Act I.Dare to Hope (A ROTG/GOC Fanfiction)

.Chapter I.

Dated 12 years ago before Pitch was defeated by Jack Frost and the Guardians.
"Like lullabies you are,
Forever in my mind."

Ernaline was wearing a black hooded cloak,beneath that was her simple black dress,her precious gold locket and black heels with a black fur boa;bringing the dead to the afterlife in the hospital.She pitied them,yet was fascinated from how humans' technology preserved the dead for a while longer.Most spirits would say she would always be at cemeteries,but mostly she was at hospitals.Her whole council was here,helping with her task,she took the young,low rankings took the old and others took the middle aged.It was midnight,no spirits except her council's would come out in the night,just Sandy and Pitch.

"Only you..."

She created the system to avoid getting spirits traumatized due to some breaking down in front of others telling them they didn't want the job.She went to the last ward that she needed to,where a boy around 7 was tossing and turning around in his bed,'Poor child,he shouldn't suffer like this.'Ernaline thought,surveying the room to only find sliver-golden eyes that resemble an eclipse staring at her at the furthest part of the corner before coming out showing Pitch,smiling a real smile.Pleased with the unexpected visit,he teased,"Well isn't it Ernaline-or should I say,Death?".

"The pieces in my life..go away with you."

Ernaline sat down near the child and brushed a strand of hair away from his sweaty face.However,she frowned when the boy breathed in and out heavily,clenching his eyes closed."Pitch,would you be a gentlemen and removed his nightmares for once?"She asked,her other hand brushing Pitch's.She had forgiven him many centuries ago for extinguishing the Pookas,some other species and the loyal men that was dedicated their lives to serve Tsar.Grumbling(one last 'oh to hell be with it!') under his breath,Pitch retracted the nightmare from the boy causing it to be a blank space in his mind.'Better than dinosaurs trying to gobble him up.'Ernaline thought,smiling at Pitch for doing that which he,no doubt,smiled back.

"Forever in my mind..."

However,there was a cold feeling sinking into Ernaline's heart,the locket!The girl,Katherine had shown him it once before...beneath that smile,..there was a face of horror,of terror.But her body didn't sent out invisible waves of fears,she kept still.She knew that Pitch had fragments of memories,enough for him to remember that he had a wife,a child,a family!But he did not remember Ernaline,when she discovered this,she hesitated,..she was fearful of him remembering her and one day,he would be gone.She hid the locket away from him...it would do for now..even Death,even her own self can't remember her entire past life!She couldn't remember her true name,her memories were once shattered till she found the locket.There was first a dull ache,a flash of memory,something she can't reach with her mind and its hurts.

"Only you.."

Was it painstakingly ironic?That he,once a hero,was now the Nightmare King?Ernaline would be lying if she said that she didn't cry so much when she discovered Kozmotis,was now Pitch Black.But now,she could only hope that there was a shard of Kozmotis somewhere deep in Pitch's heart.She sighed and waved goodbye to Pitch,who nodded and went to the next ward for his next dose of fear.Ernaline's hand advanced to the child's chest,it was made of the darkest shadows wrapped in armor made of tenacious diamonds.Her fingers were cold to the touch,her nails was covered in black,Chinese fingernails guard,they were sharp and were considered a weapon.

"The pieces in my life..run away with you."

She raised her nail to end the boy's life and impale it into his soul,she collected the soul into a glass jar and transported it to her lair so he could be released into his afterlife.As much as she hated this and preferred to do it for the elderly,it was her job.She always hated this,even after decades,she wasn't used to the sudden coldness in the atmosphere when someone...fades away.She took one look at the boy,the nurse had rushed up with doctors but it was already too late.
"Sweet dreams..."She murmur towards the jar,where the soul was calm and possibly 'sleeping'.It was winter,her cold breath battle against the less colder one,freezing one of the plants in the hospital as she walked in the halls.

"You were my first love."

She got the locket out of the cloak,her stare fixating at the man in the picture along with herself on the left and his daughter.Since Emily's mother was gone,she was like a nanny towards Emily,or what she was now,Mother Nature.'Is this how fate works?That three of us gets turned into this,and I'm Death?'She thought,tears flowing silently in the night,no one to comfort her and no one would know.

Lullabies by Yuna.
Written on Sunday,8 of April 2018
Word count:895 (not counting this)