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Chapter Text

Sanderson Mansnoozie was a very punctual dreammaker.

Jack had never known him to miss the start of children’s sleep, a staggered schedule that began right when the sun dipped below the horizon. Threads of thin gold slowly working their way through the air, spiraling into the homes of the kids to deliver their nightly moments of joy. Sat atop a roof, the Guardian of Fun stretched his legs out and watched the dream shower for the night.

He was watching northern Canadian towns’ day end, having brought quite a fierce storm to bury the schools under. Bits of frost ebbed from the hands he leaned on, webs of ice coating the planks underneath him. It was a quick breather before moving onto the next part of his global run. Jack thought about where to fly next; perhaps it was time for the yearly strange flurry somewhere in the Southern Americas.

The flight would've been nigh impossible half a century earlier. When he finally experienced true belief from Jamie, Jack had felt a line of power run through him, a small shock of ice clearing his system. It had felt new, but good, subtly grounding, and reinforced by recognition and actual physical touch. This only doubled and tripled and how-many-tupled since, as children finally began to believe in the mischievous frost-bearer that made their eyes sparkle with snow dust. Jack had been noticeably powerful on his own, earning merit in his initial battles against Pitch, and was now fueled by immortal power he had never experienced before. He rose to the likes of Sandy—rather than a cultural icon, they possessed belief and ability of wider implications. Snowy fun and dreams, concepts held dear by the children. As such, Jack’s ability to soar grew infinitely alongside his fiercer, endless bouts of ice.

You wouldn’t be able to tell it with Jack, though. Pitch was a laugh, a name in the wind, and Jack only really tested his limits with northern ocean storms.

A whizz of air spurred past Jack, and he quickly turned to find Tooth’s fairies descending on a few select houses that he could see. He felt a slight tickle on his neck and raised his shoulder to look down on.

“Evening, baby toothie,” he said with a grin. “Didn’t I just catch you over at the other hemisphere a bit ago?”

The little hummingbird-esque fairy zipped around in front of him, chittering in its constant excitement. Truth be told, Jack was not very good at differentiating between the members of the Tooth Army. He simply loved each one the same.

“You’re quite early then. Sandy just passed over.” Jack pushed himself to his feet, kicking his shepherd’s staff up to catch. Flakes of frost floated off in the motion, the wood reinforced with shiny ice. “You can take your time, maybe see the sights. I’ve had my fill for today.”
With a finger brush over the fairy’s head, Jack launched himself into the cold air. Wind snapped against his cloak, its icy blast hitting the cool skin of his face. He always ran unnaturally cold, but lately he had taken pleasure in bundling up against his own winter. He especially enjoyed the fur lined boots and jackets that North knitted from whatever animal it was. Jack considered asking him which one had fur that soft as he steered himself westward.

A spray of snow shot out of his splayed hands, a light curtain of it arcing behind him as he sped over the North American terrain. Jack breathed deeply; there was scarce more he enjoyed than a fast-paced soar in the night, winter or not.

Small specks of gold suddenly floated into Jack’s peripheral. He flipped himself up, looking at Sandy above him. The short man was sitting atop a carpet this time, coasting through the air without the wind disturbing his sand. He gave Jack a small wave.

“Hiya Sandy.”

A short series of golden images flitted above the dreammaker’s head.

“Canada is always fun. They love me up here, since the snow’s all they got. You already done with dreaming in that zone?”

Another collection of symbols. Sandy ended by beckoning him to follow.

Jack frowned. “Oh. Does it have to be right now?”

Sandy nodded firmly, slightly pulling back on his carpet.

“Alright. Show me what’s bothering you.”

The pair shifted their course, Jack trailing next to Sandy as he steered them to his desired destination. In his time with the older Guardians, Jack had built a steady, quiet relationship with the powerful Sandman, expert at perceiving his images at a rapid pace. They held a large amount of trust in each other, permeated by long periods of comfortable silence. Sandy was also the most helpful in helping Jack on controlling his growing power, from the storms to his enchanted “fun-snow.” So, when Sandy becomes worried enough to ask Jack to check something a little strange out for him, Jack would do so seriously.

After a few minutes of steady descent, they broke the cloud line and zeroed on a cluster of unlit houses on the outskirts of a suburb. Jack noticed that Sandy was less determined to reach a specific house, but instead wanted any house that, presumably, had a child sleeping within. He assumed Sandy had not hit this area with sleep yet.

They landed right outside a townhome, entering quietly through a window slowly being creeped up by frost. More prone to being seen, Jack had long forgone his easy-going demeanor around the humans—there were a few more after Jamie who spotted him before he got his stealth together. Best to keep belief going without the expectation of actually showing yourself was the general line of thinking.

“Something to do with your dreams?” Jack whispered under his breath as they approached the bed of a young boy. He was wrapped in an indiscernible number of blankets, soundly snoozing. He couldn’t be more than ten.

Sandy shook his hand in a maybe-type gesture, then turned towards the boy, standing at the foot of the bed. He began to form a small orb of sand, a mini tempest of sleep within his fingers swirling with potential. With a subtle flourish, Sandy sent the sand in a wispy stream towards the child’s face and it dispersed in a shimmery flow.

“Gorgeous delivery, as usual,” Jack murmured.

Sandy gave a humorous bow, then gestured for Jack to watch the general plot of the dream play out above the bed. He turned his attention to the show, and watched as a knight on a horse materialized. The granular puppets began a trek across the land, valiantly saving kids stuck in wells and kittens up in trees; a princess in a tower eventually took shape, the story of a hero taking shape in a childishly adorable way.

Jack glanced at Sandy, whose hand was still raised as he studied the dream with narrowed eyes.

He continued to watch the dream for a minute or two, typical knightly adventures being had. Just as Jack opened his mouth to express his confusion on the perfectly normal dream, the story took a turn. The knight suddenly pivoted, his horse galloping into a village. Jack expectantly waited for the knight to parade through town as a hero, or maybe save a burning building for some excitement. Instead, the knight dismounted, swiftly entered a home, and began to steal people’s valuables.

Jack furrowed his brow. “What…”

It did not stop there. The knight entered homes, ran around erratically, his sword swinging with less-than-valiant intentions. Jack watched in silent shock as the knight continued to plunder and scare in seemingly uninterrupted joy. All the while, the dream flickered here and there, fragments of the sand freezing and shaking unpredictably, if only for a moment of a moment. The dream continued its unruly descent in the same golden, childlike fashion as when it started.

Sandy laid a hand on Jack’s arm, drawing the latter’s eyes away from the dream. He gestured for them to leave for a more appropriate place to converse. As they left the way they came, Sandy sent another swirl of sand over the child, resetting the dream. It resumed its smooth, natural play before fading into the boy’s subconsciousness.

“I know you, Sandy.” Jack started, as they took flight again. “I know that is not your type of dream. Is the kid in trouble?”

Sandy responded silently atop his carpet, the small whispers of his ever changing sand carrying in the wind. A slight look of concern occupied his face.

“Well, if the kid isn’t prone to those types of fantasies, is it a glitch? Can dreams go haywire?”

They were over the Pacific now, their speed unnoticed. Sandy conjured up a larger string of images as he worked out his concerns.

Jack hummed in thought. His friend was theorizing that possible the dreams were becoming too simple in nature, allowing for unruly and possibly dangerous thoughts to take control too easily,

“I think I agree, you're not crazy for thinking that. Perhaps it might be the wrong type of dream for the kid. How often you see dreams like that one?”

A couple of flashes of sand indicated an occasional frequency of the glitchy dreams.

“I think you just have to workshop it, Sandy. And you let me know. I can watch the dreams on my runs for you. Maybe come up with some ideas for new dreams.”

Sandy frowned amicably, crossing his arms.

“No, I don’t think you’re losing your touch,” Jack laughed with a roll of his eyes. “You ever heard of a helping hand?”

Before the Guardian could silently reply, a flash of brilliant light burst southward of where they flew. Jack spun around to catch it from his peripheral. The Northern lights bloomed into their song and dance, weaving their way across the night sky in a very particular fashion. Jack had learned the signal quite a bit ago and recognized it instantly.

He spun back around. “Race you to North’s place?”

Sandy huffed, more victim to Nicholas St. North’s “emergency” meetings than Jack.

“Oh, come on, snoozie, at least we can make the trip fun. I get a head start.”

☽ ◯ ☾

As it came to be, maybe because of their race, Jack and Sandy were the first ones to arrive at Santa's workshop. The former practically flew through the door, creating an icy landing strip as he slid into the large crafting room. He hollered as he whirled back around, facing Sandy as he drifted in with a slow clap.

“See? Very fun, especially when I win.”

A very brief flash of golden images above the stout man’s head.

“No, you did not let me win. Let’s not lie now.”

Their banter was interrupted by a loud gruff to the side; one of the yetis was gesturing wildly to the line of ice that now ran through their shop.

“It’ll melt!” Jack yelled over his shoulder, shoving the grand double doors open that led to the main space of North’s workshop. The large globe spun slowly in its place, lit up with countless pinpoints of light. Several floors carved from thick, dark wood encircled the entrance, filled to the brim with workstations and supplies. Christmas was merely three months away, and the yetis were in overdrive with their various creations. The elves milled about, small decorative cogs in the toy making factory.

“If old man’s going to call us over in the middle of our runs, least he can do is be here,” Jack muttered as he scanned the room, failing to spot the enormous figure that was North. Sandy shrugged, idly spinning some stray dream strands that he sent on their way after he was satisfied with them. The Guardian of Dreams possessed a monstrously far range of his powers that none of the others could really match him in. He was, in fact, the oldest Guardian among them.

The ceiling above them was cranked open, allowing some of the polar weather to slip in. It is from there Toothiana descended in quick fashion.

“Helloooo!” she called out, zipping over to Jack and Sandy. After flitting about them in a general check-up, she came to land next to them. Both her sabers sat crossed on her lower back, glinting in the light. She had taken up the fighting form a few decades beforehand, initially as another offensive skill. It was now really an incredibly impressive hobby for the Tooth Fairy.

“Hey, Tooth. You get third place.”

“Unlike you, I have wings that need to be used to fly, Jackie. They can only go fast.”

“At least you beat North to his own meeting,” Jack mused, giving her a smile. “What do you think it is this time?”

“He might be behind for Christmas?” she guessed. “He might need some help with production or delivery again. It has been a couple of years, but maybe there was a mishap this year.”

Since their near-death-in-belief experience, the other Guardians had evolved to be much more involved in their childhood work. Tooth was back in the field more often, and the holiday icons’ passion for the kids was reignited. This also meant they were all more prone to ask for help from the others, if needed. After all, each childhood Center worked in tandem to keep the peace—can’t have good memories without some hope or fun.

“Bit early for him to be askin’, ain’t it?”

Jack and the others turned to look at Aster, the hole in the ground quickly filling back up behind him.

“Oh, you’ve gotten quite good at the silent entrances, Bunny,” Tooth commented. “The practice is paying off.” Sandy nodded in agreement, waving at Aster before returning to the sand he was tweaking with in his hands.

“Much better than the ice rink out there, eh?” The large rabbit adjusted his leather straps, both boomerangs hanging off the sides.

“You weren’t even in there! How would you know?” Jack retorted.

“Because you’re a bloody racket.”

Jack swung his staff over his shoulders, exasperated. “These are baseless accusations. I am appalled.”

“What’s appalling is North’s tardiness,” Tooth interjected. She faced the large cavern and let out a long, sharp whistle before yelling, “Come on, North, where are you?”

The group milled about in front of the large globe, keeping up conversation. It wasn’t until maybe ten minutes later that the unmistakable sound of North’s footsteps sounded out.

“Finally,” Aster said as he walked up to them. Nicholas St. North was a giant of a man, his intricate tattoos on full display down his arms. He was rubbing his eyes in frustration.

“Sorry, Bunny. Has been hectic in here, I had to fix something first,” he sighed. “You would think this is first Christmas ever.”

“It’s okay, North,” Tooth assured. “Did you call for some help?”

“No, no, there is something else. As if I needed more stress… ” he trailed off. The rest of the group went quiet. It was very unlike Santa Claus to not be somewhat jolly. After all, Christmas stress was the stress he enjoyed, what fueled his wonder.

Jack got a funny feeling from his hesitance. “C’mon, North, what’s up?”

“Is not me… this time,” North coughed. “It is Manny. He has something to say to us.”

Sandy’s head snapped up from his preoccupation as Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, does he now?” he bit out.

The demeanor in the room suddenly grew chillier, and the lighthearted nature of their conversation died right there.

“Cut the smartassery, Frost,” Aster quipped. The group was very well aware of Jack’s outward disdain for the Man in the Moon; while they were content with his elusive communication and general strange existence, Jack held contempt for the lonely years he went through and the past that was hidden from him. Not even explaining how Manny was an original Guardian, now confined within the moon, would ease some of his hostility. Jack felt he was responsible for his choices regardless.

Aster continued, “If the Man up there has something to say, ya listen. How else you think ya got here?”

“Don’t tell me what I know, Bunny.” Jack kept his scowl but went silent after his retort. He knew his true grievance lay with the Man in the Moon.

Tooth shared a look of concern, the feathers on her head slightly flattening. “What for? He hasn’t said anything since he chose Jack in the fight against Pitch.”

Jack opened his mouth to say, actually, the Man in the Moon doesn’t say anything, but he stopped himself and kept quiet.

“I do not know,” North said, raising his hands. “He simply shine light into my personal room, and I wanted you here.”

“Last I checked, none of us have any concerns about Pitch, no?” Aster said, looking around the room.

There was a general agreement from the Guardians. The Boogeyman had not so much as shown his face since he was chased off by his own nightmares. Sure, nightmares still happened and tried to creep in, but it was an easy fix for Sandy. They were not even horses anymore, they were simple weak strands of black sand. The others only made it even easier with their bolstering of children’s belief. Fear was kept at bay, and nothing suggested otherwise.

Sandy stepped in front of the group, cycling through a few images as he gestured upwards.

“You’re right,” North said. “Manny do not always need big world-ending reason to say something. Perhaps it is something to help bring more joy to children.” He did not look entirely convinced with himself, because, truth be told, the Man in the Moon was not one to casually converse. It had always been warnings or advice about something serious, or a new Guardian to address said warnings.

Of course, they were never specific communications. It was silent, moonlight-projected images, after all.

Jack was still in a silent battle to keep quiet, snappy insults at the tip of his tongue. Before he could really show his impatience, however, the room darkened. He looked up, clouds circling the open air above them. Circling around the now suddenly prominent moon.

A hush settled over everybody; the massive room still had the low hum of working yetis across all the floors, but those at the center quietly watched the beam of moonlight nervously as it began to shine down.

After a couple beats, with zero fanfare or really any indication, an image materialized in shimmery light, crisp and transparent.

“Is that…” Tooth started.

“A grave,” Jack said incredulously. “Mighty boss man is showing us a grave?”

The stone was too worn down to truly make out any name that may have been on it. North stepped forward, mouth slightly agape, studying the image. “I cannot tell where it is.”

“Where is it? Why do we need to go to a grave? Who’s dead? What exactly are we doing with this?” Jack sputtered.

“Calm down, mate, before ya talk your mouth off,” Aster said, irritated. “Clearly, there is something important about it… maybe there’s more to it… ” Even the insistent Guardian of Hope seemed perturbed by the strange message.

“I do not think there is any more,” North replied. “Manny, you are being confusing this time.” This was said more to himself.

Jack’s ears suddenly picked up on the distinct sound of sand being formed and rearranged. He faced Sandy next to him, whose face had somehow paled in its golden hue. He showed deep concern, cycling through his pictorial message.

“You recognize this?” Tooth asked. “What, who is it?”

For once, there was no image reply. Sandy simply shook his head, worried.

