Believe in Me

Wings

Jack smiled over his shoulder at the small figure he held onto his back. He was in a hurry to help her out of her pain, but now that she wasn't in risk of dying, he was calm enough to be his cheerful self again. "Dont fall asleep on me," he laughed as he felt her head drooping to lay on his shoulder, a small sleepy grunt was all he got back. The thought ran through his head, would the wind even work now? It hadn't the last two times and he was begging. Still, it was worth a try. "Wind! Are you there?" There was no reply, not even a subtle breeze to give him a faint hope that his friend was around. Ilia seemed to sense his frustration, her eyes, which had been drifting shut steadily over the small period of time, blinked back open and she raised her head to the sky, one of the fox ears twitching slightly. Her ears, tail, hair, skin... well, everything, was still stained with dried blood, but it seemed to not affect her at least for now; it was like she didn't even notice all of the deep wounds. She's probably too exausted from the bloodloss to feel them as more than minor scratches, Jack's concious suggested. Maybe that was it. Jack didn't go too in depth with thinking over it, they had a bigger problem to solve. "What's up?" He asked with a small narrow in his eyes and a smirk in the corner of his mouth as she slowly smiled. "A plan." Her head turned towards him and the intensity of her eyes nearly blew him away yet again. When he had found her in Pitch's Lair, they were dulled, like a lightbulb that had lost its power. But now they were gleaming like the sun was shining through light green glass. It wasn't just that though.. they still gave him that feeling. He started to wonder deeper than he normally would've about what was behind those eyes, in the thoughts of someone so innocent. She IS the guardian of curiosity, Jack. Just like your special snowballs can make kids suddenly become overjoyed. Now it made sense. I swear, I'd be an idiot without your help, Jack thought back to wherever the voice came from. To be honest, when he thought really deep about it, he couldn't even tell what the voice was, man, woman, young, old. It didn't have a tone to it, just a voice. Maybe thats normal, he shrugged mentally and zoned back to reality. Ilia closed her eyes and opened her lips just slightly, looking up to the sky before letting out a long, loud whistle. It wasn't ear peircing like the screamlike noises humans made, it was beautiful, sparking even more wondering underneith his messy white hair. Lost of breath, her lungs must've been damaged in some way by the difficulty she had breathing before Death's arrival, Ilia laid her head back down, her eyes closing as she let out small pants. What was the point of that..? Jack wondered. Wait for it... Suddenly, a small black dot circled them in the sky, a bird higher than he ever thought birds could go. As it circled, it spiraled down, getting larger and larger.. then it seemed weird. It was nowhere near the ground and already seemed huge.. what kind of bird was this?! Finally Jack realized. It was DEFINATALLY not a bird. This thing was a beast, its beak the length of his staff and each feather being around a foot long. When it touched down gently in front of them, its huge talons made cracks in the sidewalk. If the thing happened spread its wings right now, it would wipe out five houses in its path. "What in the.." Jack started but was interupted by a small, completely unworried voice from his shoulder. It was strung with a giggle at his amazement. "That's Hiwa. He's my friend." Jack had to do a self reminder that this WAS the commander of animals on his back and not a kid who had been watching way too many movies. He had to do a reality check for himself as he looked up at the bird, twelve feet tall, looking down at him with big orangish-yellow eyes like the brightest sunrise. She said it so calmly too, 'He's my friend.' It was like she didn't think anything different of the monsterous bird at all. It was both calming and strange.. then again, Jack realized even he wasn't as innocent as her. For any young child a giant bird could just be another friend, not a thought in their mind that it would be a threat until it shows itself as one. Jack sort of wished he hadn't gotten so nervous for no reason. It showed he had just a little bit of maturity in him, and he didn't like it.

Ilia turned to face him, those bright eyes giving a slightly confused look. "What are you waiting for, Snowy, Hiwa says he'll fly you to the pole as long as you make sure it doesn't snow along the way." Jack nodded and, though he tried to hide it, cautiously walked towards the bird.. then stopped. Wait.. did she just say? He felt stupid. Sure, she had just said she had spoken with the bird and the bird talked back but she was, again, Mother Nature. After a second he got to the birds side, looking back at her. "So... how do I get up?" 

