold and clenched his oversized gloves into tight fists. Cinders fell in hot flakes from his burning hands, smoke billowing into the air in dull black plumes. His hands shook briefly before they stopped, and he opened his palms. Two long lengths of raw metal chains were revealed in the oversized palms, the metal links smoking and still heated from their formation*.

Without a word, Hal shuffled towards the Guardians and wrapped their wrists with the chains, leaving only around a foot of slack between their wrists. He deftly yet meticulously welded the chains around each of their wrists, drawing hisses and winces from the still hot metal being tightly soldered to their limbs. When one set of handcuffs was complete, he would burn the excess length off, reattach it to the slack in front of them, and then move onto the next. He faced the last Guardian, Jack, and kept his gaze lowered from the winter sprite.

He couldn't block out Jack's pleading voice though. "Hal…please, don't do this," he pleaded.

"Arms up, wrists up," Hal quietly yet apathetically requested.

"Hal, this isn't like you! Please, you gotta believe us and-"

"Shut ye gob and do as the lad says ye swine!" Patrick snapped, brandishing his golden brass-knuckles*.

Jack immediately shut his mouth at the threat of being on the receiving end of the Leprechaun's golden knuckles. He gave Hal one last pleading look before sighing and offering his wrists to the fiery spirit. The Halloween herald cuffed his hands and welded the excess to the slack, linking the Guardians together in a line. Everyone now chained together, Hal turned and offered the lead strip of chain to Mother Nature.

She took the chain and clutched it in one hand, the other occupied by the globe. She shook the globe absently before uttering their destination into it.

"Burgess, the entrance to the Boogeyman's prison."

A vortex of color exploded as she threw the globe. Her eyes remained trained on the Guardians in her clutches briefly, before her gaze averted to the serenely standing Father Time.

She opened her mouth, as if about to say something, but immediately closed it with a loud click of her teeth. Time only smiled gently at her.

"Tick tock, my dear," he purred, gesturing to the – Jack had to do a double take – small, round gold and silver clock imbedded in his left breast, "Time's running out."

Nature's hackles rose, the vines binding the Guardians suddenly growing small thorns in time with her ire. She swiftly turned her head away from Time and yanked on the chains. She lead the Guardians forward and towards the vortex, and out into the dark woods of Burgess…

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Burgess, being a small, quaint little town, almost always had clear skies and even clearer nights. Every star one could imagine could be seen in its skies, and the moon would always be ever bright and dominate the blue-black canvas that made up the horizon's veil. But now, it seemed like the sky had been stained, the silken blue veil bleached with clouds of pollution and smoke. The air was thin and smelled of exhaust and other fumes. The forest trees were nearly barren, bearing only but a few pathetic, dark leaves desperately clinging to branches like men on a noose.

It was so different from what Jack remembered.

Jack hadn't been to Burgess in almost ten years. Far too many memories were in that little town, all of them cherished by none but him. The Burgess kids who had once been so little, so brave, had long since grown up. It was so long ago, but even still, Jack could remember each day one child took to forget him. Birthdays had never seemed so bleak to Jack at that time, but with each candle added onto a cake, a believer was lost. All but Jamie had forgotten about him – all through middle school, to high school, even through college! And Jack, naïve Jack, held out the hope Jamie would always be able to see him. But one day, the Bennett boy – not so much a boy anymore – slowly started slipping into the adult world. A couple years after his marriage to a college sweetheart, he walked through Jack when the sprite had come by to say hi.

That was over thirty years ago, and after that, he progressively stopped coming to Burgess as the years passed. And yet here he was again. Back in the same town that once held his first handful of believers, and yet it looked no brighter than a crushed firefly under someone's shoe.

His once home now felt like a desolate land of memories that left a bitter taste in his mouth.

A yank on his chain brought Jack's attention back to the problem at hand. Nature took in the dry, infertile ground before them. He felt a shudder go up his spine as they crossed the edge of the small clearing.

