Jack Frost (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
letskicksomeice) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
longestnight_old2013-05-13 10:55 pm
letskicksomeice) wrote in longestnight_old2013-05-13 10:55 pm
Entry tags:
The Tooth Palace
The flight was fun for Jack.
Which probably meant it wasn't the most fun for Tony.
The Wind wasn't the most gentle way to fly, especially when someone like Jack was riding it - because naturally It assumed Jack could take whatever It could dish out.
Their flight got a little gentler as he came in on his final approach to the tooth palace, though. It had been evening back in Pennsylvania, but here it was early in the day and the first vestiges of morning light were dancing over the mountains. Most of the mountains nearby were a bit more arid but here in this valley, everything was lush and green.
And colorful. True to its name, there was a palace here, one that looked as if it had been ornately carved out of the mountains themselves, painted in hues of pink, green, purple, yellow, and turquoise. There were also countless lattices and towers lined with - or maybe even made entirely of - gold. Some parts of the palace looked like other parts, only inverted, as if the different parts of it had grown up from the stone or down from the rocky ceilings like incredibly ornate stalagmites and stalactites.
Everywhere, there were fairies, little blue things that looked just a little too human to be hummingbirds. They flitted in from every direction and spread out in every direction, the ones coming in bearing teeth in their tiny hands, and the ones flying away carrying little coins tied to their waists with string. Jack and Tony passed by columns full of complicated contraptions that looked almost like a glorified reward system. Mechanical devices extended out when fairies approached, opening up to reveal puzzle boxes - painted with the faces of children - that had half-finished shows of tiny teeth. The fairies put the new teeth they'd collected in the boxes and then they closed up and withdrew back into their columns again, tucked away safe from the world. In exchange for the teeth, coins rolled down out of slots for the fairies to carry away to give to another child.
"We're gonna have to go let the lady in charge know you're here so she doesn't freak out over a strange guy being here. She runs a tight ship."
Which probably meant it wasn't the most fun for Tony.
The Wind wasn't the most gentle way to fly, especially when someone like Jack was riding it - because naturally It assumed Jack could take whatever It could dish out.
Their flight got a little gentler as he came in on his final approach to the tooth palace, though. It had been evening back in Pennsylvania, but here it was early in the day and the first vestiges of morning light were dancing over the mountains. Most of the mountains nearby were a bit more arid but here in this valley, everything was lush and green.
And colorful. True to its name, there was a palace here, one that looked as if it had been ornately carved out of the mountains themselves, painted in hues of pink, green, purple, yellow, and turquoise. There were also countless lattices and towers lined with - or maybe even made entirely of - gold. Some parts of the palace looked like other parts, only inverted, as if the different parts of it had grown up from the stone or down from the rocky ceilings like incredibly ornate stalagmites and stalactites.
Everywhere, there were fairies, little blue things that looked just a little too human to be hummingbirds. They flitted in from every direction and spread out in every direction, the ones coming in bearing teeth in their tiny hands, and the ones flying away carrying little coins tied to their waists with string. Jack and Tony passed by columns full of complicated contraptions that looked almost like a glorified reward system. Mechanical devices extended out when fairies approached, opening up to reveal puzzle boxes - painted with the faces of children - that had half-finished shows of tiny teeth. The fairies put the new teeth they'd collected in the boxes and then they closed up and withdrew back into their columns again, tucked away safe from the world. In exchange for the teeth, coins rolled down out of slots for the fairies to carry away to give to another child.
"We're gonna have to go let the lady in charge know you're here so she doesn't freak out over a strange guy being here. She runs a tight ship."
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"Who runs this place?" he asks, eyeing the tiny hummingbird people with open suspicion.
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There was a mess of activity bustling around particular balcony, one that seemed central to the entire operation, and Jack set them down at the edge of it.
"Ladies!" Jack said cheerfully in greeting. An entire cloud of fairies flew out, chirping overjoyed chirps at the sight of him. They swirled around him in a cloud, briefly covering almost every surface of his body in a mass attack of tiny hugs.
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What do you say to hundreds of little fairy people? Wit fails him.
"Um. Hi?" he offers.
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That was when one particular fairy dove through the crowd and clung to Jack's face, letting out a litany of happy, burbly chirps at the sight of him. Jack reached up a hand to hug the fairy to his face and then drew it away with the little fairy clinging to his hand.
That was when the fairy noticed Tony. Now she was looking a little less enthused and gestured with her tiny hand at the stranger, letting out a series of chirps that sounded a bit like the magical joy fairy version of 'Who's this clown and what's he doing in my house?'
"He's - it's complicated, Baby Tooth. But this is Tony. Tony, this is Baby Tooth, current Fairy-in-charge."
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He holds out a hand as if to shake, remembers that this is a tiny fairy, and instead offers Baby Tooth his index finger.
