A/N: Hey guys,

This is a pretty fast update for me - I guess y'all will have to get used to it, unless I miraculously start writing faster.

In return for putting up with my horrible update speed, this chapter is long, over 9000 words of absolute shit. I'd like to say that I know where this winding path I call a story goes, but the truth is I only know where it stops along the way.

Anyways, have fun.

"M'amour, m'amour

what do I love and

where are you?

That I lost my center

fighting the world

The Dreams clash

and are shattered-

and that I tried to make a paradiso

terrestre.

I have tried to write Paradise

Do not move

Let the wind speak

that is paradise

Let the Gods forgive what I

have made

Let those I love try to forgive

what I have made."

"[this is where] the dead walked

and the living were made of cardboard."

― Ezra Pound, The Cantos

Chapter 3: Walk the Plank

He watched as Pitch straightened out the portrait, long fingers attaching themselves to the gilded frame with almost a loving air. It was a picture charmed straight out of a dream, a horse made of starlight, dancing amongst the sun and the moon.

It wasn't the same as the nightmare black horses that Pitch had conjured before. This horse was the steed of a king. It looked as if it were taken straight out of a fairytale, in one of the books that Jack often amused himself with when it was left lying on the night table of a slumbering child.

"Who's that?" Jack asked, habitually thinking out loud again.

Thankfully, Pitch was not too annoyed, or at least he didn't seem that way. Jack couldn't really tell - his voice was too neutral. "He was my horse - Allegro. The Man in the Moon created him out of his moonlight for me - it was a long time ago." His eyes grew misty, like he was looking back to another time, an image that Jack could not see.

Jack kept on staring, transfixed by the picture, trying to ignore Pitch's stare, molten gold swirling around in his irises. He did not look at Jack with hatred, annoyance, or anything else really. His expression was meticulously kept clear, free of emotion. Nonchalant. Like he barely noticed Jack was there.

It suddenly made sense to Jack. "Is that why you like horses?" Pitch gave him a look. ,"'Cause, you know, you made horses out of your nightmare sand instead of - you know - something scarier. Not that they weren't terrifying, because they were," Jack finished lamely.

There was a moment of silence; nothing could be heard but the haunting echo of water dripping, like the wail of a tortured soul. Pitch suddenly said, startling Jack, "You are - how should I put this? - an anomaly, Jack Frost. Like a puzzle with half of the pieces missing. Just when I think I can figure you out, you do something unexpected."

"I'm puzzling?" Jack asked, incredulous. "Do you have any idea what you seem like to me. I mean, if I'm hard to figure out, you must be like the king of confusing or something like that. Do you do that on purpose or is that just a side effect of being Pitch Black?"

Is he still Pitch Black? Jack thought in the back of his head, but decided not to voice it.

"A side effect, I suppose," Pitch said, eyes questioning, probing Jack - his face, his blue hoodie, his hands hanging by his sides. He did not look pleased to have Jack in his home, but at least his outright opposition had faded away.

"It's interesting that you should find me confusing," Pitch continued, as they turned yet another corner, of which he had many. "I make sense, at least, in my head."

"In your head, maybe," Jack muttered. If Pitch had heard, he made no sign of it. The long winding path into the sitting room seemed neverending, but there had been some obvious changes to it compared to decades ago.

The walls were no longer only dirt, but stone, layers upon layers of multicolored rock with glimmering lights that he realized were precious jewels wedged in between the cracks. It rose up into awe-striking arches that must have at least protruded above ground because Jack could barely see where they ended. The floor was marble and torches hanging from the walls. An entire wall was covered with swords and associated weapons, as well as ornate suits of armor. Slabs of stone covered the walls in some areas, boasting of detailed mosaics depicting wars and times of peace, like an extensive timeline spanning yards across.

Jack felt as if he was walking through a medieval castle, marvels in every orifice of the structure. The architecture, though not as grand, was easily comparable to that of the Palace of Versailles or some other masterpiece in Europe.

"Whoa," Jack wondered out loud, completely in awe, because surely even Pitch could not have built this by himself in only fifty years. "

"I believe you haven't," Pitch said, voice mild.. "It isn't as if you exactly explored the last time you came. You only entered the west wing. We're in the east right now. But I've made a few changes here and there."

"Wait… a wing?" Jack asked incredulously. "You mean like one of those really old castles they have in England and stuff?" He poked an intricate vase wrought out of shimmering, otherworldly metal. It made a sharp, bell-like sound, clanging against the stone pillar it had been perched on.

"Yes," Pitch answered simply. "In a way, though really old castles they have in England hardly compare to this - at least in its former glory. I've downsized."

The walls began to curve outward, their organic shapes like those in a Spanish villa, widening into a large sitting room with plush, oriental carpet between Jack's toes. He wriggled them. Glass had been shaped into the forms of stars and the moon, miniscule windows, so that when natural light streamed in, it gave off the illusion of a constant starry night Each seemed so delicate that Jack could break them just by throwing a snowball.

"Sit down, Frost." Pitch said, his voice becoming curt and business-like. All he needed now was a suit, tie, and a condescending demeanor. The latter was at least half-taken care of. "We need to talk." He sat down on a sofa and Jack sat on the artistically carved wooden chair across from him. A small coffee table sat between them, of which there sat a plate of cookies.

