Jesus Christ. . . not again. He kept tapping on the window repeatedly, irritation evident on his face.
Don't let him in.
"Why not?", Leila asked curiously. Not that she was planning on letting him in. She had just shot him into a statue, he was probably pissed.
Jack Frost helped defeat Father. . . I do not want to be put away like Father. . .
She could feel Onyx's fear at the possibility of capture. Well that settled it.
Leila walked over to the window and Jack stopped his attempts to get her attention, only to watch her shut the curtains.
"Don't worry, I won't let him get you.", Leila promised. Despite suddenly developing powers to manipulate shadows because of the black grain of sand, but she felt that it bore her no ill will. So she would give it protection, at least until she figured out how to remove it from her mind.
Thank you. . .
It had been a long day, so Leila went upstairs to go to bed. She lived with her parents, who were currently visiting her grandmother for the holidays. Leila had backed out on the invitation to visit, she never really got along with her grandmother, the stubborn old woman could make a convict run for the hills.
Therefore, in a big empty house, she felt comfort in the fact that no one could hear her talk to Onyx, or see her shoot shadows from her hands.
Perhaps tomorrow you could work on controlling that. . .
"Maybe. Hey, Onyx, why don't you create nightmares anymore?", she asked, her curiosity making it's appearance again. If the black grain of sand had bee in her mind for as long as it claimed to be, shouldn't she be plagued by nightmares?
I don't like making nightmares. . . it's destructive to me, and plus it would attract the attention of the Guardians. . .
Nodding in thought, she got dressed in her pajamas and settled down into her bed, pulling the covers over her. And just as she was about to fall asleep. . . tap.
Looking over at her bedroom window, she groaned at the sight of Jack Frost, once again, tapping at her window.
Oh, this was going to be a long night.
*. . .*. . .*. . . *. . .*. . .*
She had finally fallen asleep when the frost spirit decided to give up. Now she woke up to her alarm with a glare at the electronic device. Four hours of sleep. . . great. Immediately she remembered the nights events and she slowly regained her senses.
"Good morning Onyx.", she yawned as she got dressed for school. Leila wasn't exactly a beauty, but she did like to make herself look nice. She wore a black knitted sweater and a pair of blue jeans with her usual boots. Her black hair was tied up in a ponytail, while she added black eyeliner under her hazel eyes to make them more prominent.
Good morning child. . .
"So. . . are you going to help me try to control this?", she asked, walking down the hallways and seeing the shadows in the rooms stretch themselves towards her. She couldn't have them doing that as she walked the halls of her school.
You're subconsciously doing that. . . they are attracted to your fear of them. . . if you do not fear them, you can control them. . .
It was true, she was fearful of them. It was as if the rug in your house started to move, you'd be afraid of it too. Shadows weren't supposed to move logically, especially not in her direction.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. As she felt her stress leave her, the shadows went back to their regular shapes.
Now will one towards you. . .
Looking at the shadow of the open bathroom door on the hallway floor, she imagined it moving into her hand. It twitched slightly before obeying her commands and slithering up into her open palm.
It felt like velvety fluid moving through her fingers as she slowly molded it into a ball.
You can change it into any shape with just a thought. . .
Leila closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated, and when she opened her eyes, a figure of a snake was in her hands. A snake that snapped it's jaws and hissed. Terrified at it's movement, she dropped it with a squeak and it twisted and writhed until it made it back to it's rightful place beside the bathroom door, molding itself back to it's original shape.
"Okay, I think that's enough for the lessons today. . .", she could feel her heart pounding as it was.
Hmm, that was actually quite good for an amateur. . .
"Thanks.", she acknowledged the compliment as she made her way to the kitchen. After a breakfast of cereal and milk, she grabbed her coat and book bag and went out the door.
And crashed headlong into a blue sweatshirt, whose hands grabbed her before she fell backward. Freezing hands. She stumbled back out of their reach.
"You again!", she gazed angrily up at Jack. He frowned and twirled his staff around.
