Black wings, Snow, and Sand

Chapter 4: there are storms we can control and storms we can't

I look around to see millions of black shadows that resemble horses flying each and every way. We try to duck as they come in close. I look over my left to see something horrifying happen. They capturing the small fairies with their mouths and imprisoning them in their transparent stomachs. I acted without thinking and jump up to save one of the little fairies I met in the North Pole, from the dungeon of the creatures.
" hey little baby tooth you ok?" I asked the small being in my hands. She squeaks with relief, smiles at me, nods her tiny head.
I look up again and see Victoria pulling out her one of her daggers as one shadow gets to close for comfort.
" DUCK! " she says then slices the creature's belly above her head. But fairies didn't come out of this one.
Small, slender gold tube objects come flying out as the creature deteriorates into dust. Victoria blocks the tubes with her wings to protect me and the others, behind her. Bunny then quickly picks one up.
" Their stealing the teeth!" He yells then looks at Sandman, who picks off some of the strange ink black particles and gives a look of being disturbed.
We get to the palace but haven't landed.
" Here!" North says and hands me the reins, I whip them hard as North goes to tend to something that seems to be more important at the moment.
" YHA!" I shout. As quickly as I held the reins North came back and I handed them to him. We start to lower fast and hit the ground hard... We've landed.
We jump off of the sleigh and look around. Soon we spot Tooth flying around and breathing frantically.
"Tooth!" North yells to her, she comes down.
" They've taken my fairies and the teeth! ...Everything is gone..." She says as she flies down then sits on the ground with her knees and slumps in state of giving up, feeling her grief, baby tooth flies from my shoulder, up to her.
" Oh! Thank goodness one of you is alright " she says then hugs the tiny fairy with her hands.
Me and Victoria stay on the first platform of the palace, near the sleigh, weapons ready and look cautiously around, while the others stay on the second. The palace has no walls, that's why I say platforms instead of floors, we can see Tooth and the other Guardians clearly.
We also see that the shadows that were flying around earlier are gone. Thinking it was over we lower our weapons.
All of a sudden a cackle erupts and a dark and slender figure is above all of us, with his piercing yellow eyes, glittery gray skin, and black robe that goes all the way to the ground covering his feet.
" Hello Guardians" he says with a mixture of loathing and mockery. Tooth becomes enraged at the sight of him. she flies toward him fast, but he disappears in the shadows.
" Pitch you have exactly 30 seconds to return my fairies or I'll-"
" Or what? You'll stick a quarter under my pillow?" He pretends to be frightened, and chuckles to himself. He disappears once more.
We finally spot him and before we knew it, Tooth grabs one Bunny's boomerangs and flies as fast she can at Pitch, but just as she nears him, a black horse appears from the inky shadows, with piercing yellow eyes, comes face to face with Tooth. It bellows out a haunting growl, then flares it's nostrils hostilely. She stops in her tracks.
" Easy girl, Easy" he says to it, proudly, and pats the beast's long, muscular neck. "Look familiar Sandman?" He flakes off some of the dusty substance to show Sandman what it's made of, as if gloating to him. Black sand. Identical to Sandman's gold sand. Sandman sends a look of hate toward Pitch.
"Took me a lifetime to master it. They smell fear, you know. So don't be afraid it only riles them up more" by now Tooth has given up on the plan of attack, comes down, and gives Bunny his boomerang back.
" Scared of you?Ha! No body has been scared of you since the dark ages!" Bunny growls.
" Ah the Dark ages such a beautiful time for me. People were afraid of everything. A time of fear and its indescribable glory......." Pitch says in thought.
" well they're not now so I have no idea why you're even trying." Bunny states infuriated.
" Maybe I'm tired of being put off as a bad dream. Maybe I'm tired of not being seen. Maybe I'm tired of being under people's beds!" Pitch says.
" Or Maybe! that's were you belong." Bunny counters. Pitch appears under him.
" ehh go suck on an egg rabbit." He says. Bunny tries to grab him, but he disappears before he can. I can't tell where he is.
" Wait, is...is that Jack Frost? " he says mockingly though I still can't see him. He appears a few feet away, behind a fence like wall, with huge openings.
" Since when are you and the Guardians so chummy?"
" We're not..." I say mostly to myself. He puts his chin in his hand, and looks pretty much bored.
" Oh a neutral party... Well then I'm going to ignore you... Of course you're probably used to that." Ok, that was a low blow.
