Pretend we're in AO3 and this is the tags section: Goldenfrost, Jack Frost/Kozmotis Pitchiner, eventual Blackice?, Movie/Book Combination, Seraphina Pitchiner, Emily Jane Pitchiner, Mother Nature, Kozmoti's Wife, Tsar + Tsarina + their kid, Mild inclusion of unimportant OC's, Might need to include a somewhat significant OC, Golden Age, AU, Soldier!Jack, Time travel, Man in the Moon is a bit of a dick, Confusion, Hurt/Comfort, Violence probably since they *are* at war, Fearlings/shadows, author cannot actually write, Romance, Fluff hopefully, not sure about smut, I don't really know what else
*Author's note at the end of the chapter!
Prologue
The wind was a sort of enlivening fresh that night, rushing by him in playful, spiraling motions. It whispered gossip of faraway lands and giggled into his ear, coaxing him to ride its currents into wherever they felt his icy mischievousness was needed most. Jack danced along with the brisk air, letting it swing him from town to town, stopping a few times to leave thin layers of intricately patterned frost on the windows of homes and cars, on street lights and shop signs everywhere. Winter was fast approaching this side of the world and it brought him a rush of excitement that made him burst with laughter and joy, and the wind seemed to share his merriment.
It had been like this for quite some time now, after the arduous battle against the Nightmare King himself had ended, and he had gained his official recognition as a Guardian of children all around the world. Surely, he had been careful at first, spreading his snow and his laughter with an almost dutiful, and quite uncharacteristic, diligence. He had kept himself alert, the wind being quite a useful ally, keeping him informed on the happenings in both the human and spirit worlds. The whispers of spirits, their rumors and tales, would all travel through the crisp currents, making their way to Jack's ears, maintaining him updated on the births and deaths of sprites and fairies, and all sorts of supernatural creatures and folk. Love affairs, internal fighting, embarrassing secrets, he'd hear of it all and laugh at the frivolous, worry absentmindedly about the serious, and filter out all of the rest. With the human world, however, keeping track of the every occurrence of such a numerous species was considerably more difficult, so his focus remained mostly on the children. Nevertheless, as the years went by and the times of darkness fell further behind them, he found himself relaxing more into his duties.
That night, the wind had been whispering the newest rumors that were quickly circling the spirit world. Apparently, a wood nymph had spotted something that had caused quite the stir in the woodland folk of a country all the way in the Northwest hemisphere. Jack had been only half listening to the news, as he swept down to the roof of a small town in Pennsylvania. His intended destination tonight was Burgess, as it always was whenever the airs of winter began to approach. He had something special and extra-fun planned for all the children of the town to wake up to in the morning. Sure, it was still too early for full blown snow to begin falling naturally, but he was in a good mood and really wanted to build up the excitement for the season as early as possible. A little snow here and there would surely lift all of the children's spirits, especially Jamie's. It would also probably get the kids a day or two off school, too, leaving them more time to play with Jack.
Well, they weren't exactly kids anymore, but they weren't yet adults either. And all of them, Jamie most of all, still believed in him.
He was already imagining himself playing around with Jamie and his friends, throwing snowballs and making snowmen, when the wind suddenly hissed in his ears. He had been leaping from roof to roof, leaving fine coatings of frost that would probably melt in the morning as soon as the sun rose up, but he supposed it'd do, since he wanted to get to Burgess as soon as possible. At the sudden hiss of the wind, he slipped on the icy layer he had just spread on the roof tiles, making him lose his balance and flail his arms around as he tried to maintain his grip on his staff, before falling to the ground in an almost comedic manner. Since there was no snow yet to ease his fall, he'd fallen butt-first, with a small 'yelp', right on the concrete flooring of the house's patio.
The wind giggled softly in his ear and apologized but mentioned it had been necessary, since he hadn't been paying attention to what it was saying. Jack released a slight huff and asked to be carried up to the roofs once more.
"Geez, you think next time you can give me a heads up?" he asked in a playful manner, no real resentment held in his voice. A few swift gusts rushed by him, as if to insist that he hadn't been listening in the first place. Jack let out a small chuckle and flew along with the currents carrying him through the brightly lit night sky. He was done with that town and was eager to head to Burgess.
As he was carried further up, he realized the moon shone with an intensity that, although beautiful, did strike him as unusual. He figured Man in the Moon had been watching Jack go about his duties in that distinctive silence of his and was probably just sharing in the excitement. Honestly, Jack was just glad Man in the Moon had at least been attempting some kind of communication with him as of late. It had struck him as odd in the beginning, how, after Jamie and the battle with Pitch, he felt like Man in the Moon had been watching him more closely than ever before. Some nights, especially those when Jack could not distract himself long enough with snowballs and frivolous pranks, when he couldn't sway away the memories of a past loneliness that pervaded him still, and sometimes made his lungs constrict and his throat tighten with something akin to -dare he say it- fear, he swore he could the see the moon change intensity, almost as if to comfort him, something it had never done in the three hundred years that Jack had lived before becoming a Guardian. He had never been acknowledged by the Man in the Moon before and he didn't want to question why he had chosen to start now. Jack didn't want to think about it, those sorts of things were complicated and boring and he'd much rather just distract himself with a fun snow day, or maybe even a small blizzard. It was the little things.
