Jack
After all of the excitement of the day, I finally found a comfortable tree limb in Jamie's backyard to rest on. I watched the sun dip below the horizon, its dying rays slowly fading into night. I had it be a cloudless night. Sometimes, I just liked to stargaze, the only deterrent from this activity being that the Man in the Moon was always watching. The silver moonlight seemed almost tangible, yet he said nothing. He only watched, almost as if he was curious to see what happened next.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and saw that Darian had shifted her curtains back. I noticed that she usually did this around this time of night to look out at the snow. It was interesting behavior, but I, too, could see the beauty in the ice and snow, especially the pure, untouched blanket in the backyard, and I couldn't imagine how it must seem to someone who didn't often see it.
On that note, I really had many apologies to hand out to southerners for the noticeable lack of snow most years. You see, even though I could alter the temperature, I didn't particularly enjoy traveling to warmer areas. It was tiring and uncomfortable. I thrived in cooler places nearer to the poles, and so I tended to stay closer to these. Besides, southerners nowadays had become so accustomed to the absence of snow and ice that when I did attempt a visit, I was often met with unhappiness and curses. If they weren't going to appreciate a pleasant flurry every once in a while, why bother?
But Darian, backlit by her bedroom lamp, appeared absolutely enamored by the snow, and she stood leaning her forehead against the window for the longest time, not moving, only thinking, her breath fogging up a section of glass by her face. She was so lost in thought that she didn't even notice me, which I was a little grateful for. I had already experienced how hard she could punch, and even though it hadn't left a mark, I didn't want to test how hard she could throw if she caught me watching.
Technically, I had been told to keep an eye on the entire Bennett household, but I chose to stick closer to Darian because for whatever reason, the activity seemed to center around her. I didn't feel like explaining that to her, though. She had a tendency to freak out. Hey, you wouldn't happen to know anything about the bogeyman, that guy who tried to rule the world with never-ending fear, would you? I just thought I'd seen him creeping around your room lately. Yeah, that would go over well.
Darian still hadn't seen me. I wondered how deeply she must be in thought to completely disappear from the real world into her own mind, so that she couldn't see what was right in front of her.
After a while, streams of Sandy's dream sand flowed out across the town of Burgess, lulling many to sleep and gifting them with sweet dreams. Darian was brought out of herself by its glow, and she pressed her face against the windowpane and watched with awe and wonder. It occurred to me that like the snow, she hadn't really seen much of the dream sand before. Not many children did because, well, they were asleep, and there were those years that she didn't really believe to take into account.
Golden sand drifted past her, bathing her in its ethereal light while she gazed on with half-lidded eyes, but she resisted its lull, its strange lullaby. I knew that many people weren't coaxed into sleep by Sandy every night and that some people required a heartier dose of the sand to pass out, but it was odd to see it happen right in front of me. Darian obviously wanted to sleep. She looked beyond exhausted, but she wouldn't allow herself to drift off and dream. Somehow, this wasn't really surprising to me.
The dream sand dissipated after a while, and without her thoughts to blind her, Darian caught me observing her, gave a frown so big that I thought it might split her face apart, and hastily drew the curtains shut. I groaned. Now I was going to have to explain myself.
I flew over and rapped lightly on her window. No answer. "Darian, I can explain this," I insisted, hoping that she could hear me through the glass. A heavy silence followed. I couldn't blame her, really. I could only imagine what she must have been thinking, especially adding last night's incident to this one. I definitely hadn't made the best impression on her.
Finally, she parted the drapes, flicked the lock, and cracked open the window. Rolling her eyes in annoyance, she grumbled, "I'm listening."
I rubbed the back of my neck nervously, trying to pick and choose what parts I should try and explain to her, the parts that were least likely to make her freak out. "You see, I, uh, like to keep an eye on Jamie's place whenever I'm around. I told you last night that Pitch is still out there, and when I last saw him, he was basically trying to kill Jamie. I was resting in that tree over there for a little bit when you caught me." There. That sounded safe to me.
Darian seemed to take it well. A lot better than I expected, at least. "Oh, okay. Sorry," she mumbled, blushing and looking down at her feet, which were hidden from my view below the windowsill. "That's actually really nice."
