Well, another update. I've actually got until the fourth chapter of this complete so far (and a little of the fifth) but i'm hoping to stay ahead of you all so i've not uploaded them before now. It's been about a month right? Something like that. Just a quick warning, there is some mild swearing in here (though since most of the Russian North spouts are cusses it shouldn't be a problem), and i may also be starting an apprenticeship soon, five days a week in a busy hospital so updates if i do will definitely by once a month or a maybe a little longer.

And i'm starting to get the accents down; I watched Rise of the Guardians three or four times in a row just to get some kind of a grip on them. Anyway, enough of my rambling. I hope you enjoy the update, and thanks toeveryone who's alerted, faved and to my lone reviewer.

Eb x

When the swirling light of the vortex faded, Jack was left as frozen as the winter he represented, staring around him. It seemed an eternity passed before anyone else arrived and the others, when they finally stepped out or the portal to join him, were left pretty much speechless.

And not in a good way.

"I was under the impression that this was supposed to be a garden." Jack managed at last.

"It was." Bunny whispered back.

It was hard to believe; the realm was quite vast; rolling hills and dipping valleys, meadows and forests. It made sense; he had a vague memory of Gaia, of hearing about the goddess of the earth when he was hanging around humans. All land was her domain, she was supposed to be almost without equal. Yet this didn't inspire nature at all.

"Oh no," Toothy clasped her hands to her chest. "North, the garden!"

"This ain't good mates." Bunny was crouched into a defensive position, his ears flicking every which way in case of danger.

"GAIA!" bellowed the Russian urgently, charging off with swords in hand.

Jack moved off the path they had landed on and knelt, raising a hand to something withered and black. "It's dead." he whispered. The sight hit him somewhere deep inside, made him want to go tearing through the growth in search of . . . what? The feelings confused him, and he pushed them to the back of his mind, a blizzard lost among snow.

Instead, he stood, staring around.

"You ok snowflake?" Bunny had moved over to him, watching him.

Feeling strangely hollow, Jack barely spared him a glance. His eyes roved over the landscape as though seeking some sort of recognisable landmark. They caught on a statue on the edge of a forest. "I-I don't . . . yeah. It's . . . dead." and damn but he still couldn't work out why that was so distressing to him, aside from the fact that this was an all-powerful goddess who appeared to have been bitch-slapped big time. He was feeling so bewildered that he didn't even comment on the demeaning nickname.

"Aye mate, but don't worry. We'll find her." In a rare display of affection Bunnymund placed a hand on his shoulder. Jack spared him a quick glance, but his blue eyes were drawn once more to the statue in the distance.

"Snowflake?" Bunny watched warily as Jack moved, as though in a trance. He looked up quickly, trying to find the other two, but Toothiana had wandered off somewhere and North had barrelled off into the garden in search of Gaia. Bunny and Baby Tooth were the only ones around.

The little fairy twittered at him nervously and Bunny nodded. "I know. Come on mate, we all know he attracts trouble as much as he causes it." and without another word he bounded off after the winter spirit.

The forest was dead like the rest of the garden, but to Jack it felt unnatural, defiled. This was not the sleep of winter or the slow decline of autumn; it was decay. Everything looked like it had both died and rotted, burned. It brought to mind flashes of darkness and wisps of light, girls screaming and males shouting. It made his head hurt all the more.

Jack Frost was a Spirit and rarely suffered such illness, but he remembered enough from his human years now. Enough to recognise that his heart knew something his mind couldn't remember.

The statue was of a young woman with long flowing hair, her limbs and hair twined with flowering vines in a knee-length gown. Though the stone was plain – his mind supplied that it could have been marble – somehow in his vision colour flowed onto her form. The hair became mahogany, the large eyes a vivid green with blue and gold flecks, her gown purest white like new-fallen snow and her skin the colour of sun-kissed sand.

"Jack Frost." Bunny's tone was stern, and Jack was dimly aware that he had been trying to speak to him for several minutes by now. Baby Tooth was hovering in front of his face, twittering to try and get his attention.

"What?" the young spirit was startled, that much was clear; Bunny was starting to get really concerned.

"I said, what's wrong?" he repeated slowly, "You're starin' off inta space mate."

Jack shook his head, not quite sure what to say. He looked beyond the statue now, noticing the clearing it was guarding. It shimmered before his eyes, becoming green for a brief instant. He heard laughter and saw gold dart into the trees.

"If you're not feelin' too good Snowflake we can wait in the workshop, I'm pretty sure that the other's won't mind."

"Yeah, sure." Jack replied without really hearing him. The gold glinted again. "Hey can you just," he glanced back at Bunny before taking a few steps forward, "I'll be right back I promise." and with that he ran off towards the clearing.