“What do you know, Sandy?’ Jack pressed. “Please, anything better than another cryptic image.”

He winced as soon as the words left his mouth. Tooth shot him a glare, and Aster looked ready to kick Jack out. “Watch it, mate.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said quietly, some of his anger dissipating. “I did not mean that, Sandy. Really.”

Sandy laid a hand on his arm, giving him a reassuring smile. He knew that Jack was frustrated at lack of knowledge, and did not take his annoyance personally. After the two shared an understanding look, Sandy turned back to the group and took a deep breath. He started to convey his thoughts.

“Oh, you know where that is? There’s a start!” Tooth said.

“If you are not not sure why we must go,” North mused, “then we go find out, no? Manny does not waste time. This must be important.”

“Do you know who it is?” Jack asked, the back of his neck still burning in embarrassment from his rude outburst.

Sandy slowly nodded, but did not say more. Never had Jack seen the man so confused, and he did not press.

“Right, then,” Aster sighed. “S’pose we take a trip, then, and figure this out. I ain’t going to be one to ignore the Man in the Moon. You do your best to tell us what ya know when we get there, Sandy.”

The dreammaker nodded. He needed to be sure first of what he knew, and he said just as much.

Jack studied Sandy quietly as the Guardians agreed on their next step. The funny feeling he had still had not left him.

Chapter Text

Jack always felt like the stereotypical kid on Christmas whenever he got to see North’s sleigh. Massive, powerful, and faster than you’d imagine, the flying machine was an unbelievable rollercoaster the rare times he got to sit aboard. Sandy sat at the helm next to North—who was sporting a very thick red coat and fuzzy hat to match—leading him to their destination. Tooth and Jack sat at the very back seat, both opting out of individual flight for the ride. Aster lay stretched out in the middle, uniformly on his back with his eyes closed and paws clasped together. He had once again lost his argument to use his tunnels instead; he didn’t even know where to go.

Jack leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staff under his feet. The wind whipped viciously around them. “You practicing for your funeral, Bunny?”

“I’m showin’ ya what you’ll look like at yours if you don’t rack off.”

“Maybe grab your boomerangs, hold them like a bouquet.”

Aster glowered, eyes still squeezed shut. “Frost, I swear, I’m going to kick ya to the Philippines when we land.”

Jack grinned. The tension between the Guardians had managed to relax a bit in the hours between the cryptic message and when they left. Even with their nerves, a plan of action was enough to keep their worries controlled for the time being.

“Why do you think Sandy won’t tell us whose grave it is?” Tooth asked idly, peering over the edge to try and discern where they were headed.

Sitting back in his seat, Jack paused. He tilted his head up, watching clouds speed past. “I think Sandy is trying to figure out what this all means first. I’d probably be hard pressed to figure out what it meant when it’s so weird too. You have to admit this is weird.”

Tooth sighed, glancing over. “I understand where you’re coming from, but you have to remember, Jackie, you haven’t exactly seen any of his other messages before.”

“Oh, I know,” he quipped. “The Man up there isn’t too fond of speaking to me at all.”

“Listen, kid, we get it. Yer not fond of him, but he’s sorta the one running this whole show,” Aster interjected, opening his eyes to look at Jack. “We’ve all had to deal with bein’ who we are, we’ve all died before. We got you yer memories, and yer a bloody Guardian. Just relax.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Tooth affirmed, patting his shoulder.

Jack didn’t respond, still keeping his gaze upward. The sky was shifting from a deep night to a lighter blue as they crossed time zones. He knew there was truth in what his friend was saying, and he wouldn’t have his immortal afterlife any other way. Yet, he couldn’t just forget what led up to this point. Those 300 years of isolation were truly nightmarish. Watching the world pass by with so little of him was brutal enough to the point Jack lost all reason for existing at his lowest point. He held a grudge against the Man in the Moon for his so-called “I chose you!” bullshit that lacked any real clarity, support, or guidance. For how powerful the original Guardian supposedly was, he sure seemed to treat his counterparts like pieces on a chessboard. What did he know of family, or memories, or being lost?

He stole a few peeks at the others, eyes moving from each Guardian to the next. Their stories had slowly come to fruition the last half century, similar tales of resurrection and power, peppered across periods and locations. What perplexed him was their peace with it all.

His train of thought came to a halt from North’s yell. “Now we descend! Hold on!”

The weird feeling in his stomach one gets when rapidly falling started, and Jack let a smile onto his face before letting out a resounding whoop. The sleigh twisted to and fro as North steered the reindeer into a controlled spiral. Tooth let her wings stretch and air ruffle her feathers as Aster clung to the seat below him. They left cloud cover quickly, and Jack saw themselves heading for an incredibly dense forest off an icy coast. Fog shrouded the area, and it looked scarcely inhabited. Somewhere on the edge in the northern European isles, he presumed.

Aster finally sat up, gripping the edge of the sleigh while looking down. “Crikey, North, are we going to plow through that?” he yelled.

“Is no problem!” is the response he got right before they hit the tops of the trees.

“Dense” did not do this forest justice; the foliage may as well have been intertwined together into an insurmountable shield, where only the misty nature of fog could find its way through. The group immediately got pelted with snapping branches, North expertly swerving the sleigh to avoid the large tree trunks. He could not help the limbs of the trees they were ripping off in the process, however.

Tooth reached back and grabbed the depressed cover of the carriage, throwing it over them. Sandy began to conjure large curtains of sand, throwing up to lessen the storm. Jack let himself hover within the carriage, sending up small panes of ice to block rogue branches. A couple more turns, then the sleigh barreled into a small clearing barely large enough to hold it. North heaved the reins back, and they came to a screeching halt.

North bellowed with laughter. “See? Perfect landing!”

“Yeah, mate,” Aster groaned as Tooth retracted the hood. He hopped off the contraption, steadying himself with a paw against it while he reoriented himself.

“A lot better than you’d expect,” Tooth said, flitting over to the deer now stomping impatiently in their reins. “With how thick this forest is and all.” She cooed at each beast, settling them down with some well-deserved pets.

“I don’t think Bunny would have been able to pop up out here anyways,” Jack joked.

“That is enough, friends,” North said, turning to Sandy. “Show us?”

The short man nodded, waving for everyone to follow before he set off southward of their landing spot. Aster shook his shoulders back and joined them, the group beginning to pick their way through the woods.

They fell into a quiet lull, marked only by the crunching of leaves and moving of low-reaching branches. The fog, having mostly settled above them, very lightly misted their faces. The water that stuck to Jack quickly froze into tiny glittery ice drops, clinging to his clothing and wherever his boots stepped. The shone with the quiet light of the moon and stars above, largely obstructed by the tree cover. Tooth offered some ginger she kept on her person, which he chewed reluctantly. North carved out their path, the five of them helping each other to keep up with the dreammaker’s determinant pace.

After a few minutes of trekking, Sandy came to a slow halt, meticulously searching the area they were in. Without a word, the others branched off and began to look around themselves. The image had been of a worn-down gravestone, overtaken by nature but still distinct in shape. Jack peered in his search zone, poking his staff around to push away leaves and see if he hit anything solid.

The scent of pine heavily permeated the air. There was an eerie stillness to their location, the forest lacking the livelihood Jack greatly appreciated of nature. He thought about conjuring up a small flurry to bring in some activity but decided against it for the sake of their search. North was on his left, slicing away at thick greenery.

“You think Sandy’s doing okay?” he asked softly, his other choice for breaking up the silence.

North let out a pensive sigh. “I am not sure of who we looking for,” he responded. “I have feeling this goes beyond my time. This is someone very important to Manny and Sandy.”

Jack hummed in response. He could not come up with a single theory as to who or what this was for. As far as he knew, the Man in the Moon only contacted the Guardians for the sanctity of the children, with a threat as great as Pitch being a cause for concern.

“Jack, listen.” He fully looked at North, sensing a brewing question. “I know you do not like Manny. But, regardless, have you tried looking for… anything?”

He knew what the older man meant. He had certainly tried from the moment he awoke, to the efforts after learning his origins and death. Naturally, the lake he arose from was near where he had lived. Not much else had been parsed since; it is hard to find graves or lineages with a name you only learned several hundred years after your death, after all.

“It would be easier if the all-knowing up there could let me know about ‘anything,’” he grumbled in response. He rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, North, it just annoys me anytime I think about it.”

“I know, son. But Manny helps us. He is also Guardian, just in a way we are not. Maybe too hard to communicate for him, we are not sure. I do not know older magic. I just know that Manny is good friend to us and tries his best to help.”

Jack nodded absentmindedly, crouching down to peer past a large bush. He had certainly wondered how exactly the Man in the Moon became what he was, or what kind of magic he used to give Jack his immortality. Not even Sandy knew details, only giving a vague timeline of Manny’s place in his personal history. Something involving a powerful man he knew from before.

“Over here,” Tooth’s voice airily rang out, interrupting his thoughts. The Guardians quickly reconvened to her spot, Sandy pushing to the front.

The gravestone was exactly as the Man in the Moon had shown it. Creeped up by moss and indistinguishable plants, it stood slightly crooked, as if knocked off balance. The stone was pounded down enough that any carvings were nonexistent. Well, at least from Jack’s view.

Sandy knelt down in front of it, brushing away debris. The others stood behind him quietly, letting him observe the abandoned marker as long as he needed. When he turned back to face them, he had a deep frown on his face.

“You alright?” Aster asked.

Sandy shook his head. He manifested a rapid fire strong of images, a telltale sign of his stress.

“A friend of yours?” Jack repeated disbelievingly. “From when you were alive?”

He nodded.

“So you been here before?” said North.

Sandy indicated that it had been quite a while since he visited, which was an understatement. Jack knew the man’s history stretched back several centuries, making the grave very old. It was shocking it managed to stay upright this long anyways.

“I see why you had to be sure, Sandy,” Aster muttered. “This Manny reminding you to pay respects or somethin’?”

“Well, when’s the last time any of us visited anything from before?” Tooth said. She made eye contact with Jack then guiltily pursed her lips. She knew he couldn’t exactly do that; despite learning his past, it didn’t exactly come with details other than the lake he had died in.

Jack gave her an abating smile before returning his attention. That is when he noticed the unusual shine of moonlight now beaming down upon them and the grave.

A tremble suddenly raked through the ground beneath them. Perplexed, the Guardians watched the lit-up dirt beneath them slowly begin to split apart, the tremor growing stronger with each second.

“Move!” Aster yelled, leaping backwards off the patch of forestry dirt they were on that was now cracking open. North scrambled away next to the rabbit while the others immediately took flight, hovering a few feet above. Even off the ground, Jack almost felt thrown off balance by the sheer quake. Yet when he took panicked glances around them, it seemed to be only isolated around the gravestone.

“What is—” he started to shout but was cut short by a massive root breaking free from the earth.

The Guardians watched in awe as the large tree root curled in on itself, revealing an almost complete set of bones embedded within its bark. The awe morphed into slight horror, Sandy’s face contorting in shock at the sight of the remains. They were caked in dirt, old and looking ready to disintegrate.

That is, until they began to rearrange within the bark, a sharp cracking sound emitting as they did. The splintering only continued as the bones began to protrude, now in a recognizable skeletal fashion. Slowly, the remains broke free from the bark, several roots still connecting the two entities.

Then the body started to grow.

It began at the bone, muscle and tendon rapidly bursting from the bones and wrapping itself around. It continued to do this, starting from the center of the skeleton and spreading across its entirety. When it was completed with a limb, tanned flesh then sprouted, stretching across and knitting itself to the tissue underneath it. It creeped up along the neck of the now humanoid muscle, unnatural strands of skin smoothly fusing together up the neck and over the face, filling in the cheeks and eyes, meeting at the scalp. The outline of the skull slowly vanished. Deep brown hair shot out of the head, long and thick. Several more roots slithered over the body, mending together into a complete bodysuit of earth, high up in the neck and carved with intricate designs. The bones—the woman—still rose up from the ground, head lolled back and unmoving. Jack had a brief flashback to the moment the Man in the Moon lifted him out of the lake, cold and confused, the same stream of moonglow washing over him. The gravestone was now completely uprooted and on its side.

The being’s eyes suddenly flew open. She lurched forward with an enormous gasp, a series of loud and frankly painfully sounding snaps resounding as the roots around her ripped away. She landed on her knees, hunched over, and the earthquake came to an unnatural, abrupt halt. The air immediately stilled, broken only by the woman’s large heaves of air and the settling of the now stationary roots.

For a few beats, the Guardians remained frozen in place, staring at the scene in front of them. Then Sandy dropped back to the ground, rushing towards the bark-skinned woman. He grabbed her face, lifting it up and bringing it in close.

She coughed several more times, cracking her eyes open to reveal bright yellow irises. There was a splay of abnormally light freckles across her face.

“... Sanderson?” she croaked.

The dreammaker nodded vehemently, turning her face every which way to get a full look. He then pulled the woman into a hug. She froze for a brief moment, before returning it in full.

Tooth was the first to snap out of it. She sped over to the pair, landing behind the woman still being embraced.

“Darling are you alright?” she asked quickly, examining the woman’s back. There were no obvious areas of destruction, where splintering wood may have shattered from her detachment from the roots.

The others silently approached, Jack landing back on his feet. Manny’s moonlight had vanished.

The woman pulled back from Sandy, her breathing becoming less severe with each intake, head still bowed. “Do not… touch me. Please.” Her lilting voice cracked with every other syllable.

Tooth retracted her arm but remained in her spot. “Apologies. I do not see any open wounds on your back, thankfully.”

She nodded, finally lifting her head. “It molds to me,” the woman said, groaning as she straightened herself. “No wounds, but… I feel… pretty much everything.”

“Sounds like it,” Aster muttered, his arms crossed. “You practically ripped yourself apart, sheila.”

“Wasn’t my choice, uhh… do you go by E? Or Aster?”

“Aster is alright. Now my next question is how ya know that.”

“Bunny, must you be skeptical every single time? We get to questions soon,” North said, stepping forward and extending a hand to the woman. “You need help up, miss?”

She peered up at North for a moment, before reluctantly accepting and getting to her feet. Tooth stayed behind her, watching pensively with a hint of concern. The woman was imposingly tall and lithe, a sense of gracefulness to her movements. There was not a trace of the ordeal they had just witnessed. “Thank you, Nicholas.”

“Nicholas?” North laughed amicably. “Sandy, introduce us to this person who call me Nicholas.”

“Nature. Well, Mother Nature. I’m Nature,” she interjected, Sandy nodding with a large smile on his face.

“There’s an actual spirit for Mother Nature?” Jack said, finally speaking up. He leaned against his staff. “I thought it was just a human personification.”

“Yeah, well, I tried to keep it that way, so my bad" she replied bitterly. “Was this Lunar?”

“...Who?” said Jack.

Sandy conjured up a golden image of the moon.

“The Man in the Moon? He was shining his light down during your whole… resurrection.”

“Yeah.” Mother Nature glared up above them, though the moon was not currently visible. “Of course it was, you old bastard.”

Jack exchanged confused glances with his friends, though a part of him leaped at the chance to bring up his own complaints with Manny. So far, Nature did not seem keen on the whole situation.

“Oi, back to my question,” Aster said to avoid the awkward silence. “How do ya know who we are?”

“If you’re going to be traveling through those tunnels of yours, whose magic do you think you’re manipulating to do that?”

The large rabbit bristled. “You weren’t alive until ‘bout ten minutes ago.”

“Not exactly,” she sighed. Jack noticed bark crawling its way over the back of her hands as she flexed her shoulders. “I was not alive the same way you are. I was still aware. Still had to run this whole thing.”

“My snow…” Jack started.

“Yes, you too, Jackson. It is my magic you are employing, though you fare much better with it than me. You make my job a little easier.”