"Hey, I totally understand the confusion," I told her, seeing her embarrassment at her misunderstanding.
"No, I really can be very stupid at times." This self-depreciation ended with a half-hearted, breathy laugh. After this, she became very quiet, glancing over at the windowpanes as if she wanted to close them but was too polite to say so. She had her arms wrapped around herself for warmth, and I realized how cold she must be next to me, especially without many layers to protect her. She had let her hair down and had washed off her makeup, but she was still in her daily clothes, which consisted of jeans and a blue, long-sleeved shirt, which was very thin, judging from how it clung to her figure.
I politely backed away from her window to lessen the chill. She took this as a tacit farewell. "Well, goodnight, Jack," she said, moving to close the window.
"Are you going to sleep?" I asked. The question sounded very stupid to my ears, but it got her to stop for a moment.
"No," she confessed, not really looking me in the eye. "I told you last night that I don't really sleep."
"Why?"
"It's a long story," she replied, trying to dodge the question.
"Well, we have all night, I guess." She finally looked up all the way at this.
"Don't you sleep?" she wondered.
"Not really. No. I take a nap every so often, and sometimes Sandy pranks me - he's great at that, by the way - but other that that, no. I guess it's an immortal thing. I mean, if Tooth had to sleep like a normal human being, she would never be able to collect all of the teeth before children wake up."
"I guess that makes sense. You know, besides the whole 'mythical creatures existing' stuff."
I laughed. "It does sound a bit weird when I think about it," I said. "I just choose not to. I've been a part of this for - literally - longer that I remember, so I've never really questioned it, but to you - especially you because of your age - it must seem pretty strange."
"Yeah, a little bit, but it's a good kind of strange." Darian took a moment to tuck a stubborn hair behind her ear, but it immediately fell back in her face. Ignoring it, she continued, "What about food? Do you eat?"
"Not often. Only when I really want to. North has an unhealthy obsession with cookies, though. It drives Tooth crazy." Darian chuckled.
"Sounds pretty easy, not needing to eat or sleep. I guess it would save a lot of time, but do you ever get bored? What do you do when everyone around you is asleep, and you're all alone?"
"Well," I said, leaning on the windowsill closer to her. She didn't seem comfortable with this proximity, and she backed away just a little with a faint, apologetic smile. Personal space, it seemed to say. I pretended not to notice and sat down on the windowsill, crossing my legs so that they wouldn't hang over into her sacred room. "I can always go anywhere else. It's daytime somewhere, but I usually just mess around. Ice powers, you know?"
"Cool," she remarked. "Oh, wait. Sorry. Pun unintended. Ha. That was bad." She face-palmed, shaking her head, but when she came up and pushed her hair back, I saw that she was still smiling. I smiled, too. She looked better like this - smiling, I mean, even if it was small and shy.
"If you don't mind my asking, what do you do in the middle of the night to keep from getting bored if you don't sleep?"
Darian looked down at her toes, which I noticed were curling into the carpet idly. "Nothing, really," she muttered. "Sometimes, I read, but I usually spend hours just staring at the ceiling. I think, too. It's nice and quiet for that."
"Sounds boring," I noted.
She nodded. "Yeah, it kind of is." Again, I wondered why she wouldn't sleep, but she'd made it clear that she wasn't going to talk about that, and now that I was actually having a real conversation with her, I was afraid that at any moment, she might close up again. Slow and steady, I had to remind myself. Some people needed to be coaxed into the fun, not thrown. I could still remember her adverse reaction to my snowball the other day.
I had an idea. "Do you wanna have some fun?" I asked.
She looked up at me skeptically. "Like what?"
"Let's just get out of here for a while." I gestured out the window and hovered out through it. "Come on!"
"Jack!" she snapped. "I have not, nor will I ever sneak outside in the middle of the night without my parents knowing."
"Did they ever say that you couldn't go anywhere tonight?"
"No, but that's not fair! They shouldn't have to if they know that I know better," she protested, folding her arms across her chest stubbornly.
"Look, it's not like we're going anywhere bad. We can just fly around a little. Jamie and I do it all the time," I assured her. Her countenance stayed firm except for maybe a slight deepening of her ugly scowl.
