The Boy in the Tower
by Sirenfox
Chapter III: In Which Aster goes for a Ride
Anger churned in the yellow eyes glaring up at Jack almost making them seem to glow in the darkness.
Jack shrank back at the sight of his father's obvious fury. He quickly sprang to his feet, eyes wide, as it finally dawned on him how bad of an idea it was to prank his father. Father had made it very clear early on that he had no patience for Jack's light flights of fancy. He was stern and harsh, and Jack had quickly realized he had no sense of humor whatsoever.
His hold on his magic slipped with the sudden spike of fear, allowing the ice circling around the tower like a coiling snake to melt away, revealing a long spiraling staircase built into the stone exterior of the tower. Jack retreated to the doorway to wait anxiously for his father. His hands gripped his staff so tight his pale hands were actually beginning to hurt. He stood straight as a rod, afraid to give an inch for fear of what his father had planned as punishment.
Wind returned to his side, ruffing his hair with a fond apology. Jack couldn't really blame them, it had been his idea after all. But that didn't help him now. His lips twitched in a barely-there smile to show his forgiveness, before smoothing away leaving a blank slate in its place.
It felt like years before his father mounted the top of the stairs looking as unruffled as ever save for the tight line of his mouth and the burning fire in his white-gold eyes.
"Really, Jack?" He asked quietly, his anger was simmering just below the surface. Jack remained tense, he knew what was coming, but that didn't help matters at all. He swallowed heavily, the only visible sign of his unease. A sign that did not go unnoticed by his father's sharp eyes.
"I was bored." Jack said, his usual answer slipping past his lips before he had a chance to reel it back in. He cringed inside, knowing that answer would only make his father more angry. But there was nothing for it, it was out there and his father had heard every word.
The taller man's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, that cut across his face like razor sharp knives. "Indeed?" He intoned, voice dripping with venom. He raised his eyebrows at Jack expectantly, and the boy could only shrug in answer. He felt like he'd swallowed a rock and it was lodged in his throat, Jack wasn't sure he could speak even if he wanted to.
His father stared at him scrutinizingly for a long, tense moment
He then brushed passed the boy entering the tower. "Then it is a good thing I brought this, isn't it?" the man said as he pulled something out of his shadowy robes and held it aloft as if it was the most precious of treasures.
Jack knew he wasn't off the hook. His father would wait until it was almost time for him to leave before finally punishing the boy. He would leave Jack tense and nervous all day, afraid of what his father had planned. There was no telling how bad it would be, either. His father liked to keep things...interesting; keep Jack guessing.
"Thanks." Jack said quickly as he snatched the object out of the older man's long spidery fingers. It was a toy,not anything particularly special. A small, brown plastic horse, like so many other similar presents his father had brought home for him over the years. Jack had long since grown bored with the things his father brought, but he would never be able to say so.
Jack's tower had a total of three main rooms. The largest of which was a combination living area / kitchenette, with a total of three doors. One door lead out onto the balcony outside, and the door to Jack's room was right next to that. About six feet down from his room was the third door which lead to what Jack referred to as the playroom. The playroom wasn't a very big room in the first place and over the years Jack had lived there it had become...overcrowded, with no real room to do any playing of any kind.
All the presents his father had given him were stored here, stacked against the walls and tucked away on the many shelves Jack had made. He flew up to the highest point in the room where he could see a little empty space on the shelf with other similar figures. Each icy shelf held a different type of toy, everything from stuffed animals to board games. Not exactly things he could really play with on his own, or were designed for children much much younger than he was.
He could feel his father's eyes on his back, solid as ice, as he slowly floated back to the floor. Jack didn't move for a long moment, his breath caught in his throat as he waited with baited breath for his father to strike out at him. The man wanted to, Jack could feel it heavy in the air around them a kind of tension that was not unfamiliar to the young boy.
He braced himself for it eyes squeezed tight and shoulders tense. His father wasn't always violent, but he was easily pushed into it and Jack knew he'd gone too far. Knew it was coming and if he tried to stop or delay it, it would only be worse when his father finally did snap.
But the moment passed. The heavy gaze moved on and Jack could hear the whisper of his father's cloak as he moved out of the doorway.
Jack's relief was fleeting.
He could hear his father rummaging around in the kitchen. The sound of glass tinking together and the clacking of the cupboard doors being snapped shut drew the boy out of the playroom.
Jack hovered just outside the kitchen area, watching his father's ever growing ire as he riffled through the cupboards. Jack felt his throat go dry, a foreboding feeling creeping into his heart.
Something was obviously wrong, but Jack couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.
His father stopped his search abruptly, slowly turning to level Jack with a look that could melt iron. Jack couldn't stop himself from retreating a step as his heart clenched in fear, "Where," The man whispered, his voice easily carrying across the short distance separating them, "Is my goblet, Jack."
