Like most people, this story has continually been stuck in my mind for… I say about a month, maybe two, possibly three. Now that school is out though, I actually have time to write it! Well for now anyway.
Any who, this idea came one day all those months ago when I thought to myself, "Since Jack didn't become Frost until the late 1600s/ early 1700s, there must have been another spirit of winter." Well after a lot more thought and questioning, the idea eventually manifested itself into this story.
Normally I wouldn't post multi-chapter stories unless I already have a bunch of chapters written. (which is why there's a bunch of stuff on my flash drive that has been abandoned/forgotten). However, I'm going to try my best to stick with this one and hopefully the outline I typed out can help keep me on track.
Okay I'm going to stop rambling and present you with this first chapter. Hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I own nothing with Rise of the Guardians. The movie belongs to DreamWorks and the novels belong to William Joyce (there're really good so I highly suggest you read them). The other seasons are imaginary and any relation to actual persons is entirely coincidental.
Summer was letting go of its control in the Northern hemisphere as the autumn season took hold. The temperatures began to cool off, a welcome relief to those who had just experienced the blazing heat, and plants started to let go of life as hibernating animals started preparing for winter and their expected, long sleep.
A young woman with red-hair scanned the earth below with dim orange eyes, looking for a certain person. The wind lazily carried her across the North American continent, gently blowing through the woman's long hair and causing her bangs to block her vision for a few seconds. "Must we always go through this, Wind?" she asked, using one hand to pull her bangs back.
The Wind's response was to continue its actions while ruffling the girl's light blue dress held up by thin straps on her shoulders. Reaching a little below her knees, the dress tangled itself in her tanned legs and made it difficult to notice the red spiral pattern that started at the hem and branched up until it ended around her waist. The pattern continued up, only in orange until it reached her breast before continuing on the top in yellow.
Shaking her head, the woman lightly stroked a sun charmed necklace on a simple silver chain. The center of the sun held a dark red ruby that was surrounded by a light orange stone, which in turn was surrounded by a yellow stone. The sun rays began to lightly grow yellow as the setting sun's light touched the charm. Feeling the difference of the Earth's tilt, she continued searching until her eyes finally caught a small figure approaching from the direction she was heading toward.
Smiling, she said, "Wind, let's pick up the pace!" Pleased to have an opportunity to show off, the wind propelled its passenger forward and did the same to the other figure. In less than a minute, the woman could make out the appearance of her target.
Before the two could crash into each other, the wind let them go for a minute. Despite rapidly falling from the sky, the two just let out a small laugh and leaned back as the wind once again took a hold of them. The newcomer, a boy with dark brown hair and red streaks, smiled at the woman as his brown eyes with amber specks looked into her orange ones. "No long no see, right Julia?" he asked, still feeling a rush from their recent free fall.
"Right, Rowan," she replied, feeling the same as her companion. "I take it you had a nice break?" "Yep," he answered, putting one hand in his brown pants while another took out a simple paintbrush from behind his ear, "though I am ready to test out some new shades on these trees. I've been tired of using the same shades for the last hundred years so I've been working on coming up with some new ones."
"I can tell you've been working," Julia stated, staring at the other's paint stained pants and shirt. The original twisting leave patterns that were usually displayed on his light brown shirt were covered up by different shades of red, orange, yellow, and brown. Even the dark cloak he wore did not escape the paint. The only thing not covered in paint was Rowan's skin, except for his fingers and the bottom of his feet.
Noticing her stare, he let out a small laugh. "Well I had to find something to keep me entertained. Any who, anything new or strange happen while I was out?" Shrugging Julia replied, "Not really. There have been a few tragedies but people are coming back, some new species have been discovered, probably Emerald's works that had escaped years ago, and scientist and environmentalist are saying that if the ice caps don't stop melting, the coasts are going to be flooded."
"Isn't the ice caps Jack's job?" Rowan asked, tapping his finger on the brush. "Yes, but with the weather heating up it's getting a more difficult to balance everything out. You should have seen some of the places I've been to. I used the same amount of heat I've always been using, but the extra heat from the air made everything about five times warmer." Letting out a low whistle, he straightened up a little saying, "Looks like I got my work cut out for me this time. Hopefully I can cool things down before Jack brings winter in. Speaking of the spirit, is he still wor-"
The boy stopped as he caught some movement heading from the south. Julia followed his gaze and also caught sight of the distraction. When it got closer, Julia rolled her eyes while Rowan let out another whistle saying, "Speaking of the spirit." The two gaze each other a quick stare before asking the wind to take them south.