Cookies. If this was a dream, he was certainly going to go back to Pitch's lair in real life and laughing at him for being a baker. Or perhaps he had walked into some random bakery and stole them. Pitch Black, Boogeyman, hobbyist burglar. It was easy enough to picture, Pitch in a ski mask holding some cheap, second-hand gun.

"Now," Pitch said, his eyes so piercing they seemed to stare within Jack's very soul. He folded his hands together and waited, as if preparing himself for what he was about to say. Or maybe it was just for dramatic effect. Jack wouldn't know. "I have a few questions for you, Frost. Where did you get this locket?"

He held up the silver piece of jewelry and waited for Jack's answer with such an intense look on his face that Jack gulped. He took a cookie. It was warm and crumbly between his fingers. The scent of cinnamon and sugar seeped into the air.

He didn't want to divulge the information that easily, because despite his appearance, he wasn't at all a pushover. Especially not when it concerned a child. Guardian or not, children were his field of expertise. His forte. He supposed that children were probably Pitch's forte too, but not in a good way.

"Why do you want to know?" he countered carefully. Jack wasn't willing to just give that kind of stuff out like he was handing out free food or something. And to the Nightmare King himself - that just set off too many warning bells in his head. After all, even a changed Pitch could have some diabolical plan. Jack knew from experience that people didn't really change that much. It was much easier to just pretend.

Pitch sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Okay, I see I'm going to have to rephrase this. You won't tell me anything if I don't tell you why I want to know, right?"

Jack nodded tightly in confirmation, the protective feeling swelling in his chest particularly fierce. Wild horses couldn't drag the secret from him.

He looked irritated with Jack for a moment, but then relaxed his stiff posture, his face tired and drawn. "Jack Frost, you are every bit of the child you appear to be." Jack crossed his arms and gave PItch the best stubborn look he had.

He sighed and rubbed his nose again. "You're not opposed to a little backstory, are you? I must warn you - it's rather long and tedious. And I don't like telling it."

"I like stories," Jack said, piping up. It wasn't a lie. He had always been curious about Pitch's history, where exactly fear itself had come from. "Spill."

"It dates so long ago I can hardly remember," Pitch said. "I was young and impulsive. Ah, look who I'm speaking to. The very definition of young and impulsive."

"Hey," Jack protested after a while, too busy trying to picture a teenage version of Pitch Black. "I'm not as bad as I used to be, okay? Besides, I'm not that impulsive. And I'm not that young either - three hundred fifty years old."

"Right," Pitch answered, expression disbelieving. "Anyways, I was a young general, only a couple centuries old, much like yourself. The youngest in the history of the Sea of Stars, appointed by the House of Lunanoff to protect the peace, at least in our part of the universe."

"Wait," Jack interrupted, feeling very bemused. "What are you talking about? Sea of Stars? House of Lunanoff? Did I get knocked out for a few centuries or something and missed something or what?"

"No, nothing like that, Jack Frost. Sorry, did I forget to explain?" Pitch asked, not seeming sorry at all. "It's just that all this is so terribly basic that I forget that you don't know anything about it. Did you not attend a history class at all in your mortal years?"

Before Jack could argue, Pitch cut him off. "Your world is but a small part of the entire cosmos, a small haven of water and earth that a small handful of people have chosen as their home."

"Yeah, yeah, I know that," Jack said, feeling sort of indignant at having his history knowledge criticized, of all things. "The solar system, Milky Way, the universe - really big, we're really small. Anything else new?"

"I don't quite think you get the perspective of things yet, Frost," Pitch answered in a voice so casual that Jack knew he had done this before. This lecturing thing. "There are many universes, or so the scientists of my time believed, and within each millions of Constellations, each led by a different family. Human beings believe they know everything, yet they still have not proven that "alien" life exists, when it can actually be found in great abundance.

"This is what I mean by the Sea of Stars - this universe and within the Lunanoff Constellation - the center of all political matters I would like to say. But that wouldn't be the truth. The House of Lunanoff, that is to say, the family of a close friend of yours - the Man in the Moon - govern but one major Constellation. And each Constellation, being quite large, needs an army to protect its people - that's where I come in, as their general."

"So... let me get this straight," Jack said slowly. "You're an alien. A really powerful alien. From another galaxy far, far away. And you don't have like eight eyes or x-ray vision or anything?" Though he wasn't exactly sure if Pitch was joking or not, he decided to just play along for the time being.

Pitch smiled. "Yes, though not a galaxy - a Constellation. And that was a horrible movie. Hardly did anything justice. We did not go around in those ridiculous suits with those horribly over exaggerated weapons. The only thing remotely accurate were the spaceships, though we sailed on airships, resembling actual boats. And to answer your question, no, I don't have eight eyes or x-ray vision. I'm not a spider."

"Wow," Jack mouthed, feeling as though he were in a dream. "I'm not hallucinating, am I? This is a lot to process. A whole lot. Okay then." In normal circumstances, maybe when he was younger, around a century old, Jack wouldn't have believed Pitch. But by now, he was no stranger to the bizarre, and Pitch's theory explained some things.

Besides, the look on his face - Jack could sniff out a lie, and this didn't seem like one, even though his common sense told him otherwise. It was a good thing Jack didn't trust his common sense that much. He looked up at the moon. He had hoped to come here and get some questions answered, but now he had many more to cope with instead. He decided to start with the one that seemed most relevant. "What was the Golden Age?"

