Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians. Dreamworks and William Joyce does.

Ch. 12 There Was A Boy

In the beginning, he wanted to protect the world.

Jack was flying.

Flying so high that he shot up past the fluffy clouds and the bright blue of the sky until he reached the blackness that spanned beyond: a never-ending space filled with forgotten wishes, cast-aside dreams and a multitude of ever-vigilant stars.

He floated there for a moment, reveling in the utter peace and solitude this vast darkness offered. Then he looked down upon a blueish-green globe spinning slowly beneath him.

"It's round," Joseph Overland's voice echoed in his head. "As an acorn…"

The globe began to spin backwards at an agonizingly small pace, then faster and faster it twirled on its axis until it was nothing but a blue-and-green blur. The stars around him pulsed rapidly with brilliant white radiance and spun him into a cocoon of light.

Jack closed his eyes and slept.

He did not dream. Not at first.

The cocoon of light was velvety soft and warm. No bad thoughts or ill intentions could pierce its veil and so he slumbered on undisturbed and not without company either.

The wishing stars would often visit and whisper their secrets of those who had spoken their deepest desires to them that night.

Some were serious and sad:

"Star light, star bright, please let Papa return home safe and sound from battle."

Some were extraordinarily silly:

"Star light, star bright, I want to grow big, beautiful butterfly wings!"

"Star light, star bright, I wish to grow six inches overnight so I'll be taller than my brother in the morning!"

A smile crept onto his sleeping face as he listened.

"Are all wishes able to be granted?" he murmured drowsily through the silvery strands of moonlight that made up his cocoon.

"The honorable wishes, if possible, we weave them into reality and let them fall to earth," the wishing stars hummed at an excitingly high frequency. "The ones not possible, we share their stories to the Sandman and he spins them a fantastic dream and sends it to the person in their sleep!"

A slight crease crept onto the boy's brow. "Well, that's not entirely fair, is it?"

"What isn't? What isn't?" the wishing stars tittered in unison.

"Because once they've woken up from their dream where their wish was true, they find out that it wasn't real at all. Won't they be sad?"

"Most don't remember!"

"Not at all!"

"They enjoy their dreams though!"

"Dreams help guide them in their quest to make their wish come true for real!"

"I suppose," the boy said. "If it's the best you can do… am I dreaming?"

"Why? Why do you ask? Did you wish for this?" the wishing stars voices tumbled over each other wily-nily.

"I… don't remember," Jack said, reaching out one hand and pressing it against the cocoon of light. It felt cool and smooth beneath his palm, like a roll of silk. "What is this for? Why can't I get out?"

"Why? Why do you ask? Why would you want out?"

Had the wishing stars sounded anxious just then or were they merely growing agitated at him pestering them with all these questions.

"Well, you're all out there," Jack replied simply. "And I'm in here. Alone. That's not fair either, is it?"

"Not alone! Not alone! Not alone! Notnotnotnotnotnotnotnotnot!"

The high pitched mantra crashed over him, alarming fierce and devoutly protective. The walls of his cocoon pushed inward slightly as if the wishing stars were crowding against it on the outside. Jack pressed his forehead against the smooth interior, feeling a surge of gratitude and warmth. The wishing stars did not enjoy being cut off from him any more than he did from them.

"Did I wish for this?" he mumbled to himself. "Is this my dream?"

But no, it couldn't be.

The cocoon of light offered sanctuary and protection, but a cage however warm and soft, was still a cage nonetheless.

He wouldn't wish for a cage. What he would wish for was…

oOo

"Fly? You want to fly? Wouldn't that be a sight to behold? A featherless boy flapping his scrawny arms and bobbing up and down in the sky like a drunken sparrow over this village's cornfields and sheep pastures. You would be begging your precious townsfolk to shoot you down," Pitch laughed cruelly.

Jack scowled, feeling his ears burn, wishing he had never spoken out loud his secret daydream he often had since he was little. When you were a young boy with naught much to fill your long days except keeping watch over a flock of goats, what else was there to do but lie on your back and gaze up at the sky and imagine you were far away from there, perhaps even flying with the birds among the clouds?