I tried again. "It's not like you need to sleep or anything, remember? Wouldn't it be more fun than staring at a ceiling all night?" Her resolve dropped slightly. I could tell by the way her stiff shoulders drooped and how her frown seemed to relax into near neutrality. She gave a small, almost imperceptible sigh and glanced around the dim room, appearing to weigh her options in her mind. She was tempted - I could see that much. It wasn't like I expected her to jump eagerly at the idea; she required a gentler approach.
I pushed one last time. "You know you can trust me, right?" This got under her skin for whatever reason, and her arms fell to her sides. She was thinking about it. Her clear, honest eyes displayed the gears turning in her mind as if they were made of transparent glass.
After a long, quiet moment, she relented. "Fine. I'll go and get my coat. It's downstairs." With that, she shuffled out to the hallway. Quietly, I followed her, grinning at my victory. She started down the stairs, freezing when one gave an unnoticeable groan under her feet. I heard her breath hitch in her throat and nearly laughed out loud.
"Really?" She started at the sound of my voice and nearly squealed, having not noticed my presence behind her before now. This time, I did laugh. Her reactions were really priceless sometimes.
She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from vocally expressing her surprise, and from behind it, she grumbled, "Don't do that, Jack!" I shrugged and smirked in response. It got her moving a little faster, at least, now that she was slightly annoyed with me. Me being me, however, I decided to push my luck. As she focused on her feet, trying to avoid any more creaking steps, I reached forward with my ice cold hands and tapped the side of her neck.
She yelped in shock this time, but before I could even laugh, Darian, red-faced with embarrassment, whirled around to face me, hand raised to deliver a mean slap. It never came, but I must have flinched from it a little because she gave a sly grin and slowly brought her hand back down. The only way I could respond to that was to stick my tongue out at her, as childish as that was. To my surprise, she copied the taunt briefly before finishing the last of the stairs.
Her distinctive red coat hung on a stand by the door. She slipped it on and stepped into a pair of boots that waited nearby. After fastening all of the buttons, she looked curiously at the door. "Oh, darn," she began sarcastically. "The home security system is active. If I open the door, an alarm will go off. I guess we're not going anywhere tonight. Sorry." She wasn't sorry in the slightest, which made what I said next all the more satisfying.
"Who said we were going out the door?"
"Wait, what?" Not bothering to explain, I grabbed her hand - the left one since I knew how much the right still hurt - and practically dragged her back upstairs to her room, ignoring her whispered protests the entire way. I brought her all the way to the window before I let go.
"I told you we were gonna fly, didn't I?"
Darian stepped back. "I thought you were joking."
"Nope."
"I can't fly like you! You're crazy!" She violently shook her head, which unfortunately threw all of her hair back into her face, forcing her to take a minute to spit it out of her mouth and shove it away from her eyes.
"You won't be doing any flying. Just climb on my back. I'll carry you," I explained. She hesitated. "Well?"
"I'm not sure I-"
"Or I could just leave," I taunted.
"Okay!" she muttered, slowly making her way over to me, pulling her hat from a hidden pocket somewhere on her person.
"You're probably going to want to leave that here," I advised. "It'll just fly off again." Darian nodded and threw the cap onto her bed, where it was lost within the small fort of pillows at its end.
I felt her weight as she hauled herself up onto my back, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. Darian was small for her age, but she was even lighter than she looked. I would even dare to say that she weighed less than Jamie, even though she was his senior by three years and was still (but only just barely) taller than him. "Aren't you forgetting something?" I tilted my head towards the lamp that she left on.
"No," she answered.
"Won't they think it odd that your light is on in the middle of the night? You don't think that someone will come up to check on you?"
"No," she repeated. "Actually, my parents would think it was weird if I turned it off."
"Why?"
"I always leave a lamp on at night."
I was tempted to ask why one more time, but that was one button that I didn't want to push. Annoying her was fine, but if she needed some things to stay secret for now, I wouldn't pry. Yet. She needed some time, and as impatient as I always was, I could still respect that. Instead, I asked, "Are you ready?"
"No."
