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.

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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.

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Chapter 3 - In that quiet earth

[ks_claw]

There are things in the dark, monsters with sharp teeth.

But what disturbs the monster? Is it the light of a fire, or the bright glare of the sun or moon?

For one who would be a monster, were it not for his fragile human heart, it is memories.

In his current state, Pitch Black is vulnerable. While he can travel out into the world in spirit, his powers are limited, and there are times where he must rest.

When he has used what little power he has, his spirit returns to the prison that is his body.

His body, that is deep, deep under ground, pinned by a crystal dagger made of tears to a rock of obsidian.

And Pitch Black dreams.

Most of the time, there is nothing but an eternal darkness. It is fairly quiet, except for the quiet whispering sounds of Pitch's cloak as he walks. He does not mind the darkness much. It allows him to meditate, to ponder the world above, to wonder what fears would work best on the humans.

But sometimes, the faintest part of his treacherous human nature turns on him, and gives him painful images. Images that makes his otherwise still body writhe and gasp in torment, in a sleep that he cannot awake from.

And the Fearlings latch on, turning the images into twisted horrors and nightmares, reminding their Captain, (their former jailor) their King, of what he is and why.

In this dream, he stands in the burned remains of a mansion. He does not recognize what room he is in, and he doesn't care. What he focuses on, is the woman.

She is sitting on a chair, in front of a canvas that has turned black from soot. Something looks to be hidden underneath it, but at this point, it is impossible for Pitch to see what there is, and he has no urge to find out.

He finds himself weeping (the fearlings mock him for this, for how dare a King show this kind of weakness), and then the woman speaks.

"Why did you never come home?"

His hands are clutching at his chest, clutching at his heart that feels as though it is beating a mile a minute. It feels like forever, before he finally says: "I couldn't." And he finds that he hates those words.

"I waited for you." The woman says, with sorrow in her voice, "but you never came. Not when I needed you the most."

Fire is burning around them. He does not know when the flames started, and he doesn't care. Pitch Black swallows hard, wanting to reach out to her, to touch her, to- to what? He doesn't know. He wants to move, but his limbs feel as though they are weighed down by iron shackles.

"I tried!" He gasps out, as though in pain; "Stars help me, I tried..."

The woman is silent for a long time, her shoulders trembling as though she is weeping. The flames are moving closer, and Pitch gasps when the flames catch on to her gown. Rather than crying out, or trying to smother the flames, she turns her head to look towards Pitch Black, and her face is nothing but a hollow, grinning skull, the hollow eyeholes flickering from the light of the flames.

"I needed you to save me." Her voice echoes out, hollow and mournful, and the flames engulf her, turning her into crumbling ash before his eyes. Pitch cries out, but his yells are drowned by the roar of the flames and the chittering of fearlings.

In the dark, in a cavern beneath the earth, in nothing but the company of shadows, a being who was once a man screams.