Alaia Skyhawk: Hi guys, here's the next chapter :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians, the Guardians of Childhood, or any related characters etc. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes.

~(-)~

Chapter 87: Unusual Methods

The sleigh was once more sailing through the sky along Nightlight's road of light, the boy sat astride the lead reindeer so that he remained close enough to listen to those in the vehicle. Inside it was everyone else. North at the front, holding the reins, and the rest sat facing the Spirit of Winter who had perched himself on the rear edge of the compartment.

With the jungle now some distance below them, and North dealing with the matter of heading for where his sword said the last Relic could be found. Now was a time for questions, and hopefully answers, from this immortal sent back to help them.

Ombric was the one to speak first, not Bunny, for the Pooka still seemed to be having some issues with random giggles. Not that the rest of them were much better, what with all the random grinning still going on. But still he asked the question they were all thinking.

"Jack. What exactly did you do to us? Never in all my life, have I encountered such an irresistible urge to laugh. We were completely incapacitated by it."

Jack winced a little, at the implication that being incapacitated during a battle was not a good thing to have happen. After that he shrugged, remaining somewhat nonchalant.

"I just completely overloaded you with the feeling of 'Fun'." He scratched at the back of his head in embarrassment. "I'd normally use a bit more finesse than that, and make the dose no stronger than it needs to be, but I was pressed for time. Laughter is, after all, the only thing Fearlings are truly afraid of."

North glanced back from his seat at the reins. He too was still grinning intermittently, but above that the rest of his expression was incredulous.

"Why in moon's name would they be scared of people laughing? I don't get it."

Jack smirked just a little.

"Because 'Fun and Laughter', are the complete opposite of Unnatural Fear. You know, the type of fear that those things get their strength from. When I dosed you guys, you stopped being scared in the 'they're a threat' sort of way. So they stopped getting power from you, and instead your laughter would have started draining their strength if they'd hung around long enough. From my side of things, Fearlings haven't been able to come within six feet of me for several years. I radiate such utter contempt for them, view them as being so insignificant they're not worth even paying attention to, that if they do get close to me they start to lose power right away. In my time, they've learnt to avoid me with a passion. Even when I don't take an exception to them, they turn tail and run when they see me. Not that I make a point of chasing them. I just ignore them."

Toothiana's feathers fluffed up in concern at that statement. She too was having trouble accepting his casual attitude with regards to their enemy.

"They should not be ignored. They're dangerous, and must be dealt with."

Jack snorted.

"What? You mean the way the Constellations tried? The way that actually made the Fearlings stronger, and gave them the power to crush the Golden Age?" He jabbed a finger at her. "Fearlings are similar to us immortals. We have power when people believe in us, and we are weakened when they don't. Fearlings feed off Unnatural Fear, so when you control your fear and don't treat them as a threat, they become weak just the same. Locking them in a planet-sized prison, with all that effort in containing the 'terrible creatures', was such a powerful reaction of Unnatural Fear that it was like giving them an all-you-can-eat buffet." He sighed. "I don't know why I'm explaining all this anyway. You're just going to forget when I go home, and I'll end up explaining it all over again in a few hundred years your time."

There was a mixture of bemused and confused expressions among his listeners. They understood his point on it not being worth talking more about it, but at the same time they were still baffled by what he'd already said. All of them but one, whose eyes widened as she gasped in realisation.

Katherine looked at him.

"They're a threat because we believe they're a threat! But you don't believe they are, because you know them better than we do. It's like being afraid of strange noises in the night, because you keep imagining there are monsters and wondering what they might do to you. When we've been fighting the Fearlings, we've always worried so much about what they'd do the world if we failed. If we stopped seeing them as a danger, they'd no longer be one!"

Jack looked impressed that she, of all of them, had grasped the concept so quickly. But then he held up a finger in correction.

