Night Wind
By: Wilona Riva
Disclaimer: Butch Hartman does; I don't.
Author's Note: When Jack woke up in the infirmary, the healers, Shine and Shade, performed some tests on him and wrapped his head in gauze. The healers introduced a young Night Wind female by the name of Lunaris to him and she fills him in on all that has happened since their arrival. Jack doesn't quite trust this female ghost.
First Rays to Last Opposite
"Jack? Oh, Jack!" Phantom heard the huntress cry out; he and Dusk looked over in her direction. The male hunter entered the library, his head bandaged in filmy white gauze.
At least Bell didn't do any lasting damage, Dusk mused.
He still needs to be more careful, Phantom replied. He picked up the book Dusk had given him. Now, where were we?
"Are you alright?" Maddie whispered, drawing her husband away to one of the hidden alcoves. Phantom's eyes followed her before darting back to the book he was reading to the little girl.
"I'm fine, just a little headache," he replied. He looked around. "Why are we in a library? This place is huge."
"I know," Maddie answered. "I've found every topic under the sun except for what type of ghost Danny really is."
"Maybe they just appeared out of thin air," Jack suggested, shrugging his shoulders. Wincing at the sharp pain in his head, he let out a small whimper.
"Phantom's going to hear you, Jack," Maddie hissed sharply.
"Let my son hear," Jack stated. "He is a Fenton and by the Ghost of Elvis, I will rescue my son from the evil ghosts of Hades."
"Are we all that evil?" a woman asked from a floor above them. Maddie and Jack looked up to see a swirl of dark hair, pale skin, and entrancing black eyes. She, like Phantom and Dusk, glowed softly around the edges.
Phantom and Dusk sensed the fear in the humans instantly; Dusk teleported them to their side and both moved into defense mode until the would-be attacker came down the spiral staircase. She smiled at them.
"I will not harm them, my little phantoms," she murmured, her dark eyes alight with laughter. "How is your foot, my little phantom?"
Phantom bowed his head to the woman respectfully. "The poison is gone, though the pain lingers still," he reported.
"That is well then," she replied. "Shine and Shade will give you something for that. But first, my little phantom, I have a reward for your endeavours this eventide." She tossed him a red pear.
A red bartlett?, Jack wondered. What's so special about that-besides the fact that it's Danny's favorite fruit?
Dusk trembled. It was a Lethe pear. Phantom had a long history of eating those things.
Maddie watched in horror as Phantom rubbed the fruit on his shirt and bit into it, unsuspecting. When he fell backwards, a creature of mud, leaves and twine came out of nowhere, scooped him and the phantomic sprite Dusk up, and vanished. "You're using drugs to control him," she accused, trembling with anger and outrage. "That's why my little boy doesn't remember us."
"Your son?" the ghost woman scoffed. "My little phantom was never your son. The Clockwork Chronos manipulated the timeline and fabricated all the evidence that you could possibly use to prove it."
"Lunaris," Jack started, using the ghost's true name. "You said in the infirmary you would give us one chance to reason with Danny. Yes, that is the name we gave him. Whether Maddie bore him or not, we choose to accept him as our son."
Lunaris smiled. "One chance is all you will have, human. I will keep my promise to you."
"Lunaris?"
"Yes, huntress?"
"What is your relationship to my son and that little girl?"
"Phantom and Dusk are my little phantoms," she replied. "You will be escorted to your chambers shortly, and then to a feast we will have in your honor in the Great Hall."
"We'll we see you there?" Jack asked.
"I will be there," Lunaris promised. "You will be presented formally before the Queen of the Night Stars in the Great Hall.""
"I can't wait," Maddie told her sharply. "I have a bone to pick with that woman.
"And just what are we supposed to be doing with the lesser Ghost King?" his new guard, Maia, demanded of his unseen visitor.
"Get him out of the sun cellar and to a nearby bathing chamber," he heard the visitor reply. "I am to take him to Shine and Shade for an overlook after that. He is to be formally presented to the Night Queen at a feast in the humans' honor in the Great Hall."
"Illona, what does that matter? After a week here, they will become part of the Night Wind people," a man interjected.
"Abraham, for all your long years, you do not yet understand the ways of our queen," Maia said to the unseen male. "This she will explain to them and more. Phantom has formed familial bonds to the hunters and our Sunset to the half-ryu."
"What if...?"
"All will be revealed in due time," Illona answered. "You have to trust the Queen of the Night Stars."
Vlad heard the man mutter something obscene under his breath and walk away. His mind whirled at the strange news he'd just heard. The Queen of the Night Wind was planning on forcing them to become part of her people? It might be a side consequence of them being here as intruders, but it defied everything he'd learned of these people thus far.
"If only there were some way I could get a message to Jasmine," he groaned aloud. The sun cellar's blinding walls were getting to him. Any more and he'd be blind and all the way dead.
"Release me at once!" he yelled aloud to his captors.
"All you had to do was ask," Illona cheerily told him, once Maia had opened the door. "Give me your hand."