Believe in Me

January

His icy, light blue eyes flickered open sleepily to the sound of humming echoing from the room adjacent to the one he had been sleeping in. Usually she didn’t wake up this early, the boy giving a tiny sigh as he stretched his arms out, sitting up and shaking his head to rustle out the pale blue bangs that had grown to fall over his eyes in the time past. She never let him cut his hair, said he looked better with it longer, but it kept getting in front of his vision and he had to push the bangs out of his face so consistently that it became somewhat of a habit. Still, it didn’t matter all that much. It was just hair. 

He rose from his pile of blankets on the floor, exhaling a small yawn as he allowed himself to listen to the unusually cheerful tone that floated from the doorway and into his ears. Cloti was thankful in a way that she made noises like that; Viola expected him to be awake by the time she left the room. He didn’t see why though… he hardly did anything. It was more or less that she didn’t trust him, which was sensible because, if he had the chance, he would flee right away from the miserable place. He would go home… if he was even welcome anymore. Chances were the guardians had simply forgotten about them, the idea somewhat proved by the fact that Pitch hadn’t had a single problem with the group since. The wind spirit knew the risk of what would happen if they attempted to help them out, Chaos didn’t stop going on about how genius his ‘master plan’ was until the next week, but still…

“You’re awake,” he heard a relaxed, slow voice coo out  from somewhere behind him. He turned, light eyes meeting the dark purple irises of his… no, he wouldn’t call her a master in any way. He only did what he had to… it wasn’t like he had a choice. If he ever said no to something she’d just use whatever that strange manipulation power was to force him to do it anyways, just with the added humility of not having any control of his body at all in those short periods when she took over. He hated it, having his arms move without his command, following the witch’s orders like a slave would… he wasn’t a slave… he would never accept that role, no matter if they kept him here for centuries… Then the thought crept into his mind. What if they would? Spirits didn’t die from age or any regular illness… What if he would just stay trapped here as a forced grunt until he eventually did die? Though his chest fell somewhat heavier in a sigh, the thought didn’t bring him near the state of tears at all anymore. Nothing ever rarely did, he had wasted all of that precious liquid in the first few nights. Now his eyes remained dry and the sadness that would always fill him up completely was renewed into anger, frustration, humiliation… emotions he never experienced often before. Was it that he was in the presence of three of the dark spirits? Fear, Lust, and Havoc… combined alone they would be enough to make for an extreme challenge, but with the addition of countless spirits… countless spirits that hated him…

The day Viola walked into the familiar hall where Wind once sat alone, surrounded by others that he’d never attempt to talk to, each of the spirits Cloti knew and didn’t immediately surrounded to try and convince her to let them kill him. They shouted that he was a traitor, that he deserved to die, all except a extremely small few claiming that they would kill him themselves. If he did anything too badly, she might just say yes… and he didn’t want to die here. If he could have anything, it would be the wish to not die here. Not until he knew that Jack and Ilia were safe where they belonged, not until he experienced the time with his family and knew the consequences of not enjoying the moment while he was having it.

But to be honest, that hope was far from reality. He hadn’t seen Jack since the second before he fell unconscious at the pole, and in the rare cases he saw the fox girl she was tagging behind Chaos, her bright eyes still glowing but honing a downcasted, heavy sadness to them that was similar to the one her so-called brother usually had. She smiled when she caught sight of him but it was weak, an attempt to give hope in a situation where hope was like a flame flickering in a downpour of a merciless flood. Hope was a candle shadowed by a torrent of an ocean’s giant wave, whatever was left of it wouldn’t burn for much longer before it was wiped out by the crash of acceptance of the darkness that surrounded them entirely in Pitch’s lair. Honestly Cloti didn’t feel like he even had it that bad. He did things for Viola when she was either too lazy or too uncaring to do them herself, he sent messages and delivered them in return, and if he was caught attempting to leave or nearing a hallway he and other spirits were completely banned from, he was told that he would be killed right on the spot. That was the hallway he assumed Jack was in… but why was no one allowed in it? That was what scared him. Not that Jack would be going through some form of pain, that was to be expected with Pitch’s rage building constantly by the day, that was something that was unavoidable. What made him worried was what else might be going on in that hall. Why Jack was kept as such a secret when on a normal occasion everyone would’ve been informed and cherished in the victory of the nightmare king’s downfall finally being caught and put to revenge soon. The fact that the snow spirit would be hurt was known to everyone, probably even the guardians if they cared anymore, so it wasn’t like there was anything for Pitch to hide unless something else was happening.