dark are all the trees

notes: Months ago as I was browsing the rotg kink meme I came across an anon requesting naga!Pitch, and I just couldn't resist. Be forewarned - this is still very much a work in progress so I have no idea how many chapters it will have, but my best guess is at least ten - fifteen?

A huge, huge thank you goes out to the lovely aohatsu, who was kind enough to look this over despite not actually being a fan of the pairing. I LOVE YOU KRISTIE.

chapter one - of myths and monsters

"A monster lives on this mountain."

Jack quirks a brow at his sister, leaning forward and resting his shepard's crook against his shoulder. The sheep move in a hazy mass around them, coats heavy on their backs. They'll need to be sheared soon. "A monster?" he asks, keeping one watchful eye on the herd.

Emma nods enthusiastically. "Jaime's grandmother told him about it, and the other day I heard the elders talking about it, too! They said it was eating all of the sheep that went missing, and - !"

"The only thing to blame for missing sheep," Jack interrupts, ruffling his sister's hair - she pushes his hand away with a frustrated huff - "are wolves. Jaime loves his tales of myths and monsters, Emma, and I'm sure he's told you plenty of them. His grandmother and the elders, too. That doesn't make them true. They spread tales of beasts to keep kids away from the mountain where they don't belong."

His sister's brow creases, her lips pursed in what Jack knows she'll never admit is a pout. "But it is true, Jack!" she protests, curling her legs up underneath her as she leans towards him, expression eager.

Jack sighs. "Alright, alright. Tell me about this monster, sister-mine." He knows he probably shouldn't humor her, but he supposes there's no harm in it this time.

Emma preens at his favored name for her, scooting closer and nearly whispering, as if they're sharing a secret.

"They say the monster lives deep in this mountain, so deep that no one has ever seen it before. They say it's taller than any man - tall as the treetops! That it's black as pitch so it can sneak up on any trespassing humans and gobble them up! And it has huge, glowing red eyes and sharp teeth and it - "

"Eats sheep?" Jack supplies, amused. He doesn't bother to ask how anyone knows what the thing looks like if no one's supposedly ever seen it before.

"Well, yes," Emma continues, either oblivious to his amusement or choosing to ignore it. Probably the latter. "And it guards a treasure!"

"A treasure?" Jack asks, momentarily distracted by a lamb wandering farther up the mountainside than he's comfortable with. Its mother's bleats manage to coax it back into safer territory as he watches, however, and Jack relaxes.

Emma notices his distraction and pulls his face back towards her, small hands grabbing onto his cheeks and smushing his face between her fingers. "Listen, Jack! Jaime said the treasure wasn't gold or silver or gems. It's something else, but no one knows what!"

Then how do they know it's not gold or silver? Jack sighs. These kids... He'd have to have a talk with Jaime about filling his sister's head with nonsense.

Emma releases him from her grip - Jack rubs his aching cheeks, thankful for the reprieve - and gazes off into the distance, thoughtful. "I wonder what it is. The treasure, I mean."

Jack rises to his feet, leaning against his staff as he surveys his flock. The sun's hanging low in the sky, and darkness means wolves. By the time they get the herd across the valley and into the village pastures it will be well into night. "Who knows?" he says, reaching for Emma's hand and grinning in the cocky way that annoys her so. "Must be pretty grand for it to need such a fearsome beast as a guardian, huh? Now c'mon, sister-mine." He sets off towards the grazing sheep, the pitter-patter of Emma's feet padding along after him. "Let's get the flock home."

Jack pays no more heed to the tale - to monsters, treasure, or any of the like. Days pass. His flock has been sheared of their wool, a new lamb joins their fold - late for this time of year but healthy - and the village readies itself, slowly but surely, for the coming winter.

Jack looks forward to the cold winter months, strangely enough. It's rough going for certain, but they're prepared for it, and he enjoys the quiet stillness that washes over the village after every snowfall. Most of all he enjoys the endless bouts of snowball fights and ice skating the children of the village partake in. As long as his chores are taken care of he throws himself headfirst into the gaggle of village kids, tossing snowballs left and right and chasing the younger kids through the snow, fingers raised above his head like horns and growling like a beast, the children shrieking with laughter at his antics.

