Warning: This was updated super fast! If you haven't read Chapter 69, go back and read it. Yes, Chapter 69 was actually posted in 2018. Read that first before this one.
Author's Note: I changed my mind. I couldn't leave the plot like that, so here's another chapter. It's much longer than the last one and I hope it's not too long for you guys. I couldn't help it! I actually wanted to go a little longer than that but Bunny was being stubborn about things, so issues need to get resolved until we can get to the point I was really eager for. There were a few times that I thought of ending this chapter, but I felt bad about all the cliffhangers, so I tried to end this one in a semi non-cliffhangery way. I hope you guys like it!
Reviews:
Con Weird: Thanks! I hope you enjoy this update too.
Chapter Seventy: Jamie's Adventure: Helpful Decay
Current time: 1974
Tooth and Sandy sat on the sleigh, feeling oddly strange to be perched there without Bunny complaining about keeping his carrots inside of himself or muttering about how it would have been safer to take his tunnels. Both exchanged worried glances while North sat somberly in the driver's seat as the sleigh went through the winding rollercoaster-like tunnels as it left the North Pole.
Tooth leaned forward as she tried to see the darkening light that was Jamie's on the globe that was on the front of the sleigh when what was left of Lillian's light caught her eye. She gasped and covered her mouth as she stared at the light of Bunny's oldest believer, it not quite registering that she was no longer in Burgess.
Sandy, who was shorter and had a harder time seeing it from his spot had a golden question mark appear above his head as he looked questioningly at Tooth.
Tooth spotted the golden symbol out of the corner of her eye and looked over at Sandy sadly.
"Lillian's light is almost out," Tooth said regretfully. "It's started to blink."
That's the way it always happened. The bright lights would grow so dim and then they would start to blink. The blinks would get farther and farther apart as the child wavered between belief and disbelief, but finally, disbelief would set in and then the light would remain forever dark as the light of belief left the child's eyes.
"She was such a strong believer," Tooth said, her voice full of sorrow. "What could have happened?"
Sandy shook his head regretfully as North pulled out a snow globe once they were finally in the air.
"Take us to Burgess!" he told the snow globe urgently as he threw it into the air.
The picture on the globe changed to that of the small town before it flew through the air in front of the sleigh and burst into the bright shining light of the portal. Tooth sought out the strange light that was Jamie's on the globe as the sleigh began to fly through the portal.
Her cry of horror was lost as the sleigh went into the portal and disappeared.
Jamie's light was mostly black and only a tiny pinprick of belief remained, and what remained was hardly lit up.
Jamie's belief was almost gone.
A tunnel appeared in a street in Burgess as Bunny hopped out of it. It quickly closed and a spring flower appeared in its place, Bunny taking no notice of the flower growing in a place where it shouldn't be possible. He had unknowingly appeared right in front of what was to be Jamie's house in the future, but not knowing this, Bunny hardly glanced at it.
Bunny looked around at the dark streets, the night seeming much darker and sinister with the moon and stars blocked out by clouds. The streetlights were the only light in the black of night, each piercing the sea of black with their ghostly light. Bunny couldn't help the small shiver as he tried to see which way he should go. This definitely felt like Pitch's work and so help him if that ratbag had anything to do with Jamie's or Lillian's lights, he was going to smack him into next Easter with his boomerangs.
Bunny tried to remember exactly where he'd seen Jamie's darkening light on the globe and furrowed his brow as he remembered it was not quite in Burgess. Why would Jamie be outside of town?
Setting that question aside, for now, Bunny tried to remember what side of town the light had been on and then he took a look at his surroundings again as he tried to orient himself. Taking a deep breath, Bunny drew a boomerang and raced off into the night, heading in what he hoped was the right direction.
A few moments later, high above Burgess the awesomeness that was North's sleigh appeared. North squinted down at the lights of Burgess, but he couldn't see much else. The night was shrouded in darkness, the gloom of night seeming to envelop the sleigh as North directed it to fly in closer to the town.
"How can we see any Nightmares in this?" Tooth fretted as she stared around helplessly into the dark.
Sandy had a golden lightbulb appear above his head as he floated up into the air from the sleigh, his golden cloud appearing below him. He held out both his hands away from himself and his golden streams of dreamsand raced out into the night, doing their job to send good dreams to the children of Burgess while simultaneously lighting up the gloom and making the dark less penetrating.
"Good idea Sandy!" North cheered as he more easily steered the sleigh toward the town. He flew low over the buildings as he stared down at the empty streets. "Now.. where is Nightmare?"