Jack tensed in the same way Aster had. No one ever called him Jackson, and he was unsure how he felt about it. He did summon a small snowball in his hand, discreetly messing around with it to feel his magic—the magic coldly course through him.

“So you’ve been the dormant Mother Nature… for how long?” Tooth asked.

Sandy waved, indicating through his pictures that it would be around the same time as him being the Sandman. Nature stepped back, turning so she was viewing them all.

“Sanderson was a mentor of mine, back during our human years.” She did not elaborate. Instead, she turned again, reaching a hand out. The roots she has grown on contorted, twisting back and down into the ground, a low rumble as the dirt began to mend itself. The gravestone was not acknowledged, left overturned.

The awkward silence they had been battling settled over the group. When she was finished, she faced them again, with a sudden glare.

“Did you have to make such a mess while landing? It’ll take a while for those pines to regrow what you tore off.”

“Blame ‘im,” Aster said, thumbing North. “Fool drives like a bloody maniac.” North let out an apologetic chuckle, raising his hands.

Nature sighed. “It’s fine. I’m sorry you came out to watch the show, but you can all be on your way now.”

Sandy frowned, floating up and shaking his head at her. Another set of golden images played over his head.

“I do not care what he showed you or what he wants. I told him to leave me alone, so please do. I have nothing to offer you Guardians.” Her thick hair was curling around her in deep earthy waves.

“Oh, have we heard this one before,” Aster said with a pointed look at Jack.

“You aren’t exactly the most welcoming person, Bunny,” he replied with a shrug.

Nature and Sandy continued to quarrel. “You know very well why,” Nature retorted to another message of his, an almost sad tone overtaking her words. “Please, Sandy, it was wonderful to see you, and maybe I’ll come see you again, but whatever it is you need help with right now, you can handle it.”

“Well,” North said, “that is problem. We do not have actual problem. Or at least we do not know what Manny is telling us.”

“Shocking, isn’t it?” she said sarcastically, throwing her hands up. “You think I know?”

Jack held in a chuckle. “Real shocking,” he whispered.

Aster’s ear perked up at his comment. He rolled his eyes.

“I do not want to be here, I shouldn't even be here,” she continued. Sandy looked perturbed, a hand on her arm. “I’m going to return to my place whether he likes it or not.”

Nature was getting incredibly flustered now, glowering with a strange sense of anger and despair. Jack looked to North, concerned.

“Listen, Nature, I'm sorry for our entrance, for the damage we did to the forest. And I am sorry that it seems like you were happy where you were,” Tooth interrupted with a reassuring smile, splintering the growing conflict. “But I frankly refuse to just leave you here. We can regroup all together, perhaps at North’s place or even my palace, and figure this out. I don’t believe you can learn much out here, and it seems you may know more about Manny than we do.”

Jack watched a look pass between the two, and he felt a sense of joy at the Tooth Fairy’s words. She always had been good at speaking through anyone’s discomforts.

He also had a deep, desperate craving to learn what Mother Nature knew.

“We will not burden you, Nature. I’ll make sure of it.” Tooth shot a pointed look at the men standing around them.

“Fine,” Nature said, breaking eye contact with Tooth after a beat. “I’ll come with, for now. We sort out Lunar’s problem and that is it from me. I am responsible for the environment only, and I do not clean up anybody else’s problems. I am certainly not your new shiny Guardian.”

“Hey, it isn’t all bad,” Jack conceded, twirling his staff at his side. “I would know.”

“Good to know,” she deadpanned. Nature rubbed her face, taking a deep breath. “There is one thing I am curious about. Where is this death machine of yours, North?”

Jack took a quick peek above them as they moved to leave, catching a sliver of the moon in between the leaves.

Chapter Text

“How do you keep all of this hidden from the humans?” Nature yelled in slight awe as North’s sleigh flew into Toothiana’s open air castle. She had tightly braided her hair, the chunky rope now flying out behind her as she leaned out of the carriage.

They had flown southeast, heading for the deep recesses of Myanmar’s mountains. The tropical atmosphere welcomed Tooth with a nostalgic warmth that was soon overtaken with cooler mountainous temperatures. The fairy had closed her eyes earlier, letting the wind disturb her feathers and the sun wash over her umber face. She answered that way, shouting back over the wind.

“This is the region I am originally from, so I am familiar with it. Me and my fairies picked the hollow side of the mountain we’re on, and we have a bit of help from Manny to keep it hidden. We’ve never had issues, and nobody is climbing these alps regularly.”

Jack carefully watched Nature’s reaction to the Man in the Moon’s mention; she continued to stare at the palace that now surrounded them, no acknowledgement that he could see. 

It truly was impressive. Spindles of gold twisted from the ceiling and the floor, glittering storages for teeth adorned with colorful tiny gems that shone in the lowering sun. The Tooth Army flew about, coming and going with teeth and the little cases they collected them in. North steered the sleigh to land near the center of the airy palace, the large mural of the Tooth Fairy collecting the greatest sources of memory from children of the world looking down on them.

The sleigh touched the marbled floor, coming to a smooth stop. Some of the reindeer shook the snow off them, lowering themselves and taking a seat.

“Better?” Jack asked over his shoulder at Aster. Nature, sat next to the rabbit, peered at him curiously.

“Nothing ain’t ever better than my tunnels,” he replied with a huff. He did hop off the carriage much smoother than their last ride.

“Is it a fear of heights, or motion sickness?” Nature asked, turning her pointed gaze over to Jack after watching Aster. The combination of her large eyes and swarthy complexion with pale freckles gave off a doe-like impression.

“Both. He doesn’t do well on this beauty, ikes his boring tunnels instead.”

“Ah. Interesting.”

Jack cocked his head at her while floating off the sleigh, waiting for her elaboration. She did not provide one, a pattern he was starting to notice. 

“Hello darlings!” Tooth called out. “How’s it looking?” Her little soldiers surrounded her almost immediately, twittering away while others picked at her accessories. She had recently donned more of her traditional jewelry, golden beads and colorful shawls wrapped around the hilts of her sword and draped against her bright feathers. 

As she assessed her army, the others gathered in the nearby sunroom, in the most non-traditional sense. It was a simple seating area, plush blankets and pillows thrown around in a cozy fashion while surrounded by several plants. Jack flopped down, throwing his cloak back around his shoulders. The others joined him, the Guardians settling in comfortably. Nature sat with her legs folded underneath her, taking in their surroundings with hawk-like precision. Sandy remained at her side.

Jack eyed her, brimming with several questions. The entire situation was plagued with unknowns. Before he could get started, North beat him to it, and without the same level of curiosity Jack hoped he would. He was probably at the bottom of the ranking for patience, out of his friends.

“Okay, devushka,” North said, “let us sit and think about why Manny wake you up.”

“Regardless of what he wants, I am not your new Guardian,” she replied, her eyes meeting the group.

“I am not sure,” North sighed. “He announce Jack’s recruitment the same way. It gives impression that is what Manny means.”

“He can tell me himself, then. Either now, or when I am back where I need to be. My answer will still be the same.”

“D’you mean back… in the ground?” Aster asked, one knee propped up.

Nature pursed her lips. “You needn’t worry what I mean.”

Sandy sighed, turning to look at Nature. Something passed between them, and whatever bond they had seemed to win over the nymph. “Don’t worry so much, Sanderson. I’m not going anywhere for now,” she said quietly, more to him than the group. “I promise.”

“Why do you call the Man in the Moon Lunar?” Jack blurted, leaning forward. Not the most pertinent of his questions.

“Really subtle, Jackie,” Tooth said, joining them in their circle. He shrugged. He was going to get at least one question in at this point.

“That was his name before becoming the Guardian of the Moon, of Guidance,” Nature replied plainly. “I know him by that name first.”

Once again, there was no further comment. Jack blinked, both surprised by her candidness and annoyed by the lack of detail. Aster exchanged glances with North and Tooth; this was also news to them. The general understanding the Guardians had of the Man in the Moon was that he had escaped to the celestial body after an attack from Pitch, gaining his magic and establishing Guardianship from his pedestal in the sky. He continued his battle against the Boogeyman from there, seemingly wise and insightful beyond comprehension.

It wasn’t a whole lot to know to begin with, frankly. It was the extent of Sandy’s knowledge, but Jack knew that it was just bare bones.

“Alright, alright, not a new Guardian. We don’t need one anyway,” Aster said. “No offense. Pitch ain’t ever gonna be a problem again, not a peep from him in a while. So why else is the big man upstairs waking you up?”

Tooth played with a bracelet. “Perhaps you might find it easier to control your nature in this form?”

“Trust me, it's… strangely easier being asleep. Dead, whatever you want to call it.” Nature looked briefly wistful. “I feel so much more, I understand everything so much more. It’s my only focus, what I control and influence.”

“I’m glad you love it so much,” Tooth commented sweetly. “I would say the same about my work, for the children especially.”

Nature didn’t reply, rubbing her thumb on her palm.

“Okay, then flip the script. Maybe it's to help us out personally?” Jack mused, letting frost crystallize on the floor around his boots. “Turns out I’m using your magic anyways. And Bunny over there.”

“It’s not entirely my power,” Nature corrected. “That coldness is still yours. And so are your tunnels, Aster. I don’t mess with any of it. I have no desire to.” As she spoke, she stretched out a hand and tugged towards Jack. He felt his frost pull away, spreading over to where the nymph was sitting. 

Jack flinched, involuntarily pulling his magic back. He felt it flood him again. 

“Oh, that’s weird ,” he said. “Please… don’t.” He let his magic hum for a few moments, simmering in it protectively before diffusing. 

“Crybaby,” Aster muttered.

“Oh yeah?” Jack retorted. He turned to Nature. “Fill up his tunnels, would you?”

“Aye, no need! I didn’t mean it.” The rabbit raised his hands, chuckling.

“Fancy magic this, that, this,” North said while reclining. “Me and yetis hold up shop no problem. All you need is my sword.”

“You should treat them nicer, Nicholas,” Nature called out nonchalantly. “They’re hard workers.”

Jack burst into laughter while North responded incredulously, stating that he in fact treated them exceptionally well. Nature sat pointedly, keeping her lips pursed but engaging with obvious interest.

It wasn’t until a few moments into their easygoing ruckus that Tooth noticed several of her pixies hovering around her head. She turned her head, confused. “Oh, what is it?”

They spoke to her in their chirps, though they were higher pitched and more frantic than usual. Aster’s ears perked up, and he looked over.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

“I…” Tooth trailed off, frowning as more of her fairies came to her. “You’re scared of what?”

Jack slowly stood up, scanning the palace around them. More fairies were convening around them, their chittering getting collectively louder.

“Tooth… “ Aster repeated, paw brushing over a boomerang. “Translate, please.”

“They say we’re under attack?” she exclaimed back, overwhelmed. “Attack from what? What’s going on?”

Everyone was on their feet now, subconsciously stepping closer together as they assessed the army now all around them. Jack’s staff sparkled, buzzing with ice. The distress was growing, Tooth becoming more and more distraught.

Like the flip of a switch, the terrified pixies lost their timidity and all hell unleashed.

The army broke into a frenzy, suddenly agitated flying every which way. It seemed like a messily staged attack against an invisible enemy, the usually gentle fairies now a furious squall. Tooth cried out, shooting up into the air and trying to gain control of her army. The palace was overtaken by hundreds of her workers seemingly gone awry. As far as they could see, there was nothing to place blame on causing it either; the mountain range was empty otherwise.

Jack threw his hands up, avoiding getting hit in the face by rogue fairies. Without another thought, he breathed deep and threw his arms around him, unleashing a controlled icy blast all around him. It wasn’t sharp or cold enough to accidentally kill—he had learned to control his intensity not too long ago—but enough to knock some of Tooth’s soldiers off course and slow them down.

“C’mon, Sandy!” Aster yelled, immediately following suit and leaving his boomerangs alone. “Time to tuck ‘em in, yeah?” No other questions were needed.

In uncanny synchronicity, the Guardians jumped into quelling the strange hurricane. Jack continued to release wintry waves, herding to the best of his ability. Aster and North flanked Sandy, simultaneously attempting to catch fairies and spread as much dream sand to them as possible.

Nature stepped near the center, effortlessly gathering winds around her feet as she guided it around the attacking fairies to keep them in controlled groups. She held them in these pockets of air, allowing the dreammaker’s sand to implode within them and scatter. Groups of fairies dropped asleep this way, Tooth moving impossibly fast to collect them all and return them to their spots in their spires. Within a few minutes of the chaos, the group was slowly gaining control.

Despite the disarray, Nature suddenly felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She straightened, staring ahead with an unreadable expression, brows furrowed. She let several fairies whizz past, her wind quietly dying out.

“Nature?” North asked loudly, glancing over. The sand they were throwing was no longer being carried.

Nature raised her hand slightly, opening her mouth. Before she said anything, however, she inhaled and whipped her head around, zeroing in on one of the gaps in Tooth’s open castle. Through all of the flying pixies, there sat a large, black crow, seemingly watching them in the growing panic.

“We’re being watched,” Nature hissed. As soon as the words left her mouth, the bird sprung from its perch and began to flap away, eerily still maintaining eye contact as it did.

“Absolutely not,” she yelled, climbing over the cushions in front of her. “I’m not letting that get away!”

With a grunt, she launched herself forward, flying through the palace and directly for the crow. Somehow in her quickness, she dodged all of the army that was in her way. Upon her speed, the creature hastened its escape, breaking into the open sky and rapidly flying away.

“Jack! Go with, now!” North commanded, frantically trying to capture fairies without crushing them. “Do not let her go alone!”

Something about the intensity of the large man’s demand solidified Jack’s focus, and he sent out one more gust of frost before nodding and flinging himself away. He felt his power surge through his limbs as he boosted himself as fast as he could without crushing fairies in his way, ejecting from Tooth’s palace and into the open air. 

The crow was impossibly fast, almost otherworldly. This was only matched by Mother Nature’s pursuit, an agile bullet nearly on its tail. She was barely discernible, Jack drawing in all of his ability to keep up. The trio flew at higher altitudes, quickly leaving behind the mountains and the region. 

Nature did not relent, willing cloud cover to dissipate with simple waves of her hands, keeping the bird exposed. She swung blasts of wind, attempting to slow the crow down or throw it off course. Strange particles were flaking off the bird each time she did, little black specks that vanished almost immediately. Growing frustrated, she increased the intensity of her attacks.

Jack relished in the chase—far back enough not to notice the composition of the crow—letting his cloak splay out like a cape in the wind and taking in the familiar cold air. It was a few moments later that Nature actually took notice in his presence, taking a sharp look before refocusing.

“Why are you here?” she shouted over her shoulder.

He gave a lopsided grin. “Why not?”

“You should’ve stayed to help Toothiana, damn it.”

“They’ll be alright. You said this thing is watching us, what’re you talking about?”

"I know when my creatures are near, and I know whe—OH!”

In what seemed to be out of thin air, several other crows caught up to them and collided with Nature and Jack, cutting off the former’s sentence. A whirlwind of blackened bodies and screeches, they rushed past the pair in sharp and disorienting chaos. Jack instinctively shielded himself with his arms and staff as they passed, their collisions breaking his speed. He faintly heard a few yelps from Nature, which grew closer as she also slowed down. When Jack safely opened his eyes again, he was met with a bewildering murder of crows flapping ahead of him, numbering in several dozen and engulfing their original target. The two of them remained floating together, halted in front of their strange storm. They were somewhere over an ocean, stormy seas far beneath them with no land in sight.

Jack, frankly, was a little dumbfounded. This only grew when he felt the sensation of something gritty running down his neck. He swiped at it, his hand coming back to show small specks of black debris. His stomach flipped.

“These… these aren’t natural,” Nature said breathily, mirroring his thoughts, her hair tousled. “These aren’t mine .” She turned to Jack with a steely look. “I need to destroy them, they cannot escape. Do you understand?”

