Fear and Inspiration

[ks_claw]

Fandom: Rise of the Guardians/Guardians of childhood

Rating: PG to R depending

Summary: Once upon a time, there was a being known as the Nightmare King, Pitch Black. He had terrorized the stars out of a warped sense of rage and grief, all while hunting down the last innocent child among the stars, the little prince Lunanoff.

Once upon a time, there was a Spirit of Inspiration, a Muse by the name of Euterpe, who was once the wife of Kozmotis Pitchiner.

-----------------------

In the beginning it was dark. Pitch knew a part of him, at least his physical form, was trapped. He could feel how he was pinned, trapped by that damnable spear that Nightlight had struck him with, how it kept him trapped to the obsidian slab in this new prison that was the cave. Most of the time Nightlight succeeded in keeping Pitch trapped with him, enclosed within his body and parts of the crystal shard, but at times, Pitch soon found that he was able to stretch out his mind, and wander for a bit through the shadows. It was a straining task however, leaving him and the little heartworm who had trapped him exhausted, as Nightlight fought to keep Pitch from going anywhere.

With fear being one of the strongest ruling emotions of the time (the fear of the dark, the fear of the unknown, 'stay close to the fire, for there are monsters in the dark with sharp teeth!'), Pitch was almost constantly around humans from the very beginning. While not in his own physical form, then in the darkness that he was a part of, and while not in the physical world, then in the docile minds of human beings.

As a result, he often found himself seeing different spirits and occasionally demons, and would watch as they each had their own influence over the humans. Some spirits liked to add to the fear by causing mischief, scaring the wits out of the humans and sometimes stealing the infants, or luring the adults into situations that would lead to their demise. Others, especially spirits of a more maternal nature, sought to help the humans, teaching them new ways how to survive, or how to bond through different skills.

Pitch was at the time not certain how he should make use of his own skills. Fear was necessity, a part of him found, an instinct that kept the humans from venturing out at night, or engaging in fights against vicious beasts that they couldn't win alone. But fear could also be crippling, would keep them afraid of wanting to try anything new, from wanting to develop. It was both a frustrating and confusing time, as he worked on honing his own abilities, even as others mocked him from either side on just how useful his powers were in general.

They knew nothing, he decided in the end. He knew the worth of his powers.

The first time he saw the female spirit, he didn't find a reason to be impressed by her, but when he thought about it later, he figured that it was mostly due to first impressions on her looks. She was crouched in the dirt, her body and hair caked with muck, and her only article of clothing at the time was a piece of rough skin. The only reason he even found out that she was a spirit, was simply from her personality and the way she interacted with the humans. One of the hunters of this particular cave tribe was telling about a magnificent hunt, of how he and the other hunters had chased a deer, and how it had lead them to a grazing herd of oxen.

It was all in the way that the woman was looking at the storyteller that told Pitch there was more to her. It was also in the way she was built. She looked too delicate and fine boned compared to some of what scientifically would later be known as the Cro Magnon humans. And then there was the way she simply left when the story was done, which only confirmed his suspicions further. No one left the caves alone, especially at night.

Pitch ignored her, not caring what kind of spirit she was. Whatever influence she had, it had nothing to do with fear.

In the early ages of humanity, he would occasionally catch sight of her. She was a flighty creature and sometimes shy, easily scared by his presence and disappearing in the flicker of a ray of sunlight, or on the currents of the wind, being carried away as easily as a leaf. But she and others like her left an influence of their own, sometimes in the form of how the humans developed, and not all in the way that Pitch had seen her do so that first time with the storyteller. It also came in the form of art, of intricate cave paintings. Some took shape in the form of different animals (what would later be known as the Lascaux caves were a great example of this), while others were more fantastic, and that could even be seen as the birth of true belief for spirits. She was not the sole influence in every single place, which he learned as he would sometimes see her interacting with other spirits. But it was clear that she loved to learn from others, and bring it along to new places.

Sometimes, she would look up from something she was doing and catch his gaze, and Pitch Black found that there was something familiar about her. Not just in the way that the female spirit looked, but in her mannerisms. He usually shook the feeling off, figuring it was merely a reminder of the first time he had seen her in a Cro Magnon cave so long ago. The difference now, was simply that she was not as skittish around his shadows as she had been. He chalked it up to her being familiar, and simply not seeing him as a threat. And why should she? He hadn't given her a reason to.

Fear had its place, and so did Inspiration.

Comments

Chapter 2 - dreams and fog

[ks_claw]

In the beginning, her mind feels empty.

Her entire body is the one running on instinct. She sleeps when she is tired, looks for food when she is hungry, or water when she is thirsty. And she runs or hides when sensing danger.

All she knows about herself, is that she is a Spirit of Inspiration.

She has no idea what that means.

Eventually, she begins to approach other beings. They are Hunters and Gatherers, some hunting animals and others gathering plants or berries. She watches both, learning this way from the Gatherers which plants are safe to eat, and how some of the bigger animals are killed by the Hunters. She does not share in the bigger meals with meat for a long time. Not until the day she learns how to catch her own, in the form of a rabbit. It's a small victory, but it counts a great deal to her.