"Ah, the Golden Age," Pitch said, his voice soft, reminiscent. "What a monument to our power. It was the only time that the House of Lunanoff truly pushed away the darkness - a plethora of creatures attacking everything that moved and breathed. I was five hundred or so years old at the time, commanded the full might of the Golden Armies."

"Why would you want to fight off the darkness?" Jack asked, finding so many contradictory points in Pitch's story. Pitch, a good guy? "I thought you liked it."

"I do," Pitch said, without hesitation. His eyebrows suddenly furrowed in thought, his eyes narrowed and his lips drawn into a thin line, as if he had confused himself. The light and shadows cast across his face made him look like a statue from the times of ancient Greece.

"Well then," Jack said, realizing that he was still gawking at Pitch. It was as if he had short-term memory loss or something, which wouldn't be that surprising. In the fights between the Guardians, Pitch had hit his head pretty hard. "The Golden Armies?" Jack said, trying to prompt him back into speaking.

He cleared his throat and pressed his fingers against a temple. "Yes. The Golden Armies. Your questions never cease, do they?" If he hadn't been annoyed with Jack earlier, he definitely was now. Maybe it was because Jack had somehow given him a severe headache.

"Together, my men and I pushed the Armies of Darkness - made up of a variety of all sorts of nasty creatures - back into the deepest recesses of the universe, where my men and I constructed a prison to hold them. There was finally peace, until - " He paused.

"Until what?" Jack asked, riveted. He felt like a child being told a bedtime story, sitting on that chair woven of wood. 'Something bad?" he guessed.

"Your powers of deduction are impressive, as always," Pitch replied dryly. "Yes, something bad. I was assigned - no - I volunteered to watch the shadows, because it was an honor to serve the House of Lunanoff." He said it sarcastically, like he couldn't believe that he had once believed that, silently mocking himself.

"Are you still the Nightmare King?" Jack blurted, because throughout Pitch's monologue he had wanted to ask it.

Pitch blinked. "Was there ever a time when I stopped being the Nightmare King?"

"Well, yeah, pretty much," Jack said. "You're not exactly evil anymore - but the Guardians don't know that. If they knew you were back now, I think they would probably freak or something."

Pitch's voice was thin, as if he really didn't want to be discussing the Guardians. "They already know, Jack. Wait, so you don't know?" He laughed without humor. "Figures. They're the Guardians, after all. Protective by nature. I'm not surprised they didn't tell you."

"What?" Jack demanded, not sure if he had heard Pitch correctly. "They already knew that you were back?"

"Yes, actually I thought North had been the last one to know. He just visited me a couple days ago, even with the Christmas rush, I believe to make sure that I wouldn't ruin it for the children - again." There was a smug little smile on his face.. "I have no intention of playing the Grinch again this year, but I'm not making any promises."

"They didn't tell me," Jack said. He could hear the blood rushing through his head. "They didn't tell me. I mean, how much time does it take to drop off one message? 'Hey Jack, how ya' doing? Just wanted to stop by and tell you that Pitch Black is back. Yeah, that guy that almost destroyed all hope, wonder, and memories, plus he wanted to plunge the world back into another Dark Age. Him. Well, anyways, have a nice day.'"

Part of him thought he was being rather unreasonable. After all, the Guardians had been busy enough, and it wasn't as if Jack never forgot things. But it hadn't been the first time, and he found that he could not stop himself, that he did not want to stop himself.

He laughed, feeling a little ungrounded and light-headed, like he was having a fever. "So, when Bunny said it was a good thing you weren't back yet, he was just acting? They make up this entire ruse, treat me like I'm four years old. I'm not a kid anymore, since everyone seems to think so. The Guardians don't need to hide anything from me just to protect me." He laughed again.

Pitch had laced his hands together, like he was pondering something. "I don't think that's why the Guardians wanted to hide it from you - your age. A couple centuries is sufficient enough, and the Guardians themselves - excluding the Sandman - are hardly that much older than you. No, it's probably because they didn't think that you could handle the news properly."

"Gee, thanks a lot," Jack said in a sarcastic monotone. "You really know how to make someone feel better. I'm not able to handle it? I think I handled it just fine."

Pitch completely disregarded Jack. "And the fact that they didn't think you were ready for that responsibility relieves you. You're afraid of commitment, Jack Frost, afraid of being held accountable for anything. Because if you weren't afraid of it, that would mean that you would have lost yourself. You are so scared of straying from who you were - that incredibly annoying Guardian of Fun - that you try and stop yourself from becoming who you're meant to become. You make yourself afraid. You make your own fear."

Jack felt hot. "And I suppose you find this all so horribly interesting, picking me apart. Playing fucking Sherlock Holmes. What do you know? I hardly know you. I mean, you probably got that from your weird fear radar. Yeah, well, you need to get that thing checked, 'cause you're wrong."

Pitch gave this small, low chuckle that seemed to make Jack's heart beat faster, but he managed to convince himself that it was just the anger. "Look who's in denial."

"You know what?" Jack said. "This was a mistake. Staying here. The only reason I actually came was to get my staff. I'm gonna go." He moved to get up, but Pitch put his hand on Jack's forearm. Jack sighed and sat back down, crossing his arms impatiently.