He had only revealed this childish fantasy in the heat of the moment. The training sessions he had allowed back into practice had consisted mostly of him and Pitch sparring. According to the spirit, his footwork was "good", his stances "passable", and his parrying with the staff "defensible enough to split a few mortal farmers' heads open" which Jack had not taken kindly to so Pitch had sneered at him and changed the wording, "drive your pathetic tormenters away".

Jack, muscles aching and bruised, overtired and frustrated at himself, Pitch, and the whole world at the time, shouted something along the lines of if he had been Chosen to be a Guardian, then he'd rather have the ability to fly than these confounded ice powers.

"Why don't you then?" Pitch asked him suddenly, all snide and disdain void from his tone. He stared at Jack with unblinking golden eyes that glittered almost hungrily. "Grip your staff, raise it high and just… fly."

"Don't make fun," Jack huffed, resting his staff across his shoulders. "I was only saying, if I have to be a Guardian, then I should get to decide what my own power should be."

"Guardians do not have powers," Pitch spat at him, looking irritated that he had not taken the bait and done as he had suggested. But Jack was not going to make a fool of himself and trip flat on his face for the spirit's own amusement.

"Guardians have centers, the special core that makes up their very existence. Whatever unnatural abilities they then possess are nothing but side effects that they may use as they see fit to match whatever their center entails."

Jack eyed Pitch's scythe his interest piqued. "You know a lot of fighting skills. Were you a soldier before? Or maybe a general, because you sure do enjoy being in charge and bossing me around."

He grinned, hoping Pitch would see it was only light-hearted conversation and that he wasn't seriously trying to pry into his past. He didn't want the Nightmare King to snap like he had done over the locket.

Pitch was did not grow angry nor did he clamp up on the subject as he often did. Instead, he lifted his head to the sky above. The day was late and the horizon was a checkerboard of grey clouds with streaks of copper and gold from the setting sun filtering through. He stared upwards for the longest time, his face the calmest that Jack had ever seen on him, then brought his attention back to the boy in front of him, the usual gold of his irises outweighed by the silver hue now.

"I have seen countless wars and numerous battles far more that your mortal mind can comprehend. I have engaged in the vast majority of them, even led them. I was not Chosen, not as you were. But war is a crucial part of my very essence—that I won't deny."

A gusty breeze weaved its path through the trees, rustling their branches and setting off a symphony of ominous creaking from their bark. The forest sounded in Jack's mind very much like an old man suffering from arthritis from the groaning that arose and a sudden thought struck him in that moment.

"How old are you?" he asked Pitch warily.

The gold shone in the Nightmare King's eyes anew as he answered with delicious glee.

"'Like the generation of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.''

"That's from the Illiad," Jack said feeling his stomach tighten at the dawning realization.

"For an amateur tailor, you are quite educated in the old stories," Pitch hummed in what resembled approval.

"Not me," Jack mumbled. "Mother has the learned background. She just likes telling me and my sister grand adventures and fairy tales. She can recite lines from books by memory."

"Still, amongst the pasture of grazing cattle… there runs a fox," Pitch proclaimed with a derisive chuckle at the back of his throat.

A strange heat filled Jack's cheeks and he shot back without thinking. "So you're pretty ancient then, aye?"

Pitch's eyelids drooped low and heavy as a blank slate mask settled over his features. Lips curled back to expose needlelike teeth as the shadows at his feet stretched long across the snowy ground. Jack felt his heart begin to race as he wondered if he had once again spiked the spirit's wrath.

"Then take your staff and strike a true blow against this Ancient One, young whelp."

In a poof of shadows he was gone from in front of him to reappear on the crest of the hill that overlooked the small glade that had become their usual meet up for the daily training sessions. Pitch reached out with one arm and summoned his shadow-scythe from thin air.

