I.
It was winter once more in Burgess, New York; the children were laughing and playing in the snow, the adults were enjoying some time off, and Christmas was well on its way. To a certain group of kids, that meant the arrival of a rather mischievous winter spirit.
"What's taking so long?" Jack called in through Jamie's window, drawing his usual little designs on the cold glass. The boy looked up and beamed at seeing his friend- it was just that past Easter when the newest Guardian found his first believer, and then a few others in the battle against Pitch. After that, things had settled down for everyone—and he had barely escaped the chaos that was Christmas preparations with North.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Jamie shouted back, pulling on his boots and coat as he ran out the door. Jack chuckled as he floated away from his window and out towards the street, where all his newfound friends were waiting for him. They cheered in joy at seeing him once more that year, and nearly tackled him straight into the snow. The Bennett boy came out right then. "Aw, don't start without me!"
"Wouldn't dream of it." The white-haired boy smirked and threw a snowball right at the smaller brunette boy- it sloshed right in his face. They both laughed as everyone took off running in the neighborhood, snowballs readying to be fired. As Jack and the neighborhood kids took off to play, a moving truck pulled into a house across the way from Jamie's. Out jumped a girl about their age, carrying a box or two of her own. Pippa spotted her and pointed her out.
"Hey look, we have a new one!" she said, smiling. The kids always got excited when they had a new playmate. But due to recent events, they all had one question… Would she be able to see Jack?
"Go get her!" Jack encouraged the girl as well as the rest of them, gesturing with his staff towards the house. They all looked at each other and nodded; even Cupcake was willing to be friendly with newcomers. And so the kids took off towards the house, while Jack lazily followed behind. More than anything, he just kind of wanted to watch a new friendship form. (That was the great thing about younger kids- they accepted each other so much more easily.) The girl who they had spotted had certainly saw them right back, for she set her things aside and walked over to them.
"Just moving in?" Jamie asked her, being the unofficial leader of the neighborhood group.
"Yep! Unpacking isn't any fun…" the girl replied, shrugging her little shoulders.
"Wanna come play with us?" He gestured to all of the others around him, and they nodded at her firmly. Her expression became more joyous as they asked her- she had fairly white teeth that Tooth would have been proud of in her smile. She nodded back at them and turned towards her parents, who had also been in the truck with her.
"Can I go play?" she asked, pointing at Jamie and the others. They waved to her parents and smiled awkwardly, as all kids did with adult strangers. Her parents exchanged a quick glance, but seemed approving.
"Alright, fine. Just try and stay close, Natalie," her mother told her. The little girl, Natalie, promised she would and she was immediately welcomed into the group. However, Jamie still had that question running through his mind. Jack could tell from where he stood and wanted to see how things would unfold.
"Natalie… Do you know who Jack Frost is?" he asked her very seriously. She blinked and stared at him for a moment before even forming words in her mind.
"Sort of. Isn't he… Old Man Winter… or something?" she replied naively, faintly remembering her older sister telling her some kind of story like that. Jack rolled his eyes—that was one of his least favorite names of all. Bunny liked to use it against him when he and his fellow Guardian got in a spat. This was quite often.
"I guess so. But, I need you to trust us on this… He's nothing like you'd expect right away. Now answer this: do you believe in him? Your answer's very important to this!"
"Why is it so important?" Natalie was confused by what was going on with them, but there was no backing down.
"Because he's our friend, and I think you'd really like him!"
Jamie, Pippa, Cupcake, and the other couple of boys who were with them glanced over at her, waiting curiously for her answer. She locked in with each of their eyes just for a moment, then shut her own. They made it sound like he was real. Could the old legend really be true? "…. Y-Yes. Yes, I-I do!"
"You what?"
"I… believe… in Jack Frost!"
"Well that's good to hear," Jack cut in, his arm leaning on Jamie's head now. She opened her eyes and saw the frost-covered boy, almost brought to total disbelief. She walked up to him and poked his stomach a few times as her amber eyes widened. He laughed and let a few snowflakes drip down from the tips of his fingers into her hair. "I was starting to wonder if you were just going to walk right through me."
"You're… You're real!" This was news for a kid, really- if even an old storybook legend like Jack Frost was real, who knew what else could be out there? "Hey, do you know the Easter Bunny? And Santa Claus? I don't know if my sister thinks they're out there, but I wanna know!"