It's in the midst of one of these romps though the village, an enthusiastic snowball fight that has lasted well into the evening, that Jack realizes Emma and Jaime are nowhere to be seen. They're not in the village square, not on the outskirts, not farther out into the fields where the sheep graze. Jack doesn't worry, at first. Emma and Jaime are smart, if a little prone to flights of imagination, and they know their way around the valley and the base of the mountain, know what areas to avoid. Jaime goes nowhere without Abby, his sleek grey hound, and she's as fierce a protector as any.

Still, as the afternoon sun begins to wane and there continues to be no sign of them, Jack's worry morphs to a steady thrum of panic drumming at the base of his skull. He knows that the children are smart, that they wouldn't go farther up the mountainside than they're allowed, but if they hadn't had a choice in the matter...

He tries not to think about it, setting out along the familiar path towards the valley, calling out for them as he goes. If nothing else he knows that Abby will come when she's called, and he can follow her to them, wherever they are.

The valley stretches peaceful and silent before him, the snow trampled by human and dog alike. The further he goes, eyes trained on the ground, the less tracks appear. It doesn't take long until only three sets remain - two small footprints interspersed with pawprints. At least he's on the right trail.

The blanket of snow thickens the further he goes, undisturbed save for the prints, and he's thankful for his thick fur-lined boots and heavy cloak. The air thins further up the mountain, he knows, though he's never been far up the slope himself. He hopes that he'll find Jaime and Emma at the bottom, that they haven't tried to climb the mountain further than they should. He doesn't understand why they would want to, not on their own.

As he begins to ascend up the slope of the mountain with no sign of them still, his panic begins to give way to fear. The stillness of the landscape sets him ill at ease. He passes the familiar stretch of grass his flock loves to graze on, though it lies buried beneath a sheet of snow now. The tracks go on, further and further away from him. He keeps his ears perked for sound, any at all, but all he hears is the echo of his own voice, the scrape of his shepard's crook against stone, and occasionally the rustle of small animals in the brush.

Jack deliberately doesn't think about the wolves that lurk here, the bobcats or the bears that sometimes wander from the mountain down into the valley, or the multitude of other animals that could injure his wayward charges. He thinks instead about dragging Emma and Jaime home by their ears and never letting them out of his sight.

Just as he's about to call for them again, inhaling a lungful of cold air, he hears the rustle of steps ahead of him. Jack scans the surrounding brush for signs of life, staff crooked and at the ready - he'd be able to fight off something small if the need arose.

The crunch of snow underneath the creature's footprints gives way to barking, and something clicks in Jack's brain. He knows those barks.

As the realization hits him Abby comes crashing through the brush, sleek body tearing up the ground between them in minutes. Her frantic barking sets Jack on edge; he scours the area for any sign of Emma or Jaime and finds none, and that only intensifies the panic roiling in his gut.

"Abby!" She paws at his cloak when she reaches him, clamping her teeth around a mouthful and tugging him forward. Jack's stomach sinks as he sees blood, dark around her mouth and front paws. "Show me where they are, girl," he breathes, running as swiftly as his feet are able to carry him, fingers tight around his staff.

I'm coming. Just hang on. The blood on Abby's fur could belong to anything. He doesn't know how much good his staff will do him, but it's better than nothing.

Please be alright, he thinks, barely paying attention to where they're running, praying that Emma and Jaime aren't hurt, that he's not too late to save them from whatever's gotten hold of them (because something has, he knows it. Something big enough to send Abby running for help.)

His boots scrape against stone as they head higher up the mountain, the hot rush of panic fueling his steps. Abby pants up ahead of him, her barks increasing in volume the higher they get.

The familiar landscape of stone and stretches of dead grass slowly begins to give way to smoother ground, copses of trees poking up with more and more frequency until they're nearly swallowed by them, thinner, scraggly trees giving way to thick-trunked behemoths the likes of which Jack's never seen near the village. The weak light of the evening sun barely flickers through the canopy, and Jack knows that once night falls he'll have little chance of finding anything even with Abby's sharp sight to lead the way.

