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Now this... This was downright humiliating...
Pitch Black, The King Of Nightmares, The embodiment of fear itself, defeated by a bunch of kids. The very human beings that he SPECIFICALLY chose to hunt, SPECIFICALLY because they were TOO scared of him.
But let's be real for a second... It wasn't really the kids that defeated him. No... It wasn't their belief in the guardians, nor the guardians themselves. No... The reason behind his atrocious defeat... Was something far, far more humiliating.
It was his Very. Own. Fear. That tricked him. The king of nightmares... Afraid... And of what?? THE GUARDIANS??? For Manny's sake...
And even worse, his NIGHTMARES were the ones to drag him all the way back down? He is supposed to control them... Were did this power go? Why didn't they listen to him??
Well... If it's of any consolation towards him, they did feel immense guilt after realising their error. But it was already too late. He had lost an enormous amount of the power he had. It took 2 whole months for the nightmares to gather enough fear for him to even move out of his lair. He was too weak for his own good...
Nevertheless, the stubborn king decided to try and get out of his lair completely. In the forest. His nightmares kept warning him to not go out in this weakened and between us and them pathetic physical state. If there was a percentage of how much of his power had returned, it would be around 20% which, trust me, is not NEARLY as much as he needs.
Now for his own safety, he thought it would be a great idea to transform into a small animal and go out.
Key word: thought.
Because he quickly figured that the biggest animal he could become with his current amount of power was a crow. A small, puny crow.
Don't get him wrong, Pitch loves crows. They are some of his favourite animals.
But that opinion would quickly change after figuring out how easily his wounds can reopen in this softer, more fragile body of his. Plus, he can't fly. Not like this.
So there he is currently, away from his lair, unable to call his nightmares, wounded and helpless.
This cannot get any worse. It seriously can't. Good thing he can't get eaten by other animals... But still this is the worse that it gets. "What's next? A human appearing right Infront of me?"
Goddamn that mouth beak of his...
Why? Why did he have to get found and picked up by a human?
Why didn't his threatening crow sounds scare the woman away?
Why did she need to be so kind? He may never know.
At the woman's house, she treated his wounds carefully and made sure to treat him gently and nicely. Pitch found out rather quickly that the woman was actually a professional when it came to birds. She had rescued plenty, and that also explains two things:
A) Why she didn't take him to the vet first.
And B) Why she had a whole ass cage in her room.
He also learned that her name is Y/N (apparently she speaks to birds as she would speak to humans).
That was oddly a pretty name... Had a better ring to it.
He also couldn't deny her beauty. He might dislike humans, but he knows a pretty one when he sees 'em!
Tho as gentle as Y/N was, he didn't like the fact that he was kept in a cage. No matter how big it is. A cage is a cage. Tho he couldn't do much to get out either, so he was stuck here until his caretaker thought that he was free to go.
At least he was stuck in there only at night. The rest of the day, Y/N had her attention completely on him.
She really cared for him a lot...
He had years to feel that...
But he couldn't focus on this now! He had to find a way to at least communicate with his nightmares!
Finally, something good happened to him! Because that same night, as Pitch was resting in the cage, he sensed one of his nightmares nearby!
So he did the obvious and called out to her. He gave her instructions to deliver to the other Nightmares too and gather fear to feed him.
"In our defence, we told you this would have happened"
Oh, the disrespect... But they were right. He would never admit it, but they were right.
While Pitch was waiting, he couldn't help but look at Y/N's sleeping form.
She... Looked amazing. He didn't expect to ever admire someone while they slept... But she... She was different...
Every night, Pitch would grow stronger and stronger with the amount of fear he was gathering. He did praise his Nightmares for this, which made them happy and proud. He could try to be nicer to them.
But he didn't only have the Nightmares to thank for his fast recovery. Y/N's help was well needed too! He hated to admit it but... He might have grown a little attached to her...
Well, VERY attached actually. His dark black heart couldn't fathom the idea of leaving her... He came to realise that she was just as lonely as he was! So he decided to stick around a little longer.
It wouldn't hurt him. Far from it.
He desired to show her who he really was SO badly, but he could only imagine her reaction... So he got rid of the idea completely. He decided that he could visit her instead whenever he wanted! She was planning on setting him free really soon after all.
It didn't matter if he ended up becoming her pet. To him, he would be her guardian. It was better if she didn't know his true identity.
Thus, he would visit her every night. He decided to take things a step further and "talk" to her, in a way. Crows actually have the ability to mimic sounds that they hear. So he decided to do just that!
Pitch's heart remains cold and dark. But, unlike before, now it has a small part where it's warm and bright. That part belongs to Y/N only. And no matter the amount of hate he has for the guardians... For the dreams that kids see at night, or the joy and hope that they have...
He will never deny the joy and hope that he himself gets, when he sees Sandy's dream sand floating above Y/N's head, every night.