I do love writing from North's perspective.


North woke with a start. He blinked wearily and looked around, confused as to why he, Bunny, and Tooth were all lying around in this little bedroom. And why was Bunny cuddling with his arm? He looked down at the brown haired boy that was asleep on the bed, and everything came rushing back.

Ah, yes. Pitch. Collecting the teeth. Jamie. Right.

But where were Sandy and Jack?

He sat up and shook Bunny off his arm. "Wake up, Bunny."

The pooka's eyes snapped open. "Dancing carrots!" he blurted out.

North looked at him, confused. "What?"

Bunny coughed. "Nothing."

North shrugged and reached down to the floor where Tooth lay and nudged her gently. "Wakey wakey, Toothy."

Tooth opened her eyes blearily. "Huh?" She rose off the ground and yawned, looking around the room. "Wait- where's Jack? And Sandy?"

"I was just wondering that," North replied. "Come, let us go find them."

He grabbed a still drowsy Bunny by the scruff of his neck and dragged him out the window, Tooth following. They landed in the front yard of the house where the sleigh waited and piled in. North had the vaguest feeling that he was missing something, but when he saw flashes of gold, black, and blue not far in the distance he shook off the feeling. With a snap of the reigns the reindeer lifted off and steered in that direction.

The sleigh slammed against an iron fixture on a building and North jolted awake again. Strange, he hadn't even realized that he'd fallen asleep. He regained control of the sleigh again as Tooth was thrown into the back seat with Bunny. He quickly assessed the situation, seeing Jack and Sandy taking to the sky amidst a cyclone of nightmares. Tooth flew off the sleigh to help, her razor sharp wings deadly weapons against the dark creatures. Bunny jumped off as well, landing on a building and throwing boomerangs with all the skill of the seasoned warrior he was.

North stood on the front of the sleigh and drew his twin swords with a hearty laugh. It had been a long time since he had had some real battle action and, well, he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy the rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins. He slashed through nightmare after nightmare, grinning like a madman.

This старик still has got it!

Bunny jumped back in the sleigh, and Jack landed with a thud on one of the wings. North glanced up at the sky and saw Sandy standing alone, the golden eye in a black hurricane of nightmares. Jack leaned next to him, speaking his thoughts.

"We gotta help Sandy!"

And we shall, he thought. With another snap of the reigns he urged the reindeer to go faster. He looked back up at Sandy again, just in time to see the unthinkable happen.

Pitch rose up behind Sandy, who was completely unaware. He pulled back a nightmare arrow and aimed it at Sandy… and released it.

There was a moment of breathless silence as the arrow sped through the air, too quickly to stop, too quickly to call out a warning, too quickly to do anything at all. Everything seemed frozen in time- everything, that is, but the arrow that continued to fly towards Sandy, wickedly fast and yet agonizingly slow.

And then it hit.

It hit, and the spell was broken.

"NO!" Jack screamed from North's side. He jumped off from the sleigh, speeding as fast as he could to where Sandy stood, already starting to succumb to the dark sand. North tried to get the sleigh to go faster, just a bit faster, didn't this damned thing go any faster?

Tooth tried to take off and fly to Sandy, but a horde of nightmares surrounded the sleigh and she couldn't get any farther. Feeling so utterly useless, all they could do was watch as gold slowly turned to black. Jack was their only hope now.

"Hurry! Hurry, Jack!" North urged him.

Jack flew closer and closer, but North suddenly knew with heavy certainty that he wouldn't make it. He could hear Pitch's jeering far above, but it didn't really register because there was only a little bit of gold left. Then there was a flash, and Sandy- his ally, his fellow Guardian, his friend- was gone.

Gone.

"Sandy," North whispered. A heavy wave of profound sadness washed over him, accompanied by shock and disbelief. Sandy couldn't be gone- he couldn't! Sandy was the best of them, the oldest, the most powerful, the wisest, the kindest. He was always there when you needed him, with a gentle smile and a happy dream. North's life was very hectic, and he always looked forward to those rare moments of peaceful dreams. But now- now that was gone.