"Jack," Pitch said in a soothing voice, still smiling, like he found the whole situation amusing. "Jack - no, just forget what I said then, if it makes you feel better. And yes, my fear "radar" may as well be off. I haven't been able to read fears properly since my defeat." He leaned forward and brushed his fingers through Jack's hair, his touch light and floating. Jack stilled.

Jack stiffened at the touch and then said hoarsely, "Why? Is it because - because not enough children believed in you or something like that?"

"No," Pitch said, for some reason sounding somewhat affronted. "How powerful I am hardly depends on the number of children that believe in me. I am not a Guardian. No, it was rather the complete absence of fear that threw me off before, when I could not even sense my own fear. Now, I reckon it is because I'm weaker, though not for the reasons you presume."

"Oh," Jack said simply, not sure what to say otherwise.

Only then did Pitch withdraw his hand. "Sorry, but your hair is an interesting shade - it looks like freshly fallen snow. I was curious."

"It's alright," Jack managed to say, his throat incredibly rough and uncooperative.

Jack frowned. He touched his temple with the tips of his fingers because his head really did hurt. Before, it had only been a slight dizziness that he had blamed on his outburst. But now - the pain was on an entirely new scale.

He felt like the entire room was spinning. It was somehow tinged with darkness too and he could hardly notice the light streaming in from the window now, as if all the cheer had been sucked out of it - and what was that blurry shape coming in from the distance? It was only a minor detail in the haze of what seemed to be like a huge migraine.

"What's wrong?" Pitch started to ask, but then he trailed off as if he felt it too. Something in Pitch's face - the dread, how frozen to the spot he seemed - set Jack off. He lunged for his staff resting against his chair just in time - and then all hell broke loose.

The hull of a ship crashed through the glass, shattering it and sending shards of shrapnel in every direction. Without thinking, Jack sent up a huge wall of ice that erupted out of nowhere, a partial dome of sharp, honed ice. It hadn't been a good idea in the first place, and had his powers not been going out of whack, it would have caused even more damage. The ship broke through the massive barrier of ice as well, the wood on its side crunching up like it had been put in a blender. Now, along with boards of moldy wood, icicles as tall as telephone poles rained down from the sky. Wonderful.

Jack's body went into survival mode. He didn't know what he was doing, but his body did. It was as if he had done it a thousand times. The staff was dropped onto the ground. He lifted his arms and the ice, as if responding to his thoughts and movements, melted in midair in a matter of seconds into large blobs of liquid, enveloping the chunks of wood and then splashing down onto the ground more gently, wetting Jack and Pitch as well as everything else.

Pitch's eyes were wide. Jack held up his hands and looked at them, to see if they had changed at all. Nope. They were still recognizably pale. One nail on his right hand was chipped. For a few seconds, it was so silent that Jack could hear his heartbeat.

"How?" Pitch mouthed, but then he shook his head as if to say never mind, we'll talk about it later. After all, they had other things to worry about. There was something distinctively moving in the wrecked ship, of which almost an entire side had been shredded off. From there emerged the ugliest creature Jack had ever seen.

It looked like a cross between a zombie and a pirate. It's skin was ashen and a large chunk of its face was missing, partially covered by an eyepatch and a tilted, old-fashioned pirate's hat. A sword hung loosely by its side. It jumped out from the ship, dropping thirty feet - easy. It's ankles, upon landing, bent in a way that ankles shouldn't bend. It's figure looked like the skin was strapped together to contain the flesh or else it would fall apart.

"Oh, he's a powerful one," a voice cackled, nasally and gurgling. It sounded like a zombie that could talk. Once the speaker moved out from the shadows, the hole in the hull, Jack realized that maybe zombie was a perfectly correct word to describe it. "They're always the tastiest."

"Yes," it hissed, shuffling awkwardly towards Jack. "I think I'll enjoy you - frostling." The pirate wasn't the worst part - it was the passengers. Masses of shadowy figures erupted from the hole like it was a volcano, hands, feet, pirate hats. They weren't as distinct and recognizable as their leader, but Jack could definitely identify them as one species, if he had known what they were.

As it gradually moved closer, Jack felt like he could not breathe, like the air had been drained out of his lungs. It constricted his heart, and he soon realized his power. He could barely draw upon his frost, for what had meant to be a bolt of frost lightning came out as a few blue sparkles. Just enough to properly send chills down the pirate's back. Real threatening. Confused, he shot a brief look at Pitch.

"Don't worry, young frostling. It won't hurt - much." It laughed, and turned towards Pitch, who had somehow gotten his hands on a golden - was that a rapier? If anyone else but Pitch had been dressed in dark robes, holding a sword that looked like it had been casted maybe in the seventeenth century, Jack would have found it funny.

Turning towards Pitch and smirking like he had thought of a good point, the pirate said, "Reminds of Seraphina, does he not, General? Now I understand why you keep him here. She was a tasty one, too." It gurgled again, like it had made a particularly clever joke.

Pitch didn't seem to think so. His eyes narrowed and his lips contorted into a grim line. He looked murderous as he charged towards the pirate, if murderers could still be graceful. It was as if gravity no longer applied to him. Unfortunately, he was soon apprehended by eager opponents, the zombie-pirate's evil minions.

They seemed to envelope Pitch with their shadows, so dark and - well - pitch black that it made even Pitch Black panic. But it was weird. An abnormal amount of fear flashed through his eyes - and Jack understood, because Pitch had been possessed by the shadows before, and this must have gotten pretty darn close to reliving that nightmare. The wannabe zombie-pirate-shadow things formed an inverted whirlpool around him, obscuring him from view.

