Lullaby 6
Lullaby
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Jack was going to take Pitch’s suggestion straight to North. Really. Honest. Only he caught a glimpse of a calendar on his way out of Burgess, and, well…
“Frostbite, the hell you doing hiding under a rock in my garden?” Bunny asked. His watering can dribbled a few droplets on Jack’s nose, freezing solid as Bunny bent to peer at him, ignoring Jack’s frantic ‘shoo, shoo!’ gestures. “It’s the middle of winter. Shouldn’t you be up north wrecking school days and building snow forts?”
“This is completely not my fault,” Jack hissed, “and I’ll be back to it in a week, just go away and pretend I don’t exist.”
Bunny’s eyebrow shot upward. “Jackie?"
“And also you should maybe batten down the hatches and check the wards, just a thought, nothing to do with why I’m here, though your security sucks by the way.”
Bunny’s other eyebrow joined the first, and the watering can landed with a thump in the mud. “That sounds an awful lot like you’re being chased by something," he said, crouching.
“Nope. Not at all.” A long moment, as Jack wilted under Bunny’s stare, then, “Nothing big. It’s just.” Why did he hide here again? He should’ve gone to Tooth’s. Or North’s, North had amazing wards against exactly this because of Befana Strega. Great friend, terrible girlfriend. “... Valentine’s.”
Bunny snorted. “You know Cupid’s usually good about not targeting spirits, right?” Jack couldn’t answer. “... Jack. What did you do to Cupid?”
“I’m just an innocent bystander here!” Yeah, that sounded ridiculous even to Jack. “You know he likes to target people who’re… available. Right?”
“Yeeees?”
“And, um, teenagers. And people with a crush.” Oops, bad move. “And maybe kind of sort of people who might’ve 68’d his holiday once. Or twice.” Bunny’s whiskers twitched. “... A decade.”
So all those hearts and flowers happened to annoy Jack a little. Love should be an all-year effort, not a one-day spectacle. More importantly, all that hype made everyone else depressed over being single, or divorced or widowed, and it especially upset the little kids who’d lost a parent.
68’ing things didn’t help, but sometimes Jack just got fed up with it all. Which. Well. 68.
Bunny’s whiskers were twitching a little harder now. “Y’know the charm’s only good for about seven months, right?”
Wait, what? “...No?” That first time Cupid got him, back in the twenties, hadn’t worn off yet.
“It’s just a charm,” Bunny said, and now the twitching was clearly stifled laughter. “Ya get a whirlwind summer romance and it’s usually no harm done. Or people fall in love for real, but the charm doesn’t do much but poke you in the tail and say ‘look’.”
Jack swallowed.
“But that doesn’t mean my security sucks,” Bunny finished, finally taking pity on Jack and smirking. “I can’t afford to be all lovestruck in the rush towards Easter. C’mon, let’s get you out of the mud and washed off.”
A bath in front of Bunny? "Nope. Your security sucks. I got in easy enough, didn't I."
"You did. You're not Cupid. My security is fine, Jackie."
"Actually..."
Jack and Bunny both yelped at the new voice, Jack whacking his head on the stone above him while Bunny whipped out a boomerang and spun, hovering protectively in front of Jack's rock. Between his furry feet, Jack saw...
"Kaito. What're you doing here?" He hadn't thought any of Guardians would see Kid until they'd figured out his weird riddle. "I thought you were mad at us."
“Mostly at Santa,” Kid replied easily. He stepped down off a low, flat rock, polished shoes deftly avoiding the silvery moss spilling off its surface. His cape fluttered around his calves as he turned slowly, consideringly. “It’s a lovely place you have here. Love the sun charms. Do they do rain too?”
“What…? Thank you, yes, but what do you think you’re doing here?” Bunny sputtered. “How did you get in? I’m sure I don’t have a single damned shiny thing--”
“Secret.” Kid shook a finger chidingly, absently, as he continued to scan the Warren. “Rock towers, frowny totems… that stream's only, what, five centimeters deep? Good, good…”
Bunny leaned in close over Jack. “He always this rude?”
