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What Is Your Center?	By : LuciferDragon Category: +M through R > Rise of the Guardians Views: 1676 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Rise of the Guardians world, and I make no profit at all from this fiction.

Chapter List
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There is more to the world than good and evil. It is not always so black and white. There is a balance that must be kept at all times. For the longest time, evil far outweighed good, and when good was made an equal match to evil, it crushed it so severely that it was a minor irritation in the world. On top of that, there was only one keeper of the balance itself, and she remained neutral throughout the entire war that happened, well before I was even conceived.
I came into existence four-hundred-and-sixty-years-ago, under a full moon on All Hallows Eve, before the day was anything special. I was accused and sentenced to death on the count of witchcraft. I had been innocent of the charges they gave me but that didn’t matter. I was made to be an example to those who might have strayed from the righteous path. For those who questioned the teachings.
When I was hanged, it was before the idea of the hangknot had been perfected. The hangknot was an addition to the noose, which snapped the neck of the victim, rendering them dead instantly. That would have been merciful.
With my hands bound by the same thick rope, I hung there, gasping in pain, unable to breathe. I counted the minutes, the seconds. My ears rang with my pulse. The world began to fade away, but I was still aware of myself, of the bindings cutting in to my wrists and throat as I struggled in vain, out of reaction. Around ten minutes, the awareness faded away, the struggling subsided. At fifteen, the pain finally stopped.
A man spoke to me.
Air rushed back into my lungs with a painful tug. I clutched at my chest as it expanded. A second breath came, and a third, a fourth. The pain slowly subsided and my vision grew lighter. As light as it could in the torchlight. I held myself up, retracting my hands instantly as I realized I was in a cart full of the dead.
Panic hit me as I scrambled out of the cart and ran into the woods, not looking back at the village I had once considered home.
I felt the sting of branches slapping my bare legs and feet, but felt no blood dripping down my limbs. I only felt fear. In those woods, alone and scared, I could have sworn I heard laughter, deep and masculine. It only terrified me more.
I stopped short as I reached a lake I knew so well. Everything went quiet, my pulse overtaking my hearing momentarily.
My attention was drawn to the moon. I immediately heard the man I had heard before. I wasn’t sure from where, but I could understand him clearly. “I place upon you the gift of the Chosen. The gift of All Hallows.”
“All Hallows? I don’t understand! What do you mean?”
“You are Hana Eve, the spirit of All Hallows.”
I had no chance to argue, no chance to plead my case. I would soon come to find out that what MiM said was fact, and fact was what MiM said. I knelt in the forming snow, tracing the rope marks on my throat. I swallowed, feeling the flesh rise up to meet my fingers. I wanted to flinch at the divots in my skin.
I chanced a glance at my reflection and stifled a shriek. Glowing yellow eyes stood out in the darkness. I looked at my hands and stared at the flesh for the first time. From what I could tell in the moonlight, my skin was ashen, as if I was one of the dead. My reflection showed black markings over my eyes, nose, and lips. Three lines ran vertically over my lips as well. I turned my face, seeing blackened cheekbones. Most shocking were the two small horns protruding from my limp hair. I tentatively reached up to touch them, and retracted my hand just as quickly. They were indeed part of my skull.
I was found that night, and not by who I was expecting. To be honest, I wasn’t sure who to expect, but who showed up... taught me exactly how to come in to the power I was given. And, he taught me much more than that.
As time passed I had accepted my role as Hana Eve. I was given control of one night a year, when the realm of the dead and the living had very little boundaries. I also learned that every Chosen had a special ability that they cared for. Mine was beauty. I was able to find beauty in anything, even the darkest of things. Due to my ability, I was able to find beauty in his darkness as well.
He taught me to use a child’s fear against them, showed me how to harness their terror to raise my power. My abilities may have only been at their peak for one night a year, but that did not mean I was powerless the other three-hundred-and-sixty-four days. He made damn sure of that. He was an excellent teacher, among other things.
After a year I hid the deep scar around my throat, though I kept the gouges on my wrists exposed. Those didn’t send painful reminders through my skull each time I saw them.
Life was grand for over three hundred years. Well, as grand as things could be when you shared a bed with Pitch Black. I had a new life, a new purpose. I had a man by my side that would never question my path. Instead he heartily encouraged my choices. He had been understanding in the beginning, kind even, in his own demented way. He’d bring gifts home occasionally, typically tainted with the dark essence we both survived on.
Then, around a century ago, he began losing his mind. The whole time I had known him, the Guardians had been keeping him “in check”. The amount of adults and children alike who believed in him dwindled down each year. His power began to weaken. It was heartbreaking to see at first, but then…
He had always had a tendency for violent outbursts. They typically weren’t terrible, and usually out of frustration. It was during that time that he began to turn them on me. At first he would apologize, and I would understand his fears, his frustrations. But when he became physical…
I left. I was a spirit, in command of Halloween. I couldn’t let that rule my life. And so, while he was away one night, I left him a note and a ruby necklace he had given me, and didn’t look back.
Now, just over a hundred years since I had left, something was wrong. The balance was being shifted.
I had a globe similar to Pitch and North. While they monitored belief, I monitored fear. I had never seen it so lit up. I took a glass ball from a shelf near my desk, placing it in a holder. I swept a hand over it, activating the shadows trapped within. They twisted and turned until images came through clearly. I saw his Nightmares running rampant through The Warren. It was a grizzly sight, seeing hooves smash through the eggs. I had no problems with his interest in putting fear into children; we were still one in the same in achieving that goal. This was a step too far. How far had he succumbed to his madness?
I looked out of my window, meeting the Moon’s gaze. “Is this why I was turned so long ago?” I narrowed my eyes. “I cannot control him, you know this. Why would I even try? The more fear a child has, the more powerful he and I both become. Why would I stop him?”
As he had for the past four-hundred-and-sixty years, MiM did not answer. In a way, he didn’t have to. The silence was judgment enough.
I clenched my teeth and turned my attention back to the ball. I couldn’t blame him for what he was doing. He was desperate. It didn’t make it any easier to see the devastation he was laying on Easter. All I could do was watch it play out. I observed for hours as it happened, witnessed as his plans failed, watched as the children laid waste to his perfected Nightmares that he had painstakingly created over many, many years. I touched the surface of the glass ball, unable to believe what I was seeing. “Oogie, what have you done?”
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What Is Your Center?