-Alice-

"Let's pretend this isn't all your fault." Pitch deadpanned, both of us standing in the doorway of the mechanics room, whose door had been unfortunately open during the fiasco yesterday. We'd done all we could to salvage the Workshop floor, which ended up being almost completely intact, with everything merely thrown around and a few dented screwdrivers. The Yetis weren't thrilled, but it did ease a bit of the panic that progressively ebbed through the night last night.

By the time North convinced Pitch that I should get some sleep, the Nightmare King was half asleep himself. It had been an odd scene: The Guardians and the Nightmare King all flipping tables back around and picking tiny pieces of toy cars off the ground. Jack Frost and me shoving a massive Christmas tree back upright, repairing branches and ornaments. It had been silent, just breathing and muttering to the others, shuffling and clinking around with toys. Even the elves, who were normally chatting in their tiny, boggling language, were quiet as we moved and worked and cleaned.

I hadn't wandered the halls that night. In fact, the same exauhstion that had overtaken me two night ago came back, and I hardly remembered my head hitting the pillow. It took Jack another shout to wake me up this morning.

"I can live with that." I agreed, Pitch merely picking his way along the mess of parts and overturned metal in the room that was, by far, much worse than the Workshop had been. We'd broken apart from the others a few minutes ago, a silent and mutual agreement that one more Russian melody was going to drive us both to insanity. "Aren't you going to-"

"No. No I am no. I am old, and I am tired, and I refuse to perform any more janitorial duties for this place. Wreckage gives it a nice flair, anyway." He cut me off, moving to the back of the room where there was a window that made up the far wall. Just sheer glass outside to a beautiful, stunning, and terrifying view of the drop off the mountain this place could make. I paused, looked around at the destruction around me, and nodded.

"Fair enough." I hopped and tripped over the pieces of machinery that Pitch had just gone over with an infinite amount more grace, making my way over to where he was sitting on a metal box. I sat next to him on a shorter piece of what looked like a giant claw machine, knees hugging my chest and the view outside that much more magnificent. Taller than me, looking down even though it was a steep drop itself.

We just sat there, in a moment that I found a bit comical, a bit resigned, a bit like two soldiers waiting for the war to end, when it was just the beginning.

"So, what's this building up to?"

"Dear, I was about to ask you the same thing."

"Daily attacks. You'd think he'd try and re-think things, maybe wait awhile."

"But he knows where we are."

"The Guardians aren't used to someone being steps ahead of them. They're..."

"Shell-shocked?"

I nodded and made an agreeing noise, the easy flow of conversation somehow strange and exciting in the daytime, sitting right in front of a window. Pitch had his chin boredly in one hand, legs crossed and lips in a frown. I bunched my sleeve over my hand and shook hair from my face. He sighed. I poked at a foggy spot on the window. We must have looked very ordinairy.

We both wondered in a silent and passing moment whether we'd make it to the end.

"You never told me what you remembered about the Dark Ages." I mused, rubbing the balled up fist of fabric on the window. He stiffened beside me.

"Didn't I tell you that I didn't remember anything."

"You lied."

He was quiet for a moment, as if contemplating a way out of this. I'd looked at him that night and understood that we weren't on terms of telling the truth yet. I respected that, thinking that someone this incredibly infamous couldn't have a nice backstory. But now was different. Now he'd saved me from a nightmare. Now we'd both been in captivity for a long time. Now he'd run a thumb over my knuckles. Those were truth terms.

"I remember your kind. I remember the soldiers who fought alongside you. All children, really. Still had babyfat on their faces, the whole lot of you. You were all much the same, but with more grace, I suppose. You weren't fitted for battle, should have stuck to star-making and gone out quietly." His voice was the kind of light that was holding up something heavy. A thought hit me, and it was so incredulous that I had to say it. It couldn't stay in my head.

"What were you before you were Pitch Black?"

