His Nightmare Queen (Pitch Black x Reader)

49: Escape

The frigid winds whipping past your ears were blaring like the thunder of the mare’s hooves stamping the ground in her gallop beneath you. The piercing winter air clouded the skies and frosted the bark of the evergreen trees and earthy floor of the forest. Your breaths were shallow and burned in your lungs like the searing muscles in your legs that clung to the sides of the mare as you refused to look back. A puff of white fog released into the air with each of your tiny exhales. You held on with all your might, one hand grasping at the reins and the ruffled sands of the mare’s mane while your other arm remained under your cloak to cling to the newborn pressed against your chest.

In the opposite direction rode the Nightmare King upon another mare through the treeline of the woods. You could no longer see him now that the two of you had already rushed far enough from one another to disappear within different ends of the forestry. An empty bundle of linens lay in one arm as he too hung on while galloping away. Behind him, the shadows that peeled away from the treeline caught sight of this illusion and chased after without seeing what you truly carried and hid away. It only took minutes for an ocean-like wave of ink black fearlings to pool behind him in a chase where he lured the creatures with his trickery as you sped further away.

The sharpness of the ongoing pains in your lower abdomen shot through you with every other stride of Onyx’s racing gallop. Your eyes stung from the crisp dryness of the air and the tears rising from the sensation of knives pulling apart the loosely softened flesh below your navel. The inferno-like soreness of your body from its postpartum state threatened to kill your consciousness and flickered the lights behind your vision like the panging aches at your center between burning thighs. Each time you sensed the Earth fading away to draw you out of reality though, you snapped your mind back into focus and pushed onward with your escape.

The Guardians were far behind you as well within the treeline where you could no longer see. You could picture them all: Sanderson with his golden whips, Bunnymund quick with his swift boomerangs, Tooth and North exchanging rapiers as Tooth zipped by in flight, and Jack freezing out as many moving forms of darkness as he could with his staff. Stray shadows and darkling creatures seeped from the storm that chased after where they believed to be following the child being rushed off with its father. Each of the Guardians were spread about the wooded area to fight off as many as they could while the creatures were too distracted to witness you hurrying off into the distance with your daughter tucked and hidden away. As you drew further toward the forest’s edge where Onyx would soon whisk you away even deeper into hiding, a pinch of relief poked at you. The plan was working. You did not know how long you would have to run for, but it was working.

Soon you would all finally be safe.

You then felt Ravanna squirm against the crook of your elbow. The soreness in your arm from holding her up and your attention to also hanging on to your mare prevented you from adjusting her. That’s when she let out a whimper of discomfort. Then the whimper dissolved into a shrill cry. Your heart sunk into the pit of your stomach when her wails began to echo and bounce off the evergreen trees.

“Nononono, shh…” you hushed the small figure beneath your cloak. Onyx raced on while you tried to softly calm the girl’s rising shrieks. By the time you were glancing over your shoulder for the first time to check that your daughter’s cries had not alerted the fearlings, it was already too late.

The barreling black sea of fearlings was flooding your way. They had turned around sharply at the sounds of the newborn’s screams that had caused them to realize they had been fooled - played by their own game. This time, they were not happy. The wave of them peaked so high over the tops of the trees that the branches vanished behind them. If Pitch and the Guardians were behind the fearlings, you could not attempt to see nor hear them call out to warn you through any new desire to reach you before the creatures would. A pool of darkness was closing in on you. You gasped sharply with widening frightened eyes and urged for Onyx to pick up speed.