"Yes, me. I've been trying to talk to you, what are you?", he demanded, crossing his arms and taking a stance, making her unable to get around him.
Leila growled, "What do you mean, what am I? I'm a human. And no offense, but shouldn't you be off somewhere, creating a blizzard or something?"
He smirked and nodded. "Yeah, I probably should be. But I'm more curious about a girl who threw a wall of darkness at me."
Try to get past him. . . or this won't end well for either of us. . .
'You try getting him out of our way', Leila thought to Onyx. Then she looked at Jack, "I have no idea what you're talking about, like I said, you're talking to a normal human being, not some supernatural creature like yourself."
"Liar", he accused. Leila just shook her head and attempted to go around him, only to have his staff drag her back, the hooked end of it grabbing her by her waist.
Jack took notice of the book bag around her shoulder and grabbed it, flying into the air before she could snatch it back.
"Gee, I wonder what could be in this, maybe something important?" He started rifling through it before pulling out a leather bound sketch pad.
"Hey, give that back!", Leila shouted, enraged. She was too short to jump up and take it from him, so the most she could do was just stand there and yell.
He shook his head before grinning evilly. "You want it? Then take it from me."
Taking a deep breath, Leila shrugged it off. "Fine then, keep it, what would a frost spirit want with a sketch pad anyway?"
His grin grew wider, blue eyes glinting. "Nothing. So if neither of us want it, then I suppose it wouldn't matter if it got ruined, right?"
The leather bound book started to freeze in his hand, frost and ice covering the tanned leather of it's cover. Leila's eyes started to burn, that had all of her sketches in it, at least the ones from the past year. All of her artwork, destroyed. At least, almost destroyed. Before she did the most irrational thing ever.
Something snapped in her head, and she lifted her hand up quickly, a thin rope of shadow shooting out and latching itself onto the sketchpad before jerking it out of Jack's grasp. It flew to her and she caught it, holding it to her chest in relief.
"Ha! I knew it!", Jack crowed. She narrowed her eyes. "And what are you going to do about it?"
He pointed the end of his staff at her. "I'm taking you somewhere. If you really are just a human, then you shouldn't be able to do that. Maybe Manny want's you as a Guardian. Either way, you need my friends' help."
She immediately started backing away. "I'm not going anywhere with you. . ."
He scoffed, "And what are you going to do to stop me? You're going whether you like it or not." He took a step closer and her mind froze.
Hit him. . . Use the same technique you used to get that book. . . just a little more harder. . .
Leila, after a moment of contemplation, feinted to the right, before throwing a thick tendril of darkness at Jack. Caught off guard, he took the full hit and went flying, while she started running.
'Come on legs, don't fail me now!', she thought desperately. She saw him shooting towards her in the air, quickly catching up to her.
Damn, she forgot he could fly. She just needed to make it to school and she was home free.
You can fly too. . . imagine your legs turning to shadow and lifting you up into the air. . .
Making sure she was under trees as she ran, she bought herself some time. Jack, despite flying, couldn't grab her through the branches of the tress above her. He was taking the up and away method, waiting until she ran into a open area before swooping down and confronting her.
Her thoughts were scrambled, but she concentrated as best she could. Faintly she could feel a tingling sensation take over her legs. Glancing down, she saw herself starting to fall away into shadows from the waist up. Soon she was just a floating torso, the rest of her was darkness that kept her upright.
Now, think light. . .
She propelled herself into the air, now going much faster than she could ever imagine running. Trees, houses, and fences blew past her at an alarming speed. She started laughing, 'This is crazy!'
Jack was close behind, almost right above her as she kept herself under a cover of tree branches and keeping close to fences. Lest Old Man Winter wanted to collide into a wooden fence.
Getting the lead out, she forced herself to go even faster, the darkness that made up her lower body swirling itself, much like the tail of a fish in a stream. The feeling of flying was exhilarating, and she raised her arms out in front of her.
"Hey watch out!" Jack's shout caught her attention and she glanced up to look at him. His expression was wide eyed and panicked.
And then she crashed into the brick wall.