Tooth was staring at Jamie's light in horror, but North's question caused her to jerk her attention to the other lights on the globe. She had to trust that Bunny would reach Jamie in time. Her eyes sought out Lillian's light and realized that she couldn't find it. A moment of panic overtook her, but then she remembered it hadn't been near where Jamie's light was. It had been much farther away.
She blinked as she realized that meant that Lillian must not be in Burgess.
Had they made a terrible mistake?! They were in such a hurry to go rescue her that they hadn't thought she could be anywhere else but in Burgess.
She frantically searched the globe while North was busy looking around every which way, not seeming to realize that Tooth was distracted. It took much longer for her to find Lillian's light since the blinks were much farther apart. She groaned when she noticed that Lillian's light was very far away from Burgess.
"North!" she called out to him. "We're in the wrong place! Lillian's across the country!"
"What?!" North exclaimed as he tore his gaze away from where he'd been frantically searching and looked to where Tooth was pointing on the globe.
How could they not have noticed this?!
His eyes widened when he saw the light blink off. After a heart-stopping moment that was far too long, the light blinked back on again, barely visible.
"Sandy! Sandy! We are in wrong place!" North shouted at Sandy as he desperately searched his pockets for another snow fglobe.
A golden exclamation point appeared over Sandy's head as he abandoned his task of spreading good dreams to rush back over the sleigh. He sat back down as he waited for North to use another snow globe to hurry them along to their new destination.
Would they make it in time?!
Father Time paced nervously back and forth in front of the mirrors in his Room of Possibilities as he watched the events play out. He had his eye on the boy and girl respectively, since he could tell that both were important to time somehow. He was especially worried about the boy who seemed to have the Amulet of Protection. The boy still was covering his face and whimpering, which meant that he was still alive, ruling out the square mirror where he hadn't gotten up again.
Father Time couldn't see any trace of the Guardians turning up, but he knew that could change in an instant.
And speaking of the Guardians..
He saw in one mirror where North was shouting at Sandy that they were in the wrong place. It was in a diamond mirror, which was both good and bad. Good, since the outcome of this might not be so terrible, but bad since diamond mirrors were like a double-edged sword. More square mirrors surrounded this diamond mirror and he could see what would happen if the Guardians were too late.
He shivered as he averted his gaze.
The results weren't pretty.
As he turned back to see the fate of the boy, for once Father Time didn't want to be a passive observer. He wanted to go out there and help influence the events so that the square mirrors didn't have their way.
"My child," he murmured to himself softly. "If only you were here to help as you so often did in the past. I know you would find a way to help your friends."
As he sorrowfully watched the boy to see what would be his fate, he couldn't help but glance at the young girl who appeared to be asleep on the floor of a cave in another mirror and how she reminded him of a child he had known so well.
As Father Time watched the mirrors in trepidation, he remembered a much happier time when the laughter of a young girl rang out along with the honking of a goose.*
The Gethen of 1974 glared down at the future Gethen with a sneer. How dare he be so presumptuous and demanding! He turned from the crumpled form on the ground and saw many pairs of dark golden-yellowish eyes staring out at him from his cave, which was dimly lit.
Many of them were surrounding the young girl who was laying on the ground in the center of the small cave on his rug. Past Gethen gulped and took a step backward as a Nightmare whinnied menacingly and stepped towards him.
Then Gethen heard the sound of a terrified whimper and his gaze was inevitably drawn back to the young girl who looked so distressed, even though she was unconscious. He could see black sand hovering over her head and dark images forming cruel shapes, no doubt indicating what she was seeing in her sleep.
Gethen narrowed his eyes at the sight and stiffened his resolve.
He might be many things, but he did not harm children. He didn't care what lead his future self down this dark path, he was determined not to be the same way. If it involved undoing whatever his future self's plan was, all the better.
A smirk played on his lips as he drew himself up to his not-so-impressive height and took a challenging step toward the Nightmares.
After all, it wasn't like he was a powerless human like that child.
He had powers.
He could fight back.
Jamie's hair was almost completely black, but the last few inches or so stubbornly refused to change while Jamie still lay on the ground, his arms thrown over his face as though to ward off something.
Nightmares surrounded him, staring down at him with their cruel golden-yellowish eyes, hooves stamping impatiently as they waited for the last vestiges of Jamie's belief to be torn to shreds.
Pitch, who had a few Nightmares flanking him on either side, approached Jamie to see that the Amulet of Protection was still writhing and twisting as though the snakes that formed it were alive. He frowned down at the sight and looked from it to Jamie's hair, wondering if that could be what was stopping the transformation. It was, after all, supposed to protect its bearer. No one really knew the full extent of its powers.
