A/N: Hello my astounding readers! Sorry for disappearing again. You all are way more than I deserve. Welcome to my new favorites/followers and immense thanks to my reviewers Jarvis68, Starcrier, somekindofzombie, CeliaSingsSongs, SissyPerigrin, SexyLexy15, Lauren13years, and AvaleeDarling, as well as one concerned Guest. You are all the absolute best.
PS: The 29th was my birthday! Reviews would be a lovely present!
"Owwww." I groaned as I tugged the blanket down from around my head, my hair getting caught in my eyelashes. My shins ached where the hunk of rock had hit them, the dust in the air of the aftermath making me cough. I shielded my eyes against the sudden brightness, squinting into the light. "Trick?"
I lowered my hand as the brilliant light was blocked out, and I realized that it was a toddler-sized hole in the thick stone wall, cracks spiderwebbing from the main hole as large chunks of stone fractured off around it. Twin flames, one orange and one orange-green, flickered at me from the hole. "Are you alright, mo chroí?!"
"Yeah," I coughed, pushing the offensive hunk of rock away from me with a grimace. "Some of the rubble got my legs, but I'm okay."
"Tha—," He cut off with something like a snarl, and through the crack I saw a flash of blue-violet and shimmering obsidian as the room trembled with the blast's power.
"Trick!"
The flames of his eyes sparked at me from the fissure, and I thought I caught the barest flash of his grin in the gloom. "I'm right here, leannán. I'll be through in but a moment."
"You wonderful idiot, you need to get out of here! It's a trap!" The blanket put up a fight as I struggled to unravel it from my body, falling away just as I was tempted to burn it off me.
"Yeah, we figured that, but I wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer." He rumbled. I smiled at his gruff honesty and staggered on my bruised legs towards the fissure in the wall, pulling at the loosened rock until it sloughed off to clatter and crumble against the floor as he worked on the other side. The sharp edges of the rock bit into my bandaged and throbbing hands, but I didn't care, gritting my teeth against the pain when one particularly nasty piece sliced deep into the heel of my hand. The fissure was big enough for Emmy to walk through when Trick reached in, grabbing hold of me, and all but ripped me through the opening even as the wind propelled me through.
My legs were bent in an awkward angle, still in the fissure with jagged edges digging into my bare legs, but all that mattered was that Trick was crushing me against him so hard that I couldn't breathe, his fingers bruising me where they dug into my side and shoulder. I fought back tears as I felt him press his lips to the exposed skin of my shoulder, raining kisses up my neck to my cheek. His windblown hair was gossamer soft against my skin where the bandages had fallen away as I ran my fingers through his hair, brushing loose strands from his eyes as I pulled away enough to stare him in the face. He was wearing one of his masks again, this one gold-leafed porcelain, and his jaw was lined with scruffy stubble; he looked like he hadn't been eating or sleeping like he ought to, either. But he also looked so relieved, so happy and yet fiercely protective of me as he carefully swept me the rest of the way from the fissure, cradling me against his chest.
"How did you get here? And with the Guardians? Pitch said that—,"
Trick's mouth slanted across my own, cutting off the rest of my sentence before resting his forehead against mine. "I don't give a damn about that lying, piss-eyed fiend. The only thing I care about is getting you away from all this, alright, leannán?"
"Okay." I breathed, noting how the fire in his eyes flared in fury at the sight of my bandaged and freshly-bleeding hands.
"I'm going to get you out of this place." Trick murmured against my temple, the feeling of his lips brushing against my skin making me shiver, and began to sprint up a long flight of stairs, my hair flowing over his shoulder and behind him like a starry cape. "You're going to get to see your sisters again, and hum by North's fireplace or whatever else you want to do. And when you're ready, you can finish whatever you were going to say to me in the nightmare world before I woke back up."
I was about to tell him how wonderful that sounded when he rounded the corner, barely avoiding plowing into a group of Nightmares by skidding around them in a wide arc. "Trick, look out!"
Trick's breath hitched in his throat, his arms clenching around me as he dove to the side, narrowly dodging a golden halberd that speared through the leading Nightmare, which elicited a horrible shriek. The pierced Nightmare burst into golden sand that flowed to the other Nightmares and, like an infection, caused those Nightmares to turn to golden sand as well.
