Chapter 26

Tucked away inside the heart of a towering mountain in central Asia, Punjam Hy Loo is absolutely gorgeous. It is as vibrant as Tooth herself but with an air of majesty that she herself doesn't often give off. Jack spends the first hour or so barely able to contain herself from gawking at her surroundings.

The walls are covered in bright murals depicting fierce battles, some of humans, some of bird people like Tooth. Every so often there are animals or other spirits in the murals as well, and Jack wonders just who made them. Did Tooth memorialize such things she had seen in the past, like she guarded the memories of children, or were they here long before her?

A swarm of tiny fairies with both the size and speed of hummingbirds swarm Jack, chattering away in an incomprehensible manner. They poke and prod at her clothes, her cheeks, and a particularly adventurous duo try to pull her lips back to get a look at her teeth before Jack swats them away and lets loose a particularly cold blast of air that startles the rest away from her.

"Girls!" Tooth scolds, sounding horrified. "I'm so sorry," she frets, shooing her curious helpers away. "They don't get to interact with anyone besides me very often, and you do have such lovely looking teeth." As if on cue, several of the tiny fairies sigh in unison, looking lovestruck.

Jack smoothes down her cowl and tugs her sweater down where it had been rumpled. "Yeah, just… don't let them do that again," she says, eyeing them dubiously.

A surprisingly effective glare from Tooth had her helpers scattering back to whatever they had been doing before Jack arrived. "If any of them give you any trouble just let me know, or give them a little swat," Tooth says. "They're tougher than they look." Jack nods and Tooth's smile widens. "Follow me, I'll show you where I keep the teeth."

Tooth lifts off and Jack follows. They head deeper into the palace, past large floating structures that somewhat resemble beehives if beehives were deeply lacquered and covered in intricate wooden carvings. Fairies go darting in and out of them and Jack realizes these must be their roosts. She wonders at the amount of power and belief that Tooth must have in order to command such a large home and force.

"Here we are," Tooth says in an undertone as they light down and Jack's jaw drops at the absolutely massive columns before them. There are seven, and each is wider than the redwoods she's seen in the western Americas though she can't say as to whether they are as tall or taller, given that she can't even see the tops.

"Holy shit," Jack breathes. She'd known intellectually that there are thousands, if not millions of children in the world, but that couldn't possibly prepare her for the reality of storing teeth from them all. "This is gonna take way longer than I thought."

Tooth grimaces. "Yes, it will take quite a while. But we can narrow it down." Her wings flutter and she gently rises from the ground again. "Each column represents a continent. The innermost core has the oldest teeth, while the outer layers are more recent."

Jack frowns, mentally listing the continents in her head. "But there are only six continents with people. The southern cold lands don't have any."

"The what?" Tooth asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"The southern cold lands. Like how there's a North Pole, but on the opposite side of the planet. The South Pole, I guess you could call it." Jack shrugs at the look Tooth is giving her. "I did a lot of flying and exploring my first few years."

"Huh." Tooth mulls over the information. "You're right, there's no humans down there, I didn't even know about it till now. No, the seventh column is for the Hidden Lands." Jack takes her own turn to look confused. "This palace used to belong to the Sisters of Flight. My mother was one, but my father was human. When they died…" She pauses a moment to gather herself and Jack waits. "If one Sister of Flight dies, they all do. Since I am not a full Sister I was spared that fate, but they didn't just guard the memories of human children. There are hidden realms, faery or otherwise, and I have a duty to those children as well."

Tooth's story throws the sheer size of the palace into a new light. To be the last of your people, living in a reminder of just what you'd lost as you carried on their work. "I'm sorry," is all Jack can say, unsure just what she can say. She wonders if Tooth's own baby teeth are in that seventh column, or if she keeps them somewhere safe.

"It is what it is," Tooth says, voice deceptively steady. "There is no changing the past, only learning from it."

"So which one is North America?" Jack asks after a moment.

"This one," Tooth says, flying over to the column third from the left. She disappears around behind it, and when Jack follows, leads her through a small crevice that opens into the center of the column, hundreds of rows of cases with children's faces going up as far as the eye can see.

"Whoa." Jack cranes her neck, noting the other passages breaking the inner portion of the column into more easily accessed sections.

"It's a bit like a library," Tooth explains. "North America hasn't all been sectioned into countries, so it's organized by region. Compass directions and middle bits."

"Middle bits?" Jack asks with amusement.

"It's a big continent," Tooth says. "And "middle bits" is a technical term." She and Jack share a look and both start laughing.

"Okay," Jack chuckles. "So we'd be in the east section, either north or middle. You said the oldest is in here, so how close to the outside would about 130, 140 years ago be?"

"That would be this way," Tooth says, and they fly down one of the passages for a good five minutes before Tooth stops. "So, I'll be looking for your teeth and you'll be looking for your sister's. If you don't mind, I'd like to try to get a feel for your energy, to make finding your teeth a little easier."

Jack raises an eyebrow. "Feel my energy?"

Tooth nods. "I'd just hold your hands and get a better focus on you. I'm assuming you didn't have white hair when you were human, so your case picture wouldn't look like you now."

"Oh, right." Jack tucks her staff under her arm and holds her hands out for Tooth to grab. There's no glowing or other outright sign of anything happening except for Tooth's brow furrowing over her closed eyes. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Tooth reassures her, violet eyes opening. "You just feel a little different than before. I can get a general sense of people's energies and you feel a little… darker, is the word I think. Or maybe heavier?" She waves her hand. "Anyway, I should be able to find your teeth easier now."

"Okay, that's good," Jack says, frowning a little. "You look for mine, I'll look for Emma's."

"Take a break if you need to, and let me know if you need anything," Tooth says. "Sound travels fairly well in here, so just give me a shout."

"Will do!" Jack gives her a wave which she returns before Tooth shoots up towards the top of the column. "Guess I'm starting from the bottom," Jack says to herself, bringing up an image of Emma in her mind's eye as she starts to scan the different faces. "I'm gonna find you Em, I promise."

Fun fact: The first recorded sighting of Antarctica was in 1819/1820, and it wasn't named Antarctica till the 1890s (Antarctica being derived from a Greek compound word that translates to "the opposite of the Arctic" or "the opposite of the North" lmao). There are speculations about a land "opposite of the north pole" dating as far back as Artistotle, and for a few centuries it was called Terra Australis (Latin for South Land), then Australia. Current day Australia got the name bc when it was discovered by Europeans they didn't think there could be anything south of it, and then later when they found current day Antarctica they couldn't be bothered to switch it, so they called it "the Antarctic Continent" for like 80 years before sticking with Antarctica lmfao.

I was soooo tempted to drop some Stargate related Antarctica references (gotta stick to my roots) but that didn't really fit so I dug into Tooth's backstory and added some stuff there (almost made the 7th column Atlantis xD). Had a lot of fun with this, ngl.