You GUUUYYSSS I am SOO SORRY! I have been trying forever to type this up, but its midterms and I am swamped in work and I just couldn't find the right words for this! Please accept my apologies! I'll do better for the next chapter! D:
"You all must have a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock," Bunny told his companions while he protested opening up a tunnel into the apartment for them. He was not pleased with their newest mission and had been against it since it was initially suggested and had nearly begged to just stay in the Warren. "This is bloody insane, he deserves everythin' he's got comin'!"
"None of us are arguing with you!" yelled Tooth, who was, in fact, arguing and incredibly loudly. "But like all these other people we have encountered all over the world, he is ignoring the consequences and believes things will be okay even if he does nothing! We need to help him realize that he can't just let things be! Bad things will happen and he needs to take responsibility! Something is happening to him, just like everyone else, and we need to find out what it is and solve this!"
"He's a thief, Tooth," Bunny muttered calmly through his twitching mouth. "And he's not even one of those who stole money to feed his children or help someone in the hospital. He did it for the sheer thrill of it, because he could!" The emerald and blue bird fairy shot towards him and hovered, wings beating faster with all her angered intensity.
"But he's a good person!" she yelled, her feathers flared along with her emotions. The sheen on her feathers caught purple in the moonlight. The other Guardians were waiting around for the argument to finish. Morgan was leaning against the bookcase that stood in the middle of the living room, popping a book off the shelf and paging through it. Jack slouched against the wall and was using his staff to lean against. Sandy had grown annoyed quicker than anyone else and was bouncing a ball of golden sand in his hand. North had sat on the remote and boisterously laughed at a ridiculous commercial for drain cleaner. "I have his teeth, I know what he's done! Sandy's seen his dreams, knows the things he thinks about. This is his first offense and he was caught because he was sloppy. That's not something a criminal mastermind does, Bunny. And besides that, even the worst of people can be redeemed!"
"Oh yeah? And who falls into that category?" Bunny challenged. Now Tooth's face was ruby colored, aggression and frustration pushing forwards. Sandman wrinkled his nose and huffed before extending a finger directly towards North. The Santa Claus shrugged and nervously smiled bright. Bunny's ears turned and flatted against his fuzzy grey head, filled with shame for his words. Morgan, however, was left alone in her confusion, unaffected by the harsh reminder of North's past.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "What did North do?" Though she was aware of his Guardianship and his stories with Ombric the Wizard and Katherine the Storyteller – figures she had come to learn were Father Time and Mother Goose. She knew North had developed a close relationship with the young girl, and his sacrifices for the village of Santoff Claussen had made him a Guardian. But she didn't know the story of his life before that.
"I was not very good person in Russia," North told her calmly. His cheeks rounded when the edges of his smile filled them, but there was a flush of red that was different from the rosy color of mirth he usually donned. It was more like shame. "I fought for no reason. I stole. I had gang. Spirit of Forest though I had good heart and I was eaten by bear, but was saved. She thought I was worthy, but members of my group not so much. They were shrunk." He demonstrated with the closure of his fingers. "Their red hats were pushed onto their bodies and that is what they wore for clothes!"
"Wait... but the elves-" Morgan's eyes widened as she put the pieces together. North laughed robustly and his blue eyes sparkled.
"Yes, the elves were companions. I was very scary ruffian."
"That was different," Bunny snapped.
"How was that different?" Jack interjected. "You're a Guardian, rabbit! You're supposed to protect everyone, and take care of them! In fact, I would say North did a lot worse things than that guy! No offense."
"It is truth," North told him gently, not at all hiding the fact that he did indeed feel shame for whatever it was that he committed in his past. "But I try make up for it now."
"And you're doing wonderfully, North," Tooth praised. North cackled proudly and then swept up the graceful lady in a tight hug.
"Thank you, Toothy, you are always so kind." They could hear the man humming softly from his position at the table in the kitchen. This was not the sound of a guilty man at all. In fact, he sounded incredibly carefree. The Guardians all gently moved along the hall and crept into the kitchen to get a look at him. On the kitchen table were tidbits and scraps of wood. In the man's hand was a boxed figure with wheels he was currently painting. Morgan swallowed. A guilty man probably would not be casually painting a model car if he understood what was at stake. Bunny narrowly avoiding colliding with the door frame. They might be able to be seen, but if they banged into things or met with an collision, they could be heard.
