Pitch sat on his throne, watching as Tooth inked a delicate intricate pattern onto the back of his hand.
He had been forced to open the vent high above after she complained the bad light in the central cavern would make it difficult for her to ink the pattern. Dust motes swirled in the beam of sunlight as he watched her.
She was so close to his hand he could feel her gentle breaths on his skin. The tickly sensation from the brush (it and the ink had been purloined from an old Asian writing set Pitch had found in a long forgotten drawer) combined with her breath to create a tingly feeling that was not at all unpleasant.
The pattern was supposedly called a 'mind map': a physical representation of the connection they were about to form. Once Tooth had entered his mind, she could use it as a way to keep track of her goal and not to get lost in his memories. The pattern was large, covering the entire back of his hand and was reminiscent of a dreamcatcher web.
Tooth gave a satisfied sigh as she added a dot to the circular border of the pattern.
'As I move through your mind, this', she explained, pointing to the dot, 'will move with me. When it reaches the centre, we'll be able to unlock your powers'.
She knelt down in front of his chair and examined her own pattern. She had done her own first to ensure she remembered the pattern Sandy had taught her. It had taken a couple of tries to get right. As a result her hand, even though she had washed it, was starting to look like Pitch's true skin colour. The pattern was inked on the opposite hand to Pitch's.
'Now, let's get started', Tooth said, offering her hand to Pitch.
Pitch took it.
Gods her hand was so dainty!
But her grip was firm. The thin fingers clenched around his wrist to hold it in the required place.
For her part, Tooth felt a surprising warmth from Pitch's fingers. He held her hand gently, his fingertips just resting on the top of her wrist, allowing her to guide him.
Soon, the inked patterns were aligned correctly, the patterns extending to their wrists appearing to be part of one single, multi-faceted connection.
Tooth nodded in approval and said, 'Now close your eyes'.
As Pitch obeyed, Tooth took a deep breath.
She could do this.
She and Sandy had done it a hundred times.
Sandy had always been the 'pathfinder' though.
The way he described it to her had been confusing: it needed an instinctive person. Someone who would follow a path even though it looked dark and dangerous because their 'heart' told them to. Tooth had argued that meant a lot of pathfinders must be eaten by imaginary bears. Sandy had just smiled and tapped her gently on the forehead with his pointer finger.
Tooth swallowed the lump starting to form in her throat.
She had to do this.
Checking Pitch still had his eyes closed, she closed her own eyes.
'Once we're in, look for the 'pilot light'' Tooth said, starting to trace the now dry patterns with a finger.
'What will it look like?' Pitch asked, distracted by the sensation of Tooth's finger. It was conjuring up all sorts of images he did not want her to see once inside his brain!
'It's different for everybody', Tooth said, mentally dropping her defences and psychically reaching for Pitch's aura. In her mind's eye, they were sitting in a dark area. It was empty but not intimidating. Just a space waiting to be filled with the images of the past.
The space was not as pleasant as when Sandy did it; usually filling the space with comfortable cushions, but she was satisfied with the openness of the space.
Pitch's aura was drastically different than it should have been.
Her own aura was vividly showing: a bright lilac light forming an outline around her limbs, illuminating her in the darkness.
Pitch's was usually black and coiling. It should have been almost invisible in the darkness.
But instead, his aura seemed to be sprinkled with tiny flecks of light.
There was bright pink that flared and died like fairy lights which Tooth easily identified as residue from Candy's arrow but there were also golden motes that occasionally surfaced in the blackness before being swallowed once more.
It wasn't dreamsand but it was close. Putting it down to old remnants of the dreamsand Pitch had used to create Onyx and the others, Tooth began to feel the familiar slight pull as the pilot lights began to form. Once formed, Pitch could see what she was seeing.
The aura glowing around her patterned hand began to drift away, coalescing above it into a shape. Pitch's aura began to do the same but then gave a jerk like a whip crack.
There was a sound of breaking glass and the aura snapped back.
Tooth heard Pitch cry out and his grip on her wrist clenched suddenly.
Tooth gasped in pain and broke the connection. She yanked her hand from Pitch's grip as he opened his eyes.
There was sweat running down his face as he rubbed his eyes.
'Take it easy!' Tooth said, rubbing her sore wrist, 'I was just creating the pilot lights! Everything's fine!'
'My skull is splitting!' Pitch groaned.
'Because you're resisting!' Tooth snapped.
'I can't help that! It felt like my skin was peeling off!'
'That's because you're nervous', Tooth said, remembering how jarring a sensation it had been when Sandy had first done it to her. There had been no pain but that had been because she had trusted Sandy. To her surprise, she felt hurt that Pitch didn't trust her. Understandable that he didn't but still, she was trying to help him! And wasn't he the bad guy?!
'I'm what?!' Pitch snapped, affronted at the accusation.
'Nervous', she repeated, 'Pitch, I'm not going to hurt you'.
'I know!'
'Okay', Tooth said soothingly, 'This isn't going to work if you're not calm. What helps you relax?'
'The screams of children', Pitch said with an evil smile.
'Well, if you can't get that what else?' Tooth asked, arms folded.
'I don't know. I suppose I'm not very good at relaxing'.
Tooth stood up briskly, her analytical mind kick starting.
Now that she was sure she could get as far as creating the pilot lights, this problem was nothing.
'You're gonna have to get good and get good fast', she declared, 'Where do you spend most of your time here?'
'I'll show you', Pitch said, also standing and gesturing for Tooth to follow.

