The Sides of Winter
AN: This is my first ever story. Hope you like it. I have ten chapters outlined and I do plan on finishing this story, but I am in school and finals are coming up so updates may or may not be quick in coming. Please review. As I said, this is my first story and I need the critique.
Summary: Jack has been alone for 200 years before the events of the Blizzard of '68. What happens if a child, terrified of the rampaging storm outside, starts believing in the Spirit of Winter and sees Jack? Jack becomes addicted to the feeling of recognition and continues to create deadly blizzards without a care for the safety of those affected. AU starting from his "birth" until the movie. Baby Tooth is a big part of this story, but I'm not telling you why until the story gets there.
Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable characters or material, sadly.
Chapter 1: How it is
Outside a small village in colonial America, there is a pond that the village children use regularly for their fun and games. During summer they swim in its depths and during winter they ice skate across its surface. Earlier that day, two such children had been planning on ice skating, as children love to do, before tragedy struck. One of the children, a boy of 14, fell through the ice saving his sister from that very same fate. The little girl screamed and cried for hours, begging for her big brother to come back to her, only for her wish to be denied.
But what she didn't know, was that someone had heard her. Someone who could grant her wish, even if she could never see her brother again.
The Man in the Moon looked through his telescopes to the pond that held the body of a boy with so much potential. But what kind of immortal would he be? Manny thought about this question for many long minutes until the answer came to him. He had already created three Spirits of the Seasons, but was still missing an immortal to usher in winter. He had been looking for years for a candidate who could make winter the joyful season it was always meant to be.
The Man in the Moon smiled as he began his work to resurrect the boy to become the Spirit of Winter.
If anyone had been looking that night, they would have seen a miracle. A young boy, who only hours ago had drowned beneath the icy surface of the pond, was rising through the ice.
The boy was pale with hair as white as the snow surrounding him. His eyes were so blue they practically glowed in the moonlight. He had clothing that no one would be jealous of. Handmade and barely held together, they looked like they would fall off him any moment. His brown cloak hung loosely around his shoulders, providing little warmth to its wearer. Despite the temperature and the snow and ice around him, the boy was barefoot.
He didn't notice as the ice closed and solidified around him in response to his presence, his attention completely focused on the glowing orb in the sky as he stood alone on the ice.
Your name is Jack Frost, the Spirit of Winter, the moon said to the boy.
Looking around him, Jack started walking towards the edge of the pond, only for his foot to kick a long stick with a hook at the end. He looked down in time to see the wood of the stick frost over where it touched his skin. Fascinated he bent down to pick it up, watching as the frost spread across the stick.
Standing up, the end of the staff touched the ice, sending out strings of frost from its end. Smiling, Jack began testing this new found power of creating frost on the different objects around him. After trying it on trees and rocks, he began skating around the icy pond drawing frost designs as he went, his laughter echoing off the trees surrounding the pond.
Suddenly, he was lifted up into the air by the wind sending him flying up above the trees. Startled, Jack flailed, falling out of the loving embrace of the wind to fall on a tree branch nearby.
From here, Jack could see the village nearby. Smiling he asked the wind to pick him up and take him over there. The wind happily agreed and picked up the laughing child to do his bidding.
Landing ungracefully just outside the village, Jack brushed off some of the snow before making his way into the village, too excited to notice that no one had acknowledged his presence.
"Hello," Jack said to a nearby villager. "Did you see that?! Wait to see what else I can do!"
As the villager kept walking, Jack tried a child walking towards him, barely able to hold in his excitement.
"Hi! Could you tell me where I—," Jack was cut off by a physical and emotional pain so intense it took his breath. Opening his eyes he realized the child had walked right through him!
As he backed away, another villager walked through him. Then another and another. The wind picked him up and took him away from the village before anyone else could cause the child pain.
Jack spent the rest of that night in a tree, curled around himself and staring longingly at the lights of the village, wondering why no one could see him.
For the next few weeks, Jack asked the wind to show him the world. It took him to its favorite places, the highest peaks of the Himalayas where it could play through the rocky slopes to the northern tundra where it could run freely.
Jack marveled at the size of the world and the beautiful buildings that people around the world had constructed, from the village huts of isolated communities to the brick buildings of civilized society.