"Do you always ask questions like this? Because I'm reconsidering this arrangement." He said, voice with only a slight edge to it. I pinched my face together and tilted my head, mind suddenly swimming and rewinding what I'd said. I thought over my words and tapped the glass with my knuckles. It never occured to me that I'd still be so out-of-practice talking to people, considering how chatty Jack always was.

"Sorry," I managed to offer, slightly depressed that the chances of Pitch answering were now gone, "People don't usually talk to me like this. What that...um...too intrusive?" My fist got tighter around my sweater, and I tried to think about last night. About North and Pitch and promises that I didn't completely believe yet. About how fragile this had to be.

I looked at his reflection in the window, and saw him looking right back at me. And he looked a bit sympathetic, a bit dark, a bit pained. His face was easy to see. Not so easy to read. And I was afraid I'd done all of that.

"You're so socially crippled, it's past the point of amusing and now it's just sad. No, dear, it wasn't so much intrusive as a leaking wound. You're stabbing a stick in it."

"I don't have a branch."

"Now you're just being a pain in the a-"

"OI!"

We both jumped a good foot in the air at the shout behind us, the boxes we were balancing on teetering and crashing loud enough to make me flinch and turn almost too quickly. The tall Pooka in the doorway had his arms crossed, and the most ferociously angry look I'd ever seen on a rabbit's face before. Really, the only angry look.

"Just whatdaya think you're doin', huh?" He demanded, stalking forward with paws clenched and shoulders squared, like he was about to do fisticuffs with us. Apparently last night had not been enough sleep, because I didn't know enough to stand up and give a good excuse.

"We're sitting?" I asked more than told. Aster paused, eyes wide and mouth open, and then scowled with all his teeth. He shoved a paw at me and demanded,

"You two aren't supposed ta' be alone!"

"Oh, he caught us. You're right. We're plotting to overthrow the government of Australia and deem it illegal to drop rabbits on their heads from birth." Pitch dead-panned, and I bit my lip so hard I almost drew blood, trying hard not to snort or look convulsed. Aster, though, was too busy looking at Pitch with death in his eyes. Pitch just sat there.

"Sorry, I didn't know...it's just that..."I tried to find the words to ease the situation, picking at my sleeves and lifting the shoulder back to my collar bone from where it had been stretched out, "Um...North and I had a talk...I just..." I couldn't put words together that sounded right, that came off apologetic and un-hopeful. But it appeared as if North stuck good to his word. He must have spoken to the others, because Aster picked up my words immediatly and crossed his arms, huffing and looking at the wall to his right.

"Oi, I know. Suddenly we're supposed ta be yer bloody welcoming party."

"No, I-"

"But he didn't say anything about Mr. Dark And Gloomy over here, and I've got a right to step in if I think somethin' crook's goin' on. Besides...yer comin' with me, Red Head." He looked over at me, and I bundled my hands into fists, blurting out immediately,

"Why?" He rolled his eyes and growled,

"Because Jack's helping fix up the place, Tooth's gotta catch up with her work, Sandy's workin' the Eastern hemisphere, and North says I gotta get you outta the Workshop. You," He nodded to Pitch, "Need ta go see North, 'bout what we discussed yesterday." Pitch and I had a silent recognition that he'd tell me all about it later. I thought about it like a frowned-upon, midnight slumber party. I hoped I'd get some sleep soon.

Standing slowly, thinking that going anywhere with the one Guardian who hated me more than anyone I'd ever crossed with before was very low on my list of things I'd like to do today, I stepped towards Aster. Pitch stayed behind me, waiting for us to leave, inevitably. I got up to Aster, standing two feet from him, and looked up.

"Okay...where are we going?"

He got a glint in his eye and smiled. It looked terrifying.

"Down." THUMP THUMP.

-Pitch Black-

Her scream echoed until the floor closed up, one pink daisy rising up from where the hole had once been. I stepped on it on my way out, frowning and rubbing at my sternum. There was something there, something pulling, something hot and dark and leaking. I tried to breathe through it, I tried to close my eyes against it, but I couldn't. It was dread. And I lied to myself and said it was about speaking with North, about what he may have found out. I wouldn't accept that it may have been about her.