The ground in the center of the grove was as bare as he remembered. The only indication of anything being once there was the burst of darkened soil surrounding what was once the entrance to Pitch's lair. One would think someone had set off a rather large firework in the spot, and yet the burst of burned dirt remained after all this time.

Jack and the others were relieved to see Sandy heatedly pacing just on the other side of the clearing, concern marring his pudgy face with worry lines and a creased frown.

"Sandy!" Jack called, his bleak mood somewhat lifting at the sight of the golden Guardian.

Sandy's head shot up to look at his name being addressed. A relieved smile broke his face as he swiftly flitted over to the Guardians. But he frowned and stared in shock at the chains around their wrists. He was about to inquire why they were chained up like common prisoners, but was cut off by Nature.

"Where is your Moon, worm?" she hissed.

Sandy seemed to remember just why he was there and what he was supposed to do. Frantic and flustered, he hastily formed various images in a silent tale of complications. Apparently their Moon was working to break through the clouds – which, upon closer inspection, were not clouds, but plumes of pollution.

Mother Nature clenched her hands and bared her teeth at the Sandman, causing the star to fidget. Sighing through her nose, Nature raised a hand up towards the sky. She mentally grasped the winds and pushed them up into the atmosphere. Slowly yet steadily, the haze of pollution began to clear away, revealing a faint light of the Moon breaking through the other side until it was fully visible through the cleared ring of haze. Moonbeams shot down along the edges of the haze to keep it at bay as the winds died down.

Her hand shaking, Nature released her weak hold on the wind and sighed shakily, obviously weary. North made to help support her, but the nature spirit slapped his hand away.

"Don't you dare…" she snarled. She looked over the Guardians with an expectant scowl.

"Well?" she hissed.

"Ah, we be needing weapons to break seal," North said hesitantly, "They were infused with magic to become seal's keys."

Growling lowly to herself, Nature waved a hand. Browned vines sprung up from the ground, clutching the Guardians' confiscated weapons. The frail vines released the swords, the boomerangs, and the staff before they shuddered and withered away.

"Now stop stalling and open the seal," she hissed.

Though hesitant, the Guardians picked up their weapons – North's sabers, Tooth's rapiers, Jack's staff, and Bunny's boomerangs. Sandy himself brought out a seashell from his suit and joined the others as they surrounded the hole*. Above them, the Moon shone brighter and sent down a single, narrow beam of light onto the center of the covered hole.

When it touched down, the seal revealed itself in a phantasm display of glowing blue lines and shapes circling the lair. The Guardians looked to one another worriedly, but a warning glare from Nature prompted them into proceeding. Each Guardian, after working around the chain links, took a place around the seal before placing their weapons over its edge.

The reaction was near instantaneous. A loud, strained crack was heard, like contorted glass finally starting to give under pressure. And like glass, visible cracks formed over the seal, spider-webbing out towards the edges. The seal seemed to shudder, and the Moonbeam strengthened and thickened, suddenly plunging into the seal like a baseball through a car window.

The loud, ear-piercing sound of glass shattering was deafening and painful, as if the shards of glass themselves had plunged into the gathered spirits' eardrums. The seal literally shattered under the Moonbeam, the glowing lines and shapes vanishing into phantom gossamer.

All that was left in the clearing now was a perfectly round hole that seemed to endlessly plunge into the earth. A booming gust of air shot out of it, as if the seal had also suppressed the air inside of it.

Nature yanked on the chain, prompting the others to gather around the revealed hole with her. All eyes stared down into its depths. It was endless darkness, an inky blackness that not even Sandy's night-vision could penetrate. Had it always been this dark?

A rustling sound – like water rushing down a drain, or air whooshing down a tunnel – blared silently through the tunnel. But with each passing second, it was getting louder. And louder…

Bunny's eyes widened and his ears pricked up. "Back off!"

