Once upon a time there was a palace on the moon; how it glittered and shone in the bright rays of sunlight – the sun rays, filled to the brim of solar fairies, bright robes of gold and amber; wings fluttering to the moon palace. The Moon palace was full of shadows and depth, quiet darkness, silent winds and so did the solar fairies become quiet and dimmer; gold and amber turned burnt greys with glittering silver. As though their small, slender bodies became wrapped in stardust it self – red and orange butterfly wings shifted into slender, agile, damsel fly wings; all flashing tints of blues and purple as they flew and weaved between the white parapets of the palace.

And of course, this happened every day – the solar fairies were born to be bearers of sunlight to deliver it to the moon, which was then converted to moon light. The ones with this duty, perished as soon as they finished.

The King of the Sun did not care for the little creatures that gave sunlight to the moon and earth; they were just things to him.

The prince of the moon had watched the gleaming fairies every night, like fireflies in the darkness of space – he watched as their fiery robes, which flickered like little flames turn into sparkling star filled night. The young prince then spotted a flickering silver light vying too far towards the dark side of the moon. Perhaps something was wrong with its wing? The prince wondered as he grabbed his net which he tried to catch the golden wishing star fairy with. Every time it shot past window, taunting him. Small, round and gold trailing stardust – it seemed to have the wings of a bumblebee – though this time it looked like the wishing star fairy was buzzing around the flickering moon bound fairy.

The prince of the moon flung open the bay windows of his study, and rushed out onto the surface of the moon – brandishing his net like a knight rushing with a sword into battle; with a swish he took both the fairies unawares and the minuscule creatures found themselves in the net.

The prince had only seen pictures of what fairies look like, very insect like – sharp teeth and claws though looking at the ones he just caught…they looked like little people to the young prince, very scared little people.

One was the bumblebee like one, the wishing star fairy – it stared at him, surprised as the young prince at being caught. The other fairy was grey skinned with gleaming gold eyes looked very disgruntled – the prince had a feeling that this one might have the claws and teeth, it hissed at him and tried to bite though the net.

'So, you're fairies?' The prince muttered, not quite sure what he was expecting exactly. He was not sure if he was disappointed.

'I demand you let me go!' A voice demanded very loudly from the net. It surprised the prince so much he almost dropped the net…almost. It seemed the voice came from the grey skinned fairy.

'You can talk?'

'Of course I can talk. It is just you big, destroying oafs never stop and listen!'

Well, the prince was listening now – the small creature seemed to command the same authority over him like his mother and father. Like a parent.

The wishing star fairy laughed silently at the gaping face of the moon child, while the other huffed and puffed his rage.

They seemed an odd pair, the prince smiled at them – he turned his head to the golden one.

'Can you talk?'

The wishing star fairy shook his head, and with his stardust he showed a mouth with a cross though it.

'He can understand you; he just can't speak the same language.' The grey skinned fairy explained irately, obviously still not pleased about the net situation.

'He's not from this galaxy.' The grey one explained, looking the flashing signals above the golden fairy.

'You are a wishing star fairy!' The moon prince said excitedly, the golden fairy nodded with a soft smile.

'That means, since I caught you I get a wish right?' The prince asked the golden fairy, the bumblebee wings buzzed for a moment and the small, silent creature looked uncomfortable.

'Do you wish him to die?' the grey skinned fairy suddenly said, very serious and quiet. The young Lunaroff blinked in shock at the strange question.

'Do you die if you grant wishes?' The young Luna prince asked. Like a bee that uses its sting – the Luna prince wondered if the bees on earth knew it was going to die if they used their stings. And if they still did, why would they still attack?

Maybe the queen bee just never told them, a mother would always protect her children…even from the horrid truth.

'Some do not care' the grey fairy explained, 'some wish still.'

The golden fairy pulled at the grey's fairy's tunic – the grey one shrugged it off, agitated.

The young Lunaroff frowned a little – now as a child, most of his young friends and family would still wish anyway and the prince would be lying if he wasn't tempted, because a prince he may be, a selfish child he was born.

'Alright…I won't wish for anything.' The prince nodded at his small captives. The glanced at the grey fairy, 'Can I ask a question?'