"Ah, but it's not quite that simple. You guys aren't going to win this coming battle by picturing the Fearlings running away wearing tutus. I acknowledge that they have the ability to hurt me, and so I'll be cautious if they attack, but I don't waste my time imagining what they 'might' be able to do to me. That's just good survival instincts, or as it's called, Natural Fear." He smiled. "The fear that makes you think before doing something you should know well enough might hurt you. The fear that makes you careful that the tiny spider in your sink might be poisonous. Instead of you blindly picking it up in your hands, or running away screaming at something the size of a pinhead, which is trapped in the sink and unable to get to you even if wanted to. Which it wouldn't. No creature of nature goes out of it's way to bite people for the sake of it. If you get bitten, most times it's because you pushed your luck and provoked it."

Bunnymund, who now seemed to have finally gotten full control of his giggles, nodded sagely.

"I see, it is all down to keeping things in proper perspective. Almost like the proper application of Belief, when using it for magic."

Sanderson waved to get their attention, before he drew several things with dreamsand and glanced at Jack for a translation.

Jack obliged.

"He said 'Do we have time to learn what Jack has clearly spent years mastering?'"

They all winced, and Toothiana nodded.

"He makes a good point. We are too used to thinking the way we do now. Ours is a habit years in the making."

"Which means it's just as well you have me here." Jack chuckled, holding up his thumb and finger just a small space apart. "I can do a mild dose of frostdust on you guys for any fights. You might smile slightly from it, but you won't be stuck grinning and laughing. It would also ward you against the 'waves of terror' that Fearlings give off when they swarm."

They all looked thoughtful, yet it was once again Katherine that broke the quiet.

"So if they all come at us like before, you'll be able to chase them away again? I mean, you made them run away so easily. Just how powerful are you?"

Jack grimaced in self-depreciation.

"Not so powerful that I wouldn't have been flattened like a pancake if I'd taken them on with force, like you guys were trying. I got them to leave, because they didn't have a clue how to react to the tactics I used on them. No one will ever have fought them that way before. They won't be so easy to confuse next time, and they'd never have left like that if Pitch had been there. I didn't win that fight with power. I won it with strategy."

Ombric chuckled at that.

"It was certainly one of the most unexpected ones I've ever encountered."

Sanderson mimed drawing a bow and arrow, and Bunnymund nodded.

"Indeed, and that shot of yours was remarkable at that distance. You must be very proficient with that bow of yours."

Jack almost froze at that remark, managing to hide his reaction behind a shrug. The grip of his new bow was small enough to be completely hidden beneath his cloak, so they'd obviously assumed he had it with him when he arrived. It was not going to inspire much confidence from them if he admitted his skills were three-hundred years rusty, and that his 'remarkable shot' had not been him aiming at their small cluster of bodies at all... But rather it had been virtue of him aiming in general at a sleigh which had the floor-size and rough layout of a twelve-seater minibus.

Yep, he was not going to tell them that.

Jack smiled, propping his hand on the back of the sleigh casually.

"It's just down to practice, that's all. I generally shoot from much closer. But like I said before, I was pressed for time." Changing the topic, he looked over to North. "Lemme look where that wants us to go next, and I'll see if I can arrange a shortcut."

He flew over to the Russian, peering over his shoulder when the man held up the sword for his fellow Guardian to see. And then Jack gasped in disbelief, actually dropping out of the air so his bare feet thumped down onto on the floor of the sleigh.

Sanderson drew a question-mark over his head, and Bunnymund echoed the query.

"What is it?"

Jack didn't answer, and instead took flight to get ahead of the sleigh. Shouting back to them as he did so.

"When I open the mirror, fly through it."

The Guardian of Fun stopped once he was far enough away to have time to make a massive mirror, the image that appeared on it being one vastly different from the jungle below them right now. He then flew through it and to the side, vanishing from view for a moment before his seemingly disembodied head and shoulders peered around the edge.

They'd briefly seen one of his mirrors at the workshop, and he clearly had confidence in the odd portals. So Nightlight glanced at North and the Russian directed the reindeer to take the sleigh through it.

They emerged into much cooler air, above a forest-cloaked valley, and some distance below a modest-sized pond was visible along their flight-path. The sword Relic had also begun to chime very quietly, indicating they weren't at the location of the final Relic, but were at least within reasonable distance of it.

