Chapter Text
Prologue
Creepy keepsakes. (Tooth experiences buyer's remorse.)
After the battle there's one thing left to take care of, one thing that Toothiana can't quite put down despite the aura of festivities in the Santoff Claussen.
Not all lost teeth belong to children, and not all lost teeth from adults find their way to her at Punjam Hy Loo. There are many paths adult teeth take to the tooth palace,and each deserves its own treatment. Some, like many a matched set of wisdom teeth, find homes in custom boxes sidled up to their much smaller childhood counterparts. Some, however, demand special treatment.
"What is that?" Jack perches on his staff and peers over her shoulder, just to the side of her buzzing wings.
Some, like the one Toothiana can't stop scowling at. "Pitch's tooth."
"Wait, you kept it? That is seriously gross." Jack sounds halfway between genuinely disgusted and actually intrigued. Of course, he's a boy. "I guess it's like a trophy. What are you going to do with it?"
Toothiana shrugs, spinning the item in question between delicate fingertips. Clearly Pitch has never heard about flossing in any child's nightmares. The premolar is scraggly, discolored, brittle and worn with age. She's never handled an older tooth, come to think of it. She'd thought about leaving it, after the battle, but the Moon had glimmered and prompted her, she'd paid for it. All her fairies had paid for it, the poor things.
She could hardly ask one of her little sisters to carry this tooth, after the battle, so she collected it personally. It's just possible, staring at the ugly little thing heavy with memories, that she might regret that. Absently, she peers at the black smears of dried blood at the roots. "It needs a locket."
"Wha- you're going to wear it around?" Jack kicks off his staff and leans forward to squint at the grisly relic. "Ew. That is disturbing, Tooth. Even if it does look kinda like a shark's."
"Not me." Toothiana blinks at him. "I don't know, it just needs a locket. Adult teeth are different, you know. They're full of memories, but they're not . . . not like a child's memories. Sometimes they don't fit in the same boxes. I've never met a tooth that wanted a locket before, but this one does."
Jack shifts awkwardly, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "So. . . it's full of Pitch's memories?"
"I guess it'd have to be." Tooth minds her fingers on the sharp point and edges and wishes she had somewhere to put it now. Maybe she can ask one of North's yeti to make her the locket it needs?
"Do you think. . . do you think he's like me?" Jack can't even face her to ask, looking out across the moon on snow below. She can still see his expression in the reflection of the window.
"Oh. Oh, Jack." Tooth's heart aches at the barely-hidden emotion on the frost spirit's face. She can't forget how young he is. "I . . . I don't think so. The Boogeyman is very, very old."
She knew before, in the abstract, but holding just the one tooth, she knows it to her bones. This one tooth has layers and layers of black lacquered reminiscences; it needs its own home. And she worries it should not stay in Punjam Hy Loo. Its dark memories don't belong there amongst the bright gold lattices.
Nothing of the Boogeyman should be allowed to taint the purity the sisters of flight curated.
"If he's that old, maybe he's forgotten them." Jack still shines with the innocence she wants to protect. She can't bring herself to tell him that of them all, Pitch Black has long, long since passed the point of no return. "So what would happen if you gave them back?"
". . . I don't know." Tooth folds it out of sight and is grateful for the distraction of North and Bunny bustling back into the room, arguing about old familiar grievances.
She waits until Jack has left the next morning, riding the wind to visit the children of Russia, before she gathers the others and sets the newly-minted golden locket on the table between them.
"What is that?"
Sandy is the first to guess, and not the least bit happy about it. Tooth nods to him. "You're right, Sandy. It's Pitch's tooth."
North and Bunny exchange identical expressions of distaste on vastly different faces. Bunny eyes it like he expects it to bite him. "C'n I ask why you even kept that thing? Can't we just get rid of it?"
"Because it's important, somehow." Tooth wrings her hands nervously. "I don't know what to do with it."
North understands at once, "Ah, we would not ask you to keep it, Tooth."
Bunny tamps his foot, then frowns. "An' why did you wait until Jack was gone to ask? He's a Guardian, he should get a vote."
Tooth winces; she knew this would come up, but she's a little surprised to see it's Bunny who asks. "Because I already know what he'd do with it." She looks at all of them. "He wants to give it back."
"To Pitch?!"
North strokes his beard and hums, "Jack may have good point. If Pitch has forgotten. . ."
Sandy crosses his arms and floats an x over his head. Bunny stops spluttering and nods to the little man. "'m with Sandy. Don't know what yah think jogging his memory would do, but nothin' good can come of the thing."
Tooth hugs herself. "I don't know. It's not safe. I can't just destroy it, but. . ."
"Where can we keep it?" North drums his fingers on the table. "Santoff Claussen is a fortress, yes, but. . ." He casts one sideways glance at the elves toddling through the room with trays of cookies, leaving a destruction of crumbs behind them.
North turns to Sandy, and the golden man shakes his head vigorously. North sighs without any surprise, "Ah. Yes, we cannot ask this of you either, Sandy."
That leaves Bunny, staring at the locket sidelong like it's a snake. "Strewth. All right, all right. Fine. Better me than Frostbite. I'll take the mongrel's chomper to the Warren. Until we've got a better idea."
He opens an empty egg from his bandolier, scooting the locket into the middle and screwing the egg shut without ever touching it. His haunches shiver as he tucks the egg back away. "Just remember. I'm not keepin' the thing."
Tooth smiles her gratitude at him. "Thanks, Bunny. We won't forget it."
"I'm holdin' you to that, Tooth." Bunny looks across the room. "An' if that's everything, I'm going to go stash this rubbish right quick."
Even as Bunny stamps his foot and vanishes down the tunnel, Tooth knows she hasn't seen the last of it. It, like the Boogeyman, has only been shoved back beneath the bed. It's only a matter of time until both resurface, and the Moon only knows how long they have.
For now, the less she has to think about Pitch, the less she fears.