'Woah', Tooth said at the sight that greeted her as Pitch threw open a pair of large doors.
The room seemed to stretch on forever. Lanterns magically ignited at their presence but Tooth still couldn't see the back of the room. Inside the room were dozens of shelves, reaching high above their heads. Each one was crammed full of books, from battered paperbacks to seemingly untouched hardbacks. There were also piles of books on the floor, some laying open and others with a variety of bookmarks nestling in their pages. The room smelt of incense and leather.
'Woah', Tooth repeated.
'You said that already', Pitch said, walking past her and trying to hide a smile.

'There are hundreds of them!' Tooth exclaimed, taking flight to measure the height of the shelves.
'When you don't get out much, you take advantage of any escape you can find', Pitch said, watching Tooth flit about the shelves.
'There are so many memories here!' Tooth cried, 'I know you can't see them but they're all around us! They're beautiful!'
Her enthusiasm amused Pitch but also made him feel self-conscious about the state of the room: he should have dusted before bringing her in.
Tooth swooped back down to floor level and lifted one of the open books from the floor.
'Pitch, this is a romance novel', Tooth said, with an amused giggle as she read a few lines.
'I did say 'any' escape', Pitch said, suddenly very interested in a shelf of dusty Dickensian literature, 'I didn't say I enjoyed them'.
Tooth smiled to herself. Pitch's altered skin tone made it easy to see he was blushing.
'Then you won't mind if I put it back?' Tooth asked, 'You shouldn't leave books lying around, even ones you don't like'.
'If you can find its fellows feel free. That's book five of seven'.
'You collected an entire series of books you didn't like?' Tooth smirked.
'Just hurry up and put it back so we can get on with this', Pitch said through clenched teeth, 'I don't like to leave things unfinished'.
Tooth's smile widened at Pitch's defensive attitude as she floated up to a promising looking stack of similarly coloured, hardbacks. Was it so hard for him to admit he liked something that didn't suit his image? Who knew the Boogeyman was so scared of what others thought of him?
'Where did you get them all?' Tooth asked as she examined the titles.
The spines at the very top seemed to match the one of the book she was holding. The stack must have been sixty volumes high! A normal human would have needed a ladder to reach the top: Tooth had no idea how Pitch had managed to stack them so high in the first place.
'Abandoned houses, libraries that were closing down, bus and train stations', Pitch listed, 'Humans have a nasty habit of leaving stories behind them'.
Having located the series the book belonged to, Tooth carefully lifted the topmost one off the pile and placed the book beneath it. Satisfied they were now in proper order, she flew back down to ground level.
'That explains the amount of memories floating around: the more hands a book passes through the more memories it picks up. The more it's read, the more it comes to life'.
'I hope it doesn't affect the weight of the book in any way', Pitch said, looking up.
'What makes you say that?' Tooth asked.
Pitch suddenly pulled her forward.
The high stack of books that Tooth had just added to, fell like an ancient monument and landed with a loud thud, dust scattering across the floor. The echoes seemed to last forever, the sound bouncing off each and every shelf before scattering into nothingness in the heights of the cavernous ceiling.
The next stack over tilted slightly but stayed in precarious place.
'Umm, maybe somewhere more open would be better?' Tooth ventured, eyeing the other towering stacks with renewed awareness of their potentially deadly weight.
'Agreed', Pitch said.

As they walked along yet another winding corridor, Tooth asked, 'Did you build all this yourself?'
'In a way', Pitch said, without turning around. He did not elaborate on the answer and Tooth let it alone.
She noticed it was getting brighter as they walked along and had to cover her eyes as they emerged into another open space.