Pitch knelt down near Jamie and reached out a pale gray hand toward the necklace as he ignored Jamie's barely heard whimper.
"..Please.." Jamie whimpered, his tone full of tears and anguish.
As Pitch's hand got close to the amulet, one of the snakes suddenly reared up as it released its brethren and hissed warningly at Pitch. Pitch hastily withdrew his hand and the snake seemed to eye him warily before settling back down into its former shape as the symbol of eternity.
A bewildered look crossed Pitch's face before it turned into a more vexed expression.
Was the amulet sentient?!
He snarled in frustration, but then glanced at the Nightmares that were all around.
"Take the amulet," he commanded them. "And the boy will be ours."
The Nightmares whinnied and hooves began to stamp. Finally, the one that Pitch had ridden on stepped forward. It turned into a whirl of black sand that approached the amulet. As it drew close to the amulet, once again one of the snakes rose up and hissed menacingly at the black sand.
The black sand ignored the snake and wrapped itself around the chain of the amulet causing the snake to strike out at the black sand. Its teeth bit at the sand fiercely, but the grains harmlessly dispersed for a moment before reforming back into a more substantial form.
Pitch grinned in triumph as he saw the black sand begin to tug the chain of the amulet upwards to pull it over Jamie's head.
The sleigh once again flew out of a magical portal and Sandy hastily rose up into the air as he sent out his dreamsand to light up the dark night.
"Why did I not think of that earlier?" North shook his head as he began to look around.
North, Tooth, and Sandy had a difficult time telling exactly where Lillian's light was as to them it looked like she was in the middle of nowhere. In sheer desperation North had told the snow globe he had eventually found to 'take them to Lillian.'
To everyone's astonishment, the snow globe had lit up with its destination and before they could get a proper look, North had tossed it into the air in front of the sleigh.
Now they all looked around the area, which appeared to be even gloomier than Burgess. What little grass and plants there were appeared to be dead and high cliffs surrounded the desolate area.
"I don't like this," Tooth said nervously as her wings fluttered in her agitation, causing her to rise a few inches off her seat in the sleigh without her noticing. "Why would a Nightmare bring Lillian here?"
Sandy had reformed his dreamsand cloud and he flew ahead of the sleigh, scanning the cliffs down below them. A golden exclamation point appeared over his head as he thought he saw something at one of the bases of the cliffs. He hastily flew back to North and Tooth and pointed at what he had seen.
Tooth squinted at where Sandy was pointing, but even with his golden dreamsand floating around them it was still difficult to make out.
"What is it?" she asked as tried to make out what had Sandy so excited.
North had placed a hand over his eyes as though it would help him see better. His eyes lit up as he finally recognized the dark splotch that was in front of them, far below at the base of one of the cliffs.
"It is a cave!" he cried triumphantly. "It must be where Nightmare took Lillian!"
"We have to save her!" Tooth said as she wrung her hands. "Before it's too late!"
Sandy nodded in agreement but blinked as North had the sleigh zoom downwards, right towards the cave.
He held out a hand as if to stop them, then gave a silent sigh as he watched his friends rush off into danger.
Shouldn't they have a plan?!
1974 Gethen had to admit, this hadn't been one of his better ideas. It had seemed simple enough at first, as he had stepped challengingly toward the Nightmares, but he had forgotten one very important detail.
He was vastly outnumbered.
A few seconds after that challenge had been issued, he realized his mistake as the Nightmares all began to attack at once, abandoning their menacing vigil over the sleeping Lillian.
Gethen found himself badly dodging hooves and the Nightmares' snouts as they tried to lash out and bite him. He retaliated by reaching out and grabbing one harshly by the mane, channeling his raw destructive power of decay into the Nightmare.
The Nightmare let out a terrifying scream as the black sand of its body seemed to melt and it was this sound that the Guardians heard as North hastily landed the sleigh near the mouth of the cave.
Tooth let out a gasp as her eyes went wide with fear and she hurriedly placed her hands over her mouth to stifle the noise. She turned her violet eyes over to North and Sandy, who had rejoined his friends.
They both looked equally shocked as the scream went on and on until it finally ended.
"HA!" a voice yelled triumphantly. "Take that!"
Sandy pressed a finger to his lips as they all went to creep forward toward the entrance to the cave, but was startled when the same voice seemed to cry out in pain.
"ARGH!" Past Gethen cried out as his lapse in attention cost him dearly.
