Well, I kind of got this new chaprter done sooner than expected (although it's been nearly 2 weeks) ^^ But, anyways, by now, we're over halfway though the strory (since there will be 7 chapters). After this one, it might take longer to get the next one up because I started one of my new summer fanfic's yesterday. Also, I'm taking some time to write a few Pandora Hearts oneshots I've been meaning to do. I'll work on that when I can.

So, this chapter is a bit short because I could hardly think of anything. Look at it this way though, we're back to 6, as this chapter focuses entierly on him. Also thanks so much to SkullWitch57, PoppyEMC.6-13, and lady of the wilds for the new reviews (makes me so happy).

As always, feel free to leave a review. Also, I do not own the movie 9 in any way.

Chapter 4: Winter's Call

6 awoke that morning lying next to one of his drawings.

His whole body- every fiber right down to his pen-nibbed fingers- felt numb. All his joints felt achy and overly stiff. His eyes had slowly clicked open, but slower than normal. His soft yarn hair drooped. The seer did not like that at all.

To plainly describe the way 6 had slept, it would be no different than normal. He slept very still, fingers twitching from time to time. Sometimes, an inky hand would grasp the key that hung suspended around his neck- as always. His stillness was concerning at times, because one could not tell if he was really sleeping. He could be pretending to sleep, frightened to succumb to his tiredness because of the tainted dreams that were forever plaguing him, along with the visions. The more likely and probable outcome was that he would be tormented every night, inside his mind where the endless nightmares would spawn and bloom like black roses with extremely sharp thorns. It was more common that he would suffer from the nightmares than sleep soundly. That night had seemed different now though.

Even more still, even with his restful slumber, there was still suffering and anguish stirring violently in his heart.

"Mph… Sore." 6 mumbled to himself trying to flex his joints. His fingers and feet were easy enough to move, it was the rest of him that took some time to move with ease.

The artist first propped himself up on his elbows, albeit shaky. He felt a small pain in his wrist, but ignored it. It wasn't until he was situated on his knees till he glanced down at his left wrist, the two cuts from the previous day still there. 6 stared at it for a minute before whimpering and raising his other hand to it. His fingers brushed against the shallow cuts. His wrist had seemed to go numb now and a few threads hug from the torn seams. The artist sighed, a reminded of what the foolish mistake he had made only yesterday. However, he knew that he could in no way sew it up.

A feeble cough escaped him then, making him shiver. 6 turned his eyes upon the shreds of paper sticking out from the sack beside the not-too-far-away inkwell. With a silent stare he crawled over- the previous drawing he had woken up beside in hand- to the inkwell, grabbed an new shred of paper and began to draw once more.

Yesterday, the day he had finally been broken and ran away from his own home, he had found a suitable area to rest for the night. It was far away from the library, so no one would be able to find him over night. It was what looked like some sort of giant pipe. The striped stitchpunk had settled on this for the evening. Once he set his things down, he plucked paper from the sack he had brought with him and set to drawing, even though his body felt exhausted from traveling so far. 6 drew complicated and complex drawings in that time, seeming to portray his emotions so very clearly, in his own abstract way. Around midnight, after finishing another drawing, he passed out.

'But no one's probably noticed I'm gone.' 6 thought to himself.

The artist came close to finishing the complex drawing, when he was suddenly overcome by a fit of coughs. He pounded a fist against his chest to try and clear his airways, and was still after a moment. He breathed slowly, pondering on what had come over him. He then shook his head, concluding it was just a random compression of his breathing. 6 was actually prone to such a thing. The contributing factor in that was usually stress, and obviously he didn't handle stress all that well. It was to be expected, living a lonely life such as this.

Putting the finishing touches on the drawing- which was a dead tree cracked in half, seeming to stand out in the middle of the landscape, although it wasn't uncommon here- 6 decided to pack up his things and keep going. He didn't know how far he wanted to travel, but he knew he wanted to. After the seer had put the drawings back in the sack and sealed the inkwell (putting that away as well), he slung the strap over his shoulder and walked out of his temporary shelter. Once again, his wandering began again, and so did his regretful emotions that clung to him like static.

