A/N: Thank you to everyone who has ever reviewed or favorited or followed this story. And to whoever said, "PLEASE GO ON. I check everyday to see if Chapter 3 is up and I just can't wait any longer," I give this chapter a special dedication to you. Because that was the review that actually inspired me to finish this next chapter.
Anna crossed to the other side of the side-foyer and opened a window. The air outside was cold and fresh and rain had almost stopped completely.
What little fell in heavy pitter-pat speckles across the window pane.
Pitter-pitter!
Pitter-pat!
Anna took a huge breath, filling her cheeks till they puffed out and held the air deep inside her chest. Then exhaled, shutting the window behind her once again. She held her forehead to the glass and kept it pressed there.
"Really, Elsa...," she grumbled under her breath. When she spoke, her hot breath fogged over the cool glass. She covered her thumb over the foggy, glass panel and drew a smiley-face onto it.
Anna rotated her head, still holding it against the glass when her eye caught sight of the Shepard's crook she found. At the moment it dangled unpretentiously from a lonely coat rack. The Royal Council was slowly beginning to fill the dining room and though servants were there to accommodate them with appetizers and drinks, it was very unusual for Queen Elsa to arrive late for anything.
"You sent me here. You told me to get read before tonight's dinner with the Royal Council...so. Where in Arendelle's hills are you, Elsa?"
In a single, swift movement, Anna whirled around on her heel, left the Shepard's crook remaining on its hook and stormed outside empty-handed to find her sister.
"Why if I'm not in the presence of the infamous Snow Queen herself. How delightful."
Elsa glared at the bogeyman who drifted towards her. Her teeth were clenched with a taste of bitter ice lingering under her breath. She stood straight and breathed slowly, keeping her elegant composure as the bogeyman moved towards her and stood a few steps away.
The bogeyman raised his eyebrows, as if amused by her cool, steady defiance.
"Where are my manners?" he continued. "It's the least I can do to introduce myself to you. After all, it's an honor knowing you of all people believe in me. I'm known around the world as Pitch Black."
For a brief moment, Elsa lowered her hands. The ice building under her flesh subdued slightly. She forced her power back, clearing her throat stiffly. "Let Jack go," she ordered.
"But your majesty," Pitch said threateningly, pointing a bony, grey-skinned hand with feigned innocence to his chest. "Jack is free to do whatever he pleases...whenever he wants. Isn't that right, Jack?" he called over his shoulder with an amusement, rich and deep.
Jack remained unnervingly still.
"But he can't," Pitch said with feigned contemplation. "It seems he's lacking the ability to heal himself appropriately after what — I must admit — was something of a rather nasty fall no thanks to me."
Elsa ignored the way her heart hammered in her chest. She told herself it was anger. Not fear. And she poised her hands, ready to strike if Pitch dared make another move towards either of them.
Then Pitch lowered his voice so softly that only she could hear him when he said, "All I meant to teach that boy was a lesson about meddling in other peoples' plans. If only Jack had what he so desperately needs right now."
Elsa already knew. A thread of anxiety crept through her as she lowered her defense again for the second time.
"His staff."
A manic gleam crossed Pitch's face, shadowing his yellow eyes. "You know where it is?"
"I...," Elsa said, scanning the air, back and forth between Pitch and Jack, wary and watchful. "I do."
The smile decorating Pitch's face closed over his teeth, but his lips were still curled, thin and dangerous. "Then if I were you, I'd go fetch it before we continue to waste our time here. Jack's time is ticking..." he told her, sweeping one, elongated finger in the air and moving it back and forth like a swinging pendulum. "What are you doing about it, Elsa?"
Pitch paused now, allowing the gravity of what he said to weigh down, letting them grow heavy as a broken heart.
Elsa retreated another step back. Then another. Don't do anything.
Then she turned her back on Jack again and hurried back to the castle.
She had to find Jack's staff...
...she had to find Anna...
And before reaching the edge of the the fruit orchards, it startled her when the very person she was trying to eagerly to find came crashing into her.
"Elsa!"
Anna grabbed her sister by the shoulder, drawing her into an embrace — then immediately pushed her back. "Where have you been! The Royal Council is already being seating and after you had the nerve to lecture me, you're still—!"
"Anna, I don't have time for this," Elsa cut her sister short, tilting her head thoughtfully but didn't wait for an answer. "That staff you found earlier...where is it?"
Pitch scratched the underside of his chin and twisted his back so that he could face Jack. A bitter frown crossed his face.
It seemed Jack had passed out.
And what was the fun in that?