Jack brought two fingers to his forehead in a salute to the moon, and went about his business.
He turned his attention back to the wind, which had been fervently trying to catch it once more.
"Alright, alright, you got me! I'm listening this time. Tell me what's going on?" he asked through a chuckle, although with a bit more seriousness to his voice.
The wind proceeded to tell him once more about the wood nymph at the other side of the world. As the rumor went, there had apparently been a sighting of a strange looking creature, cloaked in what either seemed to be animal pelts or its own fur. Jack wondered absently if it hadn't been a simple normal wood critter, or maybe a lone werewolf hunting around the woods, and the nymph had just panicked and confused it for something else. However, as he was about to voice his thoughts, the wind hissed in his ear once more, as if to ask him to stay quiet and simply listen.
"The strangely furred creature was ignored at first," the airy, yet somewhat sing-song voice of the wind echoed within Jack's mind, "But then it moved!"
He could hear the wind's song-like speech grazing his ears, akin to the sound produced by blowing horizontally into the edge of a crystal bottle's mouth. It came softly and then all at once, as if composed of multiple voices repeating the same words, rather than just one constant voice. Jack would admit, had they not been such good friends and had he not been used to it by now, he probably would've found it a bit creepy.
"It moved right past the nymph, it did! And the nymph, that dear, she braved coming near it so she could see what it was!"
"And what was it?" Jack asked, some exasperation unintentionally slipping through his tone. They were almost at Burgess now and his mind was drifting quickly into thoughts of snow and the children once more.
"It was you!"
That made him halt.
"Me?" He asked, quirking an eyebrow up at the invisible element.
"You! You! Jack Frost is in the forest, they all said! It caused quite the stir, they're quite the fans!"
At this point Jack was pretty sure this rumor had been nothing but a big misunderstanding and the initial sudden surge of reluctant anxiety that had washed over him when the wind said the word "you" began to subside. He started chuckling lightly at the image of a forest full of fidgety critters and spirits, all excited over the false news of Jack Frost visiting their premises. But mostly, he snickered at his own strange over-reaction.
"I think they might be a little confused. I haven't been over there in ages! They probably saw someone that kinda looked like me, who knows, maybe a human?" Although, to be quite frank, Jack did admit it'd be hard to find a human that actually resembled him.
"It was you, they said! White hair, blue eyes, wooden staff, Jack Frost, the one and only!"
Well, that did seem a bit odd. What were the chances of finding someone who looked like him and also happened to be carrying a wooden staff? He figured it shouldn't exactly be impossible, but it sure was highly improbable. Not everyone in the world had white hair, although he did suppose humans had taken a liking to changing their natural hair color with some chemical stuff that he never quite understood, for the purposes of what they called "fashion". And, then again, the wind hadn't really given him much detail at all. If he really thought about it, white hair, blue eyes and a wooden staff of unspecified shape didn't exactly tell him much, and probably weren't very exclusive features. After all, the human world was incredibly wide and diverse, and its population had risen to unbelievable numbers in the years that he had been alive as a frost spirit. Maybe one of them who looked like him was walking around wearing animal pelts to shield themselves from the snow, using a staff to help themselves trek the forest. It couldn't have been that much of an improbability, right? Could it be that someone was wearing a costume of some sort, maybe trying to reference him?
He shook his head, quickly dismissing his thoughts. It probably really was just a misunderstanding.
As he was about to once again try to dispel these rumors and convince the wind that they were all probably just confusing him with someone else, there was a sudden, odd shift in the atmosphere around him, and he could feel the wind pick up on it too. Its once coherent voice turned into an infinite chorus of quick, unintelligible whispers, all muttered in different pitches and tones. Jack wanted to ask what was wrong, but they had finally arrived at his destination in Burgess, and the wind had dropped him off and carried on. The air currents were still there for him to ride at will, but it seemed like the wind's consciousness - or multiple ones, he wasn't sure- had shifted their attention to some other place, probably heeding the call of a higher being or spirit than himself. It didn't exactly bother him, but the sudden thickness of the air was vaguely unnerving.
As he made his way to Jamie's house, he felt he hair at the back of his arms stand on end, a dark, looming feeling threatening to wash over him. It was uncannily similar to what he felt when the memories would start playing in his mind and he'd be unable to quiet them. For a moment, he almost expected to see the face of his long dead sister again, distorted by the layer of water and ice separating them, as he sank deeper into that cold, dark abyss. He didn't want to hear her desperate cries of his name as she realized what had happened to her brother - not tonight. Tonight had been fun, it had started out fun, it was going great, why did this have to happen now?
He shut his eyes tightly as he rushed to Jamie's, already knowing the way by heart. He waited for the memories to attack him, but nothing came. There was only this strange, empty anxiety, like something was about to happen. Something big. Something bad.
That's when the light of the moon went out.
