Pitch x Oc
Enjoy~
Chapter 4; 'Confrontation'
Modern Day
He watched her, head held high in pride a though he'd been rewarded with her suffering. Her hair, tinged brown in its transparency, flared around in constant turmoil, knees against her chest and arms embracing herself as though in search of comfort. She sat quietly on the edge of some brick structure, a building littered pitifully with colored graffiti upon each wall. She hadn't noticed, the vaguely distraught idea of what she was about to do nauseating enough to blur her surroundings out of concentration. Upon hearing his snicker she flinched and shot him a glare, one of distraught bitterness that would have burned had he given a damn.
"What do you want?" Broken was the only proper description he could mentally establish. Hallow sounded beautifully broken in the sense of utter despair and pure uncertainty, that voice a mere echo of a whisper even in her lowest moment of ambiguity.
"Haven't we already discussed this?" Haughty. Completely inconsiderate of her inner disorientation; although she found no reason for him to express such a kind and humane act. But, he was 'the Nightmare King'...who did he have to consider besides himself?
Her teeth clenched in sync with her tightened fists, and she stood rapidly as though violent, body tense against the familiar cold of the breeze. Hallow's tattered skirt flew and fluttered with her movements, and her hair seemed to whip rapidly in a state of irritation. Who did she blame? Why was she alive? There were so many questions; inquires that he supposedly had answers for but refused to supply. That was so like him.
"Do you really want to know?" He made the entire ordeal a joke to simply mock her. His tone was laced with this bitter sarcasm that faintly burned her skin with its spite.
"Of course I do!" She snapped at him, tired of his vulgar insults and verbal stalling. The echo of her tone escalated in volume.
"Then accept my offer, they'll never know it was you."
"Give me back my broom!" She yelled even louder, the voice of a phantom booming in its own echo across the rooftop. Such a random request, they had both noted. She simply wanted what was her own, the desperation seeming to engulf her further; leaving the ghost with nothing but anxiety and pitiful irritation that forced her toes to curl with pained impatience.
"..." He remained silent, smirk still in place even with a loss of words. A shadow stretched out from his cloak, her broom bolting up from the grim pool of ink and being snatched with a single fluid movement of his arm. He inspected it, his eyes sparkling in a mischief she was sure she'd exhibited in the past. Although he continued to display this repugnant charade she caught the vague quirk of his grin, the upturned lips faltering slightly in a thought she could only hope to be discomforting. The older narrowed his eyes before simply shrugging away the obvious concern, tossing the utensil as though it were but a bone to mutts and not a weapon to a spirit. Pitch replenished his smile with her reaction, observing the ghost as she bolted from her spot and met the broom halfway in the air; curling around it possessively before floating further through the breeze.
"This is all I want. Deceive North on your own."
A frown. Hallow briefly relished in seeing such a rare expression cross his face, the look of irritation that, at this specific instance, beckoned her to laugh rather than fall back with fear. She'd used such deviance to fool him, her interest truly lacking more than he'd presumed.
"Then you'll never know." He said it simply, calming himself with a deep breath as well as the commonly used ritual of counting to ten. He gave her a daring stare, the gold reminding her of that buried side of him she'd found beyond peculiar.
"Why do you want corruption so terribly?" She tightened her grip on her broom, floating higher as a precaution. "You act as though you're the only one who's been forgotten."
He noticed she still spoke as though it were the 1800's, often using excessive terms and phrases that'd been abandoned throughout the ages. It was alluring, as most of what she did was. Although at this point he found his attraction merely due to the fact that she was one of the very few females he'd spoken with in the last fifty years; she was quite the irritating little brat despite this.
"My dear, you were never believed in." She took no offense, he had a point. And despite him being the beating heart of evil she could only imagine the devastation of once ruling the world, and for no apparent reason having it torn from your palms to leave nothing but the small specks of what once was falling between your fingers. She, rather than having something to relish in and cherish in the first place, had been relinquished of her prosperity among mankind as though the taking of an unborn child. It was existent, yet unseen and stolen before its first heartbeat; a possibility that was incapable of progression.
