I know I should be working on my other stories, but this just had to be written. I'll be updating my other stories by the end of this week.
I know I should work faster. There are far too many deadlines for me to meet.
So, without further ado!
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians.
A strange encounter of the strange kind
A chuckle escaped the lips of a pale boy as a grumpy business man slipped on some ice, causing his briefcase to fall from his hand, pop open, and send a flurry of paper flying everywhere. The boy leaned back and roared with laughter, nearly falling off the streetlight he was perched on, as the man cursed and fussed about.
That would teach the grumpy man to wear impractical, shiny leather shoes on a snow day!
The boy's laughter eventually ended. Jack Frost smirked as the temperature dropped a few more degrees, covering the ground that had been exposed after two hours of shoveling with a thin layer of ice.
Snow days were fun!
The blue eyes of the boy scanned the world around him and he smiled in happiness at the sight of children and teenagers alike playing in the snow while some adults immersed themselves in memories of days long gone when they were the ones rolling about in the white winter fluff.
He ran a hand through his shaggy snow-white hair and nimbly stood up on the frozen streetlight. 'Looks like my job here is done', he stated sagely and turned to look at the winter sky. It had been a year since the fiasco and his appointment as a Guardian. And now, since it was winter again…
'Alright wind', he called out, 'take me home!'
No matter how many times he did it, he could never grow tired of letting the wind carry him off. The wind was the only one by his side since the day he was reborn. He could never explain the sheer joy he felt whenever the wind responded to his calls. It was too bad that the wind had no voice of its own. However, every so often he could have sworn he heard giggles when he was spirited away.
His mind focused on the horizon as he soared above the clouds. He brushed his hands against the white fluff, shaping a few of them into funny animals, while his eyes focused on the Aurora—the curtain of colors that were woven when the sunlight hit the atmosphere.
After a few minutes he felt himself swept downward and he knew he had come back to the town he had grown fond of.
'SNOW-DAY!' he hollered as he slid down the currents of air, waving his Sheppard's crook to create those beautiful flakes of snow. The wind carried back to him the laughter of his very first believers, causing his grin to widen.
He was home.
There was snow everywhere—on the street, the sidewalk, roofs, cars, streetlights, mailboxes, and every surface one could think of.
She stared at the ice in wonder. Sure, she had seen it before and had instinctively known what it was, but this was the first time she had ever come in contact with it. She had moved around a lot with her parents and then later with her sister, and it had only been three months since she had moved into Burgess with her sister. She tentatively stretched out her hand and picked a bit of the snow. She gazed down at it in wonder. It wasn't as clear or as hard as the ice from the refrigerator. It was soft, powdery, white, and not so cold.
She now understood why her classmates were waiting for winter. Snow was amazing!
Splat!
She blinked dumbly as she felt something hit her face. Did someone just smash a pie on her face?
She raised her hand to the wet stuff that was now sliding down her chin and her eyes lit up in realization. Someone had thrown snow at her.
'Oops!' she heard someone exclaim, but the person did not sound apologetic. Soon shrieks and yells and laughter followed.
She looked up in confusion and saw children of all ages throwing balls of snow around. It reminded her of the times she played around in the rain with her sister, flinging mud at each other until they resembled muck monsters. She was about to join in when her eyes fell on something.
It was a boy, as old as her sister, with white downy hair, pale skin, and dressed in a frosted-over blue hoodie. He held a large stick with a curved end in his hand and was running around bare-footed in the cold, cold snow. Then the boy turned and eyes as blue as the winter sky met eyes as green as the spring forest.
She felt a cold hand grip her heart.
No.
Those blue eyes widened.
No.
They were looking at her.
No.
She wasn't supposed to meet a spirit. It was too dangerous for everyone, especially when she did not have the charm with her.
No.
She had to leave. Now!
So she turned around and ran.
'Hey wait!' Jack called out to the honey haired little girl that was running away. He hadn't meant to scare away the kid. He had only wanted the girl to have fun. The look on her face as she examined the snow in her hand had tugged at his heart. That was what made him loose the first snowball to her face.
It was only a second later that he realized he wasn't the only one who had called out the same phrase to the girl. He turned to his right and saw the forlorn look on the eleven-year-old boy's face.
'Jamie, who was that?' he asked curiously.
