It burned. It burned like the day she had died, when the smoke scratched into her lungs with eager little claws, ripping scores into the vulnerable cells and make her choke. Nathalie could feel the tendrils of writhing purple cells painfully probing around her heart and lungs to squeeze them between sharp teeth, bubbling up bright red blood that was staining the pristine fabric of her dress the dark ruby color. It burned, but she felt cold too; a frosty feeling was creeping up from her toes and fingertips, making her sensations fuzzy and indistinct. It burned, yet she smiled down at Jamie even as a dribble of blood rolled down her chin from her mouth which was flooding with the disgusting taste of iron. He looked so scared and miserable, face pale and tears streaming down his cheeks. She was crying too, but not from the pain. She reached out with a violently shaking hand to gently cup his cheek. Warm, full of plenty of life left to live. She had cried thinking of Jamie's young life being cut so short, at his valiant effort to come to save them even knowing the danger, at the absolutely terrified look on Jack's face as the little body plummeted through the air nearing the gaping maw of Pitch's monster.
"I've got you," she repeated hoarsely.
Her body lurched as the spikes retreated. On unsteady feet, she landed on the vine only to fall to her hands and knees. Her nails scraped into the thick, smooth stem as she forced the last of her power into closing the wound in the center of her chest. She could feel the fine grains of sand pumping through her bloodstream, rapidly absorbing her life-giving energy, but this way she could reverse the effects as long as possible. Nathalie still had an ace up her sleeve after all, one that Pitch had failed to discover.
It would only work if she was about to die, however.
"N-Nat…" Jamie whispered. His voice was trembling as much as his body. His wide eyes watched the blood leaking in thick clumps from her body to paint the jade green body of the vine. Though she closed the flow, she spilled at least a cup of it all over the plant. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just want to save you!" His voice cracked with a high-pitched sob as he buried his eyes into his fists. "It's my fault…"
"Jamie," Nat groaned and went to reach for him, but she hadn't even the strength to lift her arm. It slapped uselessly into the puddle of blood, smearing the hot, sticky stuff over her skin. Her breath came in ragged pants and she scrunched one of her eyes up as she fought to remain conscious. This is no good… My power is diminishing much faster than I thought it would… I have to get to the Tree!
"Nathalie!" Oh, there was so much heartbreak in her name. Nathalie had only heard Jack's voice sound like that once before, when she was being carted off by the mob of villagers to her doom, and he was left in the street howling in agony. She looked up weakly to see him charging down from the skies, freezing a rolling wave of Pitch's black sand in the process. Just as the vine shuddered and wilted beneath Nat, he swooped down to grab her, holding her shaking form against his body with one arm while tucking the still shell-shocked Jamie under his arm. He sprang away as more of Pitch's spikes sprang forward eager to deliver the winter spirit to his demise. Teeth gritted, he waved his staff in a wide arc and froze them before diving down into the interwoven canopy of the now still rainforest. Gently, he laid Nat in the boughs of on of the sturdy trees, blue eyes raking over her disheveled form in agony. "Nat… You're gonna be okay… Right?" he asked weakly. Jamie whimpered and curled up in his lap to bury his face into his hoodie.
Before she could answer, the sound of tinkling bells rang through the air.
They both looked up to see North's sleigh burst in with a cloud of ice and snowflakes. Pitch's dinosaur had been angrily rooting through the forest in search of his prey, but once the other Guardians charged into the scene, its attention became misdirected. He has likely lost himself in his rage and the thing is acting purely on bloodlust, she reasoned weakly. Pitch would surely know that Nathalie was mortally wounded at this point and there would be no reason to further exhaust himself, but yet he still sheltered within the bestial armor. She heard North holler out in surprise as he wrenched the sleigh away from the monster's swiping claws.
"Jack," Nat whispered. It was hard to speak, but she forced herself to. "Jack, I need to go to the Tree of Life." She hadn't much time. Life was already beginning to drain from the planet. Around her, the tree leaves were flooding with yellow and orange as they crumpled up into brittle, dry masses. The air temperature was dropping by the second. Below, animals were beginning to root into burrows and hide away in their nests as their instincts screamed that a brutal winter was upon them. As foxes fled into dens, the dry ferns were crushed beneath their frantic paws. Mother birds smothered their hatchlings to keep them warm. Her cold-blooded dragon companion had dropped from the sky to lay on his side on the cold ground, breathing deeply as his warm breath formed clouds of water vapor in his mouth while he slipped into hibernation. The fragile leaves began to fall in droves to the ground, leaving the branches naked and thin. This was the epicenter of disaster; if Nathalie did not hurry, the world would soon be prisoner to the thralls of a centuries-long winter. "Jack," she pressed as he stared at her with wide, scared eyes.
"I got it," he acknowledged softly before grabbing Jamie and jumping up the height of the tree. "North! Down here!" he hollered loudly, hand cupped around his mouth. The sleigh jingled as it dove down to meet him.
"Jack! What on Earth is happening?" The burly man asked angrily. "Why did you leave North Pole?!" Jack ignored him and bundled the softly sobbing boy into his tattooed arms.