"Snowflake!" Bunny made to go after him and hesitated, looking back for the others but they were still out of sight. "Will ya-chp." Out of sight already. Realising he was going to have to go after the lad, he resigned himself to the fact, grumbling as he hopped after him. "How can I lose a kid with white hair? He's not even flying!" he groused to Baby Tooth. The fairy tittered good-naturedly at him and followed.

Darting between trees, Jack followed a path unknown to anything but his heart, over roots, through branches, Jack didn't know how long he ran or where he was going, only that he needed to get there.

Behind him he heard Bunny curse as he crashed into something, probably a tree. But the Easter Rabbit didn't catch up to him again until he had stopped. Baby Tooth flew over and chirped angrily at him until he saw the boy's expression.

"You shouldn't do that mate, we don't know what's here." Bunny told him sternly. Then he noticed the look on Jack's face too. "What's up kid?" he followed Jack's gaze.

The clearing they were in now was secluded; on one side was a willow-fringed pond and all around where some of the biggest trees he had ever seen, while the side opposite them appeared to be a vine-covered cliff. The flora was thicker near the bottom, hanging like a curtain.

"I think I've been here before." Jack whispered, not noticing as a tear fell down his face and froze on his cheek. "But I swear, I've never been here before. How can that be?"

E. Aster Bunnymund had never heard Jack Frost sound like this. He sounded torn. Bunny sat back on his haunches and watched as the white-haired spirit wandered further into the clearing, staring around him.

"There's a cave behind there." he said suddenly, pointing at the vine curtain. "It was one of her favourite places, because there's a gap in the roof at the back and the sunshine comes through, some of the most beautiful flowers grew there. And over there was where we scared Freckles so bad he fell out the tree and into the lake." he paused mid laugh, thinking about what he'd just said, then looked up at the rabbit and at Baby Tooth. "How could I know that? Why do I . . ."

Bunny didn't let him finish. The lad had never looked so young, so fragile and human, and he didn't like that expression on his face one bit so he did the only thing he could think of right then; he drew him into a hug. "Don't worry mate. It'll work out right. And we'll help ya through this."

Jack didn't reply.

Much as he didn't like to admit it, Bunny did not like seeing him like this. Jack was the Guardian of Fun, a prankster and a trouble maker who never went without a smile, grin or smirk on his face. Seeing him upset was disturbing. This was tearing Jack Frost apart and as he offered a little silent comfort, Bunny wondered if they were doing the right thing.

A fluttering sound alerted him to the presence of one of the others and he glanced up past Baby Tooth, who was lying on Jack's head giving him a fairy cuddle, to the Tooth Fairy. She shook her head, looking like she was trying not to cry as North came up beside her looking grave, as though someone had died.

Maybe they had.

The other two Guardians waited until Jack had composed himself before coming over. He held out a hand to the youngest member of their group. Jack looked confused, looking at Bunny before staring at the outstretched hand warily, like it was a snake. He held out his own, and North allowed something to trickle from his big hand into Jack's slimmer one. Something black.

"Is that . . . sand?" Bunny said, horror struck. All Jack could do was stare at it.

"Yes. We found lots of it near the centre of the garden, by where her . . ." Toothy hesitated, "Where the oracle used to be."

Bunny's response was swift and sharp. "Used to?"

North nodded. "The oracle is smashed and the pedestal has been destroyed. She is nowhere to be found."

"Pitch. Here?" Jack could finally speak past the sudden lump in his throat; the idea of the Boogeyman here made hot anger burn his throat.

North nodded, swallowing before adding, "Jack, I'm sorry, I didn't realise he would go this far."

They didn't have the chance to reply; that was the moment they discovered what was in the garden with them.

There was no sound at first, only a slight dimming of the light and a profound sense of something being very, very wrong. Jack could never remember what happened; only that suddenly all he could feel was intense anger and then he felt nothing. But Bunny, North and Toothiana would always remember; how could they forget?

The curtain of vines shifted, parted, and a long black leg came out, followed by a proud head with glowing red eyes and a sleek black body.

A Nightmare.

It began to paw at the ground, readying to charge, snorting like a broken motor.

Jack Frost didn't give it the chance.

He strode into the middle of the clearing and roared at it, unleashing a dazzling ice blue blast of magick that reduced the beast to dust and radiated throughout the forest. The clearing sparkled with frost in the aftermath whilst snow drifted down gently, but Jack knew none of this.

He had collapsed in the middle of the clearing as the other Guardians watched, awestruck.

The fight was over before most of them had even begun to move.

o.O.o

He remembered what it was like to be human. Sometimes it made him cry, but usually it made him smile.

He didn't know what he was now, a ghost or a spirit of some kind he supposed, but one thing remained his constant; Toothless.