Despite his burgeoning concern, despite the bizarre nature of the last day, despite having even less answers than before, something stirred within Jack to listen, to trust. He had had a sense that something ancient and unknown was at play, beyond his current understanding with scary familiarity. Above all, he knew Mother Nature was his ally, a spirit in the same world as him. He was not on his own in trying to find answers.

So he simply nodded. “I’ve got you.”

There was a flash of gratitude on Nature’s face. While the sprite’s easygoing nature had not exactly been the easiest to comprehend, she knew he was true to his Guardian namesake. She closed her eyes, sharply inhaling before beginning to morph.

Mother Nature’s bodysuit of bark grew, thickening and climbing up her neck to her chin and around the back of her head to become a thick helmet of complex roots. The top of it ended in an outstretched crown. Jack watched in wonder as a heavy branch grew from her inner arm, shaping itself into a strong bow that eventually snapped off. Her fingers—now talons, thanks to her newly extended suit—wrapped around the riser as her other hand tore a grown arrow from her back. 

Nature was now a deadly archer of the skies, clad in sharper earth than before.

“Show me what you can do, Jackson,” she yelled over the wind, notching her arrow. 

Jack felt a surge of adrenaline, a grin spreading on his face. He flexed his fingers, readjusting his grip on his staff that was beginning to glow an icy white.

“Gladly.” 

He spun with fervor, sweeping his staff from down below to the sky in a large arc in the direction of the murder. A massive spray of wind and ice shot out, colliding and breaking up its formation. Frost coated several of the birds’ wings and beaks, freezing up small parts of their sandy form. The toll was obvious, yet they persisted and continued to grow in ferocity. Jack threw himself across the sky around the birds, blasting frigid wind. He was creating a winter tempest, a dry storm of bleak winter that held its own chilled roar as he built it with ease. A cheer escaped his lips, laughter spilling out as he whipped around in his own gale. 

There was something intoxicating about always finding joy in his own lawless making.

A distinguishable whizz of air cut through his own and he turned to look at Nature, who was already firing off another arrow. She hit with precision, each shot hitting a crow squarely in the middle. Her targets exploded in small showers of sand and ice. Jack briefly realized that she could be doing all his feats on her own, but she was decidedly not with him, focusing on her marksmanship.

As he rounded around the flock again, momentum still gaining, a crow unexpectedly shot out of the swarm and headed straight for Jack’s face. He attempted to spin away, but the bird still managed to clip the side of his face, his head thrown to the side. It was followed by the strange sensation of sand scraping and dispersing against his skin. He felt a slight prickle of blood on his cheek, superficial enough that it clammed up almost immediately.

Jack shook his head, falling back slightly. “ Shit ,” he muttered, his eyes and surrounding skin growing itchy as he rubbed at it.

His storm began to weaken, Nature immediately taking notice after picking off another dozen, including the crow she watched circle back around him. She watched as he furiously scrubbed his eyes, staff lowered as he drifted further away. Another crow attempted to break free and attack her in similar fashion, but she spun around with her own talons out, slashing the beast into useless handfuls of sand that fell away. She fixed her gaze on Jack again, who was becoming more agitated by the moment. Which also meant his gale was dying out—he was becoming dangerously vulnerable.

“Jackson!” she shouted, firing off several more arrows, each meeting their mark as she kept other attacks at bay. “Come on!”

“I know ,” he yelled back aggressively, and she saw a bright flash of his eyes as he shot her an unnaturally vicious glare. Even in the short time she had known Jack, it felt uncharacteristic of him. His anger was only growing, seemingly fueled by whatever the crow had left behind that he was desperately trying to rub away. He let out a low growl, sweeping his staff in front of him and frantically looking around. He was no longer in the fight, instead training his annoyance on Nature.

She narrowed her eyes back at him. Nature was not going to lose control of their fight, not if she could help it. She rose up, above both the birds and Jack, and stuck her arm out in the air. 

“ Where do you think you’re going?” Jack yelled at her, gritting his teeth. “You giving up already?”

Nature ignored him, concentrating. Within seconds, heavy, dark clouds collected above them, gathered at the nymph’s will. The distinct smell of rain permeated their atmospheric bubble, damp and rusty. Her own small storm harbored some of her personal magic, subtly glistening with it. After a few heartbeats, Nature flung her wind and rain straight at Jack. It hit him in the upper abdomen and face, briefly soaking him before the controlled weather fell apart and disappeared.

Jack inhaled sharply, blinking his eyes open with renowned clarity. He scanned his surroundings, confused, gripping his staff again.

“Not losing you that easily,” Nature said, taking note of her magic flecking around his head for just a moment, little pinpoints of green glow. 

“Thanks,” Jack breathed. He wanted to apologize for his distraction, but his thoughts were interrupted by another attacking bird breaking free from its flock. Instead of dodging it this time, he threw up a wall of icicles, the wild thing impaling itself before disintegrating. 

The pair exchanged glances, understanding passing between them. They needed to get rid of this murder before anything else. 

Jack called upon his snow with renowned strength, a small smirk returning to his face once again as he let his power flow. His storm grew sharper and wilder, rounding up the crows and slowly freezing them to death, in whatever sense they died in. He threw his arms forward as he shaped it, whizzing around and around in an adrenaline-fueled flight. All of his senses were lit up, from the whistling wind ripping through his hair to the cool mist of the clouds pelting his face. He let himself fall into his own chaos, ice running through his veins.

Nature held a small satisfied smile, her arrows cracking through Jack’s ice and splitting her targets apart. Slowly but surely, she whittled the flock down into less and less impressive numbers. Jack followed suite, downsizing his tempest until only a measly few remained. Nature killed all but one. The remaining crow was barely keeping itself afloat, frost covering almost the entirety of its body. She grabbed it with a bark-covered hand, the bird screeching in her face. Nature did not flinch, just simply examined the creature.

Jack slowly came to a stop, still humming with energy. He floated next to Nature, taking a peek at the crow after quickly watching her bow reattach and grow back into her armor.

“You okay?” she asked, giving him a once-over. The cut on his face was sealed over at this point, and no traces of black debris lingered.

“I think so,” he responded. “I… don’t really know what happened there.”

“I have a starting theory, but first, do you find anything familiar about these creatures?”

The sprite swallowed uneasily. “Yeah. That’s Pitch’s nightmare sand. I’m almost certain.” He was very aware of how his snow interacted with the Boogeyman’s gravel.

Nature narrowed her eyes on the bird. “Any idea why this thing is watching you? Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I recall that you all mentioned that Pitchiner was no longer a threat. Not a peep from him, verbatim.”

“Well… yeah. We did. He is. I haven’t seen anything like this in decades.” Jack frowned at the elongated name, his unease only growing. 

Nature grunted. “Lovely. Looks like he knows I’m here now.” She gripped the bird harder, and Jack watched in awe as she crushed the crow in her hand. She dusted off the blackened sand from her claws, the air around them now calm. “Let’s head back and check on your friends and those little fairies, shall we? Seems like we’ve got a lot more to talk about.”

Jack paused, new and frightening questions swimming in his brain, before he simply nodded. He needed all of the Guardians with him first before he dared to speak his fears into reality.

“Thank you for the quick shower,” he added in an attempt to be lighthearted. Little pinpricks of ice hung from various edges of his cloak.

She softened a bit, the tension in her shoulders loosening. “Of course. I’m not sure what you guys are dealing with, so we’ll have to be careful from here on out.” Already, her bark began to retract, seeping back down to her neck. Her fingers lost their sharpness and her braid tumbled back out. Much of her battle-strung tension rolled off with her transformation, returning to her seemingly normal form.

“... You like to race?”

Nature blinked, taken aback by the question. “What?”

“Back to Tooth’s palace. You wanna race?” Jack floated in front of Nature, cheekily grinning. “I’m undefeated,” he said in a sing-song voice.

“Sanderson has never beaten you?” she asked incredulously, then looked almost surprised at her own question.

“Well, he’s never really tried… I think he’s being nice. Not the point, I’m asking you.”

Jack watched Mother Nature look unsure how to answer something for the first time since they’d met. Her constant unspoken stress had not gone unnoticed by him, even if he didn’t fully understand where it was coming from. He beckoned her with his staff.

“I… fine. Sure, I’ll race you.” She brushed strands of hair back from her forehead, throwing her shoulders back. She did not let herself forget about their predicament, but a faint smile could not help but work its way onto her face. “Just once, to set the record.”

“Knew it!” Jack laughed. “Now you show me what you’ve got.”

☽ ◯ ☾

Whatever enjoyment Nature has showcased in their race was immediately wiped away upon entering Tooth’s castle. Despite beating Jack by mere moments and leaving him somehow breathless from flying, she only shot a small satisfied smile before turning her attention away. Still, it was enough for Jack to be content with his loss.

Luckily for him, none of the others had been paying much attention. 

“Oh, Jackie, careful!” Tooth cried out, zipping over to him and stopping him in his tracks. “We haven’t picked up everyone yet.” Much of her typical jewelry and breezy shawls were missing.

He looked down to find fairies fast asleep on the ornate floor, their numbers stretching across the entire floor of the place. Sandy had been busy; whomever he had not hit with his sand yet seemed to have calmed down, flitting worryingly around Tooth. Aster was still hopping around carefully collecting them and returning them to their little homes while North and Sandy conversed.

“Are your pixies all right?” Nature asked not unkindly, floating over. 

“I think so,” Tooth responded. She was exhausted, dropping her forehead on Jack’s shoulder. He snaked a comforting arm around her back. “I don’t know what came over them. They’ve never acted like this. I’m just happy none of the teeth were lost or destroyed.”

“That’s good to hear.” Nature lay a hand on her shoulder, surveying the area before facing the whole group. “Now… you lot have quite a bit of explaining to do.”

Her angry tone caught everyone off guard. Aster rounded back to them, furrowing his brow while Sandy and North got closer. Tooth popped back up, concerned.

“What do you mean?” North asked.

“If my memory serves me right, you told me Pitchiner is not a threat, that you had not heard a word from him in decades .” Her voice heightened. “Tell me why he is watching you? ”

Aster stopped forward defensively. “What’re you talkin’ about?” he snapped. “He ain’t watching shite.”

“Oh, yeah? Are you used to crows being made of black sand? Or your fairies being stifled with unexplained rage, sending them into a frenzy?”

Everyone stiffened, Jack wincing. “The crows were nightmare sand,” he said quietly. “They reacted to my ice like it had last time. And they… hurt. In a weird way. He’s done something to his power, something that blurs your thinking. Me, the fairies… none of this is natural.” He glanced at Nature as he said the last sentence.

She sighed, rubbing her face in frustration. Sandy floated up, a firm look on his face as he projected several images.

“No, Sanderson, no! Clearly Pitchiner has been left to fester. Now you have him converting my life into awful creations with unknown magic! So now, what, Lunar wants me to jump in and fix it? Again? What does he take me for? He thinks I’m going to try and do this all over again, is he?”

Nature was properly breaking down, her regality fizzing away. Sandy stood robust, letting her yell for a few moments before grabbing her wrists and bringing them in between them. She met him with frantic eyes, trying to tear away. With a soft blow, a small breeze of golden specks dusted along her face, settling quickly. She inhaled deeply, the tension in her face instantly loosening. 

“Sorry… sorry, Sandy,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.” Her head sank forward, her shoulders dropping.

The dreammaker gently brushed hair away from her forehead, sprinkling some more sand before beckoning North over. The saint immediately understood, striding over to gently grab Nature and lead her over to where the group had previously been sitting. By the time he had helped her sit upon the cushions, she was properly asleep, all traces of her frustration gone.

Aster released a large exhale. “There’s somethin’ personal, ain’t there Sandy?”

The dreammaker nodded, before reluctantly expressing that he actually was not entirely sure what led to Mother Nature going dormant.

Jack frowned. “Wait, so there’s gaps in your history? You don't know what she means by 'all over again?'”

Sandy sadly affirmed.

“Great,” he muttered.

“Besides the point, what now?” Aster interjected again, irritated. “We’ve clearly gotta problem.”

“Now we find Pitch and we figure out what he is doing to make Manny bring that poor girl back,” North said sternly. He turned. “Jack, tell us what you two saw.”

As he explained their fight to the Guardians, Sandy became more and more pensive. He glanced back at Nature, supposedly deciding something before facing them again. He waved for their attention as soon as Jack ended his story. 

The area became incredibly quiet as he conveyed his message, the few fairies left sitting placidly around the castle. They’d have to return to their work soon, when the others would arise.

“I think that is best next step, Sandy,” North said, tiredly bringing a hand to his face. “What Jack said… I don't like leaving this alone.”

“Why didn’t you mention these weird dreams before?” Tooth asked.

Jack ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t think much of it when he showed me either,” he replied with a sigh. “But now I think there’s more to it than we thought.” The resurgence of Pitch within his life was shaking him up more than he’d like—he really thought it was the end of it fifty years ago. He thought he was done feeling scared and alone, like he was going to lose everything he felt he had earned. He thought he had finally silenced his uncertainties, his question marks. At least most of them.

Sandy floated over to where Nature rested, conjuring up a small ball of sand. This sand, however, was different. Paler, less luminescent. He let it disperse on her face before turning to the rest of them, signaling.

It was time to enter the domain of the Sandman.

Chapter Text

Being knocked out by Sandy’s dream sand was much like resting beneath the surface, Nature had realized quite quickly. 

It was hard to explain what it was like being alive yet inert. Despite smothering her physical form, it was like freeing her mind of its worldly constraints and stretching beyond what one might think possible. She breathed through her trees, spoke through her wind, felt through her grounds. The ecosystems she watched over became a part of her. It was feelings that were comprehended, rather than any of the typical five senses. The feeling of unrest, of peace, of the people appreciating and exploiting and ignoring the nature around them. Everything was always growing. Mother Nature was solid, ever present. She did not move, she did not change her core, she received and carried it all. Yes, she was dead to the world, but they were never dead to her.

That was where her relief ended, because unlike her grave, this was not her realm of earthy control. She was instead stuck in the expanse of her own mind.

There was a reason she had stayed in a cocoon of her own making for so long.

Nature woke with a start, her eyes flying open and searching around frantically as she came to. Her breathing was harsh, sweat beading on her forehead.

“Ay, breathe,” Aster said, looking down at her with a hint of concern. “You’re alright.”

She rolled to her side with a groan, slowly sitting up. She silently willed her breathing to slow down, trying to mask any of her panic. “Where’s Sanderson? He’s never allowed to put me to sleep again,” she gritted out.

“Let’s go tell ‘im that, then.” The bunny was not one to probe, and he carefully watched Nature get to her feet. In spite of her best efforts, he could easily hear the pounding of her heart. “Not a fan of dreamin’?”

“I thought they were supposed to be nice dreams,” she muttered in response. “Was not very fun for…” Her voice trailed off as she took in their surroundings. 

They were nestled within an old and cracked stern of an enclosed ship, thick glass surrounding them and the metal frame. It seemed almost ripped from the rest of itself, ending abruptly near where they stood in a mess of twisted alloy and exposed gears that interrupted its smooth composition. The supernatural metal it was made of seemed to perpetual glow with a soft light from within. It resembled neither a sea vessel or a spaceship, an unfamiliar build of its own. 

This was only bolstered by the sprawling landscape beyond the abandoned ship. A stunning sea of stars, with cosmic auroras colorfully weaving their way through the inky space. Nature peered curiously, not recognizing any familiar constellation across several of the systems she knew. It was endless, an expanse only broken by what looked to be the remnants of a fractured ship, hanging against the backdrop of the sky. Different, open pieces of the craft revealed various parts of the old thing, from the main area to the controls. From what they could see on their little isle, they looked almost frozen in time. 

