Song) Love Death Birth by Carter Burwell
It would be months after that until anything worth talking about happened. In those months, I processed the information I'd gathered from that little adventure. It wasn't much. I should've chosen more books, because all I knew was a ton of stuff about the Guardians. But since they seemed to be the top of the food chain, I knew a ton about the top dogs. What kept bothering me was how they all had this great mandate or whatever. They knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing. I, on the other hand, did not. It reminded me of the listlessness I had when I'd first been reborn. It sucked.
I saw Pitch a few times during those months. We'd spar, I'd ask a few questions in exchange, but nothing heavy. He didn't question my sudden disinterest in the topics I'd previously been biting to know about. Of course if he did question it, he didn't show it. I got bits and pieces about the other various spirits of the world. Jack wasn't the only winter spirit. Sounds like the other one is a piece of work. Most of them sounded like pretty reasonable characters. Just all spread out. I was getting used to being alone; settling into it. It was honestly pretty comfortable at this point.
I didn't tell Pitch about my run in with the Guardians. When he asked about an odd period of time where he couldn't find me, I just bragged about maybe finding a place he hadn't looked yet.
"Something is on your mind." he had asked. "You are distracted."
"Didn't stop me from kicking your tail."
"After 4 hours. And I beat you three times before that. You're getting slow darling. Inefficient."
"Maybe I was holding back. And since when do you care what's going on in my head?"
"If anyone was holding back, dear, it was me. And you are getting boring is all."
"That all? I need something to do. A purpose, Mr. Black."
"We are all given one. It'll come to you." he huffed, like I was the stupidest child in the world.
"Thanks. That's so helpful."
I wandered the earth. Watching the dreamsand. Watching the kids. But being watchful of the tooth fairies. I almost actively avoided them. I avoided Pitch's shadows too. Once I'd figure out the difference between regular shadows and watchers, I steered clear of them too. For someone no one could see, I felt very watched. I was just being, but it felt like everyone was waiting for something to just change about me. To be fair, I was waiting too. Maybe something would change and I would just fit into all of this. In the real world I knew it didn't work like that. But this wasn't the real world. Or it was, but just on another level. Everyone here had their place, practically through divine intervention.
I'd started talking to the moon, ever since Jack had asked me about whether or not it had told me anything, well it wasn't so much talking as thinking in its general direction. I could remember the night I left clear as day. I don't think I'd ever forget it. The moon had been out that night. The moon never said anything back, not in words like my name had been at least. But I did find that being out with the moon was pleasant, and calming so I did seek out its company more than I had.
It was one such night when I'd decided to spend the night on the top of the tallest of Giza's pyramids when I sensed something on the wind far to the Northeast. It was faint but I took off because it was ominous to say the least. The further I flew, the stronger it got until over one stretch of sand it hit me hard enough to knock me out of the sky. Like the air reeked of ash and sweat. It was all too familiar. Fear. But this was massive. Pitch with what he was feeding off of could not produce something this big, but no doubt he'd be here soon. As I spit sand out of my mouth, I ran into the cloud of fear looking past its smoke to see a village. Empty streets spanned around with crumbling buildings. I saw the remains of what must have been a beautiful mosaic with colorful bits of stone littering the ground. The smoke of fear was joined by the stench of actual smoke and the dust I saw in my eyes was more than just fear. There was real ash. This place had just been bombed. Using some freedom, I pulled a gust of air to move the dust out of my eyes. I followed the scent of fear to where it was worst and to my horror found a group of children huddling with a lone grownup under the cover of some tarp. I frantically looked around. There had to be something, someone who could do something. I waved and called out but of course not a head turned. They just stayed there, afraid.