Asking the wind to take him farther south, Jack found himself in the mountains on the eastern side of Northern America as the sun began to rise. And with the rising of the sun, the temperature began to rise as well. Although not too hot, Jack got the distinct impression that he didn't want to be anywhere near the hotter areas of the world.
While watching the local town's children play in the forest, he became aware of someone watching him.
Turning his head, Jack saw a very tall black man standing not too far from him. He was bare-chested with only a leather strap across his shoulder to hold what looked like a hunting knife. He wore no leggings but instead what appeared to be a skirt made of leather reaching to mid-thigh. Unlike Jack, the man wore sandals that looked like they gave little protection from the elements. The man was bald with dark brown eyes that practically glared at him.
And that was what surprised Jack the most. It was not the exotic look of the man, but the fact that their eyes met and Jack knew the man could see him.
"Hello?" Jack didn't know if it was actually a greeting or not. He was so confused as to why someone could see him. Until now, no one had even heard his voice.
"What are you doing here?" the man demanded. He didn't sound at all happy to see Jack.
"Uh…I asked the wind to take me farther south. It already showed me the northern parts of the world and I wanted to see the rest," Jack said hesitantly, not at all sure if it was the right thing to say. He pulled his staff in front of him for protection from he knew not what, wringing it in his hands.
"You are the Spirit of Winter, right?" the man demanded. Jack nodded and the man continued. "Then you shouldn't be here. Winter has already left this area long ago and summer will be approaching soon. My time of year. You need to leave. How did you get past Hanako anyway?"
"Who?" Jack had no clue who or what this man was talking about and he was getting more confused by the minute.
"Huh. You are new, aren't you," the man grunted, some but not all of the hostility dissipating from his dark eyes. "Hanako, a young Japanese girl, is the Spirit of Spring and the Spirit of Autumn is Taima, a girl from a native tribe nearby. I'm the Spirit of Summer and my name is Adeen. You are the Spirit of Winter. The four of us keep the balance of the seasons in the world. Each season has its own time and end. Winter left this region long ago, and so you are not needed here."
"But what if I wanted to be here? You know, to visit or something," Jack questioned, his brows furrowed in confusion. He understood the changing of seasons and that his own season was not present in the world around him, but what if he wanted to visit?
"You can't be here," Adeen's anger was starting to come back and with it, little spurts of fire were dancing around his fingers.
Unsure of what to do to defuse the situation, Jack didn't move. He didn't really want to leave. He was enjoying watching the children play their games and he wasn't making any trouble. He hadn't made a single snowflake since he landed. So why did he have to leave?
Adeen's anger seemed to flare, and, before Jack had time to respond, the man's arm swung his way, fire appearing rapidly. The heat of the fire was extremely uncomfortable and Jack definitely didn't want to find out what the actual fire felt like.
Jack tried jumping away only for his right leg to get caught in the new wave of flames sprouting from Adeen's fingers. Crying out in pain, Jack fell to the ground, desperately trying to put out the fire eating away at his pant leg.
Adeen stopped his attack and looked at Jack coldly. "This was your last warning. I never want to see you outside your season's bounds again. Winter is a vile thing. Hanako, Taima, and I work all year to fix the damage done. Winter deals out death to plants and animals alike. You are no different from the season you command. The next time any of us catch you stepping into our seasons, we will leave you at the equator to melt."
With that said, Adeen jumped into the wind and flew off with one last glare in Jack's direction.
Having finally put out the fire, Jack slowly and painfully stood up, trying to keep his weight off his right leg that now sported some interesting red burn marks.
Looking skyward, Jack asked, "Wind, take me somewhere cold."
Lifting the boy into the air, the wind took him gently to a snow drift far north of any other seasonal spirit.
Jack piled some snow onto his burns, hissing a little at the pain it caused. He sighed, thinking back to his first interaction with someone who could see him.
"I guess it's just you and me wind," Jack said quietly. "None of the villagers can see me and the other immortals don't want anything to with me." At this last part, his eyes started to water, foreshadowing the tears to come if he stayed on this train of thought.
Wiping his eyes, Jack looked around him. Grabbing his staff, he smiled and said, "Well I can always play with the children by helping to make snowballs and snow forts."
The wind ruffled his hair playfully in agreement before picking him up and taking him to the nearest village to do just that.
And for nearly two centuries, Jack was able to keep the depression at bay.