YAY! I think you guys will like this chapter!
"No I wasn't! I coulda taken all the nightmares and Pitch if I hadn't been protecting you Frosty!" Bunny practically shouted at the laughing winter spirit while the other guardians hid their smiles in the deep hot chocolate mugs, trying to keep the Easter bunny off of their cases.
"Is that why you ran and hid under a car?" Jack asked, his smirk sliding even higher up on his cheek bones.
"I wasn't hidin', I was creating a diversion." Bunny corrected, pointing one of his wooden boomerangs at the laughing young guardian. Technically, it was North's fault for bringing up the subject of the Pooka's cute and fluffiness of last year's fight.
Jack just kept laughing and the large rabbit was tempted to throw the boomerang at him and would probably have done it if North didn't come storming into the room with a worried expression lining his usual jolly face.
Tooth looked up from her mug and stared at the bearded man, wondering what exactly had the guardian so upset on Christmas day. "North?" She began, tilting her head as if to catch his attention, but his eyes were scanning to floors until he saw one of the Yetis on the other side of the room, refilling the cookie platter.
"Steve!" He hollered. The furry beast looked up with wide eyes, hoping he hadn't done anything to upset North at a time like this. "Do you know if anyone had gone into my office today?" He asked. The Yeti sighed in relief before shaking his head. North huffed a sigh of discontent and flopped back down into his large red chair that sat in front of the fire place.
The room had quieted down quite a bit since he had returned and Bunny and Jack had both sprung to their original seats so that they weren't caught in the crossfire of the situation. Jack stared blankly at the golden dolphin Sandy had gifted him and refused to meet anyone's eyes. He had gone into the office today and he feared what North might be so worked up about.
"Is everything alright North?" Tooth asked, floating over to his side and placing a small hand on his tattooed bicep.
The man looked up, confusion swirling in his eyes and Jack had to fight the urge to dart out of the room. "Something is missing." He said flatly in a barely audible whisper.
Bunny raised a fluffy eyebrow and looked over at Sandy who just shrugged in return. "Waddaya mean 'missing'?" He asked, noticing Jack shrinking down in his seat across the room.
North stood up suddenly, sending Tooth flitting back to her seat and grabbing a chocolate off of her plate out of pure distraction. Everything got that fairy worried.
"Someone stole a very important toy." He explained.
"Don't you think 'stole' is a bit rash? I mean, what if you just misplaced it or something?" Jack stated, his voice shaking a bit and his smile faltering as he fiddled with the sparkling snowflake at the end of his man-necklace. (A/N)
North turned to him and the young spirit shrunk down even further in his seat, trying to find another one of his gifts to distract himself with. "I did not misplace this, I put it on the desk next to the door of my office, and now it is gone someone stole it I can feel it…"
"In your belly." Everyone finished for him, leaving the stunned North standing frozen in the midst of it all with his hands placed on his stomach for emphasis.
"What exactly did you lose anyway?" Tooth asked. "We can help you look for it." Sandy nodded and gave the guardian a thumbs up in agreement.
"A porcelain doll." He answered plainly.
Jack winced, hoping no one had noticed his fidgety motions as the conversation continued on.
Unfortunately, someone had. Bunny glanced at the winter spirit from the corner of his eyes, frowning at how quiet he had suddenly become, he looked as if he wanted to simply disappear into the chair and become invisible to the others as the conversation proceeded on. He picked up the chocolate snowflake that Bunny had made him and began tracing the intricate outline of the shape with his index finger as he didn't let his gaze stray to meet anyone's eyes.
Jack knew something about this missing doll.
…
Eden smiled contently as she set the doll up on her dresser. She had cleared away the lose paper that had been cluttering her room and placed it all into a drawer already overflowing with her pictures. It felt weird suddenly being able to see her floor and not having to memorize a path around the obstacles that usually littered her room, but it was important for her to place her first gift from a guardian, even if it wasn't from North, in a safe clean place where she could actually see it.
As much as she wanted to stand it up, she didn't have a stand to hold it in place and she was afraid that simply leaning the beautiful gift against the wall would cause it to slip and possibly crack, so it sat upright in the center of the dark wood where it wouldn't topple over and break.
It was perfect.
To be truthful, she never thought much of the guardians until now. She was used to being ignored for her entire life that it just didn't bother her. When she was younger, she would ask her parents why Santa from the movies that showed on television never came to their house, but never questioned anything after her father explained their place in the guardian's sights. But looking at the gift made her heart leap practically out of her chest. It made her so happy.