"Wake up, Jack," Pitch whispered into the boy's ear, close enough that Jack was roused by the warmth of breath. The touch that followed came without warning. Uncomfortably hot fingers skirted the back of his neck. Jack jerked away, scrabbling at the grass beneath him, instinctively searching for the presence of his staff only to recall he was without it.
Jack moved to stand and managed to only kneel. He felt the ground sway beneath him as he steadied his balance. He clutched a hand to his head, as if doing so might stop the world from spinning. The fact he found the strength to stand seemed to come to a shock to Pitch, whose frown only deepened. The bogeyman's eerie, yellow eye wandered up and down the entirety of Jack's posture.
He looked frail and vulnerable without the support of his staff. It was his source of strength and security, Pitch knew. In many ways, the Winter spirit was as easy for the bogeyman to frighten as any ordinary human child would be. His fears were just as raw and real.
Pitch was relishing this moment.
"I promise you this," Pitch told him. "When your little Snow Queen returns, I'm going to make her scream and call out your name. Then I'm going to make her cry. And once you realize there is nothing you can ever do to help her, I'm going to get rid of you. Right in front of her."
It was amazing how such an idle threat could send Jack's heart racing in a such a frenzy, though one would never be able to tell. The boy kept such a lock on his emotions that it was nearly impossible to tell what he was thinking, but Pitch was in-tune with Jack's own fears enough to know that he was afraid.
"Although human, she too has been gifted with extraordinary powers, hasn't she?" Pitch remarked. "Elsa sacrificed a great deal for the sake of her little sister. Not as much as you Jack. After all, you died so your sister could live."
That might be true, Jack thought but he witnessed throughout the years as Elsa died a little every day inside so that Anna's life could be safe from herself. Her childhood had been sacrificed and short-lived by her own selflessness.
"Speaking of Elsa...," Pitch said, making a terrible face, like he was trying to smile but couldn't quite manage. "I think I hear her coming now."
Elsa barred one arm in front of her sister, stopping Anna from stepping any further into the orchard. In her other arm, she cradled Jack's staff.
"Wait here...no," Elsa decided instead. "Return back to the castle. You're not to come with me."
Anna eyed her worriedly. "What are you talking about?" she asked, trying not to sound too defensive. "You made me bring you this staff and now you're telling me I can't come see what this is all about?"
It was a fair question but frustration welled within Elsa's throat and she was firm insisting, "I told you to go back!" She waved her sister back towards the castle, unintentionally shooting sparks of ice in the direction and Anna caught a faint blast of the cold. Snow blew against the sleeve of her dress.
Elsa hid her hand firmly behind her back, a distraught expression lingering on her face. When she tilted her head towards her sister, she said, "I'm sorry, Anna." Let me protect you. "You have to trust me."
And before her sister had a chance to argue, Elsa left her...
"Pitch!" she spoke the bogeyman's name sternly before the shadowy man turned towards her. In both hands she gripped firmly the staff. "It's here. I have it."
"Then be a good girl," Pitch said. His face was unexpressive and cold as stone but his hand was greedily extended. "And give it to me."
Elsa attempted to direct attention to Jack, who knelt on the ground behind Pitch. He looked absolutely exhausted, like he was barely hanging on. Though he did not bleed, he looked drained to the core of his soul. His dusty, white hair rippled in the wind like a tattered flag of surrender. Tortured eyes and cheekbones were lined with creases. He dragged an arm across his chest, as if his chest was literally aching inside him.
When Elsa turned her eyes back to Pitch, she stood her ground. "No."
Pitch cocked an eyebrow and grinned, slowly encircling Elsa, tendrils of shadows nipping at her feet. The closer her got, the more feelings of fear consumed her, making her hands tightened around the staff until she couldn't take anymore.
Elsa released her hand to send a sheet of ice plummeting towards Pitch. She heard the crackling of her ice as if seeped onto Pitch's robes, spreading itself, quickly solidifying. Then she hurled another icy blast at Pitch, encasing a prism of ice around him. Stalagmites of ice rooted to the ground and blocked Pitch from getting and closer.
Elsa used the moment to her advantage. "Jack!" she called, trying desperately to catch the boy's attention. It caught Elsa off guard when he suddenly lunged at her.
As soon as Elsa hit the ground, the staff went spiraling in the air out of her grip.
"You thought that little trick was enough to stop the bogeyman?" Pitch whispered into her ear, fingers tightening around her throat at his eyes met the Snow Queen's. Despite Elsa's protests, she couldn't writhe herself free of the darkness that hovered about her. Pitch straddled her as he held her down.