As far as she—and frankly the other Guardians—knew of the Sandman’s abilities, he crafted dreams in his own unexplainable way, his sand seemingly coming from himself. This seemed to be a manifestation of his work, melded together from its purest form into its full potential. His domain was free from any of their influence, only accessible through him.

“Crazy what he can do,” Aster said, tilting his head back. “I didn’t know he had different dream sand.”

“That’s what this is? I thought…” 

“Nah, he had put ya to sleep, but then he used this other kind of sand after. Told us it was to visit his dream realm.” Aster shifted slightly. 

Nature stayed quiet, a small wave of shame washing over her. She had not forgotten her outburst, the way she allowed her voice to raise and her panic to spill through. It was a loss of control that she hated and tried her best to not think about. Thankfully, she was with the Guardian that simply understood.

“Where is everyone else?” she asked, realizing that they were alone.  

“Sandy mentioned that we might wake up in different places. Should be able to spot his Royal Sandiness in here. You’re the first of us I found.” He gestured out into the space. “Good to find the rest?”

Nature stepped forward to the jagged edge of the stern, letting herself hang out while holding on with a hand. There was no wind or sound to be had, realizing she was waiting for a comforting breeze to hit her. 

“Sure. What do you propose?”

“Well, sheila,” Aster started, followed by a small jump. He rose up much higher than expected, slowly landing back on the metal floor. “Reckon we check the other parts of this ship.”

Without warning, the bunny launched himself out of their small platform. Nature startled, watching him soar through the sea of stars in an effortless flight. He eventually landed gently on the nearest remnant of the vessel, which seemed to be the ends of an old hallway. She watched him shake his shoulders, a smile creeping on his face. 

“C’mon! Quite fun if ya ask me!”

Nature pursed her lips, examining the space between them. She itched to fly herself, employing her own magic. After another look at the breathtaking scenery around them, she silently relented to the Sandman and his domain. With a slight step back, the nymph pushed off of her feet with as much effort as she dared. A terrifying lightness overtook her body and alarm gripped her heart again as she tried to maintain her control, realizing she may have overestimated herself. It was not like her own flight, where she could manipulate her own path. She was instead trying to steer her overshot attempt to land where Aster stood, lest she find out what the great beyond of the realm looked like.

“Oi! Yer hand!”

The rabbit hung forward, a paw outstretched to intercept. Nature flung her arm out, catching his own and gripping tightly. He quickly pulled her in with a heave, the pair coming to a stumbling stop within the ship remains. 

Nature immediately straightened. “Thank you,” she exhaled.

“Ya know, I saw you fly outta Tooth’s place like a bloody rocket. Surely you know how to fly.”

She gave him a slightly offended once over. “I do know how to fly, Aster.”

“Ehh, I dunno,” he said, almost in a taunt. “You weren’t exactly aimed for this landing strip.” 

“I’d like to see you try,” she retorted. “You cannot even handle Nicholas’ sleigh.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Before Nature could respond to his goading, Aster stepped a few steps backward, grinning and springing off into the space again. She instinctively reached out to grab him, scrambling to the other end of the fragmented hall. He gave an infuriating wave mid-flight before spinning around, latching onto the next closest part of the ship and swinging inside. 

“Hey!” she shouted. “Don’t do that!”

“Do what? Fly? I thought ya told me to,” he yelled back.

“Don’t scare me, you jackass!”

“It’s usually jackrabbit,” he said, surprised by but enjoying her crass language. She spoke like an old playwright half the time.

Nature gritted her teeth, before giving a placating smile. “Hilarious, truly.”

Fueled by their bicker, she teetered on the edge of her platform, Aster watching amusedly. This was not her realm, it was the Guardian of Dreams'. As much as she wished to control it, she accepted she could not. With a deep breath and a better sense of her weight, Nature pushed off. Instead of tensing up like before, she forced herself to relax, loosening her muscles. She smoothly sailed across, tilting herself in order to land feet first. Aster held his ground, before relenting and stepping away. She landed right next to him almost flawlessly. 

“No need to show off,” Aster laughed. “It’s alright if I happen to fly better than you, ya know.”

Nature stepped closer, sizing him up. “Wow, the dream sand must have hit you particularly hard.”

The bunny smiled again, stepping back and getting ready to jump off to their next point. He sensed that the nymph’s nerves were significantly less frayed, her heart beating at a more relaxed rate. He could also see through her thinly veiled annoyance that, maybe, she was enjoying herself. 

They continued traversing the realm this way, discovering more pieces of the wreck. Nature gave each landing a quick look out of curiosity before their next jump, not spotting any artifacts or loose items within each part of the ship. It was simply smooth walls, smooth corners, and smooth interior controls. 

“I think Sandy’s nearby,” Aster called. He pointed out of their current platform, where thin golden streams of sand were now present around them. They stemmed from what seemed to be the largest part of the suspended ship, a few jumps away, brighter with golden sand than the others. 

“Observant.”

“Ya got jokes now, do ya?”

Nature could not help her grin, so she jumped off their current ship piece instead, heading for the hull of the vessel. She could hear Aster following suit, but she continued to fly closer without pause. Within a few moments, the bright figure of Tooth appeared in their vision. She waved at them vehemently. 

“Found them,” Nature called back. 

“Observant!” 

The nymph landed with flourish on the large hull next to a waiting Tooth. Aster joined them a second later, stretching his arms. 

“Quite the Guardian you’ve got to deal with,” Nature commented, shooting him a look before venturing further into the shipwreck. Almost like a switch, her focus was no longer on them. 

“What did you say?” Tooth whispered, smacking the rabbit’s arm. 

“You insult me, Toothy,” he said. “I only treated our guest with respect.”

The fairy narrowed her eyes as they started moving to catch up, playfully dubious. 

Nature took in this part of the ship, which was obviously the hull of its whole. A large panel of controls sat at the other end, where Sandy and Nicholas stood surrounded by an open ceiling, as if the glass in its place had been removed. This piece was much grander and ornate than the others, creating an ethereal atmosphere. Their backs were turned, the large man obviously engrossed in the mechanics of the unmoving ship. 

“I do not recognize any of this, Sandy,” he mused, running a hand over a few switches. “Very interesting design, almost like computer than a running machine.”

Sandy shrugged, indicating in pictures that North wasn’t entirely wrong. He saw the others returning, turning to greet Nature first. She stopped, looking at him with an unreadable expression. The Sandman simply walked over and gently grabbed her hand, a reassuring smile on his face as he led her back to his spot. The others watched her shoulders relax a little bit, seemingly releasing her qualms.

The dreammaker let go and sent out a trail of sand away and over the edge of the craft’s open front, vanishing from their view. It traveled down to the bottom of the ship, where Jack sat with his feet dangling, staring out as he let his staff run through the streaming trails of sand. He had not gotten nearly enough of the view when Sandy’s message appeared in front of him.

“Coming, snoozie,” Jack’s voice rang out. The hooked end of his staff appeared on the lip of the floor, straining slightly as he pulled himself up and over. He was not wearing his usual cloak, replaced by his older blue frosted hoodie. 

“I like your sweater,” Nature said in an effort to keep any awkwardness at bay.

“Thanks! I’m not sure how I got into it from the real world to sleepy land, but it’s a favorite.” His relaxed demeanor kept the tension low, many unspoken things being bypassed.

“Are there any more pieces of this ship past this one?” she asked, genuinely curious.

Jack shook his head. Tooth flapped her wings once, lifting off for a few moments to peer past the console. “Why are we in a broken ship, Sandy?” 

Everyone looked to the dreammaker pointedly, but he was focused on something else entirely. Both of his hands were raised as he sat atop a cloud of sand, weaving with wide sweeps of his hand. They watched in amazement as a golden stage was formed, its actors slowly emerging as the scene was set. Sandy looked back to them, projecting a few images over his head.

“You have the children’s every dream stored?” North said in astonishment. “Maybe that’s why you need all this space.” He smiled as the pun earned him a few eye rolls.

“Is this one of those weird ones?” Jack asked. Sandy nodded before turning back and allowing the dream to begin. 

A playground, a sunny day, a gaggle of kids swinging and helping one another to play games. A simple enough setting that there was a chance the dream was not remembered in the morning. That never mattered; dreams had a way of leaving an imprint on a child’s mind regardless. It was innocent, an endearing visual for the Guardians of Childhood. 

Like the last dream Jack saw, this picture did not last long. What he did not anticipate was how much more jarring it could’ve become.

The main child of the dream suddenly shoved one of their friends without warning, their face twisted in anger. It stuttered like a bad roll of film, skipping ahead to the child now shouting at the others with demands. The usually pristine golden shimmer faded and flickered, as if a candle trying to keep itself alight. They watched in trepidation as the child began to steal, to bully, to fight with the others. 

“That’s… not a nightmare,” Tooth uttered. “That’s almost… cruel. Unusual.”

Sandy’s brows were deeply furrowed as he observed. Another splay of images played above him.

“Well of course ya didn’t script this,” Aster said. “Can ya fix it?”

The dreammaker indicated that he could manually do so, but it took an effort he did not have for the frequency it was happening. He had never had to fix his dreams before, after all.

“There’s no fear here, not like Pitch’s nightmares,” Jack pointed out uneasily. “No darkness, no monsters, just a kid losing it when they’re not known to. What kid harbors hate like that?”

Sandy quickly conjured up another dream. A similar formula followed: a child sat in a classroom, happily drawing until their teacher passed by. The lines of the image rippled again and it jumped forward to the same child yelling in frustration. Pencils snapped, desks were shoved, and an uncanny chaos ensued.

Jack’s expression darkened, an unsettling pang of familiarity echoing within him. “These aren’t just dreams going bad, Sandy, not anymore. That’s unfiltered rage. That’s emotion taking it over. I can’t believe I didn’t catch it…” He trailed off, his mouth going dry as he tried to stay calm.

Nature watched the dream intently as he spoke. She glanced at Sandy. “Can you rewind it a few seconds, maybe four or five, and pause it?”

The dreammaker obliged as Jack continued. “It’s not fear that Pitch is inciting. It’s what comes after. It’s the anger.”

“He make the children angry?” North repeated incredulously. “He cannot do that, that’s not his power.”

The vision halted, a still snapshot of the child in conflict with the teacher and students. Nature peered at the image, her hand still raised.

There in the backdrop of the room was a small, dark mass, hidden behind a desk. Almost masked by the golden wash of the dream sand were two deep red pinpricks of eyes, frozen and poised to vanish in the next frame.

Nature stilled, a horrified look forming on her face. She took a small step forward as if she couldn’t get a close enough look, raising a hand to point out the almost indiscernible anomaly. 

“Oh, cosmos above,” she whispered. “He’s learned how to breed Fearlings again.”

Everyone’s head snapped to her, the air suddenly becoming heavy. 

“What did you say?” Aster said lowly, glancing between her and the inky mass. 

“You let him learn again,” she repeated in anguish, her raised voice breaking the lull of the group. “He’s come back with Fearlings and he’s targeting the children.”

“Nature,” North said fiercely. “What is a Fearling. Explain. Now.” 

The nymph slowly sank to the floor, frantically rubbing her palms on her legs. It felt like there were several screams trapped underneath her skin, a sense of terror she could not stop, could not placate.  The Guardians quickly followed, creating a tight circle in a subconscious effort to ground her. She continued to whisper, refusing to look at any of them. 

“Pitchiner became who he is not by choice. It was by force. He was a general, a grand general from the Golden Ages who was a protector of the people. Just like you.” She looked up wearily. “He fought against the fear you do, he was the hero of children the same way you are. But he didn’t have any Guardians to help. He was alone in that constant battle. And eventually the darkness took control of him, and fear gained a vessel it never had before.

“They’re fear incarnate. Fearlings are manifestations of Pitch’s power, the same way Sandy’s dreams are of his. They twist and contort, they are unspeakable little devils that do not know anything else but to terrify and anger. They were the ones to overtake him. And somehow, somehow he’s managed to bring them back.”

It became silent, her words striking like daggers into each Guardian. Pitch suddenly morphed into a much more sinister figure, their last interaction with him now a dull reassurance. This was entirely new knowledge of Pitch and his existence, something they had not bothered to truly think about. The Boogeyman had always just been… there. To insinuate more to him than himself was unthinkable.

“The sand,” Aster said abruptly. “You both said them crows were made out of his sand, that they made Frost act all weird. And you said he was messin’ with your animals. Were them crows Fearlings?”

“I think they’re the first we’ve seen,” Nature responded, trying her best to hold back tears. “I think he’s learned how to gather that magic again, but they need a vessel still. Your sand, my animals. For all you know there’s been an army being built for the last half century.

“You keep mentioning that he learned this ‘again’” Jack interjected, his voice high. “What does that mean? Where have Fearlings been this whole time?”

“They’ve been eradicated for centuries. Only Pitchiner remained. He isn’t supposed to know how to bring them back. We have to stop him, you don’t understand,” she pleaded. “If he continues it won’t just be unwarranted anger. Those Fearlings killed. They corrupted and rampaged. They brought about the Dark Ages. We have to stop him.”

Their alarm was increasingly getting higher, nerves bouncing between each Guardian and Nature like electricity. North pushed himself to his feet, ire coming off him in waves. “Sandy, take us back now. If we are under attack or going to be we must secure our posts. We must go now.”

Without hesitation, Sandy drew up a curtain of the same pale sand he had used before, sending it out in a quick shower. The group immediately passed out, their dream forms slumping forward before awakening almost instantly. They awoke with bleary blinks, sprawled around Tooth’s cushions. Sandy hovered above them, opening his eyes. 

Nature immediately groaned, clutching her head and rolling to her side. There were several lights flashing from North’s sleigh, quiet bells ringing incessantly. His reindeer were up, restlessly stomping around and whinnying.

“Ay, what is it?” Aster said, grabbing Nature’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“My head…” she said weakly. “It’s pounding.”

North ran to his machine. Jack stood still, back in his cloak, his heart in his throat. For the first time in what he’d had hoped would’ve been forever, he had no idea what to do. Hell, nothing had fully registered within him. His mind didn’t want to.

“Something’s attacking me,” Nature cried out, pulling herself to her feet with the rabbit’s help. “Something’s wrong!”

Tooth flew over to North, who was now frantically climbing into his sleigh. “North?”

“IT IS MY YETIS,” he bellowed, grabbing the reins. “My workshop is under attack!”

Chapter Text

Santa Claus’ imposing workshop, nestled deep in the icy recesses of the Northern Pole, was almost always a hub of constant activity. The toy maker never grew tired of his work and always pursued newer, prettier, more innovative inventions. It was why his domain never slept, never slowed down. He was a master of the craft, and it was not only limited to his toys. The fur lined clothing that was a comfort to Jack, the swords carved with gorgeous designs that hung on Tooth’s back, the rich leather holster Aster always wore; North showed his love through his work, wonder imbued in each item. 

That sense of wonder was broken for the first time in centuries. 

There was a terrible ache reverberating within the group as they charged into the workshop. Tooth felt deeply vulnerable, flashbacks to Pitch’s attack on her own sanctuary running through her mind. Nature had waved Aster and Sandy off, a look of fury and pain etched on her face as she marched clad in her armored bark. Jack gripped his staff, his breath laced with frost as his heart pounded in his chest. 

“We kill any shadow, nightmare, Fearling, whatever,” North growled, unsheathing his sword. “Understand?” There was something deeply unsettling about the fury in Santa Claus’ face, a thirst for battle Jack had never seen.

Somehow in the tundra, his icy power in his bones, Jack felt a deep chill hit them like a wave upon opening the grand doors. 

Instead of the warm, bustling workshop Jack always looked forward to, they were met with a different kind of chaos. The yetis were in a frenzy, a lust for destruction that was uncanny as they slammed toys and tools apart, attacking each other unprovoked. Fights were breaking out every second and displays upon rows of crafted items were destroyed. The yetis were no longer the goofy, protective sentinels of the Claus workshop; they were wild, vicious in an unnatural way, looking to attack, to hurt. It was as if they suddenly hated the work they did, the place they lived. It was a bitter uprising against a nonexistent enemy.