"When did this crime happen?" North said to Tooth.
"About a week ago," she answered.
"A week?" Bunny scoffed. "Don't ya think they would have found somethin' by now if they were going to convict him."
"No," Morgan answered. "It doesn't happen that way. I know TV shows make it seem like they can solve cases quickly, but that rarely happens, even with the easy ones. It takes time to trace evidence, go through ballistics, DNA."
"When did you start knowing stuff about police work?" Jack asked with curiosity.
"There are many cases that have made the history books you know," Morgan reminded him with a firm glance. He frowned and offered her a roll of the eyes and leaned against his staff, a sign of regular exhaustion.
"I know that," Jack answered. Sandy floated above them, fidgeting nervously.
"Then why did you ask?"
"But Morgan, that's famous things like... Charles Manson, the Zodiac Killer, the Lindbergh kidnapping, JonBenet Ramsey, the Unicorn Killer, Jimmy Hoffa, Jack the Ripper!"
"Unicorn killer?" Bunny repeated with confusion. Morgan took the opportunity to give a quick history lesson and her eyes warmed with the chance to do so.
"This guy, Ira Einhorn, beat his girlfriend to death and put her body in trunk for eighteen months."
"Sick!" Tooth gasped. Morgan nodded to her exclamation and impatiently twirled her hosta plant in her hands.
"What does that have to do with unicorns?" Morgan's lower jaw dropped, ready to give the explanation, but Jack zoomed right in front of her and spoke before she could.
"Einhorn means 'unicorn' in German," he explained. Morgan expressed her disgust with him for giving away the answer she had purposely been trying to build up to herself. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot, but Jack looked away from her, clearly noticing her agitation. "Morgan, most of those cases are unsolved, which is why they're so famous. Everyone knows about Charles Manson, he's almost as famous as Jack the Ripper, you know about the Lindbergh baby because it was the son of the Aviator-"
"Actually, there's controversy on whether or not the man convicted actually did it-"
"I don't care about the history lessons right now!" Jack spat, his words venom to Morgan while she blinked with unexpected shock. "Point is, they're famous because they were unsolved."
"I happen to take an interest in anything factual!" she bellowed, stepping forward to take a stance in front of Jack. "I had to take a Criminology in school and I found it interesting and learned that, okay?"
"You're very smart, we get it, but it's getting really tiring that you show off your intelligence all the time!"
"You don't like that I'm smarter than you, do you?!"
"Smarter?" he laughed wildly. "My dear, I have 307 years on you! I have experience filled with a knowledge you could never even begin to know!"
"All right, come on now," Bunny interjected as he stepped forward into the kitchen. The man still sat at his table, putting on tiny details on his small model car. He was completely unaware that there was anything happening just on the other side of his table. He smiled as he painted, a thin gold ring on his thumb catching the light and glinting green as he did. "Shove off, you two."
"Are you serious?!" she taunted. "300 years, and you couldn't figure out how to get people to see you! You spent three hundred years making messes, freezing people's windows, creating scary patches of ice-" Tooth jerked on the back of Morgan's shirt, urging her to pull away from the situation. Sandy waved his hands desperately.
"This is not what we are here for!" North told them.
"I take it back," Bunny said quickly. "I liked it better when the two of ya were jumping into the bushes to steal some time."
"Quiet, Kangaroo!" Jack snapped, eyes flaring up as he scolded him. A thin line of wet residue had formed in Jack's eyes when she insulted his abilities to get people to see him. "I wasn't the one who was so filled with guilt and conviction that she couldn't go back and tell her ex that she was sorry and take him back! Instead, she turned to Cupid for a one night stand to give her the sex she had been craving so much!"
"When are you ever going to let that go?!" she screeched at him wildly. Her hands flew up into the air as she shouted. The man was oblivious to the entire scene. "I didn't do anything wrong! I wasn't with anyone, we were both consenting, he tried to help me! It may have be stupid but it's in the past-"
"The past means everything to you, though!"
"Oh come off it, now you're being childish!" Sandy hid his face in his hands. Tooth patted his back, understanding.
"I'm not the one who's job it is to keep kids heads in the clouds!"
"I'm not the one who teaches Wendy to break into North's workshop!"
