(No... I forgotten to add disclaimer for the last chapter, so here goes one.) Disclaimer: I don't own Rise Of The Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood book series, I'm serious.
Anyways, I want to thank the reviewers that encouraged me a lot. You guys were really supportive, can't thank you enough!
Chapter 9: In which something breaks and a rescue plan is formed
She flew. Then ran.
Cylienne had no choice, if she allowed the wind to carry her, the wind tamer would easily track her down.
"Go! Go to the North Pole! Find the guardians! Go!"
The sentence repeated over and over again like a mantra, marking into her mind like a branding iron. Cylienne knew the North Pole, but she wasn't sure about the guardians, it sounded familiar. Looking up at the moon, she breathed a thank you for bringing her thus far without getting caught.
As the past queen smelled the air, she knew that the North Pole was near, but it was just a flat white panorama in front of her, nothing else. Did North pole meant by something else? It must be where the guardians are found. She figured.
Sighing, she had no choice but to allow the North wind to pick her up and limited the timing in the air for ten seconds.
One.
White. Just white and grey everywhere. The wind protested and threatened to pull her to the ground, she adjusted with a wrench of her wrist and the wind became silent.
Two.
The white never seemed as depressing as before. Though travelling to much higher regions to get a better perspective, she still could not see any unusual signs.
Three.
Nothing.
By the count of eight, the once powerful woman huffed and was about to leave when a flash of red at the side of her eyes told her to stop. Turning, she could make out something red that contrasted against the mountains of snow, squinting, a form of a large building focused and she halted in the air. Then cautiously moved closer, afraid that it might be a trap or something but the moon above told her not to fear.
So she dropped to the floor and allowed the snow to transport her to that grand structure.
Reaching at one of the windowsills, she peered through the frosted glass and could make out a few figures walking here and there hurriedly, carrying something big. There were fireplaces at almost every corners of the place(to Cylienne's distaste), with the bright colours adorning the ceiling, she realized that the colours was mostly red and green or gold. Giving her a sense of Christmas.
Snapping out of her thoughts, the lost queen managed to locate the location of the doors, which were huge and knocked on them forcefully. Less than a few seconds later something poked its head out of the door to peer at her curiously.
She yelped and stepped back, eyes widening at the sight of a hairy creature that started sputtering a strange gibberish she couldn't decipher the minute she made a shocked noise. She didn't know how to react, the poor creature looked confused and vanished from the crack of the door.
Perfect timing. Cylienne stuck her feet into the gap just before the heavy doors snapped shut slipped into the big palace-like area. Immediately, the heat from a nearby fireplace caused her to feel oozy and she had to lean against the wall to catch her breath.
"Argh, what is this-" she exclaimed as a few elves bumped into her foot and looked up apologetically. In reply, the woman froze them into icicles.
"Ah, you mus' be ze vizitor, am I right?"
Cylienne jumped at the loud booming of North's deep voiced and looked up, surveying him suspiciously. He had a white beard, wore a red coat with fur trimmed at the sides which reminded her of Russian clothes. Maybe he is Russian, from that accent. The face of the Cossack looked jolly, no, more forced. She had no idea whether it was her imagination, but from his sea blue eyes something told her that he was in grief.
"Yes." she stopped to look warily at the elf that was dragging a cookie towards her direction, unaware that it was about to bump into her again. Sensing the lady's discomfort, North said, "don' worry, zey are jus' elves, meant no harm." She was led through the long corridors and frowned at the bizarre feeling of carpet beneath her feet (Cylienne deducted that icy floors were better) ,the fireplace that increased the temperature in the Pole until it was slightly unbearable to her.
"Are you the guardians?" She questioned, panting slightly.
"Me? No, ve are the guardians. Sandy, Tooth, Bunny, me and-" North choked, the word stuck in his throat, gagging and constricting his windpipe.
"Do you know who's Jack? Jack Frost?"
The name rang in the air, North turned to face the woman before him, his expression told Cylienne that that Russian definitely knew Jack.
"Come, all ze the guardians are here. We need to talk."
They arrived to another room and Cylienne noticed the three other figures in the room looking troubled. One was a short golden colored man that left a stream of sand behind him, she immediately concluded that he was Sandy and the over sized rabbit was bunny. The spectrum-colored feathers that adorned a bird-girl that fleeted around the room swiftly could be Tooth, the winter spirit thought.
The three turned and froze at the sight of her, especially Bunny, whom thought that she resembled someone a lot.
"Ahh, zis' is our guest an'- he stopped as Tooth flew to the winter spirit in the room and pried open her mouth, surveying her teeth and swooning, claiming on how they sparkled like freshly fallen snow. But stopped when a memory stirred inside of the fairy queen's head and tears automatically formed in her eyes.
"As I've said, ve hav' a guest and- North was interrupted by Bunnymund, "you look a hell lik' Jack."