Then a massive storm-cloud of writhing, twisting shadows was plunging down the hillside towards him with Pitch riding on top of the black wave looking every inch the fearsome Nightmare King he was.

oOo

"What should I do if I come face to face with a bear?"

Joseph Overland did not brush off his son's childish fears. After all, he had come face to face with a wolf before just last fall. He presented a valid point.

"You must make yourself appear bigger than he is," Joseph said. "That is what your staff is for. It has a variety of uses. Raise it up over your head and belch out the most fearsome war-cry you can muster. Stand your ground."

"Will it frighten it away?"

"Most likely not. But it will make him stop his mad charge."

oOo

Pitch resembled a bear in that moment: face all flashing golden eyes and bared teeth, and swathed in shadows as thick as an inky fur coat; his scythe swinging down towards him in all its magnificent dark glory—not a drop of sunlight reflected upon the crusty black blade.

A rush of both alarm and elation shot up Jack's spine at the sight. He raised up his staff—a shout tore free from his throat though he did not recall what the words were in the heat of the moment. He had concentrated so many times before on trying to summon his power at will, that now it rose up as pure instinct. Jack felt the wood beneath his fingertips tremble as an age-old energy surged forth, whether or not it was from him or his staff he did not know for they were one.

A brilliant explosion of light flared outwards like a dam bursting wide open.

Not ice. Not frost. Not even snow flurries.

White light.

Reality rippled away as they both were engulfed in the endless embrace of it.

Blinding and mind-numbing as a fog in a dense forest.

Harsh and unforgiving as the snow in a blizzard.

Silent and ghostly as the moonlight upon a frozen lake…

Jack choked as a heavy pressure seized him by the throat. Abruptly the white light faded away and his hands were clawing futilely at Pitch's spindly grey fingers wrapped tightly around his neck.

The Nightmare King's face was twisted in fury, his mouth curved into a savage snarl as he drew Jack nearer and screamed at him.

"I will not be toyed with! What game are you playing at, old friend? TELL ME!"

Jack could only stare, eyes wide and gasping feebly for breath as his legs dangled a few inches above the ground, trying to understand why Pitch was so angry but it was really difficult to think with his windpipe being slowly crushed…

With a roar of rage, Pitch flung him backwards into a snowdrift. Luckily there had been a fresh snowfall the night before so it was still soft when he hit, otherwise Jack was fairly certain his head would have been cracked open. He struggled on all fours to get up, but the snow was several inches deep and he kept falling back over. His ears were ringing and his voice only croaked like a frog's whenever he tried to speak.

Jack glanced up and saw Pitch standing still as thick black tendrils stretched out from the swirls of his garb and crawled unnaturally across the snow towards him. It may have been the near asphyxiation and spots before his eyes, but Jack swore the tendrils had terrible, leering faces.

Fearlings.

He scrambled back several paces, knee-deep in the snowdrift, hands empty because he had lost his staff in the skirmish yet again.

He was completely helpless once more.

And though he hated himself for doing it, Jack cast a long, pleading look at Pitch feeling his eyes burn. He blinked hard several times refusing to let the water in them spill over.

Pitch stared at him a few seconds longer, the fearlings inching ever closer, before he finally snapped his fingers and they vanished without a trace. He glided effortlessly through the snow until he was directly in front of him and reached out a hand towards his face.

Jack jerked his head sideways out of reflex, mortified to hear a distressed sound emitting from his bruised throat.

But Pitch only grasped him firmly by the chin and turned his head this way and that as if he were an unusual object to be studied. The hand shifted lower and then a thumb stroked briefly over the madly-fluttering pulse-point in his neck before Pitch released him.

Golden narrowed eyes swept over him from head to toe as the spirit appraised him before clucking his tongue in contempt.

"You really are just a foolish boy aren't you?" Pitch whispered more to himself than to Jack.

Jack's voice finally returned to him. "You t-tried to k-kill me," he said. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded hoarse and sullen. Full of disbelief, like a child that had been punished unjustly. He cringed inwardly.

