This is by far the longest chapter in the whole thing, which given how long it took to post, is a way in which I hope to make it up to all of you. The ending of the chapter hasn't been beta'd yet, so it may still have some kinks. I'll work them out once I've gotten to my beta readers, but it's been ages so I decided to post this anyway.

Seraphina was at her wits end. Jack had been throwing a tantrum all over the northern hemisphere, and she both loathed to stop it and loathed to let it continue. She could hardly blame him for his anger, but she couldn't allow the balance of the world to go off for much longer. So, with great reluctance, she made her way to Spain where a storm was currently waging with Jack in the middle.

"You know," she called "I think the residents of Madrid would like to leave their homes sometime soon."

"Mother." He acknowledged her. Though without the vigor of his normal greeting, it was a good sign that he wasn't being cold towards her.

"I know you must be upset-" She began.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Jack asked furiously. "Ever since I was reborn people have just been using me!"

Seraphina sighed. "I wish I could say you're wrong." Subtly, she began to raise the surrounding temperature, so that the snow would melt easier when she brought about its end.

"Why do things have to be so complicated?" Jack looked ready to chuck his staff at the ground.

"Because this is about people Jack. This is about life. No one is entirely evil, and no one is entirely good. I know it's easier to see things in black and white terms, but that's not how things are. Thinking that way will only get you hurt." Jack didn't look at her. The storm had slowed down some, but she didn't risk trying to come closer to comfort him.

"Jack, you have to understand, you haven't had to deal with real relationships in a long time. They take work, and you won't always get them right. That's just how it is. You haven't had the time to really become accustomed to this sort of life. I think you need to step back, some. Take a breath. We're all going to make mistakes here." They both fell silent as the North wind calmed around them, the snow easing in its descent.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" He asked at length.

"About what?"

"Why didn't you tell me about the spell the Man in the Moon put on me?" She made sure to look him in the eye when she answered.

"Because I couldn't. If I could have, I would have, but there was no way for me to even suitably hint around the fact that you'd been spellbound. Any time me or anyone else tried...well, I suppose the closest sensation would be that of choking. It isn't pleasant. The only ones who could have spoken to you without any reservation, I believe, were the Guardians. Not that I am sure, but... they are the most likely to have been able to, out of all the world." She had tried to soften the blow, but judging by the fact that the storm had increased again, she had failed. She thought she saw tears in his eyes, but he turned too quickly for her to be sure.

"Why didn't the Guardians ever come to me? Why didn't the moon ever talk to me?"

"I shouldn't explain for them Jack, I can't say for certain. As far as the Man in the Moon? I do not think he really understands." She sighed, and Jack looked back at her. His eyes were dry but dull, resigned. "That doesn't excuse him, but you have to take it into account. To him, to me, to many spirits, three hundred years is barely a drop in the pond. Why, father and I have been around longer than Manny, if you'll believe it. The older you are Jack, the less time really makes a difference. For humans, of course, it's the opposite, but they will die. We, usually, will not. So three hundred years for you dragged on, but three hundred years for Manny? Why they just flew by. Blink and you miss it. I have a feeling Manny did a lot of blinking."

The storm finally died, becoming just the lightest of snowfalls. She sat in the snow, sinking in before Jack joined her. He curled into her side with his eyes tightly shut. She pulled his staff from the awkward position between them and laid it in the snow beside him. Running her hands through his hair, she continued.

"Manny doesn't usually make spirits the way he made you. You are unique. You are the first elemental spirit he made, and you were the first to die before he saved you. Those both make a big difference I don't think-I know-he didn't take into account. Which of course, resulted in the loss of your memory, and your lack of knowledge in our world. When I create my elementals, they have a base knowledge of how to work their abilities and the spirit world in general. They still require training and practice, but they can begin to do their jobs immediately with little-if any-trouble. I know that you had trouble with the North wind, didn't even know of other spirits for years, and that you don't know of all of your abilities, even now. These are things you would have known, had you been born from me. And no," she continued when he looked up at her hopefully, "not even I know what you are fully capable of. Manny made you, not me."

Sighing heavily, he buried his face into her side again.

"The Guardians..." she grimaced "They are the ones you will certainly have to speak to. I will not tell you rumors I've heard, because I cannot say how accurate they are. I do know however, that Bunnymund's dislike of you after the incident in '68 certainly did not help matters. I'm unsure as to what extent they knew about you. I cannot be sure. You must ask them."

