Chapter Text
Sandy panicked. After flinging Pitch into the arctic tundra, he flew to where Jackie had landed, his eyes widening in horror at the staff lodged in the stomach of the thin spirit. He willed his sand to lift the girl up and began the rapid, but cautious, journey back to the North Pole.
-
Nicholas Saint North was distracted from his ice carvings by the panicked sound of yetis crashing through the workshop. Upon opening the door to his private workshop, he stopped dead at the sight of Jackie Frost, suspended on a cloud of sand, unconscious, with a piece of wood, bloodied, clearly having lodged itself in the girl. “Sandy! What has happened?”
It took several tries to interpret the rapidly shifting symbols above the dreamweaver’s head, but soon enough the message had been conveyed - Jackie Frost had been attacked and severely injured by Pitch Black.
“I will send out Auroras! Bunny is best with medicine!” North activated the Northern lights and scents the next anxiety ridden minutes glancing between the prone form of Jackie and the entrance where the remaining two Guardians would burst through any minute.
North was distracted by a pitiful groan from the female spirit when E. Aster Bunnymund entered the workshop “Crikey! What could have possibly been important enough to call me back into this frozen hell only hours after I-” Bunnymund fell silent upon spying the state of the Guardian of Fun around North’s bulk. He sprinted to her side to begin assessing the damage by running his paws over her midsection, careful not to move the shephard’s crook, “Hell, sheila. What happened to you?”
“Was the Pitch. Sandy and Jack encountered him in Antarctica. The story is hard to grasp but...” The sentence drifted off into silence. Aster used his claws to cut and tear away the hoodie that was obscuring the worst of the injury allowing the Guardians, Tooth included as she had just entered the room through the open door, to see where Jackie’s skin met staff.
The skin around the wound was pulled taught, and the edges were ragged and frayed. Her stomach and staff were stained crimson.
Bunnymund scratched behind his ear and began to pace muttering about elementals magic and healing spirits. He sighed before turning to the three expectant faces of his fellow Guardians,
“Mates, I don’ know what to do ‘ere. Ah’ve never tried to heal a winter elemental before, and never ‘ave I dealt with an injury like this.” Bunnymund continued to ramble only to be cut short by the flurry of snow that forced open a window in the toymaker’s shop.
“Fortunately we are prepared.” Alighting upon the workshop floor was a young-looking, as age amidst near-immortal spirits was always deceiving, man that was clearly a winter elemental. His hair was icy white, nearly translucent, his skin like fallen-snow, and his eyes a light grey. Behind him trailed another five winter sprites, though none dressed so elegantly as their leader. Nor did the other sprites carry a sword to match the one strapped to the back of the knight, for there was no mistaking his official attire.
“Now wait here jus a minute mate. Who the hell are you and why would we let you anywhere near the sheila?” Bunnymund pushed past North to confront the spirit, only to be met with a cruel sneer.
“You think you Guardians will be able to stop the knight of the winter court from seeing to my liege? Or that you could even begin to treat her horrific wound?” The knight and his followers brushed past the embodiment of Easter and immediately began fussing over the form of Jacqueline Frost.
Bunnymund was stunned momentarily, he was rooted to the spot muttering about lieges and bloody knights. He turned to see the frantic motions of the winter sprite entourage summoning snow and ice into the workshop to pack around the still form of Jackie. He was broken from his thoughts by the knight’s cursing.
“-damnit! Where is her conduit?” turning to the Guardians, it was evident the knight expected one of them to answer. The Sandman floated forwards to gesture at the gut of the injured spirit. “Shit! God damnit! Where’s the other half?!”
As the symbols rapidly appeared above Sandy’s head, North interpreted for the room at large, “He says that Pitch broke the staff in two.”
“Yes, yes, I could guess as much! Where is the other piece?” The knight’s demands for answers were growing more frantic and the anxiety blanketed the room as a whole as the sprites continued to fuss around Jackie.
Sandy’s symbols had barely outlined the continent of Antarctica before Bunny disappeared into one of his tunnels, the immediate need to retrieve the other portion of the staff weighing against him like a lead blanket. Upon arriving at the wintry desert, Bunny began to track the faint scent of blood, despite his own horror knowing it belonged to his unconscious companion at the Pole.
At last he glimpsed the red stain against the whiteness of ice and snow, and he was immediately confronted by the spires of ice and nightmare sand. Deciding to set aside the issue until Jackie was safe, Bunny snagged the upper half of the shephard’s crook from where it was half-buried in a snow drift. He wasted no time in returning to the Pole, thrusting the piece of wood into the waiting knight’s hand.
He barely processed the knight’s words telling the Guardians to stand back to allow him to work, before he gagged at the sight of the broken portion of the staff being yanked from his fellow Guardian’s abdomen.
Snow was immediately packed over the sluggishly bleeding wound, fortunately Jackie’s lower body temp froze her blood into something resembling slush that wasn’t as quick to escape her body. He tuned back into the world around him as the sprites and the knight rapidly debated the treatment.
“-she should be healing by now!” The words were punctuated by the emphatically gesturing hands of a sprite still packing the snow over the wound.
The knight took a step back to contemplate the situation, scratching at face and muttering under his breath. The pattern continued for several long minutes before he once again spoke up, his words carrying a devastating weight, “It’s her conduit. It’s broken and her primary connection to the season has been shattered. She won't heal until we find a way to repair her now fractured magical core.”