(A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Actually, I'm even more sorry that this chapter may not be worth the long wait.

This fanfiction was written long before the latest Guardians of Childhood book was released.)

Where's he going?

The winter spirit, if asked later, would minimize the amount of worry that he felt at that moment. He realized just how little they knew about MiM at this time; they could be caught off guard by a hidden agenda.

He flew round a corner, and found himself in a grand room. It was big enough to maybe include a few rooms of an ordinary house – Jack could tell he had stepped into a venue used for gatherings. In the middle of this room stood a large gong, larger than any he had ever seen. Like the two rings, it was made from a gold-like metal, and it was engraved with a great many images and even more words which Jack could barely understand.

Standing in front of this massive gong was Lunar himself, staring at the instrument ever so intensely. When Jack got closer, he could see that MiM's eyes were filled with an intense sadness. Then the winter spirit turned to the gong.

The images on it seemed like a thing out of a child's book – a ship built to cruise through what looked like space, a species of fish that glowed, and a baby being cradled in the arms of his parents. Jack examined it more, and saw a familiar face–

Nightlight?

"I see you've found the glory of the Lunar Lamadary."

Jack jumped a little at the sound of Lunar's voice. He looked down at the older man, but the older man's gaze was still fixed on the instrument. Jack, deciding that staring was getting him nowhere, focused again on the images.

"This gong, as you can see, contains the story of the journey of the Moon Clipper," MiM told the winter spirit. "Or, more accurately, the story of how my parents and Nightlight tried to keep me safe from Pitch."

Jack nodded a little absently, now trying to find any sign of the Bogeyman on the carvings. He remembered when, about a few years after Maka Albarn restored the Guardians to the Earth, Katherine had decided to tell him that same story. Looking more into the images, he realized Katherine didn't have a reputation as the most reliable storyteller in the spirit world for nothing. She was spot-on with her descriptions, and her illustrations nearly flawless (though she had placed a lot more focus on Nightlight and MiM than the gong did). He realized that the two parents were Lunar's parents, and recalled what Katherine told him about what happened to them in the end. Now he knew why Lunar looked so despondent.

Jack was then reminded of that time in Antarctica, the little case of his baby teeth and the memories it contained: the resplendence of his childhood days, his little sister's smile, his mother's warmth, and then the sensation of falling through the ice.

"Must be strange," the winter spirit said as he finally realized the similarity of that incident in Antarctica five hundred years ago and of the one he was witnessing now, "looking at everything you once had, and then realizing you don't have it anymore."

"It is strange, Jack." MiM agreed. "Very...strange."

Jack looked down at him and was mildly surprised to see that now Lunar was meeting his eyes. If someone saw them now, Jack thought, they would see that there was an immense sadness upon them.

Wait, how did I get so poetic?

"I'm sorry, Jack," MiM looked down to his feet. "This is all my fault."

"Your parents wanted to protect you...that-that's not really your fault."

"Not that." MiM swallowed and looked back up to Jack. "I got the Guardians into this mess, I let my own fear go unchecked, and I caused one of my good friends to fall into madness." He crossed his arms, holding his moon-staff tightly. "If I hadn't chased her off that time, if I had listened to her, things might have been different."

Jack didn't really know what MiM had been referring to by "that time", but it must have been something significant enough for him to consider it so. He was about to say something but before he could open his mouth, the other man continued, "I mean, you must be wondering, why am I telling you all this? I must have not wanted to talk to you five hundred years ago, so why am I talking to you as if nothing happened?"

"Something did happen." Jack firmly cut him off. "Isn't that why you're talking in the first place?"

MiM pursed his lips, but kept silent. Jack exhaled, looked around the room, and then looked back to the other man. "Remember, when we last met – with Pitch and all that..." he said with some discomfort, but went on, " you said you wanted me to hear what you have to say?"*

Lunar nodded.

"These past few hours, I didn't really want to say anything to you that wasn't mean...I still don't know if that's really me or just the Fearling inside me." Jack could clearly see they were both uncomfortable dealing with the reminder of the shadow in his bloodstream, but nevertheless he pressed on. "But I talked to someone, and she told me, maybe I've been going about this all wrong. Maybe I should accept you're here." He took a deep breath, and concluded, "So I'm listening."