"If I had wanted to kill you, brat, I could think up many more creative endings than strangulation," Pitch sneered at him. He turned his back to the boy. "That's enough lessons for today, I think."

Now that his fear was receding, a tiny part indignation sparked within Jack's chest. It made him bold enough to call out. He didn't ask what had made Pitch lose all reason or if more attempts of the fearlings devouring him would arise if he displeased the spirit again.

"What were you so afraid of just now then, aye?"

Jack braced himself for another attack, another instance of Pitch becoming unhinged. He wouldn't beg this time, he told himself furiously, not even silently. He would take anything Pitch threw at him. He wouldn't cower before those fearlings ever again.

For whatever matter Pitch had been angry before, he had reined that volatile temper in check. He only paused in his departure to lift his head up to view the stars glimmering faintly through the veil of clouds still lingering accompanied by the moon a pale waning orb hanging low in the now twilight sky.

"Go home, boy. The night has many eyes."

oOo

The forest was strangely silent as Jack trudged home. The only sounds were from his feet crunching in the snow and the rattling of the tree branches above his head as the wind whistled hollowly through them. Jack rubbed at his sore throat wondering how he was going to explain the bruises that were sure to form there to his mother. His chest stung a little in what resembled betrayal and he had to bite down a brittle laugh. Just because he and Pitch had been getting along well the past couple of days did not mean he should have forgotten what a master manipulator the spirit was and how swiftly his chaotic moods shifted at the most unassuming remark or action.

Pitch wasn't going to explain or apologize nor did Jack expect him to. Pitch was like a wild dog that stayed close because you gave him attention and food, yet he could still bite your fingers off if you played too rough.

Still the sick, prickly sensation festered within his chest at the realization at how easily he had allowed Pitch into his life, his daily routine, into even the inner circle of people he considered the most important to him and wondered why it hurt so deeply now that Pitch seemed disappointed in him.

Not disappointed… offended? Repulsed? Apprehensive?

There had been fear mixed alongside of the anger fixed fast upon the Nightmare King's face when he had seized him by the throat. Jack did not understand why.

His musings were interrupted by the sound of muffled sobbing. It was coming just beyond the bend in the thicket ahead. Jack hurried his pace, his shoe scuffing on a rock hidden by the snow. The crying had stopped by the time he had rounded the bramble.

Gideon squatted on his heels underneath a tall elm tree, a lantern and a bundle of tied sticks on the ground beside him. The boy's eyes were red and puffy in the dim lighting as well as a distinct contusion on his left cheek that had not been there the last time Jack saw him.

Gideon lifted his arm and swiped the sleeve of his tunic fast across his face before rising to his feet. "Heyla, Jack," he rasped out.

"Heyla," Jack said in response as he drew closer. "What are you doing out so late?"

"Gathering firewood," Gideon said nudging the bundle of sticks with his shoe.

Jack nodded as he stared hard at mark on the boy's cheek. It looked freshly made. The skin was raised red and in the shape of a large handprint.

"I was reaching for a pottery jar on the top shelf. It fell down and got me in t'face," Gideon said, a defensive challenge laced thickly in his tone as his eyes bore into Jack's own.

Gideon was apprenticed to his father, the village's pottery maker. Ambrose Hoffe was a strong-built man with a steady hand and possessed patience enough only for the ceramics he molded. It was a well-known fact amongst the people of Burgess that the man desired "punctuality and payment" upon services rendered. In fact, these words were carved upon the wooden sign that hung above his shop outside his door.

Gideon himself took after his father in height and form, tall and broad for a boy of twelve that often people mistook him for older. He was a dutiful enough son that he did not purposefully neglect his apprentice lessons when playing with the other children. It was just he sometimes got caught up in the fantasy of their own little world so much, that he forgot the time. It's something that happens to everyone: a slip of the mind. However, a memory lapse especially due to playing childish games was not an acceptable excuse for Ambrose Hoffe it seemed.

"I could speak to your father," Jack said, choosing his words delicately. "Tell him it was my fault for distracting you."