Jack quickly caught up with them after dismissing his mirror, Ombric calling out to him as the immortal moved into position alongside. He noticed the rather homesick expression on the Guardian's face.

"What is this place? Do you know it?"

Jack averted his gaze, looking down at the pond bleakly.

"...I drown in that pond about a hundred and twenty-odd years from now. This valley is where I will spend most of my life before I become the Spirit of Winter, and a good percentage of my life after that as well. This is my home, or at least where it will be in the future. The fifth Relic must be practically in my back yard."

Awkward silence fell as they all stared at him in shock. The moments dragging by until Ombric cleared his throat hesitantly to get their attention.

"Since Jack is familiar with this area, even if we are before his time, perhaps he might know of where the Relic may be nearby." He looked to the Guardian of Fun. "Do you have any ideas?"

Jack glanced at him, frowning in thought, and nodded.

"I heard stories when I was a kid, about a Native American village that used to be two valleys over from this one. The people that lived there, packed up and moved further north after Kirktown was founded at the other end of the same valley. But Kirktown doesn't exist yet, which means that settlement should still be there."

Toothiana looked to Jack.

"Which way do we go to get there?"

Jack pointed north-east, and North did likewise with his sword. The Relic responded by gleaming softly, and the Russian nodded.

"Sword says same direction. Lead on, Jack."

The Spirit of Winter took only an instant to change direction, leaving the sleigh to catch up. He flew onwards, over land where one day a narrow dirt road would wend its way among the trees. The road to Kirktown, which he had travelled many times during many a winter. Clearing the snow for the Village's wagon, riding in the back while members of his family drove it. Telling stories, singing songs, to pass the time on the cold trips to get supplies before winter fully set in.

By air it took only a fraction of the time to cover a distance that took days on the ground, even at the slower speed of the sleigh. There was no possibility of not spotting the Native American settlement, once the group reached the second of the two large valleys that were beyond the sizeable one that was Jack's future home.

North was all set to send the sleigh straight down there, if not for Bunny speaking sharply.

"Problem! I do believe that all but two of us will be invisible to the people down there. All of us except Katherine and Ombric, are immortals."

Jack frowned at that.

"Not to mention they'll never have seen outsiders before. Proper colonisation by Europeans, doesn't begin along the East Coast for a few more years. And no one will come this far inland for decades. The Kirktowners are an offshoot of independents, who came this far out to avoid the competition closer to the original colonies. The people of my home, me and my parents included, were a small group that followed some years after that town was established. We then chose to go even further out. The Village was probably the most western settlement at the time, and those of us who founded it wanted that isolation."

Katherine frowned.

"Why?"

Jack sighed.

"Without giving more historical specifics than I already have... Call it a gut feeling that things along and near the coast would eventually turn sour. My home village, and the town it turns into, end up managing to avoid the worst of every major conflict that will take place on this continent. Not once will it ever be attacked. Not by mortals at least. Can't say the same for Pitch or the Fearlings, but most of the town sleeps through that so it's no big deal."

The conversation might have gone further, except that Bunnymund huffed and thumped a foot on the floor to get their attention.

"Enough. We need to find out if that village has the Relic, or knows where it is. The Question we need to answer is, how do we get them to help us?"

The Spirit of Winter landed on the edge of the sleigh, wearing a wry smile.

"Given our options, there's only one that I can think of. But first we need to land, unhitch one of the reindeer, and then I need to borrow Toothiana, Nightlight, and Katherine."

~(-)~

The village was calm, even if it's occupants were busy. Autumn had the land in its grip, and winter would then arrive in its wake. Preparations were being made even now, ready for the long cold ahead. But little could have prepared these Native Americans for that which happened next. A creature resembling the caribou of the north, galloping down out of the sky with a girl of such pale skin sat astride it.

'Pale as winter' would be the description that came to mind, for the furs and clothing that garbed her were gilded with frost that did not melt in this autumn air that should not have allowed it. She was a figure of frigid air before their darker skins and the colourful land around them.

What these locals didn't see, was Jack laying down mild frostdust over the whole area. Right before he nodded to Katherine, and to Toothiana who hovered in the air just behind her.