At first, he didn't notice it. Sure, the moon had been high and bright, but a few dark clouds had been passing over Burgess, and the moon's light had been momentarily decreased, only small rays filtering through the cracks in the clouds. But then, the clouds dispersed and Jack realized there no longer was a moon. He didn't have any time to react, however, for as soon as he noticed, all the light in the town went out as well. There didn't seem to be a single visible light anywhere in the proximities of town, and without the illumination of the moon, the town was cloaked in a dense, utter darkness. He couldn't even see past his nose.
His initial thought was that Pitch Black had somehow came back, probably stronger than he had been in the past. It didn't make sense, however, since he had been keeping close tabs on the spirit world, and Pitch hadn't been an exception. While it was true that he had been locked in his lair, where the wind could not reach him and Jack could not know of his exact moves, he was certain that either Man in the Moon, or any other spirit or fairy would have noticed if anything was up and would have made it known as soon as they could. Besides, the world was not in a situation that Pitch could benefit from; sure, the humans had their wars, their suffering, their fear. Plenty of it, so Pitch could survive. But most of them no longer feared him, specifically. Most of them no longer even believed in him. There was no way he could gain all that strength in such a short amount of time, and without anyone noticing at all.
He had been entertaining these thoughts when he saw the lights. They came in slowly, covering the sky, casting off a dull green glow over the town. They danced softly over the darkness, illuminating rooftops and streets in a phenomenon that wasn't natural in that part of the world. It was North's call for the Guardian's to assemble. They hadn't had the need to reunite, not this suddenly and not as Guardians, ever since Jack had officially become one. It was at that moment he realized something was happening after all, and maybe Pitch really was back after such a short time.
He called up the conscious-less remnants of the wind and asked them to take him as quickly as possible to North's workshop. He made it clear that this was an emergency, and the wind understood his command. A trip that would've normally taken some time was made twice as fast by Jack's sheer will to unravel all these sudden mysteries that were popping left and right in what had probably been minutes, but that surely felt like hours. He had a feeling that tonight was going to be a long one.
A really, really long one.
Note: Oh god I can't believe I'm doing this
Ok, hello everybody! So a quick little note, I have a lot I want to say about this fic but most of it isn't important so I'm going to try and keep it simple! First of all, thank you for clicking and possibly reading this! I hope you at least found it somewhat decent and are moderately excited for what might come out of this! I know I am, although I am also hella scared, which brings me to my second point...
I apologize for any mistakes, I kinda didn't proofread this because I was so bent on getting it done and posting it, you can even tell I rushed the hell out of that ending, but mostly because I didn't want to linger on the prologue for too long. Future chapters will be far longer than this, hopefully. You see, I wanted to post it as soon as I could because it would give me an excuse to keep writing. The idea that at least one person out there might be interested enough in the continuation of this would motivate me a lot to keep writing, which is honestly the whole reason why I'm posting in the first place! I've had this plot idea dancing around my head for two entire years, I even wrote something akin to a plan in an old notebook that I buried somewhere under my stuff in my closet, and only found it a few weeks ago because I decided it was time I sat down and got to work on this. Honestly I just need to get it out of my system. Which brings me to the most important reason why I'm writing this note...
I've never written fanfiction in my life. Or anything, at all. Ever. Which you might've noticed by the fact that I absolutely cannot write to save my life. I'm quite aware this fic is incredibly ambitious and wayyy over my skill level (which is none, really), so this might turn out to be a disaster. But I want to give it a try, I feel like I might even improve as I go, so there's hope that the writing might get better as I go along. I sure as heck will try not to rush the next chapters after this, like I said, I just really wanted to get this prologue out as soon as possible. But I suppose it's only fair that I warn you. Er, I also should let you know that english isn't even my first language so...yeah my vocabulary is very very limited and I'm sure you've already noticed. Again, I hope to improve.
But on the idea and plot itself, man, do I have high hopes for this! I'm not well versed in the book canon, so you can already guess this is gonna be a lot of speculation and *poetic license* since I'm gonna be making a lot of it up. I'll try to stick as close to canon as possible whenever I can, but beware that in the end this is still going to be an AU. I am excited for the story since, although I do have a general idea of what I want to do and where it's gonna go, there's a lot that I'll make up as I go.
In regards to rating, it's only to be safe. At least, for now. I'm not sure exactly what will happen and what won't, and I don't want to rule out things from the get-go but I personally don't enjoy graphic violence or anything like that, so you won't have to worry about it here. I mean, will there be violence and angst and all that good stuff? Probably, yes, but nothing sickening.
Oh and about posting schedules, well, I'm a college student that's graduating this year so time's almost a privilege haha. I'll try to update whenever I can, assuming anyone actually reads this!
Welp, so much for keeping this short and simple. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and if you did, please let me know! Feedback is important and it helps me grow as an author, also it motivates me to keep going :) Just please be gentle I am a sensitive little baby :( If you didn't enjoy it, oh well, I gave it my best shot. Hope all of you darlings have a wonderful day/night and I'll see you on the next chapter hopefully :)
Au-revoir!
PS: I made a sideblog on tumblr for this fandom, so if you wanna talk or check it out or whatever, it's called blackicetrash