She knew Christmas wasn't about presents, the spirit of the holiday itself made her erratic with happiness and joy only because that was how she had always celebrated it. After moving in with Videre when she was eight, that was her first time enjoying Christmas from a different perspective of giving and receiving gifts.
When her adoptive mother had found out about her not ever knowing who the tooth fairy was, she would trying to sneak in and steal the lost tooth out from under Eden's pillow at night. Unfortunately, being eight meant that most of her baby teeth were already lost in the depths of a trashcan when discarded by the young girl.
Eden always knew it was Videre who replaced her teeth with quarters, placed the presents from 'Santa' under the tree at night, and hid the eggs in her back yard, but she never had the heart to tell her. Jack wasn't the first guardian she had ever seen either.
She remembered seeing the Sand man high in the sky one night, sending spindly golden strands of dream sand to every house but hers. She remembered watching as the other dreams materialized above the homes and falling asleep to other children's dreams. Again, nightmares were a normal thing for her, they no longer scared her like they used to.
She had met the Boogeyman once as well. He had been the only immortal to not exclude her from their duties… unfortunately.
She had been nine at the time and had awoken from one of her usual dreamless nights that she usually had. Pure nothingness. The man was standing in her room, smiling down at her with amber eyes that glowed in the darkness.
"So you can see me after all." He said in a calm yet eerie voice.
Eden stared at him and slowly nodded. Was this what a dream felt like? Was she finally having one? The man chuckled to himself and the little girl reached across to turn on her lamp when a cold hand caught her arm.
"Do you know what that means?" He asked her.
The girl shook her head violently.
"Didn't think so. It means you fear me." The man said, tightening his grasp on her forearm. If this was a dream, she didn't like it. "You have so much fear for such a young child, I like it." He smiled.
Eden's heart started to pound against her chest and she tried to pull away. The eyes narrowed and got closer to the child's face. "And with no guardians to protect the little creature, I have all the fear I'll ever need." He chuckled. "Sweet dreams Eden." He vanished and Eden fell instantly into the grasp of a nightmare.
She shuddered at the thought of the Boogeyman standing in her room. She wasn't afraid of the dark anymore, she was afraid of shadows in the dark though. She was afraid of that toothy grin that shined in the darkness.
She had never met him in person again. But he visited her in her nightmares some nights, often talking to her about how much she was helping him grow stronger and his plan to take down the guardians once and for all.
But Jack had changed that. He had restored her happiness. The real happiness that was hidden in her heart for so long, not the happiness she feigned in order to keep Videre and Daniel from worrying about her.
He had given her the doll in an obvious attempt to make her believe in Santa Clause. He was probably also the one who had given her the dream. Why else would she dream of snow and her new friend? The Sandman didn't know she existed, why would he send her a dream? And just one?
Eden smiled to herself as she sat down on the edge of her bed, sketch pad and pencil in hand as she began to draw her first gift from a guardian. There were already a few pages filled with Jack and the dream he had sent her. Now, as she drew in the spindly curls that ran down the doll's thin and pale face, she remembered what it was like to believe in somebody.
She believed in Jack Frost.
…
Sandy was thoroughly confused. Why would anyone steal a doll from North? On Christmas of all days. Bunny had leaned over to mention Jack's strange behavior as he sat secluded in the outer edge of the circle. It was then that the golden man realized that he wasn't just acting strange today, but ever since this entire dragon predicament began.
He had become awfully fidgety and suddenly uncharacteristically quiet. He had even given into one of Bunny's oh-so-joyous comments earlier that week when usually a full on frosty-boomerang fight would break out. But the young guardian had simply ignored the rabbit as if he hadn't heard him at all.
It was late Christmas evening now and Sandy, along with the other guardians besides Jack, had left the pole to return to their duties.
He knew Jack was worried about the dragon after him, but he didn't act frightened at all, he acted frightened and skittish, secretive almost. Was the winter spirit truly hiding something? He was going to find out.
He remembered giving Jack the sack of dream sand earlier that week when he had come to the clouds to ask about his progress on finding the creature. He hadn't needed to do it before, but he knew how to trace the dreams sent out from his cloud of golden sand. He could see exactly where that dream had been sent.
Hopefully, that would give him answers about why the three-hundred year-old spirit was suddenly acting so strange. Sandy raised his small arms and sent out a tendril of golden sand that weaved in front of him before turning abruptly and darting into the distance.
The guardian morphed his golden cloud into an airplane and took off after it. He was going to find out what had Jack so worried all of a sudden. He was expecting it to follow into Jamie's house when Sandy realized he was in Burgess, but the tendril shot straight over the red house, veering into a window of a tall brown house.
A/N: that part was put in especially for Nanu Kitty, who left a review that made me laugh out loud ;)
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