Just when Jack thought that it was possible Pitch had been defeated, the shadows drew back with disappointment for in the very center, the eye of the storm, the place where Pitch had been shortly before was clear. There was no sign of him. And that made Jack realize with startling suddenness that he was completely and utterly alone.

Jack had been so entranced by Pitch that he had forgotten his own perils. It was so close now that Jack could smell the rotting flesh it called a mouth, the stench making him gag. It inhaled, and Jack felt like every bit of hope he had leave him, like water down a shower drain. His shoulders slumped.

"Delicious," the pirate murmured again, licking his lips as if Jack was a gourmet meal, "I haven't had a meal in two thousand years - and what better than one so vulnerable, yet with such raw power. And he doesn't even know how to use it yet - what a waste.." He was immobilized, a swimmer unable to keep his head above water any longer.

Jack closed his eyes, letting the darkness wash over him like music. He felt strangely drowsy, like he would enjoy nothing more than a nap. He slumped and then fell to his knees.

"Jack," someone was calling faintly. Jack ignored it like an irksome fly, but its pestersome buzzing wouldn't go away. It came again, louder and more insistent. "Jack Frost, you need to listen to me."

Whoever was trying to wake him up, Jack found them incredibly rude. "Sleepy," he mumbled, "Come back in five minutes." He wished it had a snooze button, because it didn't seem to shut up.

"Jack," it said again, calm and level-headed, "I know this is difficult, but I need you to open your eyes. Now. Or you aren't going to like how things turn out." The voice sounded incredibly familiar, but as he was half-asleep and increasingly incoherent, he couldn't quite make it out.

He tried opening his eyes. He found that he couldn't. Alarm flooded through him, signalling flashing warning bells in his head. He forced them open with effort and blinked twice to clear off a film that had settled on the surface, muddling colors and skewing objects. Pitch was a blur of gold and black, slicing pirates in half with his slender sword that emitted such a fine sound akin to a flute.

Pitch? Jack thought curiously. How did he escape the shadows?

He was still too far away. The pirate swiveled his head around, which seemed to twist back and almost topple off. Its eyes were dead. There was no expression in them at all, and that was when Jack knew that the pirate wouldn't hesitate to torture him, to kill him. In fact, it would probably be the opposite, judging from the look on the zombie-pirate's face - like a cat cornering a mouse.

There was a pain in his shoulder, for the briefest of moments. But then Jack could feel nothing in it at all, so he took no notice of it. Instead, something snapped within Jack, something that he had been holding back decided to surface, flooding out of him until the very power he harnessed shook his very core. The ground shook. His body coursed with adrenaline still even though everything else had gone silent.

There were cracks in the ground everywhere. The zombie-pirate was suspended four feet from the ground, held up by three jagged spikes of rock that dwarfed Jack. "What happened?" he asked warily, unable to take his eyes off of the dead pirate.

Or maybe not so dead.

"There are more of us," the pirate rasped, sounding like it was choking - on what, Jack preferred not to think about. He turned his glassy eyes on Jack, as if considering him. "They will come for you, Jack Frost, now that you have so eagerly made yourself a target. And you as well, Pitchiner." It pulled its decaying lips up into a half-grimace, half-smile.

It's head turned toward Jack, tilting awkwardly. "People more powerful than myself are after him and they show no mercy. Especially not to you. But of course, you know that already. It would have been better just to let me kill him, General." It brought its arm up in a mock salute and then fell limp, dangling there as helplessly as a ragdoll as if it had never been alive in the first place.

"Dream pirates," Pitch said with distaste. "I hate them, stealthy little leeches. They take everything inherently good they can get their hands on - hope, camaraderie, joy, anything. They bring about this depressing air; I thought I recognized it."

"You weren't lying," Jack said dazedly. "Dream pirates and all that stuff - Constellations, aliens - they all exist?"

Pitch studied him carefully for a few more moments and then his eyes widened in alarm as it came to rest near Jack's chest. "Shit," he cursed, closing the distance between him and Jack and smoothed over Jack's shoulder with his thumb carefully. When Jack did not respond with more than a confused look, he looked ever more dismayed.

"What's wrong?" Jack repeated slowly, having never seen Pitch act like this either. He was just full of surprises nowadays, wasn't he? That he was more concerned about someone who was perfectly fine now than the new, deceased centerpiece of his sitting room was beyond Jack.

"You're bleeding," Pitch said, looking worried. "And you don't seem to feel anything either. A numbing agent - only a few known cases." He looked at the wound like he had been a doctor his whole life.

He took one more look at Pitch's face and then started laughing. "You're screwing with me. I'm not bleeding," Jack said. "I mean, come on, I think I would know if…"

Jack trailed off, because then he saw that the tips of Pitch's fingertips that had been pale just seconds ago were now stained a brilliant crimson, carefully groomed hands made unclean. "Wait...what? So it wasn't some sort of weird dream or something?"

Pitch stared at him blankly, but he didn't seem surprised that Jack would think so. "No, it was a dream pirate. Big difference. And it was the dream pirate - their leader. It's bad news that he's back in business. I think he bit you - this is bad."

"So?" Jack said, not sure why Pitch was overreacting like this, trying to act like he wasn't anxious. "Is it like an old fashioned zombie movie or something - I get bitten and I'm gonna turn into one too?"