He had often been on the receiving end of the blame for leading the villager's children astray from their chores with his "tom-foolery" and "idle day-dreaming". It would be nothing new for Ambrose to focus his ire out on him instead.

"No," Gideon refused shortly. "Father's right. I should remember my lessons. I'm to be the village's next potter-master. I can't be off playing games with you lot all the time."

Jack bit his lip but nodded. Even though he was apprenticed to Tailor Saunders, the man never demanded he arrive on time and more often than not, sent him home early and looked well-relieved to be rid of him. There had been whispers amongst the towns-folk that the old man had given up on Jack altogether and had Lydia set in his will to take over his trade when he died, woman or no. Everyone agreed, Jack included, that she had better skills with a needle and thread.

Jack thought back on simpler days when he was just a shepherd boy tending his family's flock and remembered fondly of the early mornings and late evenings spent at his father's side. Joseph Overland had been a stickler for a strict schedule and set rules accordingly if Jack ever toed out of line. Who was he to judge Ambrose Hoffe on how he disciplined his son?

Though Jack never remembered any punishment so badly that he had needed to venture off into the woods to have a good cry afterwards.

"Well, company's always best when travelling through the forest at night," he said forcing a smile as he nodded to their surroundings. "Let's go home together."

The path twisted and turned as they walked upon it, partially hidden by the recent snowfall yet still visible as it was used daily by the villagers. Brown leaves crusty with ice lay thick underfoot crunching noisily as they treaded along. Gideon held the lantern aloft for them to see better but the moon shone so brightly it was more a comfort than necessity for them to use.

Gideon remained oddly silent, not his usual talkative self that Jack was so familiar seeing when he was joined fast at the hip with Ezra.

Jack lipped his chapped lips. "How 'bout a story?" he suggested trying to lighten the boy's somber mood.

"Is it about my name being a great ship's captain once long ago?"

Jack stumbled a little in surprise. "What?"

Gideon paused his pace and swung around wide to face him, his mouth turned downwards in a frown.

"Ezra already told me that story. I know it was you he learned it from." There was a quiet resentment burning in his hazel eyes. "I know it's because of you that now he wants to go off to sea and leave m—all of us behind."

"It was just a story," Jack said feeling very small even though he was a full head taller than the younger boy. "I told it to cheer him up. It's just a passing fancy of his. It'll blow over soon."

"Once Ezra gets a notion, no matter how ridiculous, into his head, he's bound to see it through 'til the end. That's how he dislocated his shoulder from playing Jousting Warsteeds, the game you thought up."

"I thought you liked our games," Jack said, feeling the sick, prickly stab in his chest again for the second time that evening.

"That's all they are, Jack, games," Gideon's voice had risen now, gruff and heavy with a fierce protectiveness. "They're quite fun in the moment and then they're over and the world still goes on. We can't forget our real roles here. My duty is to be a master potter, yours is to be a tailor, and one day Ezra will be head miller! Everyone has their designated place. That's how it always is and always will be."

Jack thought about the light in Ezra's eyes when he talked of becoming a grand admiral of the sea, at the happiness in his sister's voice as she pretended to be a fine lady or magical princess, of the fond smile on his mother's lips as she recited another bedtime story to them of faraway places brimming with adventure and mysteries to be discovered. How often had he wondered with all of Lydia's vast knowledge of the world and its writings that she could have done anything, gone anywhere, yet she had chosen to be their mother and never regretted a single day of it.

"It doesn't have to be," Jack said. "Nothing is set in stone. We can all chose what we want to become."

"Grow up, Jack!" Gideon shouted at him, throwing his bundle of kindling on the frozen ground in frustration. "We play those games because we know they can't come true in real life and so they make us happy for a short while. But we can't go on playing them forever. It isn't possible."

There was an unrecognizable emotion plastered across Gideon's face, a kind of tightening about the jaw and a hardness in the eyes that Jack had only ever seen on the grown-ups in the village: a kind of bitter acceptance about the future that lay ahead and the determined weariness to face it day after day until their time was done.