He barely had a moment to make sure everyone was a few steps away, before the hole erupted like a miniature volcano. Inhuman shrieks that turned blood icy cold and stole away mortal's sanity echoed around the clearing. The geyser of black sand and shadows was thick and dense, a roiling mass of cackling, shrieking, whispering darkness. All of it sent everything within the clearing reeling, sensations of madness, fear, compression, oppression, suffocation!

Everyone stared wide-eyed and stunned as the eruption of shadows shot for the sky and moonlight before bursting into a whirlpool that spread out over the grove. The Moonbeams writhed as the darkness bit and thrashed at them. And all around them, the Guardians and Nature could hear voices among the shrieking masses. Whispers and screams and cries, burning cold emotions of madness, fear, compression, oppression, suffocation can't breathe can't breathe let me out please someone help help me let me out let me out LET ME OUT!

The Moon suddenly brightened, as if struck, before sending down more powerful Moonbeams. Dozens upon dozens of beams of light shot like bullets down into the writhing masses of black sand and shadows, all piercing each abyssal essence like a knife through butter.

No one thought the loud screaming could get any worse. But the moment the Moon's beams plunged through the mass of darkness, their hearing was practically lost. The writhing vortex of blackness was laced with the illuminating light, the sand particles and wisps of shadows destabilizing into a writhing, unstable mass. His power fading with time, the Moon shoved the last of his strength into another burst of light, plunging it all the way down into the abyss of the earth.

The white inferno engulfed the shadows and sand fully at that point, the screams slowly being muffled and dying down as each grain and shade was extinguished. Once the last voice was silenced, the shadows collapsed, leaving behind nothing but dark glass-like particles, and strange forms and silhouettes burned into the trees and ground surrounding them. The light suddenly cut off, the Moon dimming as his power waned.

A long moment of silence smothered the grove, the Guardians and Nature still stunned into defensive huddles around one another. But once it became apparent that the mental attack was over, they all slowly uncurled themselves from their guarded positions.

Mother Nature, covered in a protective shield of earth against a tree, slowly allowed the chunks of dirt and rock to fall away from her. The Guardians were worse for wear from the assault on their senses, but overall unharmed. Jack groaned and held his head from the splitting pounding behind his eyeballs. He cracked his eyes open to survey the area. But all he could see was a thick wall of ice. Somewhere during the whole ordeal, Jack had thrown up a wall of ice to block out the bombarding mental-attack, but it had only served to muffle it at best.

The Guardians, still slightly incapacitated from the overwhelming stimuli, were briefly rendered deaf and blind to the world around them, their hearts hammering into their ribcages and blood rushing through their ears. The return of their senses was both a relief and a curse; pain erupted behind their eyelids and in their eardrums as sensations returned to their proper places.

"Get up." Was the curt demand looming over the doubled over Guardians.

Nature hovered over them impatiently, her face set in her customary scowl. She didn't seem to be at all affected by the metal attack, but the shaking of her fists betrayed her stoicism.

North shakily got to his feet with the help of his sabers, "Mother Nature, please, this is not safe. We cannot risk going down there and-"

The red Guardian's words were cut off by a rather sharp dagger of obsidian being pressed through his beard and against his throat. The others were instantly on their feet and alert, but unable to bring themselves to even think about attacking Nature – even as she held a knife to North's neck.

"Let me set a few things straight here…" Nature said calmly, "I do not care if any of you perish down in that hole. The only reason I brought you here with me is to undo the seal, and use your bodies for shields should any Fearlings or Nightmares attack.

"None of you are a necessity. I could not care less if any of you die; you are of no real importance to this world after all. All of your so called 'centers' are not things that keep humans or my planet alive. All of your wonder, hope, memories, dreams, your fun, it is all obsolete. The only reason I do not gut you all right now is because I know other spirits would weep for you…"

Nature pushed the dagger further to North's neck until the tip pricked his jugular.

"And believe me, Guardians, I am not a merciful woman…"

The volcanic glass blade left North's neck at her last words, the tip glistening with the tiniest drop of blood, all of which was swiftly flicked down onto the ground – as if the Guardian's blood was toxic to her blade. She picked up their chain and yanked them towards the hole.

