Chapter 14
"Sandy, can you see me?" Jack asked with bated breath.
Sanderson cocked his head, unused to the nickname, but nodded. He didn't know who this strange boy was, but he seemed nice enough. Though he asked strange questions.
Jack let out a whoop of joy, and grabbed the Sandman into a hug that swung him around the room.
The other Guardians were left puzzled as, to their eyes, Sanderson Mansnoozie began floating in a circle with a bemused smile on his face.
Alice shook her head at Jack's antics. She didn't have patience for this now, and the cold had not yet been banished by her new coat. "Jack, we should go. Your friends are not likely to be much help to finding the Dollmaker."
"Right," Jack said. He put Sanderson down, and he and Alice attempted to leave. Only to be blocked by Phil. The yeti didn't know what was going on, but he felt that the teens shouldn't leave until the Guardians were better informed.
"So there really are invisible children there," said Ombric, puzzled.
"I am guessing you and the yeti can see them, like Nightlight can?" St. North asked Sanderson and Phil.
Phil made a garbled noise of affirmation. He then reached down and pushed Jack and Alice back into the room so that they were not tempted to slip by him. Then he left and firmly shut the door behind him. But they could tell from the shadow under the door that the yeti was just outside standing guard should they try to escape.
Sanderson also nodded to St. North, then made an eye and a question mark out of sand.
"Because you, Nightlight, and that yeti are the only ones who appear to be able to see them," explained Katherine, once she understood Sanderson's question. "The rest of us can't see anything, even though we know someone is there. It is quite puzzling."
Sanderson looked at Jack and Alice questioningly. Jack gave a sheepish shrug, and Alice huffed in annoyance at the time they were wasting.
Jack knew that even if they answered the Guardian's questions it would be difficult of quiet types like Sanderson and Nightlight to convey their answers to the group. It would be far to easy for something to be lost in translation. So he walked over to mirror Toothiana had been sitting on, and frosted it over. Katherine oohed in delight as Jack's signature fern patterns spread across the glass.
'Call me Jay, and my friend Lis.' Jack wrote with his messy handwriting on the mirror with his finger for all to see. 'We're spirits, we can't be seen unless someone knows our names and believes in us, or that person is a spirit them self. I think Sandy and Nightlight can see us because they're so ancient already they could count as spirits. I don't know about the yetis, but they've always been able to see me before.'
Katherine read the message out loud so they all didn't have to crowd around the mirror. The Guardians nodded at the explanation, it seemed to make some sense and was no stranger than other things they had encountered.
"Then why can we not see you now that we know your names?" asked Bunnymund.
'They aren't our real names. It might be better you not see us,' Jack wrote. Even though he wanted desperately for his friends to see him.
"And vhy not?" asked St. North suspiciously.
Sanderson also made a sand shape of a man making a doll and a question mark.
Jack refrosted the mirror and Alice took over writing. 'We are from the future,' stated Alice with her loopy handwriting (which was neat despite her lingering shivers). She could see that the fastest way to get out of the room, and back on the hunt for the Dollmaker was to just tell the truth. Perhaps with a warning they could protect the children of the village at the very least. 'We fell back in time while fighting a monster called the Dollmaker. He seeks to destroy me, and all I care about. It is imperative we find him and stop him,' she finished.
'He takes children and turns them into dolls,' Jack added.
This made the Guardians alarmed.
"Vhat!" yelled St. North.
The other Guardians also expressed their outrage.
"Does this Dollmaker have anything to do with the Nightmare King?" asked Ombric seriously.
'No,' Alice wrote. 'He has no connection to him.'
'Unless they make one now,' Jack wrote with a scowl, 'I wouldn't put it past Pitch.'
"You know Pitch Black?" asked Toothiana. Her feathers were ruffled and her eyes were suspicious. "And just how do you know him?"
"No," Bunnymund interjected sternly. "If these two are truly from the future (and my time sense says that this is true) then we must not know any details. It is bad enough that they are here. As the last Pooka to watch over the timeline, I cannot allow further damage to it then is unavoidable."
"But how can ve trust these spirits if zey could be allied vith Pitch in the future?" asked St. North, still suspicious. He did not make a habit of trusting those who would not give their name.
'Lis has never had the displeasure of meeting him, but I have met Pitch before,' Jack wrote to end the brewing argument. 'Let's just say the guy left a bad impression. I did not like him, and would NEVER ally with him.'
"And how can we trust your vord?" protested St. North, still not convinced. "You vill not even tell us your real name."
Jack thought hard on how to convince them. They were his friends, his second family. The last thing he wanted was for them to think he was their enemy. But how could he convince them without possibly screwing up the future.
Then a light bulb went off in his head. He quickly frosted over the mirror and wrote the words that he knew would get the Guardians' attention, if not their trust.
'Will you vow to watch over the children of the world?
To guard them with your life, their hopes, their wishes, and their dreams.