"I did." He said, surprising her. "They didn't really want to talk about it. But I think I made them feel too guilty, so they went ahead and talked about it anyway. Mostly, they said, they just didn't talk to me. They were also the reason I had such a horrible reputation."

"They're the reason?" She asked with much amusement in her voice. His cheeks frosted, embarrassment overriding the anger he'd been feeling for so long.

"Well, they certainly had a hand in it. They basically made up the minds of a lot of spirits before I even met them. My meeting with the St. Patrick's Day leprechaun suddenly makes a lot more sense."

"I thought Bunnymund had driven the lot of them off." Jack shrugged.

"I don't know, but he's the only leprechaun I've ever seen. Anyway, the Guardians all seemed very ashamed of what they did. They apologized a lot. When I told them about Pitch being my grandfather though, they freaked out." Seraphina sighed, closing her eyes as she pulled him closer.

"I didn't imagine that they'd be thrilled to hear that."

"They said how I shouldn't trust him that he was a liar and he'd use me now that I knew he was family. Bunny mentioned something about the death of the Pooka too, I think."

"Yes, well. I can see why Bunny would still be upset. It is perhaps the most unforgivable thing my father has ever done. Though there are others who would disagree."

"What did he do? He didn't really kill the Pooka, did he? What is a Pooka, anyway?"

"The Pooka were once a great warrior race, from what I know. I only ever met one of the clans. But I do know that Bunnymund is definitely the last of them. I'm afraid father did kill all the rest. It's difficult to explain why. He was not quite himself, or so I always say." She sighed as he squirmed away from her to look into her eyes.

"How can you be so nice to him when he did all that?" Jack asked incredulously. "I mean that isn't even half of the things that Pitch did according to the Guardians-"

"Let me tell you a story Jack." She interrupted, pulling him back, reluctantly, into her arms. She began the story with her head on top of his. "Many a millennia ago, when I was just a mortal child, I lived with my father in a small village that was tasked with guarding the most horrid of creatures, the fearlings. Much like their name, it was their goal to spread fear to all that they touched. Long ago, they had been captured by the Golden Armies. It was...perhaps not the height of the Golden Age, but close, when I was born. My mother died when I was very young, so I have few memories of her. It was only me and my father. I was only about seven, I think-"

"You think?"

"We did not keep track of time as they do now. As I was saying, I was about seven when my father failed to come home one day. I waited till the late evening for him, but he never came. I heard a ruckus in the center of the village. I left our home to find it was being attacked by fearlings. My father had been the one guarding them at the time. I found out much later that he had been convinced that the fearlings had trapped me in the cage with them. He opened it to save me.

"For many years after, I had thought my father had perished. One of the other guards saved me, and took me away. I never heard or saw any of the things that my father did after he was first possessed by the fearlings."

"Possessed? Is that how he became Pitch Black? He was possessed?"

"Oh yes. He didn't get any choice in the matter. Similar to your own rebirth, as it were. His, however, was full of pain and anguish and the knowledge he'd been tricked into releasing some of the most feared creatures of the Golden Age...come to think of it, I'm pretty sure the Golden Age ended not long after that." She looked up at the peaking moon thoughtfully.

"Yes, I'd say I'd have been ten and three when Manny was born. I was only ten and four when the Tsar Lunar became our Man in the Moon, marking the end of the Golden Age."

"Tsar Lunar? That's his name?"

"Lunar is his name, love. Tsar is his title. He inherited it when-has no one told you this story?" Jack shook his head furiously.

"I never really thought about how other spirits came about. I kind of figured they just got made, like I thought I was."

"Well, perhaps it is a story for another time. Maybe next time we have a seasonal meeting. I was saying, I was brought to the other village and left with a lovely blind woman who had a love of nature. I was given to her to help her around the house, and possibly since no one else would have me... not that I minded. She was a wonderful woman, who taught me much. During my time with her, I heard many stories of what my father did that night, as well as the many nights that followed.

"When he was first possessed by the fearlings, mad with power, the nightmare king raged through entire planets, destroying them in his eagerness to feed himself with fear. Why he left our planet, I do not know. He doesn't know either. Perhaps it's because there was enough of him left he didn't want to destroy me. I like to think that's what did it, but maybe it was just a whim of the nightmares." She went quiet for a moment, watching the snow fall around them as Jack sat, oddly still in her arms. Her voice was nearly a whisper when she started up again.

