Hey Guys, sorry this is a little late!

I was kinda hoping to get this out by Monday, but then I found out this was horribly edited, and I had to fix it up.
The worst part is there still might be some mistakes I've overlooked by accident, so if there are, please ignore them! I apologize in advance!
But anyway, hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of The Guardians (these get really pointless after a while...)

Chapter 10 – The Warren

(Atheia's POV)

"What is she doing here?!" Bunny cried, turning towards the other guardians.

The little toddler dropped the eggs in her arms, crying out in delight as she spotted a cowering elf behind North's leg. She soon lost interest in the other people occupying the area as she jumped over towards the elf, chasing it around North's legs.

"Uh…snow globe?" The jolly guardian sheepishly chuckled, patting down his coat.

"Crikey! Somebody do something!" Bunny cried frantically, waving his boomerangs around in panic.

"Hey, don't look at us," Jack said, gesturing to me as he put his hands up in surrender, his staff in his left hand. "We're invisible, remember?"

I gave a light chuckle as Sophie managed to grip onto the elf's hat, dragging it along the floor as it desperately attempted to wriggle out of her grasp. The guardians looked down at her as she cried out "Elf!" repeatedly, dragging the being across the pavement.

"Don't worry Bunny! I bet she's a fairy fan!" Tooth said, flying into the girl's view. "It's okay little one!"

Sophie immediately lost interest in the elf as she eyed Tooth with a mesmerized look. Noting it had being released, the elf scrambled away from the girl, taking its place back to cover behind North's leg. Sophie's visible eye widened as Tooth's form fluttered in front of her.

"Pwetty…" she mumbled, her emerald eye sparkling with adoration.

"Awww!" Tooth said, softly smiling down at the toddler as her grin widened. "You know what? I've got something for you! Here it is…" The Guardian of Memories opened her clenched hand to reveal a couple of teeth, the gums still attached. She pushed them around in her palm, grinning wildly at Sophie. "Look at all the pretty teeth! With little blood and gum on them!"

Sophie appeared shocked for a small second, before glancing up at Tooth with an unreadable look. Her eyes darted between the teeth and Tooth's ecstatic expression, before she burst into tears, screaming and running away from the confused Guardian.

At the sight, I burst into laughter, grabbing the attention of the guardians as I leaned myself on my staff to avoid falling over. Jack soon joined in, and we both clutched our stomachs in laughter as the guardians looked at us with stunned expressions. Sophie, oblivious to it all, was running around the Warren, chasing a couple of eggs as they retreated to under one of the stone egg statues

"Blood and gums?" I said through a fit of giggles, wiping a tear from my eye as Jack and I slowly calmed down.

"When was the last time you actually hung out with kids?" Jack asked, floating over to one of the egg statues as Sophie gleefully padded over to it.

"Peek-a-boo!" She shouted, giggling as the eggs waddled out in fright.

"We are very busy bringing joy to children! We don't have time…" The jolly guardian paused as the little toddler ran past him, her arms outstretched towards a couple of multicolored butterflies that was just flying out of her reach. "…for children?"

"If one little kid can ruin Easter, then…" Jack mumbled, swirling his hand around and morphing a snowflake. "…we're in worse shape that I thought."

The snowflake glided in the wind, catching the toddler's attention. She giggled, chasing the snowflake as it floated over towards the guardians. Bunny gave in a confused, cross-eyed look before it lightly landed on his nose, instantly melting on contact. Bunny's nose twitched as wisps of blue light emitted from the melted snowflake. His confused glance brightened into a smile as he hopped over to the little toddler, who was now curiously inspecting one of the flowers in the Warren.

The grinning Pooka grabbed the attention of Sophie, who smiled brightly at the large rabbit, her emerald eye gleaming with joy. "You wanna paint some eggs? Yeah?" Bunny asked the girl, holding out his hand and motioning towards the archway that led out towards the rest of the Warren.

"Okay!" She cried gleefully, placing her small hand in the Pooka's paw. They both basically skipped out through the archway, the other two guardians following.

I stood with my mouth agape through out the whole thing. 'Okay, what just happened?' I turned to look at Jack, who floated down from the egg statue with a knowingly smirk plastered on his face. He landed on the grass, watching Bunny guide the little girl, Tooth and North out to the rest of the Warren. Looking back and forth between Jack and Bunny, I rolled my eyes and blew my bangs out of my face, giving a small smirk his way.

Walking up to him, I elbowed his arm, tearing his attention away from the rare scene in front of him. "I saw what you did there," I said, replying to his smirk with my own.

He shrugged, looking back to Bunny as he watched him tickle the toddler, causing her to fall back into a pile of eggs. "The guy needed to lighten up."