"We are not bringing Wendy into-" The chirp of a phone shook and caused the man to look up from the table. He glanced around him, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Jack gaped at her, his eyebrows screwed up with the disbelief that Morgan had decided to carry her small phone along. "-you did not-"
"Shush," Morgan said casually and pulled the small brick from behind the corset belt tied around her waist. Her footsteps clacked as she ran back down the hall to answer the phone before the man heard any noises from the other end of the phone. "Yeah?"
Still back in the kitchen, Jack was clenching his fists. He swung his staff and the wind of it caught a small bowl on the counter. It slammed against the floor and split into six pieces. The man jumped at the sound but stood up, looking at the porcelain with suspicion before sweeping it together.
"She is so...!" he began, but the words to describe his current emotion towards Morgan's behavior had failed him.
"Mate, you've got to calm down," Bunny said. "We're all stressin' out right now!"
"Why does she have to be so difficult?!"
"She's not the only one being difficult!" Heavy panting beat behind them and Morgan's light footsteps sounding padding across the hallway as she arrived back into the kitchen. Jack forgot his anger for a second to contort his expression to one of great worry for what she had just been told.
"Brad wants us at his house. He wants to talk to us, right now if possible." Morgan jerked on her husband's wrist, pulling him forwards. Then she looked to North, waiting for some confirmation she could go.
"Go, we can handle little bump," North told her proudly. Morgan laughed with confidence for how well they would handle the situation. Bunny exchanged looks with him to provide his input on how he thought that was not the best of ideas, but complied and tapped the floor with his foot. It opened up to a tunnel and Morgan pulled Jack in with her. They reached the mossy floor of the rabbit hole and began to hurry down its path.
"Wait, what did – ow – what did Brad want?!" Jack yelled at her as she hurried along in front of him, a prospect Jack was currently finding incredibly annoying.
"He and Max are having issues."
"Issues?"
"They've been fighting a lot and they thought with us being married so long and having gotten together so well, we would be able to give advice to Brad about what to do."
"They want marriage advice?"
"Yeah..." she whispered, and then looked over her should. "Is that a problem, Jack."
He wasn't going to say it, but it was indeed starting to look like a very big problem.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The dirty splashed in the rusty bucket and Wendy screamed as it splattered over her work shoes. She hissed at the repulsive action and turned her broom around in the stalls of the reindeer. This was her punishment for her newest offense – raiding North's cookie jar. So now she had to muck out the reindeer stalls while her parents were out trying to save the world or whatever they did. She groaned, and instead remembered the film she had watched last night. Somehow, her parents had down time and curled up with her on the kitchen. Jack popped in an old film. A classic, he said, and exactly the type of story she would enjoy. It was called The Wizard of Oz, and she had liked it. That night, she had even had a dream about one of her favorite scenes. A color changing horse sounded like a great thing and she thought how it would be nice to have one.
A snout pushing into her back and she let the broom fall from her hands. She squealed and then let out an anguished whine. This kind of thing had been happening a lot.
"Comet!" she yelled. "I have told you, I hate it when you-" Then her hands flew up to cover her mouth. The usual brown pelt of the reindeer now had a purple sheen, quickly alternating between colors red, blue, green, orange, and yellow. "Oh my goodness, Comet, look at you!" She ran to him to pet the fur on the side of his nose, and discovering that the fur really did seem to be a rainbow. She was not imagining that at all.
"Prancer!" she said, fleeing to the other reindeer that was galloping gleefully. He also seemed to be more luminous in his color coordination. A quick stroke led her to the realization that Blitzen and Dasher were also many hues. Soon, every reindeer was, and she squealed when she saw Rudolph, his red nose casting a glow on the entire back of his rainbow fur.
"Oh, just wait until North sees you guys!"
The cases I mention are all real cases (but you know that by now, right? ;) ) Unfortunately, what Morgan says its true. Your crime programs are wrong. It takes months for an investigation to be solved unless the criminal is really crappy. By saying it's been a week and he hasn't been caught is making them realize they have a little bit of time before the police comes and they need to get to him to realize the consequences of everything.
Uh oh, Jack and Morgan are a bit on edge? O.o I'll be better with the next update, I promise! As much as I love the idea of this arch, it's stressing me out. Once I get past it, it should be better! Night guys. Rosie out.