But North had almost no time to process this horrible turn of events, because now Jack was yelling with renewed anger and rushing up towards Pitch, and Pitch was raising his arms, and the entire army of nightmares was speeding towards Jack in a massive wave, and Jack looked so awfully small, and he was being swallowed up by the darkness, and North was struck by the dreadful thought that they were going to lose another one…

But then something happened. Jack was somehow, impossibly holding the nightmares at bay, his entire body crackling with an aura of bright, sparking blue. North watched in awe as the winter spirit brought his hands together and-

BOOM

The light shot out from him and spread rapidly through the wave of nightmares, turning them all to ice the moment it touched them. North had never seen anything like it, and he had been around a very long time and had seen a lot of things. The frozen nightmares suddenly exploded, sending Pitch hurtling to the ground. North was forcibly reminded of fireworks as the pieces of ice and sand fell to earth. But they were not the only things that were falling. Jack, too, plummeted through the air.

"Jack!" he called out. Jack was unconscious, and for a terrible moment North was sure he was dead. Whatever he had just done must have taken a lot of magic, and as North knew using too much magic at once could drain all his energy, which would be fatal.

But then Tooth flew out and caught Jack, setting him down gently in the sleigh. North was relieved when the spirit sat up, albeit with some effort. Then Tooth spoke the question on all of their minds.

"Jack, h-how did you do that?"

Jack struggled to catch his breath. "I- I didn't know I could…" He looked at his staff with a mixture of wonder and maybe even a little bit of fear.

As Tooth continued fussing over Jack, North shared a meaningful look with Bunny. Things were starting to make more sense now.

North had to admit that he had been surprised by Manny's choice for a Guardian. He had expected someone grand, someone powerful, maybe even someone imperious. He had not expected the carefree little winter spirit that Bunny was so often complaining about, the one who enjoyed pulling pranks and starting snowball fights, the one who spent his days flying wherever the wind took him and who had little sense of responsibility. The one who was a mere boy in every sense of the word.

But after witnessing such an impressive display that apparently Jack had not even meant to do, North realized that perhaps Jack was more powerful than even he himself knew. With all the strength of winter at his command, just imagine the things he could do…

But that was not the most important thing right now. North reached for his snow globe and frowned when it was not there. Normally this would make him upset, but it seemed such a trivial thing now. He pulled out a spare one and activated it, and soon they were zooming through a portal to the sky above the North Pole.

No one spoke, and the silence was deafening. It seemed as if there was a gaping, ragged hole in their midst that was usually filled with the warm presence of Sandy. The little man had never been very outspoken- which was understandable, seeing as he couldn't speak- but North had not realized until now how much they all relied on him to always be there.

He heard a sniffle, and he glanced back to see Tooth, who was staring straight ahead with tears rolling down her face. She bit her lip, clearly attempting to hold back her cries. It did not work, and with a strangled sob she buried her face in her feathered arms, her shoulders shaking. Bunny looked to be in a state of shock, because his eyes seemed to be slightly glazed over and his face was slack. He seemed to come out of his haze for a moment; just enough to place a comforting paw on Tooth's arm. Jack was huddled in the farthest corner of the sleigh, as far away from the rest of them as he could get. He looked somewhat sick, or at least the part of his face that North could see beneath his hood. When the sleigh landed he immediately jumped out and flew off to some secluded part of the Pole. None of them tried to follow.

The yetis seemed to sense something was wrong, because though the sleigh launching room was full of them everything was utterly silent except for the huffing of the reindeer and the soft tinkle of bells from the elves that ran obliviously about.

Bunny turned to him. "What… what do we do now?" he asked, his voice husky.

Tooth lifted her head at his words, staring at North with eyes still brimming with tears. They both wore lost expressions and looked at him with expectation.

What North really wanted to do was lock himself in his private office and turn up his classical music full force, drowning out the world and all its troubles. He wanted to bury himself in his work so that he was too busy to think about the hole in his heart and the worry about the battle that was clearly not going to be so easily won. But he knew he could not.

You cannot give up now. You are leader, no? So lead.

"We will regroup, and then we will keep fighting," he said fiercely. "We will not let Pitch go unpunished; we will not let him win. We will do it for- for Sandy."

Tooth sniffed once more and wiped away her tears. She rose off the ground, her wings humming. "For Sandy."

Bunny straightened and lifted his chin. "For Sandy."

North nodded solemnly. "For Sandy," he repeated.

The trio climbed out of the sleigh and walked through the massive wooden doors into the Pole.

"But there is something we must do first," North said. Bunny and Tooth looked at him and nodded agreement.

"Phil!" he called out to his head yeti. Phil snapped to attention. "Make preparations."

Phil warbled something that to anyone else would sound like gibberish, but North understood.

Preparations for what, sir?

"For a funeral," North answered. "A funeral for the Guardian of Dreams."


I felt sad just writing this :( No, Sandy!