So I noticed something that was said in the movie and it gave me the idea for this crazy story. Also I didn't know if the Tooth Palace is supposed to be in any specific place, but India works out best for my story, so India it is.

Chapter 1: Tea Time with Tooth

Jack Frost was bored. For the first time in his 300 year long afterlife, he had friends, children who could see him, duties to perform... and he was bored.

It was only one month after that disastrous Easter when Pitch was defeated, but therein lie the problem. It was May, and spring had blossomed into it's full, gently warm, colorful glory. Sure Jack could still kick up some fun in Alaska, or Nunavut, or some parts of Russia, but to kids up there, snow and ice held no novelty.

And it was only going to get worse.

In the past he would make the best of it, causing out of season snowfalls or pestering the other Spirits, but he was more accountable now, and those Spirits were his friends. Instead he decided to visit them.

Bunny was first, and though he was much more relaxed now that Easter was over, he still didn't take kindly to the frosting of his warren. He would tolerate Jack's presence for an hour or so, twitching and shooting insults at the younger Spirit until getting fed up and chasing him off. Still, Jack appreciated the effort... and the verbal sparing.

He visited North once in that month. The giant Russian greeted him with open arms that turned into a bone crushing hug, then proceeded to stuff him full of cookies and eggnog and talk loudly about toys, and lists, and Yetis, and their fellow Guardians. Jack found this, along with the hectic atmosphere of the workshop truly enjoyable, but quickly grew overwhelmed. It took a couple of days alone on a nice, quiet mountainside to recover. He decided he'd have to get used to North by degrees.

Tooth and Sandy he knew were busy, so he didn't like pestering them. But as April gave way to May he found himself caring less and less and craving their company more and more.

He asked the Wind for Sandy's location first. The dreamweaver was currently over the Sahara, an area much too hot for his liking.

"Tooth it is then," he muttered cheerfully to himself as he shot off towards India.

He arrived shortly after dawn and was immediately swarmed by a cloud of little fairies led by Baby Tooth. "Hey girls," he said. Some of the fairies swooned, others squeaked and puffed up, and Baby Tooth simply beamed. He chuckled and held out a finger for her to land on. "Yeah, I missed you too."

Baby Tooth remembered herself and beckoned him to follow her as she headed deeper into the mountain. He did so leisurely, taking in the intricate way the tiles and detailing glittered over every buttress and facade. When they neared the heart of the palace he had to stop. A blue and green blur was streaking towards him, only halting two inches from his face.

"Jack!" cried Toothiana as she hovered before him. "It's so good to see you again! I was wondering when you'd drop by for a visit." She backed off a little, but before he could open his mouth to respond she continued. "Do you mind waiting for a couple of hours? Once night is over the Atlantic I can take a break and we can actually talk."

"Uh... yeah. Sure." He shrugged.

Her smiled brightened. "Just make yourself at home then. I've got to get back to work." She backed away from him almost reluctantly before turning around and darting to the center of her waiting fairies.

He watched her fondly for a moment then noticed that Baby Tooth was tugging on the front of his hoodie. She led him downwards, deep beneath the palace and into the painted gardens. Once he settled on a small ridge overlooking the same pool from a month before, she made a *stay here* gesture and flew away.

Jack leaned back and sighed, relaxing against the cool breeze that came from being so high up. He didn't have long to enjoy the silence before Baby Tooth came squeaking back hauling a pink and gold flute that had a straw sticking out of it. He laughed as he took it from her. "You didn't have to get me anything."

She shook her head in opposition and swept her hands towards him in a gesture that clearly said, *try it already!*

Still smiling, he inspected the drink. It was cool in his hands and was a milky, rich yellow color. When he took a tentative sip his face lit up. It was cold and sweet, fruity and creamy, with something else that he never tasted before. "Mmmm... this is good! What is it?"

Baby Tooth squeaked once, knowing she wouldn't be understood.

