AN: Sorry, again, for the long wait (I've said this way too much, I know) But I haven't been feeling so good recently (heh, how ironic is that considering the theme of this chapter?). Mainly because I'm not sleeping well but bleh. Does anyone have any suggestions to help with that? Like a certain drink or an essential oil mix I can make? I've been falling asleep during the day and have like no energy to do anything, which is bad because it's preventing me from taking care of my cousins properly. Thank God for weekends, lol
Anyways, I'm a bit disappointed with this story, mainly because I was blocked on how I was going to have Pitch retell his almost-take over, and then just decided to opt it out and add in the bit with our next Guest Star. I am, however, trying to make a little shadow-puppet comic about how he tells the story, which I will be posting on my FACEBOOK PAGE (Search: LunaBell08) in the far future.
Special Thanks To:
FearlessAndRed
Mystichawk
i love all yaoi
Frost
The One Named MoonLight: Yeah,, but I tried not make him seem too dark, though it was sort of the goal since the 'roles' are switched in this story (the villain being our main guy and the hero being our opposing force). It doesn't help that Jack Frost can be pretty arrogant and can't help throwing a bit of sass back at Pitch like he did to him in the movie, lol
Pitch: O.O HI PITCH! *waves excitedly* (Haha, how funny. Though I do have to protest, I don't think Pitch actually hates children so to speak, just finds himself superior to them, lol)
"Speaking."
Thoughts (Normally)
/special speech for the Man in the Moon/these represent feelings more or less/considering that we don't hear Manny speak/
-x-
The Meaning of Fear
-x-
Sick
"A-A . . . a-CHOO!"
Pitch felt a sickening twist in his stomach in the middle of his sulking on the roof of April's home. He figured that it was because Jack Frost had finally crossed through New York, and he wasn't grateful at all for the worsened weather that - though given a snow day for the school kids - was chilling to the bone. He didn't wish to run into the boy, and not just because he didn't want to see Frost twice in less than two weeks, but because Pitch didn't want him growing suspicious of his company around a child's home. Jack would gather the Guardians if he found out about the Nightmare King's constant presence around the same child in attempt to keep him from harming her.
The little bundle of misery was giving him enough of a migraine as it was, he didn't need any spirits to add on to it.
Three days into December, the light sheets of snow and ice from the last few months were nothing compared to the sudden blankets hiding the black streets and old, salted sidewalks. It was weather that produced the nastiest of colds to some of the unfortunate children, and that included his four-year-old menace.
After another whine came from the girl's window as she complained about wanting ice cream from her nanny, Pitch gave a sigh of frustration and flew as a cloud of shadows into her room. He stayed in this state as the number x (he lost count) nanny scowled and practically threw a fit as she left. The ever stubborn April was wrapped up in her blankets, sitting up like a scrunched up caterpillar. A small hole surrounded by the fabric kept her face free, with her little fingers popping out from under her chin to grasp the bottom edge.
Pitch rolled his eyes at her pouty display. She caught site of him as he morphed back into his normal form and gave him a disgruntled look.
"Oh, don't be like that." Pitch droned, his hands behind his back as he stalked forward. April 'hmphed!' and turned away with a sniff.
"I'm not talking to you," she said.
The small (and exaggerated) cold the child caught had put yet another hold on one of Pitch's following plans. Those unpleasant feelings rose up in him again as he thought of the wrapped, teeth-rotting goodies he planned to give her, and soon dispersed as he saw that April was in absolutely no condition to take in any fear-inducing activities today. Later, sometime in the far, far future, Pitch would look back at this moment and find that he used April's illness as an excuse not go through with this possibly heartless plan of his.
Right now, he allowed the treats to be hidden away within his attire and saved for another day.
"Fine," Pitch sang, turning with every intention to leave. It wasn't his responsibility to take care of the sick child. He had plenty of other children to terrorize -
The sound of a wheezing cough stopped him in his tracks.
There it was again, those unpleasant feelings rising within the pit of his stomach. What was this, and why wouldn't it just go away?
The small cough followed by a fit of sneezing and chattering teeth, and soon Pitch found himself by April's side before he could stop himself.
"Why do you care so much about the Easter Bunny?" he blurted, "Why is he so special?"
April finally turned to face Pitch, wiping her runny nose on her blanket and sniffing again. "He's my favorite."
"Why?" he pressed.
April shrugged, her lips still turned into an unfitting frown. "Because I asked him to let me be with Daddy on Easter, and he gave him to me for the whole day. And Daddy took me to the bestest places in the whole-wide world."
Pitch didn't let his surprise show when he learned that April did indeed notice her father constantly missing from her life. He didn't even think she noticed. In fact, he thought she was just used to it, if her indifference at hearing her father immediately working after his return was anything to go by.