Katherine spoke, but made sure not to make any sound, while the Queen of the Tooth Fairies then made use of her own knowledge of languages to speak over her in the correct one. Toothiana might have been invisible, but with frostdust down and an apparent source of the voice in front of them, the villagers would hear her.

Nightlight, who had provided the 'road' for the reindeer to run through the air on, now kept himself off to the side with Jack. While 'Katherine' told the villagers that she had come on behalf of the Lord of Winter, in search of an artefact stolen from him and then lost long ago. He has at last heard its call coming from this valley, and has sent her to retrieve it. For if it is not returned to him soon, endless dark unimaginable might descend upon the world.

Jack punctuated the relevant parts of the speech with little gusts of cold wind, and patterned the ground around the reindeer's feet with frost. Toothiana didn't look all that impressed with this ruse, and Katherine was doing remarkably well to hide her own discomfort at it. But that changed when the village chief sent one of his sons to retrieve something from the hut of the village shaman.

Because the young man in question returned with a leather pouch, and handed it to the shaman, And then the shaman drew forth from that pouch, a golden spiral pendant dotted with tiny jewels of many colours. It hung on a leather cord, its original chain long lost, but it had obviously been well cared-for as a spiritual symbol by the tribe. Not only that, but the three immortals present could 'feel' the presence of it. It was beyond doubt the artefact they were looking for.

The shaman spoke, Jack quietly translating since Tooth could not while in the middle of this act. He only got three words out of four, but it was enough to get the gist as he murmured to Nightlight.

"He wants to know if this is what she searches for. Let's answer that."

Jack flew over, unseen, and lightly lifted the pendant from the shaman's grasp. Causing it to seem to float across the distance between the man and girl into whose hands he placed it. Jack then whispered to her and Tooth.

"Repeat after me. 'This is indeed what I seek, honourable people. You have served Isanaklesh well, and the Lord of Winter will also give great thanks. Know that even should the coming winter prove harsh, he is pleased with you. For as mighty as he may be, even he must heed the Mother should she command forth the icy storms. For Nature is both kind and cruel, and even the harshest ice and snow will melt and water the lands in spring so that new life may come forth'."

Jack signalled to Nightlight, even as he also instructed Katherine to bow her head in respect to the shaman and chief, and Toothiana to thank them. Moments after that, the reindeer and girl galloped back up into the sky and out of sight. Leaving behind a village full of awed people, who smiled and talked amongst themselves of the great thing they had just witnessed.

Now some distance away, and nearing the place where North and the others waited, Jack let out a sigh and nodded to Katherine, Toothiana, and Nightlight.

"Nicely done. That couldn't have gone any better."

Nightlight was frowning, as was Tooth, and Katherine held the new Relic almost guiltily.

"But we tricked them to get it."

Jack sighed, running a hand through is hair.

"We did what was best for them. They already believe in the existence of Mother Earth, Isanaklesh, which is their name for Mother Nature. The Spirits of Nature are extremely important to their culture, and to be of help to one is considered a great honour. If you and Ombric had walked in there, awkwardly repeated the translations from Tooth, and asked the villagers to help... At best you'd be told to leave peacefully, and at worst they'd drive you away with weapons. We would probably have ended up having to steal the Relic from them."

He came in alongside. "But this way, they gave it to us willingly, and will tell stories of their meeting with 'Winter's Messenger' through the generations to come. We've bolstered their beliefs, which will help keep Fearlings away from them. And that will also be helped if we high-tail it back to base as soon as we get back to the sleigh. Fearlings won't come here looking for us, if we're not here. Pitch won't go after that village, if we never let him find out the Relic was kept there."

Toothiana came up along the other side of the reindeer and Katherine, nodding.

"He's right. However underhanded that seemed to us, it was the best thing for those people. They believe that in giving up the pendant, they have helped stave off darkness from falling over the world. And that is exactly what that Relic will help us achieve. The defeat of the Nightmare King."

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: More about the pendant, and what it does, next chapter. And lol, I seriously gave Jack an emotional beating this chapter. Poor guy.