"I once had a Fearling prince slip out of my grasp, but it won't happen again. But before I turn you into a Fearling princess, I want to hear one last scream."

Pitch.

x

Wednesday 10th December 2014

In the darkness, far beyond the prying eyes of the Guardians and their minions, Mother Nature paced. Shadows flickered eagerly at her feet, devotedly following their new leader as she prowled the expanse of her retreat.

It had been humiliating to have been sent running back like that – a shameful first display of her fresh powers and the challenge she brought. To have been forced to flee like a dog with its tail between its legs... She should have just struck down the Guardians from the beginning, but something had stopped her. It felt suspiciously like... pride.

She knew she was more powerful than any mere Guardian – by themselves, anyway. But when the Guardians were gathered together, they were a threat.

So she would have to make sure they didn't stay together long...

As she turned, a twinge of pain shot up from where Sandy's double strike had hit. She mistepped, and then stopped, ruefully rubbing between her shoulder blades where the wound still festered. She had been foolish to have become so overconfident – or to think that they wouldn't be able to strike out at her.

She should have known the dream magic of the Sandman would cut through her nightmares.

She paused in her pacing and swirled the darkness between her fingers. The dream substance did not flow like sand, but poured like loose tar, rippling in ugly curves around her hand. Her father had been too narrow-minded in his approach – he had been too focused on the idea that darkness was merely a cold, detached entity.

She knew better.

The darkness was no one thing. No one dreamt the same nightmare. Not really.

Yes, darkness could be cold and lonely. But it could also be hot and suffocating. It could be the heat of a raging fire or the ice of a blizzard. It could be the crack of thunder or the silence of a wasteland. It could be the flooding of a storm or the dryness of the desert.

And she, with all her elemental power, had the potential to amend Pitch's fatal oversight.

There was a sharp gust of wind and one of her father's created nightmares – her father's steed, Onyx – swept into her refuge and the shadows rose up in excitement. It galloped to her side and she absent-mindedly reached out to scratch its ears. Its breath smelt like tar and brimstone.

"The trouble is that the Guardians are still too united," she murmured to her companion. It was strange, how out of all the shadows and nightmares, the ones that seemed most intelligent were the ones Pitch had adapted from Sandy's own dream dust. She guessed being a Guardian did grant certain powers. "I cannot take them all on."

Onyx huffed and nudged against her.

"Maybe I could defeat the fairy or the bunny, or even the old man all together, but the Sandman and the frost boy... They were the biggest threat against my father. We need a way to push them apart..."

Again, her steed gave another snort.

Mother Nature seemed to take some meaning from this, pausing to consider a thought. "What do you mean by that? How can I give them a threat they can't take down? All they care about is their stupid humans, or the children, at least..." She trailed off, and her dark eyes suddenly seemed to blacken further.

"Oh... Oh, of course. We'd need to use a child that has come in close contact with Guardian magic..." She grinned. "Or Creation. It amounts to the same thing. My father had the idea for a Winter Princess once before; it shouldn't be too hard to replicate his work. It can't be too difficult to create a Winter Princess... or Prince. Now all we need is a willing subject..."

The nightmare snorted and breathed an idea into the spirit's mind.

Mother Nature's thin-lipped smile slowly widened.

"Perfect."

ooOoo

Haru lurched awake with the sudden surety of something gone wrong. Her eyes took several seconds to adjust to the darkness, picking out the glow of the streetlamps outside and the twinkle of Christmas lights on the tree. She was sweating, as if surfacing from a petrifying nightmare.

And yet everything seemed in place.

The room was still and silent, but not unnaturally so. The Christmas tree lights gave the room a somewhat surreal rainbow tone, but didn't do much to banish the darkness away. After last night – a night of much entertainment and Christmas festivity – it had been too far into the night for Hiromi to even consider letting her best friend walk home alone. Or walk home at all.

So Haru had nodded and smiled when the other woman insisted she stayed at their home for the night, just because it wasn't only dark and late but the roads were still slippy with ice.

She flicked the nearby lamp on, only for it to snap on and then give a sudden flare before falling back into darkness. Haru played around with the switch a few more times before conceding that the light bulb had, indeed, just blown a fuse.

She groaned and pushed herself to her feet. There was no way she was going to go straight back to sleep now anyway. Her heart was still pounding and something felt truly wrong.

She ran a hand through her hair, setting it back into place after sleeping on the sofa, and eyed the ticking clock across the room. She had at least six more hours before anyone else even started to stir, and the Tomoko family were pretty heavy sleepers. She ambled her way to the kitchen and set the kettle going, moving on to the cupboards for some tea.