Sunlight was shining down from somewhere high above, making the room warmer than the rest of the lair.
A circular patch of green grass was encircled by a carefully placed ring of onyx stones, surfaces carefully polished. The patch inside the rocks was covered in flowers of all shapes and colours entwined together in no particular order. Exotics mingled with wildflowers through undoubtedly magical means. The smell was strong but not overpowering.
A large tree towered over the flowers. Silver veins traced their way over the surface of the black pointed leaves and strange glowing pinpricks of golden light danced between the branches. Despite the amount of leaves, the branches were wide enough to ensure sunlight reached the flowers below. It was obvious the tree wasn't of Earth origin: apart from its appearance Tooth could sense memories of alien places sleeping within the dark trunk.
'Let me guess: 'woah'', Pitch smirked at Tooth.
'Don't fish for compliments Pitch', Tooth said breezily, 'That said, I didn't take you for the green thumb type'.
'North brings me ashes every year', Pitch said, 'I had to find some use for them'.
Tooth knelt down to examine a vivid purple flower.
'You're on the 'naughty list'? I'm shocked', Tooth joked.
'Yes but Frost was the world champion before Easter', Pitch said, 'Don't touch that one'.
'Why not?' Tooth asked, hand stalling a few centimetres away from the flower.
'It's poisonous. So is that one', Pitch said, pointing at each one in turn, 'And that one. And… actually, I don't remember what that one is'.
Tooth dusted off her knees and flew to a stone bench outside the ringed circle.
'Maybe we should sit beside the garden instead of in it?' she said, patting the space beside her.
Pitch walked to join her, feeling a growing discomfort with his choice of vegetation.
He had originally grown them as an act of subtle spite: throwing North's own ridiculous judgements back in his face. If he thought Pitch was moral poison, Pitch would use his 'Christmas gifts' to grow real poison. The irony had been so deliciously tempting that Pitch had even dug a shaft into the ceiling allowing sunlight to enter, giving his garden enough vitamins to thrive.
As the Boogeyman he was immune to the effects of the flowers but just how mortal was this body?
What if this technique failed and he was stuck? Would he age?
He knew that in his past life he had been older than humans could reach in their paltry lifetimes but now? Had he been ageing all the time he had been the Boogeyman and just didn't notice?
As he sat beside Tooth, he gritted his teeth. 'Had been'?! He was still the Boogeyman!

Tooth offered her hands again and Pitch took them, experiencing the familiar flittering feeling of butterflies in his stomach.
Tooth inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to ease Pitch's nervousness.
His pulse was going crazy beneath her fingers and his hands were shaking.
'Remember, when you get in, look for the pilot light. You'll see it because it'll be moving ahead of you. Follow it to make sure you don't get lost and break the connection'.
'Understood. You'll be doing the same I take it?'
'Yes. The mind can be a dangerous place: reality there is based on what you believe, not facts'.
'Just like you?'
'And we both know how dangerous I can be right?'
Pitch didn't respond. Tooth snuck a peek at his face and saw his lips had tightened at the remark. Not bothering to hide her smile, she entered the mindscape once more and began to mentally guide the auras into their pilot light shapes.
This time, she formed her own first, hoping to subconsciously reassure Pitch that the process was easy and painless. As she finished the spell, a lilac hummingbird alighted on Pitch's hand. Tooth felt him sense its presence as his fingers twitched slightly.
Gently, she began to pull the necessary piece of Pitch's aura away.
She moved more slowly this time, taking care that each strand was taken in turn.
But she felt Pitch begin to lose concentration once more, this time pulling his hand away.
The noise of breaking glass sounded once more and Tooth was back in reality.
She was greeted by an exasperated sigh from Pitch.
'I'm sorry!' he said, 'I am trying!'
Touched by the real sincerity in his apology, Tooth reached again for his hand. He wearily clasped her wrist again.
'I know', Tooth said gently, 'That time it worked a little better. You know what helps me relax? Music'.

'Music and I have had a bit of a falling out', Pitch deadpanned.

'I know you said you didn't know much about it but everyone enjoys it. I thought you'd have enjoyed it before this too'.

'It's quite incredible'.

'What is?'

'That you seem to have thought about me a lot in the past'.

There he was again: same old boogeyman, poking fun at her. But it was becoming ever more obvious that Pitch's sarcasm and snide comments were defensive, rather than offensive, moves.

'Yeah mostly about you down here kicking pebbles around muttering about revenge', Tooth said, 'We've known each other for centuries, don't you we should know something about each other by now?'

'Work seems to get in the way of that', Pitch said, watching a beetle crawl on a leaf nearby.

'I always thought you'd have a pipe organ or something down here', Tooth said, looking around as if expecting one to materialize at that very moment.

'Just because I live in a set from 'Phantom of the Opera' doesn't mean I spend my time tinkling any ivories', Pitch remarked, ' Besides, ivory's more your department'.

'Okay. I'm just gonna have to do it myself then'.

'Do what?'

'Provide some mood music. I warn you though I'm not the best singer'.

She expected a laugh, that usual eyebrow quirking upwards, a mocking protestation but there were none of those things from Pitch.
He was looking at her oddly. With something akin to expectation.
Was he going to laugh at her after she started?
Tooth's feathers puffed up a little in indignation.
To Hell with it! Let him laugh!
'Eyes closed and concentrate', she commanded and was gratified to see him obey.
Closing her own eyes, she began to sing.