We turned in the direction the halberd had come from to see Sandy speeding towards us, expression jubilant when he caught sight of me. I grinned when he came to a stop in the air in front of me, sand sigils flashing above his head so fast it looked like a spasming cloud of golden dust. "Whoa there, Sandy, slow down! Yes, I'm fine, and it's good to see you too." I laughed.
Trick raised an eyebrow at me. "Since when do you understand what he's saying?"
"I don't." I shrugged, eliciting a chuckle from my trickster. "It just makes sense for him to be asking that kind of thing."
"Fair enough."
Sandy waved his arms to get our attention, his bedhead flailing in the stirred air as he motioned for us to follow him. Before Trick could, I called him to stop. "Seriously Trick, I'm fine. Put me down; I could use an excuse to stretch my legs."
"Not a chance! I'm not letting you go for anything, leannán." He rumbled, giving me a squeeze.
More Nightmares whinnied in the distance.
A sense of urgency swelled in my chest, and I gave Trick's fingers a squeeze where they clenched into my shoulder. "I'm not asking you to. But I know you can't defend yourself when you've got your hands full with me."
"It's rather spectacular, having my hands full of you." Trick chuckled richly, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
I rolled my eyes, unable to help smiling even though my urgency was starting to give way to panic. Pitch had to know that I was free by now, so why was he being so quiet? "Trick."
"Put me on the record as being against this idea." Muttering under his breath, Trick released his hold on me, the air catching me before I could fall to the floor. Before I could race forward, I twined my fingers through his, earning a lingering kiss along my knuckles. "You'd best hold fast to me, leannán."
"Right." I wrapped my other arm around his so that I was clinging to his arm as he began to sprint. I willed the air to hasten him, shadowed archways and staircases fading into one steady stream of grey and black. The cages on their chains clamored in the gale of our wake, making me grimace. That would do just as well as any security alarm and alert Pitch to our location.
But…the feeling of freedom was undeniable, even under the oppressive weight of my fear. I could hear my hair snap behind me like a banner as Trick whipped around a corner too fast, the wind brisk and refreshing against my ashy face as it roared in my ears. I felt a grin starting to spread across my face, giving Trick's burning hand a squeeze even as the trick-fire in his tattoos pricked at my skin. The current strengthened as my anxiety peeled away, and soon I was pulling Trick faster through cramped and crumbling corridors and arches, following the sounds of battle (namely Nightmare whinnies and North's shouts) and the golden glimmer that was Sandy.
We lost sight of the Sandman as he turned through an archway, following the sounds of battle, before we finally spilled out at a wide landing overlooking the rest of Pitch's lair, gloomy stairways leading off in different tunnels, corners, or simply into apparent oblivion. Trick shoved me behind him as we skidded to a stop, raking his treat-fire-laden hand along the side of a Nightmare as it galloped past. The demon horse let out a horrific shriek as its side burst into obsidian fragments, stumbling a bit farther before completely collapsing in on itself, the remains scattering over the filthy stone.
Further ahead of us, I could just make out the fighting figures of the Guardians, flashes of brilliant color in the gloom. They all but glimmered in the weak light that filtered through the cracks in the high cavern ceiling, from Tooth's flittering rainbow wings to North's flashing cutlasses.
"Oi!" Trick shouted, racing to close the distance between us and the others, my hand still clasped firmly in his. "Look who I found!"
Dispatching the last of the immediate Nightmares, North whirled around, his bloodied face fierce yet cheerful. At the sight of me, the elder Guardian let out something I could've sworn was a cry, ripping me—and Trick—into a punishing embrace, still brandishing his cutlasses. "Wispy! You are alright!"
"Gee, North," I gasped, pressing my face into the black fur lining his coat as tears threatened to leak past my lashes, "you'd think you missed me or something."
"I do not think I missed you—I know. I could feel it." Father Christmas' voice was rough with emotion.
I smiled lightly, sniffling. "In your belly?"
"No. V moyem serdtse." I had trouble breathing as North squeezed me harder, Trick grunting beside me as my elbow dug into his ribcage, before releasing us. "In my heart."