"Jack, Sandman, come here," she demanded.

The frost sprite froze up at this and swallowed dryly. Whether it was from remnants of the mental attack from the shadows and Nightmare sand, or something else, Jack was scared. He was scared of Mother Nature, one of the very beings who defined his very element. Of a being who threatened his and the others' lives without remorse.

He startled when he felt Sandy place a reassuring hand on his shoulder. The Dreamweaver gave the sprite a reassuring, though meek, smile. Jack gave a grateful nod to the star and approached Mother Nature with Sandy in tow.

Nature grabbed his wrists and broke his chains with a deft tug. Jack wasn't sure whether to be relieved his wrists were free from their tight confines, or frightened that such a petite woman could snap Hal's chains with a flick of her wrists. He rubbed at his sore wrists as Nature glared at the other Guardians and Sandy.

"The rest of you will stay up here," she said, "These two will accompany me below. And if I should come back, and you all have run off…"

Her blade was suddenly pointed between Jack's eyes, paralyzing the stunned spirit in his place.

"Consider your youngest addition dead. Again." The steady, unwavering threat was not to be taken lightly. Whether anyone knew her well or not, everyone knew Nature was not a merciful, nor a kind, force.

The elder Guardians shakily nodded, all the while restraining themselves from making protests. There was nothing they could do in the long run; even if they ran, they could never escape Nature. This was her planet after all, and there was no place that could hide them from her ever-present eyes or ears. There would be no forest, no mountain, no ocean, cave, island, or stone they could hide under. Everything spoke to Nature.

The woman directed the two Guardians towards the opened hole, pointing down into its depths with her blade.

"Go," she ordered.

Shooting one last worried glance at their fellow Guardians, Sandy and Jack plunged down into the abyssal tunnel. Nature waited above until Sandy's glow vanished, and the two touched bottom. Jack's staff lit up in a light blue glow. He swept it over the area – but all he could see was darkness. Sandy shivered and formed himself a blanket of sand, his teeth chattering. It was freezing cold in the cavern; both spirits could see their own breath even in the dark.

"Well?" they heard Nature call down.

"Oh, uh, we don't see anything! It's too dark!" Jack called up. A scoff from above, before the sound of rustling earth was heard.

Nature landed with a billow of her emerald dress, the dark earth flaking off of her body like jumping insects. She looked around the dark cavern and frowned. She could barely see the other two a few feet from her, their own light obscured by the smothering shadows.

"He is alive, and still down here…" she said quietly.

"Um, how do you-?"

"The shadows. They're eating up your light…" Nature's frown deepened, her eyes becoming cat-like slits. "They're hiding something."

Hiding? Like they were hiding Pitch? Or was Pitch using them to hide himself? Jack looked to Sandy with these questions in mind, but the star could only shrug and fidget nervously under the looming shadows. Nature's eyes surveyed the cavern, but even with her borrowed night-vision*, she still could not see even half the cavern. She blinked and her eyes returned to normal, locking onto the Sandman.

"Spread your sands over this cavern. Light it up," she said curtly.

Sandy immediately protested with various images. It was too dangerous. The shadows could taint his sand, they could form more Nightmares and escape and-

"I don't care you little worm!" Nature snapped, backing the star into a wall, "Now either light up this cave, or I cut you open and spill your sand myself!"

Jack gritted his teeth, his knuckles whitening around his staff. He wanted so badly to defend Sandy, but even he wasn't stupid enough to challenge Nature. Before all of this, he would have openly said he could take her on. But now that he had met her, seen her…he could feel something, like a connection to her. But it wasn't a mutual connection – it was the connection shared between a dog, a leash, and its owner. One small, wrong step, and he'd be tugged back. But one really bad move, and he could hang himself. And if he bit back, he could be beaten. He was under her thumb, damned by his own Nature-given element.