They were finally close enough to see a white haired boy laughing as he was being chased by an angry woman. "Jack Frost!" she screamed, blonde hair wildly flying behind her as her bright green eyes stayed locked on the winter spirit's back. "Stay still for one minute so I can properly beat some sense into that ice-cold, big head of yours!"
"Why don't you relax, Em?" Jack said, stopping as the other approached him before letting himself fall as she got within arms' reach. The wind picked the boy back up and helped the boy dodge another grab from the other. "It's not like I destroyed anything." "Didn't destroy anything?!" she yelled, ducking as a snowball was thrown at her. "You ruined nearly a year's worth of my new seeds! Now I have to go back and rebreed almost everything!"
Jack had to duck when the girl's fist almost collided with the side of his face. As the other recovered, he quickly pulled away and gained a three second head start over the other. The only way to find the two was to follow a blue blur and Emerald's vine patterned dark green skirt. The two were moving so fast the other two couldn't make out the leave patterns on the girl's light green shirt or the headband that contained a bright emerald stone in the shape of a sprouting leaf.
Julia and Rowan stopped themselves about 40 yards from the other two, waiting for them to either 1) talk out whatever the problem was or 2) act as shields for Jack if Emerald decided to throw some of her poison thorns at him. By the way things were looking though, they figured it would probably be the second one.
The blonde didn't seem to notice the other two but as Jack turned around and caught sight of them, he let out one of his mischievous smiles and formed another snowball. When Emerald got close, this time prepared to throw one of her famous poison thorns at him, Jack flew above her and threw the snowball at the back of her head. It hit its mark and Emerald lost her grip on the thorn as her head began to spin. Sparkles of blue twinkled around her but it didn't seem to have any effect on her as she turned back around.
Deciding to intervene before Emerald brought out another thorn, Rowan hooked his arms under Jack's arms while Julia wrapped one of her arms around Emerald's waist while the other hand held the girl's weapon arm. "Let me go Julia so I can repeatedly stab that jerk in the chest! Rowan, do you think you can continue to hold him down? It will help make sure I don't accidently stab one of you." The girl's usual gentle voice was filled with anger as she continued trying to escape from the other girl's hold.
Jack, surprisingly, stayed still in Rowan's hold as he stared the girls with what looked to be fear. "Rowan, please don't let the crazy plant lady repeatedly stab me with one of her poison thorns." The other boy appeared to think deeply about the other's request and said, "I might help you if you explain what happened."
"It wasn't my fault, really," Jack stated, flinching when he heard his name put together with various threats and curses. "She knows I always leave a lot of snow in the Andes so it's her fault for storing her extremely weather sensitive plant seeds there." "And you agreed to hold off some of your snow so I could store them there!" Emerald added, causing Jack to earn a look from Rowan and Julia.
"I did, but some guys were snooping around and were close to finding the entrance. I had to start that blizzard so they wouldn't find your experiments." When the other three heard his explanation, Rowan and Julia looked at Emerald, who seemed torn between holding onto to her anger and thanking the other for keeping her stuff safe. "Is that what happened, Emerald?" Julia asked, letting go of the girl's arm and loosening her hold around the waist. Rowan also let go of Jack but made sure to keep a firm grip on his arm.
"I'm not sure," she started, "but that does make sense now. I heard that the people were up there when the blizzard started but I didn't know they were getting close to discovering my cave." She took a deep breath and continued, "I'm sorry for trying to stab you, Jack. I've been looking forward to planting those so when I found that they were ruined, I kind of got a little carried away."
Seeing that both had calmed down, Julia and Rowan let them go. Emerald stayed in place, awkwardly biting her lip and twirling a strand of her shoulder length hair. Jack cast his eyes down for a moment before flying to the girl. She turned away when he placed his hand on her shoulder, both ignoring the light trail of frost that appeared. "Hey don't beat yourself up too much. I could have done something a little less… extreme way to chase them away."
Knowing that the winter spirit had forgiven her for trying to kill him, Emerald gave him a soft smile and gently took his hand off. She might be the spirit of spring, but that didn't mean she overly enjoyed the freezing cold. "Well it seems that the apocalypse has been avoided for another day." "Way to kill the moment, Rowan," Julia said, not able to hide her smile as the three of them began laughing.