"Well done, Blue." Bunny smirked, coming up beside us and whacking Trick on the back.
"WISP!" All the air left me in a whoosh as I was tackled from the side, thin arms lashing around my shoulders and brilliant feathers tickling my cheek as Tooth hugged me hard. Her grin threatened to split her face in two as she hovered at arm's distance, searching my face for injuries, though I suspected she was really looking for damage to my teeth. "You poor dear! Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, really—and so are my teeth." I added when she stared fixedly at my mouth. "But we all need to get out of here now."
"Sounds like a great idea to me." Trick agreed heartily, rubbing his thumb in soothing circles over my palm. "Let's go home."
Home. "That sounds amazing." I grinned back tiredly, my face warming as Trick leaned in to kiss the corner of my mouth with the Guardians looking on. He started towing me towards a thin bridge that melted into a staircase, the steps disappearing up towards the light.
Bunnymund scowled, holding up a hand for us to wait. "Listen. Don't you think it's a bit quiet over by here? Perhaps too quiet?"
Tooth's amethyst eyes grew wide with alarm. "Oh no, where's Jack!?"
"Pitch's trap." I breathed, meeting Trick's grim gaze with my own.
"'Twould seem that it's been sprung." He agreed, pulling me a bit closer to him.
"We've got to find him!" Tooth's wings fluttered erratically in her panic, her gaze searching the dark. "Maybe if we split up—!"
"In the mortal world there are so many examples of why you shouldn't do that in a scenario like this." Trick sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose agitatedly with his free hand. "Pitch would just make a sport out of picking you all off one by one, feed off of your fear."
North's brow furrowed as he jabbed his cutlasses into their scabbards. Bunny glared into the distant shadows, as if daring the Boogeyman himself to materialize from them while Tooth clenched her hands together anxiously. The gentle breeze around me stilled as my heart gave pause. Speaking of quiet….
Trick noticed my sudden tenseness and did a quick head count, his lips thinning to a bloodless line as he spat a curse. "Sandy's vanished, as well."
What I could only guess was a Russian expletive left North's lips.
I could practically feel the fear and frustration pouring from the others, iron and acrid adrenaline on my tongue, and somewhere in the dark I thought I could feel a growing power like a leering presence.
"What do you suggest we do?" Tooth asked quietly, wringing her hands.
Trick let out something like a snort. "I honestly couldn't care less about the rest of you at the moment. My priority is getting Wisp out of here."
"Trick!" I whapped his shoulder, giving him a fierce scowl.
"What, leannán? Would you rather have me lie to your eccentric little friends?" He quipped in return, nipping at my fingertips when I moved to cover his mouth with my hand.
I let out a quiet huff. "We can't just leave Sandy and Jack here, Trick."
"We most certainly cannot!" North agreed. "Come! We will search the whole lair if we must!"
"Listen here, old man." Bunny hopped over to North as the large man made to stride away, his long ears back with tension. "We're having a hard enough time getting Wisp out of there—,"
"Indeed; I'm starting to wonder why I needed you all in the first place." Trick mumbled under his breath, trying once again to usher me to the far staircase.
"Are you saying we should just leave them here?!" Tooth's voice shot up a few octaves with stress; North and Bunny began arguing.
Trick gave an exasperated groan. "Of course not! I'm saying that they can take care of themselves fine!"
"Guys, calm down!" I hissed, wrapping my free arm around Tooth to try to still her shivering. "Don't you see, this is what he wants! If he can break you guys off from each other, make you vulnerable and scared, he can beat you."
"Very well deduced, my darling."
I clenched my fingers tighter around Trick's in an effort to hide their trembling from him, but judging by his defensive stance and snarling expression, he wasn't buying it. He shoved me behind him none-too-gently as his markings flared to life, his mask falling to shatter against the stone floor as the satin ribbons holding his mask to his head burned away.
"Show yourself, you foul bastard!" Trick growled, his eyes spitting flames as his tattoos sparked and flared with his anger.
"Hmm, I think I'm just fine where I am, thank you." The King of Nightmares sighed thoughtfully, his voice echoing from all directions.
"Pitch!" North spat, redrawing his cutlasses and whirling to glare through the gloom. "What have you done with Jack and Sandy?!"
