The wind was Jack's first friend, and was his only for a very long time.
They met on the ice. The wind had watched as the winter child rose from the lake, took his first steps, laughed in wonder as frost spread from his fingertips. And then the wind had lifted him off the ground, carried him with its currents and made him tumble through the air above the tree tops.
Come, it said, tousling his hair and tugging at his clothes, play with me. So Jack did. They had fun then, the wind pushing Jack towards the sky before dropping him suddenly, only to catch the child before he hit the ground. No, the wind would never let Jack fall.
They must have played for hours, the wind tossing Jack through its currents, childish laughter filling the silence that came with night. The wind howled. Jack laughed. Neither of them needed to say a word.
Eventually the games slowed, the wind subsiding to embrace the small body it carried, rocking the child to the lullaby of the voiceless night.
The other spirits questioned it, could not understand why the Great Wind, whom many had failed to tame, would allow a single Spirit of Winter to ride upon its currents. Perhaps it was because the wind was not meant to be tamed, and Jack never tried to tame the wind. Maybe it was because they were both free spirits. One did not control the other.
The wind liked Jack, and Jack in return loved the wind with all that he had. They understood each other, and in time, Jack and the wind became one. They were a package deal. Jack was the wind. The wind was Jack.
They laughed and played and raced, even though the wind always won those races, for it was the wind who carried Jack. For three hundred years the wind was Jack's constant companion, the only thing that was constant, the sole person that been there from the beginning.
Oh yes, the wind was always there. It was there when the iceberg had drifted off course and sunk the unsinkable human ship, and Jack had tried and failed to pull the humans out.
The wind was there during the blizzard of '68, trying in vain to get Jack to sit up from the ice and smile, telling him to forget the rabbit and his lies.
The wind was there when Jack had finally found an entrance to North's workshop, grinning madly and whooping despite having been caught by the furry grunting creatures that worked there and thrown out into the snow. The wind had no doubt the child was going to try again.
The wind was there when Jack had realized that no matter how hard he tried and begged and pleaded with the moon to be seen, he was invisible. The wind had told him that he wasn't alone, because he wasn't really. It had tossed Jack up into the air and said to him, Come play. If the children couldn't see him that didn't mean he couldn't have fun. He could still bring snow and laughter. What did it matter if they didn't know where it came from?
The wind was there one fateful winter night, near a little village which would in time be come to be known as Burgess, beside a frozen lake shining in the moonlight, where a white haired child with frosted shoulders and pale lips was born of the ice. The moon was big and bright, and the wind knew in that moment that the child was his to protect and care for and guide.
Thus the wind had ventured onto the lake, where it picked up the winter child and carried him up and up, all the while saying Come play.