His Nightmare Queen (Pitch Black x Reader)

36: Pieces

Another two weeks moved into the end of the month. Only two more weeks remained before Easter. This time around for your trip to the Warren, you prepared yourself for the day with your regular routine. Get up, get dressed, listen to Pitch mutter some choice words about the rabbit while knowing he could do nothing to stop you from going out in the Guardians’ favor. He would cool down after reminders that you were to return at dusk as per usual anyway. After wrapping the tie of your jacket around your waist a bit looser than usual for the extra wiggle room that maneuvering around Bunny’s gardens required, you bid your temporary farewell to get on with the day.

A kiss, an exchange of words and loving whispers pleading you to stay, a turn on the heels to leave, a pivot back with a tug on your arm to return to the Nightmare King’s embrace, another kiss before letting go.

The third visit to the gardens was similar to the last two. Grab an egg, slather it in paint and patterns, set it down, repeat. Do this nearly a hundred more times. Chatter with the pooka about topics ranging from small talk to those that make one of you end up standing up in defense of either Pitch or the Guardians while remaining at enough of a calm to consider it playful banter. No wonder your husband still had a difficult time warming up the Guardians.

Even with you sitting for hours on end, this session of egg-painting rendered you practically out of breath by the oncoming sunset. Lower back sore from sitting on a solid rock, your upper back gave a soft crack when you sat up straight from the ache of hunching over what you considered your mediocre artwork compared to Bunnymund’s masterpieces. A pounding sensation throbbed in your head from exhaustion during the last few hours of staring down at the fragile chocolates between your paint-coated fingertips. Thank goodness this would be your last time giving a hand with the painting before sending the completed eggs off in two weeks, otherwise you could imagine yourself growing delirious with irritability from the tediousness of the task. You will never understand how the rabbit does not momentarily lose his mind over the work, but instead grows easily moody when he finds himself catching too long of a break from it.

You definitely deserved the bag of carrots you nabbed before heading back. Stuffing the small plastic pack down into your inner jacket pocket as you had previously had done with the few chocolate eggs last time, you sighed to yourself and made your way over to the opening of the tunnel you had been normally entering and exiting through. You then stopped again at the front of it.

Maybe it was the handful of nightmares you had been experiencing within the last couple of weeks that was putting you on edge. Or perhaps it was the achy tiredness building from said bad dreams that darkened the circles under your eyes to the point it was also somehow playing tricks on your vision. The pitch-blackness of the tunnel appeared to you like a haunting pit with little chance of reaching any light at the end that was nowhere to be seen from this far away. What once was simply another cavern to you like those residing within your own kingdom was now seeming as a cold invitation to a stroll you felt you would not return from. Something in your mind whispered to you that not even your sword dangling from your hip would be enough to break through the depth of such shadow that would take you over in an instant this time. The uneasy gut feeling refused to allow you to take another step forward on your own. A twinge of embarrassment pinched at you alongside your stirring nerves when you slowly turned around to find the Guardian again in his own gardens.

“...Bunny?” You managed to call out. You watched as the rabbit perked up from near the flowing stream before heading your way. He hopped over to you and stood up at your side.

“Yeah, mate?”

“Can I ask you…kind of a dumb favor?” 

The rabbit chuckled. “Couldn’t be dumb with all you’ve been providing around here.”