Of Ravens and Hummingbirds.

Ch. 1

A/N~ Ha ha ha…god damnit. This was meant to be a kind of silly bonus chapter for Snakebite, but then…shit happened. And I fell face first into it. And then a bunny came by and started humping my leg. Ha ha ha…Xion5…I will kill you. I-I will find you, and-and hug you, and give you cookies, but-but-BUT THEN, I'm going to kill you for being so awesome (EVIL) and making me do this. You are an evil, evil, EVIL little IMP~!

So! Enjoy this little AU that was spawned between I and the lovely Xion5 during an IM conversation. Xion, how is it you are able to make me write het? What kind of sorcery is this? WHAT IS YOUR SECRET!?

Now edited!

Enjoy!

Pairing: Tooth/Pitch (Cavity)

Genre: Romance, humor, angst.

Rating: T (to be safe)

Enjoy!

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Tooth Palace was, as a general rule, always chaotic. Always, it was a whirling storm of iridescent green feathers and traded coins and teeth. One could not get into the palace without having a Mini-fairy nearly colliding into their face. And that wasn't exactly a pleasant experience, considering their sharp, pointy beaks.

And of course, at the center of all the twittering, chirping, and fluttering, was their queen.

"Okay, good. Boxes 465 through 582 go into vault C! No, no, boxes 352 through 433 do not go in vault B!" Tooth flitted about between towers and troupes of fairies, feathers ruffled.

As it was said, Tooth Palace was chaotic. Now though, it was even more so than usual – it was pure discord. Tooth boxes were piled upon towers, spires, and the ground, each one having to be put back in their proper places. And all while the fairies simultaneously continued to collect and store teeth. To say the least, Tooth was stressed. She was used to fast-paced work and frantic order. Many would call her a workaholic with a chaotic complex. She herself preferred the term 'controlled chaos'.

"Ugh, no, wait a second! Why is team 8 out? It was team 6's turn to go on tooth patrol!" Tooth rubbed her temples as the meek fairy before her shrugged helplessly.

Baby Tooth, hovering beside her and chirping out her own set of orders, gave her queen a concerned look. They all had been storing away and doing their jobs for the past week now. And no matter how long they worked and re-stored the tooth boxes, it seemed the piles never got smaller. It seems that even with Pitch's defeat, they were still dealing with his aftermath.

Sending a troupe away, the heterochromatic eyed fairy regarded her queen with tiny arms crossed.

"Maybe you should take a break?" she suggested. Tooth shook her head.

"No, I have too much work to do Baby-Tooth," she sighed, before perking up and turning to another fairy, "Lateral Incisor, Las Vegas, Nevada, go!"

Baby-Tooth rolled her eyes, chirping to Tooth. The fairy queen at first frowned, before her eyes widened and she called the fairy back.

"Wait no! I meant Los Angeles, California!" she called, the fairy quickly changing direction.

Biting her lip, Tooth looked back at her second in command. The fairy looked very much unimpressed and quirked a brow at her queen. Tooth groaned.

"Ugh, yes, I know I'm stressed and overworking myself, but this needs to get done," she said, gesturing to the piles of unsorted tooth boxes, "We can't just leave them laying here! And the sooner it gets done, the better."

"And the more you fuss over this, the more mistakes you're going to make…" Baby-Tooth shot back, "We're already set back, and you sent a whole team of fairies to a city that didn't so much as have one molar out of place! You NEED a break!"

Tooth made as if to argue, but she suddenly deflated, exhausted. As much as she often times questioned Baby-Tooth's all too stubborn head, she was right. She was already screwing up and sending fairies to the wrong places. She had even had an entire unit of tooth boxes put in the wrong vault, and had her poor workers remove and restock them in their proper place.

The fairy queen rubbed her forehead with a sigh, a headache suddenly setting in. It all seemed to be catching up to her now. The exhaustion, the sleepless nights, the damn boxes and teeth and directions and just urgh!

"Okay…okay, you win." She sighed, defeated.

Baby-Tooth smirked and made a shooing gesture to Tooth. Her expression deadpan, Tooth sighed and flitted away towards her bedroom. She could hear Baby-Tooth chirping orders left and right, causing the fairy queen to roll her eyes. Honestly, it was like working with a drill sergeant sometimes. She blamed Jack's influence on her.

'At least she keeps him out of trouble…' she thought tiredly.

Wings fluttering sluggishly, the fairy queen weaved her way through spires, towers, and piles of tooth boxes. A part of her wondered if she was going the right way – she could have sworn her room was this way. Odd, her fairies were not in this section of the palace either. It was so quiet; worryingly so. She frowned, suddenly wary. Where was everybody, she wondered.

But before she could ponder the strange anomaly further, she suddenly startled when a blur of black flashed just out of the corner of her eye.

Turning, her feathers perked up in alertness. But nothing was there. Shaking her head, Tooth rubbed her eyes and groaned, her feathers flattening.

"I must be more tired than I thought…" she muttered.