The King of Nightmares tsked from his hiding spot. "There's no need to get so hostile towards me. I've not done anything to your friends. My Nightmares, however, have been rather restless as of late."
A chill raced along my back, something soft brushing against my arm as fear pricked at my heart. My breath hitched in my throat, and from the corner of my eye I saw familiar charcoal-gray fingers slowly caress their way up to my shoulder, drawing a thin line across my throat. They continued their path up to my chin, tilting my head up and to the side until I was staring into the eyes of the Boogeyman. Before I could even open my mouth to say something, Pitch's hands were around my waist and I was pulled into the ever-present shadows.
When the darkness peeled away, I was suspended in a larger form of the ever-present cages hanging over the landing; a quick glance out of the corners of my eyes showed Sandman and Jack in their own respective cages. They looked pretty rough. Jack was absolutely coated in dreamsand and was sporting a dark bruise along the left side of his face, and Sandy had frost clinging to his bedhead and a blade of Pitch's black sand embedded in his side. The poor little golden man's usually cheery face was contorted with anguish as he fought off the enemy sand's affects, but I could see it spread even through his efforts.
Way below me, Trick was unleashing his wrath upon a herd of Nightmares that had burst from the shadows, yelling belligerently at the encroaching beasts. Peering through the gloom, I realized that these weren't the run-of-the-mill Nightmares; there were wolf-like Nightmares with wicked-looking claws, their snarls sending tremors down my spine from even where I kneeled in my cage, and humanoid Nightmares that looked strong enough to rend North in half.
In the middle of it all was Pitch, brandishing a terrifying obsidian scythe. He looks, I thought to myself, like Death.
"Pitch!" I roared, trying to be heard over the raging battle below. "Damn you, Pitch Black, let me out of this fucking cage or I swear—!"
"I'm sorry, darling," Pitch's voice replied smoothly from the shadows around me, "but I'm just a bit preoccupied at the moment."
I gripped the icy bars tightly, pulling at them with my full weight. "Come on, you piece of shit! Break!"
My fingers slipped free from the bars, sending me crashing to the cage floor, the momentum making the cage sway. I winced at the stinging in my backside and the fresh burn of my scraped palms where my bandages had fallen away. With a rough snarl I ripped the rest of the bandages off, letting them flutter to the ground through the bars. Fresh, fiery blood sizzled against the cold cage floor.
The… oddly gritty cage floor.
I glared down at the strangely glittering floor. No, surely this wasn't made out of the same stuff as the Nightmares. Aw, Pitch, locking a creature of fire in a cage of sand? You shouldn't have.
Please don't let me be sitting on Nightmare remains. I thought morbidly, settling cross-legged on the floor of the cage and squeezing the bars so hard my knuckles turned white. Taking a deep breath, I tried to focus all of my frustration and anger into heat and flame. The silvery flames produced by this made me gasp and squeeze my eyes shut against the brightness; I guess I'd been more rested than I'd thought. Yesssssss! Burn, baby, burn! Or, you know, turn into glass or whatever.
I felt the flames drip down my arms and the bars to the cage floor, felt the grittiness of sand give way for smooth, easily-breakable materials.
There was an almost imperceptible cracking sound as I squeezed the bars tighter, leaning into them, and then all I felt was air on my cheeks as I began to fall forward. My eyes flew open with a gasp as I tumbled free of my swinging cell, the air catching me and setting me upright. I was about to rush down to the battlefield, but caught a glimpse of the tormented Sandy in his cage. Jack lay just beyond him.
Lips pressed into a thin line, I set to work freeing Sandy first. Since my hands were still scorching from my escape, ripping Sandy's bars apart was easy. I hovered in midair before the still-cooling opening, waiting for my hands to cool before reaching in to give the Sandman a gentle shake. "Sandy, it's Wisp. We've gotta go now."
Sandy winced as the movement jostled the blade sticking from his side, and I immediately felt bad. Biting my lower nip nervously, I got a hold of the handle of the blade, muscles tense as I prepared to pull. "Alright, Sandy. I'm going to pull the sword out now." I muttered as tough he could hear me.