"Here we go!" I shot out of her room like a rocket. Darian shrieked in my ear, and I could feel her straining to hold onto me. Too fast, I thought as I felt her bury her face into my shoulder, her loose hair slapping the back of my neck. Her grip nearly strangled me, and I made it a point to slow down once I had finally reached the altitude that I wanted. Darian didn't shift at all at the change in speed. I wondered if I had frightened her too badly with the takeoff, if she was just going to shut down for the rest of the night.
"Darian?" I called over my shoulder after a long bout of silence where only the wind howled in my ear. She uttered some sort of muffled response into my hoodie. "You don't have to hold on so tight." Her hold on me was crushing, making it hard for me to breathe in the crisp night air. My comment made her pull her face back away from my shoulder, suddenly realizing what she had been doing. Her grip slackened ever so slightly, and I gulped in lungfuls of fresh air.
"Sorry!" she apologized repeatedly. "Sorry! I'm sorr- whoa!" I heard her gasp behind my ear as she finally glimpsed the world around her, the streetlights below and the starlights above. She straightened up further to get a better look, and the wind caught hold of her hair and swept it far from her face where it waved freely without obstructing her vision, but my neck still itched from where her hair had whipped it.
We flew around a little while longer, bathing in the light of the Moon and going so high that the stars appeared close enough to touch. I think Darian reached out for them every once in a while, but it was hard to tell since I couldn't see her clearly on my back. Darian's reactions surprised me the most. Even though she shook every so often, and even though my flight couldn't possibly be the smoothest, she never asked to be let down. Then, I heard a sound from her that I never could have guessed she was capable of creating.
Darian laughed. She really laughed.
This was no quiet giggle, no tired chuckle, no half-hearted laugh. No, this was loud and free and joyful, and it made me want to land just to see the smile that accompanied this music, but even so, I felt that there was something off about it. It sounded harsh and almost painful as the laughter exploded out of her, as if all of her hidden expression and pent up happiness was bursting out of her all at once. Once the laughter began, it didn't stop. Like the water behind a broken dam, it surged forward and kept flowing. It was actually kind of scary to listen to, but in a good way. She was allowing herself to have fun, possibly for the first time in a long while.
I flew around just a little bit longer, pointing out various things to her that she continued to laugh in amazement at. "That's where Jamie lost a tooth in a 'sledding accident.' That roof is where I froze a Nightmare."
"What exactly does a Nightmare look like?" she wondered.
"Like a horse, but freakier. Completely black." I thought I felt her shiver on my back, so I decided that she'd had enough of the chilly air and descended to land. I chose to stop at the small pond I knew so well. It was hidden by trees in the woods, and it was quiet. No one would bother us. My feet hit the ice gently, and if there was anything rough about my landing, Darian didn't comment about it. She was still laughing. I glided across to solid ground before letting her down, but she still wobbled, shaking with her laughing fit, doubling over until it finally subsided and was replaced by a series of frame-shuddering coughs. Before I could ask if she was okay, she took a deep breath and straightened up, and I saw her smile. It wasn't just her ruby lips that shone, either; the smile glittered in her eyes when she looked at me.
I smiled back. "See? Was that not better than spending all night in your room? Admit it: I was right, and you were wrong," I teased.
"You were right, and I was wrong," she parroted jokingly. We laughed together and took a moment to sit down by the edge of the pond, admiring the way that the moonlight caused it to glow silver. After a while, Darian turned to me and said, "I'm just curious about something you told me before."
"Ask away," I responded. "We can even make it a game. I'll tell you something about myself, and you tell me something about yourself."
"Fine. I'm an open book, anyway." She shrugged. "I was just wondering why you didn't join the Guardians right away."
"I thought I told you that: I just didn't want to at the time."
"Yeah, but why didn't you want to? I mean, they sound pretty popular and important. Didn't you want to be a part of that?"
It was my turn to shrug. "I guess so, but back then, I didn't really know who I was or what I was meant to do. I'd spent three-hundred years wandering by myself, not being seen. I was basically ignored unless I bothered them, and I guess I kind of got used to being alone. I hadn't quite accepted it, but I was used to it, and suddenly, I'm being told that I have to be the people that left me alone all those years? I didn't quite understand."
Darian nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense, but I guess what I'm saying is that I would have jumped at the chance. I would want to be accepted, to not be alone anymore, especially after so long." She suddenly seemed far away, so lost in her own thoughts that I wasn't really sure that she was talking about me anymore.