For they are that we have, all that we are, and all that we will ever be.'
The entire room went still at the words.
"That-that's the Guardian's oath!" gasped Toothiana in shock, her hand flying to her mouth.
"How do you know this?" asked Bunnymund. His desire to know how their visitors knew their sacred oath was momentarily overwhelming his desire to protect the timelines.
'Maybe I'm a Guardian in the Future. Maybe I'm a close enough friend with one or more Guardians to learn their oath. Or maybe I was present at the ceremony of a Guardian being initiated, even then not just anyone could attend.' Jack wrote cryptically. He knew he couldn't outright say he was their future teammate, but he could allude to it just enough to gain their trust.
'This is getting us no where,' Alice added impatiently. 'We need to go stop the Dollmaker, so if you would please call off your yeti, we will be on our way.'
When that was read aloud, Phil made a garbled indignant protest through the door that he was no one's yeti.
St. North nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, yes, must go and make preparations," he said as he hurried out of the room, almost knocking over Phil in the process. "I vill go get the djinni, and prepare the sleigh."
'Preparations?' Alice asked. If St. North meant what she thought he did, than this was far from what she wanted.
"We're coming with you," said Katherine brightly. She was excited for a new adventure, and the new stories she could write from it.
'Absolutely not!' Alice wrote quickly and underlined the message for emphasis.
"If this Maker of Dolls is as big a threat as you say, and from another time as well, then you can't expect us to sit by and do nothing," said Bunnymund in his serious tone.
'The Dollmaker is MY responsibility.' Alice wrote harshly. 'It is bad enough I included Jay in my mess. We do not require your assistance.'
"It is not a matter of whether you require it or not, Miss Lis," said Ombric sagely. "You will be getting it regardless."
Toothiana, Nightlight, and Sanderson all nodded in agreement with Ombric.
Alice was furious at them all. This was her fight. Her responsibility. It was her fault the Dollmaker was made in the first place. It had been her own negligence that allowed him to escape. Therefore, it was up to her to stop him and no one else. Jack was her friend, and he was allowed to come help for only that reason. He had earned that measure of trust. The rest of the Guardians of her present time were merely acquaintances, and these Guardians before her did not even have that in their favor. They were strangers, and she could not have them getting in her way.
"Alice," Jack said in a calming tone when he saw the murderous look that was on her face. "It couldn't hurt to have them help. The Dollmaker will go after children. This is what the Guardians are for, to protect kids from what no one else can see or stop. Besides, even if we ditch them, they'd go after the Dollmaker anyway. If they find him before we do, then they would have no idea what they were up against. Wouldn't it be better if they were with us?"
Sanderson and Nightlight both nodded in agreement with Jack. They only wished to help.
Alice's murderous scowl deepened, but she could see Jack's point. There was nothing she could do to stop the Guardians now, short of removing their legs so they couldn't follow. She wasn't quite ready to go to that extreme just yet.
She returned to the mirror. 'If you insist on coming, Katherine cannot come with us,' She wrote. At least she could have some control over the situation.
"What!" cried Katherine in disappointment and indignation.
'She's right,' added Jack. 'The only ones the Dollmaker targets as much as Lis is children. If Katherine came it, would be like holding a steak in front of a starving dog, she would only be in danger.'
"Then you two should not come either," said Katherine stubbornly, she was unused to being left out of an adventure. "Nightlight says you are children too."
'We're immortal spirits-' Jack started to write, before he was pushed aside by Alice, who was fed up at being referred to as a child.
'I am not a child!' Alice wrote furiously. 'I am over 150 years old, and even before we were spirits we were considered adults by our home's standards. And you do not seem to understand the severity of this situation. This is not some adventure for you to write stories about, nor is the Dollmaker any less of a threat just because he is not your fearsome Nightmare King.'
'She's right,' wrote Jack when Alice let him at the mirror again. 'Not to mention someone needs to stay behind to protect the village.'
Sanderson made an image of a shield and a question mark.
Alice sighed and wrote, 'I said before that the Dollmaker seeks to destroy me. In doing so he will target those I care about. I admit I am fond of one of the Guardians, and if the Dollmaker finds out there is a village under your protection he will stop at nothing to destroy it. He has already tried to destroy an entire school of children for the simple fact that they were under my care. He would have succeeded if Jay had not been there to rescue them.'
That made the Guardians pale considerably.
Ombric nodded solemnly, now seeing the Dollmaker as a larger threat than he'd initially thought. "Very well," he said, "Katherine and Nightlight will stay to protect our new village, and I will return to Santoff Claussen to defend there. But the rest of our number will join you."
Alice nodded in satisfaction, and Jack wrote 'Thank you,' on the last free spot on the frosted mirror.
*A*A*A*
A/N a lot of talking in this chapter, but it was necessary to get the Guardians on board with Jack and Alice. Plus it helped show the differences in their personalities between now and later.
Disclaimer: I own nothing