"C'mon, girl," he pants, clumsily climbing over a mossy log - he hears a sharp rip as his cloak is torn, but only pauses long enough to yank the material free before racing once again after Abby. Her barks trail off into fierce growling, a low rumble in her throat and Jack can hear it -

Screams.

"Emma!" he calls, forcing his legs to move faster. He'd know those voices anywhere. "Jaime!"

Abby darts ahead, Jack scrambling after her, brandishing his staff like a weapon. The children's screams grow louder, until they're all that fill Jack's ears and he's close, so close...

There!

Jack skids to a stop, staff raised high above his head, and stares at the scene before him with wide eyes, barely believing what he's seeing.

Wolves, two of them, stand eclipsed by the towering tree trunks surrounding them on all sides. They're massive beasts, larger than any wolf Jack has ever seen, one a dark grey and the other a startling white. Twin sets of blue eyes stare at Jack, icy and eerily intelligent, freezing him in his tracks -

- until he spots the trembling forms of his sister and Jaime, trapped under paws large enough to span the entire length of their backs.

"J-Jack!" Emma's tear-stained face fills his vision. There's blood on the side of her face from a cut above her eye, and Jack sees red.

He doesn't think, doesn't bother to realize that his staff is useless against these creatures that span three times his own size, that he can't take down the two of them on his own. He doesn't think about anything but the need to see his sister safe, the same instinct he's had his entire life, ever since he first laid eyes on her.

Abby lets out a fierce, rumbling growl as Jack darts forward, mouth open in a wordless snarl as he races towards his sister. The wolves make no move to intercept him, make no sound aside from the rustle of their tails against the forest floor. Their blue eyes never waver from his face.

Adrenaline fueling his movements and the rush of the outside world dampened by the single-minded instinct to save his sister, Jack barely has time to scream as something wraps around his stomach and hips and pulls. He slams into the ground with a painful crunch, staff wrenched from his grip and falling out of reach. His torso burns with a sudden fierce agony, breath all but torn from his lungs. He lies there, trapped beneath a crushing weight, gulping for air while his ears ring.

"...ack! Jack!" Emma's voice filters in by small increments, muffled in his ears as if from a great distance. Wearily Jack blinks open his eyes to see her feet away, the wolf holding her down regarding him with icy detachment, still as stone except for a faint curl of its muzzle, a hint of teeth gleaming through.

"Jack! It's the m-monster, Jack!" Emma chokes on her tears, eyes wide and fearful, and still Jack can't seem to focus on what she's saying.

"Behind you, Jack!" Jaime's voice seems to cut through the haze surrounding his mind, enough so that Jack can fight his way back to himself, blinking his eyes to clear them of the fog.

He turns his head, cheek pressed hard to the ground, and gasps in sudden shock and fear as he sees what's holding him captive. A tail coils around him, thick and heavy, covered with a layer of black scales.

Snake, Jack thinks faintly, in the distant part of his mind not reeling in horror at the sheer length of the creature. At its thickest point the serpent's tail spans the width of Jack's body at least twice over.

His breath stutters in his chest as he feels the coil of muscle wrapped around him tighten. He thrashes against the hold blindly, panic-stricken, breath wheezing through his lungs.

"Be still."

Jack freezes, catching a glimpse of his sister's terrified face as he slowly raises his head. He expects to see a sleek serpentine head, two slitted eyes and a gaping mouth aiming for his throat. Instead he sees... a man.

A man's head, a man's arms, a man's torso - this Jack understands, this Jack can wrap his frenzied mind around. But not... not the sleek, scaled flesh of a snake, the ridge of lighter, protruding bone that blends the man's torso into the thick serpentine tail.

"W-what... what... " Jack's voice rasps from a suddenly dry throat, fingernails digging uselessly into the earth. What is this... what is this?

"You're trespassing on sacred ground, boy." The man's voice is slick and dark, eyes the color of molten gold staring at Jack as though he were a particularly troublesome pest. Jack tries - and fails - not to notice the forked tongue flicking at the man's sharp, jagged teeth as he speaks.

"I... I... "

The man scoffs at his stumbling response, gaze flicking toward the children trapped beneath the wolves' paws. "You've brought along companions, I see," he mutters, expression unreadable. Indifferent. He flicks a slender, grey wrist at the wolves. "Kill them."