The Sandman swallowed audibly when Nature presented an all too familiar dagger to him, and he nodded bleakly. Nature stood back a few paces as the Sandman rose up into the air. He spread his arms out, tendrils of Dreamsand flowing from his fingertips and into the walls. The gold veins spread throughout the dark stone and earth, steadily lighting up the cavern as the sands chased the shadows away into corners and crevices. The cavern was dimly lit with only meager shadows spotting a few areas between rocks and cracks. But no one paid attention to what was around the small cavern – rather they were focused on what was hanging in the back of it against the back wall.

The twisted, grotesque and narrow tower of Nightmare sand was like solid rock. Plastered to the back wall, it looked like a macabre cocoon that held an equally horrifying butterfly. Stray shadows clung to it weakly like sickly parasites, vague whispers being heard from its confines.

"What…" Jack started, "Is that?"

Nature did not answer him. Eyes wide and mouth pulled into a tight frown, she rushed over to the cocoon. The Fearlings clinging to it hissed and spat at Mother Nature.

Leave this place!

He is OURS!

He does not exist! He is our vessel!

You will not take our toy!

He's MINE!

"No he is NOT!" Nature drew her dagger, the weapon expanding into a long sword, before swinging it across the cocoon.

The Fearlings shrieked as a black essence spilled from the cut, like organs from a gutted pig. She raised her sword again before striking once, twice, thrice, expanding the cuts and tears in the confined prison.

The two Guardians watched in stunned, and disturbed, awe as the cocoon finally gave way. Its front split open with a loud crack, exposing its occupant. Their eyes widened to impossible sizes, and Nature dropped her sword.

If ever there was a more frightening sight in the world, this was it. If ever there was something out there that made one want to run in terror but also want to embrace, this was it. If ever there was a moment in which one wanted to scream, plead, cry, and laugh, this was it.

And if ever there was a time and a place where Nature itself would weep for but one soul, this was it.

Pitch Black's emaciated body was bound and gagged in a web of shadows within the broken cocoon. His arms were pinned to his sides, his palms up and facing them – small daggers of Nightmare sand were imbedded in his palms, pinning them to the back of the cocoon and dripping puddles of black blood onto the floor. Piano-wire thin tendrils of sand were wrapped around his limbs and neck, slicing into his skin and causing various bleeding lacerations to paint his paper-white body black. More of the wire-thin strands were wrapped around his legs, cutting into his leggings and flesh. His cloak was missing, and each and every bone was visible on his skeletal body. His hipbones looked sharp enough to cut through steel, his body not but flesh and ridges of bone.

The Boogeyman's eyes and mouth were covered with what looked to be tattered shreds of his cloak, a thicker cord of Nightmare sand tied around his neck and yanked upwards like a hangman's noose.

And in the center of his chest, a dagger of solid Nightmare sand. Infecting his very blood with its essence, the Nightmare King was now ruled and held prisoner in his own nightmare.

Nature screamed.

To be continued…

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1.) Hal's primary element is fire. But he is considered a tri-element. Meaning, he has three elements. Fire is his primary, shadows are secondary, and metal is tertiary. Though he uses his metal element more often than his shadow element, it's not his most powerful, but it is one of his trademarks, as it associates heavily with his fire element.

2.) Pat's primary weapon is his fists - or if he is feeling particularly threatened or angry, he will use his custom made, gold plated brass knuckles. He normally does not pick fights, and will often walk away from anyone trying to instigate him. But if he is in the vicinity, and you're harassing a younger and weaker spirit, god help you. He is an expert-ranked boxer and knows various fighting styles.

3.) Though the movie highlights Sandy's whips as his primary weapons, I find it a big hard to imagine infusing shaped magic sand with the key to a seal. For me, the item needs to be a physical, tangible object that can retain a spell. The books reference that Sandy live son a constantly moving sandy island in the ocean, so it was fitting to have his part of the key infused into a seashell. (If I hear any Pirates of the Caribbean references, I'm going to lose my shit.)

4.) In my canon, Nature can borrow traits from animals and plants. In this instance, she borrowed the keen vision of a big cat to try and see in the dark.

~S~