"No," Pitch said with disgust. "Definitely not. That's a Hollywood concept."

"Then why are you so worried?" Jack demanded. "You were a general right? I thought wounds were pretty typical for that job."

"This isn't typical," Pitch said. When Jack gawked at him some more, he gestured towards Jack's shoulder lightly, not touching it, as if he was afraid he would damage it. "Look," he said gently.

Jack had been afraid to look down, but something in Pitch's tone told him to follow the instructions. If only he had done that in school. He did, eyes tracing the line to where Pitch's eyes rested.

He saw. "Shit," he said, looking at the gaping hole in his shoulder where a piece of flesh should have been. "How did I miss that?" It was red in the center, but where it met skin the edges were stained with black. The obvious teeth marks in some areas made Jack feel a little squeamish. The pirate had ripped a hole in Jack's sweatshirt to get through to his skin, and now much of the right side of the garment had been stained with blood.

"Why doesn't it hurt?" Jack asked conversationally, feeling detached. This wound couldn't be his. Jack Frost, the spirit that never got hurt. Who fell hundreds of feet from the sky and didn't break a single bone, only to get up and do it again.

"The dream pirate secretes a sedative into its prey," Pitch said. "Imagine the primitive form of morphine, cruder and more dangerous. You can't feel it, but it should start hurting - oh - right about now, if my predictions are accurate. You may want to brace yourself - this is going to sting."

"You couldn't have told me that first?" Jack asked cynically. He held his breath, waiting, hoping that Pitch had been wrong, for once. Time seemed to tick by slower now that he knew.

Jack doubled over. Pitch had been right. Damn. The pain in his shoulder grew from a one to a full-blown ten, so much that he couldn't breathe. He grasped at his shoulder and gave Pitch as withering look as he could manage as his knees buckled and he fell senseless to the floor.

Someone was cleaning his wound and it hurt. The benign dabs of a towel against it felt like he was being pushed shoulder-first into an open flame. He wanted to tell them to stop civilly, but no words sprung to him. His vocal cords were nowhere to be found.

It stopped, and someone ran their hand through his hair again. He quieted down, though the pain did not. It was no matter, now that it was bearable.

"You are a proper idiot, Jack Frost," the voice chided. Amused and weary all rolled into one. "Zombie, indeed."

Who is Jack Frost? he thought numbly, as the pain fired up again. Because he did sound rather stupid. He was glad he wasn't him, even if he wasn't sure exactly who he was.

The hardest part of remembering, he realized, was forgetting. That would have sounded deep if he hadn't been so damn tired. Sleep found him soon after that again.

The next time things stopped spinning, he could think again. He opened his eyes and as they came into focus, Jack wasn't exactly sure where he was. At least, he remembered Pitch, but this looked nothing like it had.

It was bright and french doors, glassy and gleaming, opened up to another darker hallway. He was lying down on a bed, covered in white and blue sheets, smooth to the touch. Snowflakes, synthetic most likely, fluttered down from the ceiling. Jack caught one in the palm of his hand and it disappeared.

He sat up, or at least tried to. His shoulder hurt so much that it felt like it was being wrenched out of its socket; Jack bit his lip and then regretted the angry red indentations his teeth made. The burning subsided, became only a dull ache if he didn't move it.

Speaking of the bite, it was now covered by his old sweatshirt - except that the hole he had sworn had been there was now gone, mended back into the faultless blue of before. There was a glass of water with exactly three cubes of ice in it on an oaken night table beside his bed. Colorful paintings blanketed the walls. They depicted winter mostly - snow, frozen rivers and lakes, cheerful little windows lit against a world of white. A small bookshelf and blue armchair rested in the corner, of which a fire flickered within a glassy fireplace nearby.

It was so homely that Jack could have sworn it had been designed especially for himself. Hotel a la Jack Frost and all that. All he needed now was some caviar and room service and he'd be good.

Just then, Pitch strode in, pushing open the doors with an I-own-this-place air. Well, he probably did. Oh well. Technicalities. He took one look at Jack and then turned away, his golden eyes blank as a clean slate. Jack wondered, because if someone was that good at controlling their expression, they had to have something to hide.

"So you're not going to say hi or say that I'm awake?" Jack asked, feeling not as much irritated that he was being ignored as intrigued. "Where are your manners?"

Pitch gave him an aporetic look. "I believe that stating the obvious is merely a waste of breath, and that formalities are overrated, Jack Frost. I have questions more wanting of answers. For example: how does this room appear to you?"

"What do you mean?" Jack said, taken aback. He had expected Pitch to chide, to yell, or most likely to keep the speaking to a minimum.

"This room was designed by the Tsar Lunanoff himself. It changes its form based on the individual within, gauging their likes and dislikes, personality, and so on," Pitch explained. He gave Jack a thin smile. "Indulge me, for once, Frost. I would like to know."

Jack leaned back on what seemed like a mountain of cushions and observed the room one last time. "It's really blue. And it's snowing in here, for some reason. There are snowflakes on the wallpaper and on the paintings. Wait - is that my sister?" He peered at one of the pieces of art, and found that the brown-haired child ice-skating resembled his deceased sister closely.

"Your sister?" Pitch asked, voice softer now. "The one you saved?"

