Title: Of Four and One.
Author: me
Warnings: Mention of war and the associated nastiness (very very mildly)
Rating: G
Summary: Lucy does not need to believe in Jack Frost. She simply knows how to look for Magic.
It is 1940 and War has come to the world – a war they will call "The War to End All Wars" (they lie, although they know it not). War has come, but Jack Frost knows almost nothing of it – he only sees that the children are nervous and afraid, the older ones grow up too fast and kiss their families goodbye, and the younger ones huddle in bomb shelters and cry for fathers and brothers gone away. Jack doesn't like it, seeing the children unhappy – it upsets something fundamental in his world, some deep rooted instinct he does not yet understand – he cannot bear to see them sad. He cannot bring home their families, so he does the best he can – he makes sure the snows are gentle and tries to coax them out to play with glistening frost on the windows. But this year they seem even more deaf to him than normal, as the winter wears on into spring, he finds it harder and harder to bring any joy at all. Summer wears into autumn, and Jack comes back with the autumn gales, following them to an Island Nation beset with trouble, and is shocked by what he sees – Jack remembers a land of green and rolling hills in between tall cities. Now the cities burn, and the countryside is brown and grey and the very air seems to mourn. The children have all gone, he discovers – sent from the cities to the dubious safety of the countryside, so he follows the winds to find them. They are a far cry from his memories of what children should be – worn by worry and fear, many of them are growing up far too fast, and only the very youngest make any effort to come outside and play. Disheartened Jack keeps moving, doing the best he can, but none of them see him.
He is near Risinghurst, in Oxford, when he hears the laughter. Free and cheerful, it draws him as surely as any lure, and he finds four children playing in the snow. The eldest and the youngest are fair and golden-haired, the middle two darker, but all four are obviously related, and just as obviously close to each other. It has become so rare to hear such unbridled joy, and Jack finds himself arrested at the sight, just drinking in their obvious delight in the freshly fallen snow. Even as he watches, the two boys lift sticks and fly at each other, meeting in a laughing contest of skill and strength. The elder is the stronger, and he moves in a golden flurry, commanding by his sheer presence. The younger is the darker shadow to his brother's light, striking at weakness and withdrawing too quickly for retaliation, making up with speed and skill what he lacks in strength. If Jack knew any better, he might wonder at the skill both boys show – for all the laughter, the contest is deadly serious – but Jack does not, and only admires the game. The eldest girl sits daintily on the side lines, watching her brothers play with almost maternal fondness, while her golden-haired sister hops eagerly from foot to foot and cheers both boys on equally. Even as he watches, the younger disarms the elder and drives him to the ground, cheerfully smashing his face into a snowbank and ensuring plenty goes down his jacket.
"I have thee, sir, do you yield?"
"What, knave! Turning on thy king? I will never surrender!"
And with a whoop, the older boy uses his strength to roll and bury his brother instead, who yelps and calls for his sisters as they start to wrestle.
"Foul play! I say, sir, foul! Sisters, will you let this rouge get away with this!"
"Is't foul to use ones strength? Sisters, aid your king!" (They are playing, so Jack does not think to question the language)
"You'll end up soaking wet!" The older girl scolds laughingly and Jack wonders if he should encourage her to join in, when her sister solves that problem for him.
"Come on, Su, we can't let the boys have all the fun!" she begs, and offers a perfectly crafted (and Jack would know) snowball for her sister's inspection.
"Oh Lu, I really shouldn't…" But she is already reaching for it. "A Queen must be refined and show no favouritism…" She hefts it with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "She must be dignified, and ready for anything…" And she throws, with devastatingly accurate aim, at her sister. "Even a snowball fight!"
With a squeal, the younger laughs and begs help from her brothers, and Jack laughs with them, as it turns into a four way battle as sides are taken and switched with impunity. Flying overhead, he ensures plenty of ammunition, but it feels wrong to interfere beyond that, so he contents himself with watching. The four are a world to themselves, and Jack is intrigued. Perhaps it is the joy, so rare in this time, or the way they all move together as if they have always done so, knowing exactly each other's strengths and weaknesses. Somehow, it goes from battle to dance, and Jack watches as the brothers spin their sisters across the field, dark next to light in a dance of some faraway court, before escorting them inside. As the door closes behind them, he knows that he should move on, but… it has been so hard, these last winters. Even though they do not see him, Jack decides that he will stay just a little longer, and settles in to ensure that the fields are dressed for them in the morning.
He is frosting the windows upstairs when he gets his first surprise.
"Boy, what are you doing?"
Jerking around with a yelp and nearly overbalancing, he turns to see the youngest girl, smiling at him from where she is leaning on her windowsill.
"You… you can see me?"
"Of course I can." Her smile is bright, and her eyes are warm. "You look younger than I expected. What's your name?"
"I… you can see me!" Jack stammers as he feels a knot of something deep inside begin to untwist. "You…but… you don't know who I am?"
"I know you're the Winter Spirit." She grins at him impishly. "I was hoping that you might come. But you look different to how you looked there."
"There?" Jack questions.
"Narnia." She says, and the word seems to hang in the air, something golden and bright and precious. "But you still haven't told me your name."
"Narnia? I… I'm Jack. Jack Frost."
"Jack Frost." She turns his name over consideringly, and then smiles at him, bright as a summer day. "Hello Jack Frost." Rising, she drops a curtsy, courtly as any queen, and perhaps it is that that makes it seem so graceful, instead of childish. "I'm Lucy, Lucy Pevensie. Thank you for the snowballs today."
They talk into the night (Narnia, Lucy says with fondness, Aslan, she whispers with reverence, and something in Jack trembles with something greater than joy at the sound), and she invites him to play with them the next day. So he does, and is astonished to find that her siblings can all see him too (Jack never stops to wonder at the oddity that none of them believe in him – they can see him, and that is enough). Although he really should be moving on, he stays (just for a while), with these four who see him, and plays with them. He comes back, the next year, and the one after, and the one after…
They are only at Risinghurst that first year. After that, Jack has to hunt for them in their home in London, and play is harder but they still make time for him (Jack never questions the way they seem to deliberately make time for him, as if they know that he needs it), if not to play then at least to talk, and tell him stories. Boarding school means that sometimes they are apart when he comes, and Jack wonders at how odd it is (they are meant to be four, together, they are stronger that way), but Peter laughs, and Edmund smiles, and they tell him that it's part of growing up (Jack doesn't like it, if so – growing up means that Susan's eyes have started to skip over him, and her laughter is more forced). Both Peter and Edmund are more men than boys now, but Jack never notices, because in some way they always have been, and it is only their bodies catching up to their minds. Lucy is still his favourite, still young and valiant and innocent no matter how old she gets, and so when he cannot find her, in that ninth winter, he is distraught. He cannot find any of them, save only Susan, and Susan stares ahead, dressed all in black and does not see or hear him. She stands in a graveyard, and when Jack sees the names on the tombstones he flees and never looks back. He will not return until over fifty years later, when he is a Guardian, and has believers of his own. And when he lays a frosted rose at their graves he will hear a Lion's roar.
AN: ... I dunno where this came from but the crossover bunny REALLY like RoTG I suppose...
1. Yes I quoted JM Barrie's Peter Pan.
2. Risinghurst is where C.S. Lewis lived, and The Kilns, his own home, is the inspiration for Professor Kirke's house
3. I will leave it up to you as to Susan's fate. I'd like to believe that "Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in Narnia", and if Jack had looked for her later he might have found that she can see him again…but this story is not that story.