"Very true." She contemplated the remark, the countless years of waking and remaining alone slowly being brought back into the fresher portions of her mind. The sorrow, the sighs, the words she'd spoken to no one due to the lack of companionship.
"Do. You want. To know?" He asked sternly after such a lengthy silence, his tone seeming urgent despite the lack of limitations on his plan. Pitch was just impatient, and he was carefree in expressing it.
She looked up to the Moon, hardening her resolve at the luck of catching him when he was fully visible, then back to her broom. Although it was little, her powers were great. Replenishing the recently deceased back to Earth as a visit for closure was nothing meager. It assisted willing them to the afterlife. Control over the past spirits was beyond powerful even if it was the only relevant thing she could do. It was important; it was the original purpose of Hallow's Eve. Although her mere hobby of keeping children content with their holiday mischief was beyond inspiring, she could only wonder what it would be like if they truly believed in her.
"Perhaps." The reply was shaken, uncertain and weak. In a swift drop of her body she phased through the concrete floor, disappearing from his sight in a most irritating manner. Just as she'd done in their previous encounter the insufferable girl vanished with the wind and left him alone to curse under his breath. He hated such an answer.
"Perhaps." He muttered it, mocking the ghost with a bitter countenance of agitation and spite. She knew where he would reside, so a proper answer would be provided soon. He didn't worry over it, despite this being the second time he assured himself of her decision...Hallow would not deny him.
It wasn't until another week that she finally mastered the social art of confrontation. Her broom resting on her shoulder, her toes buried deep in the moist soil of the woods and her eyes focused on that of the Moon as she attempted to catch his attention. Its light radiated, and upon the brightening illumination Hallow was sure he focused on her form alone.
"You have them...don't you?" She spoke up, that eerie tone of the dead phasing past the trees into the mere echo of the land. "My memories?"
Silence met her ears, he would not respond. The Man in the Moon refused to interact, refused to alter the scale of what was to come. He sought to be more like Mother Nature; without favor. But he still found her assumption partially incorrect, he did not have them…he could not remove something from her mind with literally removing such from her skull. She was but a creation, one he'd made only a year before Jack Frost as well as an unfortunate experiment he learned from.
"You know what I can do. You made me this way. Give them back to me...or I assist Pitch." A daring attempt at a threat, a choice that was more heart-wrenching than threatening, for Hallow did not possess the ambition nor the audacity to awaken and use the dead. Though she was devious, she always somehow drew a line she dare not cross with the thought of self-preservation halting her steps; a line that Stingy Jack found no need to possess. She waited another moment, observing the clearing she stood in, the trees perfectly vertical and their branches seeming elongated with the lack of leaves. It reminded her of the clearing she was 'born' in, where she inhaled her first raspy breath of air and first took flight on her broom. That far off location within the depths of some European forest, a place that seemed to cause her discomfort; she'd promised herself to never return.
"As always, I'm left without an answer." Hallow huffed, her eyes piercing each obvious crater visible to the naked eye. Its glow illuminated the darker atmosphere of nightfall, that once reassuring comfort she found in him vaporized with the secrets he kept from her.
A whisper.
'Toothiana.'
Her head snapped back just as she turned to leave. Now there were numerous whispers, an unexplained turmoil that suddenly invaded her surroundings in a twister of information and ache. She held her head, hyperventilating with each sauntered moment of inconceivable realization that stained her mind with regret. Her eyes seemed to sting with desperation, attempting to cry but again realizing, for the hundredth time, that there is no water in her body to sob. So as she collapses, trembling against the fallen and crusted needles of the pines, this pain erupts from her chest and her head that overwhelm all of her senses. She feels dead again...because that was all she can remember.
~End Chapter Four
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Someone suggested a scene involving sexual content, a scene which I am perfectly capable of writing but unsure of as far as including it within the story. So, although I feel it as a 'no' I would still ask you to vote for your own opinion!
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