He looks over my shoulder, his eyes light up mischievously, "Aahh, the lovely Victoria." He says, then appears in front of her.
I remember what North said about them, moving closer, I point the end of my staff at him ready for attack. He looks at her, then looks at the daggers as she points both of them toward his abdomen. He flicks at one, making a small chime.
" Have you finally crawled out of the forest luv?" He says amused. Her eyes glow red as they did at back at the North Pole, but the intensity is far worse.
" You tell me. Have I crawled out of that forest where you left me to rot, you good for nothing twot?" She counters.
Pitch then whips around her, grabs both of her arms and pulls them around her wings, high behind her back. Victoria gasps in pain for a second then quickly tries hide it. I'm in full protection mode now. He smiles smugly at me. My cheeks are blazing. He leans closer to her ear.
" You know you brought that on yourself, you could've accepted the love in my heart I still have for you, but apparently that wasn't enough. I gave everything for you to be happy, but I might make an exception if you so change your pretty little mind." He says in a seductive voice. I'm gonna kill him.
"Let her go Pitch!" North yells in rage. Pitch ignores him.
" You brought me nothing but pain in my never ending life, and I'd rather burn in hell then be with anyone like you" Victoria says trying to hold back tears, I try to attack from behind, but the horse shadow appears, pounding it's hooves hard on the floor, telling me to get away, I try to stand my ground.
" Oh did I hit a nerve? You were always as delicate as rose." He says, while gliding the back of his silvery, long, thin fingers across her rosey cheek as the other hand holds her arms back. The others about a second away from killing Pitch by the looks on their faces, and so am I. But before we can, Victoria's wings burst out, releasing her from Pitch's grip, she turns swiftly behind him, and puts her daggers to his throat. He face grimaces in pain.
" That's why I carry thorns" she says bitterly. I can't help but smirk at her response.
A tear of anger streams down her cheek; grey clouds start to form above, starting lite rain. This must be one of her magic tricks.
"Give the fairies and the teeth back Pitch! Now!" She demands, thunder roars with her voice, she pulls the daggers tight against his throat, but he only laughs at the threat.
" Haha there's that fire, glad to see it still burns" he disappears into the shadows again, we look around cautiously, when he reappears above us." To bad it can't burn away the fear."
Out of pure annoyance, Bunny throws one of his boomerangs at him, who swiftly dodges it. We all jump at the chance, but Pitch is quicker. When he jumps down from where he stood, we follow him, but only to see he's disapeared when we hit the grassy grounds bellow the palace. We look to see if we can find any trace of him...nothing.
Disappointed, we put away our weapons and let what just happened sink in. Victoria soon stops the rain with one wipe of her hand on her cheek, erasing the tear that must have triggered it. She sits down on a very large rock with old carvings found in every space of it. She wraps her arms around her hips, then raises one arm, curls her finger tip down to palm, and presses the top bent joint of that finger to her to lips, deep in thought.
I hesitate wether or not to ask if she's ok, but proceed to do so. I fly slowly toward her until I'm about a foot away from her. She looks at me with mixture of sadness and worry, which exposes one to be a dark blue, and the other a gold, like ocean water during the most gorgeous sunset.
" hello " she says trying to shake it off.
" hey" I say, " You ok?"
" well to be honest... No." She says quietly."Its just...I thought...I'd never..." She stutters on the words but I understand, she sighs, then continues, "now I think I know why the man in the moon would ask for me to be here..."
We sit there for a little bit, while she traces some of the carvings with her long, elegant fingers. I think about how the hell someone like her would get involved with someone like him.
I'm about to ask about her and Pitch, when she looks over my shoulder, I look as well to see Tooth, sitting on her knees by a very small and clear pond.
"We should go to her. She's devastated, she loved those fairies and they loved her...she doesn't deserve this...nobody does." She says with complete sympathy.
" yeah." I say.
She gets up, and then walks over toward Tooth. She lowers, and sits on her knees in front of her. I follow, and sit right next her.
" I'm so sorry about fairies Tooth" she says sensitively. I nod in agreement.
" You should have saw them, they put up such a fight" her voice sounds like it's about to break.
" but why would Pitch take the teeth?" I say confused.
" they have memories inside them Jack, precious memories of childhood." Tooth gets up and flies toward a mural of what looks like her and the other fairies, giving people teeth. Victoria and I get up and follow, she flaps her wings slowly and softly right next to her. I put my foot on the water, and just like that, the water froze under my feet, making easy for me to literally walk on water toward them. We look intently at the mural.
