Blergh...how the heck is it September already? Stupid summer running ahead of me and ending before I'm ready...
Uber sorry that this update took so long. I really struggled with the ending. And I would have had it done two weeks ago, except that I had a surprise house guest drop by for a fortnight that threw all my plans for a loop. But I'm back now, and I'm looking to wrap this baby up in the next couple of chapters, so let's see if I can't finally pull off a decent finale! Here we go!
Bunny paced. He knew he shouldn't, and that he shouldn't grind his teeth. It didn't solve anything and only served to make the kits – to make thegirls – more and more anxious. But he couldn't help it.
The moment they heard what had happened, the Tooth Fairy armies and Sandy's dreams took to the skies, scouring every inch of the world for any hint of Pitch Black and his lair. Even with so many eyes, the search took hours, and as each moment passed without word Aster Bunnymund's fear grew stronger. He remembered, despite himself, what fearling armies had done to Pooka children during the fall of the Golden Age. Though he'd been sent far away with a precious artifact in hand, the screams of terrified kits haunted him in his darkest moments.
To think that Kaffir's screams would join them…
He forced the thought out of his mind. It wouldn't happen. They – the Guardians – wouldn't allow it.
A bell rang out. Aster's ears shot straight up as Sandy descended from the skylight, rattling a string of jingle bells with all he had. Bunny bounded to meet him over the Guardians' sigil in the center of the room. North and Tooth – appearing from a nearby study and her perch in the rafters, respectively – joined them seconds later.
"You found them?!"
Sandy nodded, dropping the bells to the ground. He gestured wildly, summoning plumes of golden sand that flickered through symbols faster than the eye could follow.
Relief surged through Bunnymund, so strong that his bones went numb. He sank back on his haunches and ran a hand over his ears. They had their headings. Pitch's lair could be found. With only half a day between them and the attack, Kaffir still had a fighting chance.
"Excellent, Sandy!" boomed North. Unlike the Easter Bunny, Saint Nick tended to channel all of his anxiety and fear into preparations for battle, leaving him chomping at the bit to charge in for the rescue. "There is no time to lose. Everyone, to the sleigh!"
For once, Bunny didn't object to the flying deathtrap method of travel. He moved to follow, but stopped, his gaze sliding to the corner of the workshop that Coralberry and Jasmine had claimed for a nest.
Resisting the female yetis' attempt to coax them down the nursery floor, the sisters had gathered blankets from all of North's many studies and piled them into a heap nearest the fireplace that overlooked the globe. Between them was a plate of carrot- and berry-flavored cookies that North had created when the kits were teeth, a special extra-hard variety they still craved in times of stress because the gnawing calmed them down. Jasmine chewed hers restlessly, occasionally shifting her sprained ankle to a more comfortable perch. Coral just huddled beneath a quilt, her head in her sister's lap, and shivered.
Aster's throat tightened, his heart threatening to break all over again at the sight of them. As Toothiana fluttered by him, his paw shot out and caught her by the wrist. "Tooth…I need you to stay here with the girls."
"What?" The Queen of the Tooth Fairies bristled, her emerald feathers standing on end. Bunny read the indignant accusations in her eyes and pressed on before her conclusions could jump any further.
"Please, I need to know they're safe. I have to…" Bunnymund trailed off, noticing for the first time how his paws had been shaking. He took a deep breath. They were Guardians. They could not afford to give in to fear. "Pitch…he got into the Warren. Nearly a thousand years, that ward's held, and he still managed to slither inside. If he's got a hook in this place too then…"
He swallowed. Images of the Pole overrun flashed before his eyes. Pitch would have to be suicidal to try it, but if there was even a chance…
"I need to know that, no matter what happens, my girls'll be safe." He gripped the Tooth Fairy's hand, willing his paws to stop trembling. "Please, Tooth. You've gotta watch out for 'em. It's the only way to be sure."
The fire in Toothiana's eyes died, replaced by softened understanding and concern. She placed her hand over his paw. "Of course, Bunny. You can count on me." She kissed his fuzzy cheek. "Now go get your boy."
With a final grateful nod, Aster bounded to the sled bay after North and Sandy.
As her fellow Guardians disappeared, Tooth wrung her hands and buzzed around the globe with half-a-dozen of her little selves in her wake. Her entire body and theirs strummed with the call to battle, urging her to take up arms in pursuit of their enemy. But Bunny was right – there was a chance. And the girls needed someone to protect them if it all went wrong.
She caught sight of the little girl Pookas on her next lap, still huddled together in their nest. She thought they'd fallen asleep, until Coralberry lifted her head. Her blue eyes, those eyes that reminded them all so much of Jack and Kaffir, were wide and watery. "Mama Tooth?"
