Work Text:
The Other pressed against the border day and night, not that the two were really distinguishable for the Spirits of the Forest.
The Forest fought back, pulling from the children till they were left gasping on the ground, and still the Other pressed. The Forest needed more energy, more life. They pulled harder on the children of Amity Park. They stumbled to them in the dark, tumbling into the fairy rings.
The adults had posted a watchman, but it was easy to make them sleep, make them dull and drowsy so that the children could come through.
They did not like to have to End any of their children, but if they could not battle back the Other sacrifices would need to be made.
They needed to keep the world safe. The Other wanted nothing more than to devour, than to bring death to the world. The Forest had been fighting them as long as it could remember.
Suddenly, it felt a surge in the fabric of reality that kept the Other separate. It gasped as the push became stronger. It pulled from its children, it felt some fall, End, but there was no time for regrets. At last, with one more pull of energy, it strengthened the barrier and the attack stopped.
The Forest could feel that a few beasts had made it through, but there was nothing it could do, at least not yet. They had plans.
They eyed the creatures made of the whispers of Other energy that had made it through over the years. If that energy could gather and form creatures, why could that energy not be poured into a Spirit? Perhaps, if enough energy was poured into one of the little ones, they would be able to help fight the Other.
It had plans to make and Spirits to watch, but for now it had to watch the Veil.
—--
Danny watched the Spirits of the Forest. More had come in the last few days, and it seemed that everyday the Forest was pulling from them to fight back the Other, to strengthen the Veil. While he and Sam and Tucker knew no different, the older spirits claimed that the Forest had only needed to pull from them occasionally. Only the oldest of them remembered a time when the attacks on the Veil had been so consistent.
They spoke of a beast called the Dark One or Pariah Dark. The beast, creature, monster had managed to come through and had wreaked devastation upon the Earth with his army of Other. The Forest had nearly been burned to the ground, the Veil nearly torn to shreds. Many Spirits had died as the Forest, or Mother Nature as the older spirits called them, had fought back against the Other, as it had repaired the Veil.
In the end the Spirits had been sent away from the Forest to surround Pariah Dark. The Forest had pulled on their connection, on their energy, and Pariah Dark had been banished and his forces had fled back through the Veil, into the Myrkr. Many Spirits had died.
They all feared that something similar was happening again.
They could see the beasts pressing against the Veil more clearly now. Creatures full of teeth and claws and eyes and too many limbs. Creatures made of darkness and creatures made of light that were almost too bright to look at. There were creatures that seemed to be made of the fabric of the night sky, creatures made of storms, ones made of bones, made of fire, of ice, of teeth. They were creatures that would inspire nightmares and drive humans mad.
The Forest fought them, but the Spirits could feel a weakening in the Veil, and they could not help but be afraid as more children were added to their numbers even as other Spirits Ended.
What would happen if something came through? Who would be the next to End?
Danny did not want it to be him. He did not want it to be Sam or Tucker.
But how would he protect them? How would he protect himself? How could he fight the Other?
How could he fight the Forest?