"That is a strange place to sleep." Pitch's voice cut through the dark. Silver opened her eyes and peered into the shadows.
"Pitch." She sat up and ran a hand through her hair, which was being indecisive about whether it was wavy or not.
"You've been gone for quite some time. How was the Pole?" Pitch asked watching her through the dark. She glowed oddly now, a little darker than before, and was dressed differently as well. She wore a silver-white dress that looped around her neck and didn't cover her arms. The bottom hem was uneven, like when you cover something with a handkerchief and the edges don't line up. She also had a white shawl wrapped around her shoulders that hung down her back and silver ballet flats. She got to her feet and her clothes shimmered with extra silver as she moved. The shawl disappeared as she stood there before him. Pitch had trouble keeping his eyes off her. She looked like a fairy or a dream.
"I never found the Pole." Silver said simply.
"You've been gone for months, what did you find?" Pitch asked curiously. He hadn't thought she would return without finding the Pole.
"My name is Silver Moonborne." She said. "Cally died." Silver looked at her shoes. "I can grant true wishes with moonlight. And I can fly." She was almost grinning at her feet now. "I can fly really fast."
"I see." Pitch said walking past her. "Why didn't you find the Pole?" He inquired.
"What does it matter? What could possibly be waiting for me there?" Silver was angry and her hair reflected it well.
"MiM knows what he's doing, Cal…Silver." Pitch tripped over the new name. Had his Cally really died? What did that make Silver to him? She certainly wasn't the girl that had kissed his cheek goodbye.
"That's what I hear." Silver replied bitterly.
"You're afraid I don't want you here anymore," Pitch said suddenly. Silver's eyes shot up to meet his face, eyes as wide as a harvest moon. His grin was condescending at best and she was angry for it.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Silver snapped, a blush stealing up her pale cheeks. Maybe she was still his in some way.
"If there is one thing I know, Silver, it's what one's greatest fear is." Pitch grinned broader as the girl before him shook her head.
"I don't need you!" She shouted at him. "I've been just fine without you!" She was glowing brighter now, her anger granting her strength as her hair twitched in fury.
"You're afraid I'll send you away." Pitch walked past her and down the dark hall. She ran at Pitch, trying to get her hands on him.
"Pitch, you're evil!" Silver shouted. "You're evil and you're cruel!" She cried. Pitch just laughed because he was having fun with her. Besides, anger he knew how to deal with. It was the nice things he was unsure of.
"I told you what I am, why does it still surprise you?" Pitch whispered from behind her. She turned quickly and yelled wordlessly at him. She made a gesture and a white light shot from her hand and hit the wall next to the shadow that concealed Pitch. He frowned, she had certainly grown into herself in her absence.
"Why am I here Pitch?" Silver cried as she chased his shadow down another hallway. "What do you want from me?"
"I don't want anything. You're the one that followed me home." Pitch said appearing down the path from her. She growled and sent a pair of lights his way. One light caught his arm and it turned into one of those white chains that had bound him once before. It was Pitch's turn to be surprised. Silver smiled mercilessly at him as she pulled on the chain and he went crashing to the floor. "Ow!" Pitch said indignantly getting back to his feet.
"You want something Pitch, you've been wishing too." Silver said it like a threat. Pitch pulled the chain and Silver came falling towards him as the landscape shifted and she lost her footing. Pitch caught her easily against his chest.
"It's good to have you back." Pitch smiled at her with all his shark-sharp teeth showing. Silver pushed against him and his embrace.
"You're a jerk, Pitch." But she had figured out his game. "But I missed you." She said and just like that they were standing together in the dark.
"I missed you too." Pitch admitted, wrapping his arms around her despite his confusion. She leaned into this embrace. The moonlight chain dissolved with her anger. Silver smiled then.
She was really home.
Time passed in that odd way that time does; without the consent of those stuck in its stream. Silver and Pitch stayed out of the world most days, but some days they would go out into the vast place and play the games they knew best. Pitch haunted nightmares and Silver granted dreams. Opposing forces that kept the world in balance and just like that time had gone by. It was as if they had been doing it forever.
Each night, or the equivalent thereof, Silver would sit with Pitch and tell him about the wishes she'd heard and the ones that she granted and the things that she saw. Pitch would take it all in and smile at her as she happily relayed her life to him. It had been one of the things he had missed while she had gone out to find the Pole.