Some Hunters or Gatherers can see her, she learns, others can't. One time, a large Hunter, passes through her, and she is so startled by this, that she sets off in a sprint and doesn't stop until the sun has gone down, and it is too dark for her to see. She slows down and finds herself so exhausted that she collapses to the ground, and she lies there trembling for a long time, telling herself that the ground is solid, so she is solid as well. She is here and she is real. She is real.

---------------------------

Eventually, during her wandering, she comes to a large body of water. It is terrifying, yet she feels it won't harm her. It is a part of her, she knows, one of her elements. On pure impulse, she jumps in, gasping at the cold water that stings her eyes with its salt, but keeps her floating. She takes to swimming quite easily, following currents rather than going against them, diving as far as she can and climbing up on slippery rocks to get a view of her surroundings. Any dirt on her has been washed off and the wind makes her shiver, but she doesn't care.

She feels quite certain at this point, that she must have learned to swim somewhere before her life in this world. How else could she know?

With that thought comes a strange flash of images to her mind. She is swimming, but not alone. Someone is with her, a man's and a child's voice laughing with her, as they tumble through the water.

The flash of images (memories) do not last long, and when they fade, she finds herself still sitting on a rock. But now the water has lost its appeal, and she only returns to it (rather than sit alone and shivering) to find her way back to shore.

She feels strangely empty, but also more aware as she climbs back up on land. She continues to walk along the shore, climbing rocks when necessary or simply heading up steep land that takes her away from the ocean, until nighttime falls and she finds a place to sleep.

That night, she dreams of walking in a thick fog. She is searching for... something. She doesn't know what.

At one point, she thinks she sees something in the fog, but she wakes before she can determine what it is.

---------------------------

On a stormy night, she finds safety with a family of Hunters and Gatherers, huddled around a fire. An older Hunter is telling a story about a great bull ox, with horns as long as the Hunters arms and how dangerous it is.

The Hunter and his sons have tried to kill the ox many times, but it is old and it is clever. Up until now, they have had yet to lure it into a trap that could make them successfully catch their prey.

A young Hunter (not old enough yet to have hunted more than rabbits) declares all of a sudden that he will kill it! He will take his spear and hunt the bull down, and bring his head to the Elders of the tribe. The spirit of the ox will then bring a blessing to the tribe for generations to come!

The older Hunter snaps at him to quiet down, tells him that he does not know what he is talking about! The bull ox is not so easy to hunt, he tells the younger Hunter. Because once it decides that you are a threat to it, it will come for you and it will not stop until you are dead. Many a hunt against this bull and his herd, have sometimes ended with the older Hunter and his sons trekking through marsh and steep cliffs to make the bull lose their trail, lest it got the idea to follow them to their home.

As he speaks, the shadows dance, and his people (and the young Spirit) huddle closer to the fire. So intense are the Hunters words, that it feels as though the ox could be in that same cave, waiting any moment to attack, to pierce them all with its sharp horns. The young Spirit shivers at the thought, hugging herself as she catches herself looking around…

And then she sees him.

He stands in the shadows, tall and thin, unseen by the family of Hunters and Gatherers while watching them, a sly and playful smirk on his face, as the shadows hide his form while they dance on the walls from the fire. And she knows… she knows that he is the one that is making them all so afraid, so nervous!

But, she realizes, it is not a bad thing. The younger Hunter who so boldly declared his earlier intention of hunting the Bull has quieted down, and now sits meek and silent, close up against his parents. His father, one of the older Hunters sons, wraps an arm around him with a kind smile, and promises his young that one day, he will be ready for a good hunt, be it for the bull or one of its descendants.

The Shadow has seen it too, and he looks satisfied in some way. That, or he is distracted, because all of a sudden he is looking straight at her, with eyes that are yellow as the sun, but also cold as the sea. How strange, the young Spirit thinks, to find another so like her, and yet so different.

And as sudden as he showed up, he disappears, melting into the shadows and vanishing out of sight. The young Spirit watches the dark corner of the cave for a moment longer, but when nothing else happens, she figures that he will not return this night.

She goes to sleep that night, dreaming of shadowy figures that look like bulls, their breath heavy and warm with yellow gleaming eyes.

The yellow gleaming eyes turns into the warmth of the morning sun, and when she sits up with a tired yawn, she finds the fire has gone out and most of the inhabitants of the cave are still asleep, huddled against each other under their warm furs. The sun however, has just lit the cave up enough to reveal that the dark corner where the Shadow was, is just as empty as it was before she went to sleep.

The Spirit carefully gets up and tiptoes around the sleeping families, not wishing to intrude more than she already has (none of them have really seen her, but this too she has learned is not a bad thing. It is just how things are.) Once outside, she watches and listens to the world for a moment, and then begins to make her way down a nearby path.

Today is another day. She has stayed here long enough.

There is so much more of the world to see.