"Why not just ask No-" She wouldn't know the name North, "er - Santa Claus to have your father for Christmas?" It felt ridiculous asking such nonsense questions. Why would he care? He didn't care if she asked these moronic, show-off Guardians if they got her socks for her left foot!
April seemed to deflate completely. Pitch was bemused with her reaction at the mention of North, until the girl muttered something that would have made him happy with any other child.
"Because he isn't real."
On any normal day, Pitch would have been delighted to hear those words leave a mere four-year-old's mouth. But the look on April's face was similar to the one she had given him - one of absolute betrayal. He didn't have to ask directly why April would say such a thing - why she thought Santa Clause didn't exist.
Because she did ask him.
She asked for her father to be with her for Christmas, and for the first time, Pitch heard a wish that hadn't been fulfilled by jolly ol'North.
And he was ecstatic!
For a good two seconds. Then . . . then he suddenly felt sick, looking at the little girl who had lost the wonder of Christmas because she didn't get the one thing she asked for.
What is wrong with me? Pitch asked himself. These feelings welling up inside of him . . . they were no good. No good at all. He was just having an off day, that's all. He told himself, Just having an off day.
Deciding to vanquish the thoughts that will only cause him more trouble, Pitch regained his composure.
"Santa," he said, immediately wishing the childish name could be scraped off his tongue, "isn't as wonderful as he's made out to be anyway. So enough woeful spirits, foolish child; it doesn't suit you."
April suddenly gave a small giggle, hiding her face in her blankets as Pitch gave her a curious stare.
"What?" he snapped.
"How do you know what Santa is like?"
"That is none of your concern." he said quickly, cursing his mistake. "Now go to sleep, I won't tolerate your nose fluids around me and you'll only be more trouble if you stay unwell."
April sunk into her sheets as Pitch habitually fixed her blanket so that she wasn't a giant, pink burrito.
"Wait!" April grasped his robe before he could get away.
"What now?" Pitch sighed impatiently. He wanted to leave, he could be doing other things at this moment!
"Tell me a bed time story!"
"Excuse me?" he hissed, looking around as to make sure no one heard this mad child ask him such a question.
"I can't sleep." she chirped. "Can you tell me a story? Please?"
"I don't know any stories."
"Anything then!"
A child-like image of himself popped into Pitch's head, and with his irritation, the child threw an agitated fit that refused to surface on his outside composure. He certainly needed the girl to just lay down and sleep, otherwise he would never be able to leave.
Gritting his teeth together, Pitch finally gave up and sat on the nanny's chair placed next to the bed. He thought of different things; Little Red getting eaten by a wolf; Goldilocks getting mauled by bears; how about the story of Cinderella chopping off her own foot to avoid marrying the prince?
No, no, none of those were any good.
"A bed time story with the Easter Bunny!" April piped up, jumping in place excitedly. Pitch groaned and rubbed his temple.
"Fine, fine." he said. "I'll tell you a story that has the Easter Bunny in it."
"Yay!"
He pointed at her with a stern look. "But you have to be quiet and go to sleep either during or right after the story."
She nodded, determined. "Ye-sir!"
Pitch gave another agitated sigh, slumping his shoulders and sluggishly sitting back in his seat.
He never told any child a story before, how was he supposed to start?
"Once upon a time . . ." April started for him, growing impatient and speaking to him as if he were the five-year old.
"Hush!" he snapped. She rolled her eyes and snuggled under her sheets.
Pitch took a deep breath. "Once upon a time . . . in a land far, far away . . ." he started slowly, waving his hands as he thought of what to say.
"There was a dark king. His name was . . . Nightlight." He rolled his eyes at the irony, using the girl's nickname to cover up his own. This was just a story after all, and the image of the scrawny skeleton-like boy that plagued his mind would be replaced with his own in the little girl's eyes.
"He was frighteningly charming. Handsome, mysterious . . ." Pitch grinned to himself, slicking back his hair as he thought of more flattering ways to describe himself. April's risen eyebrow, however, snapped him out of his thoughts and he cleared his throat.
"Anyway, he was the most powerful being in all the universe!"
"This is boring!" April sneezed and shivered, cuddling under her blankets more. "When does Bunny come in?"
Glowering at the child, Pitch straightened his back. "He comes in later, but if you keep interrupting me, I'm not going to give you a story at all!"
Frowning, the child nodded. "I sorry."
"No more interruptions?" he assured.
"No more eruptions," she replied.
Not bothering to correct her, Pitch continued. instinctively, he swirled his hands in the air between them, creating a small cloud of sparkling dust. It shifted in the air, creating beautiful shapes and shadow puppets to play out his story.
"He worked alongside many others during the night, like the Sandman, the Guardian of Dreams."
"Oooh," April shook, watching as the black sand formed the shape of a funny little man with hair the branched out like the sun.