Giving her an apologetic look, Jack said, "Oh... right. Well whatever it is, I really like it. Thank you."

She nodded, her face so serious and dutiful that he had to chuckle. She smiled and giggled, glad that he got her little joke.

After a few minutes of companionable silence, Jack started talking. He started out telling her about his visits to Bunny and North, and his plans to see Sandy once the little man reached a more tolerable climate. He moved on to his general happiness at just having people to visit. He then began on stories of his adventures from before he became a Guardian, relishing every time he got her to laugh.

When his drink emptied, she took it away before he could protest and returned with a new one. When she did this a second time he accused her of being as bad as North and his cookies.

He was just starting on his fourth when Toothiana finally joined them.

"Sorry about that," she said.

"No, no. It's fine."

She sat next to him and stretched before letting her wings fall closed. "It is nice to take a break now and again." She saw him take a sip of his drink and turned to him abruptly. "How do you like it? I wasn't sure if you would..."

He swallowed. "It's great! This is my fourth one."

"Oh good." She actually sounded relieved, like she had expected him to hate it. "It's a sort of yogurt drink that the people in this region enjoy... though it's not usually mixed with mangoes."

"Yogurt... I think I've heard of that. What's a mango?"

She giggled, assuming that was a joke. "I thought you'd prefer it to tea since it's cold. That reminds me!" She clapped her hands twice and a small swarm of fairies surrounded her. "Tea please," she said briskly. "You girls know how I like it."

Once they were gone, her eyes lingered on the open sky a moment too long. She turned her attention back to Jack. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

He sat forward and dangled his feet off the ledge. "Oh, just dropping by to say 'hi.' I haven't got much to do now that spring is here."

"Hmmm. Must be nice." She said this warmly and without any bite.

"You'd think that," he replied with a smirk.

Her tea arrived on an intricately painted platter. "Thanks, girls." The steam coming off it smelled strangely spicy, and as she poured herself a cup she said, "Don't you worry, Jack. There's still a couple of months of winter in the southern hemisphere, even if it is milder. And, you've got your mountain communities. Some of them never loose their snow. And I'm sure you'll find some sort of niche to fill your time in the summers. You'll be fine."

He smiled and said, "Thanks."

She sipped at her tea. "Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

Jack was about to say 'no,' but his eyes were drawn to the pond, to the conversation he once had with her there. "Do you remember when you told me we were all someone before we were chosen?"

She set her tea down and nodded, having an inkling of where this was going.

"I remember who I was..." His voice was small, and far away.

Her smile turned sad and she took his hand, giving it a small squeeze. "I know."

He looked at her confused. "You do?"

"I created each of my fairies from a part of myself, so they share a deep connection with me. The one you call Baby Tooth," she took a deep breath, "she was with you in the Arctic. She told me what happened." She turned to him then, her mouth set in a line and her brow furrowed in sadness. "I never did thank you for that, or apologize for-"

"It's alright!" he cut her off loudly. "It's... really, it's fine. Everyone was shaken over Sandy, and Easter. I understand."

Her smile was small, but at least it was there. "So, you saved your sister?"

"Yeah. I was just a country boy, never been further then the forest surrounding my village, and I spent most of my childhood shepherding sheep and playing tricks on my little sister. One winter we went skating, but the ice was thin. I saved her, and I fell through instead." Tooth took his hand again. "It was such a short and uneventful time. What's 15 years compared to 300, right? It shouldn't mean this much to me."

She squeezed harder, drawing him out of his thoughts. "Of course it should, Jack. Remembering who we were in life is remembering our humanity. It's remembering what we protect and why."

Jack nodded, satisfying her enough to remove her hand from his. The silence between them was a little awkward, so without thinking he blurted, "What were you like before?"

He immediately realized what he just said, what he was asking and how painful it could potentially be for her. His eyes widened and he gasped. "Wait! Sorry, you don't have to answer that."