He had been watching the Nightmare he had grabbed, which seemed to melt and dissolve into tiny grains of black sand that had been blown away in the slight breeze that often filled his cave when another Nightmare lunged at him and bit him harshly on the hand. He had torn his hand away from the mouth of the Nightmare and hidden it away under his arm, cursing himself for his inattention.
He gasped as another Nightmare lunged at him and he clumsily tried to move out of the way, only to trip over his future self and fall over. Before he could scramble to his feet, a Nightmare bit his foot at the ankle and shook its head, shaking Gethen in the process. It didn't hurt since the Nightmare had only bit his boot but it effectively stopped him from getting up to his feet. Another Nightmare took the opportunity to grab Gethen by his cloak in its mouth and lift him up into the air while another bit his shirt sleeve and pulled harshly.
Gethen cried out as he was pulled in all directions and squeezed his eyes shut in pain. He felt like the Nightmares were trying to tear him apart!
North, Tooth, and Sandy all watched with wide eyes as what appeared to be a rather short man (short being subjective, since he was shorter than the average man but not a little person) take on the Nightmares all by himself. They had heard him cry out in pain as they were nearing the mouth of the cave and had peered inside in time to see him trip over another person who was crumpled on the ground.
Then the Nightmares took advantage and soon the man was lifted into the air as one Nightmare tugged at his foot while another tugged at his arm, each intent on causing him great harm.
The man cried out in pain and that's when North drew his swords and gave a cry worthy of a warrior before charging right in.
Sandy had a moment to facepalm before racing in after his friend, trying to minimize the damage of having their cover blown.
Tooth took up the rear and noticed what the others had failed to: Lillian was lying in the middle of the cave! While the Nightmares were preoccupied with the short man, Tooth tried to edge around the massive fight that now involved North's swords and Sandy's golden dreamsand.
She had to rescue Lillian.
Pitch's malevolent grin grew as the amulet was nearly pulled off of Jamie's head.
It was only a matter of time!
Pitch's eyes lit up with malicious glee as he watched Jamie's hair start to darken more as the amulet lost more contact with him.
He was so preoccupied that he never noticed the boomerang until it hit him right in the back of the head.
Before the Nightmares could begin to process what had happened, Pitch had fallen to the ground, down for the count and completely unconscious.
The boomerang sailed away into the darkness, back to where it had come from as the Nightmares stamped their hooves in outrage. A few raced out after the boomerang, as though to follow it back to its master while some nudged the unconscious form of Pitch, trying to rouse him.
The Nightmares' agitation and confusion distracted them sufficiently enough that they didn't notice the magical tunnel appearing under one Jamie Bennett until it was too late. As Jamie fell right into the hole of the tunnel, the amulet was yanked out of the black sands' grasp and fell back down, landing where it had been, the chain falling back to rest securely around Jamie's neck.
The screams of outrage from the Nightmares as they realized they had been outmaneuvered was something that Bunny soon wouldn't forget. He clutched the ashen Jamie in his arms as he raced back along his tunnel, now directing it to take him to back to the North Pole, the one safe place he could think of to take the boy.
He glanced worriedly down at the boy with his mostly black hair and gray skin.
Were they too late?
North burst into the cave and immediately started things off by slicing through the Nightmare holding the short man's foot. He proceeded to slash at the other Nightmares who were surrounding the man while skillfully blocking or dodging blows of his own.
The whole time he had a grin on his face as the battle raged on.
He had to admit, he sort of missed his rough and tumble days of fighting.
Sandy ignored North's manic grin as he formed his dreamsand whips and began to cover North's back since a few Nightmares were trying to sneak around him. Black sand exploded all around them as the two began to take out Nightmare after Nightmare.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tooth trying to edge her way around the room and paused to also throw out a few balls of dreamsand as a distraction, directing all the Nightmares' attention to him and North, as he realized Tooth must be trying to get to Lillian.
Thanks to Sandy, Tooth managed to get to Lillian and she hurriedly scooped the child up into her arms, noticing as she did so, that the girl had black sand hovering over her head. Not having any time to do much about this, Tooth turned with Lillian in her arms to see how the others were faring.
North and Sandy had been surrounded by numerous Nightmares, but the number seemed to be dwindling. The remaining ones seemed especially distracted and when it was clear the tide was turning in the Guardians' favor, the ones that hadn't been destroyed raced off into the darkness and out of the cave.
The short man let out a loud "Oof!" at being unceremoniously dropped to the ground and lay there for a moment as the wind was knocked out of him.
Tooth rushed over to the others as the Nightmares fled.
"Are you alright?" she asked North and Sandy in a rush.
"Da," North said agreeably while Sandy nodded.