The grey eyed fairy blinked at the Luna prince in surprise. The prince took the silence as affirmative.

'Why were you flying so low?'

The grey skinned fairy glared and then did a half smile, it wasn't a pleasant smile.

'Would you keep going forward if you knew a firing squad was waiting for you?'

The golden fairy was staring transfixed to the sky – millions of limp Luna fairy corpses stayed suspended in space – soon to be nothing but stardust.

The prince had thought them to be falling stars in the windows of the palace before this night, and never thought that much about it.

He didn't realise how wrong he was.

Pitch blinked awake from the old dream, feeling the cold chill still from that night – the feeling of wet tears on his wings from the young prince, and the warm glow of the wishing star fairy who knew too much of his own fate and Pitch's.

The wishing star fairy knew that if it wasn't the prince that took his life, it would be someone else. And it was, though he felt as though the wish used was on something very important. Though he couldn't remember.

'Sandy' is what Pitch had called the golden fairy of very little words…everything else was a blur, but when Pitch thought of the chubby bumblebee of a fairy his memories always got a little clearer and dreams a little kinder.

Pitch lay in his span silk bed staring at the roof of his hollow – old web hang as well as new; a mixture that he span neatly on his bad days and spastic messy on his 'good day', when he didn't fall into madness…

Sometimes in his mind he was just a spider, idly spinning web or ravenously devouring a poor insect, as was in his nature then the nudging, painful thoughts entered his fuzzy little mind was…

What are you doing?

What would Sandy think if he saw you like this?

You are a Luna Fairy. A captain of the guard.

YOU FAILED. You only had one job!

He was too strong for me…

NO, YOU WERE TOO WEAK!

YOU DESERVE THIS LESSER EXISTANCE!

Yes…I deserve this punishment…

I deserve all of this.

Pitch constantly felt as though if it weren't for these mad, cutting voices he would finally loose his sanity…amusing wasn't it? The voices in his head were what were keeping him relatively sane amongst the never-ending hunger, the whispering voices of his subjects and the mocking taunts of the Nightmare King.

He pushed up from the web easily enough and stared at the shadowy creature by his web. Pitch bowed his head slightly to the intruder,

'My lord, I was not expecting you – especially during such a cold spell.' Pitch hugged his torso with his arms when he felt the chill from the winter morning.

'I come when I please, and I leave when I please.' the harsh reply was. 'Tell me, what do you know of the winter spirit, Pitch?'

The familiarity of that name uttered from that monsters mouth made Pitch recoil.

'Not that much, besides her and her fairies nesting tree is just beyond your forest and the Dark lands. Winter just started after all.'

The spider mind of pitch grumbled to itself, 'more snow, less food to eat'.

'Don't worry my dear' The Nightmare King drawled as though sensing his servant's savage thoughts. 'Spiders, as you are well aware when food is scarce will resort to cannibalism.'

The Nightmare King grinned at Pitch's sickened look.

'But we shall not let this happen…this winter' The Nightmare King grinned toothily, Pitch flinched a little.

When Pitch looked up, the shadowy figure was too close, a figure of oozing shadow, empty sockets and sharp teeth pulled into a horrid grin.

'For you see, I plan on stopping this winter short; making the lady of snow fall into despair and darkness.'

Pitch tried to keep eye contact of the grotesque shadow. It was extremely difficult, and revolting.

'And what do you want me to do?' Pitch asked.

'Why, I want you to take the creature she cannot bare to part from…the winter sprite she fondly calls Jack.'

'And the other sprites…?'

'Kill them, or eat them. I don't care. Just do it.' The Nightmare King disappeared in a wisp and a cruel whisper, leaving Pitch in his misery.

'Jack the winter sprite…first time I heard of a season giving their slaves their own names.' Pitch muttered to himself, staring again of the web that hung from the roof of the hollow.

He entertained the thought of how strong spider web is, and how long it would take his subjects to bother to find his body if he hung himself.

A/N fuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccckkkkkkkkk. Sorry for not updating peeps. Real life issues. God pitch, you are a bundle full of sunshine and happy thoughts, aren't you? This is taking a relatively darker turn than what I thought it would. If you can sense a different style of writing from the beginning to the end is because this was stopped halfway and finished a lot later so I apologise for that again.