A/N: Wow guys! Lots of reviews for that chapter…a few angry ones—albeit warranted—but for the most part absolutely flattering! As promised (though not as early as I wanted to post it), here is chapter 8 early!

Shoutouts because you are all fantabulous!

SheDevil333: you're review made me giggle lol! Here's a chapter as a consolation prize!

Taranodongirl1: HERE TIS!

Death-Sama01: You were like the only reviewer that grasped my plan for this next chapter! Most people thought I just killed him lol! But then again if you read my other story, Immortal, you would be used to me killing characters lol!

Guest: yes :) YES! I REALLY DID IT!

Guest: I put it up early just for your reading pleasure!

Insanereader3: I don't do too many cliff hangers so fear not, this next chapter will be a little easier to swallow. Sort of….

Beanie-art1:I wish you could have reviewed a million times! That would make my day! And yes please to the moustache, I want to be surprised when I read your anonymous reviews!

Doubled-Helix: alright, put the atomic war cannon to the side for a few minutes, the next chapter is here and its supah angsty! Yusss! By the way, Pitch has gone into hiding for this chapter because of that last review of yours. I think you scared him.

Bug349: It's okay, I wasn't expecting that many reviews on chapter 6, it wasn't very good. I like this chapter though and I can't wait to hear what you think of it! Enjoy!

Skylar Lewis: That's alright, most people do after that chapter!

Demon-Kegetsuki: asdfghjkl. THIS.

Sheeijan: He's a strange one all right!

Sakura-blossoms-26: Sorry! Hope this one's a little better!

Michaela95: It's okay! It'll get better!

Moonshroom420: here it is! Out and ready to read! Pitch is very unfair, but then again, no one ever said he was logical lol! Enjoy and thanks for all the PM's, they brighten my day!

A Stripped Tigger: Pitch is nothing if he is not extreme! Enjoy his insanity while you can!

Guest: Thanks for the review and hope you enjoy the newest chapter!

Jesusfreak200: Again I love your name and I hope you love the newest chapter!

That was a lot of reviews lol! Well enjoy the chapter, I don't own ROTG!

Where we left off:

"As delicious as it would be to extort untold riches and power from you, I really don't want to give up my chess pieces, North. As I said, he's mine to use, mine to abuse, mine to play with, and should I so desire: mine to kill." And with that he slit the boy's throat, laughing as he melded into the shadows. He was gone before Jökul even hit the ground.

Chapter 8: Was Blind But Now I See

Jökul's eyes grew wide as blood dumped down the front of his shirt. Eyes unseeing and mind unaware of the help that stood just a few feet away, the boy's legs fell out of under him and he lay gasping and choking as one icy hand tried to freeze the wound. A cough shot blood from his mouth and the wound, cracking the ice he had placed and painting the snow beneath him. He wheezed, fear finally breaking though the fog. He wanted to go home.

North was the first to get within reach, scimitar already ripping a thick swath of his undershirt to bind the wound, but the boy wouldn't have it. With all his waning power he warded them all off, trying to freeze them solid while he choked on his own blood. Every offered hand or paw was nipped with frost, every sand laden advance stopped short of its destination by the ice that broke its form. He had plastered quite a few layers of ice on his neck, but it wasn't pliable and only cracked with each gasping breath.

Tooth felt her breath quicken when she saw his eyelids flutter and slushy blood break through the ice.

"North," she whispered. "Distract him so Sandy can put him out. We don't have time for this." North nodded his understanding and moved directly into the boy's waning field of vision. A shaking hand was lifted, ice dancing at the tips of the fingers. But before he could shoot, a small stream of sand settled over his eyes. The hand fell limp and the blood began to flow freely.

In a flash, North was at the boy's side, his burly hand clenching the white fabric over the wound. The boy let out a gasp, eyes fluttering. It was all he could do to fight the sand that continued to try and put him under. The cloth was drenched in seconds, a paw and feathered hand reaching to reapply the pressure while another bandage was produced. They elevated him slightly, just enough to get the fabric under his neck to get a good wrapping. The tricky part would be not hindering his already labored breaths in the process.