"Jack! Are we too late?" Toothiana demanded worriedly. Her iridescent feathers were puffed up with anxiety, and she looked down to where Nathalie was nestled within the dry branches of the tree, pale and ragged. "What's happening to her?" Nathalie looked down at herself; her golden-blonde hair was becoming tainted with black and shearing off at the ends, slowly crawling up, and patches of burned skin were beginning to form on her arms and legs. I'm reverting back to the state in which I died, she thought, wincing at the stinging pain blooming all over her body. She could feel her lungs becoming laden with soot, making her cough weakly.
"Jack, hurry," she moaned and tried to crawl toward him. She slipped and clumsily landed against the wide bough, legs dangling off the thick branch.
"Take care of him! We can still win this!" Jack ordered before hopping down to pluck her from the tree and spirit her down into the dying forest. She just caught a glimpse of North sending the sleigh surging forward as the dinosaur's head reared down to devour it. Jack didn't bother with careful entry; he crashed right through the weakened barrier of vines she had constructed in the hole above the cave. The vines exploded into dust as he blasted them with ice, allowing them to fall right through and spill sunlight back into the spacious room. "Nat, please tell me you have an idea," he begged her as he skipped around the decaying clumps of thick vines and crystals of his own ice to head for the Tree. It was already much worse for wear than she thought; its bark had turned a dark gray color, its large leaves discarded and dry, crunching under Jack's nimble feet. The bubbles of biomes were beginning to turn opaque with darkness, just like her hair, which was still falling and now up to her elbows.
"I can save the Earth," she confirmed. "But…"
"But what?!" he cried and skidded to a halt right before he got to the door of Nathalie's cabin. His ice-blue eyes pierced into her own as he took deep, frantic breaths. "Don't say it. Nat, don't say it."
"I'll die."
Immediately, his expression contorted into one of purest anguish. He looked away and supported her with one arm while he bit down hard on the knuckles of his other hand, drawing blood. She watched the ruby-red river run down his hand before it beaded in a little jewel and splashed down to stain her already stained dress. He sucked in a few breaths through his hand, refusing to look at her. "There's no other way. This is the only failsafe. Either way, I will perish. If I can, I would like to save this world and its future- Jamie's future." He looked at her through the corners of his tear-filled eyes, and she smiled wistfully. "Children can be so cruel. You remember," she laughed wanly. "I've realized now that scary situations make them that way. Children can be so kind, too. Just like you were to me, back then, and just like Jamie is. If Pitch's plan comes to fruition, all the children of the world will lose that kindness. I can't allow it." His hand fell from his mouth to flop loosely down to his side. He looked at her again, blankly; slowly, he smiled at her, a smile full of pride and pain and love.
"You sound like a Guardian, Nat. Let's do it. For Jamie."
Jack held her like she was made of glass. He could just feel it, the sensation that she could shatter at any moment; her frame was just so thin and light in his arms as he hopped through the branches of the rapidly withering Tree of Life. Her arms were shaking as they wrapped tighter around his neck. On top of the effects of her powers draining from her body, it seems their own little curse was still alive in full-force; he had only been holding her a few minutes, but a thin sprinkle of frost coated her body from head-to-toe, her skin was as pale as the first snow of winter, and her breath was fogging up into clouds as it puffed repeatedly against his neck. The crisp scent of water crystals mingling with the acrid aroma of her singing hair and burning flesh made him nauseous. Where her skin wasn't bright white, it was a burning pink blackened at the edges were it was literally burning away by the second. Her hair had retreated all the way up to her shoulders, where it had been sheared off four hundred years ago. Jack had no idea what she was planning, but he didn't know if she could hang on long enough to even enact her designs. She kept whispering for him to hurry, each one more desperate and pained than the last. She was a whimpering, crying mess by the time he finally delivered her to the dense boughs of the gigantic tree.
"We're here, Nat," he said softly as he laid her down against one of the branches. Moaning in torturous suffering, she rolled onto her side to wrap her slender arms around the massive branch springing from the tree's trunk.
"I need… Your help…" she puffed.
"Anything, Nat. Anything."
"I'm going to… summon… The Earth's spirit," she forced out in irregular pants. Jack's curiosity piqued, but there wasn't enough time to get the details. "My predecessor… Taught me this. The only way… To save the Tree if we are injured. I'm going to… give the tree my life force. That should save it. The Earth… She'll hear me calling…" Her words faltered into a high-pitched squeal as she curled up against the grayed wood, tearing at the bust of her dress to paw at her burning lungs. "Unngh! The Tree… Will be vulnerable… For a short time. Use your magic… To protect it… Jack…"
"Don't worry. I won't let your-" the word bulged in his throat like he had swallowed a frog. He didn't want to say it. It hurt like hell to. "I won't let your sacrifice go to waste," he continued after a moment of steeling himself. Her beautiful emerald eyes, watery and lidded, peered at him through her frayed ends of blonde hair. She smiled shakily in relief and then reached a trembling hand out to him; it fell immediately, but he caught the frail thing in his own.