The fairy queen caught her breath. She would never get completely used to that name. Jasmine had coined it long ago, viewing her as the mother of her fairies, and she suspected that it stuck with the girls because she was the only female influence in their lives, the only one around to show them how to be a girl. That made her different than 'Mama' or 'Dammy', so there'd never been any guilt attached to the name. Still, it felt strange.
Kaffir never used the name. To him, she was just 'Tooth'.
She cleared her throat and fluttered down to the kits' level, offering them a gentle smile. "Yes dear?"
"Is Kaffie dead?"
The fairies gasped. Toothiana immediately dropped onto the blankets, and pulled Coralberry into her arms. "Oh, sweet tooth, no."
"Yes he is." Coral gave a miserable sniff, big tears splashing down her furry face. "The Boogieman got him and he took him away and he's never ever gonna come back just like Dammy and – and –"
She hiccupped and began to wail, her keening sobs echoing off the nearest walls. Tooth tucked the little gray head under her chin and stroked the long, soft ears as she whispered reassurances in all the languages she knew.
She remembered doing this for Jack once, centuries ago. It had been just after he became a Guardian, when the full ramifications of the memories he'd retrieved finally hit him and he realized how much he had lost. He'd come to her, as though knowing that she understood loss, and let her hold him while he cried, just like this.
Jasmine, still bundled in the blankets, turned her head away and made an honest attempt to avoid joining in on the cry. She snuffled around the hard carrot cookie, gnawing with her back teeth and muttering under her breath, "Stupid Kaffie. Stupid, stupid, why'd you have to…so stupid!"
The mini-fairies landed on the silver-furred shoulders and on top of her head and in the thick fur of her collared ruff, nuzzling her with their heads and spreading their little arms wide as they could to cuddle and comfort and coo. Jasmine bit the cookie harder to hold in her crying and only half-succeeded, the blankets below her chin quickly becoming soaked.
Detangling one arm, Toothiana reached across the nest and rubbed the 'oldest' kit's back. With the other, she continued to hold on to the sniffling runt. Though her touch remained soft and her actions kind, the angry fire sparked in her heart. How dare Pitch target this family, herfamily, after everything they'd already lost? For a split second, she almost hoped that he would make an attempt on the Pole, so that she might have the chance to rend him properly from head to toe.
She squelched that wicked thought and held Coralberry closer, beginning to sing a lullaby in the long-lost language of Punjam Hy Loo. Once the tired kits and dozen fairies were lulled to sleep, she remained with them in the blanket nest and turned her eyes to the bright half-moon peaking down on them through the skylight.
MiM, she wished silently. Watch over them, please, and bring Kaffir home safe and sound.
Toothiana slowly released her air through her nose, imagining a bright balloon that would carry her wish to their patron. MiM, as a great and terrible being once said, was no god; but it never hurt to have someone of a higher power watching over you.
For once, Aster's ceaseless thumping on the floor of the sleigh had nothing to do with fear. Or rather, it had nothing to do with his fear of heights or of flying, because he was afraid. He was afraid of what they would find, of what might have happened to his son, of what Pitch had planned for them in his lair.
So the Easter Bunny didn't complain, not even as the biting ice-cold magic of North's snow globe enveloped the flying wooden deathtrap and stretched them thin before spitting them out on the other side of the world. For a split second, he closed his eyes and could almost imagine that the frozen magic belonged to the mate he'd lost.
Then it was gone. They reappeared over a dark an untamed woods, left to its own devices by generations of humans. Here, it was nearly midnight, and the moon was hidden by thick clouds.
North snapped the reins, steering them towards the wild trees. "Where to, Sandy?"
Sandman formed an arrow out of sand, pointing the way to a clearing nestled alongside a craggy cliff. A fissure split the gray rocks like the crack in a broken teacup, thin at the top but wide enough at the bottom for a grown man to walk through. In the dark of night, they couldn't hope to see how deep its darkness stretched.
When they reached, Sandy extended a long tendril of dream sand down into the cave below to be certain of their find. Aster's heart pounded with anticipation as the sand slinked, inch by inch, into the darkness. If this wasn't the right place, if this cave didn't lead to Pitch's lair, that meant they'd wasted their time. And if they'd wasted this much time…
He wouldn't consider that possibility. He couldn't.
To his immense relief, Sandy gave a studious nod that confirmed their suspicions and let his golden stream rise to the cavern's roof to light their way.