The moment they tightened the wrapping there was a flurry of hands and paws lifting him from the blood stained snow and into an equally red sleigh. By the time they had him secured and the sleigh rocketing into open air he had succumbed to unconsciousness by the blood loss and the sand. North brought them through a portal the moment they burst from the tree line, pushing his mounts to their limits. With a wound like that even seconds could mean the difference between life and death.

They touched down outside of the workshop, the hooves of the deer hitting the ground before the portal even closed. North dismounted and threw open his front doors while the other three lifted Jökul from the sleigh and carried him in. Bunny took his legs and Tooth his torso, Sandy in charge of keeping his neck steady and his mind asleep. By the looks of him, there wasn't much sand needed to keep him out.

They did their best not to jostle him, but nevertheless they were quite thankful when a gurney appeared under them and they were able to set him down. Even with the adrenaline, the pain from their wounds was excruciating. North pulled the gurney down a hall towards the infirmary, Sandy floating along beside it with his little hands on either side of Jökul's jaw to keep him steady. Bunny and Tooth trailed behind as quickly they could, the sounds of Russian curses and the pounding of Yeti feet a trustworthy beacon to their destination.

North had already begun working by the time they arrived, medically trained Yetis trying to get Jökul stable while North was fumbling his way through sewing the boy's throat closed. It was all Tooth could do to help Bunny to a chair before North was calling for her aid.

"Tooth I can't see and wittle needle does not grab. I need you to peench een his troat and cut off blood flow."

"You want me to what?" She screeched.

"Peench artery, Toothie! Hurry!"

"I can't just put my hand in his throat!"

"Yes you can! Yeti fingers too big, you must or he vill die." North grimaced and turned his head when a spray of blood caught him in the face. "Tooth!" He yelled.

Tooth swallowed hard and slipped her little fingers into the gaping hole. She didn't need to search for long, the blood flow was so pressurized she would have had to be blind to not find it. She winced as she pinched down on the vessel, but nodded to tell North he could continue. Somehow in the chaos someone managed to get her a needle and she began stitching the artery closed with sutures made of materials that would dissolve over time. She knew they weren't the prettiest sutures, but she had seen enough wisdom teeth removals to know how to use a needle. By the time she was finished, North had drained the blood that pooled in the boy's neck and was busy stitching the tissues together.

It took them twenty minutes in all to stitch the boy up, but it felt far longer than that. The infirmary was an unholy mess. Blood sprays up the back wall, the gurney was dripping with red, and there were creatures running about carrying multiple pieces of medical equipment. Finally a yeti noticed the bruised and battered guardians that were scattered around the room looking dazed and trying to help but only managing to get in the way. He brought them all out one by one and appointed others of his kind to treat their many wounds, assuring them that the boy would be fine. Even Aster, the Guardian of Hope, had his doubts about that.

Only the Sandman was allowed to stay; his only injury a scratch on the leg from where Jökul had clawed him and that had long since begun to heal. The boy had not been so lucky. He was covered in blood, some of it dry but most of it still wet and sticky. It had mingled with the paint on his face and in his hair, turning white and blue to a sickly shade of purple. The boy took a shuddering breath, his damaged windpipe struggling to bring in air. Sandy sent a stream of golden sand towards the youth, willing him to take it and dream deep. But it didn't take, and all Sandy could do was watch with a frown as the sand swirled around the boy's head aimlessly, its dream cargo halted at the docks and not granted entry. A silent sigh of frustration was all Sandy could muster before he tried again, this time crafting a dream that would only need to enter to flourish. It vanished before it could even take hold. He tried again and again to bring peace to the boy, but his mind simply wouldn't accept it.

The two yetis that remained worked around Sandy, cutting off the bloody rags that served as the boy's clothing and bringing around a basin of slightly warm water so they could begin to wash him. Without his clothes, Sandy could see how thin their new charge really was. Though he was coated with blood, Sandy could still count every rib and see every part of the boy's hipbones. He was only skin that had been stretched over a skeleton with a little sinew to hold it all together.

