Chapter 11! Seriously guys, the support I'm getting is amazing, and I love you all for it! Sorry for any spelling mistakes, I know I'm bad for it :') Enjoy!
Needless to say, I was more than disgruntled by Frosty's assault. I could bare stand touch as it was, let alone behind held to his chest, my only safety barrier being his arm around my lower body. But all I could do was cling to said arm and hold back my cries of protest. If I knew anything about him, it was that he was as stubborn as I was. My legs were wrapped tightly around his, and I knew he was a little frustrated by this. How could I help it? I had no wings for crying out loud! Once we were through the portal and the bright light had abandoned us, I watching the globe give in to gravity for the briefest of moments.
"Catch it!" Jack hollered. His grip on me tightened, and I inevitably grabbed it as he swooped below its descending direction. I hugged it to my chest, lost for breath as my stomach climbed into my mouth. He laughed above me, dropping me for a second as he snagged my arm. The scream barely raced from my lips as he swung me up onto his staff, and I suddenly felt secure as his frost froze my feet in place. Instinctively I ducked down, gripping the staff with a hand and snagging the globe under my arm. As the wind plunged into my face with bitter coldness, I looked to the sky as if to say, Seriously?
I closed my eyes, letting my stomach fall and rise with Frosty's steering. Finally, we took one last swoop and I clenched my eyes tightly together, waiting for the cold to mould into warmth. Eventually it did, and I felt a second wave of dread smash into me. He landed, and with the flick of his staff threw me off and onto the ground. The globe fell from my grasp, rolling across the floor until a foot stopped it.
"Special delivery for my fellow guardians!" Frosty called, almost his voice was thin of his normal confidence. My eyes were pinned of the foot that the globe was trapped under, and I slowly looked up to meet the eyes of who I already knew would be there.
"Hey." I said sheepishly, and North merely glowered back down at me.
Minutes later, the entire crew were there, and none of them were happy. Sandy refused to look at me, and I'm not going to lie, it sort of hurt. Out of all of them, he was the only one to show me any remote kindness from the beginning, showing me a happy time from my human life when I was at my lowest upon my arrival. And now all I saw was betrayal. Did he not understand? I wasn't meant to be locked up. It was in my blood to be free!
Tooth should have known that better than any of them, but all she could do was glare at me. Again there was that look of betrayal, a soul sting from her eyes travelling to my gut. But I didn't care as much, but I was disappointed in her. She should have known better. Being the figure of a mother, she should have seen the whole situation through my eyes, but instead she went to judge me just like everyone else.
Do I even need to describe Big Ear's reaction to my return?
I was back to square one, but when had I really reached the second square?
I didn't miss that Frosty made no attempt to trap me in an ice dome. I was on the floor, waiting to be enclosed like an animal yet again, but he didn't nothing more than stand before me and look at the others. My back was against the wall, so I was still trapped, just not officially. For whatever reason, he was giving me the option to fight. I stared at him, and I knew he was testing me. I didn't fight. I couldn't. I was so tired of fighting, it was something I had been doing my entire life, human and not. Just to believe he was offering me a chance of rest was enough for me to simply watch, allowing the betrayed gazed to fall heavy on my shoulders. I had become immune to such a stare now, anyway.
"We have a problem." Frosty declared.
"Yeah. You brought that back." Bunnymund sneered, glaring at me. Was it me, are did I shiver from the chill of Frosty's returning glare?
"We have bigger things happening here." he said.
"What do you mean, Jack?" North said. I closed my eyes, feeling invisible. How degrading! Not one had addressed me personally aside from the one who was intent on annoying me. All I wanted to do was curl into a ball and blend into nothing; that way it hurt less. I did something similar to those lines. I rested my head against the wall and zoned out as he explained the ordeal with the globe, describing the shadows and the darkness that came with it. He was questioned ever so slightly by the group, but he offered little answers, simply saying that he came straight here. I was surprised he didn't go into depth about our own personal exchange before the globe alerted him.
All was silent, and I opened my eyes. Each other of them were staring at me questioningly, as if they had asked me a question I hadn't heard.
"What are you looking at me for?" I said, frowning.
"You're the key in all this." Frosty stated, also frowning.
"How'd you figure that one out?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Big Ears snapped. "You come from the otherworld. You know what they're capable of. You know their plan! But for whatever reason, Manny finds you special. So be a doll and help us out, will ya'?"
"Not with that attitude."
"Faye." Frosty said, and he knelt down to my level. It was the first time he had addressed me by my real name. "The games need to stop. We need to put our differences aside and you need to help us."