The dragon remained with him always. Hiccup didn't know whether it was because the dragon was naturally immortal – he had a feeling they lived very long natural lives – or whether it had been granted some kind of immortality when he had been. All he knew was that his best friend was right there with him, and he was grateful.

When human, his name had been Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the son of a Viking chief, and the first in his village – then at least – to train and ride a dragon. He lost his leg as a boy after saving his village from a monster of a dragon; the Red Death. The leg had been replaced by a prosthetic instead, which he recalled had taken some getting used to. He had grown and lived a good life; even better, his growth spurt kicked in and he actually gained some muscle as an adult. But then one night he had simply fallen asleep and woken up as this.

Somehow his spirit had reverted back to his teenage self, something he used to hate. He had also somehow regained his leg, though there had been some funny moments where the prosthetic had replaced it which even now, several hundred years later, he was still trying to work out. He was still scrawny and small and had freckles, but Toothless could see him, and Toothless stayed with him.

Those first days had been terrible for Hiccup; thinking he was cursed or damned, terrified of touching anything in case he went through it. He had since found out that only people could walk through him – it had always unnerved him – and that he could, to some extent, control the world around him now.

He could make the trees turn for autumn however early he wished, and because he liked it that way the part of the forest he thought of as his was always in brilliant autumn. If he touched a tree, any tree, he could hear it. Hiccup had discovered he had an uncanny way with almost anything that came from the earth, but most especially with metal. But there was a downside; if his temper got the better of him and he touched something there was a risk that he could kill it. Several trees had gone that way before he had made the connection; lucky he had, for he feared killing a person that way. He didn't know how it happened though.

He still sketched, still wrote; everything he could remember about dragons (a lot) he had written down in a journal of his own, and he had borrowed (it wasn't stealing) a satchel to carry his more important journals in. He had borrowed the books too, but he made the charcoal and the ink and the reed pen that he used.

But by far the biggest thing that had happened since his 'death' and 'undeath' had to be the memories. Memories of growing up in a garden he had never seen before, of playing with friends whose faces he could never see, falling into a lake and pulling someone with him, chasing Toothless through an autumn forest.

Strange, that; how Toothless was in those memories. He had even sketched a couple of the scenes he saw, but never faces. Never faces. They were always from a distance, the figures close enough that you could tell that this one was female, that one was male, but never enough detail to know who they were or what they looked like.

He was contemplating this, idly changing the colours of a maple tree to brilliant purple and red leaf by leaf, like he was painting a picture, when he got his first surprise of the day; Toothless dropped a half-eaten deer at his feet.

"Great, good job boy, just what I always wanted." was his sarcastic response to the innocent blinking of the black dragon. He looked at the carcass, then at the dragon looking at him pleasantly. "Did you have to leave me the head?"

Toothless only cocked his head to one side, unperturbed by his friend's melancholy mood.

"Yeah, well, next time you can have it." he chanced a glance at the carcass; he didn't need to eat, but he could probably put the antler to good use; he'd rather come to like whittling and carving. Maybe a bear?

A glimmer of light caught his eye and it was bright enough that he held up a hand to shield his eyes, trying to see what it was from his place on the tree branch. Something small was by the fallen log across the way.

Jumping down, he pushed Toothless away when the black dragon nudged him and nearly knocked him over, moving slowly over to the glimmer. "Not now."

The last thing he saw clearly was the tiniest outline of a human-like creature with wings, for when he reached out to touch it sand obscured his vision and surrounded him.

"Toothless!"

He could hear the dragon growling, roaring, but the sound was getting fainter and he had the strangest feeling of being weightless. Inside the cocoon was dark and he couldn't make out the colour of the sand clearly; much as he hated it he would have to wait and see what was going on.

A loud roar, muffled slightly by the shifting sands, sounded nearby and Hiccup twisted hopefully; his stomach did some strange acrobatics and the odd feeling suggested that his captor had picked up speed. "Toothless if you get me out of here now I'll get you a whole week's worth of fish!"

His powers were useless against this sand; he couldn't manipulate it like he had been able to do with other sands, and no amount of kicking and punching was getting him anywhere fast. With a resigned sigh, Hiccup realised he was just going to have to sit tight until his buddy caught up. He hated feeling weak. It brought back bad memories.

A sudden, nasty little thought entered his mind.

There had been disturbing rumours among the forest sprites of nightmarish black stallions roaming the mountains nearby, and even the humans had spoken of these ghoulish apparitions. Black horses with red eyes and black sand. Always the colour black, his mind supplied unhelpfully, though why he felt that the colour of the sand should be so important he had no idea.

Could this be the spooks running amok on the mountain?

It didn't matter, because when he got out of here his kidnappers were in so much trouble! He was a Viking gods dammit, and he and Toothless would toast their arses for this!