Alaia Skyhawk: Chapter 2! :D

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians, the Guardians of Childhood, or any related characters etc. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes.

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Chapter 2: Old Stories of Fear

There was a quiet snuffle from the corner of the room, and the 'nest' of blankets on the floor there. A head of tufted golden hair just within view amid the cloth. From the comfortable couch nearby, Lillia and her friend Meredith both glanced towards the sleeping child and smiled.

As it was with all children in the Golden Age, or in fact anywhere, the first year wasn't all that eventful. Besides First Smile, First Laugh, First Crawl, First Word, the rest of the time consisted of eat, sleep, and once they were old enough to do so, play. This had been the case for the now one-year-old Sanderson, although he seemed to do rather more of the sleeping part than most youngsters.

Meredith chuckled, lifting the cup of tea she held up to her lips. Sipping from it before turning her regard back to the boy's mother.

"He really is adorable. I remember when my boy was that age. Into everything, and we had to move so many things up onto shelves."

Lillia chuckled also.

"We've never had that problem with Sanderson. He rarely cries, has a laugh like cloud-bells, and yet he's never noisy."

Meredith nodded, looking again at the boy.

"Truly. I don't think I've ever seen him awake. He seems to spend so much time sleeping."

There was a pause, one that could perhaps be considered hesitation, that is until Lillia raised her head proudly. This was an era where nothing different was ever considered odd.

"He sleeps for most of the day and night, yet he always seems to know when something is about to happen. I can get up to go make his food when it's mealtime, and before I'm even halfway to my feet he's awake and watching me. He always wakes up just before his father arrives home from work, and whenever someone goes to check and see if he'd like to play."

Meredith gasped in admiration.

"Do you think he might have an unusual talent? Maybe even talent for Belief Magic?"

For people in a civilisation where the Power of Belief and the magic that used it, was such a huge part of everyday life and supported the Immortals who watched over everyone, that talent for it was always enthusiastically nurtured. Even those without that skill themselves, never felt jealous of those who did. It wasn't in the nature of their way of life to consider those talented in that way to be superior. Everyone was special in their own way.

Still, no mother was going to deny feeling great pride should a child of hers be just such a person.

Lillia clasped her hands before her, her eyes glistening as she began to imagine all the wonderful things her son might learn to do.

"His father can use Belief to float huge crates and other things into the tradeships that head off to the other constellations. Why he could even float our flying carriage home without it ever having to fly for itself. I so look forward to learning what Sanderson decides he wants his talent to be."

Over in the corner of the room, a certain little boy snuffled again. Not sure what to make of the conversation, when it had so many big words in it that he didn't understand yet. But his mother was happy, and so was the 'lady who comes and talks', so it had to be good.

Contrary to his mother and everyone else's interpretation, Sanderson did not actually spend most of his time asleep. For while he may have forgotten everything from those first months in that other 'universe', during his first year in this one he had learnt to do the most peculiar thing. Being asleep and awake at the same time.

This was how he managed to doze through the boring bits of the day, without ever missing the interesting bits. And all the while he still noticed what else was going on while his eyes were closed.

Speaking of which, he noticed his little stack of building blocks were still piled on the floor nearby. And in fact they were rather interesting right now to his very young mind. With that thought, he opened his eyes and went from asleep to awake between one breath and the next. Suddenly launching himself into a crawl from his nest of blankets and over to the blocks, as fast as his short chubby lets would propel him.

For his arms and legs already looked somewhat short for his body, as day-by-day it was becoming increasingly clear that he was taking after his paternal grandfather in the height department. His grandfather being a short and rather rotund fellow, with a personality easily four times his size. Naturally he was inordinately pleased to learn his grandson shared that likeness, for it had always been his saying that 'the smaller the fellow, the bigger the character'. After all, in his case that was certainly true.

Of course Sanderson was too young to know of or understand any of all that. All he cared about was that right now he was having fun with his brightly coloured blocks. That spate of play lasting about fifteen minutes before he crawled back to his blanket-nest and went back to awake-sleep to wait for 'Daddy home, food time'.

Meredith left not long after that, and Lillia went into the kitchen to begin cooking a meal ready for when her husband would arrive home. In fact Sanderson was sleep-listening to her humming while she cooked, when he sat up suddenly and crawled towards the front door just as his father opened it.

"Da!"

That cheerfully chirped syllable brought a wide smile to Jason's face, as he reached down to scoop up his son and give him a cuddle.

"There's my little man. You been good for your mother today?"

Sanderson didn't reply, not with words at least. Rather he chortled happily in response to Jason's greeting, and waved his arms around enthusiastically.

His father set the boy down by his toy blocks, just as Lillia came to the kitchen door.

"The food will be ready in a few minutes."

Jason went to her and kissed her on the cheek, sparing a glance at his son before nudging her back into the kitchen. Sanderson watched them go, mildly puzzled by the fact his father had suddenly seemed a bit nervous.

Not really making much of it, he began to play with his blocks while in the kitchen his father had a glimmer of something in his eyes that wasn't supposed to exist in the Golden Age. Lillia saw it, a flicker of the same appearing in her eyes, as she quickly turned to the stove and stirred the stew she was cooking.

"Dream Pirates again?"

There was a tremor in her voice, only now identifiable as fear, and Jason sighed with a similar tremor.

"Over in the Constellation Aristirius. One of the leisure clippers was doing a tour of the Sapphirr Nebula... All the children on board had their dreams stolen, and haven't been able to dream since. The rumour that came in with that news on the tradeship, also said it could be more than a year before those poor children will be healed and can dream again."

Lillia turned off the heat under the pan, and turned to hug her husband.

"Dream Pirates aren't supposed to be real anymore. The Old Stories say that the Constellation Families drove them away and made them disappear. Why have they come back now?"

Jason wrapped his arms around her, his heart heavy with the other rumours he'd heard from other ships that had come to port. Neither of them had been raised to deal with this sort of thing. Until the stories had started coming in a few months ago, both had been blissfully ignorant.

"One sailor who came in, was on the clipper when the Dream Pirates attacked. He said saw shadowy wisps, with empty dark faces like lost souls. They circled round the clipper the day before the attack, almost like they led the pirates to it."

Another name from the Old Stories rose in both their minds, and it made them shudder. Fearlings; bringers of nightmares and devourers of fear. Everyone had heard of them from the Old Stories, but no one had believed they were real. They couldn't be real, because fear wasn't something that existed anymore, was it? But did denying something could be real, mean you were afraid of it being real? If so then fear was real, and so were Fearlings. The mere mention of the name and news that someone had seen them, had awakened in all who learnt of it the fear that the creatures could be lurking in any shadow anywhere. There was no way of knowing if they were watching you.

In the other room, Sanderson could hear the change in the tone of his parent's voices. It confused him, for he had no comprehension of the concept of fear. Joy he understood, love, and all-round general happiness. Never before had he noticed these things he didn't yet know were called 'nervousness' and 'fear'.

He remained puzzled throughout 'food time', confused by the tension he sensed from his parents despite the game they played to feed him. Their smiles didn't reach their eyes.

And that night when they put him to bed, they left the light turned on and placed another light under his crib to dismiss the shadow that would have been there. Their son blinking in confusion as the bright glow meant he couldn't see the glowing curtain of the night-lights on the horizon through his window.

Sanderson grumpily eyed the light overhead once his parents had closed the door. The little boy pulling his blanket over himself to block out as much of the annoying light as possible as he went to sleep.

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Alaia Skyhawk: The very early years of Sandy's childhood I'm naturally going to skip over most of except for when plot-points happen. The real plot doesn't get going until he's about ten :)