exastris_scientia | retired open post // will still tag in if threads are ongoing!

[birds of a feather and all.

apparently, the name he gives is a thing of the past to her. it's unlikely jack has ever seen her looking so shocked and confused and lost, all at once--she tended to pretend at being aloof and all-knowing. there's a few moments before she speaks again, hands shaking. in all her years, for she's much older than jack, she hasn't heard that name spoken since before she was mother nature.]

...Kozmotis Pitchiner?

[her voice is small. she feels small, like she hasn't been in centuries--since the last time she saw her father.]

[ yeah, she's got quite a few years on jack, but she never treated him like some idiot child of a spirit for all of her all-knowing nature. she never cast her eyes down at him for the simple fact that no one believed in him in the human world, and therefore couldn't see him. she was a friend, even if they were an odd pair.

which probably makes a lot more sense how he manages to be best friends with his first officer.

but he sees her confusion. her ---]

Your hands are shaking. [ he's up in an instant and next to her, reaching out to try and cup them in his own. ] Yeah, that's who.

Do you know him?

[she actually allows it, too shocked to pull away for a few moments. but she needs to see. she has to.

he's still sleeping--he hasn't slept more than a few handfuls of hours in the last few thousand years, so he's got some catching up to do. he doesn't so much as twitch when she pulls the blanket back from his face and simply stares.

it's a few minutes before she turns around and walks straight out the door.]

[ he didn't know a lot about her when he first met her. to be fair, he spent the brunt of the time he knew her without any memories of his previous life as a human. so he'd never thought to ask about her life before she was mother nature.

he watches her go over and pull the blanket back, stare, and then head for the door. jack only stops to put the blanket back around koz's shoulders, and then gives chase. luckily, his ma isn't home, or he'd have some awkward explaining to do. ]

Hey, Flowers, wait up. Ah---[ ok, the jolt helped, and maybe he gives a little bit of an ice slick to slide on and catch up with her. ]---wait!

Heather, come on. What's going on?

[she wouldn't have told him. she hasn't told anyone--sandman might know a little, but they were from the same place, more or less. he'd seen pitch black at his worst, even if the memories might be fuzzy for the little dreamweaver.

mother nature knew it all. how could she not?

she wants to be outside, under the sky filled with birds and light and life, things that she knows and understands. she doesn't understand why, after all this time, her father is alive.

the snow melts away under her bare feet, spring flowers blooming in her wake, feeding off her energy. she kneels, uncaring of the mud--she's been covered in worse--and digging her fingers in, feeling the steadiness of the earth under her nails instead of the cacophony of questions in her head.]

[ he bolts after her, concern obvious in his features and voice. while the brunt of the snow melts away at her footsteps, frost trails after his own, but he stops when she kneels down to dig her fingers in the earth. ]

...Snapdragon, come on. You know you can talk to me, you've known me pretty much forever.

[she's known jack for basically all of his life--well, his second one. but he knows almost nothing of her, and that's by design. she didn't want anyone to know. and being so much older than most of the other spirits on earth certainly helped her air of mystery.

there are tears rolling down her face. ugly, painful, hopeful, and angry tears. there are so many emotions roiling in her, she doesn't know what she's feeling. the flowers bloom larger around her, reaching up as if they can sense that their mother is hurting, though they have no way of knowing why or how to stop it.

she doesn't talk for a long while.]

They all said that I should be proud. That it was my papa protecting me, us all from the darkness. They saidb he was strong, brave, and a hero--that was why they gave him the posting, guarding the prison, because he was the only person that could...

[ he watches her from the sparse distance between them, but finally comes close enough to hunker down beside her when the flowers bloom up like they are reaching out to her.

he sees the tears and he still doesn't understand why she's so upset until she speaks. it dawns on him then, and he remembers the story koz told him so many months ago when he'd found him on the enterprise. ]

You're his---[ daughter. the one he'd thought had been caught up in that prison with the fearlings. they'd tricked him. to live all this time knowing what her father had become---he reaches out to gently touch her shoulder. ] I'm sorry.

I didn't---[ how could he have, though. ] But---the man up there now, that's not Pitch Black. It hasn't been for a long time now. Just---now the Fearlings are gone for good.

He's free.

[he's free. she doesn't know what that means anymore. her father had always been more of a legend than a man to her, a soldier and a hero, and then he was gone, nothing left but monstrous shadows wearing his face.

she chokes back a sob, quaking like an aspen.]

S-Seraphina.

[the name feels strange, not like her own anymore. she hasn't spoken it in centuries. no one left alive--no one but herself and her father--knows it.

she draws in a deep breath--jack is touching her, his fingers are cold as always, and it gives her something to center herself with.]

We thought they were gone for good before. But they escaped. They escaped using him.

[ jack sits down, cross legged next to her, but far enough away so that his cold doesn't affect her little blooms. he smiles gently when she finally gives him a name that isn't one he made up o simply mother nature. ]

You gonna mind if I keep up with my running trend, Dahlia?

[ his hand slides down from her shoulder, and moves to find one of her hands. ]

They can't do that this time. They're bound for good. This---alien, one who knew Kozmotis before---he used my magic and his own to make sure of it. And even if I hadn't seen that---[ he pulls the mage-stone kozmotis had given him out from his shirt, glowing with a bright amber light, to show her. ]

There's this.

[she shakes her head, a small smile finding its way to her face. leave it to jack to be incorrigible about the whole thing.

she looks at the pendant, the amber glow in it. it's been a long time since she's seen mage-stone. earth doesn't have it, largely because there's simply not as much magic as there used to be. she knows what it's used for though--it holds spells incredibly well, hence the name, and it shows signs of the magic used to spell it. the gold is so antithetical to pitch's swirling darkness that she knows it can't be him. and she remembers her father's golden armor. it seems so right.]

I didn't know there was anyone else left, aside from us here on Earth.

[it makes her wonder. are there remnants of the golden age, back where they're from? she's not even sure she could find her way home now, even if she had a ship that could make the journey. and, well. after so long, earth was her home.

even if there were others left, long-lived as they were, they would surely recognize kozmotis, and not in any kind of good way.]

...the gold fits. But I don't remember his magic being strong enough before to light up that brightly.

[ jack had never even seen one until koz had given it to him, showing him as he made the answering one he wore himself. jack gives a small shrug. ]

I had no idea either. He was attacked on another world, a colony where he helps out with some kids---he took him thinking he was just Pitch.

I left my ship to go help him. We nearly didn't make it back.

[ he grins at the mention of the bright gold hue of the magic. ]

Should've seen what he did earlier to Tooth and Bunny when they tried to kidnap me away. Like a supernova.

retired open post // will still tag in if threads are ongoing!

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