Believe in Me

Fairness Corrupt

The main room was crowded as always yet even noisier than usual. It seemed like every spirit was in high hopes to hear what the group that went out had to say. Did they finally take down the guardians? Who was left? Who would be brought back? Talk surrounded and echoed back about how excited each and every one of the forms in the room would be to spit on the feet of one of the big five and their new comrades… everyone except her. In her mind, the spirits everyone was so ready to watch fall hadn’t done much of anything wrong. She had been angry at them before, would probably have been one of the rowdiest people in the room at the thought at the guardians having everything taken from them… but now, it just felt pointless.

Honestly, how would this help? After a while of thought, it wasn’t exactly their faults that everyone wasn’t seen by the humans, it wasn’t the guardians’ faults that everyone was feeling the way they did. Their hearts were restless and quick to blame… but there was no one to blame at all. On further thought, they probably all jumped to hating the guardians so badly because the few of them had what the rest of the spirits didn’t… they had families, were cared about and believed in. All of the rest were left as rejects… but no matter how badly that hurt to repeatedly recognize, the pain wasn’t given to them by the guardians. Even if every single one of them were killed on that very day, nothing would change. The Man in the Moon would replace them with someone else that could do their jobs and eventually those would grow to be well known to children once more, a repetitive cycle with them always in the pit of rejection. No child on earth probably knew who she was or ever would, no matter the results of this mission the nightmare king randomly decided to announce… so she sat on her own in the corner of the room as everyone else drank, cheered, boasted, and played. Some older male spirits argued about how they wished they had been chosen to go to the pole. Pitch’s army was overflowing, and he couldn’t take all of them, so enough men were left behind to fill the hall that they ate in daily. The nightmare king might’ve picked her to go had she not hidden behind the large mass of the group begging to come along; she was grateful that she was short enough to do so.

“Sasha? You’re still here? Jeez, I thought you would’ve been the king’s first choice.” The female turned, blinking over her shoulder, though already knowing who was behind her. Only one person would go up to her and speak directly like that, would sounds so truly kind in a mass of rebels and high-tempered spirits. “I chose not to go,” she replied softly, unsure and somewhat uncaring to whether he could hear her over the loud voices that sounded across the room. She nearly had a headache just sitting there, but it was easy enough to drown out the chatter with her thoughts. The male spirit standing behind her seemed completely confused at this, deciding to sit down and begin a conversation she hadn’t exactly been expecting. Sasha glanced over wearily, not fully joyful at the thought of him asking her to explain why. She couldn’t say her personal thoughts on the matter or she’d get declared a traitor before she could even say she was still fighting for the same team. If you didn’t hate the guardians then they assumed you loved them… honestly, she just wished this war was over so that she wasn’t so quickly forced to pick a side. While solitude made her unhappy, she was used to it, and while joining Pitch’s army gave her the first decent friend she had had in her lifespan… honestly, she was so used to being on her own, if she needed to leave him she probably easily could. “Well… why? The King already sees your potential, going would’ve helped that wouldn’t it have?” She had been expecting something like this, nearly word by word. Cloudy blue eyes blinked at her behind a mess of dirty blonde bangs. While they had all once honed their own chosen outfits, one of the more important members of the nightmare king’s army decided that everyone should stick to specific uniforms. With how clumsy he was, the blonde in front of her always ended up forgetting at least some part of the uniform, but today he looked neater than ever, each shoelace apparently tied tight, the collar of the black tight-suit like outfit tucked neatly down as it was supposed to be. Sasha hesitated for a few seconds before looking down at her hands, which were neatly folded on the table, answering calmly but still as blankly quiet as before. “What’s the point of his favor if he’s just going to throw us away after this fight ends?” The male went quiet for a while, obviously having not planned for her to say something like that. Sasha always seemed to know what to say but also always seemed to make it complicated… he somewhat wished she would dull it down; he wasn’t exactly the brightest out there. Was the king really going to throw them away? He didn’t want to believe that… after all of their work to him, he had to fulfill his promise to give them recognition and families, it was only right, wasn’t it? Even Pitch Black had that sort of decency. He didn’t understand why Sasha didn’t believe so. Yet still, there was a blatantly uneasy glance crossing her weary-looking eyes; something appeared to be wrong. Everyone was so happy, what had her in such a bad mood? They were going to win this time! The fight would be over and they would be given what they were promised! And yet she seemed almost upset to hear that the guardians would fall… why?  “Simon… why do you think we’re here?” Her thoughtful voice caught his attention and he turned his head back to face the young woman, considering her question for a second. It was such an obvious question, but there was no doubt she had a bigger meaning behind it… like always. “Because the nightmare king is offering us a home?” He replied, yet was pretty sure his answer wasn’t the right one at all. He had heard that Sasha came to join the army not because she wanted the reward that came with it, but because she was asked to choose between Pitch Black and the guardians and didn’t want to have her head taken off for saying the other answer. Despite how great of a fighter she was, how brilliantly her mind could piece together information in seconds, she didn’t have the reason to do much of anything. She did it because she had to, not because she cared. “No, I mean here, like on this earth… Why are we here just to keep from doing the jobs we’ve been reborn to do? All we’re doing is fighting… and no one in this room is following their main goal anymore. Does that make sense to you?” On this earth… He didn’t agree. Simon wanted to be there to live, he wanted to be alive for the same reason the humans were alive. He was once a human but why would that matter if he couldn’t even remember it? The way his friend put it, it was like being reborn by the Man in the Moon was more of a forced job than it was a blessing. He enjoyed doing what he did but… still…. And yet again, he was stuck, left free of an excuse to why the spirit in front of him was wrong at all. But he should’ve expected that from Sasha Owlesse, spirit of understanding. She was a genius in the knowledge of the way the mind worked, it was like she could read what he was saying, like she could implant her own understanding into his dull brain. And when she fought the enemy had another thing coming. The nightmare king saw her potential the second he passed by her, it radiated from the girl, but she didn’t want to give that essence to the cause. She just wanted to go on her boring, lonely life… how did that make sense to her? He didn’t understand. “Look… I don’t really know what’s wrong but…”