That was a lie. The group knew immediately that Pitch was no longer present, the sickening feeling that used to overtake them nowhere to be felt. It was his residue, the mess he left behind they had to quell. Somehow, the unrestricted anarchy, the lack of its master to control it, it all felt so much worse. Whatever it was, it was running amok and infecting each yeti and elf with the same type of hate that Jack had felt for a few terrifying moments. The kind that made him turn on his own friend. The kind that was destroying North’s entire purpose.

“ Look out!” Aster shouted as he flung one of his boomerangs out at a toy flying towards them. It collided, a spray of wooden splinters he launched himself through to catch his weapon and immediately enter the fray.

“Try not to harm the yetis or the elves,” Nature commanded with a wince. There was a small rumble beneath them. “And look out for any cracks in the ice. I’m not sorry in advance.”

There it was again, that uncanny synchronicity each of them fell into as they engaged. Maybe it was residue from their last fight, maybe it was because of their utter trust in each other, maybe it was because they had the same goal. All they knew was that the Guardians were threatened and North needed their help. 

It became quickly apparent that this was going to be much harder to combat than the pixies. The yetis were larger, wilder, less scared and more angry. More violent. Jack never thought he’d feel threatened by the lovable workers of the North Pole, but here he was anxiously breathing frost. 

Seeing a lack of tangible shadow to slice apart, North and Tooth sheathed their blades. The former threw his coat aside, exposing his impressive build while the latter flew above Sandy and stuck her hands in the fountain of dream sand he had conjured. He scooped up mounds of his own sand, a slingshot materialized in his hands that he began to take aim with. Tooth zipped around and began sprinkling it on each yeti North wrestled to hold still, ripping toys and tools out of their hands and pinning them down. Aster was deeper into the workshop, following suit as he broke up fights and began wrangling yetis away from the inner work areas with the rope on his back. 

Nature was summoning twisted brown roots from underneath the ice, an unnatural sight on the snowy surface of the shop’s floor. They broke in orderly lines, shooting up and latching onto yetis to keep them in place. Jack played off her earth, sending ice up and over them to surround the yetis and freeze them where they stood without hurting or frostbiting them. Already, there was control beginning to be had. 

Until Tooth suddenly shouted, panic rich in her voice. 

“ Sandy! Some of them aren’t falling asleep! It’s like your sand is not working!”

The dreammaker’s typical composure dropped where he stood, a rarity in itself. Sandy looked at Tooth questioningly, with a sharpness that made it seem like he almost didn’t believe her. To insinuate that the Sandman’s sand was not working was nothing short of sinister, an impossibility. A living nightmare waiting to happen. His gaze moved from his friends to the yetis they had in place, watching in horror as Tooth’s attempt to send a particularly rowdy yeti to sleep failed. The dust fell uselessly against its face, nothing but a few hurried blinks to acknowledge it. 

“Damn it all, how has he strengthened them so much already?” Nature said as she threw her arm up, another group of roots splitting the ground open. Her carved suit was alight with emerald veins, pulsing with her heartbeat. “You’re going to have to work overtime with me, Jackson. We’re going to need that Center of yours.”

Jack immediately understood, confidence slowly blooming in his chest. At least for the time being, they had something to try and combat the Fearling’s effect, something they had used before. Both his hands came together, forming a tight ball of snow between his fingers instantaneously. He fed the snow a bit of his other magic, the shimmery blue dust that loosened one’ shoulders and brought a grin to their face. The magic that allowed him to understand his core, his Guardianship. 

“Keep them still, and keep spreading Sandy’s dreams,” he instructed loudly. “And catch!”

He tossed a snowball after another to North, then Aster, then began to throw a few himself. He aimed for the yetis’ faces, watching his snow explode as they landed. The familiar spray of that same blue magic twinkled in front of their eyes for a few brief moments, and for those moments the affected yetis demeanors changed. They stilled, the ravenous look their eyes being overtaken with a confused glance around them. Tooth immediately dropped a handful of dream sand on one, and it slumped asleep almost immediately. 

“More, Jack, more!” North said triumphantly, hope flickering on his face. “Break them out of this curse!”

An idea crossed his mind, and he quickly flew over to where Nature stood, calculating and precise as she moved wind and earth. He waved in front of her, careful not to touch and startle her. 

“Your magic, yeah? Bring it here with me,” he said, gesturing towards Sandy’s fountain of dreams. “I have an idea.”

Nature glanced between him and the sand, her eyes landing on the glittering light beginning to emanate from his palms. That was enough to nod and follow, still keeping her focus on controlling her branches.

They rushed over to Sandy, where he continued to conjure more sand for Tooth and him to send off. Jack stuck his hand into the golden pool without warning, closing his eyes briefly to concentrate.

Sandy glanced frantically between him and Nature, but before she could try to offer an explanation in between her attacks, Jack’s eyes flew open. He watched as the sand began to take on a light blue sheen, glowing particles of ice imbuing into it with every passing breath. Just like Sandy's domain sand, this new combination was familiar yet different. The first of something new, something remarkable. 

“It worked,” he exhaled with a small laugh. “You too, Nature. Add your magic, whatever helped clear me up before. We can hit them with this, break through the trance enough for the dream sand to land.”

Without a second thought, Nature sunk her palm into the sand, the green lines outlining the carvings of her bark burning with light for a few moments as she inhaled deeply. A green shine began to form, turning the already gorgeous sand into a lustrous, shimmery powder of dreams, of joy, of Mother Nature’s inherent love for the life she watched over. A dream sand of several properties, of the efforts of the Guardians, of protection and cleansing and everything good they tried to uphold.

Sandy stared at his altered magic, before looking up with a determined expression. He nodded eagerly, holding a palm to Nature’s cheek in appreciation. She did not pull away, but instead let herself lean against it for only a moment, briefly closing her eyes. Jack grabbed a handful of sand, holding it up to the fluttering Tooth above him.

“Try this out for size, Toothie,” he said with a small satisfied smile. “I’m right behind you.”

She immediately scooped up the pearly sand, spinning over two of the bound yetis and letting it fall over their hands. Everyone watched in anticipation as it settled, little gold and blue and green gems peppering their fur. Like a transformation, they watched the two yetis blink their aggression away, confused grunts before they were knocked to sleep in a matter of seconds. 

“Of course playin’ with potions works for you, Frost,” Aster commented sarcastically, a smirk playing on his face as he tugged another yeti from the inner shop towards them. 

“Just say thank you next time, Bunny.” Jack felt a slight giddiness as he threw showers of the altered dream sand, beyond disbelief that his idea had worked. 

Just as he closed in on the remaining yetis, floating over the sleeping ones, his ears picked up on an incoming noise. Heavy steps resounded from deep within the shop. It seemed like there was a straggler, finally making his way to where the Guardians stood.

Aster turned expectantly with his rope in his hand, but before he could register it the emerging yeti swung for his head. The punch sent the rabbit violently to the side, and he landed with a large thump several paces away. 

“ Aster !” Jack called, flinging his staff instinctively to the ground in front of the fallen Guardian. It nailed into the wood upright, its twine alighting with blinding power before unleashing an icy burst, sending the large yeti stumbling back a few steps from advancing on the unconscious Aster. Jack finally registered that it had one of North’s swords, gripping a golden bellguard that it had punched Aster with. There was a red glint in the yeti’s eyes, stronger than any of the others. Stronger in a way that shadows rolled off its back in waves, deep and inky, an air-sucking frigidness emanating from its body. 

This only propelled Jack forward even faster, shooting over to his staff with a ball of magic burning in his lungs. As soon as he got in front of Aster, he flung his arms out, dragging up a thick, imposing wall of ice between him and the enraged yeti from the ground. It barreled its fists into his ice, sword clanging against it painfully loud. Jack clenched his jaw and began pushing his hands forward, slowly willing his wall to move against the yeti. He was trying to put distance between them, as well as get the beast closer to the others in order to shower it with their concoction. 

“Aster!” he yelled again over his shoulder, a wintry storm beginning to pick up around them. “Come on you geezer, time to get up, please .”

The rabbit still did not stir. Jack continued to push the wild thing away from them, where most of the other yetis were now dead asleep on the ground. The well of sand was still glowing, Sandy rising up to meet the yeti. Tooth held some of the iridescent debris, flitting around the yeti looking for an opening. 

“This has to be the source,” Nature said over the growing gale, putting the last few stragglers to bed. “You can sense the infant Fearling harboring the yeti. It's why he is the most violent, his eyes unnatural! Kill it now! ”

Tooth had not stopped once while spreading the sand, and she held a sizable amount in her palms as she flew over to the yeti. Jack had pushed it closer and closer, almost pinching it between him and the others. They were seconds from ending the whole fight.

That is until the yeti’s attention suddenly switched from the ice wall he was trying to fight to the fairy hovering above him. With terrifying reach, it abruptly veered its fist upward and knocked Tooth out of the air like a fly. She tumbled to the ground, the sand she was holding splaying across the ground. Tooth quickly scrambled to her feet, preparing to take off again with a shake of her head.

She didn’t have time. The yeti turned with ferocity, swinging the sword he held right for her face with a surge forward. Tooth barely grabbed her own, bringing it up to parry. She underestimated its weight and was forced to hold her sword perpendicular to the yeti’s as he almost threw her off her feet..

The large beast had her pinned against the wall, North’s own sword barely breaths away from her face. Tooth strained against the yeti, screaming out as she gripped the sharpened edge of her saber. Her blade sang against his own as she tried to push him off, but there was an innate strength channeling through that was impossible to break. Jack—still standing by Aster who had not yet risen—sent several blasts of subzero air in an attempt to freeze the yeti, at least slow him down, but the Fearling did not falter. 

“TOOTH!” he roared, his helplessness sending his heart into overdrive. He was stuck, stuck between two of his people, neither of which he would abandon. 

The yeti roared in return, crimson eyes flaring. His shadow danced around them wildly, a cruel celebration in its bloodlust. Nature threw her hands up, running towards them as more roots broke from the ground and tried to wrap around the yeti to no avail. The yeti was too close for Sandy to throw his dream sand at, in fear of sending Tooth to sleep. Tooth’s cries rang around them in painful echoes as they charged forward, desperate and afraid to save them both. 

It all came to a halt. Tooth gasped, frozen in place as the yeti’s strength suddenly faltered, then went slack. The tip of a sword greeted her, protruding from its chest, shining a bright red. Its arms fell first, then the yeti entirely. She dropped to her knees with it, gulping in air as the large form of North stood in front of her, his blade held limply at his side as he stared. She cradled her bleeding hand to her chest. Everyone stopped in shock as they watched an inky cloud leak out of its mouth, attempting to dissipate in the air.

Nature hissed, lunging forward and clamping down on it with her fist. Green light shone like a sparkler between her fingers, a faint scream sounding out as she effectively killed it. North remained unmoving. Tooth stared blanky ahead of her, sabers discarded. Bodies were littered around them, a morbid graveyard of sleeping elves and yetis. Broken furniture and toys adorned them, a strange sense of despair in their carnage.

The silence was almost crushing. Its weight was only replaced and multiplied when North finally sunk to the ground with a loud, anguished yell.

Jack was becoming lightheaded. There was a weird buzz in his ears, the sounds around him muffled and disorienting. His staff clattered to the floor, his chest barely rising with shallow breaths. The woody smell of the broken toys around him overwhelmed his senses.

How long had it been since they walked in? Ten minutes? Was that all it had taken? Could they have approached it better, had they just rushed in, almost ready to kill? How did they end up here? Jack thought he was going to pass out. He had not seen someone die since—

“North, I’m sorry,” Tooth breathed, tears brimming her eyes. “Oh, North, you didn’t have to, I’m sorry, I could’ve—”

“Come here, devushka,” North murmured, grabbing her by the shoulder and pulling her into an embrace as they remained sitting on the ground. “Never apologize. I train you for a reason. You are my family, and I do not let my family get hurt.”

Even in his attempt to ground himself, ground the others, to sound confident, there was a telltale crack in his words. A raw pain backing each syllable that held a soul-crushing weight to it that was impossible to ignore. North stared at the dead yeti as he hugged Tooth, his eyes red. He repeated his last words again and again like a prayer, refusing to break his gaze. 

“Fuck me,” Jack heard faintly from behind him, Aster muttering more curses as he pushed himself off the floor. “What…” His voice trailed off as his vision focused, the dead yeti covered in blood a heap in front of North and Tooth.

Jack felt a paw on his shoulder. Aster came around to face him, looking over him worriedly. 

“Oi, mate, you alright? What happened?”

Nature sprinted over before Jack could answer. “Both of you, any wounds? Aster, let me see your face.” She turned the rabbit’s face towards her, examining. Deep concern shadowed her face, but there was a razor sharp focus in her movements. Like battle was fluid to her, like she knew exactly what to do at all times. 

“Just a punch, nothin’ serious sheila,” Aster responded, rubbing his jaw. “Did North—”

“He killed his yeti,” Jack said flatly, his head finally righting itself. “It was the source of the Fearlings influence. The damned thing was in it. It was going to kill Tooth.”

With his last sentence, he left them standing there. Nature watched him leave, pursing her lips before turning back to Aster. The rabbit was watching the sprite as well, a defeated look on his face. 

“Still don’t know everything that kids been through,” he sighed. “I don’t know if he’s ready to deal with this.”

“You must give him more credit than that, Aster. Being your Guardian of Fun is only a fraction of his immortal life so far.”

Aster locked eyes with the nymph, whose barked armor had already retracted, as if in effort to appear less intimidating, to comfort. He eventually grunted in concedement. 

“Your head alright?”

She remained quiet for a few beats. “I can feel it all, Aster. All my living creatures and plants, their life runs through me. Feeling their anger, their fear, their pain. I wasn’t ready. I usually am. Yet I wasn’t this time.”

“That ain’t your fault. That sounds like hell to carry.”

Nature gave him a soft smile in response.

Jack quietly walked over to where Tooth and North sat, taking extra care to not look at the dead yeti. His multicolored sand lay shining on the ground next to it, unable to quell its final target. Sandy was already moving to clean up, sweeping up broken toys and splinters of wood with a curtain of sand, his face mournful. 

“Let me see,” he said to Tooth, who had pulled back from North. Her hand was still close to her chest, some of her feathers wet with her blood. Jack realized with a start some of it was mingling with the yeti’s.

He cupped her hand and blew into her sliced open palm, sealing it with frost. While the Guardians were effectively immortal, they were still prone to wounds, to cuts and bruises and tears that always eventually healed. They were not immune to pain, or to the effects of healing, or the effects of the children losing belief in them. That much was obvious the last time they fought Pitch. 

“Thanks, Jackie,” she whispered, closing her eyes against the cold. “Maybe if I had—”

“Hey,” he interrupted firmly. “None of that. You did everything right, Toothie. I ain’t losing you.”

“This is not first time we face an attack,” North said, sitting back and gazing over his wrecked workshop. “Not first time I have had to kill here. I make this choice.”

Jack glanced over, assessing the older man. It seemed he was talking more to himself than the others, eyes focusing on something in the distance. He remained silent.

“Can I ask what you mean?” Nature had approached them, Aster behind. 

“Ah, after you began sleep, I think. It is how I become Guardian. I was… a grand adventurer. A treasure hunter. A thief. I only looked for more and more riches.” He frowned at himself. “I took so much from people. I was selfish, alone. I did not understand how what I did hurt others. Then I come here, after hearing about ancient magic hidden within. Before they named us the Arctic, they were Santoff. The city of Santoff Claussen. The most gorgeous city in this whole world. There was so much wonder, innocence, wisdom. They built so much! And suddenly, I did not want to take anymore. I could not. What is gold when you have the children believing in you, in your heroism?”