"The Pooka protected most of the planets my father ravaged, so my father destroyed them, too. Father was so very powerful. It was frightening. The Golden Age, mostly a peaceful time, looked as though it would end in the extinction of many species. It didn't turn out that way, obviously, but it came close." She was silent for a moment.

"How did you find out?" Jack asked so quietly she almost didn't hear him.

"Sometimes the soldiers would come to her to talk, and if I could, I would listen at the door to the garden, or just outside the archway of the kitchen. I preferred the garden door, actually-much safer, better cover-but that night I ended up next to the kitchen archway. I overheard the soldiers that day speak of what was happening on the other planets. Grandma-that's what she had me call her-asked them about my father, if he was responsible. I think it was because she knew I was there, actually. I doubt I ever really heard anything she did not intend. I think she wanted me to know. I was ten and five at the time. It was devastating to hear what had become of my father. But I was young, and I couldn't accept what my father had done. I forgave him.

"I headed to Earth when I was twenty and three, determined to protect that which I had learned to appreciate. I lived here for only six months before I became a spirit. I became the earth, as they say. A part of all places.

"By that time, father had disappeared, as well as the Moon's personal Guardian, Nightlight. For the longest time, no one knew what had happened, only that the Golden Age had ended with the Tsar dead and the Man in the Moon stranded on his parents' ship, the broken Moon Clipper, known now only as the Moon. I thought that it was the end of it all. We all did. When father rose again, we were all shocked, but I do not think any were more shocked than I when I met him again. He was far from the man I remembered. I went to him shortly after he gained his power in the Dark Ages. It was an action I regretted.

"He hadn't even known I was alive-he was under the impression I had died centuries ago in the attack on the village, or even if I had escaped, had died of disease, childbirth or old age.

"'Seraphina' he said to me. 'You look so beautiful, you are nature inspired.' He hugged me, and I hugged him back. At first, it was as though he was still the father I knew, the one who told me stories at night and danced with me in an empty house. But then I asked him to stop hurting the world so, to return the balance.

"'The balance has already been broken too long without me. I AM returning the balance!' He threw me out and banned me from returning to his lair. I tried to talk to him, but he was even worse when basking in the fear of the world. His responses became more violent. He never hurt me, but...you have to understand that this man had the memories of my father, but his personality was fueled by fearlings. Emotionally, he cut me deeply in the hopes of convincing me to join him. I never did. He called me a traitor and many other horrid things I dare not repeat. But he was not my father. The fearlings had repressed him.

"I returned to my own lair to find the Guardians waiting. They begged for my help in defeating my father. I refused, just as I refused him, and told them they had to light their own way. At great cost, they defeated my father. I was not expecting him to come to me, but come he did. He apologized." She paused here, and turned Jack's head up towards her own. "He apologized profusely, and I almost didn't accept it."

"He was horrid to you. You shouldn't have forgiven him at all."

"A similar thing might be said about you and Bunnymund." This caused Jack to pause, looking away from her as he struggled to find a counter argument. "He hurt you with his words, and though he never actually physically hurt you, he came close more than once. Still, he used words as his weapons, and knowing just what your hopes were, used them to crush you, emotionally. It isn't that different from what my father tried to do, and yet you have forgiven him rather quickly. Not seamlessly, but quickly."

She cupped his chin and made him look her in the eyes. "I am telling you this story for a reason Jack. I see myself in you, in some ways. Even as Mother Nature, I have had to fight my way up, and I was lonely for a long time. I missed my father and felt grief over what he did, and not every spirit was kind to me when they learned I was the daughter of such a feared spirit. It took quite a long time before I was able to really make a comfortable place in the spirit world, and my father's actions in the Dark Ages strained many of the relationships I had formed. It was a very stressful time, and I admit to being starved for affection and lonely myself. So I took my father in, just as you accepted the Guardians.

"Imagine my surprise at finding that a Pitch without power was not a bad thing at all. Suddenly, my father was back. Without the power the fearlings had fueled him with, his own mind was able to come through more clearly. The man I had always loved had come back. So I cared for him, and I forgave him for his sins. It was something I desperately wanted to do, and as I constantly told myself, the man who hurt me was not the one in front of me. It was not entirely true. Jack, love, while I know what my father said to you before was true, I also know it is not the full truth that you deserve."