The boy did not answer, instead looking like a little picked puppy facing the direction in which the girl had run.
'Jamie?' the spirit of snow and frost asked again, this time leaning down until the two of them were nose-to-nose.
Poor Jamie seemed to jump out of his skin. 'Uh… wha-wha… Jack!' he yelled out, startled.
Jack merely stood up straight again and looked down with a raised eyebrow. Since when did Jamie act like this? For as long as Jack had known the boy, Jamie had been outspoken. Now, he was acting like a kid with a crush.
…
Wait a minute!
…
Jack looked down at the boy. Little Jamie was blushing so hard that his ears had turned red and he was looking down at his feet, scuffing the snow with his boots.
A Cheshire grin suddenly found its way onto Jack's face. 'Soooo…' he drawled out, grin firmly in place.
Jamie felt a feeling of dread creep up his spine.
'Who was the little lady who ran away from us?' he asked, blue eyes watches the younger boy like a hawk.
'Um… her name's K-Kohaku', he stammered, his face glowing brighter than humanly possible, 'She moved here a few months ago.'
'Hmm…' hummed Jack, leaning on his staff and making himself look for all the world like a man pondering a great breakthrough in quantum physics (not that he knew what quantum physics was). 'She's cute', he declared out of the blue, 'Let's go find your girlfriend!'
'What?' Jamie gaped at him.
'Hmm… she ran that way…' Jack continued, ignoring the gaping boy behind him, and started walking in the direction the girl had taken.
'GIRLFRIEND? Are you crazy? There's no way she could be my girlfriend!' the brown haired boy yelled.
'Come to think of it, she saw me! So she's a believer!' Of course, Jack Frost ignored the boy, choosing instead to jump around and celebrate the fact he had another believer.
'Jack, no! Her sister's gonna kill us!'
'But why did she run?'
'Jack, I don't even know where she lives!'
'Hmm… the stories about me undermine my looks. I mean, how could they not write about my utterly handsome face?'
'Are you even listening to me?'
'She must have thought I was some creepy ghost. How could she mistake me for a creepy ghost with an ugly face?'
'Jaaaaaaacccckkkk! Stoooop!' Jamie yelled, pulling back the spirit's blue clad arm, only to be dragged forward as the spirit floated on, mumbling to himself about his "unbelievably, unflatteringly, flawless good looks."
At least until they came across something neither had ever seen before.
It was round and black and puffy and as big as a soccer ball and had really, really big eyes. The eyes were so big it nearly covered half the puffy, black body. The whites of the eyeballs stood out as a contrast against the black body and the black of the irises stood out as a contrast against the white eyeballs. It was pretty cute.
'Hey Jack, what is that?' Jamie asked, still hanging off Jack's arm.
'I don't know', Jack replied, left foot raised halfway in the air, 'But he's kinda cute.' The snow spirit lowered his body to the ground and crouched down. 'Hey there little guy! Who might you be?' he cooed sweetly.
The black, puffy thing blinked at him. Then a black noodle-like arm with black noodle-like fingers slithered out of its body and traced a note on the snow at his feet.
Jack looked down at the upside down note and read aloud. 'I'm sorry', he read, 'I don't mean to hurt you, but it needs to be done.'
'What?' both boys looked up in a mix of confusion and fear. Their eyes widened at the sight of the mallet in the puffy thing's arms.
Whack!
Before either of the boys could even comprehend what was happening, the black puffy thing brought the mallet down on Jack's head, hard. Poor Jack Frost crumbled to the ground with visions of chirping birds and twinkling stars dancing about his head. 'Pretty birds… pretty stars…' he mumbled in his daze.
Jamie stood gaping for a whole minute before he turned to the black puffy thing and screeched, not unlike a banshee, 'What'd you that for?'
The black puffy thing did not answer. Instead it closed its eyes, turned into a black ball, and let itself be blown away by the wind like tumbleweed in the desert.
And Jamie was left with a dazed snow spirit and the beginnings of a headache.
Somewhere not so far away…
A slender hand ran through the puffy tufts of the little black thing and it closed its eyes to let out a moan. A gentle voice cooed at it, 'Kala, I know you wanted to help us, but the memory-erasing mallet works only on humans, sweetheart.'
Well, there you have it.
Please review.