Kid answered before Jack could. “He can hear you. And no, usually I’m a bit more mannerly than this. What’s the capacity here?”
“All right, you’ve had your fun. Enigmatic bastard. Let’s have some explanations before I kick you outta me Warren.”
After a long moment, Kid sighed, and dragged his gaze away from the horizon. “We have the Naughty List,” he said slowly, as if to a particularly stubborn student. Bunny's ears went flat. “The List has several. hundred. thousand. names on it. Over fifteen percent of them need rescued.” He paused, monocle flashing in the Warren’s dim golden light. “We also have facilities for four. Do the math.”
Neither Bunny nor Jack needed to. “I’m not blocked from moon magic here,” Bunny pointed out.
“... My center is Secrets,” Kid offered reluctantly.
“... The Warren’s meant to hold a million.”
Slowly, Kid grinned.
-0-0-0
Once Bunny and the sentinel eggs had set to cleaning out the Warren's long-unused rooms, Jack left with Kid. Turned out the secret entrance was through the handle of Bunny's battered old watering can, the aluminum polished to a mirror-bright shine from centuries of use.
"So,"Jack said. "How are you guys going to manage getting hundreds of thousands of kids, anyway?"
"That's right. You haven't met my minions yet, have you?"
"Minions?"
Kid touched down lightly on the edge of a shard the size of a car, rotating slowly among the labyrinthine curls of smoke and mirrors, and gestured at the world Jack had very carefully not been looking at. Something gritty and dull floated free from his hand in a long arc.
Out of the smoke came meowing, and out of the meowing came cats. Broad and insubstantial, fluffy and stubby, they coalesced out of the mists -- ten, twenty, fifty, hundreds -- and swarmed them both. Kid quickly wound up hip-deep in purring cub-like cats, coiling around his legs and rubbing against his scritching fingers, and slinking daintily out of the air to chase his hat into the ether. The smallest, a kitten the size of a tennis ball, entangled herself into Kid's dangling monocle charm.
"Yes, yes, precious. Catnip for everybody. No evil creepy snackies today, though."
Jack reached out with one curled-under hand, getting several of the nearest cats to sniff warily at his fingers. “What kind of cats are they?” he asked. They didn’t look much like housecats. Too big and fluffy. But they weren’t lynxes, snow leopards or tigers, or mountain lions, nor were they any of the tropical cats he’d seen in zoos. Plus they were made out of smoke.
“Bakeneko.” Kid rolled his palms an inch apart from each other, glowing points of sparkly, fuzzy light balling up in the space between. With a bright, cheerful jingle of bells, he tossed them into the distance and all the cats went racing off in hot pursuit. “The ghosts of murdered cats. Executed for the crime of, well, being a cat and therefore having magical potential.” He gently disentangled the last kitten remaining from where it was chewing on his monocle charm. “Our stories aren’t happy, Jyaki. Death and magic, secrets and wisdom. We resonate with each other… with your Bunny, too, more than he’d want to admit.” The kitten mewled, high and peeping, and batted at Kid’s nose. “Yes, you’ll be his too, if he ever wakes up enough to see you,” Kid cooed.
“Bunny’s about life, though, I thought…?” Jack knew that much, springtime and eggs and the way flowers sprouted in Bunny’s wake every time he popped into a tunnel. Also normal rabbits (and almost everything else) mated in the spring.
He didn’t think Bunny personally went into heat. (Not that he ever thought about it.) But Jack had spent most of his life around farms and forests, and he wasn’t blind.
Kid circled one finger in the air. “Cycles, Jyaki. From life, death. From death, life. You resonate with it too, you know.”
“... Well, I did die.”
Kid paused, blinking at him. Then he cocked his head, and suddenly, the scarcest sense of his existence flickered in Jack’s sense of Joy. “Would it be too cliche to point out that you also sparkle in bright light?”
“I’m not that kind of vampire,” Jack replied, Kid’s amusement enough to lighten Jack’s own mood and let him drop the topic of resonances. “And I know exactly who you’re casting as that girl.”