"You jump, silly, just don't pull to hard on his feathers when you climb up." She seemed to be entertained by his confusion, giggling silently with a small hand over her mouth to try and hide it, he felt her shaking with laughter. He shook his head with a roll of his eyes, but still smiled. He felt carefree again being around her, she was so happy. If you only heard her and weren't looking at her, you wouldn't know in the slightest that she was in pain right now, covered from head to toe in bruises and cuts. Jack took a deep breath before jumping, grabbing hold onto honey brown feathers. The bird froze in place, feeling the tug, but with Ilia's presence, didn't try to throw the winter spirit off or panic as it's reflexes asked it to. He crawled up, being light as a feather, and to his advantage, Ilia was too, so it wasn't that difficult to make it to the back of the bird and sit around its neck. "Now hold on tight so you don't fly off!" she said, a little too happily. That was right.. if he flew off then the wind wouldn't catch him. But before he could ask for any tips of how to exactly hold on tight when the bird's neck was just too large to wrap his arms around, Hiwa's winds started to flap. It was like the whole street was in a sudden tornado, tries bent over backwards and Jack could barely see a yorkie terrier fly from one side of it's yard to the other with a tiny "yip" of a bark. If anything, it was pretty fun, sending adrenaline through his chest and getting his heart pounding as he watched Jamie's house get smaller and smaller. Hiwa was like a helocopter, rising vertically up with powerful thrusts of huge wings before pausing. The winter spirit looked down. Even he hadn't flown this high before, the view was both brilliant and exhilerating as the bird started to move. "Woah!" he shouted with a laugh. It was nice to feel the cool air shove his hair from his face, the light push it gave to him and the exciting feeling of not having the solid ground at his feet. It made him feel like the wind was still with him.. wherever it had went. He missed the feeling already. Ilia laughed too, staying perfectly balanced on her own as the bird took off towards the distance at full speeds, being surprisingly balanced though moving as fast as a plane might. "Thanks for this, Ilia!" Jack shouted over the howl of the heavy air running past his ears and out of their path. "Don't thank me, thank Hiwa!" She yelled back, the most glorious smile Jack had probably ever seen detailed on her face. "He laughed and looked down at the bird. "Thank you, Hiwa." He felt a little silly saying it, talking to a huge bird, until the beast gave a loud caw and he could faintly hear in his head, "Not a problem." 

Pitch stood in the air of the dark night, being supported by a plate of nightmare sand at his feet. He watched as the huge bird sailed off, laughs and calls coming from it being no other than the two happiest voices the nightmare king had ever heard, the snow boy and the fox child. It aggrivated him so, the two voices he couldn't stand, the two smiles that glowed even though he had beaten the girl senseless less than a day before. Death was ordered to heal her, but her pain wasn't supposed to be gone! Her fear was to remain in the deep wounds. He had suffered regret and angst causing those marks, but now that they were there, he refused to believe they weren't going to come to a use. "Wind.." he whispered angrily. "Go now." He didn't feel the normal happiness at the thought of destroying those smiles, no, he was angry. And this time.. he would take it out on the both of them, knock out two birds with one stone.. and one giant bird to the ground.

Jack felt something he hadn't felt in a while graze across his skin. "Wind!" he shouted happily, looking around as if he saw it above and around him. He had missed it, not just because the wind helped him but because it gave him someone to talk to. He cooled it from its non-stop run with his cold, and it gave him a source of transportation to bring that cold to others, working together as the Man in the Moon had placed them with a thought for each other in hand. But something was off, and the wind wasn't calling happily. No, it was roaring, the force of it picking up intensely. Hiwa swerved and the winter spirit slid slightly to the side, reaching back behind him and pulling the surprised Ilia closer to his back. "Hold on as tight as you can! Something's off!" he shouted, relieved as he felt small arms wrap around him; he was afraid she wouldn't have heard, the scream of the outraged breeze blocking out almost any noise he could make. The bird quickly swooped down, trying to make its way from the gale, but the wind followed. Whats going on, wind..? Jack asked in the depths of his mind, his blue eyes starting to sting from the air attacking them. Suddenly, the direction of the wind pushed from the back and Hiwa did an unexpected nosedive, Ilia's hands slipping. She screamed and Jack's eyes widened, turning and grabbing her hand right before she flew off the tail end of the bird. He was having trouble staying on himself, but a more fearful notice hit him. The beast couldn't stop. Hiwa was decending at rapid speeds, spiralling as the forest they had almost cleared was coming up to forcefully greet them quicker than he could blink. "Wind!! STOP!" He shouted in a panic. There was a pause, a tensed wait sounded only with the roars of the gales and the muffled yells they were giving out.. before there was a sudden jolt and everything went black.