Circus Lion

Son coeur est un luth suspendu;

Sitot qu'on le touche il resonne.

(His heart is a hanging lute;

As soon as touched, it reverberates.)

-De Beranger

They sail to Far Places in search of a Beast:

And through the void, the rabbit hole, the pathway to the center of the earth, They are silent. Remembering. What was: the bed, sunken into the ground. Jack (how his hair sticks up to look like wolf ears!) can still see its half-rotted silhouette, if he thinks about it. A skeleton burned to his mind's eye.

In the forest, a moment ago, there was a splinter of wood that Jack knows must have been a bone in that inanimate ribcage.

And now They are traveling, quickly, to look at that skeleton again.

Why?

Because, says North, fear is a necessity. And he says it like he's reminding himself, too.

So: down the rabbit hole.

Slash through jungles.

Of empty space.

The place is filled with grey sunbeams. They stream in through nowhere, or somewhere above, and are diluted by a powder of fine, shining dust. It's a room of chiaroscuro, and in chiaroscuro's enormousness there's no space for anything else.

The Guardians walk forwards, small beneath the high cobwebbed ceiling and pale in the strange light. Their shadows are numerous, too numerous, and dramatic (wicked caricatures, cave paintings, black on the walls.)

A hummingbird sneeze.

In the center, the bed-that-was sits on broken legs. Nothing underneath.

"What a surprise," says Bunnymund, with a rabbit heartbeat. He's quiet because its the sort of place that makes you quiet. "No one home. I'd say it's time to go."

The far-flung corners of the room repeat his words.

"No," says North. "Not yet."

Yet, whisper the shadows in their strange voice. Not yet. Jack curls his toes, uncurls them.

"He is here. He smells us, probably."

The darkness has eyes, and they are golden.

Looking for Lions to take prisoner.

Jack brushes the bed with cool fingertips. The wood is yielding, and turns glossy with a sheen of blue-white ice.

The darkness inhales. It tenses.

And he is there, He-Who-Waited-Beneath-Beds, and They see him on the walls in shadows flung like multi-faceted diamonds. Distractions.

And nothing more. And nothing more. It's nothing more. The silence is full of devilish distractions.

They, the Spirits, the hunters standing in the dusty sun, are drawn up tight as violin strings.

"No weapons," North says, though his hand twitches on the hilt of his sword. "We are here peacefully. To negotiate."

"Negotiate?" says the emptiness, in a voice of damaged velvet. The shadows flicker like candles, unsteady. Their forms are indefinite. "I'm tired of your negotiations." Flicker, fall. Rise again.

"Could be negotiation. Could be, maybe, force. I am flexible."

Jack's fingers are white, white, white around his staff. Tooth is touching his arm. He thinks he can hear her heartbeat. Anger, and old ghosts, he tells himself. Because, really, that's what it is. Never fear.

"I have proposition for you. Pitch." North swallows. The way he says That Name is hard, defiant. "Truth is: we need you. Dark is necessary for light. You know that."

He steps forwards. But -

"No. No more negotiations."

They can watch the seasons change, right on the wall. Like plants in Spring, the black flowers burst upwards, brush the ceiling, gutter down into Autumn. Then rush across the ground in a tangle of Winter roots. Bunnymund's mouth is open, disgusted, as the darkness pours over his feet. His fingers twitch at his sides.

Its Nightmare blood, They know.

North's voice hasn't changed, but his face is open in its knowing. Rosy fingertips hover just above the wall, about to touch, and pull back: "You are weak, Pitch. It would be best for you, and World as well."

"No - " Broken shadow voice, saying more things gone fuzzy like an old record. Flicker, fall, flicker melt. Black wax drips from the walls.

Jack remembers the ice - there is no better word - in this room all too well, now. And the Winter Spirit shivers to still his heart.

Till there's only one shadow left, and it lies like a dead thing on the floor.

Subdue the Lion

The bed is a picture of dissonant serenity. No one moves.

On the floor, the Thing turns over. Darkness forms a black pool around it and more drips, like ink, like bile from its sharp, smiling mouth. Gold eyes, tarnished.

"Old Friend," Pitch speaks through the ceiling, addressing the moonless sky. "You have truly left me."

Chain it up in gilded bonds

The limbs are of heavy steel. They hang lifeless and uncooperative, as if in a last rebellion, even as the cuffs are set and locked.

They lift him. His weight is like all the nights of darkness, all the tons of despair, moulded into one lithe body. The shiny new-penny eyes watch and smile a freezing smile.

Bunnymund looks ill.

"Filthy bugger. But all the same. Poor bloke."

A Quick Word: Will be a two-part thing. Probably. Who knows. Incredibly sorry about any errors pertaining to the books; I haven't read them.