"I'm so glad… I got to see you again… One last time," she uttered, tears spilling over her lashes to fall down her cheeks. Jack squeezed her hand, refusing to retreat even as his began to burn and hers began to freeze. "You won't forget me… Will you?"
"Never," he promised. "I'll love you for the rest of time. That's a promise." Her eyes closed as she smiled brightly. She intertwined her fingers with his in a bruising, burning hand-hold, but Jack wouldn't let go, no matter how much it hurt. He wrapped an arm around the thick circumference of a nearby branch to brace himself as he pressed against the Tree, whispering something under her breath. Above her head, she splayed out her palm against its rough surface, and a golden light began to slowly glow underneath her skin. It then burst forth, traveling in swirling lines through the indentions in the bark, flooding around them in thousands of golden rivers. The gray bark began to darken back to the rich chocolate color; above his head, the crunchy brown leaves were beginning to balloon with moisture, becoming turgid and green once more. The opacity of the fruit-like orbs was reducing to crystal clarity. All the while, he felt Nat's grip weakening in his own, as the life literally leaked out of her.
"Please. Please help me."
Jack cried out in alarm as the Tree suddenly heaved. He looked around wildly as the branches began writhing, smacking into the stony surface of the cave and collapsing the ancient stone columns as they thrashed. The wood groaned deafeningly as it shifted. There was a loud splintering, tearing sound, and Jack glanced down to see the trunk of the Tree bulging out of the cabin, effectively collapsing it into rubble and planks that were strewn across the ground as the Tree continued to swell like a balloon.
"What's happening?!" he cried to Nat.
"Don't worry," she smiled reassuringly to him. "The Tree… Is just returning… to its natural form."
"You mean it's bigger?!" he shouted as he looked at the snapping branches once more. Indeed, they had grown impossibly larger, bloating to the point that the Tree was becoming cramped in the small cave. They began to twist and curl around one another into disorganized knots. Dust began to rain down from the walls and ceiling as they were pushed to their maximum capacity. "It's all gonna collapse! Nat!"
"Towards the sun," she whispered in a garbled, half-conscious command.
Towards the sun the Tree went. Jack was glad that he had found purchase around one of the branches, because the force of the Tree skyrocketing through the hole in the ceiling surely would have sent him plummeting. His head still snapped forward hard enough for his forehead to smack against the hard wood, leaving him reeling for a moment. As his vision swayed before his eyes, he could barely make out large chunks of earth raining through the writhing branches as they literally tore the edges of the hole apart. Whole trees went flying as the Tree burst into the open air, growing taller and taller and spreading out in a sweeping umbrella over the rainforest. The branches untangled as they were allowed free range, unfurling into twisting lines that seemed to stretch onwards for miles. He peered off the edge of the trunk to see the ground a dizzying height below; he turned his head to see that they were higher even than Pitch's Godzilla-like monstrosity. The Guardians had put up a valiant effort; it was missing one of its small arms and a whole section of its gargantuan head had been blasted away, but it was still roaring and stomping about. As soon as the Tree came into view, it began barreling towards it, jaw wide open to enclose around the trunk.
"Oh, no, you don't!" Jack shouted. He didn't know if the Tree would be able to handle it, but there was simply too much surface area for him to protect otherwise; he slammed his hand down against the bark and ice immediately flooded forth. In a crashing wave, it shot down the Tree's surface to explode in a blooming crystal right as the beast tried to tear out a section of the broad trunk. It released a high-pitched scream as the giant clear crystals tore through the roof of its mouth, and then suddenly, the entire dinosaur began to collapse. Jack stared down at its melting form, thinking surely that it couldn't have been that easy.
Of course it hadn't.
It seemed Pitch was ready for Round Two. The black sand exploded into watery streams, spreading out like tentacles with the gaunt, scowling man standing at its epicenter. Jack left the shuddering Nat to her devices as he stood tall in the boughs of the Tree, staff clutched in his hand as he glared down at him from the dizzying height. Pitch howled in anger and the sand surged forward towards the branches, looking to rip the limbs from the massive tree. Jack wasted no time in slamming both his staff and his hand against the wood on either side of him, sending trails of ice blasting up the branches for them to explode like sharp pointed flowers at every point that Pitch's darkness made contact.
"It's not fair! I killed her!" Pitch screamed up at him and tore at his hair. "I will win! This world will be mine!"
"I won't let you!" Jack screamed down at him. More sand; more explosions of icy flowers; glittering sand and ice chips falling like rain around them. He set his jaw and squared his shoulders as he pushed himself to his very limits, charging the Tree up with ice from the tips of the leaves to the very tops of the leaves. The sunlight glistened on the frosted, frozen shield he had conjured around it; a layer thick enough to shield from harm but thin enough not to cause damage. "Together, Nat and I will stop you!"
Two sides of the same coin, now broken to face one another and join forces. Jack didn't know if he could save Nat, but even if he couldn't, he was going to prove to the whole world that they weren't opposing forces. United, spring and winter, cold and warmth, Jack and Nathalie- they would join hands to become an unstoppable force of nature.
To defeat Pitch.
To protect the world.
To live up to the name of Guardian.