"Well, it takes some adjusting to be around people. There were things I had to learn about being a friend before they could really accept me, no matter what the Moon told them. It's not that easy, you know?"
"I know." Even though I heard her respond to me, even though I could see her sitting beside me, and even though I knew that if I reached out, I would feel her right hand, bruise hidden underneath a thick glove, she seemed distant, and so I tried to draw her back out of wherever she had wandered off to.
"Your turn!" I announced. She blinked several times before looking back at me. "Tell me something about yourself."
"Uh, like what?"
"Like, what's your favorite color?"
"White," she answered almost before I could finish.
"That's not a color."
"It is in a weird way."
"No, it's not," I insisted, trying to stare her down. She grinned smugly and copied me.
"Yes, it is."
"How?"
Darian took a lump of snow in her hands. "Do you know how we see colors, Jack?" I shook my head. It wasn't like I had much time on my hands to stop and study science. "Well, we see colors when an object reflects part of light and absorbs the rest. The light that is reflected determines the color that we see. White is special because when we see white, all of the colors are being reflected." She held up the snow. "So, in a way, white is a color. It's all of the colors. Weird, right?"
I gave her a blank stare. "I think you just broke my mind." Darian giggled and brushed the snow off her gloves. "What does that make black, then?"
"Black is the absence of color," she explained.
"Okay, then. I've just learned a little about science but not a lot about you. I told you about being a Guardian. I think you can tell me more about yourself than your favorite color, or...colors...I guess."
"Um, well, let's see..."
"Open book, hmm?" I teased.
Darian was not amused. "Okay, everyone has secrets. I'll admit that much. I just don't have a lot of them."
"I'm not buying it," I said jokingly. Darian pushed me lightly on the shoulder.
"Okay, how about this? Until I was twelve, I absolutely refused to wear my hair in anything but pigtails."
"Really?" I asked flatly.
"What?"
"If that's a secret, then your life must be boring. It's a good thing I came along."
"That's not true, and I never said it was a secret!"
"Fine, then. I dare you to wear your hair like that all day tomorrow."
"When did this become a game of Truth or Dare?" Darian threw her hands up in exasperation.
"I never said what game we were playing."
"That's not fair! I get to dare you to do something, too!"
"Like what?"
"Like..." There was a long pause until Darian finally gave up and rested her face in her hands, shoulders shaking with laughter. "I don't know, but I'll think of something."
I joined in on her laughter. "Then for now, you can just ask the truth of me. It's my turn now. Shoot."
"Any question?" she inquired, sounding a little nervous, which did not give me great expectations for the next few minutes of my life.
"Yes," I replied slowly.
"Okay. Well, Jamie mentioned that you had a sister..." My heart sank. "...and that you saved her..." This wasn't something I liked discussing, not even with Jamie or the other Guardians. "I was just curious. Could you tell me about it?" She faced me with an eager smile which immediately fell as soon as she saw my less than eager face. "Jack?"
I was still smiling, I think, but even I knew that it didn't look quite right. Bittersweet memories flooded me, flashing before my eyes. One moment, it was Darian's worried face that looked up at me. The next, it was my sister's. "Jack?" they both called. Blue eyes. Then brown. Brown eyes. Then blue.
"You ask hard questions," I said after a while with a breathless laugh. I gripped my staff a little tighter.
"I'm sorry. Was that too much to ask? You don't have to-"
"No, it's fine. It's the rules of the game, anyway," I interrupted. Besides, there was no stopping the memories now.
"Are you sure?" I knew how I must have looked to her: far away, lost in my own thoughts. As I stared out over the pond, I could still see the events of that day playing out over and over, even though the images were a little fuzzy. There was a strange disconnectedness with these memories, which was understandable considering that I had only just learned them from a box of baby teeth a little over two years ago.
I nodded, and Darian, who had been worriedly studying my face, backed away but continued looking up at me with wide, sparkling eyes, waiting for the story. With her head cocked curiously to the side like this, supported by her hands, elbows resting on her crossed legs, she appeared almost childish, looking forward to a tale before bedtime. "It was a long, long time ago, over three-hundred years, long before I became a Guardian or even Jack Frost," I began, Darian listening on in total rapture.