Kid grinned.
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5
Jack was going to take Pitch’s suggestion straight to North. Really. Honest. Only he caught a glimpse of a calendar on his way out of Burgess, and, well…
“Frostbite, the hell you doing hiding under a rock in my garden?” Bunny asked. His watering can dribbled a few droplets on Jack’s nose, freezing solid as Bunny bent to peer at him, ignoring Jack’s frantic ‘shoo, shoo!’ gestures. “It’s the middle of winter. Shouldn’t you be up north wrecking school days and building snow forts?”
“This is completely not my fault,” Jack hissed, “and I’ll be back to it in a week, just go away and pretend I don’t exist.”
Bunny’s eyebrow shot upward. “Jackie?"
“And also you should maybe batten down the hatches and check the wards, just a thought, nothing to do with why I’m here, though your security sucks by the way.”
Bunny’s other eyebrow joined the first, and the watering can landed with a thump in the mud. “That sounds an awful lot like you’re being chased by something," he said, crouching.
“Nope. Not at all.” A long moment, as Jack wilted under Bunny’s stare, then, “Nothing big. It’s just.” Why did he hide here again? He should’ve gone to Tooth’s. Or North’s, North had amazing wards against exactly this because of Befana Strega. Great friend, terrible girlfriend. “... Valentine’s.”
Bunny snorted. “You know Cupid’s usually good about not targeting spirits, right?” Jack couldn’t answer. “... Jack. What did you do to Cupid?”
“I’m just an innocent bystander here!” Yeah, that sounded ridiculous even to Jack. “You know he likes to target people who’re… available. Right?”
“Yeeees?”
“And, um, teenagers. And people with a crush.” Oops, bad move. “And maybe kind of sort of people who might’ve 68’d his holiday once. Or twice.” Bunny’s whiskers twitched. “... A decade.”
So all those hearts and flowers happened to annoy Jack a little. Love should be an all-year effort, not a one-day spectacle. More importantly, all that hype made everyone else depressed over being single, or divorced or widowed, and it especially upset the little kids who’d lost a parent.
68’ing things didn’t help, but sometimes Jack just got fed up with it all. Which. Well. 68.
Bunny’s whiskers were twitching a little harder now. “Y’know the charm’s only good for about seven months, right?”
Wait, what? “...No?” That first time Cupid got him, back in the twenties, hadn’t worn off yet.
“It’s just a charm,” Bunny said, and now the twitching was clearly stifled laughter. “Ya get a whirlwind summer romance and it’s usually no harm done. Or people fall in love for real, but the charm doesn’t do much but poke you in the tail and say ‘look’.”
Jack swallowed.
“But that doesn’t mean my security sucks,” Bunny finished, finally taking pity on Jack and smirking. “I can’t afford to be all lovestruck in the rush towards Easter. C’mon, let’s get you out of the mud and washed off.”
A bath in front of Bunny? "Nope. Your security sucks. I got in easy enough, didn't I."
"You did. You're not Cupid. My security is fine, Jackie."
"Actually..."
Jack and Bunny both yelped at the new voice, Jack whacking his head on the stone above him while Bunny whipped out a boomerang and spun, hovering protectively in front of Jack's rock. Between his furry feet, Jack saw...
"Kaito. What're you doing here?" He hadn't thought any of Guardians would see Kid until they'd figured out his weird riddle. "I thought you were mad at us."
“Mostly at Santa,” Kid replied easily. He stepped down off a low, flat rock, polished shoes deftly avoiding the silvery moss spilling off its surface. His cape fluttered around his calves as he turned slowly, consideringly. “It’s a lovely place you have here. Love the sun charms. Do they do rain too?”
“What…? Thank you, yes, but what do you think you’re doing here?” Bunny sputtered. “How did you get in? I’m sure I don’t have a single damned shiny thing--”
“Secret.” Kid shook a finger chidingly, absently, as he continued to scan the Warren. “Rock towers, frowny totems… that stream's only, what, five centimeters deep? Good, good…”
Bunny leaned in close over Jack. “He always this rude?”