Sandy pointed first at Lillian and then at the short man on the ground and a golden question mark appeared over his head.
"I don't know," Tooth said with a tinge of worry in her voice. "Lillian has something dark over her head and hasn't woken up."
"You!" North said to the man on the ground as he nudged him gently with a boot. "You alright?"
The prone figure of the short man groaned as he sat up on his cave floor. He shook his head as his dark hair hung loosely about his shoulders, having completely fallen out of the low ponytail he always kept it in.
He wore a dark long sleeve peasant-style shirt and a dark cloak was clasped about his shoulders, although his outfit was now a little worse for wear. His clothes had rips and tears where the Nightmares had attacked him and been tugging on him.
He glanced up at the Guardians and then seemed to freeze when he saw them all staring down at him. Like other Spirits, of course he had heard of them, but the Guardians were an elite group. They usually had little to do with other Spirits or Sprites since their specialty was dealing with the children of the world and protecting their hopes, wishes, dreams, memories, and wonder.
"Well?" North said in his booming voice.
The man flinched at the loud tone and scrambled up to his feet, taking a few steps away from them as he did so.
Sandy smiled kindly at the man and a flurry of golden symbols appeared above his head.
At the man's look of confusion, Tooth translated for Sandy.
"Sandy says that you don't have to worry," Tooth reassured the man, "We aren't here to cause any trouble. We only wanted to save Lillian."
The man's eyes widened at that and he looked down at the girl in Tooth's arms, who seemed to be more of a preteen than a child.
"Will she be alright?" he asked, his voice rough from all the yelling he'd been doing recently when the Nightmares had attacked.
"Of course!" North said emphatically. "We will take her back to the Pole and help her recover."
The man nodded at this and looked relieved. He wasn't sure what he would think if his future self had been responsible for permanently harming a child. As the man brushed his hair out of his eyes, Sandy let out a silent gasp and rushed over to him.
The man looked startled as Sandy gently took a hold of his hand, which was injured when the Nightmare bit it and he tore it away from the Nightmare's grasp.
Sandy could see a few grains of black sand surrounding the wound and looked earnestly up at the man as more golden symbols appeared above his head.
"Ah," North said as he looked at Sandy's symbols. "Sandy says you must come too. You are injured and also need help."
"M-me?" the man practically squeaked as he stared down at Sandy with wide eyes.
Never in his dreams did he ever imagine getting to go with the Guardians to their home!
"Of course, but now we must hurry," North said.
He lead the way out of the cave with Tooth hurrying along behind him, carrying Lillian.
Sandy patted the man's arm reassuringly as he gently tugged on the man's sleeve and lead him along after North and Tooth.
As they stepped out of the cave, no one noticed that the other man who had been on the floor near the mouth of the cave had vanished.
Bunny had leapt out of the tunnel as soon as it formed in North's Workshop and bellowed for the yetis as he immediately rushed into the infirmary with Jamie in his arms. The yetis had set Jamie up in one of the rooms in a comfortable bed but seemed to be at a loss on what to do as beyond a few bruises and a shallow cut on his arm, the boy didn't have any physical injuries.
Bunny had been incensed when after a frantic examination of Jamie, he'd spotted what appeared to be a fingerprint-shaped bruise on Jamie's arm. He knew Pitch must have been behind it and he growled at the thought of Pitch harming any child. After he had helped the yetis change Jamie into some Christmas pajamas, courtesy of North's stock for Christmas gifts, he had tried to rouse Jamie.
Jamie had been awake, but hardly aware of his surroundings as the darkness inside of him raged and stormed at his belief, battering it relentlessly. Bunny had gently pulled Jamie's arms away from his face and his angry look softened when he saw the tears coursing down Jamie's cheeks.
"Jamie?" Bunny said softly to him. "Ya awake?"
Jamie's eyes were clenched tightly shut with his face screwed up in pain as he tried to ignore the voices he could still hear, screaming at him to just give in.
Then Bunny's voice cut through the cacophony and Jamie slowly opened his eyes, almost afraid of what he would see. Instead of the terrible darkness and Pitch with all those Nightmares, Jamie saw that he was instead in a brightly lit room with the blue-gray face of the Easter Bunny hovering worriedly over him.
"B-Bunny?" Jamie stuttered in confusion, having missed most of his epic rescue when he'd been nearly consumed by the darkness that was inside of him.
"Thank goodness," Bunny sighed in relief.
He reached out and helped Jamie wipe his tears away.
"The others'll be here soon and then we'll get ya fixed up," he told Jamie reassuringly.