Jack narrowed his eyes. She knew he was tired of secrets and people keeping things from him, and so she was quick to reassure him. "It was definitely true. I know that whatever his plans were, he changed them for you. But I also know it takes longer than a mere two hundred or so years to be able to turn dream sand into nightmare sand so efficiently. My best guess is that he was experimenting, as we all do, with his abilities, and he had plans of getting more powerful, naturally. As much as I wished to pretend it was not true, the fearlings within him still had some control. Whatever he may have planned must not have been an immediate priority, and I do not think he spent as much time as would be expected on those plans before he knew about you. It wouldn't have mattered if it had been a thousand years, it would have happened eventually, but there is a reason for everything he does, and when father learned of you, he pushed his plans further in order to benefit you."

"But when we were in Antarctica, he attacked me!"

"Yes, but you are forgetting, he was a lot more powerful by then. Hardly at full power, but more than enough that his desires as my father were controlled by the desires of the fearlings. He attacked you, because though he accepts you as his grandson-as shown by the gifts he's given you-the connection was not strong enough to override the fearlings control. My father knew me for the first seven years of my life. He knew you for maybe a grand total of an hour all together, if we speak only of actual contact rather than rumor and hearsay. The desire to protect me from harm was far stronger than the desire to protect you."

"So that's why he-wait, wait." Jack's eyes grew wide. "The gifts? He's the one leaving them?"

"I did say they were an apology." She knew that by now, Jack had received more gifts from her father, though she was uncertain of what they were. Jack had likely planned to ask her about them when he had come to her lair, but it had not come up before she had told him the truth of his spiritual heritage.

"So he's making it up to me by giving me weird accessories?" Jack asked. It took some effort not to start laughing.

"Protection Jack. Other things as well, I am sure, but the one you showed me was an item of protection. You must also remember that Father and I come from a very different time period on an entirely different planet. Gender roles and traditions were quite different.

"But Jack, before we get entirely off topic, what I wanted you to understand here is that we all make mistakes, and we all feel alone sometimes. I mean, just look at the Guardians. Overworked and isolated, they were knocked out in a single Easter. While my father's plan was admittedly quite good, it should have also been more work. The fact that it was not surprised more than a few other spirits. It suggests that the Guardians have been pulling themselves too far away as well. I think you may be good for them Jack, if they treat you well. Just as they may be good for you. I also think you should give my father a chance as well, but all of those decisions are yours to make." Although she silently vowed to pull him from the Guardians if he ever came running back to her so upset again. She let go of him and he picked up his staff and jumped out of her lap.

"Thanks mom. I'll think about it, but..." He sighed. "I don't think I should forget all that they did to me."

"And when did I say it was necessary to forgive and forget?" she asked, rather alarmed as she pushed herself up again. "That's just human nonsense! Forgive Jack, but never forget. Forgetting leads to repeating history. Do not forget what my father is capable of nor when he is capable of it. The same applies to the Guardians. To me, as well. You'll get yourself hurt being so forgiving but not nearly as vigilant. Be aware of what actions others may take. Be prepared."

He looked a lot more at ease after hearing that. "Thanks." He swayed for a minute, looking uncertain. He then spoke quietly, obviously worried about how she'd take the question. "Why can't Pitch control the fearlings? Couldn't he take control from them the way they did him?"

She looked away, over towards the sun that was just peaking over the horizon before she answered. "No Jack. It isn't that simple. He was a mortal man. All his extra power comes from the fearlings. Had it been someone like Bunnymund or Toothina, then it might have been possible. However the reason mortal men were used as guards was because if the fearlings were to take over someone who had as much power as they, if they could not fight it, then they would truly be an impenetrable force. Father's humanity limits the fearlings in some ways, but it prevents him from truly being able to fight magic as strong as theirs."

Jack was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry."

She turned back to him and ruffled his hair. "Do not worry about it. What's done is done. Now, I think you have a certain job to do. Perhaps some unexpected snow in France. I don't think that will cause any trouble." He nodded and turned away, hoping on a delighted North wind and already rising away. "Oh, and Jack." He turned back to her, still rising. "No more blizzards."

He grinned.