"Yeah," Jack said, voice suddenly hoarse. "Yeah, that's the one." He did not stop to think that it was odd that Pitch knew.

"That you should see her here does not surprise me," Pitch said softly. "I myself see something rather similar, without the snow, of course."

"What do you see?" Jack said, thinking that he already knew the answer. Pitch did not reply, as Jack knew he would not. The contents of that locket seemed to surface everywhere.

There was another silence, though comfortable this time, without any oppressive air. Pitch sipped coffee from a mug, the scent permeating through the air, shedding its warmth in the form of transparent mist.

Jack decided to pipe up in his least aggressive voice, because he knew this would be a request difficult for Pitch to comply with. "You never finished your story."

"Oh," Pitch said, in a tone that conveyed that he already knew but was hoping that Jack wouldn't ask. "Right." He cleared his throat and sat down in an armchair that had suddenly appeared, red and elegant just like everything else he owned. It was probably from the room that Pitch saw.

"As I said, something bad happened next - I fell in love." He finished the sentence as if condemning himself to some horrible crime.

"I'm not sensing the bad yet," Jack said, trying to keep his face austere still. "So you fell in love. Wow. No wonder you became the Nightmare King. That must be a violation of intergalactic law."

Pitch did not smile. "I have not finished my story yet, Frost. If you had known the things that I've done, perhaps you would view me in a different light - I am not as harmless like you believe me to be."

"I don't think you're harmless." Jack said. "Actually, I don't know a single person who thinks you're harmless, on Earth or whatever Constellation there is. I mean, you're Pitch Black. Not exactly the average stuffed animal."

Pitch did not look convinced, but he took a deep breath, his chest rising and then falling. "We had a child, before I went to guard the Prison of Horrors. Jam-packed with Nightmare Men, Fearlings, and Dream Pirates."

"Must have been a nice job," Jack muttered, "considering the name."

"Yes, it was a nice job as well. Keeping the committers of the worst atrocities all in one place, and expecting them to behave. I took it into stride however, at first. But as time went on, I began to miss the rest of my family, especially my daughter. But the shadows are cruel. Cooped up in their prison, they decided to attack any weakness they could find. Unfortunately, it was mine. They pretended to be my daughter, Jack, they took her voice and mutilated it. I believed she was in dire danger, did not stop to wonder why she was in a place billions of light years away, only that she was in danger."

Pitch paused, as if to make sure that Jack was still listening. He was. "They possessed me, used me as a tool to escape and then realized - with the general of the Golden Armies under their control, they could easily take the entire Constellation of Lunanoff and gradually more. That was the beginning of the - no, my - reign of terror on the children of Earth."

"And then you spread nightmares to pretty much every child on Earth," Jack said, trying to even out the shocking amounts of self-loathing. "I knew that already. Actually, I see you differently now - but I don't think you're the Nightmare King anymore. You didn't like try to kill me or anything."

Pitch's face grew dark. "I shortened the story for sake of your attention span, which I'm beginning to believe hardly reaches two seconds. You still have scarcely any idea of what I did to the people of Lunanoff. I killed the Tsar and Tsarina of Lunanoff, the very people I had dedicated my life to protect. I killed friends, colleagues, erased them for all eternity without a second thought. I didn't just spread nightmares at first - no, I needed to instill fear into them. I tortured them, children barely able to toddle around on their own feet - and still I could easily do the same to you."

Jack held his breath, his heart pounding. Pitch's golden eyes were sharper than ever, making him feel like he was being dissected under its gaze.

"It is dangerous to wander in my waters, Jack Frost. Even now, I can tell that you fear me, with my senses impaired. Even now, at my weakest point, I could easily make you wish you had never been born into this world. You are playing in a minefield, and perhaps you are only steps away from getting blown up." It sounded like a warning.

His heart seemed to leap up right into his throat.

"And there seems to be no other way to get you to stay away than to terrify you, Jack Frost, because you are so terribly blatant that one day it'll get you killed." Pitch's voice then became softer. "You are right, of course, that I am not the same person I was fifty years ago. I still enjoy making you fear me, making children fear me, only that I am more unpredictable now. Time has taught me that even if I ran to the ends of the earth, I could not escape who I was - who I still am."

"But if you like making me afraid," Jack said, his voice small, "then why do you want me to go?"

The molten gold in Pitch's eyes seemed to solidify, turning hard and cold. "I take pleasure in fear, Jack. I am still the Nightmare King, whether or not you choose to believe so. If I were to lose to the shadows again, I am not so sure that I would be able to take control. And this is why, Jack Frost, you are so stupid. I am in recovery and then you wander in, tempting me with your fear. You realize that I could so easily hurt you and - frost lightning or not - you wouldn't be able to do a thing."

"I think I could take you," Jack said, trying to joke. Pitch still looked stony. "Fine, I'll leave then, if you're so convinced that I can't protect myself from you when you can't even control your own shadows." He tried to lift himself off the bed, only he didn't take into account his shoulder. It gave out and he fell back again pathetically..

Pitch seemed exasperated. "You are an idiot, Jack Frost. I can't stay angry at someone who continuously makes a fool of himself. And for some reason - maybe that I committed some heinous crime in a past life - I'm stuck with you. I don't think you'll be able to leave for a couple of days without getting yourself injured - again." He looked pointedly at the place where the dream zombie had taken a chunk out. "Since I can't get rid of you now, rest, or - I know it's unthinkable but - read a book. I think that's what people do when they're bored." With that, he left.