Jamie's face crumpled as the statement penetrated the voices that were still screaming into his soul and he began to sob in utter relief.
Bunny sat down on the bed by Jamie and hastily gathered the boy up into his arms, helping him into a sitting position.
"It'll be alright," Bunny said as he pat Jamie's back. "Everythin' will be just fine."
North sat in the driver's seat while Tooth sat behind him with Lillian still in her arms. Sandy sat in the back with the short man as the sleigh suddenly took off.
"Whoa!" the man cried out in alarm as he gripped the edge of his seat tightly.
Sandy gave a silent laugh at the man's reaction and couldn't help but notice how similar it was to Bunny's whenever he was on the sleigh.
When the sleigh was in the air, North once again began to search his pockets to see if he had an extra snow globe around. Usually, he made sure he had plenty, but they had been in such a rush when they left that he had forgotten to grab some. He hoped that they could get to the Pole quickly, but that hope was soon dashed when his pockets came up empty.
"Ah," North said in disappointment, "No more snow globes. We will have to fly to the Pole."
Tooth looked down at Lillian, who was still in her arms and gave her a worried frown.
"I don't know if we'll make it in time," Tooth admitted. "Lillian looks like she's in pain and I don't know how much belief she has left."
Gethen leaned forward a bit to peer over Tooth's shoulder at the child. The sand over her head seemed to resemble the golden sand that the Sandman used to give the children of the world good dreams. He wasn't entirely sure how it worked or if this black sand differed from the golden sand, but he was pretty sure it went away when the child woke up.
"Did you try waking her up?" Gethen asked the Tooth Fairy.
The Tooth Fairy gaped down at Lillian.
"I didn't think of that!" she exclaimed in a rush and immediately began to gently shake Lillian.
"Lillian? Sweetie? It's time to wake up now," Tooth called out to Lillian. "Come on, wake up."
Lillian's eyes fluttered and the black sand over her head dissipated and then disappeared.
Tooth beamed down at her.
"You are a genius!" she practically squealed at Gethen as she hugged Lillian tight.
Lillian looked confused as she was hugged and flinched as she tried to scramble out of Tooth's arms. Before she could struggle too much though, Sandy knocked her out with a golden ball of dreamsand and Lillian slumped against Tooth, good dreams of all the Guardians filling her mind.
Gethen coughed awkwardly at Tooth's compliment and saw Sandy was now looking at him expectantly, his attention averted from the girl now that she had been taken care of.
A golden question mark appeared over Sandy's head and Sandy pointed at Gethen.
"How.. how am I?" Gethen asked hesitantly. It was so weird for a Guardian to directly address him like this. In fact, the whole night was turning out to be one of the strangest ones he'd ever had.
"I think what Sandy is trying to say is 'Who are you?'" North helped out his friend. "You are spirit, are you not? And how did you find Lillian in cave?"
Sandy nodded enthusiastically at this and Gethen looked very awkward.
"I'm.. I'm Gethen," he said finally, after a pause. "The Spirit of Decay."
"You are Seasonal?" North asked in surprise. He thought he had known who all the Seasonals were, but he hadn't heard of this one.
Gethen's expression became closed off at that and Sandy cocked his head to the side as he observed the man. He appeared to be a little older than the other Seasonals. August appeared to be in his mid to late twenties while Jasper appeared to be a few years younger. But this spirit looked to be at least in his early thirties. He couldn't help but wonder what had made Mother Nature choose them in particular to be the Seasonals and he wondered what she had seen in this man to have him be such a strange spirit as the Spirit of Decay.
Gethen looked off to the side as though looking out at the night sky but only did so to avoid Sandy's gaze.
"No," Gethen said a little shortly. "I'm not one of them."
"I must admit," North said as he scratched his head, "I am confused. What does Spirit of Decay do?"
Gethen's expression turned troubled as he considered the question. He hadn't thought about the purpose of his powers in a very long time.
He could remember hearing this question in a sneering tone time and time again from Leif, August, and Jasper. Leif, in particular, was the main instigator of this and had taken to bullying Gethen with his Spirits and Sprites whenever he saw the Spirit of Decay, chasing him away from doing his duties.
Gethen remembered being called useless over and over and a murderer, for killing off everyone's beloved plants. He remembered being burned by the Summer Spirits and taunted by the Fall Spirits. In one particularly ugly incident, he remembered a Fall Spirit dumping paint over his head while the other Fall Spirits and Sprites laughed at his misfortune.
"I destroy plants," he replied dully.
Sandy looked surprised at the lackluster reply. From what he knew of other Spirits, they loved talking about their jobs. Why doesn't this one?