Removing her hands, she blinked to clear her vision.

And then she saw him.

She stared at him, eyes wide and nearly bulging out of her head. He stared back, calmly, his amber eyes unrelenting and sharp.

He – not a man, nor a bird – was a hellish, yet wondrous sight to the fairy woman. His whole body was covered in sleek black feathers, his face, hands, and chest being exposed by a plunging neckline of feathers that ended just below his navel. Feathers of the brightest gold accented his back and swept back crest, seemingly highlighting an almost haunting appearance. He had a plume of tail feathers like her, but it was longer and wider, almost in the imitation of a cloak's drag. Gold feathers dotted the tail, forming what looked to be an outline of a monster's face. And his face…

A pale, overcast sky grey. His body was willowy and slender, definitely larger than her own. And his eyes – they were of the brightest gold, a ring of bursting yellow around black pupils; like a solar eclipse.

And those eyes, those familiar, long lost eyes; they sent her heart racing.

"Until we meet again, my dear songbird…"

That voice…she hadn't heard it in thousands of years. It's been so long. Was this it? Was this the day they were to meet again? Did she not have to wait any longer?

Would she finally know his name?

Tooth swallowed, her heart racing. Lips suddenly dry, she opened her mouth and made to speak.

"You-" came back, was what she wanted to say.

But before she could correct herself, the man spread his gossamer wings and flew away.

"Wait!" Tooth cried, kicking her suddenly energetic wings into gear and flitting after the bird-man.

He paid her no mind, and instead only sped up and flitted through spires and towers until he was outside the palace. He suddenly veered and dove for the forest below them, nearly disappearing into the foliage. But his black feathers clashed against the green and floral vegetation. Tooth easily spotted him and gave chase, ignoring how everything around her seemed to disappear and narrow down onto that man.

'Wait, please…!' she pleaded, somehow unable to voice her words, 'Just tell me your name…!'

They both dove into the jungle canopy, dodging tree trunks, bushes, and frightened animals alike. Tooth's heart was pounding in her ears, her brain now a useless mass in her head. She was oblivious to everything around her – including how it seemed like the exotic fruit trees around her soon seemed to change into pine and oak trees. The temperature dropped until it was pleasantly cool, and the sky was no longer glowing pink and orange from its seemingly eternal sunset. They passed over a familiar frozen lake, and converged deeper into the forest.

"Please wait!" She called again. Her voice sounded distant to her, weak. Like she was barely gasping each syllable.

But still, the man only sped up until he vanished behind a cluster of trees. Gasping for breath that somehow seemed useless to her, Tooth burst through the foliage and looked around.

Nothing. The man was gone, the clearing was barren.

Except for the skeletal bedframe and hole beneath it at its center.

And suddenly, it was as if she was possessed. Somehow trapped in her own mind and watching through her own eyes, her body walked towards the all too familiar bedframe. She struggled, but her body was calm and only continued forward. Her eyes peered down the gaping hole under the rotting bedframe, and she felt her heart skip a beat.

She suddenly lurched forward, and plunged headlong into the abyss. Tooth would have screamed if she were in control of her body, but all she could do was watch through her eyes as she fell deeper, and deeper, and deeper into the darkness.

She pulled up suddenly, nearly reeling from vertigo. She was suddenly in the vast, main room of Pitch's lair. Cages hung in the hundreds around the dark lair, the once white-washed light now dim and almost nonexistent. The globe on the plateau was lit up like a Christmas tree, the gold lights pinpointing each and every Believer in the world. It was the only source of real light within the caverns, and yet the globe seemed to do nothing in illuminating its own section of the lair. The lights were contained, as if they had no reach.

'But where's Pitch…?' she wondered with a frown.

If the Boogeyman had sensed a Guardian in his lair, you would think he would come forthright to confront her. But no one was here – no Nightmares, Fearlings, Pitch, or him…

"Hello?" she suddenly found her voice for but a moment. Her voice didn't even echo in the vast caverns.

She startled suddenly, a sound putting her on edge. It was like the slow, eerie creak of an old door being opened. Her heart beat thunderously in her chest – she could literally hear its rhythmic beat in her ears. Tooth bit her lip, suddenly wishing she had her rapiers with her. But she was weaponless, and only had her wits and fists about her.

A breeze suddenly wisped past her, nearly knocking her out of the air.

"Toothiana…"

She gasped at the sound of that voice saying her name, eyes wide as she looked around to pinpoint its source. The noise suddenly started up again, this time louder. And before Tooth could even think of turning tail and leaving, something fluttered down into her line of vision.

Blinking, she held a hand out and watched as a long, smooth black feather dropped into her palm. Carefully, she ran a finger over the soft edge. Another breeze passed her by, and the creaking was now right behind her.

"Toothiana…"

Back straight and stiff, Tooth slowly turned around.

The bird cage was huge – large enough to fit three full grown men. Its black, wrought iron bars were spiked and rigid, and lined with what Tooth could only call barb wire. And there, standing inside of it, was him.