The smallest of smiles appeared on MiM's face, and even then he lowered his head so that Jack wouldn't see. "I don't-I don't know what to say, Jack."

"Yeah. I know." Jack tried to keep himself from smiling – the suspicion about MiM being involved somehow in WiS's plans wasn't truly gone – but it wasn't to be helped.

He ran a hand over the large gong beside him, and read its images once more. "Seems they've really put a lot of things into detail here," he said, trying to change the topic because what should I do with all these emotions?

"There was one thing they didn't put there," Lunar looked back to the instrument. "For some reason they didn't put Lady Solar's part of the story. She was there on the Moon Clipper for almost the whole trip. She was there because Pitch had exterminated her home and she and her caretaker had nowhere to go. And when the Moon Clipper exploded, she and her caretaker flew all the way to the Sun. That's how she became, quite literally, the Woman in the Sun."

Jack raised his eyebrows and put his lips together. So WiS and MiM did have some history together. All the more reason for him to worry if MiM had something to do with WiS's current plan. He moved his staff from one hand to another, as he stared down at the man.

"I wonder what she wants with BREW," he said, somehow to himself; not even realizing that it had been loud enough for the other man to hear.

MiM looked up at Jack again. "If there's one thing I know about the Woman in the Sun, it's that she'll go to extreme and sometimes unnecessary lengths to get what she wants." He sighed. "BREW can be used for anything, so she must want it for something that's quite out of her reach."

"...Right." Jack glanced down to his feet, and then back to the gong. He didn't know what to say next. Suddenly, a voice broke through his thoughts.

"Jack!"

That was Tooth's voice, calling from outside the room. The other Guardians probably hadn't noticed that they had slipped into this room. Jack looked up at where the voice was coming from, and then to Lunar. "You can go, Jack," MiM said. "I'll catch up."

Jack nodded slowly, and then, without thinking about it too much, flew around the corner to the doorway. MiM watched him leave, still feeling a bit of sadness.

"Strange gong we have here."

Lunar's eyes widened. He knew that voice. He held his staff tighter, and stiffly turned around to greet the intruder.

"Funny, isn't it, how I'm not in it," Lady Solar continued, looking down at her old friend. "Then again, I'm not the Lunanoffs' heir."

"Did you really wait until Jackson was gone to make your entrance?" MiM asked, trying to smirk. WiS shrugged noncommittally. "You know him. Can't have him calling the attention of the Guardians on me." She narrowed her eyes, and smiled. "That's something I want to avoid. And," she bent down to his level, "that's something you probably won't do."

"What if I were to call them right now?" he asked. "You're not a hallucination." He grabbed her wrist to prove it – quite solid, and it wasn't vanishing any time soon. "They can attack you and take BREW back."

She frowned, and pulled her hand back. "Would you?" she asked. Then she pulled out from her belt the metallic cube, and then stood straight up, holding it close to her face. "You don't know what I want."

"Do I need to know?"

"I'll tell you," she said, and turned BREW over in her hands. "Before I kill you."

"Jack! There you are!" Tooth said when Jack came back out. "I was beginning to think you had gotten lost or were in danger."

"I can take care of myself, Tooth, you know that," Jack flew up to the Guardians. "Find anything yet?"

"The airships the Lunar Lamas constructed are still here," Katherine told him. "I'm not sure if they work. It seems they just finished it by the time the Kishin Asura teamed up with Pitch." She put a hand to her chin. "They probably knew something bad was gonna happen to the Man in the Moon."

"Speakin' of which," Bunny looked around, "where is that bloke?"

Jack turned around. "He said he'd catch up," he said, a little quietly. His brow creased. He looked at the door which he had just exited from for a few seconds, and when no one stepped out in that span of time, he walked back to it.

"Jack? Where are you going?"

The winter spirit didn't reply. Instead, he crept back into the door, and around the corner. The Guardians followed after him, wondering what he was up to.

When Jack reached the giant gong, he stopped and stared. The Guardians came up to him, and stopped as well. After a moment, Nightlight ran forward and picked up the item that was lying on the ground – MiM's staff. Then he looked to the melted scratches on the gong, as if someone had written on it using a large soldering iron. The scratches read:

Sorry, Guardians.

But if you want BREW back, you can always come back up to the Moon.

Signed, the Man in the Moon.