I stared at him for a long moment. "There's a difference between want and need." I finally muttered. All groaned with frustration, and I felt my anger flare. "No! Don't do that! You don't want my help, you need it! You have no choice in the matter! North, I've said it before and I'll say it again; if you knew that the Moon had made a mistake, you'd throw me back without a second thought. I'm an inconvenience to you lot, a complication! Do you have any idea how demeaning that is? Why should I help people who can't even see me as an equal?"
That shut them up, and I continued. "I'm done things wrong, I know that. I hate myself for the things I've done, you have no idea how much! But to be judged all day every day makes it all the more agonizing! You expect me to obey you, but what do I get? You don't even want to care about me, you just feel you have to give that illusion. Well guess what, I've been fooled by that many times, and I won't be fooled again."
"But you're right, darkness is coming. There are powerful things out there, far worse than you can imagine. And maybe I am your only way to saving the very people you care about. But guess what? I strike a hard bargain. I've suffered all my life, helped people and got nothing in return as a form of punishment. Maybe I am a guardian, but I am sure as hell not going to help people who have helped make my life a misery." I was on my feet now, glaring at each and every one of them, Frosty having backed away to stand between Tooth and North with nothing but shame on his face. In fact, I had ripped through all of their skins, for they knew that they had also done wrong. Life was about second chances, even for the most demeaning.
"You. Owe. Me."
They started by letting me roam the North palace at my free will. I tolerated having one of them to keep an eye on me; I didn't see a problem with that. I may have been demanding equality, but I was still sensible enough to recognise my recent escape. We weren't letting me get away again, at least not until I was trustworthy. I wasn't one to judge.
North promised to give me a tour in the morning, for we had both agreed that it had been a long day. He resorted to being careful around me, averting his gaze when I met it with my own. He was ashamed, and I was glad. I had gone on to say that they had treated me like an animal, a puppy training to be a working dog, and the responses I got were amazingly satisfying. Flinching, the closing of eyes, the biting of lips. All shame, all fulfilling.
I was allowed a bed. A bed! A mattress, pillows and a duvet! The room was small, but I didn't care. I had a bed! It was a room designed for times like these, where the guardians spent a lot of their time in North's realm. This was the place where they could rest and simply get away for a few hours, and since I was supposedly a guardian, I had every right to be in this accommodation.
Naturally, the room was Christmas themed; warm red walls, toys here and there, pictures of passed Christmases over the past few centuries. It was comforting somehow. My bed was a single, but oh lord it was comfy! The mattress was made from nothing but feathers tucked in a massive rectangular cushion, and the pillowed and duvet were also made of nothing but feathers within concealing materiel. As my body sunk with true delight, I couldn't help but beam. I hadn't slept in a bed for many, many years, and it made me feel human! Human! For a few minutes, I shone a bright white colour, so bright it made me glow.
I dozed off for a while into a dreamless slumber, but when I woke up I wasn't alone. Bunnymund was at the end of my bed, on all fours and looking very much like he should have done. A rabbit. He frowned at me, and I frowned back. I sat up, wiping away the sleep from my eyes. We sat in silence for a while, and then he spoke.
"I'm sorry, kid." he whispered. I waited, raising a brow and I earned an eye roll. "You know, for judging you like that. I still don't like you, bear in mind, but I shouldn't have been so... er..."
"This is killing you, isn't it?" I smirked.
"You have no idea."
"Oh, I do." my smirk broke out into a grin. "But it's incredibly enjoyable."
"Urgh, I don't need to explain myself! Basically, I'm sorry, alright mate?" he snapped, and he hopped off my bed with a hasty need to get away. I laughed.
"Sure thing... mate." I paused. "Tell whoever it was that put you up to this a message from me. I can sort out my own relationships. I don't need them butting in."
For the first time, he smiled at me. "Finally something we agree on." And then he left.
I went to put my head down on the pillow when something emerged from under it. A tiny squeal erupted in my ear, and I let out a startled "Oh!" There, hovering in front of my face, was a hummingbird type creature, no bigger than the space of my hand. A single golden feather grew from the centre of its forehead, and the rest of its body consisted of green feathers. It looked at me with eyes two or three shades lighter than my own, and all I could think was that it was one of Tooth's fairies. I reached for it, for her, and she allowed me to brush my finger down her front. Her eyes rolled slightly and she smiled brightly. I smiled, but then she fleeted off into the darkness of the room, exited through the door Big Ears had just left through.
I went to sleep with a smile.
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