Kid answered before Jack could. “He can hear you. And no, usually I’m a bit more mannerly than this. What’s the capacity here?”
“All right, you’ve had your fun. Enigmatic bastard. Let’s have some explanations before I kick you outta me Warren.”
After a long moment, Kid sighed, and dragged his gaze away from the horizon. “We have the Naughty List,” he said slowly, as if to a particularly stubborn student. Bunny's ears went flat. “The List has several. hundred. thousand. names on it. Over fifteen percent of them need rescued.” He paused, monocle flashing in the Warren’s dim golden light. “We also have facilities for four. Do the math.”
Neither Bunny nor Jack needed to. “I’m not blocked from moon magic here,” Bunny pointed out.
“... My center is Secrets,” Kid offered reluctantly.
“... The Warren’s meant to hold a million.”
Slowly, Kid grinned.
-0-0-0
Once Bunny and the sentinel eggs had set to cleaning out the Warren's long-unused rooms, Jack left with Kid. Turned out the secret entrance was through the handle of Bunny's battered old watering can, the aluminum polished to a mirror-bright shine from centuries of use.
"So,"Jack said. "How are you guys going to manage getting hundreds of thousands of kids, anyway?"
"That's right. You haven't met my minions yet, have you?"
"Minions?"
Kid touched down lightly on the edge of a shard the size of a car, rotating slowly among the labyrinthine curls of smoke and mirrors, and gestured at the world Jack had very carefully not been looking at. Something gritty and dull floated free from his hand in a long arc.
Out of the smoke came meowing, and out of the meowing came cats. Broad and insubstantial, fluffy and stubby, they coalesced out of the mists -- ten, twenty, fifty, hundreds -- and swarmed them both. Kid quickly wound up hip-deep in purring cub-like cats, coiling around his legs and rubbing against his scritching fingers, and slinking daintily out of the air to chase his hat into the ether. The smallest, a kitten the size of a tennis ball, entangled herself into Kid's dangling monocle charm.
"Yes, yes, precious. Catnip for everybody. No evil creepy snackies today, though."
Jack reached out with one curled-under hand, getting several of the nearest cats to sniff warily at his fingers. “What kind of cats are they?” he asked. They didn’t look much like housecats. Too big and fluffy. But they weren’t lynxes, snow leopards or tigers, or mountain lions, nor were they any of the tropical cats he’d seen in zoos. Plus they were made out of smoke.
“Bakeneko.” Kid rolled his palms an inch apart from each other, glowing points of sparkly, fuzzy light balling up in the space between. With a bright, cheerful jingle of bells, he tossed them into the distance and all the cats went racing off in hot pursuit. “The ghosts of murdered cats. Executed for the crime of, well, being a cat and therefore having magical potential.” He gently disentangled the last kitten remaining from where it was chewing on his monocle charm. “Our stories aren’t happy, Jyaki. Death and magic, secrets and wisdom. We resonate with each other… with your Bunny, too, more than he’d want to admit.” The kitten mewled, high and peeping, and batted at Kid’s nose. “Yes, you’ll be his too, if he ever wakes up enough to see you,” Kid cooed.
“Bunny’s about life, though, I thought…?” Jack knew that much, springtime and eggs and the way flowers sprouted in Bunny’s wake every time he popped into a tunnel. Also normal rabbits (and almost everything else) mated in the spring.
He didn’t think Bunny personally went into heat. (Not that he ever thought about it.) But Jack had spent most of his life around farms and forests, and he wasn’t blind.
Kid circled one finger in the air. “Cycles, Jyaki. From life, death. From death, life. You resonate with it too, you know.”
“... Well, I did die.”
Kid paused, blinking at him. Then he cocked his head, and suddenly, the scarcest sense of his existence flickered in Jack’s sense of Joy. “Would it be too cliche to point out that you also sparkle in bright light?”
“I’m not that kind of vampire,” Jack replied, Kid’s amusement enough to lighten Jack’s own mood and let him drop the topic of resonances. “And I know exactly who you’re casting as that girl.”
Kid grinned.