ᴡɪɴᴛᴇʀ ʟɪᴠᴇs ɪɴ ᴍʏ ʙᴏɴᴇs

[wolfchild]

[ She stumbles into snow. The cold slices into her. Soaked, filthy, with travel-stained clothes turned almost to rags on her skinny frame and matted, tangled hair only just growing out again, she looks little like a girl, much less like the missing younger Stark daughter.

She sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Her face is uncomfortably hot yet she's freezing. Her shivering near knocks her off her feet as she clambers up the steps. ]

My mother…

[ Arya feels her eyes fill with tears. She was going to find her mother and her brother. She was almost home. It wasn't fair. ]

Comments

[wolfchild]

[ Arya would send him off crying, sounds legit. ]

Fear's an animal too?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

More like a man. [Bunny pauses] Or rather, he was a man once.

[wolfchild]

[ She lowers the spoon. ]

What happened to him?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

[Bunny gives her a sideways glance for a moment, trying to decide if he should tell her or not. To risk giving Pitch even the slightest amount of belief in this place. Eventually, though, he sighs]

He was overcome by the darkness he once guarded and kept locked from the world. It turned him into what he is today, a being that thrives on fear.

[wolfchild]

What happened then?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

He went to war with the world, driven by the shadows. [He frowns a little, his ears folding back] Many fought him and died, trying to stop him. Eventually, a group of beings were chosen by the Man in the Moon to defeat him.

He kept coming back, but they kept beating him down every time, to stop him being a real threat again.

[wolfchild]

A man in the moon?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

Yes. Before humans came to the world, civilisation was made up of constellations. But in the war that Pitch, that man of fear I told you about, the youngest son of a great family ended up trapped on the moon. He was the only one of his dynasty to survive, and he stayed on the moon, watching over the children of the world.

[wolfchild]

[ Being the last hits hard. She continues eating for having something to do. ]

And he's alone? Up there?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

He is, but he's happy. So long as there are children in the world that he can watch over, he's pretty content. And he has us. We can speak to him.

[wolfchild]

Who else is there?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

We don't go...up there, but the rest of the Guardians can hear him, and speak to him. It's him that chose us, to do his work on Earth where he can't. There's me, a fella called North that people here would call Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman.

[Then, after a pause] And Jack Frost.

[wolfchild]

North? Is he from the North?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

He is, he lives in a place in my world called the North Pole. He's a warrior, used to be a great bandit before he became a Guardian.

[wolfchild]

[ She might love North already. Maybe. ]

Is he a rabbit too?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

No, he's a man. A man that can live forever, but still a man. I'm the only rabbit.

[wolfchild]

Do you all live forever?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

We-

[He pauses, thinks about Sandy]

We can still die, but it doesn't have to be forever. I saw belief bring a friend back, once.

[wolfchild]

You need people to believe in you?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

We do. It gives us power, without it we get weaker and weaker. [And then, yes, they can indeed die]

[wolfchild]

Is that what happened to your friend?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

It was, eventually Pitch drove a spear of darkness into him.

...He came back, though.

[wolfchild]

As he was? Or was he…different?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

He was the same annoying guy he's always been.

[wolfchild]

[ She thinks of Lord Beric. And she thinks of her father. if belief alone could have brought him back... ]

Men can't do that though, can they?