"A lot of people are wishing that Santa is real. Or that they could get proof of him." Silver said one night as she lay across Pitch's lap. He looked down at her with a wrinkled brow as her hair twined its strands around his idle fingers.
"Does that surprise you?" Pitch questioned, chasing a wayward strand of silver.
"Can I tell them that he's real?" Silver frowned then. "Santa is real, yes?" She asked. Pitch nodded.
"As real as the boogeyman." He made a face at her and she laughed. "Or the Tooth Fairy. Or the Easter Bunny…" Pitch listed them off.
"Can I tell the children then?" Silver asked moving so that she could catch his free hand in hers. She turned it over as she thought. "Can I tell the children that They're real?" Silver wondered as she touched his fingertips.
"I'd rather you didn't." Pitch said darkly. Silver sat up then, dropping his hand back to his lap.
"Why not?" She demanded. "Am I to lie to the children? Or simple ignore their wishes?" Silver's hair could all but cut like the daggers in her voice.
"I draw my power from Fear. When children believe in the goody-goodies, like Santa and them, they lose that fear and I grow weak. That's why I hide under beds." Silver frowned at him. Pitch just laughed at her. "You know what I am and yet you always seem so surprised." He held a hand out to invite her back to him. Silver watched him warily for a moment before taking his hand and lying back across his lap.
"I forget you're the bad guy, because you're not the bad guy to me." Silver said holding his hand tighter than before.
"I don't want you to ignore wishes or lie to children." Pitch said carefully. Silver looked at him oddly.
"Why not? You just said…" Silver tried to argue but Pitch stilled her lips with his finger. She frowned up at him.
"Because lying to the children would make you unhappy, and I can't have that, now can I?" Pitch said with a small smile. Silver blushed at him and didn't say anything. They fell silent and Pitch watched Silver's eyes drift close as sleep claimed her. Pitch ran a hand absently over her hair. All he knew was that she still had to go to the Pole and he didn't want her to go. He was afraid he'd lose her to them. She was so good after all…
When Silver woke Pitch wasn't there. She sat up and yawned, maybe he was just out again. She stretched and rubbed at the sleep in her eyes.
"Pitch?" Silver called into the dark, wandering into the large cavern.
"He's out." That bodiless voice said from behind her. Silver jumped up and shot light at the sound trying to bind it. "That's not very friendly, now is it Silver?" The voice mocked. It was a young sounding voice, but Silver couldn't decide if it was a trick or not.
"Who are you?" Silver demanded trying to light up the dark with moonlight. Nothing was visible but the stone of the cavern.
"Doesn't matter who I am. I see you know who you are now. That's nice." The voice said with a sneer. Silver glowered at the noise.
"What do you want from me?" Silver demanded, shooting more lights at the voice. "Tell me or I swear…!" She shouted.
"You'll do what, little girl?" The voice sounded angry now, all semblance of friendliness gone in a spark of anger. Silver found herself shrinking back from the sound. "Gonna chain me up? You can't even see me!" The voice cackled into the shadows, filling the cavern with its hideous sounds.
"Why are you talking to me?" Silver shouted over the din as she covered her ears. There was no answer other than that horrible cackle echoing in her head.
Silver was on her knees, head covered with her hands, when Pitch found her. He looked at her strangely.
"What are you doing on the floor?" Pitch asked approaching Silver's crouched over form. Her head shot up and with eyes wild, she sent a barrage of lights at him. He managed to block a few of them but some of the others broke through his shield and caught him in their chains. The chains lengthened and pulled his arms to his sides. They bound his legs together and grew heavy enough to bring him to his knees. "What is this?" Pitch demanded, confused and surprised among a million other things.
Silver didn't answer right away for there was still that wretched ringing in her ears. As she watched Pitch sitting there, glaring at her, covered in thick, glowing chains, her wild eyes cleared and she withdrew her hands from her head.
"Pitch?" Silver asked, confused. Pitch rolled his eyes at her.
"Well, I'm not the Easter Bunny." He snorted. "Mind letting me free?" he added. She looked at the chains oddly, as if she hadn't seen them until now.
"I did that?" Silver asked, concerned. "I didn't know I could do that." She waved her hand at him and called off the chains.