"Sorry for the short notice, some teenagers apparently hate me," he says.
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"Hey hey, calm down. I know you've got a lot you're juggling right now, but I promise there's an explanation for all this. Caaalm down. Why don't we sit down and have a little chat with Tony and I'll explain things to you and finish explaining things to him, okay? And while we're at it, it sounds to me like somebody needs some brushies."
With that, Jack kicked his legs in the air and floated down to land on his butt at the balcony edge, nodding towards Tony to join him. Putting his staff down on the walkway, he reached into the pocket of his hoodie and took out a little toothbrush, using it to brush the tiny fairy's head. She let out a relieved little sigh, visibly relaxing in his hand.
"It's nothing personal," he said to Tony. "She's just pretty stressed right now."
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Okay.
He hung out with a norse god before, he can do this.
"So, where did you leave off before we got in an argument about bizarro-world me?"
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"So I'm a myth right now, and we're the last line of defense against some kind of horrible monster, that monster is from beyond time and space who is going to destroy hope and goodness forever, and we need people to... believe in us. And some people I've never seen before hate me. And I'm in a movie."
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"A series of them. A friend of mine told me they're pretty good."
Baby Tooth chirped a few babbled questions.
"We think he and the other people that came through were pulled in from their worlds by the belief of the kids. You've seen how Kuk's influence has been changing how the world works better than anyone," he explained to the little fairy. "Man in the Moon chose them."
That got the fairy irate and chirping loudly.
"They're not meant to replace Tooth and the others, they're met to help us rescue them and stop Kuk," Jack said softly. "Not that we're making anyone fight unless they wanna lend a hand."
More chirping. Tony would start to maybe understand it now. It didn't sound like words but the longer he was in this world, the stronger the translation magic would get, and that meant he'd get the ideas in his head even for unconventional languages.
The big idea here still seemed to be 'Okay, what's this tiny goatee-bro doing in my house?'
"One of the others was a girl that apparently knows another version of Tony here, but that one's apparently a massive jerk who has child armies, and she was so upset she started hurting herself over it. We figured it'd be best to have them in separate corners until she calmed down and we could talk it over with her."
Jack looked back at Tony again.
"It's not that she dislikes you. It's just Baby Tooth doesn't like anything or anyone that might potentially gum up the whole tooth-collecting operation."
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...Not that he knows what the tooth thing is.
"What do you guys do with all these teeth anyway?"
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"They protect them. The teeth hold the most important memories of childhood." His face looked a bit wistful as he said those words. "When people get older, the negative can stick out a lot in their heads and they forget the good things. So when they're lost and hurting, when they need to think back to better times, the fairies use the teeth to help them remember the good in their lives."
He smiled the tiniest little crooked smile.
"They have everyone's. Every kid that's alive now, and every kid that's ever lived after Tooth started collecting them."
He nudged Baby Tooth with his hand, signaling her turn was up, and she reluctantly fluttered in the air, hovering nearby to listen in on the conversation - and to just be near Jack, judging from the expression on her face when she looked at him.
Another fairy took her place in Jack's hand. There was now a line of off-duty fairies curling around where they were sitting.
"That's how the old magic works. At least that's what Bunny says. It's changed a little over years but Tooth was one of the first of us so that was how it worked back when she started."
His expression went wistful again.
"Now that she's gone, the fairies are trying to carry on without her, because her job is even more important than ever. Baby Tooth's the one that took over the whole operation."
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It can't be easy. Otherwise they would've solved it already with magic.
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He explained, "Outside the door, the one that Kuk's trying to reach through, that whole place is...twisted. Reality doesn't work right there. It's sort of Its stronghold. It has all the myths there, trapped in this dark...crystal, that forces them to sleep and somehow lets It siphon off their belief."
The expression on his face became twisted up into something that made it clear it was a little more personal than just concern over his captured friends.
"Once they get you in there, you sleep. But you sleep in a way where you're know you're asleep and that something horrible is happening and you can't wake up from it. The whole time, it's like they're ripping something out of you - and it's so cold. The only time I ever felt that cold before was when I..."
He stopped.
His expression was a little embarrassed and slightly anguished, but the anguish was not at what he'd just revealed. It was more at the thought of people he cared for - including a young lady he cared for - going through something horrible that he'd already gone through.
Jack kept his eyes on the fairy in his hands as he brushed her. The fairy looked back up at him balefully, placing a tiny hand on one of his fingers in a gesture of comfort.
"I got captured once, around the beginning," he admitted, even though he'd already just as much as admitted it. "And imprisoned. The others managed to save me but we all got found out when we made a go at closing the door and had to fight for our lives. We nearly didn't make it out. Since then, as It's captured myths and gotten stronger, we haven't had a chance of getting back in to save anyone. The last time we tried... Tooth held them off so that Bunny and I could get out. If she hadn't, all three of us would've been taken."