"Well, are we going to just stand here or are we going to get a better look?" I laughed, as I grabbed the winter spirit's wrist and plunged through the archway.

As we came out from the other side, Jack and I gaped at the sight in front of us. Hills sprouted lush, green grass along with bunches of multi-coloured flowers and different species of trees grew along the sides of the stone cliffs that separated the each section of the Warren. But what was fascinating were the millions of eggs that waddled down the hills, ducking under several stepping stones, and moving towards where they needed to go. A variety of colours swarmed the area, flowing like multicolored rivers.

My eyes widened, as I gleefully leaped into the air, zipping around the different sections of the Warren. I flew around, laughing as I leapt over the stepping stones and zipped past the blossoming trees. I noticed vibrantly coloured flowers that lined the edges of pathways, with little, pale eggs walking down them. I floated down, hovering slightly above them as I watched with curiosity and wonder as the flower petals opened and closed, coving the white eggs with coloured powder. Grinning, I flew over to a purple river, watching the little eggs jumping into the violet liquid as I skimmed my fingers along the glossy surface of it. Spotting a familiar yeti, I grabbed a pile of plain eggs and I flew over to sit next to him.

"Hey Leo," I said, grinning in his direction as he gave me a happy grunt in return. "Mind if I join you?" I gestured to the pile of eggs I placed between the yeti and I.

"Oagwraf." He rolled his eyes when I gave him a confused look and placed a paintbrush in my hand. He picked up a paint set and placed it between us, like what I did with the eggs.

"Thanks," I said, hesitantly dipping the paintbrush into the bucket of forest-green paint.

The yeti grunted in return, going back to painting a nearly-finished egg. Dipping the paintbrush into the red paint, he stuck his tongue out in concentration as he added a couple more stokes to the egg. When he finished, he held the scarlet-coloured egg up to me, grunting happily. Just as I was about to praise him on the egg, Bunny hopped by, a squealing Sophie riding on his back.

"Too Christmassy, mate. Paint 'em blue."

"Vhwata?!" Leo cried, gesturing towards the pyramids of other crimson-coloured eggs, before letting out a groan and slamming his head on the grass.

I cringed in sympathy, connecting the similarity between the blue robots and the red eggs. I slightly chuckled at the irony, before slightly nudging the yeti, catching his attention. His golden orbs stared up at me from over his shoulder, and I gave him a smile as I handed the yeti my half-finished egg. He eagerly sat up and, dipping the paintbrush in the green paint, delicately started working on finishing the egg.

Smiling, I picked up a new egg and my paintbrush and, after hesitation, decided to dip it into the light blue paint. I softly started to coat the pale eggshell with the paint, lightly circling the middle before slowly making my way towards the top and bottom of the egg, ignoring the smudged paint on my fingers. After every white patch had been covered, my hand unconsciously guided my paintbrush into the tub of dark blue paint and coated the bristles of the paintbrush, all while my eyes stayed glued to the coated eggshell. Without thinking, I placed a single, dark blue dot on the egg, and from that I arched out several jagged, blue lines. After making several arched lines across the light blue, coated surface, my senses came back to me in a wave. In shock, I cried out and dropped the paintbrush. I watched it with a somewhat stunned expression as it rolled slowly down the hill, smudging the grass. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Leo turn to me, giving me a concerned look before going back to painting his thirtieth green egg, adding it to the pyramid of others. I breathed heavily, turning my head from the paintbrush to the egg that I still had grasped in my left hand.

My shocked expression turned to a one of curiosity as I inspected the painted eggshell. The wet paint was slightly smudged from my fingertips, but I could still recognize what the design was supposed to be; cracks. The dark blue brush strokes were arched and jagged, spawning from a spot near the middle of the egg. My eyes scrunched up in confusion as I examined my spontaneous design for the egg. Due to the colours, the painting seemed to be cracks in ice. At that thought, I felt a wave of familiarity overcome me. I heavily breathed, losing my attention of the egg as I searched through my mind; I knew I had seen something like this, but where?

'Cracks…cracks…cracks…where have I seen cracks in the ice?' I recalled seeing several splits in the pond when I went to melt it, but that didn't reassure me. I lifted the egg to inspect it some more when I felt two hands clamp down on my shoulders.

"Ahhh!" I shrieked, flinging the egg away and reaching for my staff. I spun myself and the rod around, abruptly stopping as my staff came within an inch of Jack's smirking face. Growling, I smacked my staff on top of his head.

"Ow!" He cried, flopping fully onto the grass and reaching for the spot where I hit him.