As he walked, the sun rising into the sky, 6 could help but rub his left wrist. It was strange, how overnight it had gone numb, he couldn't even feel any pain from the cuts he made in it yesterday. However, it didn't overly concern him in any way. For one, he was used to pain; it was part of his life. Second, if he could no longer feel any pain in his damaged wrist, then that was good; there would be no more pain from that self-inflicted injury, and nothing would happen because of it.

The air felt cold, making him shiver. He knew, of course, that winter would arrive in this desolate plain any day now. It was just a matter of when. Although, thinking about winter reminded 6 of a time long ago; not too long- as this had been before 9 arrived- but it seemed like it in his memory…

(Flashback)

"5," 6 whimpered, catching the guide's attention. 5 stopped working on his new project- a crossbow- and was slightly surprised to see the artist standing in the doorway of the workshop, looking quite cold.

"What's the matter?" He asked, being as gentle as he could with this stitchpnuk. 5 knew about the seer, and knew how fragile he was.

"I…I'm not feeling well." 6 said quietly. "S-so cold…"

"Hmm." 5 was the healer among them, and he knew that none of his family could literally get sick, but still… "Come here."

Trembling, 6 walked over to 5 and looked up at him with weary eyes. 5 was taller than the artist anyways, whereas 6 was only just a bit taller than the twins. Anyways, 6 felt pretty cold. He had only just woken up this morning to find that something was making him shiver terribly. The striped stitchpunk had no idea what was causing this, so he drew his own conclusion that there was something wrong with him and that he was not well today. The artist thought 5 would have the answer so he had went to him.

5 observed 6 for a moment before putting a hand on the smaller stitchpunk's forehead. 6 was surprised at this sudden touch- as he wasn't used to much contact with others of his family anyway-, but did he not back away. Ether way, 5 had gotten his answer to 6's dilemma.

"You don't have a fever." Then he chuckled slightly. "You're probably just cold from these winter temperatures."

"O-oh." That was a bit of relief, getting a confirmation that nothing was wrong; he wasn't sick or anything of the sort.

"Let me get you something. Just wait here." 5 said to 6, ruffling his yarn hair. The artist obeyed and waited patiently while 5 went into another room that was out of 6's line of sight. After a moment in silence, 5 came back with something in his hand. It looks like cloth, white and dragging slightly on the floor.

"Wh-what's this?" 6 asked nervously, exchanging glances at the cloth and 5.

"The temperatures this time of year drop even lower at night. I'd imagine you get chilled very easily." 5 said to the artist. 6 nodded at this; at night he did get very cold. "I'll give you this to use as a blanket to keep you warm, whether it be night or day."

The seer's face brightened at this gift. "Thank you, 5!"

6 took the cloth that 5 was holding out for him and took it into his arms, snuggling it. It was so soft and warm! He wrapped himself up in the blanket and his smile grew wider. He felt so much better now, much more warm and comfortable. It was true that the winters were very harsh on the small stitchpunk. But now…now he had something to keep him safe from the winter winds.

"There. Better now?" The guide asked.

"Mmm-hm." The artist purred.

Sighing with content, 6 looked out a nearby window. When he saw that there was snow falling outside, he gasped and looked back at 5, brimming with joy. 5 thought that the other's eyes seemed to glow in that moment.

"Snow!" He exclaimed. "C-can I-I-I…go play?"

5 laughed and ruffled 6's hair again. "Yeah, sure. We'll all go, okay?"

"I'd…I'd like that!"

(End flashback)

6 sighed, his breath coming out as a poof of white smoke. "I should of brought that. It's cold here. Nothing to keep me warm."

He hated being cold. It was bad enough during the day, that much he was aware of. At night…That was a whole different story. Besides his treacherous nightmares that lured him into darkness every night, the cold would shake the seer to his very core. It froze his metal structure- sealed in the striped flannel that was his skin- and turned his every breath to a thick white color as it froze in the air. 6 would shiver to the point of convulsions because he was so cold! He would wake up freezing, and he would be unable to fall back asleep. Sometimes 6 tried to distract himself by drawing, but not even that would help; the ink was as cold as ice. It wasn't until he received the blanket from 5 that he was finally be able to sleep in those winter nights in warm comfort. But now that he had run away and taken barely anything with him, leaving that blanket behind, 6 had to suffer through those chilling cold nights once more.

And so, the striped stitch punk kept on walking, bearing this thoughts in mind. He'd left everything else behind, but…they no longer needed him, no longer cared…Did they?