" We give people back there teeth when they have forgotten something important in their childhood. We had everyone's baby teeth, even both of you guy's." She says, looking at both me and Victoria. Wait! Is she saying what I think she's saying?!?
" Wait your saying I had a life before this?!" I say.
" Of course... Wait, you don't remember?" She turns to Victoria," you either?" She looks at me and her confused.
" No. Not in centuries." Victoria says. All the guardians look at us like we have lobsters crawling out of our ears. Then all of a sudden, a thunder like sound erupts in the palace, we look toward it. Huge paint chips fall, and structures crack. I look back to Tooth and see some of her feathers wilt off of her bird like figure and fall to the ground. Terror fills her eyes. She droops to the ground on her knees.
" They don't believe in me anymore..." She says on the verge of tears. The Children! Their teeth weren't collected!
" No, No! This not happen!" North says angrily. He flings his pirate like, swords with his hands as he moves. He thinks deep while he paces the ground. We move out of the and stand next to the large rock. He stops and his face lights up with a solution.
" IDEA!" He points his swords to Bunny, who backs away from the blades quickly. " WE go and fetch the TEETH!" He says point to all us with his blades.
" What? We are talking billions of kids! Thousands of cities and countries! " Tooth says doubtful.
" huff, please, do you know how many presents I deliver in one night?" North scoffs.
" And how many eggs I hide in one day?" Bunny adds. Tooth smiles from ear to ear. They then turn to me and Victoria.
" how about it?" North says to us.
" Of course, anything I can do to help." Victoria says. They turn their attention to me.
" We'll help you get your memories back..." North bribes. I look at them and grin.
" I'm in." I say.
"Let's go!"
We hurry to the sleigh as fast as we can. Me, tooth, sandman and Victoria take flight, while Santa and bunny take the stairs. Once in the sleigh we lift off into the air. North pulls out another globe and gives it to Tooth and asks,
" Where to?"
She whispers "Jaipur", throws it and we disappear into the portal.
We arrive at our first destination and land on the roof of small house. We get off and watch the moon starting to rise upon the sleeping city. As he rises to his full point, we all set off to collect the teeth that Tooth had located with baby tooth. I glide along the winds, feeling the cold rush against my body and face. I close my eyes and breath in the night air.
" Oy! Get your head out of the clouds frostbite, before all the teeth are gone!"Apparently Bunny has been racing along the roofs beside me the whole time.
" Is that a challenge cottontail?!" I yell back.
" oh you don't won't to race a rabbit mate..." He taunts. Victoria glides up beside me, on her back as if relaxed. She looks at Bunny.
" I don't know, I've seen a faster tortoise." She teases Bunny. All three of us laugh.
" Oh really?" Bunny asks.
She flips back over to a normal flying position, flaps her wings one good time, and jokingly nods. Bunny chuckles then starts dart every which way as fast as he can, which is the fastest I've ever seen him go.
" Wow!" I say amazed, yet not surprised, I look over and see North popping in and out of different chimneys.
" A RACE?!" He says with glee then goes back into the chimney and appears up another one, " TIS GOING TO BE---EPIC!" He shouts.
I stop above a brand new looking build board, I look down and see Tooth flying every which way in excitement.
" THERES A MOLER OVER THERE AND SIZER OVER THERE!! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE-" she accidentally flies into the build board, but quickly recovers.
" oahh"
" are you ok?" I say to her.
" Yea it's just I haven't been in the field in a long time"
" how long is a longtime?" I ask.
" 400 years, give or take..." She then perks up and looks to her left quickly. " THERES ANOTHER ONE!!" She flies as fast as she can to a child's bedroom near by. Baby tooth flies over and I look at her with a questioning look. She just shrugs her shoulders and flies away.
We all race to get the most teeth, going from one city to city and soon country to country. I ran to Bunny along the way and shot a cold chill at him, because I really wanted that tooth that he stole from me. Soon we're on top of a roof, all of us are showing our bags of multiple children's teeth.
" wow! You guys collect teeth and leave gifts as fast as my fairies!" Tooth stats. Leave gifts?...crap.
She notice that we get nervous."you guys have been leaving gifts right??"
I look over and see Sandy nod then shake his head no, and Victoria face-palming and whispering to herself, " I knew I forgot something..." I just thank god I'm not they only one who forgot.
We look for a place to get coins for all the children. Thankfully we find a laundry mat, we get our change, and set out.