Secretly Pooka

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Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians.

Author's note: Words that are italicized are thoughts and words that are underlined are Pookan.

In this fanfic, the Pooka are not able to shape-shift by themselves. However with a special pendant of magic, they can.

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Chapter 1: The Cryogenic Chambers

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Jack blinked slowly awake as the ice retreated from his skin. What... happened? A door in the tube formed and popped out, Jack spilling limply onto the floor. Ah, right. The cryogenic chamber was meant to put him and the others to sleep. Specifically the type of sleep where one could not dream. If the person in the tube couldn't dream, they couldn't have fearful dreams either. And if emotion wasn't detected, then that Pooka would be hidden from the senses of fearlings.

Fearlings... the terrible minions of the once the great war hero general known as Kozmotis Pitchiner. Now Kozmotis Pitchiner was known as Pitch Black. And... he had been hunting them.

Heart beating fast, Jack realized that the room was covered in inches of dust. And no one was there. The computer... Jack's gaze drifted to a flashing light. It had woken him up because the stored baby food had run out. It was the only food storage that wouldn't automatically be supplied after a certain number of times. (After all, the baby wouldn't remain a baby forever.) In agonizing slow motion, Jack picked himself off the floor.

Jack stumbled out of the hidden room. Slowly as his mind began to wake up, Jack remembered that his full name was Rhododendron Thistle Frostfall. His mind was numb as he peeked into rooms, some more hidden than others and found no one. Cryogenic tubes were smashed, age old scars were torn into the walls and dust covered it all. But there were no bodies or any sign of his family. Or any signs of a fearling for that matter. As fast as he could limply manage, Jack found and uncovered the undamaged switch for another hidden room, this one for his baby brother. To Jack's relief, his baby brother was sleeping peacefully in the cryogenic sleeping basket. The computer sensed Jack's approach and automatically opened the lid of the mini sleeping tube. Jack ran a shaky hand down 'Aloe' Pine Frostfall's blue fur. Aloe was breathing! His baby brother was still alive! Trembling, Jack gathered Aloe into his arms and nuzzled the kit.

After a while of assuring himself that, yes, they were alive, other facts began to drift into his brain. Jack staggered, Aloe safe in his arms, and booted up the computer in the room. Jack typed in a search. Jack shouldn't have been the one that the computer woke up if there was someone older alive. After all, Jack was the second youngest of the Frostfall clan. It took several searches with the same answer that Jack began to panic. No one else, alive, was on the ship. Gulping, Jack altered his search, but the computer didn't find even traces of the DNA of the other Pooka. While Jack hoped that meant that it meant that the others were alive, in his heart Jack knew.

Jack blinked and almost keeled over when he typed in a question. How long had Jack and Aloe been sleeping? The answer, longer than even the oldest Pooka he used to know. Guess the cryogenic chambers worked very well. Swallowing, Jack's stuttering mind latched onto his stomach's growl. millenniums were a long time to go without proper substance.

His body was very thin and near-skeletal Jack noted as his family's basic training took over. Food was his primary objective. For now the ship seemed to be a safe shelter, but that needed to be checked. It wouldn't do if there were still enemies in the shadows to attack or new hazards to be aware of. Jack tapped into the main computers located in the control room and read the results. The Frostfall's spaceship had crash landed on a planet with breathable air. (At least now it was breathable. In millennias past it might have not been). There was wild-life growing (probably jump started by the crash-landing of a Pookan spaceship). More importantly currently was the fact that there was food out there digestible and edible for young Pookas. Unfortunately, this planet was near the end of it's life. It's sun was going to explode within ten planetary cycles. It was a good thing they had run out of baby food then. Otherwise Jack wouldn't have been woken up until it was too late. Now Jack and Aloe didn't have to just survive on this planet, but the Pooka twelve year old and his infant brother would need to gather supplies to go to another planet. And Jack knew he didn't have the skill or power to get the entire spaceship back into space. But fortunately, there was a way...

Jack gritted his teeth. He typed in two orders to the mainframe just as Aloe began to stir, waking up. Aloe yawned cutely and blinked up at Jack.

Jack relaxed, smiling softly, "Hello, little brother."

Aloe cooed, waving his tiny furred limbs.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with you. It's dangerous to take you while I go foraging or hunting, but it isn't smart or safe to leave you behind either. Well now that I've said that out loud there is only one choice I can make huh."

Aloe cooed again, grabbing hold of Jack's finger.

Jack glanced over the computer and relaxed when it verified there was no potential fauna predators that could eat him on this planet. However, this planet was a lot like Gallifrey, the Pookan home planet, where the vegetation was aggressive enough to kill.

Jack left his second search running while he left the room, equipped with a baby harness. Ignoring the emptiness and his sickened stomach when there was no sign of anyone else from the Frostfall clan; Jack gathered the tools he would need to harvest plants, possibly replicate or store seeds, and a couple of weapons to defend himself and Aloe.

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Jack took a deep breath as the door to the outside opened.