So suddenly though, 6 felt an urge to stop. He did so, and it was only then that he wrapped his arms around his abdomen in pain. He breathed slowly and closed his eyes.

"Ngh…not again." He said to himself. "Have to…draw."

6 sat down not the cold ground and the removed his satchel, setting that on the ground as well. He took out the inkwell again and removed the cork. He then took a couple pieces of paper, setting them in front of him. The artists own hands then set to work, almost as if they knew what to do without a command, but 6 was aware of that because he had drawn so many things. As to why he had suddenly gotten this impulse at the moment, he knew it was because he tried to hold them inside again; the visions. As he traveled, 6 wanted to at least keep them out of his head until he found a place to stop. They couldn't wait though and broke through the barrier, leaking into him. The seer knew that holding all his visions inside was not healthy for him. They hurt him if he did, and he knew that. That was why he had let them relentlessly flow back in his old home, whether he liked it or not. Being clairvoyant came with a steep price, or at least that's how 6 thought about it.

In his mind's eye, seeing the visions, he could see cloudy skies, snow on the ground, and even…tiny scouting machines roaming the landscape. Seeing those again, it scared him a bit, but they were little spider-like scouts. Besides, there were very little of them left since the Fabrication Machine had been destroyed by 9. It didn't really matter if he saw them, because he would still be okay. The artist knew he would not encounter any of them on this journey, and if he did, he could formulate some plan to destroy it- as it would most likely be one of those spider scouts. Although he hoped it wouldn't come to that.

On this new piece of paper, 6 began to draw the snow-covered buildings of the winter to come, when suddenly, he felt something wet on his striped head. This brought 6 out of his vision-induced trance and looked around nervously. Raising one hand from the drawing, he touched the back of his head- getting it a bit stained with ink. He felt nothing.

"S-strange." The artist stuttered, not being able to identify what he had felt. He took back to drawing the picture of the ruins in the snow, but then he saw something white land on his paper. Slightly startled, 6 leapt to his feet, almost knocking over the inkwell in the process. 6 looked at the paper for a moment, but when he looked back up from it an entirely different sight awaited him.

"Snow."

Indeed, 6 was right. Snow had begun to fall across the land. The striped stitchpunk stared with awe, marveling over the amount that was falling. To him, snow was something he'd loved to see. He had called it a 'white rain', and technically, he was right. Snow was frozen water anyway. There was so much 6 loved about so though; playing in it, dancing and spinning. 9 and 5 had even helped the artist build a snowman once.

A smile appeared upon 6's face and his eyes seemed to glow with delight. "Snow!"

He burst with laughter and ran out into the snowfall, holding his hands out as if he wanted to catch them in his hand. That was similar to the time the cathedral burnt down. The coven had just arrived at the library, and 6 could see ashes floating down…just like snow. For a moment, he had thought those would have been his drawings, destroyed in the fire- which had been hard on him but he chose to ignore it. Perhaps 6 thought they had come back for him. Perhaps 6 thought they could still be salvaged. With immense curiosity that could be compared to a child, he struggled to catch even one piece. But he still smiled. When the seer finally was able to catch one, clapping his hands together around it, he opened up his hands to gaze at it, but it had turned to ash right there. That had made 6 a bit sad, but he shrugged it off and went to rejoin the others, who had been farther ahead of him at the time.

'In a way,' 6 figured, still chasing the snow, running around in circles. 'it's the same. But…they'll keep coming back to me!'

Still he laughed, so much that it hurt him slightly, but it was okay; he enjoyed it. He looked straight up at the sky, the snow falling right on to his mismatched eyes. Once his vision was obscured enough, he cleared the snow from his eyes, carefully wiping them away by the fabric of his arm.

"Snow!" 6 exclaimed once more. "So pretty!"

The artist spun in place, soaking up all of this fun he was having. 6 had so many memories of playing in the snow of the years gone by. He had been startled by the snow at first, but 6 came to love it and not fear it. He had played with 5, 7, the twins…

6 stopped spinning. His eyes were open and no longer looking at the sky, but into a point on the distance. However, he was not focused on anything; he stared off into nowhere. The seer didn't move, he stood still. For a second, one of his hands twitched, but then he started shaking and collapsed onto his knees.

"E-everyone…" 6 whimpered, holding his head in his hands. His heartache had returned…

…and he missed them all so terribly.