By the time they stopped, the sun had already set and a full moon was rising in the sky. Reminded of his previous question, Rowan turned to Jack and asked, "So Frost, are you still working with the Guardians? Or have you moved on to better things?" "Yeah I am," Jack answered. "And no, I can barely manage two jobs right now."
"If it's so difficult to manage," Emerald started, "why continue looking after a bunch of kids that only love you when you get them out of school?" "Or only believe in you when you bring snow and blizzards?" "Or eventually stop believing in you?" As each question was asked, Jack found his smile slowly form into a straight line. This wasn't the first time they had asked questions such as this. After officially becoming Guardian, the three of them immediately wanted to know why he would agree to basically become dependent on children for his existence.
He tried explaining how great he felt being able to finally be seen by children and be openly appreciated for his work, but none of the other three seemed to understand. They never did show an interest in being seen by humans or being personally thanked for their work. All that mattered to them was making sure they followed their job and helped keep the balance of the Earth. While he also tried to do his job, his need to watch over and protect the children of the world was what made him a Guardian. However, he's also the only Guardian that basically has a second job to do, which is to help bring winter to the world. No matter which group he considered himself to be a part of, he was still an outcast.
Pushing his negative thoughts aside, Jack let out a forced smile and answered, "It's just like I've been telling you. Being able to make a difference in a kid's life just feels amazing and even when the kids grow up and stop believing, there's still millions more that I can impact. Does that help any of you understand?"
None of them were able to look him in the eye before turning away. While they did feel happy that they're youngest sibling had finally found his place, they still didn't see the bid deal about it. Knowing that he still hadn't reached them, Jack just let out a sigh and looked up at the moon. Its bright light cast off a slight glow over the group and Jack could sense that Manny was trying to comfort him. Shaking his head, Jack turned to the others and said, "Well it's been nice meeting up with you guys, but I'm going to go ahead and head up north. North said he has some new toy idea he wants me to help with."
"Alright then, see you around," Rowan said, giving a small wave, "but not too early please. I want to make sure my newer shades go well with the season."
"Good-bye, Jack. And I'm very sorry again about trying to stab you," Emerald stated, turning away when she felt her face go red with embarrassment.
Julia just gave him a wave and the three watched as Jack flew quickly up north to the workshop. When they could no longer see him, Julia looked at the other two and said, "We better head to our spots, too. The next seasons are starting tomorrow."
"You know that the seasons don't have to happen on the same day every year, right?" Rowan asked, earning another eye roll from Julia. "Yes I know but this way it's easier to us to remember how long one season has lasted and keep up with the Earth's tilt."
"Yeah, yeah so you're always saying. In that case, later you two." Before they could get involved in a lengthy good-bye, Rowan took off somewhere north. The two women rolled their eyes and also headed to their destinations.
As each person headed out, the Earth became perfectly aligned on its axis. From his place on the moon, Manny studied the readings he was receiving and was about to retire for a few hours when he spotted some meteors heading towards the planet. After calculating their courses to make sure none were going to crash into Earth, he slightly relaxed to watch the flying debris. Unknown to him, one meteor was pulled from its path and ended up in the Earth's atmosphere.
While it was too small to cause much damage, something in its core briefly interfered with the planet's magnetic field. That brief moment was all it took for four beings, prisoned in secret places across the Earth, to escape.
In Antarctic, a large glacier buried deep below the ice sheets on the surface began to melt despite the freezing temperature of the water. Vegetation in part of a tropical rainforest began to decay and a cool breeze began to blow. Small plants started growing in a depression in the middle of the dessert where no rain had fallen for the past year. A cold wind began to flow in the area known as the Bermuda triangle and the ocean began to freeze solid.
Despite their limited strength, each being was able to break free of their prison and calmly looked toward the sky. Even though they were miles away from each other, one thought crossed all of their minds. 'It's time to reclaim what is ours.'
And now you have reached the end. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and my depiction of the other three elements. It took me a while to find names that would suit them because I'm horrible with coming up with names. Any who, hopefully I will have the next chapter posted sometime this week so please stick around for it. Thank you again for reading and feel free to review if you like. I enjoy hearing your thoughts and am open to a little constructive criticism, whether about the story itself, the characters, events, spelling, or grammar. If you have any questions don't be afraid to ask. See ya'll next time.