Stealing a Princess (A Rise of the Guardians Fanfiction)

Laughter

Sunlight streamed in through the window. It was a few days after Jack had agreed to teach the girl, who had told him her name was Toothiana, how to defend herself.

Why he had done it, he couldn’t remember, but he liked to think he had thought of the benefits of having the princess indebted to him, but in truth, he hadn’t been thinking at all. He had been losing himself in her deep purple eyes, which seemed to constantly change color, and the way they lit up when he agreed to teach her.

Or maybe it was the slight tremor in her voice as she asked him that told him she was scared of him saying no. Whatever the reason was, Jack was kind of regretting his decision right now.

For one thing, it would be difficult to find a place to teach her without getting caught, and if he didn’t teach her, she would rat him out to the king. Either way, Jack was now in a difficult position.

So, he was forced to teach the princess how to fight.

He was staying in an old storage room, or more precisely, the basement. The basement was located somewhere in between the winding passages going through the castle, and Jack had tried his best to memorize them.

Though, try as he might, he just couldn’t form a mental map of the twisting, labyrinth-like maze of tunnels. So he busied himself with trying to form a plan to steal the painting. After several hours of contemplating many different strategies, nothing that seemed very foolproof came to mind, so Jack gave up.

Pacing, he walked from one end of his surprisingly large room to the other, chewing on his fingernail. His mother had always told him to get rid of the bad habit. He hadn’t bothered to try. He remembered his sister, how she had held onto him tightly as his father disowned him, crying out when he pulled away from her and walked out.

A tear slid down his cheek. Why hadn’t his family understood why he did what he did? He had been extra careful not to get caught; yet they had still ordered him to leave. No matter. He had a new family now, with people who looked up to him, respected him, and stuck together.

The thought of his old family still caused him pain though. Nothing could stop the dull ache in his gut whenever he thought of them. Flopping onto the pallet he had found in the storeroom and dragged into a corner, he pulled his bag over his head, as if that would block out the memories.

The bag didn’t help.

It’s going to be one of those days, Jack thought. One of those days when, no matter what he did to try and distract himself, he still wouldn’t be able to block out painful thoughts of his sister. His group members had learned to stay away from him during these days, not that Jack could blame them for wanting to avoid him. Hell, even he wanted to get away from himself today.

He could feel the corners of his mouth drooping, could feel himself frowning. Jack didn’t like moping around; he found it quite useless. Instead, he had tried his best to smile at all times, even if the smile was fake. Nobody needed to see him sad.

His thoughts were interrupted by a series of small taps on the door. Tap tap. Tap taptap tap. It was their secret code, one they had established in case someone other than Tooth came into the storeroom. He answered with his own taps.

The door slowly creaked open, and Tooth’s head poked into the room, a map in her hand. She waved it in the air in front of his face, grinned, and said, “I’ve got us a place to train.”

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Tooth had spent days looking through maps in the library. She had even sneaked into her father’s study to take a look at his own maps. On one occasion, she had very nearly been spotted by a guard, and had had to hide underneath her father’s desk. Thankfully, the guard had only spared a cursory glance, and Tooth had been able to get away safely.