"What happened to you?" Pitch asked standing as he brushed himself off.
"There was something…" Silver pointed to the shadows. Pitch looked around skeptically.
"I would know if something else were here." Pitch said extending his hand to Silver. She looked at it as if it were a fanged thing.
"It was here when you were gone." Silver said. "I…I don't know what it wants." She looked away from his hand. "I'm scared of it." Silver admitted, which seemed an absurd thing to say to the boogeyman. Pitch frowned at her.
"What did this, voice, say?" He asked.
"He told me I know who I am now. But he was mocking me." Silver looked up at him with those eyes as bright and wide as a full moon. They were filled with confused fear. Pitch didn't like that someone else had made her afraid.
"He? So it was a male voice?" Pitch asked. Silver pulled her knees up to her chest and nodded.
"He laughed and it echoed in my head like…" Silver shook her head at the memory. "It wasn't you was it?" Silver asked suddenly. Pitch smiled at her.
"Of course not," Pitch extended his hand to her again, wanting her to stand and take the comfort he offered. "If it had been, I certainly wouldn't have left you lying on the floor." Silver wiped at her face and took his hand. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his long arms around her. Silver held onto the front of his robe. "Now," Pitch pulled away from her and traced a tear down her cheek. "No more crying." He smirked at her and she nodded.
"Ok." She said softly. Pitch still had one arm holding her to him as his fingers lingered on her face. Silver still had ahold of the front of his robe and was watching his face for some clue as to what was going to happen next. Silver smiled then. "You're wishing again Pitch." There was a devious note to this statement.
"Am I?" Pitch asked lightly as he smiled back at her. He knew full well what he was wishing. Silver nodded and licked her dry lips, causing his eyes to divert from hers.
"You are." Silver said truly. "Go ahead." She said knowing in her way that he wanted something that only she could give. Pitch's hand grabbed her chin in its unforgiving grasp. Her eyes dared him. He brought her face to his in a hard kiss. It was harsh, and it was passionate. It was greedy, and it was cruel. But Pitch needed it. And Silver loved it.
When they broke apart they both found they needed to catch their breath. Pitch was grinning at Silver and she was still holding tightly to the front of his robes as if that was all that held her upright. They just looked at each other for a time.
"We should do that again sometime." Silver said with a small laugh to break the silence. Pitch shrugged.
"I won't object." He grinned at her. "But first," He brushed the hair from her forehead, but it quickly ran back and tried to twine itself in his fingers. "We need to talk." Silver raised her eyebrow at him.
"About what?" Silver asked, blinking.
"You still need to go to the Pole." He said simply, he'd been on about it for days now. Silver growled at him, tired of his nagging and broke from his embrace.
"Again, you bring it up!" Silver crossed he arms angrily over her chest. "And at a terribly inconvenient moment too." She glowered at the shadows that run along the wall with her back to Pitch.
"I meant to tell you earlier…" Pitch tried to defend himself. He threw his hands up in defeat. "What just happened doesn't change the fact you need to go." Pitch pointed at her back angrily. She turned quickly on her heel, her dress fanning out around her briefly. Pitch glanced at the fabric then back up to her face.
"Why do I have to go?" Silver demanded, arms still crossed. "And don't you dare tell me because the Man in the Moon said so." Pitch shook his head at her.
"You wanted to go before." He offered. She shrugged.
"Now I don't want to. If I couldn't find it, maybe they don't want me there. All I need is here anyway." Silver strode past him then. He turned and watched her go, exasperated.
"Silver!" Pitch shouted after her. "Don't walk away from me!" He shouted moving through the shadows to appear in front of her. She glowered at him, but stopped.
"What Pitch?" Silver asked, clearly quite angry at him.
"You can't avoid it forever. Believe me, the last place I want you to go is the Pole." Pitch said, trying to sound apologetic and failing.
"And yet you're the one that keeps pushing me to go." She spat at him. "Just leave me be for a while." She went to walk past him but he caught her arm.
"Silver," Pitch said meeting her eyes. "Maybe they can tell you who the voice is." Her eyes narrowed and she looked away from him.
"Ask me again tomorrow." Silver said softly and shot out of the cavern in a blast of silver-light. Pitch stood there in the dark and for the first time in many, many years, he truly felt like the villain.