But she was smiling again. "It's okay. I guess I was like you, living the simple life. I grew up not far from here actually, a bright eyed little girl who had a happy childhood and then grew into a young woman and got married to an important man in our tribe. I was the youngest of his 7 wives."

Unfortunately as she said this, Jack was taking a sip of his beverage and immediately began choking on it.

Instead of acting surprised by his reaction she actually laughed at him. "Come on, now. This was over three-thousand years ago. That kind of thing was perfectly normal."

This only made him splutter worse. "Three... three-thousand?!" he managed to cough."You're that old?!"

Her feathers flattened, her eyes lidded, and she frowned at him cooly. "Did you just call me old?"

Sensing danger he sat up with his spine straight. "No! No, I wouldn't ever..."

He noticed that her shoulders were shaking and she was biting her lip to keep from grinning, and he relaxed. "You're teasing me."

She started laughing again.

"So... you just made that stuff up, right?"

Calming down she said, "Of course not. I wouldn't lie, but your face! I just had to have a little fun."

"But that's my thing..." he mock pouted.

She giggled. "Anyways, nothing like this," she swept an arm out to indicate the palace, "existed yet. There was no kingdoms, but we were a strong tribe, and we lived well. I had children... three of them, and then there were the children of the other wives. So many kids my life, and I loved every one of them. When my youngest lost his first tooth he started to cry. We threw baby teeth at the sky back then and he wanted to know why he had to throw a part of himself away, why he couldn't just keep it. I didn't know what to say, so I made up a story. I told him that all his best memories were in his tooth, and when he threw it into the sky, a hummingbird would catch it and carry it into the sun where it would be kept safe in case he ever needed to remember."

"I can see why you became the Tooth Fairy, of all things."

She grinned and continued. "That harmless little story spread through our children, and then through the entire tribe." Her smile suddenly dropped away. "There was a drought, and it caused a war with our neighbors. We were attacked in the night. I woke the kids and led them out of the settlement. I told them to keep running, to follow the rest of the tribe, and then there was a terrible pain and I fell."

There was a quiet pause which allowed Jack to exhale the breath he was holding. Not sure of what to do, he said, "I'm so sorry."

"I'm not," Toothiana responded cheerfully. "When I woke up, the moon was full and it was shining so brightly. I had feathers and wings, and a voice that came from the very moonbeam told me I was now Toothiana, the Tooth Fairy. I managed to track down my tribe, and not only were my kids okay, but they could see me! They believed I was the hummingbird I told them about that took their teeth and kept them safe, so that's exactly what I did. The rest is history." She shrugged.

As she turned her attention back to her tea, Jack flopped backwards and sighed a breathy, "Wow..." He didn't really know how to react to everything she just told him, so he wracked his brain and said, "I guess this means that weird story about the Sisters of Flight and Haroom isn't true?"

This caused Tooth to snort into her cup, so he pretended to frown in disappointment. "Awe, that means Bunny isn't a rabbit-alien from space either."

She coughed and little and chuckled awkwardly. "Glad to see Sandy's stories are still making their rounds."

He jumped up and landed in a crouch, now curious and hungry for gossip. "Sandy?"

Tooth nodded and stared at the sky again. "He wanted revenge on Bunny and I, so he made up some crazy nonsense and told it to Katherine (you would know her as Mother Goose). It backfired on him, though. I think my story is neat, and Bunny actually prefers his to the truth."

Jack was blinking at her. He held out a hand with one finger raised and said, "Wait, wait, wait. Why would Sandy want revenge on you?"

She winced. "You know how rocky your introduction to the Guardians was?"

"Yeah..." He was wary now. He had crawled out of a sack, after all.

"Well, Sandy's was just a teensy bit worse."

"Wait." Jack was confused again. "You inducted him? But I though he's supposed to be older then, like... everyone."

"We weren't chosen in order of age, silly." She poured herself some more tea and offered Jack another refill. When he declined she said, "North is far younger than Sandy or I, but he was the first 'official'" she made quote marks with her fingers, "Guardian. Bunny's the youngest before you, but he was the second to join. I was third, and Sandy was fourth."