"Great," Jack mumbled, flopping over on the pillows and staring aimlessly at the white ceiling, as dramatic an action as his shoulder would allow. Snow stuck to his face and froze into gleaming crystals at the touch of his skin. "I feel real welcome."

He sighed. His head was clear, for once. All he could feel was a sensation of uselessness. If someone had told him a couple decades ago that one day he would be nursed back to health by his old friend Pitch, he would have laughed. Now, he wasn't so sure.

He decided to take Pitch's advice. With much difficulty, Jack extracted himself from beneath the covers and lumbered towards a bookshelf in the corner of the room. Once or twice, his shoulder burned so much that he had to prop himself against the wall, panting.

The oaken bookshelf held but a few novels, their binding still pristine. Jack took a book in hand that seemed the thinnest, weighing the mass in the palm of his hand. "Inferno di Dante," he read. It had a plain cover, red with black, foreboding letters and flames stenciled in around the edges.

The book was worn. Years of friction had rounded its edges and yellowed its pages. When Jack flipped it open, he soon realized that the entire thing was in Italian, neat stanza after stanza, and scrawled next to each in dark pen was the English translation. Though he could read the Italian, he found the translations eloquent enough that he preferred their style to the original.

When I had journeyed halfway through life's journey,

I soon found myself within shadowed woods,

for I had lost the right path - that does not stray.

It was a haunting tale. Jack found himself so sufficiently absorbed that he read and read and read, and that was how Pitch found him hours later, devouring the last line in

Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.

In his hand, Pitch held a steaming cup of hot chocolate that Jack accepted gratefully. He took a sip. When there was some residue chocolate, Pitch leaned forward and slowly drew his pinky finger along Jack's lips. Jack stopped breathing. Pitch put his finger in his mouth, licked the chocolate off, and then proceeded to act like nothing had happened.

"What?" he asked, when he noticed Jack staring.

Jack shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "It was nothing. Sorry."

"Wait, let me get this straight - are you reading?" Pitch asked as Jack struggled to catch his breath again, sounding so shocked that Jack was immediately offended. He started chuckling, which only added to the feeling.

"Hey, I read," Jack protested. When Pitch didn't stop, Jack began to feel increasingly incensed. "Seriously. Is that so hard to picture?"

Pitch raised an eyebrow.. "If you really want my opinion, yes it is. Never in a million years did I expect to see you pick up a book. An actual book." He peered down at the words and seemed to recognize the format. "And Italian poetry at that."

Jack rolled his eyes. "I can read Italian. I had enough time to learn - two centuries, actually. I lived in Europe for a while. Guess you could say that I'm well-traveled." When Jack flashed a grin at Pitch, he did not smile back, like he found some double meaning that wasn't meant to be laughable.

Pitch cleared his throat. "Actually, I came here to ask you something," he said. "It's about the dream pirates - when you created that wall of ice - and then made it melt. Have you always been able to do that?"

"No," Jack replied honestly. "I don't know what happened." His mind flashed back to the girl in the tree and decided to keep quiet for the moment.

"Hmm," Pitch mused. "Do you think that you could repeat it? Could you do it again? It's interesting to observe."

Jack looked down. He didn't know. There was no rush of power this time, no tingling, no tell tale signs that he was about to destroy something again. He look at Pitch and morosely shrugged.

Pitch looked thoughtful. When he did not respond, Jack cleared his throat. "Well, anyways, Why did the dream pirates attack you?"

"Us," Pitch corrected. " His expression was dark. "For some reason, you were a target too. I would understand if they came for only me, but they actually seemed to want you as well. Now that they know you're here, they'll come back. You'll have to leave soon - back to the Workshop, or any place that's safe, really."

"What about you?" Jack asked.

"I'm perfectly capable of defending myself, Jack," Pitch said, a small smile on his face. "You hardly need to worry about me. I'd be more focused on getting better, if I were you."

"You can come with me, though," Jack said, ignoring Pitch. "You can come with me to the Workshop - I know I can make North understand. Bunny definitely won't, but it doesn't matter. It isn't even his house. North's always talking about his state-of-the-art security. The dream pirates won't be able to get in."

"Jack," Pitch said gently. "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to go stay with the Guardians. Besides, you're in no condition to travel at the moment. So, for now, just rest, and then we can be out of each other's hair, alright?"

He stood up left - again, his robes flaring up like black flames. Pitch had a thing for dramatic exits.

His staff was resting against the window. He placed the book on the windowsill. Jack got to his feet carefully,and then reached for it, instantly feeling much better as it lay in his hands, fitting perfectly in the space between his thumb and index finger, into the rough calluses there from holding its grooved wood.

Jack stared at the book a couple of feet away and frowned, because something wasn't right. The room was customized for Jack. Pitch hadn't been able to see what Jack saw in it - so how had he seen the book? As he considered it, Jack began to think that he knew why. Because in Dante - a character seeking to escape the shadows, to reach for the world that he belonged in, even if he had to go through seemingly endless layers of Hell - Pitch found himself. Jack wondered what else Pitch saw in the room - he would put his money on more Renaissance art.

The smile fading from his face, Jack sank back into the armchair as the guilt ate at him, wondering if he should tell Pitch that his dead daughter wasn't dead after all.

A/N: As always, thanks for reading.

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-flying