"You're an idiot, you know that, right?" I grumbled, sitting back down on the grass, leaning my elbow on my knee and propping my up chin with my hand.

"I still scared you," He smirked, crossing his legs and facing me, his hand still rubbing the top of his head. "It was so easy to scare you too! You know how hard it is for me to scare people? I give off the cold in waves! How could you not know I was there?"

"Hey, you caught me at a bad time; I was busy looking at…" I trailed off, my eyes widening as I leaping up into the air, hovering just above the ground as I searched through the lush grass.

"Busy looking at what?" Jack asked, giving me a curious look.

I ignored him, dropping down on my hands and knees, sifting through the grass. After several minutes, I gave an exasperated sigh and flopped down on my back.

"Damn those eggs and their unnatural little feet!"

I sighed again, covering my eyes with my arm. It's okay…it probably was just a weird design you randomly thought of…you've seen it a bunch of times anyway. But no matter how many times I repeated that in my head, I couldn't help feeling that it wasn't just a coincidence. I removed my arm, and seeing Jack floating above me, I groaned and sat up. He gave me a questioning look, before I waved him off.

"Never mind, let's find the other guardians," I gave him a reassuring smile, before turning to Leo. "Come on Leo, we should go now."

At my words, all the well-constructed pyramids of green eggs collapsed, and each little egg waddled down the pathway. Leo still grasped onto one, adding a few finishing touches before placing the green egg on the ground, letting it toddle off towards the rest of the group. Jack flew ahead, while Leo and I strolled down the pathway, following the coloured eggs. The yeti and I chatted, though it was kinda hard with me not being able to understand a word he said.

"Vhwya ka idosodg?" The yeti mumbled turning my way as we walked along the path.

"Err…yeah, I had fun too." Leo face palmed, turning away from me. He didn't say another word the whole way.

Eventually, we met up with Tooth and North, and we all walked out of the archway, where I noticed Jack and Bunny sat crouched at the edge of a cliff. I took a moment to gaze at the billions of multicolored eggs that walked off in a vibrant wave of colours towards seven differently designed tunnels, before joining Jack and the other guardians, crouching next to Tooth.

"Aw, poor li'l ankle-biter," Bunny said, gazing at the small toddler curled up in his arms. "All tuckered out."

"I love her," Tooth said softly, gazing lovingly at Sophie as Baby Tooth chirped in agreement. "I think it's time to get her home." Tooth held her arms out, letting Bunny place the sleeping toddler in them.

"How 'bout I take her?" Jack asked, straightening up.

"Jack, no! Pitch is out there –"

"And he's no match for this," Jack held out his staff as he countered Tooth.

"Which is why we need you here…with us," Bunny mumbled, gesturing to the group.

"Don't worry; I'll be as quick as a Bunny!"

The guardians looked at each other, seeming to have a silent discussion about considering letting Jack go.

"We, if he's going than I am too!" I shouted, making everyone turned to me. They looked like they were going to argue against it when I piped up; "Hey, I'm not gonna let this guy freely fly about with Easter tomorrow; I don't want another repeat of The Blizzard of '68…" I said, sending a sharp look Jack's way.

The winter spirit nervously chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck as the guardians stared at him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bunny with a slight fearful look in his eye. I knew I hit a soft spot when I said that; yeah, sure, I was pissed at Jack for the Blizzard of '68 because it was the middle of spring at the time, I can only imagine how Bunny felt since it was on his day.

The guardians seemed to have a mutual agreement, and Tooth sighed in defeat, handing Sophie to Jack.

"Okay, you both can go, but be back soon, and stay safe."

There ya go! :D

It was actually fun to write this chapter, I enjoyed it :)
So...about Atheia...anyone know what's going on? ;) If you have an idea, review about it, I'm curious about your guesses...
On with the responses!

Review Responses:

storygirl99210: Thanks, I thought I should add something; throughout the whole chapter I had that idea stuck in my head. Also, the roses she put beside them had an actual meaning. Fifteen roses say 'I am so sorry, please forgive me.' and the yellow colour of the rose symbolizes friendship. The colour blue (of the ribbon) means trust, peace and loyalty. Cool, eh? I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

booklover1598: Cool! I'm glad you did!

JustPlainOldMe: Thank you! :) I'm so happy someone understands. You're just as awesome, you know that right? Christmas? And your Birthday? Rolled into one? *blushes* you flatter me. :D I'm glad you enjoy this story. Hoped you liked the chapter!

Thanks you guys for the reviews, I really enjoy them! Review for more! :D If you're new to this story though, follow and favourite if you like it so far!
Updates are (hopefully!) coming soon, and I only own what you don't recognize in the movie!

Cya soon!

CrystalxRose