At the mention of the name Tooth burst into fresh tears and Sandy conjured a handkerchief and offered to Toothiana whom wiped away the tears hurriedly, embarrassed of crying in front of the beautiful yet disheveled woman that looked worriedly at her, but yet confused.
" 'm sorry," Tooth mumbled. "But Bunny's right, you look a lot like Jack."
"I'm his mother." she winced as Sandy dropped a plate of cookies and looked at the devilish looking elves that happily took away the cookies that fell to the floor, then his head shot up to face the spirit of winter.
"Wadya say again?" The large rabbit moved closer, his eyes tightened to a line and there was no doubt that he was suspicious of her now. Cylienne became slightly impatient, time was slipping. Fast. And if they continued dragging, who knows what Cylinus might be planning with Jack hanging dangerously in her clutches.
"Look, there's no time alright. STOP INTERRUPTING! " she yelled at the sight of North opening his mouth and the guardians nearly toppled over when a gust of icy powers slammed into them forcefully and frost crawled on the ground, "Jack is in danger! He's being held as a prisoner." She stopped to catch her breath.
"But-but, Jack died, didn't he?" Tooth asked softly, looking at the other guardians, as though they held answers.
If Cylienne haven't known that Jack trusted these four, she would have shown them her extent of controlling winter powers for their stupidity.
"He didn't."
"But we personally saw his body and even bought it back to the pole!" Tooth argued, starting to get confused.
"Sheila, just get to the point, will ya?"
"The queen's finding mother nature's mirror and she needs me to go to that place. But I told her, though she cannot go through the barrier without me, but as long there's any family members that's related to me, she can go through it."
"Does that mean that she can use Jack to get through the barrier for the mirror?" Tooth asked.
Cylienne nodded curtly, slightly glad that they were catching the idea faster than she had expected, not until North asked her, "but Jack died didn't he? We saw zat in front of our very eyez. How can you explain zat?" Meanwhile Bunnymund, the Easter Bunny was leaning against a pillar, with his arms crossed as he observed the guest with much suspicion and yet hope. The hope that Jack could be alive.
To say the truth the Easter Bunny was slightly sorry for the spirit of winter, the other guardians were still unsure about this fresh bag of news that was brought from a stranger that claimed that she was Jack's mother. He himself would definitely be mad at the guardians for throwing questions at him continuously for what? Twenty minutes? Half an hour? The pooka could tell that Cylienne was getting frustrated.
"Oi, giv' the sheila a rest."
Sandy turned and gave him and threw Bunnymund a surprised look, actually all of the guardians did that. They had expected the pooka to be asking the spirit the most questions in compared to them, yet he was just standing there, remaining silent. As though he didn't want to attract any attention.
"Why? Bunny? You seem to believe her." North questioned. Behind him, the Easter Bunny could see that the spirit of Winter was mouthing a word of "thanks"to him.
"The guardian book," he said, then hopping to the guardian book resting on the table. He took it and went back near the other guardians and flipped the pages where the list of guardians were named, "see? Jack's name didn't disappear, it's still there." Tooth and North and Sandman looked somewhat shocked, the suspicious expression vanished in an instant.
Tooth flew towards Cylienne whom stepped back at the sudden intrusion of her personal space, "where's jack? Is he in danger? How are we going to help him? Why-
Sandy stopped Tooth from continuing by tugging her wings lightly with his dreamsand, North thought that Tooth's face looked a bit blue, probably because she was derived from oxygen when she didn't take a breath breath between her overwhelming flow of questions.
"As I've said, he's held captive by my sister. And she'll do anything to get that mirror. Jack is now our weakness, she could just tell us to leave her alone by threatening to kill him. But still, we have to find him. Who knows what she's doing to Jack now?" That question seemed to make anger surface to the guardian's determined and serious faces.
"Would you'll help me? Jack appointed me to you guardians, I'm sure it means that he trusts that you'll will help me to get him out."
There were no hesitations, the guardians nodded without a doubt.
Meanwhile, an ice sprite crouched outside the door, eavesdropping on the conversation inside the room. Hearing the thudding of the footsteps coming towards the door she was hiding behind, the sprite swiftly flew out and headed straight for an open window, freezing elves and yetis along the way.
She had to tell the snow queen about this.
I know I know. This chapter is BORING. I can foresee you guys heading to read other fanfics now.
This is the product of editing the story twice, actually I wanted to write Jack's situation for this chapter but i decided that if the climax needs to surprise you guys, I better not bring what Jack is going through. So... it might be possible that i write Jack in the next chapter or next next chapter. This chapter seemed to be the most complicated one for me for some reason, my memory sucks but I remember slamming my head against the table twice because of this chapter.
*I can sense a war coming in this story*
Review!
Luv ya guys whom reviewed for my stories! (Didn't I say that at the starting of the chapter?") Also, sorry if there are any mistakes in this chap because I still have choir practice and art program homework, no time to dawdle. Bye!