"Destroy plants?" North asked him quizzically.
"I make them decay," Gethen elaborated as he kept his gaze averted from Sandy.
"Oh!" Tooth replied after a moment of hard thinking. "You make the plants wither at the end of the seasons, right? That's an important job! You help clear the way for the next season to come in."
Gethen drew in a sharp breath at Tooth's words.
No one had ever said in his entire time as a spirit that his job was important.
"It maintains the balance," Gethen agreed faintly, as Mother Nature's words from centuries ago came to him.
"Wow, you must be pretty special to do such an important job," Tooth said with a smile.
Gethen looked down at that, not feeling like anything special at all. He had spent centuries listening to others tell him otherwise and as he thought about all that time ago shortly after his friend Mistral, the former Winter Spirit, had disappeared he felt like even less than that.
"I respected nature," he said softly, feeling the beginnings of shame.
Sandy quirked a brow at that, as he caught the past tense but decided not to comment on it. He looked at Gethen, who looked so upset. He wondered how Gethen talking about his job would make him feel this way but didn't have time to linger on it long as North called out.
"Hang on, we will reach Pole in a few hours!" North said jovially as he spurred his reindeer on even faster.
A few hours later, Bunny still had Jamie in his arms as he rubbed the boy's back consolingly, whispering assurances and words of comfort to him as he tried to help Jamie hang on until the others could arrive. Jamie's belief had been nearly extinguished when they had arrived at the Pole, but Bunny being there to comfort him had gone a long way in helping that belief to not disappear.
Unfortunately, with all the darkness inside of him trying to counteract the Easter Bunny's comfort, Jamie's belief hadn't been able to grow very much at all. Jamie's mind was still all a jumble and he was struggling to focus on Bunny's words when the doors to the room Jamie was in suddenly burst open, causing both Jamie and Bunny to jump in surprise.
"Ya made it!" Bunny cried out joyfully as he saw Tooth hurry in first, holding Lillian in her arms while North followed in behind her with Sandy dragging a very reluctant Gethen in behind them.
"So did you!" Tooth smiled happily at Bunny and Jamie, but then her smile vanished as she took in Jamie's appearance.
She let out a horrified gasp as she rushed over.
"Oh my goodness! What happened?!" she all but demanded as she took in the sight of Jamie's gray skin and nearly black hair.
"Pitch," Bunny practically spat in disgust. "He had tons of Nightmares around and was tormentin' Jamie."
Jamie whimpered as he remembered how Pitch had tricked him and what Pitch had done after that. It was awful.
Tooth immediately looked remorseful but wasn't able to do much to comfort Jamie as she still had her arms full.
"What about you?" Bunny asked. "What happened ta Lillian?"
Then he noticed Gethen trying to sidle on out the door, but Sandy was keeping a firm hold of Gethen's sleeve and preventing his escaping.
"..And who is that?" Bunny added as he had never seen the short man before.
"Well," Tooth began, "This is Gethen and - "
But she was cut off suddenly at Jamie's distressed shriek.
"NO!" Jamie almost screamed as his eyes opened wide and he all but leapt out of Bunny's arms to stand near the bed.
He stared at the short man who looked exactly like the image Father Time had shown him in that mirror.
Gethen looked as startled as everyone else at Jamie's sudden distress and Bunny shot Gethen a distrustful look.
"Jamie," Bunny said in as calm a voice as he could muster, trying to calm the boy down, "What's the matter?"
Jamie stared at Gethen with his now mostly dark golden-yellowish eyes that only had small flecks of their previous brown in them.
He looked completely and utterly horrified.
"What's.. what's going on?" Gethen asked uneasily.
"That's what I was gonna ask ya," Bunny said suspiciously to him.
Gethen threw his arms up in a helpless gesture.
"I don't know!" he said as he looked at Jamie in surprise. "I don't even know who this kid is!"
Jamie's breaths started coming in shorter gasps and all he could think about was all the warnings he got about Gethen.
Watch out for Gethen.
Don't let him see you.
Don't let it break.
Jamie seemed to turn even paler as the warnings flashed into his mind and the sinister voices latched onto his insecurity as they viciously tore at it.
You're too late! they shouted at him almost gleefully. You failed!
You failed!
Jamie felt the darkness closing in as his hope began to fade.
"JAMIE!" Bunny shouted as he leapt to his feet and grabbed Jamie in a bear hug, essentially blocking Jamie's view of Gethen. "Whatever it is, snap outta it!"
Jamie continued to gasp as he felt like there wasn't enough air in the room and his fingers clutched almost desperately onto Bunny's fur.