I heard boots and saw headlights from what must be a convoy. I was going to have just as much luck getting their attention. My heart beat hard in my chest. I could not sit by! I was not a Guardian, I didn't have gifts and toys or anything to give but my heart which was beating so darn hard! The shattered mosaic with all its colors caught my eye. Purple, blue, gold. My heart could do some darn big things on its own. I was a spirit and if there was one thing I had learned recently, is that spirits are powerful and I was too. My eyes began to glow bright enough that they cast shadows on the crumbling walls.
It was time to put my improved strength to use. I needed a little powers help by mooching some emotional strength from one of the people on the convoy but I put my shoulder into it and pushed an electric pole down in front of the oncoming convoy. They stopped and grateful for my invisibility, I checked the sides and front of the trucks for any indicators. At the sight of the red cross on the canvas, I heart leapt with enough joy I could have flown to the other side of the globe and back. They started pulling out saws to remove the pole, but I needed them to look around! One of them was a young woman, sitting shotgun in one of the trucks. She was feeling motivated, I suppose she had to be doing this kind of work. Following my instincts I stretched out a hand and grabbed onto her emotions. Pulling them like taffy I stretched out with my other hand and latched onto the fear of the children. I could feel both of them pulsing through me, soft but present. I tied them together.
The woman in the truck sat up and opened the door. Yes! C'mon follow it.
"Fatima! What are you doing?" a voice from inside the truck called.
"It's just, I've got a feeling. We won't be moving for a bit, relax."
She was getting closer to them. C'mon just look closer. The kids were still petrified into silence. I ran over to them. I pulled together all my courage and showered it over the children in a cascade of gold. One of the older ones peeked out and saw Fatima. He called out in a language I didn't know yet. Maybe Arabic or Farsi. He stood up and waved his arms yelling. Fatima saw him and immediately called out to the trucks. In minutes all the children were out on the street being held by members of the convoy being checked for bruises and cuts. I used their relief and some sadness of my own and I spun a mist up into the air. The mist settled the dust and the night became much clearer...better. I pushed the fear back until it vanished into the ground. I felt better. The moon looked at me and I looked at it. I think we had come to the faintest grasp of an understanding.
It was the beginning and it was small, but it was something. It would only get larger from there. I didn't know how powerful I really was until these days. I was starting to understand what Pitch had meant when he had called me a force of nature. Even if I wasn't a part of the spirit world, I felt like I was woven into the fabric of the real world. I was under the sky and on top of the world. I was alone but more than I had ever been in my entire life. I had achieved what had gotten me off my butt in those first few months. I was something. Even if no one else could see me.
My emotions, which had always been so much that I thought I couldn't contain them, were now a deep well from which I drew my powers. I had so much energy to siphon that I could cast a mood over an entire city, with enough altitude, an entire county, the entirety of the Vatican, or most of Rhode Island.
Moving just ahead of the sunrise, I cast the first good feelings of optimism in the morning. I chased down spots of sadness and did my best to make them lighter to bear. An emotion that was too much for a mourning toddler who lost their mom to a car crash was a weight I could bear for them. I could lift off some of their sadness and turn it into mist on the grass around the grave. When joy bordered on mania, I took the extra and transformed it into extra sunshine, or an extra second of levity on the swing set. At night I kept a healthy sense of wariness in the air and made sure that someone looked over their shoulder if they needed to. I sent comfort and contentment into warm happy homes, and bravery and strength into those that weren't so happy. On rare occasions I'd manufacture a dose of emotion for a place from scratch. More often than not I just tweaked and pulled here and there and casted light general moods en masse.
The emotions of the world's people fed me and kept me going because as long as I was entrenched in their feelings and using my own strictly for work, anything else faded away.
But when I wasn't working I still spent those hours alone. I'd hike a lonely mountain, a deserted tundra, uninhabited coasts and cliffs, empty forests. It was on purpose, mind you. Living in everyone else's emotions gave me life, but it was a constant harsh reminder that while they could feel my emotions, that they couldn't sense me. When I wasn't doing it, it was easier to be alone and pretend that in this beautiful wide world I was truly alone and didn't need their companionship.