The dark place they found at the end of the trail was smaller than Pitch's last abode, but still very much in his preferred style. Broken bridges and pieces of masonry scattered every inch. The relative smallness of the pocket realm was augmented by the way that gravity's rules shifted and changed throughout, turning dozens of twisted flat surfaces into new floors. Tunnels branched off from hundreds of dug-out holes in a twisted mockery of Bunnymund's home.
Aster took a running leap, bounded off a crumbling statue, and landed ten feet up what had been the wall, but was now his floor. He took a defensive swipe with his boomerang and called out, "Kaffir! Kaffir, I'm here. Can you hear me? Kaffir!"
"Bunny," North warned, his swords drawn and his eyes trained on the dark corners. But the creatures that lurked there did not advance. Some of them tremble at the sight of the Guardians, either from fear or desire for blood, though it was questionable whether such creatures knew the first
"He has to be here somewhere…Kaffir!" When no reply came, Aster holstered his boomerang and cupped a paw around his muzzle, letting out a shrill bush cry that sent the shadows flying, "Coo-ee!"
In the Warren, that was the kit's signal to make themselves known, to check in with the nearest sentry and assure their father that all was well. Here, it echoed so loudly that crumbling architecture shook. Fearlings took flight and Sandy quickly erected an umbrella to shield himself from the plaster that rained down upon his head.
But there was no sign of Kaffir.
Bunny's heart clenched, but he would not give up hope. That hope was all he had.
"He's here," he said again, and bounded across the nearest bridge, leading the charge into the heart of the Boogieman's realm as he continued to shout his son's name.
"Kaffir! Kaffir!"
The white rabbit's ears perked at the familiar, distant, echoing calls. His whiskers twitched, catching the barest hint of his father's scent on the wind, followed by the sweet crispness of fresh-baked cookies and the warmth of golden desert sands. The rest of his body remained still, curled on the edge of a high bridge with no railings, clutching his Dammy's staff and staring into a pool of liquid night.
But his blue eyes weren't seeing the water. Unfocused and unsteady, they saw only the pictures that water had held in minutes past, pictures of a bright-faced young spirit with white hair and matching blue eyes who'd laughed and played and died a horrible death. Because of them. Because of him.
The Boogieman sat beside him, letting his long legs dangle until the toes of his boots nearly brushed the water. Pitch Black turned his head towards the frantic father's calls, but made no move to answer them, nor to send the legions of Fearlings that lurked in the shadows to answer the call. Instead, he made a soft noise with his tongue and let his tarnished silver eyes drift back to Kaffir.
"Well," he said. "Seems Daddy came after all."
Kaffir didn't respond. He leaned his head against the cool wood off the staff, one ear drooping to wrap loosely around it like a leaf blown by the wind.
Pitch leaned a little closer, whispering above the tiny kit's ears. "I could send him away, you know. I could send all of them away. If you'd like, I can expel them all right now and close this place up safe and sound. You could stay here and never have to leave, never have to face the way he looks at you ever again. You know what he did now. He deserves it."
Kaffir's ears drooped further, dulling his father's distant voice. A part of him, smothered and dying, cried out that it couldn't be true. The Boogieman lied, he knew that. But he'd seen it, he'd heard it, it made sense. It wasn't sorrow that kept him from telling the truth. It was guilt.
"And," continued Pitch, closing the distance between them until their shoulders nearly brushed, "if you stay here, I'll stay with you. It's the way things should be. Nothing goes better together than cold and dark. Your Dammy knew that, once. He understood. And if he'd listened to me then…he'd still be alive today…"
Kaffir closed his eyes, because he knew that part was true. If Dammy had listened, he wouldn't have been with Daddy. If he hadn't been with Daddy, he would be alive. That meant there wouldn't be any Kaffir or Jasmine or Coralberry, sure. But maybe that's the way it should be. They were nothing but a mistake.
The Boogieman slipped an arm around the white rabbit's shoulders, giving him a supportive squeeze. The other hand slunk like a snake towards the staff. Gray fingers brushed the antique wood.
A loud tone rang out, crisp and clear like a bell of ice. It sang through the dark realm, calling out to the search party, leading them to the hidden place where the Boogieman hid in fear.
Pitch Black let out a cry and fell back as though he'd been stabbed. Kaffir jerked, the dull fog that had closed over his senses – a darkness he hadn't even noticed – was suddenly cleared. He stared up in shock and surprise at the staff, whose curved tip towered far over his head. It rang again like a bell, the frost all up and down the wood going electric blue with magic that did not come from Kaffir.
The Boogieman's hands were caked in ice. That hadn't come from Kaffir, either.
The kit's blue eyes grew wider still. It was impossible, but without a doubt true. He knew this magic. He knew who it belonged to.
"Dammy," he breathed.
And so it was.