Sandy shook his head and turned his attention to the boy's mind, allowing the yetis to complete their work in peace. Dreams were the fruit of a resting mind, and if the boy did not dream then he was not resting. The reason why he was not resting was the cause of Sandy's search. Little golden hands rested on blue painted temples and felt for any disturbance, listened for any changes. But there were none. The mind was empty, suspended in some strange version of limbo that offered no rest and no peace. Sandy could find no reason why that would be, but even so he couldn't shake the feeling that even though the boy's conscious was empty that there was something sinister keeping it that way. Maybe it was the forced silence, or the haunting look in those grey empty eyes. Or maybe there was nothing to indicate wrongness except for the guardians' misplaced yet so very, very appropriate discomfort. It wasn't often that Sandy's gut instinct was wrong and the little golden man resolved to get to the bottom of it when the boy's vitals were a little more stable.

But Sandy had no more time to dwell on what lay within the youth's psyche. The blood on his chest had been removed, and with it the physical barrier that had hidden Jökul's wounds. Dark purple bruising was wrapped like a band around the thin ribcage, obviously broken ribs swollen and angry. He had done that. He had squeezed harder because the monster/ child had been so squirmy and this was the result.

Sandy tried to look away when the yetis started to work the blood and paint free from the rest of him but his eyes were glued to the ever-increasing tally of injuries that were his fault entirely A wide gash in his scalp from where he smashed the boy into the rocks, entire sections of skin lifted away and the flesh embedded with gravel, wood, and dirt. That had been from the trees Sandy had whipped him into. A myriad of impact bruises and one long and thick splinter they pulled out of his heel. Though they were not the boy's only injuries, these were the ones that Sandy had directly caused.

He had thought he was protecting Tooth. In all honesty he probably saved her life. But looking at the evidence before him, Sanderson couldn't help but realize that he had gone far beyond protection. He had been out to kill, and had it not been for Bunny, they would be burying an icy corpse instead of treating all his scrapes and bruises. He had almost killed a child that had no control over his actions. He had been blinded, not by the sand, but by rage. It was for that reason that as soon as the yetis took their leave after the boy was clean and stable, Sandy wept. He wept for the boy, a soul trapped in the grips of darkness even though his body was out of the shadow of nightmares. Wept for himself, a supposed force for good that had been so easily tricked into committing evil. He wept for many things in those evening hours, some selfish, many not, but the weeping took far more out of him than the battle did.

The others found him in the ice spirit's room many hours later, hunkered over the boy's head, dull tracks dried in the golden skin on his cheeks. Though he had only sustained a scratch in the physical, in the spiritual he was beaten down and torn asunder. He looked worse than they did and their injuries had not been so superficial. Tooth's beautiful wings were torn in more than one location—a product of the ice shards that had blown on the wind—and she was sporting more than a few new bruises and cuts. North could hardly walk because of the severe frostbite in his legs, but he was a resilient fellow and the yetis did not think any toes would have to be amputated. His bruises matched Tooth's. Aster was physically by far the worst of the three. Forced to the ground, he hopped along on three legs, his hind left foot splinted and bound tightly. The bones had required setting, but the foot was expected to fully heal with time. Until then, he was crippled. As an animal in the wild, such a wound would mean death. But Bunnymund was no ordinary animal, and even though most of the pole's occupants were rather large and imposing, his environment was relatively safe for recovery. At least it used to be. Now a frost spirit that had attacked them all was lying unrestrained in their infirmary.

Bunny hopped a little closer to the assailant, senses ready and reading for any signs of danger. But there was none. The boy was lying on a fresh bed still as death. No frost climbed over the bed, no ice clung to his now painfully obvious slight frame, his eyes didn't even move behind his eyelids. The only sign of life was the slow, wheezing breaths that broke the silence every once in a great while.

"Sandy?" Tooth pressed quietly. "Are you alright?"

The little golden man shook his head, tears once more melting a track down his face. Tooth's arms were around him in an instant and he silently cried into her shoulder. It was his fault. He was responsible for this creatures' pain.

"It's not your fault, Sanderson," she whispered into his hair. His shoulders shook with a sob and he pulled away with a nod.

Yes it is.

He pointed towards their charges' chest, sand leaving his grasp and ghosting lightly over the wounds.

"You didn't know," She insisted, waving the sand back though Sandy saw how much the movement of her shoulder hurt her. She was a very strong girl. "None of us did."