"NO!" Jack's scream rents the air, fingers gouging the earth as he struggles against the man's hold, vision seeming to funnel until all he can see are the wolves' open maws, Emma and Jaime screaming. He kicks out his legs, twists his torso until he feels like the snake's coils will rip him to shreds, blunt nails digging into smooth scales, scraping, trying to loosen the thing's hold on him.

The man raises a hand, a signal for the wolves to halt - they do so, eyes unblinking, mouths poised above the children's heads. Emma and Jaime have their heads buried as far into their hands and the dirt as they can get them, sobbing so horribly that Jack feels tears well in his own eyes, blurring his vision.

"This land is sacred." The man's deep voice washes over him, dark and completely devoid of any emotion that Jack can trace. "Forbidden to humans."

"We didn't know!" Jack screams, anger warring with helplessness as he thrashes violently. "Please, let them go! They're just kids!"

"And that absolves them of the crime?" the man hisses, and Jack yelps as he's yanked closer, the shift of heavy scales along his back and stomach a strange, otherworldly sensation. "Should I release you then, boy? Allow you to run to the others of your kind and lead them back here?"

"W-we won't tell!" Jaime's voice echoes weakly across to them. Jack's heart twists at the sight of him, shaking beneath the grey wolf's paw, dwarfed by the shadow of its massive jaw. Emma's face is still buried in her hands, the blood above her eye standing out starkly even in the dim light.

The man spares Jaime an unreadable glance, and as he opens his mouth to speak, Jack blurts out, "Take me!"

There's a rushing in his ears, and all that he can focus on is Emma's blood-stained face, Jaime's tears, the moment the wolves had opened their gaping mouths above the children's heads.

All eyes in the vicinity seem to land on him, the man's slitted golden gaze boring into his own. "Take you?" he repeats, monotone.

Jack nods jerkily, mind racing with what he's about to do. A quick glance at the children cements his resolve, though it doesn't stop the flood of fear that rushes into his gut. "Let them go and take me. They won't tell anyone about you, not if I'm here. Please."

A flex of the serpentine tail is all the warning Jack receives before he's yanked forward, upward, until he's dangling off the ground. Despite the coil of tail still wrapped around his torso Jack scrabbles for a hold on the scales, sure he's about to be dropped or slammed into the forest floor.

He flinches as the man leans towards him, expecting a blow or - worse yet - the scrape of sharp teeth against his skin. Unbidden, images of the various snakes he's seen around the village filter into his head, the way their jaws would unhinge to swallow whatever prey they'd managed to wrap around.

"Take you?" the man repeats, and Jack cringes, opens his eyes slowly to find that strange molten gold peering back at him. "And what would I do with you, boy?"

Jack swallows, voice a dry rasp in his throat. "Do whatever you want with me," he whispers, hoping Emma and Jaime don't hear him. "K-kill me, if that's what you want. But don't hurt them, please. Please."

The man regards him in stony silence for several long moments. Jack can't read him, can't figure out what he's thinking behind that granite mask, and he silently prays please, please...

In a move so abrupt it leaves Jack reeling, the man releases him, the thick length of his tail uncoiling from around Jack's torso. He hits the ground with a broken yelp, breath leaving his lungs in a painful rush. In the next breath the wolves release their own prisoners - he can hear Emma and Jaime crying out, stumbling to their feet.

In a daze Jack rises painfully to his knees, opening his arms to the children. His heart twists as they burrow into his chest, dirtied faces pressed to his neck, clutching his tunic like a lifeline. Abby darts around them all, barking, pausing only to growl at the creatures surrounding them still.

"Jack, I'm s-so sorry!" Emma cries against him, trembling like a leaf in a storm. "We just wanted to see if the stories were true, we didn't mean to come so far! The w-wolves -!"

"Shhh." Jack runs a hand through Emma's hair, a motion that always seemed to soothe her. "It's alright, it's alright." He peeks over their shoulders at their audience - the two wolves have spread apart, blocking their way with the sheer mass of their bodies alone. The long twist of the man's tail could strike out at them before they'd have much of a chance to get far, Jack knows.

He pulls the children close, hugging them tightly. His mouth feels too dry to say all that he needs to, his words too inadequate.