"So what happened," asked Jack, eagerly bouncing on his toes.

"Manny didn't tell us anything about him. All we knew was that the Sandman was supposed to help us, and... to put it gently, his name in legend was very recent and isolated to Northern Europe. We thought that meant he was really young."

"Oh no..." Jack could now see where this was going.

She covered face her with her hands and nodded, confirming his suspicions. "When we found him... you know what he looks like; all short and round and cute..."

"Oh no..." He was starting to sound positively gleeful.

"So, I sorta treatedhimlikeanadorablelittletoddler," she finished quickly.

"You didn't!" Jack managed to both laugh and sound scandalized. "Oh, I wish I could've been there!"

Toothiana lowered her hands. "It gets worse," she said gravely. "Bunny thought 'small and cute' equaled 'weak and helpless.' He even called Sandy a puff of fairy dust."

Jack gasped. "Please tell me he whooped Bunny's cotton tail."

She managed to smile at that, but shook her head sadly. "No. He didn't get angry, though I'm pretty sure he thought we were all insane. It wasn't until we told him who we were and what we were there for... we acted like we were doing him this huge favor, like he should be honored by our presence. It was the only time I've seen him get that upset. He left." She sighed. "I think we almost didn't get a second chance, but how were we supposed to know that he'd been protecting children's dreams and battling fear before any of us even existed? He was so cynical and jaded. We had to convince him there was even a point in continuing to fight."

"Sandy?!" He flew into the air, so great was his alarm. "This is still the Sandman we're talking about, right? The same little guy who handed Pitch his butt?" His mouth was hanging open and he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Toothiana's feather's flattened, she wrapped her arms around herself, and her eyes developed a far away, thoughtful gleam.

"Hey, is everything alright?" He landed and placed a concerned hand on Tooth's shoulder, snapping her out of her trance.

She looked up at him with watery, worried eyes and he felt something constrict in his chest that he couldn't begin to understand. "No. I don't think it is."

With a gulp, he said, "What's wrong?"

Her wings snapped up and lifted her off the ground, and as she drifted towards the open sky she said, "Ever since we became friends, he would come to visit a few times a week right around this time of day, but since Easter... The last time he was here was two weeks ago, and he was dim."

"Dim?" Jack cocked his head.

She turned to him, wringing her hands together. "Yes, dim. His sand was barely glowing, and he looked so tired. I'm scared that being corrupted by Nightmares is having some lasting effect on him."

"Did you ask him about it?" His voice was urgent. He was starting to understand where she was coming from.

She gave him a withering look. "Of course I did, but he brushed me off. When I had my fairies tail him, he caught them and knocked them out for hours, and I would follow him myself, but I don't have the time and..."

"And you're scared of his reaction if he catches you." Jack was now smirking wryly and leaning against his staff, resting his cheek on it.

Lowering her head, Toothiana sank a little in the air and had the grace to look ashamed.

"Why didn't you tell me about this sooner? Spying on people is fun, therefore in my repertoire."

"No, Jack! You shouldn't-"

"Aaand," he cut her off, "I don't care about getting in trouble. I mean, even if he puts me to sleep, I've got no responsibilities right now. I can keep waking up and hounding him all summer."

She worried her lip, almost ready to give in to the idea. "I don't know. He was really grouchy when he was here. If his temper is short and you get him mad... let's just say his whips are his most merciful weapon."

With a grin Jack said, "A little risk just adds to the fun." He floated over to her and clasped her shoulder. "I've been meaning to pay Sandy a visit anyways. I'll go find out what's wrong with him, and I'll let you know."

He suddenly found himself with an armful of feathers as Tooth clasped him in a tight hug. She didn't notice his face turning red as she said, "Thank you Jack, and please... be careful."

Side note: Lassis are freakin' awesome!