It was an expression he never wanted to see on his sister's face or any of the other children in Burgess, yet he knew it was inevitable. That one day, all of them would reach that point in their lives where they made a decision to cross the threshold from youth into adulthood.

Perhaps Jack had missed that path when it had been thrust upon him the day his father had died.

Maybe he had purposefully gone down the wrong road.

For he had never stopped dreaming or imagining all his so-called "fairy-tale fantasies". What could be so wrong with a little pretending in such a cruel, bleak world?

Gideon picked up his kindling from the ground and slung the strap over his shoulder, a cool edge slipping into his voice. "I can manage the rest of the way back by myself, thank you. Good-bye, Jack."

Jack made no effort to stop him or follow, watching the warm light of the lantern bob and weave through the darkness until it faded from sight and then he was alone, bathed in the pale milky light from the moonbeams filtering down through the trees.

It was winter and it was night and the cold should not bother him anymore, but Jack was frozen to the core, feeling nothing more like a detached slab of ice floating on the lake.

oOo

Lydia was asleep in her rocking chair by the fire when he reached home. Jack gently removed her spectacles and tucked away the letters she had been reading back into the box, recognizing his father's handwriting as he did so. He grabbed a quilt from her room and wrapped it around her shoulders to keep her warm until she arose later that night to put herself to bed.

Emma was already sleeping when he entered their room and readied himself for bed. He glanced briefly at the unlit nightlight on his nightstand, the broken pane having been swept up by his mother and wondered if without its glow and recitation, what manner of dreams he would have.

oOo

The children of earth were full of such wonder and hope even in the darkness times. It sparked his curiosity. He wanted to learn more. He could no long wait for the wishing stars to report nightly. He found that by concentrating hard enough on one particular spot, he could sort of eavesdrop on people's dreams. So he began to dream more often, and he watched and he listened.

When he first came across the boy it was purely coincidental: making rounds and listening to wishes. Children in Burgess all had fairly simple requests, most desiring earthly possessions or affection from a loved one. The boy's request was quite odd.

"Star light, star bright, please let me be full grown when I awake. I need to grow up faster."

He was very confused of course. Why would any child want to be an adult so quickly? He asked the wishing stars but they were puzzled too. They could not grant the wish however they did send the boy a very nice dream about him being grown up and wearing a very fine cape and buckle-hat—and eating several plates of macaroons which were his favorite treat.

He asked the moon the question as well. As always, he received no audible reply back but gained an overwhelming sense of sadness from the pale light that shone through his cocoon.

Night after night the boy would repeat this wish and night after night the wishing stars would send him more fanciful dreams of being grown and doing all manner of jobs that adults had a tendency for doing. The boy seemed so disappointed when he woke up every morning to find it was not real. Perhaps the boy wanted to gain the knowledge the Tall Ones appeared to possess but did not share with children. Children were curious little things.

As was he.

He wasn't supposed to—he didn't remember who had instructed him this or why—he simply knew he wasn't supposed to but he did it anyway. One night, he found a way to trespass into the child's own dreamscape to find out for himself the reason behind the boy's bizarre wish.

The dreamscape depicted beautiful scenery: a green riverbank and babbling brook, the bright yellow orb in the blue sky that shone a thousand times more brilliant than the moon. The boy sat on the edge of the bank dipping his bare feet into the water and humming a song under his breath. He wasn't dreaming of being a Tall One this night.

The boy lifted his head at his presence, brown eyes widening. Then he lifted a hand in greeting. "Heyla! Who are you?"

He opened his mouth but only a small gasp escaped. He wasn't used to talking—not this way at least.

The boy frowned slightly. "Do you have a name?"

He thought for a moment. He had a name once he was sure. But he could not recall it just now. Still he should have a name he supposed. For what other way would prove he belonged than for a child to call him by?

"What's yours?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm Jack," the boy proclaimed getting up on scrawny legs and bending in half with a flourished bow.

Jack, he thought. That was nice name. He liked it. A lot.