"L-listen, you two," he begins, swallowing heavily as their tearful eyes peer up at him. "You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone about this. About t-them."

"Jack, you can't stay here!" Jaime yanks at his cloak, eyes darting between the beasts blocking them in on all sides. "P-please, we have to ... we have to run, Jack!"

"Jaime, Jaime..." Jack hushes them both, sending a helpless look skyward. He can't let them stay here. If there's a way to get them out of here alive then he has to take it, even if it means his own death. "Listen," he murmurs into their hair, lowering his voice so that only they can hear his words. "I'll find a way back to you, I promise. I promise, do you hear me? But if you tell any of the villagers about where they are... " He spares a nervous glance at their captors . " They... they won't let me come back, okay?"

Emma shakes her head, face smeared with blood and tears and Jack has never seen her look so small. "But you won't tell!" she cries, shooting a terrified look over her shoulder at the beasts. "Jack, tell them you won't tell anyone!"

"Emma..." He's always tried so hard to protect his sister from everything, but no matter what he does now he knows it will hurt her, and badly. "Emma, right now... " He takes a breath, the exhale watery. "We don't have a choice. You two... I need you to take Abby and go home. I need you to stay in the village, okay? You can't come back up here."

Jaime's fingers clench in his tunic, eyes wide and sad. Jack thinks he understands the gravity of the situation more than his little sister is able to at the moment. "But what about you?"

Jack makes a valiant attempt at his usual cocky smile - it comes out as a sad facsimile, lacking its usual spark. "Hey, this is me we're talking about. Jack the trickster. Jack the master of pranks! I'll run circles around these guys, you'll see. And I'll find my way back to you."

"But - !"

"Enough."

Jack tenses, pulling the children in closer as the man's deep voice flows over them, followed by the rustle of paws against the forest floor - the two wolves are moving, tongues lolling out of their jaws as they circle in closer to the humans' huddled forms. Abby grows frantic, baring her teeth at the approaching beasts, growling low in her throat.

They all watch the approach of the man - the serpent, Jack still can't seem to comprehend what he is. "You've said your goodbyes, boy," he drawls, flexing a fine-boned hand at the grey wolf. It bends, tail sweeping the ground in a great arc, shaggy back at eye level with Jack. "Come. We cannot linger here."

Emma and Jaime cling to him. Jack can barely speak around the lump in his throat. "It won't hurt them?" he croaks, eyeing the wolf. It's massive head swings towards them, though otherwise it remains still. Waiting.

"If they adhere to our bargain, Ferro will leave them unharmed. If they do not... " He leaves the rest to Jack's imagination, which spins itself into horrifying circles conjuring up images of the chaos the massive wolf could bring - to his village, to his family.

"You have my word," Jack rasps, and hopes that that is enough.

A silent tilt of his head - in acceptance or simply confirmation, Jack doesn't know - and the man turns away.

The children clamp their fingers into his shoulders as he attempts to pull away from them, Emma's tearful plea of his name nearly crumbling his resolve. The grey wolf - Ferro - doesn't budge as Jack settles first Jaime, then Emma onto its back. Abby he presses into Jaime's arms, and the boy clutches her like a lifeline.

He stands there for what feels like an age, looking at them, memorizing their faces. He wonders, blankly, if this will be the last time he ever sees either of them.

Standing on the tips of his toes, he presses a kiss to their foreheads, murmuring that he loves them, that he'll see them again - he will - and pleading with them, please, to take care of each other.

"We will, Jack," Jaime promises, voice muffled by his tears and Abby's fur. Emma doesn't say anything, doesn't seem to be able to, but she does nod, reaching out her hand. Jack takes it, folds it into his own for a few precious seconds before the wolf shifts underneath them, rising to its feet. Emma's hand slips from Jack's grasp, and his voice jams up into his throat when, with a powerful flex of its haunches, the wolf launches itself into motion, darting into the dark bowels of the forest.

Jack stares after them for a long moment, would continue to do so if the man had not moved, long, sinewy body gliding - nearly soundlessly - along the ground.

"Follow me." His tone brooks no argument. Jack stares bleakly down the dark brush-strewn path the wolf had taken, breathes in sharply against the sadness building in his chest, and turns away.