Nature slowly sat down, enraptured. “This was run by the yetis?”

North nodded, a deep love for his workers blooming in his eyes. “Them and the humans that used to reside in the cold, cold world here. And they were being attacked by Pitch.” There was a vicious bite to the name as he said it. “The town that welcomed me in, whose kids look to me like I am hero. Who look at me with wonder. I had to protect. They needed me, so I fight. My first battle with him. And of course, ha! Of course we defeat him. How else you think Manny make me Guardian?”

“He knows how to pick well,” Nature whispered, smiling sadly. “He knows how to pick very well. You love them so much, Nicholas.”

“Forgive me, North,” Tooth pleaded. “I wish—”

“You listen to me,” North said firmly. “I did not do that lightly. I love you as well, Tooth. Help me here instead. I need to get the rest to their beds, clean up my shop. Christmas is soon and I must see how much was damaged.” It was clear North had allotted all the time he let himself have to simmer in his choice. He turned to action, to tasks, to the next step, lest he stayed where he sat, staring at one of his beloved yetis. 

In a solemn silence, the Guardians rose, like they always did. They rose to aid one of their own, to fix as much as they could, to erase any sign of the Boogeyman. There was an understanding between them and Nature. They would get the workshop running, then they would figure out how to make sure it never happened again. 

Sandy had gotten a fair head start, seemingly sinking himself in work as well. Everyone split into different directions, picking up a different task. North knelt by his fallen yeti, gently beginning to move it. The focus was a welcome distraction.

Jack found himself further into the workshop, where much of the toy destruction had taken place. The first thing to do was to clean up the unsalvageable before assessing what was left. He had grabbed his staff on his way, rubbing his thumb against its scratchy twine. He needed to block out his thoughts, the image of the dead yeti, the other images it conjured up with it. He was not alone, he was not going to tackle this problem on his own. He needed to keep his head straight. He was not going to return that dark place of his, no matter how inviting. 

“An ingenious idea you had there, Jackson,” Nature said softly, walking up nearby. “Truly. It saved us.”

“It didn’t save everyone,” he responded, the shadows of the workshop rising and falling on his face as he stepped around tables. 

“Hey. This is what we have against Pitch and his Fearlings. Something he’s never encountered before. Surely you see the power in that.”

“I try.” He pursed his lips. “I have a different question… what even is your magic?”

The question caught her off guard. “Pardon?”

“Sorry, it’s just… mine is fun. I bring children fun with my magic. What sort of magic do you bring? What clears Pitch’s magic?”

Nature opened her mouth, then paused.

“I suppose… it is just a cleanse. Purity. I… really am not sure. This is why they need you, Jackson. In some ways, you know so much more than me.”

He only hummed in response.

“They need you more than you think.”

“Yeah, well, so does the man upstairs,” he gritted out, rubbing his eyes. “Yet I’ve never felt more lost. I thought we’d taken care of that son of a bitch only for him to come crawling out with some new horrors I’ve never heard of.”

Nature sighed. “I should really sit down and properly explain, shouldn’t I.”

“Please,” he only whispered. 

It struck Nature how truly overwhelming the recent developments must be for him and the other Guardians. In the span of a few days, a mortal enemy had returned stronger and scarier than before, and there was little explanation for what she seemingly knew. 

Before she could begin to think about where to even start, movement caught the corner of her eye. She sharply turned to a cluttered table a few rows back, quickly moving to it. As she neared, she realized that it was a compass. Shadows twisted within its face, the needle trembling in the encased darkness. 

Resisting the urge to immediately dissolve any sight of Pitch’s magic with her own, she steadily reached out, waiting for the familiar wash of iciness that was unlike Jack’s own. When none came, she allowed herself to peer closer. 

“You good?” Jack called, coming up behind her. 

“It seems,” she said with a hint of triumph, “that we may have a clue to that bastard’s plans. Come here.”

Nature picked up the compass, its needle dancing wildly. The dark magic seemed to be imbued into its metal, unable to escape. 

“A Fearling?” Jack asked.

“No, I don’t believe so. Not entirely.” Before she continued, she spun around and walked back to the group. Jack trailed, confused. 

She stuck the compass out in front of them, everyone returning from a corner of the shop at her insistence.

“This has seemingly captured an essence of Pitch’s magic. It seems he is attempting to corrupt your very work with his Fearlings. The fairies, your toys, your dreams, he is attacking you from within. He is breeding these Fearlings through you .”

Sandy looked between her and the compass, before displaying several messages over his head. 

“I’m sure,” Nature said as North approached, taking the compass out of her hands and examining it. “It is fused. You cannot feel its effects. Yet. It harbors it. Eventually, he’ll be able to harbor enough to feel it. He isn’t breeding them traditionally, he still cannot. But he is finding vessels through you and attacking you simultaneously. That’s how he’s learned to bring them back.”

Jack’s jaw twitched. “So he can just start planting these things?”

“We’re on borrowed time.”

“Destroy it then,” Aster snapped. “Get rid of that shite.”

“Not yet, Aster,” she replied calmly. “I need to examine it, figure out how this binding is working. This is all I’ve got to study. I promise, it won’t escape. It’s too small.”

The needle suddenly spun. It pointed north, then flipped west. It seemed like it was being tugged violently by some invisible force.

“It’s not supposed to do that, I assume?” Tooth said quietly. She had finally sheathed her saber and was running the icy bandage Jack had given her over her lips. Her shoulders were still locked in place, and Jack noticed her wings twitching.

“No. Which means I’ve got more to uncover.”

“Get to work, all,” North affirmed, his voice gruff. “We have children to protect.”

Chapter Text

“So a Fearling is a manifestation of his power? Or sources of his power?” The wind whistled with Jack’s words as they flew, the clouds misting his hair.

“It is funny how you and Nicholas have the same question—both, essentially,” Nature responded. She was holding the compass in her hand, glancing between it and their undetermined path ahead of them. “Before becoming the Pitch you know, he was a human. Much like before you became a Guardian.”

“I’d guessed as much. Did… did you know him?”

She did not respond for several beats. “I knew of him. He was known as General Kozmotis Pitchiner. Fearlings solely brought fear to the world at this point, but in a much more anarchical way. They had no master, no one to control them. It was the pure, unadulterated version of fear. As such, their only strength came from their sheer number. General Pitchiner was the hero that caught these Fearlings, locked them up. He sought to rid the world of its darkest times.”

“Why would he lock them up? Why not just kill them?”

“You cannot do such a thing. You can never kill fear itself, it always exists for the benefit of the humans and their lives. The problem occurs when it supersedes its usefulness, so to speak. When the children you protect can no longer be children, when people turn on each other due to nothing more than twisted doubt.”

“Fair enough,” Jack murmured. 

“That Golden Age came about because of the sheer amount of Fearlings he captured. That point in history had the lowest number of the things out in the world. Humans innovated, they lived in prosperity, without fear of one another. He was hailed as a noble hero of the time. This only increased when he volunteered to take post guarding the prison of ancient nightmares.”

Jack flipped around, coasting on his back. He noticed a trail of snow descending behind them before looking back to Nature. 

“Big mistake?”

“Indeed,” she replied distantly. “There was only so much time before their whispers, their fears got to his head. The human mind is not indestructible, no matter how much we glorify one’s to be. Pitchiner eventually crumbled under their weight after protecting for so long. They finally found their host. Their Boogeyman. He is essentially a swarm of countless Fearlings morphing into one. That is why the world fell into Dark Ages immediately afterward. It went from minimal fear to a brand new entity unleashing it all back. And there were no Guardians yet to help stop it.”

“They killed him?”

“I… do not know.”

“Considering how long it's been, might as well have. Unfortunate, sounds like he could’ve been a Guardian himself. He was for a while, anyways.”

Nature gave him an unreadable look, hand tightening around the compass. “I suppose you’re right.”

“So you lived in the Golden Ages? That’s pretty cool. Must’ve been a fun human life.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Jack had not caught onto her deadpanned answer, still musing on the past. He suddenly frowned, zeroing in on her again.

“Wait, so, these Fearlings essentially controlled him to control them. So how exactly were they gone for so long? It’s been just him for a while. Those nightmares were just altered dreams from Sandy, not sentient beings.”

“There were rumors of eradicating his control of them, and essentially his memory of them. It is what I meant when I said he has learned how to bring them back. From my understanding, he was unaware of their existence.”

“Who was able to do that ? And how? Manny? That would be real handy right about now if we could just wipe them again, since we can't kill the things.”

She hummed. “Your guess is as good as mine, Jackson.”

They were back over land now, the salty air fading away for the crispier, cooler cloud cover. Jack threaded his fingers through his hair, picking off little salty icicles.

“Why do you call me that?”

“Is it not your name? Jackson Overland Frost? I apologize, I can switch over to Jack. Or Jackie, or Frost.”

“Oh, boy, you got the complete name too,” he said with a laugh. “No, no, not at all. I’m just curious how you know, or why you call everyone by their full name.”

“I know about you because you help to protect the children I watch over. We share our magic in a specific way. We’re spirits of this world, overseen by the Man in the Moon. I may not know how you ended up here, but I believe you deserve the respect of your full name because of it.”

Jack turned his gaze upwards, staring at the moving sky above him. “Manny picked you too, then?”

“In a way.” 

“Do you ever hate it? I know you never wanted to be awakened, but do you actually hate your responsibility? Your power?”

Nature took a moment to study the sprite, who was still flying on his back and lost to the skies. Despite his prolonged existence, he came off as irrevocably young. Almost a child himself, trying to keep those smaller than him filled with light and laughter. Yet when he finally looked back at her, crystalline eyes flashing in the sun, she sensed a deep weariness from him. A feeling of the ancients, of someone who had lived several lives, who held himself together with more pieces than one assumed. Her assessment suddenly felt horribly wrong, like she had done him a disservice.

It was quite easy to underestimate the man in charge of fun.

“Sometimes.” She found herself being honest under his stare. “Not as often as I used to. But there are times when I wonder what it would have been like to avoid his gaze entirely.”

“In the ground in a different way, methinks.” Jack’s intensity melted in an instant as the joke rolled off his tongue, turning himself upright again. “Any luck with that thing?”

She found the change in topic disorienting, her thoughts still on their mere existence. She responded almost robotically. “It does not work like a typical compass. There’s no discernible pattern or direction it is following. My theory is that it is following something that is actively moving. If we’re lucky.”

“If we’re lucky?”

“If we’re lucky, it is trying to find one of its own. We find one, we find them all. We find Pitchiner.”

Jack grimaced to himself. “Lucky, or terrifying? Let’s ask the Lepruchan why don’t we.”

“Ah, Padraig Goldenfoot. One of the more auxiliary spirits. He does not have to worry like we do, so I doubt he knows much enough for a visit.”

“You know his name too? He has one?”

“Were we not all people before, Jackson?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I doubt you were born ‘Mother Nature.’”

“Well…” Nature drawled idly as the sun vanished behind them under the cover of the night in their new time zone. “You would be correct in your doubt.”

“Let’s hear it then!”

Nature did not respond, her face tense. 

“Come on,” Jack pleaded, drawing out his words.

She came to a halt, hovering high above the sandy terrain below them. Jack scrambled to a stop. His staff swung from the crook of his arm.

“Whoa, you good?” he asked.

“We need to go see Aster,” she said flatly. “Catch.” 

She tossed the compass his way, which Jack clumsily caught to his chest. A stray wind roughly tousled his clothing, blowing in suddenly and vehemently.

“Keep up.”

Nature accelerated, shooting away from him and arcing downwards towards where Jack knew they could fly for Aster’s Warren. 

“Wait!” he called out, but the nymph had seemingly not heard or flat out ignored him as she flew further and further away. Jack hovered dumbfounded at their abrupt end to their conversation. Had he struck a nerve? Maybe Nature simply didn’t like talking about herself. He stared outwards for a few moments before looking at the compass in his hand. Its dial was pulled steadily to the right, slowly turning clockwise as it silently followed whatever core it sought before losing it and flipping back west. It hummed with dark magic, the blackened face almost alight as it acted as the backdrop of the golden metal. A part of him was tugged with it, a deep desire to chase its final point in a rush to quell his fears. To get the job done and return to normal as soon as possible. 

Instead, Jack held it close to his heart as he began to follow Nature, confusion and doubt still swirling in his mind.

☽◯☾

“I’m done playing Guardian.”

“What are ya on about, sheila?”

“I’ve done my part.”

They stood at the heart of the Easter Bunny’s Warren, a subterranean sanctuary burrowed in the depths of the wild Australian regions. Time slowed down here ever so slightly, bringing a sense of ease and certainty to the lush fields of plants, roots, and carved stone. Rooms and shelves were cut out of the stone walls, the latter hosting arrays and arrays of painted eggs, trinkets, pigments, and tools. Even larger were the tunnels that bore holes into the cavernous entryway, lovingly named “eggways” that constantly shifted their dirt to a new location and spread out from the Warren like veins. The egglings scurried from place to place, bumbling helpers transporting and decorating and chirping nonstop. An impossible ecosystem cut off from the sun above yet pulsing with life, the Guardian of Hope’s domain was true to its overseer.

Aster stood with his thumbs hooked into his shoulder straps, glancing between Jack and Nature with a mildly annoyed expression.

“What did ya say to her, Frost?”

“Hey!” Nature cut in, directing the bunny’s gaze back to her. Jack stood quietly next to her, fidgeting with the compass. He had good sense not to interrupt the nymph’s words as well as continuous bewilderment to her rapid change of tune. 

“He did not do anything. I have simply helped you the way the Man in the Moon intended me to. So I’ll be leaving that item with you and taking my exit. You should be able to find Pitchiner with it eventually.”

“And who told ya that’s what Manny meant? He telephone ya directly?”

“Don’t get smart with me, Aster. I’ll do the courtesy of visiting the others later and telling them as well.”

“Oi, now just calm down a second. You were all ready to go investigating that thing a few days ago. What’s changed?”

Nature closed her eyes briefly, rubbing her brow. “Clearly, you were all unaware of Fearlings and who Pitchiner truly is. I had to enlighten you so you are able to combat him properly and restore your Guardian peace. I have done so. Therefore, I am no longer required here.”

“That’s all fine and lovely, but have you possibly considered that we like ya here? That there’s no requirement attached?”

The sugary smell of Aster’s place was suddenly becoming too much for Nature and she began to unknowingly pace between them. 

Jack piped up, watching her nervously. “He’s not wrong, Nature. You’ve been super helpful and just… nice to be around. You’ve helped us unconditionally. And I know it’s a lot to ask for your help against Pitch, but I have this feeling that we’d do a lot better with you. And the better we do the better for those kids out there.”

“This is not my fight. I was never meant to stay this long.”

Jack held his tongue, refraining from reminding her of her apparent eagerness to go after Pitch and his Fearlings not too long ago. There was a delicateness to the conversation he was cautious to avoid breaking, lest they lose her entirely. A part of him truly did not want Nature to leave, to return to that tomb she so desperately sought at inopportune times.

“We’re bein’ a bit selfish,” Aster responded softly, watching her move carefully, “by asking you to make it our fight. I have a feelin’ you deserve this closure as much as we do.”

“Besides,” Jack added lightly with a smile, “you still gotta see what Christmas is like around here.”

“Damn it all,” she muttered after a few beats, giving them both a haggard but yielding look. “Such saccharine words you speak.”

“Part of my charm,” Aster said. “Not so much his.”

“I’m way more charming than you, Bunny.”

“We lyin’ straight out of our asses now.”

Nature sighed wearily. “I can take the compass back, Jackson, before we start comparing arses.”

He let out a snicker as Aster raised his eyebrows, opening his palm and handing the compass over. Nature frowned slightly upon looking at it, noticing a change in its face.

