Snowflakes And Shadow Crowns

Waldo

  The coldest moths of winter had come over Burgess and fleeted, the snow slowly melting and flower blooms poking through what remained, and despite the warming weather, it would seem that almost every other day Jack could be found at the Boogeyman's lair. Of course at first his visits were far and in between, but now that the Nightmare King had seemed to be a bit more lenient to his ever persistence to show up out of the blue, the winter sprite had made it a point to visit him rather often. When the harassment-- as Pitch called it--started, he had tried his hardest to make Jack aware that he did not, in fact, want him there at all, but the boy didn't seem discouraged by his threats of inhumane torture, nor his evil glares and minor assaults. To be honest, the fact that Pitch even acknowledged him seemed to make him even more eager to visit.

  Pitch sighed softly to himself, looking over the empty chambers of his lair. He knew that if he wanted Jack gone completely that he could very easily do it himself or have it done for him. The boy was incredibly gullible after all and was even dumb enough to hand him his staff, but no matter how hard Pitch wished for solitude, the thought of having Jack just vanish didn't feel quite right. He had, of course, become a part of his weekly routine to the point that sometimes he never even noticed him at all. 

  Turning around and approaching his stained stone throne, Pitch seated himself and placed his head in one hand then groaned. The boy was, Pitch knew, only inadvertently annoying. There was something he saw in Jack when the spirit's mood was rather low--which was occurring rather often as of late, Pitch noticed, even if the other tried to hide it--and it stired something in him. An almost reminiscent feeling; he remind him of himself when he was young in a way...

  No, that's not quite true. He thought.

  Pitch sat up straight and rubbed his face to still his ever present agitation. Jack and himself were similar in many ways; a lot of aspects of their pasts were comparable which had shaped their personalities in two very different, yet very identical forms. While Jack could be considered a, 'good guy,' Pitch was the complete opposite: the antagonist, but even despite that fact, both of them seemed to be troubled souls, with troubled minds, and troubled pasts. Jack appeared to, from his perspective, find some sort of peace in solitude and sought it out when in despair-- something Pitch did rather frequently--and the younger spirit shared the truth of the coin's opposite side with him. Whether they ever wanted to or not, both of them knew the cold sting of forced lonesomeness. It was a dark reality that, even if he was King of darkness, still found a way to hollow out his chest and make it pang with a foreign sadness.

However, notwithstanding the fact that they were indeed so collateral, Pitch knew, and always would, that Jack could never remind him of anyone--even himself--because the boy was so unique in so many strange ways that nothing could be compared to him. After all, he was the key factor in his defeat, and no one else--except his long lost rival from an age forgotten--could have ever been expected to defeat him at his full power, not even the Guardians.

  Taking a moment to process the fact that all he was thinking of was Jack, Pitch shook his head and mentally scolded his mind. He found that he would try to tell himself that the reason he'd been thinking of him lately was because he was always here with his popsicles, or his snow flurries, his delinquent stories, and his occasionally odd idea to have them both try something new which usually consisted of some random arts and craft project. Pitch never participated in them, and always threatened to kill Jack if he made a mess, but he did find it rather satisfying to watch the younger fail at every attempt to make a snowflake pattern paper chain. 

  No, Pitch new that the reason Jack refused to escape his thoughts was not because the teen was always present nowadays, but rather because today, he was not.