"I think I was about eighteen at the time, and I believe my sister's name was Mary. It's hard to really remember. We went out to go ice skating. It's funny how I can still remember some of the little things about that day. I remember our mother standing at the door, warning us to be careful. It was a particularly warm day for Winter in Burgess."
"You lived here?" asked Darian incredulously.
"Yes, and this was the pond that my sister and I skated on." Darian gazed out upon its frozen surface, almost as if she, too, could see my memories dancing on it. "I'd taken off my skates, though. I've never really liked shoes, and I was walking around when I heard Mary scream. I turned around and saw the ice cracking underneath her feet." I continued talking, but by that point, my past had completely bled into the present, and all I could see were my sister's wide, terrified eyes watching me, waiting to see what I would do, wondering if there was anything I could do.
"It's okay! It's okay! Just look at me," Jackson Overland told his little sister, whose frightened gaze shifted from him to the ice beneath her feet that crackled and popped under her weight. Spider-web-like cracks spread out around her.
"Jack, I'm scared!" she cried as the ice continued to shatter. Jack thought it echoed the sound of his own breaking heart. He had to find a way to help. He just had to!
"I know. I know," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. He couldn't show her how afraid he really was. Jack tried to take a step towards her, but his added weight only broke the ice more, so he stopped. "But you're gonna be alright," he assured her. "You're not gonna fall in. We're gonna have a little fun instead!"
His sister was having none of it. "No, we're not!" she sobbed.
"Would I trick you?"
"Yes! You always play tricks!" She shifted, and the ice cracked loudly. Jack knew he had to act fast and do...whatever it was he planned on doing. He needed her to calm down. He needed her to smile.
"Well, n-n-not this time," he stuttered hastily. "I promise. I promise! You're gonna be...you're gonna be fine. You have to believe in me." Mary finally gave him her full attention, gulped, and nodded. Jack smiled for her. "You wanna play a game? We're gonna play hopscotch, like we play every day.
"It's as easy as one..." Jack took a step away from the thin ice, but it still gave a little under his foot. He couldn't show her he was afraid, though, so he comically pretended to lose his balance. Mary's spirits rose, and she giggled at her brother's trick. "...two, three!" Jack made it to thicker, solid ice. He reached down where next to him laid an old, twisted piece of wood shaped like a hook at the end. Perfect.
"Now, it's your turn. One..." Mary took a shaky step forward. The ice crackled threateningly. She gasped in fear. "That's it! Two..." Another step. Another fracture. Another gasp. "Three!" Mary was close enough now that Jack could hook the wood around her waist and swing her over to where he was, which, as a consequence, sent him back to where she had been standing, but he didn't notice. He was too happy for his sister.
Mary laughed, looked up at him, and smiled. Jack reached out for her. CRACK! "Jack!" Mary screamed, but he was no longer there to hear her.
"I'm so sorry," Darian murmured when my story was done. She looked about ready to cry. I probably looked the same, which was weird because all in all, this was a happy memory for me. I had saved my sister and discovered my Center. "I didn't know. I...you died?"
"Yeah," was all I could really say. She looked out over the pond and shivered, but the memories weren't there anymore. I gazed up at the Moon. "It was dark and cold, but then I saw the Moon, big and bright. The next thing I knew, I was being lifted from the ice, my hair turned white, and my eyes magically changed from brown to blue."
"I thought so," said Darian suddenly.
"Wait, what?"
She froze and panicked at her odd comment, fumbling for an explanation. "I meant, uh, your eyes, they...they don't seem natural is all, like you're wearing contacts or something, but that's ridiculous. Who ever heard of a Winter spirit wearing contacts? Ha. They're too blue, maybe. I don't know. They're just a little strange - in a good way, I mean! They...They're nice." Darian blushed crimson and stared down at the snow, idly drawing strange patterns in it.
I chuckled at her rambling and tried to get her to look back up at me. "Your eyes are also nice," I complimented. Her face turned as red as her coat, and I got the impression that she wasn't used to receiving compliments often, which surprised me. She was very pretty and seemed kind enough.
"They can be weird, too. My friends always tell me that if you look into them for too long, they get really pale like ice."