"I'm… Jack?" he said almost in a question.

Jack looked surprised then burst out laughing. "We're both Jack! It's a grand name, ain't it?"

"Why do you wish to be a Tall One, Jack?" he asked the boy remembering why he had come.

"How do you know that? Tall One? Oh, you mean the grown-ups?" Jack said before sighing deeply. "I just don't get on well… with others my own age. I think my parents are worried. They want me to fit in. I just think if I'm older I can help them out more… no, no, that's a lie." The boy shrunk inwardly looking embarrassed at his own deception. "I don't really want to be a Tall One. Most of them are bossy and boring. But maybe if I'm a Tall One me and Da can talk about all sorts of things! He keeps telling me 'when you're older'." The boy rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"So… your wish is for your Da?" he asked still trying to understand.

"Da is m'best friend!" Jack crowed puffing out his chest proudly. "I don't know why he and Mam keep fussing about me making friends my own age or going to school. If I'm already a Tall One they don't need to worry no more about silly stuff like that!"

"Won't you miss out on playing games?"

Jack sobered fairly quickly at his words. "Well, I don't see Da playing leapfrog everyday, that's for sure. I mean he gets in trouble for fishing on Sunday if he's caught!" He scrunched up his face as he thought hard about it. "Isn't everything supposed to be easier when you're a Tall One?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Oh, aye, you're the same age as me," Jack nodded looking at him, eyes growing slightly hazy from the spell the dreamscape cast over him. "Why I haven't ever seen you around here before?"

"I can come visit you again," he offered generously.

"Really?" Jack perked up excited. "You seem nicer than Anthony Hawkins and his louts."

The dreamscape shifted beneath their feet although only he noticed. It was going to dissolve soon. He had found out what he had come here for—his curiosity had been sated. He should leave. But Jack intrigued him.

"I'll come visit you soon," he insisted. "But you can't become a Tall One before I do."

"Oh?"

"Tall Ones are not as wise as you think. There is a lot of talking the loud and doing of the nothing with them," he explained, somehow knowing these things without remembering how or why. He just knew it to be true.

Jack had grinned at him, brown eyes sparkling with the promise of future mischief. "I think you're going to be a lot of fun, Jack."

There had been many more meetings with Jack and more playing in the dreamscape. But such tales are for another time.

What's important is at the very end of it all:

The cocoon of light was crumbling around him. Those walls which had seemed impenetrable before were now shattering like tiny pieces of eggshells. He turned and the moon filled his vision, bathing him in pale, silvery light that felt different from the warmth of the cocoon. He hung there in the void, body taut and defenseless, waiting for something, he knew not what, to happen.

He felt the invisible strings binding him snap as the scales of judgment tipped.

He was falling, plummeting to earth with all the speed of a shooting star that he was not.

He had wanted to protect the world in the beginning.

But his dreams had become too selfish.

And in the end, it was too late.

To Be Continued…

A/N: What, it's been a year since I updated this fic? What can I say? Tis Pitch's season this month and I was inspired. I know the ending already, I just have to get there. The scenes are shorter in my head. I don't care how long it takes, I'm in this fic until it gets done!

So is anybody putting the pieces together now from this chapter of what happened/what is happening with Jack? Pitch has his own theory and he is not happy about it as you can see.

Thank you for all the kind comments I've been getting on this even when I haven't been updating it. It makes realize how much people love it and how it resonates with them enough that they come back years later just to re-read. I teared up when ya'll told me that. Sometimes I write and I just think I'm rambling, but I think I put a lot of my soul into this version of Jack. Writing is therapeutic and I'm transferring a lot of my emotional load onto these characters and luckily they're going through angst too.

Fun Facts: title of this fic was inspired by the song "Nature Boy" by David Bowie. (Yes from the Moulin Rouge ost—I like to imagine Pitch crooning that to Jack *snerks* IT FITS OK?!)

If you want to comment and don't know what to say, I love hearing what your fav parts were this chapter. Until the next update my lovely readers! Love you guys!