The air in the room grew stagnant. That was a lie. In the back of their minds they all knew something was wrong. But they ignored it.

"Ah knew it," Asters voice rasped out. "Ah knew somethin' wasn' right an' I didn't say nothin'."

"Aster, that's not true," Tooth insisted. "He wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."

"Don' defend me, Sheila!" He spat. "Ah still beat 'im for far too long and far too hard knowin' what ah did."

Tooth was silent. Everyone was.

"Ah could feel 'im for real whenevah ah hit 'im," Aster whispered. "felt 'is mouth when ah did that." He gestured quite plainly to the boy's lips. Both were split, and a reddish purple bruising was spread across his mouth and jaw. "There wasn' a mask there 'an ah knew it. Ah felt skin, felt bone and blood. An' ah knew there was no way that monstah we saw would feel like thah. But ah hit 'im again an' thas why that happened." This time they looked to the boy's collar bone, cleanly snapped and sagging under the weight of recovery. "The only time ah stopped an' thought about it was whin ah felt his foot break mine. An through the pain o' when he hit me in the 'ead, ah finley saw 'im. An' it wasn' a hoof tha broke mah leg, it was a foot. 'Is eyes were so dead! Nuthin' in em. But 'e was just a kid, an I'd been beatin' him."

Tooth looked at the boy. Looked at the slash that ripped from his shoulder to his elbow. Knew there was a matching one across his back. Her wings did that.

North looked as well, his blue eyes scanning the body of the one who froze him solid. He saw the slashes of his scimitars just peeking around from the back of his thighs and calves. His knee caps were swollen and bruised. North had been trying to take his legs out so he couldn't run. He could only be thankful that the boy moved far too quickly for him to properly hit his marks.

"How could Manny allow this to happen?" Tooth asked. "Why didn't he warn us?"

Guilt preceded a flush that found its way up the back of North's neck. Pain shot up his legs, a sensation that would have been welcomed = had it not been for the guilt. He would rather feel nothing for a few more hours than say what he was about to say.

"Ee did," the large man whispered. "Ee told me dat tings vould not be as dey seem, and dat dere vas a lost sheep in de midst of de storm."

"When did e' say that?" Aster asked, eyes wide.

"He say dis vhen he give warning of war to come. Den I call you to pole and ve get message from Pitch."

"Why didn' ya tell us?" Aster yelled. "We coulda avoided this whole thing!"

North flushed again. "You really tink cryptic message dat make no sense vould have stopped us from defending ourselves?" He spat.

"Nah, mate, but it woulda stopped us from goin' into attack mode instead ah defense."

"You can't prove dat!"

"Boys!" Tooth screeched. "Stop it right now! Neither one of you can prove that it would or wouldn't have made a difference, so drop it! We screwed up, all of us. Nothing is going to change that now. The best thing we can do is to help this boy recover and protect him from Pitch. We have a war to win and fighting over whose fault it is that we couldn't see past what our eyes could sense is pointless and a waste of time." She paused. "We are not perfect creatures, and as much as we don't want to believe that, it's true. But we are not evil creatures either. We were created for a purpose and we must do everything we can to complete that, no matter how imperfect we are or how many times we screw up. We need to learn from what we did and move on. And pray that we never hurt this boy again."

The two men quieted, sending the room into a mournful silence. They all left, one by one, to see to their duties. Sandy had dreams to cast, especially now when fear was on the loose. Tooth had fairies to direct, calling for her girls to receive their assignments at the pole. She couldn't fly to her palace. North had toy production to oversee. Christmas was in six weeks and as much as he would love for time to stop for a few hours, the clock would only go on ticking regardless of his wishes. Bunny was the only one left without a duty to fulfill. It was too early to begin his seasonal preparations, not that he could have made it to the warren anyway, so he stayed in the room with the sprite they had "saved" and waited for him to wake up. It was the least he could do after being the first one to land a punch.

Finito! Review if you'd like! I'd sure like it! Btw if you have any suggestions for this story I would love to hear them and work with you to make them happen if its possible! Lets see if we can break the review record of 18 reviews for last chapter! See you guys next time!

Victoria