"I sure do—Bunny and I… Well, let's just say an old blizzard put us on ice." The kids snickered at the (almost) unintentional pun, and his famous smirked slowly came onto his face. "And does everyone still call him Santa? Hmm, it's easier just to remember the big guy by 'North' nowadays."
"We met him!" Cupcake piped up, crossing her arms and smiling. Although it had been Sandy that had the most positive and lasting effect on her, she did in fact remember meeting the surprisingly tough looking icon of Christmas himself. "And the Sandman—and the Tooth Fairy…"
No one bothered to mention Pitch, not even Jack. He was a part of that history that would best be forgotten; it would help keep the nightmares away. Natalie couldn't even believe she was hearing. She couldn't wait to tell Rosie all about what she had learned-!
"Oh, and I guess we'll have to have a talk with your sister then, won't we?" the spirit continued teasingly. "But enough talk for now—come on!"
He stood up straight and whipped his staff around him, causing a huge flurry of snow to whoosh around them in a breeze. Now that a new believer had come around, he felt like being just a bit of a showboat again. It wasn't every day that he had friends like this helping others realize that he was truly there, looking out for all of them. A whirlwind of laughter and excitement soon came along with it, and once more, they all took off to play together in the reveled time that was winter break.
AKA, Jack Frost's favorite time of year.
"Hey Nat, I—"
Natalie's older sister, Rosalie (though usually went by 'Rosie', thanks to old family & friend habits) had walked into the living room with the rest of her little sister's stuff that had been left on the porch. But when she realized that her little sister wasn't there, an annoyed glance across the room towards her parents came over.
"Where's the munchkin?" she asked, propping the bigger box up against her hip.
"She's out in the neighborhood playing with some nice kids she met," her father, one Mister Lawrence Davenport, replied as he looked around their new home with a satisfied grin. It was certainly an improvement from their smaller home uptown. Rosie let out a huff, then gave up on the other items and set them down on the couch that had been carried in just moments ago.
"Already? The kid's fast, I'll give her that." She chuckled and plopped down on said couch, settling herself back into where she had accustomed herself to be many years before. "Ahh… Wake me up when the house is all ready to go."
"Not a chance, kid." Mr. Davenport laughed with a similar ring in his voice and nudged her shoulder playfully. One eye shot open and gave him a glare—as joking as she had sounded, there was some serious intent behind the proclamation. Nevertheless, she got up again and once more unloaded whatever needed to come out. Clothes, books, old knick-knacks of all variations… just about all of the smaller things the family owned had made it in. But where was all of the Christmas stuff?
Well this was unusual.
She scratched her head in thought and wandered off into the hall to search the fairly vacant rooms for any signs of the decorations. They were all a bit notorious for being packrats, so it was not the easiest of searches. But sure enough, it had ended up in the very last place she looked—her new room. Frustrating as that was, she was at least glad that everything was safe. With a new content smile, she began digging through all the Christmas memorabilia and made a rather unusual discovery.
"They actually kept all these?" She snickered to herself quietly as she began looking over all the old Christmas letters that she wrote when she was just a bit younger than Natalie and further. "Crazy old packrats."
It was still sweet purely for the sentimental aspect- reminders of a simpler time when all she really had to worry about was if the letter to Santa would ever be delivered. Of course like every kid, she 'figured out' at some point in her later childhood that it was just her parents doing all of it. Frankly, it hadn't bothered her too much: as amusing of an image as it was, seeing an obese man inch down a chimney to bust into people's homes for present delivery just didn't seem legitimate enough of a story. There had been no convincing Natalie of otherwise, however. Sometimes, Rosie just didn't know what she was going to do about her.
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose…" she began to sing under her breath in a playful manner, taking all the necessary decorations out to the rest of the house. Christmas carols were another part that just didn't make sense entirely, but they were fairly entertaining, and that was sufficient for her. All the holiday nonsense always got her brain spinning in several different directions. So it was easiest to distract her erratic thoughts with busy work. But time and time again, Natalie would always remind her.
Santa Claus, his reindeer…
…Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, carolers persistently demanding fig pudding…
…Jack Frost nipping at your nose…
Yeah, right.
"So where did you come from?"
Pippa was the first one to bring up just where Natalie had travelled from in one of those storage trucks; it was rather interesting to think about. She held off chucking a snowball at Jamie's head and held it within her palm, poking into it with her little finger.