-Alice-

I landed squarely on my shoulders, thinking that the only reason I didn't break my neck was the incredibly cushy grass below me. It felt like I was landing on layers of wet, soft grass, layers build like a stack of matresses. I laid on my back, hands feeling it while I tried to figure out if there were supposed to be three suns. I blinked. Nope, just one. A chuckle came from above me.

"Nice landin'."

"Nice warning."

Two large feet passed by my head, screwing up my face at the sky and hoping he could see. Without any apparent aid, I rolled over onto my stomach and pushed myself up, brushing off light green blades and looking out in front of me. My shoulders ached. My hands burned. I was still slightly disoriented by the fall. But man.

This place left articulate words behind.

The sun shone like there was no atmosphere between us, bright and beautiful and clean. The rocks formed large bridges, glittering quartz cutting through them, and the trees stretched up over them and canopied, leaves emerald and huge. The flowers were bright and healthy. The sky was crystal clear and blue. The nature around was thriving and breathing and alive. And if I stood still, it was silent. And I stood in a surreal moment, standing in the past.

"Oi, ya gonna come or stare, huh?" Aster demanded, hopping back to me while I looked ahead, past a large rock archway and out into a dirt path surrounded by rocks and flowers and rolling hills. I blinked and nodded, speaking without taking my eyes off anything.

"Yeah, yeah, it's just..." I trailed off, trying to find the right words.

"It's a beaut', huh?" I barely listened to Aster's proud voice, nodding but adding,

"...It's like how it used to be."

There was a silence, and I breathed it in. I felt it, I stood in a place that I hadn't known still existed, I stretched my fingers out to feel the air, I listened to the silence of untouched Earth.

"Used ta be?" Aster asked, and I slowly peeled myself back to a normal stream of conciousness, everything feeling lighter and free, the knots in my stomach untying and forgetting, for a moment at least, that Aster hated me. I looked over at him, seeing his eyes darting between me and the nature around us.

"A long, long time ago. Before people. Not that people are bad, it's just they're so noisy. This place is like stepping back before that- are those eggs with feet?" I lifted a foot and brought my hands up to my collarbone as a tiny egg ran under foot. With two tiny feet. Just waddling by. "That is an egg with two tiny feet." I declared, watching it run over the grass calmly, "That is an egg running with two feet and don't you dare try to convince me otherwise."

"Oi, calm down sheila! They're just googies!" Aster scolded, hopping up to the egg and scooping it in his hands, reaching up to a vine and placing it in the top of the curly-q. The egg slid down, the vine drooping with it and spinning it in the twirls, until it landed on the ground with a light blue pattern around it. The plant had colored the egg.

"...This is crazy. This is not okay. What is this?" I was looking around, voice an octive higher than I was used to. I started to notice more of them, waddling around bipedal in all sorts of colors. Purples, blues, violets, rainbow even. And Aster was hearding them towards plants that would print patterns on them. I walked forward, slowly, and kept far away from any of them, blinking fast. "This is way, way, way outside of Nature's laws."

"Ah, cool yerself. How do you think I get all those eggs painted, huh? They're pretty self-sufficient, I just gotta keep 'em in line." Aster stood and placed his paws on thin hips proudly, smiling confidently and eyes lighting up a bit at the scene in front of us. I shook my head, almost positive my mouth was open.

"...No, this is just weird."

"Bunny!" A small voice shouted from somewhere up ahead, Aster and I having ventured under the archway and into the main area of his domain. I looked over, Aster turning to see something tiny clumsily scrambling towards him. Blinking, shaking the eggs from my vision, I saw that it was a little girl. Tiny, really, no more than three, maybe four. Small arms and legs, tiny voice and tiny fairy wings on the back of her pajamas. Her hair bobbled in front of her, cut jagged and too short in some places, blue eyes peeking out from underneath.