The winter sprite swallowed, fear building inside him as his father glared down at him. The boy's eyes flickered to the open window behind the taller man. The goblet. His father's special goblet. The one he told Jack had been a gift, from Jack's mother. Jack's long dead mother.
How could he have forgotten about the bloody goblet?
He was acutely aware of it's placement on the roof above them, hidden from his father's wrath in a way Jack wished extended to him. He couldn't tell him, his father would never understand. He'd flip, destroy the flower and then turn his anger on Jack. He couldn't let that happen. He had to keep the flower safe. It was special. Innocent. He couldn't let his father hurt it.
So Jack did the only thing he could do in this situation. "I broke it." He lied, the words felt like lead on his tongue. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see his father's reaction. But it also prevented him from seeing his punishment coming.
Aster
With Easter finally taken care of, Aster was free to take some time to recover. Normally he was all for that. He would retreat to his Warren and just lounge in the hot-springs for days. Then sleep for weeks.
But not this time.
Not after he'd seen that hidden place, drenched in shadows that the Nightmare King had successfully hidden from the Guardians for far longer than Bunny was comfortable with. The whole place had stank of Pitch, and that no good piece of jackal-shit was up to something. Bunny knew it. He would find out what that something was and he'd stop him.
The other Guardians would probably become involved at some point or other, but that wasn't important right now. For the moment, Aster was focused on reconnaissance.
So instead of easing himself into a nice relaxing meditation to shake off the stress of his holiday, Bunny was standing in a tunnel under the exact location he'd accidentally discovered the dale the day before.
He knew he was dilly-dallying, but he couldn't bring himself to care. His ears kept perking up, angling towards the surface as if that would allow him to hear whatever secrets Pitch had stowed away in this hidden location.
Whatever it was, it had to be big for Pitch to go to this much trouble to keep whatever it was away from even Mim's eyes. If it hadn't been the work of Pitch Black, Bunny might have even been a little impressed.
As it was, he found himself standing below a hidden city, trying to make up his mind about whether this was worth missing his downtime for.
He dithered for a few more moments before deciding that, yes, this was worth it. It would always be worth it if he could stop Pitch from doing whatever unspeakable evil he had planned.
His thoughts briefly flitted to the other Guardians, maybe he should...
No. He didn't need their help. Not yet.
This was a simple scouting mission. No big deal. He would pop in, search around for any suspicious...things...before heading to tell North. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he was positive he would find something.
Bunny would be in and out before Pitch was even aware he'd been there.
Simple.
Stepping out into the open air, he was again struck by how bleak everything was. He knew instinctively that it was around noon, and he could feel the sun shining-his magic connecting him to the trees standing as silent guard around this be-spelled area. Trees that were no more than skeletal shadows of their former selves. Somehow the sun wasn't making its way through, what looked like, a tangle of dead trees that were caught outside the bubble of shadow magic that cloaked the tower's valley from the rest of the world.
The warm spring weather outside was replaced by the strange, stale atmosphere and Aster wasn't at all surprised to see that nothing grew here. Nothing could possibly survive in this place, where death seemed to hang in the air.
It was hard for the pooka to breath; his magic felt stifled and almost detached from him. He could reach it if he needed, but it was like trying to reach something while looking in a mirror. He knew where it was supposed to be, but everything felt backwards.
This whole patch of the shadows went against everything Bunny stood for as the Guardian of Hope and New Beginnings. It rankled with his magic, and left a nasty taste on his tongue.
As much as Aster would like nothing more than to leave and never look back, he had to find out what Pitch was up to. He couldn't let Pitch go unchecked. He was too dangerous.
He spent a short time combing the ruins of the castle. It was almost unrecognizable in its decaying state; walls crumbling if you so much as looked at them wrong, and shadows looming in places devoid of anything to cast said shadow. It was beyond creepy, and Aster felt a deep sort of depression settle over his heart as he looked around the once-proud castle now laid low and forgotten.
The weirdest thing about this place wasn't the lack of sunlight, the lingering chill of death, or the strange shadows; no, the strangest thing about this place was the thin layer of frost that clung to any available surface, and the random patches of ice he slipped on every few steps. Sure it was chilly, he'd noticed that the day before. But it wasn't cold enough to have frost, let alone ice.
It was a puzzle amidst a plethora of puzzles. That puzzle became a jigsaw when he finally stood at the bottom of the tower. Where the rest of the castle was falling apart at the seams the tower stood tall and proud, seemingly untouched by time. If that wasn't suspicious, Aster didn't know what was.
The circular tower was ridiculously tall, even if it hadn't looked like it from a distance. Now that he was standing at it's base he couldn't actually see the top. The rough hewn stone used to build the tower was covered in a thick web of frost, as if the frozen water was attempting to hold the old tower together. There wasn't a door or even any windows that Aster to could see, but there was a staircase. It curved along the outer wall of the tower quickly disappearing into the distance. The stones making up these stairs were considerably darker than the rest, with an obvious lack of frost.
