Chapter Text
It's not something that he ever really acknowledges. At least not at first. He doesn't remember much of his life before he became the Nightmare King, and usually he doesn't really care about the missing knowledge.
But from time to time as he looms over the bed of an unsuspecting child he feels an inexplicable urge to gently tuck back unruly locks of hair, or to sing a soothing lullaby, the words of which he does not know, but he remembers the tune well enough that sometimes he will catch himself humming it, and it fills him with a strange sense of... peace.
Of course, none of this is very proper for someone who is the Nightmare King, so he throws himself into his work, creating such dark and terrifying monstrosities that they cannot be adequately described by mortals. For a time (short by his standards, but for the humans it is centuries) he is powerful and sometimes even worshiped, and the moments where he succumbs to such weaknesses are few and far between.
Then come the Guardians.
Wonder, hope, dreams, and memories; each of them have their own special 'core' or whatever they like to call it, and together they protect the children of the world.
It takes all Pitch has not to roll his eyes and reply quite rudely to Nicholas St. North when he offers him a spot in their little group. Fear is not something people, even immortals, welcome, and if his choice to not help coddle children into complacency makes him an outcast, then so be it. Even if the children's belief in the Bogeyman wanes, he will not fade completely so long as there is fear in the world. And there will always be fear.
However, while such words sound grand and unaffected, they cannot compare to the reality of slowly becoming a phantasm of the mind, something waved off by parents and children alike when the dark shadows of night creep in on them. The burden of the Nightmare King grows heavier on his shoulders, until his own thoughts become filled with shadow and monsters of the darkest kind.
After some time though, he becomes a little less maudlin, a little more kind, a little less dark. The change began, he is certain, on that cold winter night on the plains.
It was when he first saw her.