"Anklebita?" Aster asked, half-happy, half-confused. The tiny girl ran up to him and, almost out of instinct, Aster leaned down and scooped her up to balance her on his hip. She squealed and grabbed handfuls of fur, snuggling her face into his side and beaming, repeating,

"Bunny, Bunny!"

"Sophie! Wait up- oh! Easter Bunny! Sorry, she got away from me when Jack dropped us off here and man, she runs fast!" A boy rounded the corner and, upon seeing Aster, instantly shot out words, panting and scratching a hand through messy brown hair. He was her brother. He looked like her brother.

"Woah, woah now. Jack sent you here?" Aster asked, a hint of suspicion in his voice, hiking Sophie up when she started to wiggle. I watched, surprised at how carefully he was holding her, as if he'd done it before, as if he'd practiced.

And then I remembered. A white-haired boy and a rousing game of tag that I'd declined. And two kids named Jamie and Sophie.

These were Jack's friends.

"Yeah! He said you were bringing someone to the Warren that he wanted us to meet!...Oh, hey, is it you? Sorry! Didn't see you back there!" The boy spoke fast and nervous, laughing between sentences and scratching the back of his head. He was missing a tooth on the side of his mouth. "It's nice to meet you! I'm Jamie!" He was standing near Aster, a few feet in front of me, and I didn't know what to do. Step up? Shake his hand? I hadn't been around children in...well, ever. Not since this Earth was created. Not human children, to say the least.

"Jack sent you? When?" Aster asked, voice a bit edgy. Jamie picked up on it, turning bug-eyed to the Easter Bunny and stammering over his words. Aster, catching Jamie and Sophie's confused lookes, ran a paw over his ears and took a breath, starting again, "I mean I'm right happy you two anklebiters are here! I could use help paintin' some eggs, and you two can't be beat. Just..." He paused, and looked over at me. I was looking at Jamie, seeing something familiar in his face when he smiled.

I crouched down.

"Hello, Jamie." I said, interrupting Aster, "My name's Alice." Jamie looked over to me and his smile showed another tooth missing farther back on his bottom jaw, waving a tiny hand.

"Hi! How long have you known Jack?" He blurted, and I smirked.

"Not very long."

"Oi," Aster said from above us. We both looked up, him setting Sophie down and placing his paws on his haunches, "How 'bout you two scurry along to the rainbow-colored pool, huh? I'll race ya there!" He said excitedly, and before he could even start to count the two turned and took off, giggling and half-tripping over themselves. Once they were gone and I stood up, taking a step to follow, he spoke.

"I don' wantcha near them without me." Something hit me in the chest, and I kept looking forward, jaw tight.

"...Okay." He didn't say I couldn't see them. He didn't say to stay away completely. And he didn't say it in front of the kids. That was okay. That was improvement.

We walked until we got to a flowing stream, about twelve feet across, that looked like someone had dumped an enormous amount of paint from a bucket and let it flow, then did it with the rest of the rainbow. The colors swirrled together, passed by the other, all the while not mixing into a mess of color. Jamie was holding Sophie while she leaned precariously over, dipping egg after egg into the stream and then placing it beside her to run off. When I got closer, I saw that her hands were a rainbow of dripping paint.

"Hey there anklebiter," Aster brushed past me, picking Sophie up and sitting a few feet away from Jamie, putting Sophie in his lap, "Try not ta get your hands in, huh?" He began to help her dip the eggs in without getting her hands messy. I knew I shouldn't stand and stare. I knew he was acutely aware of me standing there in the first place. But all I'd seen for almost a week now was E. Aster Bunnymund, the stone-faced, ancient Guardian of Hope. Fighting and glaring and growling, ready to lay himself down for the other Guardians. The Warrior Pooka.

Right now, he was the Easter Bunny. He was holding Sophie's hands and smiling a smile that made his whole face light up, and he was laughing with her and being so incredibly careful to explain the process to her so that she didn't get any messier. He was being gentle and kind and happy. He was tending to a child.

I felt a tug on my jean leg. Looking down, I saw Jamie smiling and splaying a hand out in the grass beside him.

