"His name in those days long ago was General Kozmotis Pitchiner, and he had led the Golden Age Armies in capturing the Fearlings and Dream Pirates who plagued that era.
Lord Pitch kept his wife and child housed safely on the small moon of a planet deep in the heart of the Constellation Orion. Lord and Lady Pitchiner were doting parents, their palace a thrilling place to raise their young daughter, Emily Jane. She was a wild and joyful child, with raven-black hair as thick and flowing as a horse’s mane, which was fitting, as she was always on the run. Like her father, she loved to sail. She was constantly in her own small schooner, venturing around her moon and its asteroids."
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"Lord Pitch’s home was ambushed while he was away. Luckily, Emily Jane was on her schooner before the attack and managed to not be seen. Emily Jane was pulled farther and father from her doomed home and into the eternity of space.
As the captured pirates were hauled aboard Lord Pitch’s flagship, they did not face the same noble warrior they had come to begrudgingly respect. They faced a man on the brink of madness.
“My wife and daughter? Where are they?” Lord Pitch demanded.
The captain of the Dream Pirates said with a sneer, “We were denied the pleasure of draining them of their dreams.”
“Because you were caught?”
“No, my lord.”
“Have you harmed them?”
“No, my lord,” replied the captain. Its lips curled into a small, satisfied smile. “They are dead.”"
"Lord Pitch had decided that imprisoning the pirates was a worse fate than death, so the Dream Pirates were confined to a planet-size prison on the other side of the cosmos. But they could still detect a dream no matter how far away and faint it might be."
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"He pulled a silver locket form his tunic pockets; the chain hung around his neck. He tapped the clasp and it swung open, revealing a small photograph. Ombric could just make out the face of a little girl. Pitch stared at the image, seeming to take great solace in the picture. His face softened and his sadness eased. Ombric knew that expression. It was the look of a father gazing at his child. Pitch had a daughter!"
"The Fearlings sensed his longing too. Their strange mutterings shifted in tone, their pleadings took on the voice of a small girl. "Please, Daddy," they whispered. "Please, please, please open the door.""
"As the door swung open, all that was visible was a roiling mass of dark, serpent-like creatures. Of course Pitch's daughter was not there. Before Pitch could even scream her name, he was surrounded by malevolent shadows."
"In less than an instant, they poured over, around, into him! Pitch struggled valiantly, but he soon succumbed to the evil flooding him, twisting him into a madman. He swelled to ten times his normal size; his face became monstrous and cruel."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
"He has forgotten me. Why has Father never come?
She wondered bitterly and she felt an anger that clouded her good sense. She hated her father now. She hated the world that she had so ached to return to. She’d rather stay lost. And in that dreadful moment, something changed her. Her heart became consumed with rage.
If only she had known her father thought her dead.
If only she and her father had known the truth.
Two hearts that had once been united at the center of the Golden Age would not have become hardened, embittered, and so very cruel. These wounded hearts would not have brought an end to the Age of Wonders."
- William Joyce, The Guardians of Childhood series