Breath taker

Part 11- Don't Fear Death

After Sandman grabbed the old blueprints for the machine, which thankfully were still where he'd left them, they began the flight toward one of the entrances to Hades.

As they flew, Lorelai made a mental list of what she'd need to do before she could let them in.

Invisibility charms in case we're followed by Pitch.The girls will have to stay hidden, I'm not taking my chances with them, I don't trust how the guardians might react. I'll have to explain to Asha what's happening.

"You alright?" Jack asked her, snapping her back to reality. "Hm? Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking."

"It must be a lot to go through." Jack said. "What is? I go through a lot each day y'know." Lorelai asked.

"Seeing Pitch again after all that time. You were what? Friends?"

"You could say that I guess." More than that.

"And for a really long time. And to see him again, it must bring back some old memories."

"Not really, I try not to think about it. Interacting with him again, all it really does is complicate things a little more than they were before."

Thanks for putting the thought of him back in my head, not like I just got him out again. Having him remember that I still exist could bring all my nightmares into reality.

"Guys, what's that?" Tooth asked, pointing at a black figure approaching them.

"A nightmare?" Bunny guessed, he readied his boomerang. Jack followed suit. Lorelai squinted her eyes and saw wings flapping on the object. Bird.

"No no. Hold your fire. Raven." she said, as the bird came close enough to see it clearly.

"It's got something in its talons." Jack noticed. "A piece of paper?"

"Oh no." Lorelai said. Anxiety started to fill her. It would be a letter. For her. It would be important, or else whoever had sent it would have waited for her to get back. Were they under attack? Had Melinoe left Elysium? Had someone escaped from Hell? Normally she wouldn't have worried this much, but after today's events...

"Is that a bad thing?" Jack asked, looking at her face.

"Possibly." she responded.

As she imagined, the raven dropped the letter into her hand and stuck around as she read it.

Have you been kidnapped or what? This is the second time that you've made us cancel the lessons, in the past WEEK! Stop telling Asha to postpone them and then canceling them. Are you TRYING to overpopulate the world?! We need to get new recruits onto the field.

Nothing's wrong here, I'm just mad that you ditched again. Hope this gave you anxiety, like you gave Asha and me panic attacks when you disappeared for three hours, forty two minutes and three seconds until Christie showed up and told us you'd dipped.

Annoyed, Min.

"You have got to be kidding me. I'm going to kill her again." Lorelai muttered as she crumpled the letter.

"No emergency?" Jack asked. "No, just a Reaper who got mad because you stuffed me in a sack and took me on an adventure without her knowing." she said, the paper in her hand becoming engulfed in purple flames.

The raven flew off of the railing of the sled and onto her head. "Yeah, hi Chang." she said, her eyes tilted up toward the bird. The raven began to dig its beak into her black curls.

"Chang?" Jack asked. The bird's head poked out of Lorelai's hair at the sound of its name. "The raven's name." Lorelai specified for him. The bird began to dig around in her hair again. "Hey, get out of there, before you make my hair worse than it already is." Lorelai said to it as she raised an arm to pull it out of her hair.

The raven, putting up a small fight, pulling out a couple of hairs ("Ahk! Bad raven!"), before accepting to move off of Lorelai's head, onto her shoulder. "Min says your name means free, it should be stubborn or nuisance." she muttered, looking at the gloating bird.

Realizing that Lorelai was in a bad mood, it made the choice to find another victim of its shenanigans, choosing the closest person to it, Jack.

Fluttering off of the Reaper, it landed on his snowy white hair, the black on the white.

"Well, hey buddy! Whatcha doing?" Jack spoke to the bird. The bird crowed in response and continued to mess around his hair. He chuckled. "You're rather curious aren't you?"

The bird looked up suddenly. He looked off, behind the sleigh and began to make a slight racket. "What is it?" Jack asked, squinting his eyes in search of the reason for the sudden alarm.

"Nightmare." Lorelai identified. "What is it doing?" Tooth asked. "Following us." Jack guessed.

Lorelai's eyes went wide, before narrowing in thought. "Not if I have anything to say about it." she muttered. Not today Pitch, not ever. Her hands began to glow a dark purple color as she placed them on the wood of the sleigh. The purple glow began to spread onto the sleigh, spreading steadily

"What are you doing to my sleigh?" North asked. "Making us invisible. I'm not letting that thing into my home if I can help it." the purple spread until it covered the sleigh, reindeer, everything.

"And now we're hidden, see?" she said, pointing at the nightmare who looked around a few times, confused at where it's targets had gone, before descending downwards, probably to where Pitch was.

"Okay then, now what am I supposed to look for?" North asked her. "Mount Olympus should be visible in like a few minutes, I'll show you where to go once we're closer."

"So the way to the underworld is under Mount Olympus?" Jack asked her.

"One of them. A lot of different mountains have secret caves in them that all lead to the Hades's gates. This was the closest one. There!" she pointed to the giant mountain. The reindeer continued forward, slowing down, but still going at a steady pace towards the rock wall, to the surprise of North.

"Uh, Lorelai, that's a solid wall. There's nothing there." Tooth told her confused.

"That there is." Lorelai replied, smiling.

"Lorelai, we're gonna crash!" North called.

"That's what it looks like." she answered, still smiling.

"Are you mad woman? You're gonna get us killed! North, stop the sleigh." Bunny yelled at her.

"I can't, the reindeer, they won't stop!" North exclaimed, pulling desperately on the reins, to no avail.

"You're doing this aren't you?! I knew you were working with Pitch." Bunny accused her, she just stood there, still smiling.

"Just wait." she sat there, seeming to enjoy watching the Guardians panic.

Tooth, tried to fly up but noticed immediately that she couldn't. Bunny grabbed the reins from North and began his own attempt at stopping the reindeer. North and Sandy it seemed, had accepted their fate, they sat there watching, waiting for them to hit the wall.

Jack looked at her, she was staring directly ahead, focused on something, and her lips were moving. Bracing for the crash and giving one last prayer perhaps? No, it was definitely something else. He saw her notice him staring at her, out of the corner of her eye. Her smile twitched even wider.

The reindeer were about twenty feet away from the wall. She turned her head towards him and continued her silent chant, so he could read her lips.

If you don't fear death, then your soul will live forever behind the illusions of life.

Lorelai winked at him as she stood up and walked towards Bunny and Tooth, placing her hands on their shoulders. She spoke just before the first reindeer could hit the wall. "Don't fear death and you will live forever behind the illusions of life."