Pitch was listening carefully.
The lair beautifully amplified the gentle exotic sounding melody. It encircled them like an invisible shield of ephemeral notes.
Tooth was right. She wasn't the best singer.
But that didn't mean she was a bad singer.
There was an occasional misstep or the odd note that didn't quite make the required leap but the tune was there and it was one he knew Tooth was personally fond of.
But there was no way she could know he had heard it before could she?
It was inevitable that over three hundred years of nocturnal work, their paths would eventually cross and they had on more than one occasion. Tooth had her teeth collection, Pitch had his grand scheme.
Step one, collect dreamsand. Step two, corrupt dreamsand. Step three, total domination over the Guardians.
It was a good plan but it required patience. Taking the vast amount of dreamsand that would be required without Sandy noticing the loss would take years but that had been fine. Pitch had had years to spare.
He hadn't been at it for very long before he began bumping into Tooth.
He always knew it was her from the distinctive noise of her wings.
Not that Pitch had ever made himself known to Tooth.
He had always been so careful.
Any time he had heard the tell-tale gentle buzz of her wings, he had hidden within a pool of shadow on the bedroom floor or in a convenient wardrobe.
He didn't know exactly why he hid from her. He had as much right to scare a child as she did to illogically reward them for, what he considered, a biological function that required no effort from the child whatsoever.
Then again he did his best work unobserved. Besides, why waste time in conversation with a being who simply refused to see your point of view?
That hadn't stopped him watching her though.
Tooth was wrong about him not knowing anything about her hobbies.
He knew she talked to herself and sang while she worked. She liked animals and they instinctively liked her: he had even seen a mean looking Rottweiler lick her hand once upon finding her in his young master's bedroom. She definitely hated messiness. There was many a lucky child who had unwittingly escaped a parental reprimand because Tooth couldn't resist 'straightening things up a bit' on her way out of the bedroom.
After a few one sided encounters over the decades, he began to feel guilty for essentially spying on her but quickly justified it by remembering it was his job to be the 'creepy one' anyway.
Then Tooth had gradually stopped collecting teeth herself.
Pitch remembered shrugging at the time. Seeing her had been a break in monotony, nothing more.
Until one night when he had heard a buzzing and felt a surprising little leap inside himself. He had hidden of course and looked at the bedroom window only to see a diminutive shape enter. He would later learn this was one of Tooth's mini fairies.
He watched the little creature secure the tooth and leave the trademark coin before leaping out and snarling at it. The little fairy squeaked in fright and fled the room, window magically closing silently behind it.
Following this encounter, any time Pitch saw one of Tooth's little helpers, he snapped at them, chasing them from the bedrooms on scared little wings. He always checked they left the required tithe for the teeth they collected though so as not to draw too much attention.
He was confident Tooth would tolerate him 'being himself' but he knew if he messed with the collection before time there would be trouble.
He had also stepped up the pace on the dreamsand collection again. No more distractions to get in the way of his revenge against the Guardians.
Save for a tiny little treacherous thought that no more Guardians would mean no more Tooth.
In the end it hadn't stopped him from going through with the plan but licking his wounds afterwards, that little treacherous thought had caused a sigh of relief to escape his lips.
As he began to feel the memory magic working, he really hoped Tooth wouldn't be able to see any of those particular memories.

Tooth was ignorant of all of Pitch's racing thoughts.
She could vaguely sense them but (luckily for Pitch) was heedless of their meaning, focusing only on her task.
This time, Pitch's aura came away easily and the multiple strands began to form a golden shape. The colour caught Tooth off guard as did the shape Pitch's pilot light took: a golden butterfly flapped its delicate wings as it settled on her hand.
She had been expecting a spider or a crow.
She didn't have time to dwell on it however as she saw her own pilot light materialize on Pitch's hand. Tooth stopped singing now: content that Pitch was relaxed enough to maintain the connection.
'Okay Pitch, we're in', she said, her voice seeming to come from a distance away.
'Now what?' Pitch responded.
Tooth knew he wasn't really talking. Neither of them were.
That was a good sign: their minds were successfully linked.
'I'm going to follow your light now', Tooth said, 'You should be able to see mine'.
'The bird?'
'Yes. It's going to take off in a minute. Follow it and you'll reach my memories. Make sure they're left neat and tidy when you're done okay?'
'Same for you', came the response.
Tooth felt Pitch's body slump in the 'real world' as his mind went wandering after the hummingbird. As if on cue, the butterfly took flight from Tooth's hand. Tooth commanded her astral body to follow it and she felt her mind fly after the butterfly towards the distant past.