"Up in Maine," she answered with a grin. "It's not much different—still plenty of snow." Being an East Coaster naturally had its advantages, especially in the winter. The snowball was then released, but then aimed for Jack. He whacked it away with his staff, and the slush ball ironically ended up hitting Jamie smack in the face. It was hard not to laugh for anyone there. "My sister and I used to make the best snowmen right outside our house!"
"Well, why don't you anymore?" Jack asked, kneeling down. She looked away slightly and hummed under her breath, attempting to think of a proper answer to give him. But the truth of it was—Rosie had 'grown up', while Natalie was still working on her childhood years. Granted, it wasn't all bad; she wasn't entirely ignored by her sister, and there were still many memories shared between the Davenport sisters. But it was the silly, simple little things that she seemed to remember the most were the ones that had faded away from her young life. Needless to say, she wasn't looking forward to her teenage years when they came for her.
"… I don't really know." She decided to go with the bit of a scapegoat, but the winter spirit could see something was off. "But it doesn't bug me too much. Besides, I already made friends in one day!"
Maybe she stopped believing? Jack thought in the midst of the kids joining in a chorus of "Yeah!" and running off to continue the snowball fight. The meaning of 'stopped believing' had various meanings, even if it was something as small as a childish spirit. He frowned slightly thinking about it, but then he thought: could he help her? He was the Guardian of Fun after all, and it was part of his job to keep everyone smiling and having fun (even if they didn't know if he was the one contributing).
"Jack, look!" Jamie called for him, breaking his train of thought as he caught snowflakes on his tongue quite proudly. The rest of the kids gaped slightly in awe, then attempted to do it themselves. The winter spirit chuckled and whipped his cane in the air, causing the snow to fall in greater amounts over their little heads. This was part of why Jack absolutely loved kids: unlike the rest of society, they were so easy to please. So even the smallest gesture of wintertime fun meant the world to them. It made being a Guardian all the more worthwhile. He still had to keep an eye out for them, particularly when one of them got the bright idea to stick their tongue to a frosted-over light pole.
"Ah ah, watch out.~" A flurry of snow flew in Jamie's face, nearly knocking him over as all the kids (and of course, Jack) laughed with great amusement. He wiped it out of his eyes and made a silly face. Natalie only added to it by throwing a snowball- in that neighborhood, that was a declaration of war.
"Fire at will!" The Bennett boy was now heading his troops as a couple of the kids retaliated with their own snowball attacks at the newcomers, while the others had taken her side for the sake of the battle. They began running up the street, laughing. Jack slid down the icy pavement and just observed; he was snickering like a child the whole time. However, as they got past Natalie's new house again, a passing figure in the window was noticed. And of course, it made him curious.
Jack's feet picked up as he strolled over to the Davenport property, glad he actually had the element of invisibility for that moment in time as he gazed in further through the window. His hand pressed up against the pane casually, letting one of his famous frost patterns form on the glass. But it was what he saw inside the house that made him smile more.
It was an older girl who held resemblance to Natalie fairly well; he could only guess that this was the sister that she was referring to just before. He couldn't hear all too well through, but he could only assume that there was music that was causing her to dance whilst putting up some of the Christmas decorations. For just a moment, he caught her gaze, but she didn't catch it back. She looked right through him, as most of society did. Jack let out a sigh as her eyes drifted away like she hadn't seen anything. Well, at least she's not a total buzzkill, he thought contently. Sure, maybe it wouldn't be nearly as easy to get her to see him as it was with Natalie… But he could try, right?
"Jack, what are you doing?" Natalie's voice piped up as she came up on her lawn. Her voice made him jump a little bit and he laughed sheepishly, pointing in the window. She caught sight of Rosie dancing as well, and it made her laugh. However, Rosie could clearly see her little sister through the window and immediately stopped, mouthing something that was most likely a typical older sister threat. Natalie waved in a teasing manner, then skipped away from the window and back out onto the street with the humorously satisfied winter spirit floating slowly behind her. Now he could see where she got all that energy from. "And that was my big sister, Rosie, queen of the weirdness."
"She doesn't seem too terrible," Jack mused, taking another look back through the window where the older girl had stopped dancing, but continued her previous work (with a bit of singing, from what it looked like). The younger one didn't take note of the particular expression on his face; and perhaps it was a good thing that she didn't, otherwise he may not have heard the end of it from this one. "I think if you asked her to come out and play with you again, she would."
Natalie crossed her arms and shook her head fervently. "You don't know her like I do."
"Don't lose faith in her just yet.~"