"Whoa! Really? Show me!" I insisted.
Darian snickered before squeezing her eyes shut, turning her face towards me, and snapping them open. It was almost imperceptible, but with how closely I watched them, I could see how their already light blue color seemed to grow lighter, the color of ice. I must have been staring for an awkward amount of time, though, because her eyes started to dart around, looking anywhere but straight at me. Finally, I remarked, "That is freaky!"
Darian welcomed the excuse to look away and blink several times to moisten her eyes after keeping them open for so long. "It's really just my pupils contracting. My eyes are already such a light color that when my pupils shrink back to adjust to light, they look even lighter because more of that color is shown. Cool, but nothing special."
"Whatever it was, it was kind of beautiful." I didn't think her face could get any redder, but she had passed tomato red a long time ago. This was closer to the color of blood. She didn't get a chance to really respond, though, because just then, she broke into a horrible fit of coughs that lasted several minutes and left her bending over, face almost in the snow. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she choked as the coughs died down. "It's just the night air." Then, as if the world felt the need to contradict her, she sneezed once. Twice. Three times. Each was indicated by a tiny squeak behind her hand. When she was done, she sniffled and looked into her glove, gave a sour grimace, and wiped it off in the snow.
"That wasn't," I pointed out. I reached forward to feel her forehead and winced. It felt hot enough to burn me. "You've got a fever. I think it's time to get you back." I pulled my hand away and rested it in the snow to cool it back down.
"I think you're right," she sighed. I let her climb onto my back again, and I took off as gently as I could. She seemed tired and worn out. Instead of laughing, she rested her cheek on my shoulder as we flew among the lights, and I was reminded of the one thing I still hadn't learned from her in our game.
I brought her to her open window, where she slid off my back and onto her carpeted bedroom floor. She leaned against the windowpane and waved at me. "Goodnight, Jack. I had a lot of fun tonight." I must have smiled oddly because she added, "What?"
"It's just that I like to hear that, me being the Guardian of Fun and all."
"Wait, what?"
"Did Jamie not explain this last night?" Darian shook her head. "Each of us Guardians has a Center, and that Center is what we protect in children. North is the Guardian of Wonder. Sandy is the Guardian of Dreams. Tooth is the Guardian of Memories. Bunny is the Guardian of Hope."
"And you're the Guardian of Fun," she finished.
"Now you've got it!" Darian started to close the window. "Wait! I just told you something about myself. It's your turn."
"What do you want to know?"
"Remember, you have to tell the truth, especially after all that I've told you. It's the rules."
"Jack..." She raised an eyebrow, not liking where I was going with this. I wondered if I should have any plans of escape after what I would say next, but it was important. I had to ask. I had to know.
"Why don't you sleep at night? Why do you leave a lamp on?"
"Oh, I..."
"Remember the rules."
Darian shot me a glare. "Various sleep disorders," she answered.
"Is there any other reason?"
She took a moment to think about it, and she nodded slowly. I motioned for her to get on with it. "You're going to think it's silly and childish. You're going to laugh," she whined.
"I promise I won't laugh. You can trust me, remember?"
Darian gave one final groan, and glancing to either side as if she was scared that someone might overhear, she leaned over the windowsill and whispered, "Nightmares. I get really bad Nightmares, and I'm afraid of the dark." Quickly, she retreated back into the safety of her room and refused to look me in the eye. Her blush displayed her embarrassment.
"Darian?" I coaxed.
"Hmm?"
"I'm not laughing." She finally looked up and smiled shyly.
"Thank you," she breathed. Her shoulders relaxed as if a great weight had been lifted from them.
"How long have you had these Nightmares?"
"Um, forever?"
I hovered for a moment, thinking. Darian waited, hand on the windowpane, waiting for some kind of reaction from me. Finally, I said, "I've got another dare for you. Tomorrow night, I want you to actually try to go to sleep."
Her face fell, and she protested quite a bit, but Darian agreed after a while. We said goodnight, and my plan was set in motion.
(Finally done with the longest chapter yet! I've been waiting to get to some Darian and Jack bonding time. What do you guys think of this chapter? Will Darian actually accept the dares? What is Jack's plan? Review! Update: For some reason, the first paragraph didn't upload. I have fixed this.)