Something was very, very . . . not entirely wrong, but . . . wrong.
Looking curiously at the globe, the center and main heart of his toy factory, North held a breath as he noticed the shadows looming over a small area around the U.S.A. With an advance in his technology (a necessary precaution since the increase of danger from Pitch Black), allowing him to expand the view of the globe, he noticed that the focus of nightmares was thick and dark around the state of New York compared to anywhere else.
It worried him. Pitch had been but a nuisance ever since he escape his own imprisonment, staying on the down low and no doubt planning something sinister, but constant. Was this it? Was the Boogeyman finally making his move for revenge?
And then something flickered. A tiny, yellow light appeared right there in the middle of the swirling darkness. He rose an eyebrow, clicking a few buttons on his dashboard.
"Vhat is dis?" he asked himself quietly, before gasping as the flickering light suddenly shined bright, and held itself in place. It never went out.
Confused, and silently wondering if it was just a new child introduced to the wonders of Santa Clause, North quickly pulled up his files to mentally greet the new addition.
But what he found there, surprised him. Meeting him was a familiar little girl - he never forgot the face of a child - with large curly blonde hair and bright green eyes. In her smiling picture, the little girl hugged a stuffed rabbit to her cheek tightly.
Name: April Joy Darling
Age: 4
Current Residence: White Plains, New York
Belief Info: April J. Darling comes from a family of divorce. She is an only child and now shifts between housing areas in White Plains, New York and Sleepy Hollow, New York. She had lost her light at the age of three when she asked to spend Christmas time with her father and it did not follow through.
North couldn't help but frown as he read the last bit of information. Oh yeah, he remembered little April. For such a young child, she was fairly smart for her age. Very curious, very sweet, April loved Christmas after spending it with her mother during her first two years. At the age of three she was already mentally listing the things she wanted in the month of October: A swing set for her back yard, a pot for the new flowers her nanny had given her, a green shovel, and a beanie baby rabbit. But come December, her mind had changed. And she wished for something that was quite beyond Father Christmas's reach: To spend time with her ever-so-busy father.
He lost her light that morning. She ran down her stairs, excited and fully expecting to see her father waiting for her, only to be disappointed.
North always remembered when he couldn't fulfill something for a child, especially when it was something that seemed so small. But he, like the other spirits of holidays, could not interfere with the life of a grown-up. He was powerless.
He never expected to see her light brought back to the surface of his globe again. Especially in the midst of Pitch Black's darkness.
"Ah, Man in Moon! It has been a vhile, old friend," North greeted through his sky light. The moonlight flickered, obviously reading his thoughts and concerns.
"Vhat?"
It flickered again.
/worry not/all is well/no danger shall come to the child/
His eyes narrowed. With a tilt of his head, North looked back up at the globe.
What could have possibly happened to bring April's belief in him again?
"And with a woosh! Pitch Bla - I mean - Nightlight, fell hard. But he would not be defeated, not by this blue boy, Jack Frost. 'Time for some fun' he said with a 'bout of laughter. And with a swish of his hand, the last of those pesky Guardians was gone! From that night forward, the world was his, and all the humans of the Earth coward before the name -"
Pitch paused, his ears perked at the sound of light snores coming from the child's bed. He turned and realized that he been caught up in his own story-telling. April was sleeping soundly, curled up and snuggled tightly into her blankets. Her light breathing suggested that she had been out for some time, causing Pitch to gulp and straighten himself as he refused to think of how foolish he was acting. Just now, he noticed the stuffed rabbit still in his hand, which was being used to help show the flying actions as he swooshed around the bedroom.
Holding that atrocity with two fingers in front of his face, Pitch grimaced and looked back and forth between the girl and the battered animal toy in his hand. What was so special about this damn toy? He always saw her with it, and earlier, April had protested - quite loudly - at his, er, Nightlight's defeat of the Easter bunny. Seeing as how she would not let him continue and let the subject go, Pitch was forced to change the story - The Easter bunny was now Nightlight's accomplice and lived happily ever.
He had half a mind to toss this stupid thing out and claim that he knew not where it went the next morning. However, he didn't wish to listen to the child's screams and cries, and so decided against it. He quietly walked until he was by her bedside, and tucked the animal under her arm before he could change his mind.
"Foolish child. Can't even stay awake to hear the end of the story." he muttered to himself. He felt her forehead, abashed at the action as soon as he did it, and snapped his hand away.
The girl's head was a little warm, still a low-grade fever, but better than it had been when he first arrived. It bothered him that he was relieved, and nearly smacked himself.
"I have no concern for her health," he told himself before crouching down.
Poking the stuffed rabbit, Pitch sighed.
"For the first time in hundreds of years, Pitch Black, of all beings, was believed in."