"Wanna sit?" He asked in a high, child voice. He was asking me to sit with him. I felt off, I felt unstable, wishing I had something to press myself against. Wishing, honestly, that Pitch were here to keep me from doing something terrible. I looked from Jamie to the spot of glass and thought about the last time a child had been near me.

I'd never gotten to see MiM reach Jamie's age.

I sat down.

"So, how old are you?" Jamie asked excitedly, poking an egg into the stream for Sophie to catch a bit farther down. I placed my hands on my knees and sat criss-cross, watching the egg with the same fascination as him.

"You know how old the Earth is? I think I'm a little older than that."

"Wow! You're old!"

"Hey!" I nudged him and laughed, Jamie holding up his hands and laughing back. And I didn't know I was laughing. I didn't know I was smiling. I didn't feel myself fall back into another person in a lifetime eons ago. It just happened, and I sat in it in blissful ignorance.

"Sorry! But you are! Are you older than the Guardians, then? Like, even older than Santa?" His eyes were big and his smile was bigger. I nodded, running a hand through my hair.

"Yes, I am. How old are you, Jamie?" I liked his name.

"I'm nine! Which I guess is really young to you, right?" I shrugged and watched as one of the eggs went upside-down in the river, reaching over and poking one of its feet to right it up.

"Not really. Age isn't what makes a person young, you know. It's all the things they've done. And considering that you're sitting and painting eggs with an old person and the Easter Bunny, I'd say you're very old."

"Hey!"

"What? You said it too!" He laughed and nudged me back, and I ruffled my fingers in his hair until he giggled and pushed at me lightly. "So, like, what are you? What's your super-cool power?" He asked, looking up at me with big brown eyes. I raised an eyebrow, not knowing if what I could do would be considered 'super cool' or not. I pulled back my sleeve and reached a hand out, aiming at an egg scuttling between us. The tingling in my hand turned to silver dust, trickling down and wrapping around the egg easily. I smirked at its squirming, and put it over the river.

"Woah!" Jamie exclaimed, and I smirked a bit wider, turning my hand palm-up. I bounced my hand, making the dust act like a trampoline and toss the egg in the air, only to land back down and go back up. "Hahaha! That's so cool! What is this stuff?!" Jamie was sitting up straight, holding himself back from touching the sand. I dropped the egg into the river and moved my hand in a circle, winding the dust back up.

"Hey now," Aster said next to us, me having forgotten he was there, "you sure that's a good idea?" His voice was trying to take the edge away, and I looked back at him. He didn't trust me. And he was scared. And that was okay. I nodded.

"It doesn't hurt, promise. Here," I reached out my other hand, splaying them out like I was holding a tray and spreading the dust to all three of them. There was a moment's hesitation, and then Sophie made an intruiged noise and leaned forward in Aster's arms. He tried to protest, but her small hand was already fully immersed in the small, moving table of stardust. Her eyes went wide, her mouth opened, and her face broke into a smile.

"Pretty!" She exclaimed, throwing her other hand into it. Jamie followed along, laughing and thrusting a hand in, then gasping and pulling it out, feeling the grains in his hands. And I sat there.

My mind flashed to a small child, no bigger than Sophie, with silver lighting up his eyes. I heard a giggle somewhere in my mind, and something felt wonderful. And something hurt.

"Hm, guess it's...alright." Aster muttered, sticking one finger in and looking at it, while Sophie and Jamie were waving their hand's inside. I was looking back and forth from them both, sitting in this place like the Earth before people, with these children that were like the one before everything happened, and I was smiling like nothing had happened at all. And for a moment, it was almost as if nothing had.

"I wonder how well that would work on me."

I whipped around, the dust instantly jumping and spiking away from the kids, shooting up to surround me and fan out thin. My feet found the ground after I realized I was moving. I was standing without telling myself to. I stopped breathing, and everything stopped, and suddenly something hot rose in my throat.

This time I saw more than just a face.

"Don't look so scared, Alice. You're frighten the children."