Pitch moved to dodge an ice blast that whizzed past his head.
"Is that the best you've got?" he mocked her, dodging another blast of ice.
Elsa mustered a final yell in protest and managed to kick him from under her. Hard.
It seemed Pitch's fun with her had come to an abrupt end. Tendrils of dark sand crept around her legs and hands, preventing her from thrashing. Shadows slithered around her hands and she was helpless to fight back. She couldn't even move.
Meanwhile Jack's chest heaving from an exertion of energy as he struggled to stand. Lying a few meters away was his unattended staff. Jack barely had much strength left, but maybe it would be enough.
Jack stumbled making a grab for the staff. For the briefest moment, his fingers grazed the surface of the staff. He could feel its power being channeled warmly through his body but before the winter spirit could reclaim it, Pitch caught up to him. He knocked the staff out of his reach. Long gray fingers curled around the collar of his hoodie and Pitch lifted his head up by. Their noses were practically touching.
"Did you think I wasn't watching you?" Pitch asked him.
A dull pain throbbed through Jack, throbbing to the rhythm of his pulse. He bared his teeth, clawing at Pitch's arm trying to free himself. As Jack struggled, there was a moment of genuine surprise when he held Elsa was shouting at him.
"Jack!" she called, finally managing to break the shadowy bonds that held her wrists. Ice froze around the fused shadows cloaking her hands until the bonds eventually shattered. Her feet were still welded with unexplainable black sand, encasing her ankles like shackles. "JACK!"
That's when Pitch spoke in a voice, low and insinuating so only Jack would hear, "Didn't I tell you she would call your name?" With one hand, he easily held Jack at arms-length away and with the other, he turned the staff he now held over in his hand, letting it dangle in his grip as if it was of no consequence regarding what happened to it.
The laughter that peeled from Pitch was like that of a funeral bell, echoing through Jack's head, sounding more bitter in sound with each chuckle.
Then Pitch embedded his nail deep into the length of his staff and scratched his nail across it, splitting a shallow crack into it.
No pain in the world could ever be like this.
Jack wanted to scream but was able to keep himself from doing so the moment his gaze spilled across Elsa's face and at the sight of the terror in her eyes. Giving into the pain would only terrify her more. Pitch would only love that.
For her sake, Jack could not afford to scream.
"You took that surprisingly well," Pitch wondered aloud. The puzzled bogeyman caught a satisfied smirk on the boy's face then and knew that despite the pain he knew he was inflicting, Jack Frost still controlled the situation by not allowing Pitch the satisfaction of seeing his agony.
Infuriated by his resistance, Pitch slammed Jack hard into the ground. The blow caused Jack's back to arch in pain but Pitch quickly placed a firm foot over his stomach, flattening his back and keeping him pinned in the dirt where he belonged.
"You think you're that brave? That you're immune to fear. That you're immune to me. Is that it?" Pitch continued, weighing the sturdiness of Jack's staff in his hands. He paused, allowing what he had said to simmer in Jack's mind.
No answer came, but Pitch had not expected one. He knew Jack's nerves were fraying at the edges, coming undone. Pitch's thumb traced the length of Jack's staff and he gripped the bottom end of the Shepard's crook firmly in his hands and clenched it tight, threatening to snap it.
Pitch looked uncertain for a moment, the faintest touch of curiosity clenching his jaw. Then he twisted his hands and snapped a piece of the staff.
It was like a sudden, blinding pain stole the breath from Jack's lungs in an agonizing rush.
He screamed.
Jack bit his lip to quiet himself. His insides were on fire, pain ripping at him. He struggled to pry Pitch's ankle off him, but Pitch's foot ground against his stomach, threatening to crack his ribs. Jack was trembling. His heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that he almost couldn't hear Elsa shouting at him.
Jack tried to raise his head and in that moment, he heard Elsa heaved an unsteady breath that sudden suspiciously like a sob. When she took another shaking breath, there was no mistaking it. There were tears frozen slick and glossy on her cheeks.
The smile on Pitch's face, despite its mildness, was horrific to behold. "And didn't I tell you that I would make her cry and there would be nothing you could do to help her?" he reminded Jack cruelly. "I suppose that's left is for me to get rid of you—"
Something hard and unbearably cold struck Pitch under his jaw suddenly.
A sharp, ragged, serrated length of ice came down at an angle from the ground and separated Pitch from Jack. Then Elsa manipulated the ice to crash down on Pitch, thrusting him to the ground and trapping him under a barrier of ice.
Elsa swallowed hard, her stomach twisting at the sight of Jack's crumpled form on the ground.