Suspicious, Aster crouched down and drew the pad of one paw over the bottom step.
Just as he had suspected: Wet.
Now the real question was, why? Aster had never known Pitch to mess with the four elements before. If he was doing so now it could only spell disaster. How he had managed it, Aster couldn't say, but he had never really been able to understand how Pitch managed to do half the things he tried.
Pulling himself to his full height, the pooka started towards the top of the tower thoughtfully for a moment, before beginning to climb the stairs. With every step he took the cold damp stairs seemed to pierce through him and cling to the pads of his feet.
The tower was taller than he'd first thought. It seemed to go on forever until it disappeared into the clouds. This was another one of Pitch's tricks, one Bunny was actually familiar with since it was something the man had used before in his own lair. It was a simple spell that toyed with one's senses. There were two outcomes of such a spell, you would either be caught in an endless loop, forever traveling while making no actual progress; or it would make distances seem to drag out for forever before abruptly ending leaving any intruders teetering on the precipice of disaster, that is, if they managed to stop in time.
Once Bunny had recognized the magic he was able to see it more clearly, and move passed it, completely bypassing the dangerous edge of the spell. Now he was actually making progress, not stuck in Pitch's loop.
It was starting to get colder the higher he went, a brisk harsh wind whipping through his fur and almost seeming intent on tripping him. Was that another of Pitch's tricks? Something new he had learned now that he had some control over one of the elements? What secrets would he unravel when he reached the top of the tower? Could whatever had granted Pitch this kind of control be all the way up there? It would make sense.
He was almost to the top when the ice came. He could hear it crackling above him, singing a shrill song as it descended down the stairs, quick as a whip. Aster barely had time to gape, startled as the stairs in front of him disappeared to be replaced by a thick sheet of pure ice.
He went down with an undignified yelp as his paws lost purchase on the stair he'd been standing on. Claws dug gouges into the ice as the pooka flailed, trying to slow his descent. He was sliding down a slippery slope and the only thing he could do was flip onto his back and Hope for the best.
That hope went flying off the edge of the tower, which would soon become his own fate. Aster had climbed fairly high before this deathtrap had been triggered and now he was careening towards certain death. There was no possible way he would be able to control his descent enough to follow the curve of the tower without flying over the alarmingly short ridge.
Aster was in no mood to die today though, he still had things to do...eggs to hide.
No, Aster was not about to let it end like this, he wouldn't give Pitch the satisfaction.
Summoning his magic wasn't as easy as usual, but Aster had millennia of practice. He poured the magic he could into the action as he thumped his foot on the stairs. The magic sputtered out as his foot skimmed against the ice hard enough to crack it. But his paw only glanced off the surface, the ice too slick and his speed too quick.
A curse left his lips when he felt his magic clash with the ice then shrink back into his core.
Winter and Spring just didn't mix well. But Aster was from a long line of proud Pookan warriors and he wasn't about to give up. Unfortunately he was running out of time, the curve of the tower was too sharp and he was sliding too fast.
He almost felt like he was floating as he drew closer to the edge. He could swear he felt his back leave the ice. He glanced down, the ground looming below him like a hungry dragon.
A sound, like that of bells tinkling a resonance not dissimilar to a fey's laughter, tickled Aster's ears before the ice reached out and curled around him, groping him like an old lover as it dragged him back onto the slide.
Aster hardly paid any mind to the appearance of the lip that grew out of the ice next to him, he was just relieved to not be plummeting to his death. That didn't mean he was going to stay there any longer. He started thumping his foot against the ice in a mad attempt to escape, but the magic in the ice rebuffed him again and again until everything was a blur of slippery ice and solid stone whistling past his ear.
That didn't stop him from trying, desperately attempting to open a portal out of this nightmare of a ride with every chance he got. He was so caught up in the crazy slip-n-slide of death, and its strange contrary magic blocking his, that it came as a surprise when his magic finally took hold and the ground opened up beneath him, and swallowed him whole.
Aster lay where he landed, stunned with disbelief. He wasn't quite sure what had happened but he was done for the night.
He didn't think he could take anymore excitement just then, so he slipped back to the Warren to lick his wounds and nurse his bruised pride.
I'm so sorry for the late update guys. I really was planning to update last Sunday, but I had a very bad panic attack in church and it really messed me up. I only started to come back to myself about two days ago. I know it's not an excuse, but I hope you can forgive me.
I feel like I need to give a quick shout-out to: June, thank you so much for your wonderful reviews. My beta's and I had all overlooked the goblet being Pitch's while writing this. We completely forgot that he was totally going to notice and it wasn't going to go over well. So thank you so much for pointing that out. I look forward to your next review.
As you can see I read all the reviews and take them into consideration when revising the next chapter so if you see something you like or have a thought about how someone might react please let me know. I love all of your reviews and they make me incredibly happy to read.
I hope this chapter lived up to your expectations. I'll see you all in the next update, and please feel free to review.
