Not So Eloquent-Thank you for following and favouriting! In terms of the worst the Descendants of Pitch have in store for Jackie, this is probably the worst it's going to get, however, that doesn't mean that something worse isn't going to happen to Jackie. I'll leave that part hanging.

Sandbenders? I've never thought of it like that. I have taken a lot of inspiration from Avatar with the earth moving Descendants of Bunnymund and the air moving Descendants of Jack Frost, and there are some movements from earth bending and water bending that I implement into Jackie's ice moving, but I never went further than that. It's an interesting thought.

I do go deeper into that kind of thing in the HOG Files if you want to check that out.

I managed to get into a rhythm with running. Scramble up the side of one roof, slide down the other side, jump to the next house, rinse and repeat. However, the Nightmares weren't bothered by minor things such as the laws of physics, so it didn't take long for them to catch up.

I reached the flat roof of someone's garage and paused on the edge, wondering where to go next. Before I'd figured something out something hard, but at the same time flexible hit me in the back and sent me flying off. The kick was halted slightly by my bag, but it still hurt.

I yelled in shock as I fell off the roof. I landed hard on the pavement and skidded slightly, my left hand getting trapped beneath my body as I tried to break my fall.

I gasped in as pain flared up in my left wrist and my left leg, my remaining breath used up in that expression of pain. I forced myself to my feet and looked back at the Nightmare, which was standing triumphantly on top of the garage roof as its brethren took positions on the surrounding roofs.

"What are those?"

I jumped and looked to my left to see some of the school kids looking right at the Nightmares. Before they could get a good look at me I pulled my hood up, them remembering what I looked like was not in the plan. I may still have been covered in frost, but I wasn't about to take chances.

"Nightmares." I said, still panting and causing all of the six strong group to look at me. "And I'd stay as far away from as possible if I were you."

The Nightmare on the garage roof reared up and let out a whinny. Its neighbours did the same, their cry echoing through the cul-de-sac.

I started to run, when pain on my leg caused me to stop. Wincing in pain I took a look at the damage.

My jeans had been ripped down the left leg and the skin had been scraped off, leaving small amounts of blood and gravel. Not serious, but it stung like hell!

My wrist also demanded attention, but at this point, my life was a little more important.

Spying a few day old snow around me, I came up with a plan to move without moving my leg.
The sole of my trainers became coated in ice and the snow obliging hardened, forming a surface for me to slide on. With a small prompting from my mind I was off.

I had to hold my hood in place as I flung myself along the streets, acting like I was on a snowboard as I zigg zagged between pedestrians as the Nightmare's chased me through town. I went down side alleys, main roads and even through a park, but no matter what I did, I just couldn't lose them!

They were always just behind me whenever I dared to look back. Pedestrians didn't seem to notice them, they were too busy staring at the crazy person flying along the ice to care about equine shaped sandy monstrosities!

Not that they would see them anyway; only believers could see them, and this town seemed to be lacking in those.

I could just leave the town to use my powers on the Nightmares, but the minute I did that, the Descendants of Pitch would be on me like vultures.

"Do you need a hand?"

I looked just behind me to see a boy just keeping pace with me on a skateboard. He had dark blonde hair poking out underneath his helmet, which framed his serious blue eyes.

"Haven't you got school?" I asked. I never knew Canadians could be so hospitable, but the same instinct came back to me, don't get non-Descendants involved.

"Yeah, but you could use the help."

"No offence kid, but what do you think you can do?"

"Well, my little sister poked one of the things chasing you and it turned into a gold fairy."

"What?!" I wasn't sure what was the strangest thing I was hearing, that he let his sister touch a Nightmare, or what it turned into.

"I know, but it stopped chasing you when she did that. I was thinking of getting the gang together and taking them out."

"Great, but why are you doing this?"

"We don't want them here either, but since you're running from them, we'd thought we'd tell you what was going on."

"You mean you're already doing this!?"

"Yeah, just one more to go."

I almost crashed into a lamppost from this revelation. This kid didn't know me, he didn't know what I was doing, and yet he was willing to help me out. He did have his own motive sure, but it still left me stunned.

"There it is!" He yelled, and he somehow picked up the speed to get ahead of me, where a Nightmare had been waiting to ambush me.

I yelled and swerved, trying to get away from the damn thing, while the boy went straight to it and ran his fingers along its sandy ribcage.

Gold colouration spread from there and encompassed the whole Nightmare, turning it into a sandy dolphin.

I had to stop just to take this in. A dolphin made of Dream Sand, in broad daylight, and a boy who couldn't be much older than eight or nine, laughing as it swam around him.

The surrounding adults looked at us like we were utterly insane, but I couldn't help but smile. It was a piece of my world being brought into the light for once, and while it wouldn't last, it still felt, warm I guess.

The pain in my wrist and leg quickly brought me back to reality. I snapped a quick salute to the boy, before disappearing out of town.

I yawned as I made it into the main roads, I was shattered, and with all these cars driving past, sleeping nearby would make it difficult for the Descendants of Pitch to find me.

I sat down by a hedge and evaluated the injuries I'd picked up. The frost on my body had done its job, so it disappeared as I had a look.

My back was sore from the kick, but there appeared to be no lasting damage on that front.
My wrist still hurt like hell and looked a little swollen, putting my fingers close to it I could feel heat radiating off it. All I could really do was wrap a solid piece of ice around it and hope for the best, Tina and Nigel were always the ones who knew how to handle injuries like this.

My chest began to ache as my thoughts turned to my Branch, but I tried to tune it out as I examined my leg. The jeans were completely ruined, with rips going up the entire length of the leg. My leg underneath wasn't a pretty sight, my skin was red and marred with grit from the fall.

I pulled my water bottle out of my back and awkwardly squirted it onto the scrapes, wincing as I did so. I had to make sure that the water didn't freeze on contact, which was instinct for me to do with water, and after a while most of the grit had been cleaned out. With that done I sent out a film of frost to protect the skin. I didn't know if the injury would or even could get infected, but I didn't want to take the risk.

I had also lost a lot of my water supply, and I didn't have any money left.

I was just going to have to cope until I got to the Pole I decided as I unrolled my sleeping bag. I couldn't wait to sleep, especially after an episode like that.

It took me another two full nights to get to the edge of Canada and just across the water from the Arctic. My wrist was still off and I hadn't worked out what I'd done to it, so I just kept the ice and frost in place on both injuries.

However, now I had another new issue, nightmares.

Not the sand variety, just your garden variety imagination born nightmare. And for those two days all I could see was fire. I would wake up from them only holding back screams, sweat freezing all over me and breathing heavily from the panic.

The attack had hit me hard, and now I was losing sleep; I needed to get to the Pole as soon as I could, before I went insane.

Despite this I entertained the possibility that I'd lost the Descendants of Pitch, and the further north I went, the more likely that possibility was.

There was heavy snow in the area I had stopped to sleep, with it still coming down. So I didn't have to hide in the woods this time, I just lay in the snow and let it cover me.

This might have been a good place to find Jack and we could go to North together, although this was the only snow I'd seen, and it had been predicted. Not to mention the Northern Lights...

Most of Jack's snow went unpredicted, since Jack himself is difficult to predict. So it was reasonable to believe that Jack wasn't causing this snow. Neither New York or Pennsylvania had snow, and that made me worried. Jack had usually made an appearance by now, but as I said earlier, he's hard to predict, and he's been called by the Guardians, fun snow might be off the menu for a few days.

I hope it was just for a few days.