“I think that’s it,” she whispered, realization striking her. 

“What’s it?” Jack asked.

“The reason why it seemed so unpredictable aboveground is because we were above ground. Look at it now.”

She brandished the compass to them. Instead of the unpredictable spin they had been watching to no avail the last few days, the dial was a lot more steady in its search. It tugged towards a specific set of tunnels to their right, the point shakily reorienting towards them any direction Nature turned it. The underdeveloped Fearling strained against its brassy confines, an unsentient desire to reach its larger part.

“Well that checks out,” Aster muttered. “Of course the bastard is underground.”

“Is that something you all have not been able to find?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s not like we went looking for it. I haven’t even considered it.”

“What moron would look for his rotting hole?” Aster said.

“I would have,” Nature said with a raise of her eyebrow. “To keep watch, at minimum.”

The rabbit only grunted in response.

“That’s alright,” she mused. “He clearly has the expectation that you do not know where he is and have not looked. He is banking on it, if anything. If he knew we had this he might’ve revealed some of his cards early to come get it.”

“I like yer confidence, so I’m gonna to believe you,” Aster said lightly.

“Let’s follow it then.”

Nature and Aster turned to Jack, slightly bewildered. He held his gaze, pursing his lips. “Let’s find out where he’s hiding,” he repeated.

“Not so fast,” Nature said. “We cannot just run towards him, if that is what it does. We need a plan. All of us. An idea of what to do when we see him.”

“How to get control of unkillable little shites,” Aster threw in.

“Right, so we can get some of those answers by finding where he is first. Intel or whatever,” Jack argued. “Besides, you know North is swamped. He’s behind by a lot for Christmas and it’s in weeks. Tooth already has a lot of her fairies helping out while she’s constantly running out there getting teeth to make up for it. Sandy, sure, but you know he’s still in his realm somewhere, trying to fix the dreams.”

The dreammaker was reporting a steady uptick in altered, angry, Fearling-touched dreams. It seemed Pitch’s current strategy was slow and steady, silent and deadly, and it kept Sandy permanently on watch to try and reverse the effects. It was currently their only line of defense.

This stalled Nature while she studied the eggways in question, unable to see their end. They never stopped moving, shifting from location after location in a smooth reassortment of the dirt. A few of the walking eggs teetered by, Aster giving each a once over before returning his attention.

“How far do your tunnels go, Aster? How do you manipulate them, exactly?”

He smirked. “I thought this is yer magic. Shouldn’t ya know?”

“Indulge me, would you?” Nature huffed.

“They’re tied to my will. Sure, there’s some that will take ya to a certain place in the world, but there’s no one end to any of ‘em. I just tell ‘em where I wanna go and it’ll change so it does. It don’t have to be aboveground, can see some quite pretty caves or underground waterfalls if ya like.” He took a few steps over and pounded next to one, which instantly shifted at his command. “You just tell me where, sheila.”

“What if you do not know where you want to go?”

Aster paused. “Ya mean like… just walk an eggway?”

“Just walk an eggway,” she affirmed. “Somehow keep it going enough to follow the compass. End up somewhere underground, but we do not want to fall right into it. Just enough to look.”

“I think so, but you sure this a good idea?”

“I think it is,” Jack interjected. “What difference does it make if it's six of us going in blind versus three? If we can get some early information to bring back to the others we’ll have an edge at least.”

Nature shifted her jaw slightly, cracking it. “It will only be reconnaissance. We do not interact, we do not let him know we are there. We can confirm that the compass works. That’s it.”

“Seconded,” Jack said eagerly, glancing at the compass in her hand. “Ready to go when you are.”

Nature looked to Aster questioningly. 

“Alright. My only rule is that ya both stick close, yeah?”

“Got it chief.” 

Nature gave him a simple nod. Despite her abilities stretching into his domain, she knew better than to try and act like she knew more about the eggways than E. Aster Bunnymund. Her overseeing was not the same as traversing it, after all.

With little fanfare, the three of them walked toward the eggway that seemed to have the strongest pull on the compass. Aster stood in the middle, straightening his shoulders. Nature held onto the compass with a reverence as Jack let his icy power run through his staff, setting it alight. He did not need the twisted thing to use his powers, technically, so it was more of a comforting item to have in his palms. The only constant in his prolonged life, aside from the Man in the Moon.

“That’s a nice guiding light to have,” Nature commented when they entered the tunnel, his staff’s glow creating a blue-hued bubble around them.

“Bloody cold is what it is,” Aster muttered, but he did not object to its light any further.

An uneasy silence descended upon them, though not due to each other’s presence. Nature held her head high as she switched between looking at the compass and their way ahead. She kept a hand on Aster’s shoulder to guide his movements, fingers bare of any bark. Jack watched in awe as the tunnel continued to empty out in front of them, the dirt moving smoothly out of their way to continue their unknown path. Aster led them from one tunnel into another, the dirt moving to his will. The air was humming with magic, a type Jack was unaccustomed to. While his filled him with adrenaline or Nature’s felt like a breath of fresh air, Aster’s soothed his nerves despite himself. It was patient and grounding and alive with the hope its Guardian stood for, something Jack did not expect from the sarcastic rabbit.

He clung onto it anyways, relishing in its warmth. There was inevitable doubt in his idea, in their attempt to make sense of Pitch and his whereabouts, but the other part of him was in quiet excitement. His eagerness had not gone unnoticed and Jack finally felt like he was able to do something proactive. Worthwhile. Something to try and get back to watching Sandy’s dreams spiral into homes and the pixies in the air.

“We’re getting deeper,” Aster said. “All my focus is on keeping us from getting crushed by the earth itself, yeah? Step carefully.”

“You’re doing great,” Nature replied, straining to look ahead. “It’s close.”

As soon as the words left her lips, an abrupt wave of chilly air washed over them, intensely hitting them in the face. It was almost immediately followed by another, an air-sucking blast of frigidness that left them gasping in surprise. Their steady dirt path suddenly began to morph, losing its smoothness and beginning to contort and harden. Rough, cave-like walls began to spike out and tighten around them, halting the living dirt in its place.

“Aster?” Nature called, panicked, her grip tightening on his shoulder. 

“I dunno what the hell is goin’ on!” he yelled back, throwing his arms out to try and steady himself and his eggway. Their air was getting exponentially colder every few breaths. 

Jack frantically dimmed his staff by pulling his magic back in an attempt to stop the freeze. It was evidently not coming from him, and the lack of light was less than ideal. He let it flare again, stronger than before, filling their spot with light.

“ Someone is gettin’ ahold of my bloody magic,” Aster gritted out before angrily thumping against the ground, struggling to regain control. 

Jack glanced behind them, realizing their way in had not yet been reformed by Aster.

Nature closed her eyes, digging her feet into the ground. A shiver racked her body as they flew back open, looking towards the compass. The blasted thing was almost straining to hold the blight, the dial aimed right for the passage ahead of them. 

“We’re too close,” she gasped. Jack felt his heart drop at the hint of fear in her voice. “Whatever he has, we’re too close . We have no protection. We need to leave, now, now! ”

Aster did not take a moment to question it. He quickly drew his paws forward, pushing their eggway back as if it were reversed. As if in retaliation, the chill turned into unbearable temperatures as it chased them farther and farther. Jack could almost taste it, his eyes watering as he scrambled back. Only the Boogeyman’s cold was able to clam him up this way.

“C’mon,” Aster grunted loudly, desperately trying to pull his magic back. “ C’mon. ”

Nature sucked through her teeth, her bark beginning to glow in its grooves with a bright green hue. Jack smelled rain, the woody scent building and clashing with the cold as the nymph harnessed more of her magic. Jack immediately knew Nature wanted to launch it forward and penetrate the attack, cleanse it like she had said. Before she could unleash it, her jaw locked and lungs on fire, tendrils of shadow rushed forward, the dark at the end of the tunnel suddenly expanding right to them. Aster strained against his own magic, Nature opened her mouth in an anguished yell, and Jack threw up a last-second, frenzied wall of ice.

The compass exploded. The shadows hit them like a freight train. It shattered Jack’s wall, clouded their vision, filled their noses, suffocated their passage. Jack’s head flew backwards as he landed roughly on his back. The onslaught did not stop and he threw his hands up in an attempt to shield his face. His staff loosened from his fingers precariously, before ripping out of his hand entirely. He let out a blind shout, lunging to the side to try and recapture it to no avail. Panic swelled in his chest and up his throat as he lost all sense of his bearings, each breath painful and sharp. His consciousness was beginning to slip. Everything was wrong, he didn’t know where his friends were, and he was lost in a world of darkness and fear and cold that was not his own. Cold that held no childhood or fun or love. He was so unbelievably cold, North’s fur stiffening against his skin.

And suddenly he found himself back, back, back to a starry night sky and thick drifts of snow. Back to the quiet, the shine of the moon’s company. He blinked again and again, trying to clear it away. The fear in his heart began to twist, annoyance and frustration taking seed. 

Jack clawed himself to his knees, eyes stinging. His breathing hitched, uneven and rapid. He couldn’t bear to see any of it, not now, not here. 

Icy wind howled in his numb ears, mingling with distant shouts. He felt angry, livid. Burning with purpose. A figure stumbled towards him, mouth agape, eyes vacant. The shadows pressed into him further, pushing the vision clearer and clearer.

“Not real,” he whispered hoarsely. “Not real, not real, not real.”

He attempted to summon his own magic, his own joy. All that came to him was the sensation of his nerves on fire, alight with power and hate and freedom. He squeezed his eyes shut. The storm still played in his mind. The only point of light was the moon, the everlasting moon, eyeless yet watching. Watching him, watching his soul, watching his cravings, watching him unravel. It felt like he had been under the shadows’ control for hours and weeks, like the roll of film playing out in his brain was never-ending. 

“Not real ,” he repeated louder, his voice cracking. Ice cracking around him, underneath, splitting into a million webs. Something cracking within him, something he left behind. “Not real, not real, not real.” He pounded against his head, tears leaking from his eyes. 

“Out of my head,” he growled, finally letting his hate seep from his memory into his body as he felt his tears freeze against his face. He wanted nothing more than to grab Pitch by the throat and watch it cake over in ice. “Out of my fucking HEAD.”

Jack felt a rough hand at the back of his neck. It grabbed his collar and hauled him backward. He felt himself move away and away, the shadows invading his every breath and blink leaking out of him like a disease. He heaved over and over again, repeating his words like they expelled them from him faster. The clutch on his heart slackened, but the fire eating away at it did not die down. How he wanted Pitch dead at his feet for entering his mind, for turning it against him, for overtaking his every thought and thread of power. He wanted to see his fear thrown back at him, deep in his eyes as Jack—

The shadows finally lost their grip on him and Jack tumbled to his side as whoever was dragging him let go. He rolled on his elbows, coughing as he tried to fill his lungs with air and crack his eyes open. After a few attempts, he registered the sounds of others panting on either side of him, of quietly shifting dirt and faraway chirps. He felt a hand land on his forearm and rapidly retract, a gasp following it. 

“Jackson,” he heard dimly. “Hey, look at me.”

He glanced over, vision bleary. He made out the shape of Nature sitting on her knees next to him, staring at him perplexed. That was when he took a look at his own body.

His skin was laced with frost, covering him in tiny swirls of ice. Steam rose from it, a cloud of pure ice permeating his body. He realized with a start that it was subzero air dissipating in the normal temperature around him. His makeshift armor covered his hands, overtook his clothing, froze his hair; it held a slight glimmer of crystalline blue, thin lines following the frosty patterns as it gave him a ghostly complexion.

“You okay?” Nature whispered. Jack noticed she was slightly shaking, a tremor she didn’t seem to be able to stop. Her hand was gripping the remnants of the compass to her chest, bare of any darkness.

Jack simply shook his head. He slowly turned over to his back, noticing an exhausted Aster lying next to him, an arm thrown over his eyes. After gingerly lying himself down as well, Jack finally took a deep breath. His head was still pounding as he stared at the mossy ceiling.

They remained silent like that for a while, Jack and Aster laid out while Nature sat next to them. Jack let Aster’s magic wash over him in addition to flaring his own, inhaling it like air. He did every technique to ground himself, to get the hammering in his chest to stop, to wipe away the images burned behind his eyelids, to remove any stain or trace of Pitch’s nightmares. He dug his fingers into the soil beneath him and focused on the sounds of the workshop and tunnels around him. He felt something nudge his leg, and turned to see Aster haphazardly pushing his staff over to him without glancing over. Jack accepted it in quiet gratefulness, running his thumb hard again its rough wood.

“Was it bad memories?” Nature said quietly, breaking the long period of silence. 

“Yeah,” Aster replied flatly. “Managed to bury the shites enough to drag you both out with me before I lost the whole damn tunnel. But he was in my head for a good while. My own personalized fucking nightmare.”

Nature gently laid the pieces of the compass in front. It had been painfully twisted and tarnished when the small shadow had broken free, rejoining with its forces. She studied each fragment to keep her fingers busy, her mind moving. 

“Sorry,” Jack eventually breathed out, his voice almost indiscernible from the low buzz of the Warren. “I’m sorry. That was my idea and I threw you both into a nightmare. We couldn’t even make it to Pitch himself.” A flare of ire sparked in his chest for a moment as he said his name.

“Knock that off, Frost.” Aster shifted, his voice still thick with fatigue. “Just some psycho bullshite is all. That was our best move regardless.”

“I agree,” Nature said, though she was staring vacantly at the tunnel in front of them. “We know he has amassed far more than expected. We know his realm is being guarded well and I suspect he is hardly aware of our attempt to breach it.” 

“I reckon that's one good thing.”

“Our strategy has to change. We cannot go to the source directly, not confidently at least. We have to hold our own instead. The children cannot lose belief in you, no matter how strong the Fearlings and Pitchiner get.”

“Easier said than done. Could use yer help, frankly.”

Nature bristled. “Tell me, when was the exact last time you saw Pitchiner?”

“Somethin’ like fifty years ago, Easter time, give or take,” Aster grumbled back.

“Clearly he’s been busy since you decided he was no longer a threat. For an unacceptable amount of time might I add.”

“Well, you weren't there, sheila. The guy was pathetic, weak, he had no nightmares on his side. They attacked him, for egg’s sake. We did our jobs and continued to do them. The kids have been believing in us just fine.”

“That doesn’t mean you just write him off for so long!”

“Again, I didn't see you there that day. Easy tellin’ us what to do after the fact.”

“I’m not telling you what to do, Aster, I’m just saying—”

The rabbit shoved himself upright in frustration, to which he was immediately slammed with a wave of nausea. He groaned and flopped back down, rubbing his head.

Nature exhaled, releasing all her built-up tension. She scooted past Jack’s head, turning around and lying her head down in between theirs so that she stretched out opposite from them. Her palms rested on the ground, and she let her magic weave its way out of her fingertips and into the dirt. Little pockets of flowers immediately began to bloom around them, filling in the spaces between their heads. Their scent was subtle but musky and certainly welcomed, dewdrops beading on their petals. The foliage grew like pillows around them and Nature sighed in contentment as she let her power expand in their little cocoon.

“It’ll be alright,” she murmured, tiredly closing her eyes against their private meadow in the midst of the eggway central. “We’ll be alright. Just take a breather.”

Jack felt the frost all over him begin to seep back into his skin, his own exhaustion from the ordeal rushing him at full force. His own eyes grew heavy, the flowers tickling his ears whispering incoherent lullabies. He let himself take solace in the sound and feel of Aster and Nature next to him, their breathing growing steady and their presence strong. The howling wind and haunting ghosts began to fade, back into the recesses of his mind, back into where he never wanted to look.

The three of them lay there together in the middle of Aster’s Warren for quite some time, asleep in a plush bed of their own attempted dreams.