Counting down softly from three, I ripped the sword out of Sandy, the black sand shifting slowly in my hands. I brushed off what extra black sand I could from his side with my free hand as his golden eyes opened groggily, a little picture of me forming over his head with a question mark.
"Yeah, it's me." I smiled, giving his hand a squeeze before becoming serious. "I would say take your time, but there's a fight going on right now and I don't think the others are doing too well. Can you wake up Jack?"
Scrubbing a hand over his eyes, Sandy nodded grimly and hobbled through the new opening in his cage, flying over to Jack's cage on a much smaller dream cloud than he usually had.
Somewhere far below in the battle, Trick let out a pain-laced cry that made my blood chill. I whirled to face the ground, fear clenching my heart as I surveyed the Guardians. North was looking ragged, leaning on one of his cutlasses like a cane as Tooth tried to protect his back. Bunny was surrounded by wolf-like Nightmares—did he look smaller than usual? And Trick…Trick wasn't even visible to me. He was so surrounded in his flames that he looked like a baby multi-colored sun, little solar flares reaching out now and again to strike out at advancing Nightmare creatures. Judging by the occasional black flashes from within the fires, I guessed that Pitch was in there, too.
Gripping the sword in my hand, I raced down to the battle. I stumbled on my bare feet when I landed a bit too hard on the rough stone floor, my injured legs aching under the pressure. Winds stirred around me, carefully scooping me up and carrying me over to Bunny. When one of the wolfish Nightmares turned to growl at me, I struck out at it with my flames, causing it to turn tail. "Bunny, are you alright?!"
He was smaller—about half my size—and a fair bit fluffier, too. His eyes were wide as he looked around in a panic, clenching his boomerangs tightly in his hands. His breath hissed out through clenched teeth as I drew closer, resting a hand on his arm. "Hey, take it easy. It's going to be fine."
I had no clue what I was saying. There was no guarantee of this going alright, not by how the Guardians were looking. Carefully, I reached out to smooth back some of Bunny's extra fluff from his eyes, noting how the rise and fall of his chest had become more even. His eyes became less wild as they focused on me. "Wisp?"
I grinned back. "Welcome back, Bunny. Go help North and Tooth."
"What're you gonna do?" he grumbled, his brow pinched.
"Something probably extremely stupid." I admitted, waving my Nightmare sword at the growing fire dome. "Sandy and Jack should come down at any minute now, but they're both as rough as the rest of you. You guys need to be careful."
A touch of wariness filled Bunny's face. "Of course."
"Good." I patted his arm again before striding across the battlefield, obsidian sword at the ready. Interestingly enough, other than a curious glance at me, the majority of the Nightmare things and demon horses steered clear of me, their focus on taking out the Guardians. Orders from Pitch not to touch me? Probably.
The heat from the fire wall was intense, the trick-fire in the mix occasionally pricking at me like static shock even as the treat-fire smoothed over my arms like a caress. "Trick! Open up!"
I couldn't hear anything from within due to the roar and sizzle of the flames, but judging by the growing heat and how the trick-fire reached out as if to push me away, Trick was giving me a firm 'no'.
I clenched my jaw stubbornly, reaching out to the flames like they were a curtain I could part. "C'mon, don't be so stubborn! Let me help you!"
Silence. The treat-fire was slowly but steadily being replaced by trick-fire, probably in an effort to deter me. He'd have no such luck. Muttering a quiet apology under my breath to the flames, I brandished my own to stop the gentle pushing of the treat-fire as I jabbed the Nightmare blade into the thinner part of the trick-fire, using it like a crowbar. The trick-fire let out a scream-like hiss, recoiling from the sword, and I watched as the dome of fire began to collapse on itself, falling away into embers and sparks. I felt triumph well up within me as I began to push through the thin wall that remained, barely able to make out two figures through the dancing flames.
And then my cheer died as the rest of the fire gave way to let me see Trick crumple to the stone, eyes glazed with pain and clutching at his left arm.
His trick-fire arm.
I fucked up. I thought grimly as Pitch turned to face me, face alight with victory.
I really, really fucked up.
A/N: I just want to apologize again for disappearing for the umpteenth time. Winter break is coming, so I'll have lots more time to work on the story! Please review! ^_^
