For a while, Jack tries to blend in.
He doesn't mean to, but he does. He walks through villages instead of flying. He keeps his feet on the dirt roads instead of leaping from rooftop to rooftop with an ice path of his own making. That comes later.
Now - now he keeps his feet on the ground. He calls out to other people; says hello, tries to engage them in conversations. He stands tall, directly in their paths, like he can confront them into seeing him. He feels like a person, he feels like he belongs there with everyone. Jack wants to be in the center of it all.
The ground is firm beneath his feet, until someone walks through him. Then it tilts sharply, and Jack is never sure which direction it has gone, because the shock and the cold that seizes his heart also blinds him.
The worst thing is when someone else walks through him before he can recover. Before his vision clears, before he can see again to avoid it. Then it isn't just his heart anymore, but his lungs too. The crushing pain spreads to his lungs and he thinks, with an open mouthed gasp for air, that this might be what it feels like to drown.
It isn't as fun to lurk on the outskirts of life, but Jack thinks that feeling his own ice and frost tearing at his insides isn't much fun either. He starts to lurk on the edges of town instead of strolling through with the flow of other people. He stays close to walls, and skulks in shadows.
He stills calls out, still tries to exist hard enough to demand strangers see him, but he ghosts around people instead trying to steal the spotlight. His feet are a little lighter on the ground these days, a little more ready to flee than risk someone walking through him.
It happens anyway, sometimes.
It happens in a large courtyard in the center of this town, while teenage miscreants wage war. Piles of snow become barriers to hide behind while making ammunition. Mitten covered hands scoop snow into projectiles as quickly as possible, and more snowballs hit the buildings around them than they hit other children.
Jack - Jack is delighted. Back out of way, out of the thick of the fight, Jack is laughing and Wind is helping him cover the entire town with fat falling flakes of snow.
The fight in front of him leaves him feeling light, and giddy, and his heart feels warm. He feels good, and then he feels terrible. Kids, younger children come pouring out of the alley behind him. They come pouring through him, yelling battle cries and gathering snow to pelt at their older siblings and friends.
The wall is rough against his back, even through his cloak, and it's all that keeps Jack upright. He holds onto his chest with one hand, and his staff with the other and waits for the white agony inside of him to fade.
The snowball fight in front of him continues, but Jack can't lose himself into the fun of it again.
The first time his feet leave the ground while he's in a town, it's terrible in ways that Jack never understands.
He's too close, and he knows it, but he can't back away. One of the children shrieks with laughter, and it's a bewitchment. He leaps into the air, following the sound of laughter with an ache in his chest and a helpless smile on his face.
A low hanging tree branch becomes the perfect perch. It's safer, it's so much safer than he's been in a great many years. There are a dozen children tearing through an empty lot, and he's drawn to them the same way they've chased after the fireflies.
Jack holds his empty hand out in front of him, gathering enough magic to make a few out-of-season snowflakes in his palm when a young mother calls out, "get down from there!"
Jack startles, a bare foot sliding along the bark but not off of the branch.
"You'll fall," the mother continues. She sweeps by Jack, who wonders why he can't seem to pull any air into his lungs. A little boy laughs and poses from his place on top of a great rounded trunk of a fallen tree. His mother is there to catch him when he leaps off.
The bumps in the bark are digging into his palms. Jack inhales and forces his fingers away from the surface of the tree. His feet stay off of the ground.
It gets easier.
He can't let go of his need to be with people, so he learns how to walk with them, away from them. He runs along fences, perches in trees. He learns to balance on top of his staff while he plays. It's tall enough to keep him out of reach of children.
He can pretend he's one of them this way. He pretends, for a while, that he belongs.