Bunny glanced back at the others, his emerald eyes narrowed and hard.
"Get that gumby outta here!" he shouted angrily. "And keep 'im away from Lillian!"
Gethen flinched as he was suddenly ushered out of the room by North and Tooth. Sandy had let go of Gethen's sleeve to enter the room more fully and he walked over quickly to Bunny and Jamie. Bunny had helped Jamie over to the bed and had him sit down on it, coaxing Jamie to lean forward, placing his head lower than his heart. He had Jamie try to take slow and even breaths, as he did the same so that Jamie would copy him.
"That's it," Bunny said. "Just listen ta my voice and calm down, alright?"
Jamie felt his vision begin to clear a bit at Bunny's soothing voice and soon Bunny was helping him to sit up straight once he was no longer in danger of having a full blown panic attack and fainting.
Before Bunny could think to question Jamie any further about his, Sandy let loose a barrage of golden symbols explaining about Gethen and how he was hurt with black sand near or in his wound.
Bunny scoffed as he rubbed Jamie's back comfortingly.
"After how Jamie reacted, I don't care what happens ta him," Bunny declared. "He obviously did somethin' bad and I don't want any part of helping him."
Sandy gave Bunny a stern look at that and wagged his finger at him.
They were Guardians!
The helped people and not just children either!
Bunny ignored the silent scolding.
"What happened ta Lillian?" he asked and Sandy sighed at the stubborn Easter Bunny.
With another disapproving look, Sandy began to explain with the help of his golden symbols.
While Sandy was busy explaining things to Bunny, Tooth had rushed Lillian off to her own room, thankful that Sandy's dreamsand had kept her asleep during all the noise.
North escorted Gethen to his own room and had him sit down on a bed.
"I know a thing or two about bandaging wounds," North said as he inspected Gethen's hand.
Even though Jamie had freaked out at the sight of Gethen, the young man had helped them to save Lillian and had even tried to fight the Nightmares on his own. He couldn't be all bad, right?
So North helped to thoroughly disinfect and clean the wound, careful to make sure that no black sand was in it before he bandaged it up.
"There, in no time it will be rightfully rain!"
"Uh.. yeah," Gethen said awkwardly, not commenting on North's butchering of the saying.
"So tell me," North said as his expression turned more serious. "Why is Jamie afraid of you?"
"I was wondering that too," Tooth said as she joined the two. "Lillian's still asleep by the way."
Gethen made a frustrated noise and ran a hand through his hair.
"I don't know," he said emphatically.
Then he froze and his hand dropped down from his other.
"Him," Gethen said in realization.
"Who?" North and Tooth asked in unison.
"My future self," Gethen said in disgust. "He must have done something."
North and Tooth both exchanged a startled look at that.
It seemed they had another time traveler on their hands.
Just what was going on?
* You get bonus points if you can figure out what this is referencing. I don't know if I'll bring this character into the story or not. By now it'd be difficult to explain where she was the whole time while major events were going on, but we'll see. If I do, she most likely will not be a main character, but I reserve the right to change my mind at any point.
Author's Note: Yeah, I went and threw my update schedule out the window. I'm not even going to tell you what I'm guessing I'll be working on next now. Were you surprised at Past Gethen's reactions and his willingness to help out? I figured this would be a good time to get some more insights into Gethen's character.
I know that time is super screwed up right now, but remember: Lillian didn't influence anything that happened before her time, so anything Gethen is remembering before 1968 actually happened. No character is going back beyond that, so all references to pre-1968 are accurate.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. Were you surprised about hearing how Leif was a bully? We haven't gotten to see a lot of this character, and I like how flawed he is. He's obviously supposed to be one of the 'good' guys, but then he contributed to doing these terrible things to Gethen which inadvertently helped him to become one of the main villains. And don't judge Jasper too harshly. When Gethen was referring to the Fall Spirits and Sprites, Jasper was not included in that. They most likely did those things to Gethen behind Jasper's back.
At some point I might have some more flashbacks to Gethen's past, I can't really decide. As for where Time Traveler Gethen disappeared to, you'll just have to find out in future chapters!
Jamie's Adventure is turning out to be much longer than I anticipated, so I hope you guys don't mind how long this particular arc is. For those of you who are enjoying yourselves, I can safely say that we aren't even halfway done yet!
As always, if you have any questions, comments, ideas or anything you'd like to tell me, feel free to let me know! Also a big thanks to the person who followed Jamie's UFO and Ghost Hunting Adventures! I thought hardly anyone cared about it!
Edit: Fixed a small plothole! Whoops!