The raven-like man inside stared at her with his deep gold eyes, unblinking and unmoving. His gossamer wings folded neatly against his back, he looked like a trapped animal. Tooth wanted to scream, to pry the other out of the cage and demand what was going on. But before she could try and attempt to open her mouth, the man closed his eyes, and his feathers shuddered.

Slowly at first, then picking up speed, his feathers started to fall out. First one by one, then in bundles, and then finally his feathers were cascading down his body and through the barred floor of the cage. He was now nothing but a blur of black and gold feathers, his body nowhere to be seen.

The last few feathers were slowly dissipating, vanishing into the abyss below. And once they all cleared, there stood another in the bird man's place…

Tooth felt the blood drain from her face, her hand clenching spastically around the one feather.

Pitch opened his eyes then, clad in his trademark cloak and leggings. He looked tired, saddened almost. Slowly, he lifted an arm and reached out for Tooth through the bars.

"Let me out…" he said.

Breathing hard, Tooth suddenly looked down at her hand where the feather was.

In its place was a black key.

The creaking started up again, and she looked up at the chain holding the cage up. One of the links was rusted over and nearly broken through. She looked back at Pitch, the Boogeyman giving her no real expression outside the almost pleading look in his eyes. Down just along the center bar of the cage was a lock and keyhole. Tooth looked at the key and the chain in turn, suddenly unsure as to what to do. Did she really have to free Pitch Black? What would that do? What would he do to her?

"Please…" she looked up at Pitch, at his pleading expression.

His hand still held out to her, Pitch gripped another bar with his free hand. He looked scared…

"Please…let me out." He said.

Tooth bit her lip, suddenly torn. Her hand clenched around the key, and she looked down at the keyhole. The chain was weakening still, and the cage was shuddering slightly with its strain. Breathing hard, she looked up at Pitch. And for a split second, she saw the raven man in his eyes. Her heart lurched suddenly, and she made as if to speak.

But she hesitated for too long.

With a sickening groan, the chain snapped, and the cage plummeted into the abyss.

Mouth wide in a horrified gape, she reached out for the swiftly disappearing hand. His ashen fingers brushed against her own, before time caught up to them, and he fell.

Tooth suddenly found her voice then, and she opened her mouth and screamed-

"PITCH!"

Tooth panted, her hand reaching out into open air. Eyes wide and nearly crazed, she looked around at her surroundings. A nest of pillows, a round room with green, blue, and accents of gold around her. Drapes around the bed dyed a deep green surrounded her, and a desk and vanity sat across from her bed near a bookcase.

She was in her room. And she had just woken up from a nightmare.

Tooth swallowed dryly, suddenly nauseous. What…had just happened? How did she get here? When did she get here!?

'What was that…?' she wondered shakily.

Groaning, Tooth put her face into her outstretched hand and sighed shakily. A dream, it was only a dream, she reasoned. This wouldn't be the first time she dreamt of the bird man, but it was the first time it was something so…intense.

'I haven't even thought of him in so long…' she thought. And when he suddenly just…turned into Pitch…

"Why…?" she rasped.

Was…was the man in trouble? Did Pitch do something to him? Was this some kind of premonition? Was it the reason why she hasn't seen him in so long? Because Pitch had him…?

No, that didn't add up. But, then again…

'Why else would I dream of the two of them…?' she wondered.

She suddenly startled when the miniature door on her own properly sized door opened, and admitted one very flustered Baby-Tooth. The Mini-fairy chirped irritably and flitted to Tooth, nearly pressing her beak into her eyes.

"Wha-what? Slow down!" Tooth rubbed the sleep from her eyes, her brain slowly coming back into focus.

Baby-Tooth growled and waved her arms, "Tooth! You've been asleep all day! We're getting swamped out there!"

"Wha…?" Tooth shook her head, suddenly on the alert. All day? She had been asleep all day?

If she had slept for a whole day, why did she feel so exhausted?

'Damn it all…!' she groaned, smoothing her crest back.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming, just give me a minute…" she said.

Baby-Tooth cocked her head, suddenly looking concerned. She chirped inquisitively at her queen, gesturing to her person. Tooth shook her head.

"No, I'm fine, just had a…very strange dream." She said. Baby-Tooth frowned before Tooth waved a hand at her, "It's fine, really. Sandy probably got into too much eggnog again; you know how he is."

Baby-Tooth shrugged, before she gave her queen one last suspicious look and flitted away. Tooth sighed and slumped once she was gone, rubbing her forehead.

"God I hope it was just him and his eggnog…" she muttered. She paused though when she felt something in her other hand under her blanket.

Frowning, Tooth brought her hand up, and opened it. She felt her breath hitch in her throat.

In her hand was a sleek, inky black feather.

To be continued…

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A/N~ Phew, pumped this baby out in only two days. New record! XDD This is still all Xion5's fault. You will pay for this.

Chapter two should be up in a couple days or so! Now off to work on SaD!

~S~