"This is what happens if you spend too much time with the Bureau," she quietly berated herself. "You have one bad nightmare and suddenly you're sure something's wrong." She sighed, somewhat embarrassed at her own foolishness. "I could do without the raging paranoia, thank you very much."

The kitchen lights were working at least, which was a small mercy. Haru wasn't sure her already-stretched nerves could take another fuse blowing on her. While waiting for the kettle to boil, she leant towards one of the windows; with the darkness beyond, the glass served as a mirror of sorts. She pulled at the bags beneath her eyes, slowly blinking at her reflection in a vain attempt to clear the overt signs of tiredness. She wrinkled her nose. The strange, sour taste of sleep was on her tongue and she didn't smell too good for having slept on the sofa.

The kettle was finally whistling and Haru turned away from her reflection – but not before something flickered beyond the glass.

She paused, her hand halfway to collecting the kettle. Stared into the darkness. She slowly leant back towards the window; her breath fogging it and her nose brushing against the cold glass. Her hand trailed to the wall and found the light switches. The kettle was still whistling – louder than ever now.

She pressed the switch; the lights went and suddenly the darkness outside wasn't so dark anymore–

And there was a face pressed against the window.

Haru screamed.

She fell back, but the face had already moved on. In a rustle of snapping shadows and sharp smiles, it whisked up and away from the window. Away from Haru. But Haru recalled the face in perfect clarity – the grey skin, the pitted eyes, the mane of sweeping hair – and knew. Knew exactly who she had just seen.

Knew exactly who was moving towards the room above.

To Michi's room.

She turned on her heel and almost flew out of the kitchen; forget keeping quiet – she didn't care if she woke the whole household at this point. She snatched up the fire poker she had used so many times to beat away the darkness before, even though it could not hope to beat away Mother Nature. She could hear the beginning of a wail from the child's room, and she was taking the steps two at a time. Her feet were pounding against the creaking staircase, each floorboard screaming in protest as she thundered upwards.

She skidded onto the first floor and slammed into Michi's door. The handle wouldn't give at first. She fought with the door, struggling to make her way in – there was no lock for Michi's room, but she had no doubt who was responsible for the door's sudden jamming. In the crack between door and carpet, the light flickered; in the gap in the doorframe, Haru could make out the darkness of something – or someone – else in the room beyond.

There was movement from the other rooms now – her antics were surely waking Hiromi and Tsuge – and at last the door gave way. She stormed through and the poker was raised for battle.

The room was empty.

Still, and silent.

And for a few moments Haru wanted to believe she had overreacted. That the Bureau was making her paranoid – and she could have dealt with that. She didn't have to be happy about it, but it was better than the alternative. She was still breathing hard as she lowered the poker and approached the bed of Michi.

Empty.

The poker dropped to the carpet with a muffled clatter. She stepped away at first, and then stepped towards the open window – the curtains ruffling in the night breeze. She barely heard Hiromi enter, curious as to why Haru was racing around the house at some forsaken hour of the morning.

"Haru...? What's up?" Hiromi turned Michi's light on and winced as the darkness abruptly retreated. She yawned and rubbed at the sleepdust behind her eyes. "And I thought it was bad with Michi and Kasumi having nightmares," she tiredly joked. "Could you be any louder?"

Haru turned away from where she now stood at the window; her hands rested faintly against the jambs. Her face was pale and she looked close to collapsing. "Hiromi... I'm so sorry..."

Something in Haru's voice cracked, and Hiromi – still blinking back the sleep – struggled to take stock of the situation. Something was wrong – something was missing – and then she realised what.

"No... No – what – where? Haru... what?"

Haru looked away as her friend collapsed by her empty son's bed, but she couldn't close her ears to the mother's forsaken wail. She forced her eyes shut, squeezing out the tears.

"I'm sorry, Hiromi. I'm so sorry..."

ooOoo

A/N: Yass, finally a little less behind. Or not falling any further behind anyway. Also, I lied about getting this chapter up on time. But not intentionally. (Also I wrote this and then the next night had a really bad sleep, waking up at really odd hours... I'm not sure how I feel about my writing mirroring real life...)

Also, okay, so I know it's getting dark. And I know the chapter's short. But, just for reference, you know NaNoWriMo? Yeah, I'm basically doing the equivalent of that this month. (In fact, the word count will probably exceed 50K, and I don't even have a full month to do this...) Plus I'm juggling revision and I'm afraid degree overrides fanfiction, always. (This chapter looked longer on the Word document, I swear...)

Cat.