He remembers now and they want to know. Want to hear him regale a tale with adventure and fighting and overcoming fear. They expect magic and no shortage of mystery and a moment where hope is lost and all he can do is dream of better wishes. They also expect tragedy because there seems to be no shortage of loss when you fight the very core of Pitch Black and the horrible, horrible whispers of nightmares that threaten to swallow you whole.
They each ask him in their own way, with shouts of comradery and gentle prodding towards memories and aimless wandering questions and then finally the not so subtle image in sand.
Jack smiles and his eyes alight in excitement. He wants to share, wants to prove that he was alive once, that his heart had beat once, and he had stumbled about like a babe because he had been one, once. His chest cavity melts and warms at the thought of falling and stumbling like a human, without the almost feral grace he had been gifted with as a winter sprite.
The way he brightens and thrums with an untold story lifts the spirits of the anxious Guardians, scared to put off the flighty boy and they crowd around him as he calls them to gather and listen as he tells his tale around a hearth -
- like all best stories are told, he says.
He had been human once upon a time, he begins, starting his story like all great ones are told, in a small village he always felt drawn to even as a sprite and he had been the guardian of a precious, precious child.
His baby sister, he says with hot cheeks and tender eyes, saying sister like a lifeline, sworn to keep a smile on her face for as long as she breaths and walks on that Earth.
Then Jack's eyes widen and he tries to stay serious but the corners of his mouth lift at fond memories. Tooth gives a little giggle at the child like gusto he gives while throwing himself into the story.
One day he had taken her on an adventure! The sweet, sweet child had wished to go ice skating with her guardian.
His mouth twists fondly and despite having spun much more exciting tales themselves they all lean in at that moment because they know that this is important to Jack and therefore important to them.
Now our guardian, who was young himself, couldn't say no, the girl held his heart in a way that was special and no one would ever be loved by him like that again. So when the young guardian's whole world asked for such a simple request as ice skating, he said yes.
Bunny couldn't help furrow his brow as he waited for what misadventure could possibly lead to the frost child's immortality status. It all sounded so... Normal and mundane despite the boys expressions and words. It didn't sound like he was different, not a Pooka, or a Wishing Starchild, or half Sister-in-Flight, or even a wizard.
Jack was truly a great story teller.
Go skating they did, across a frozen lake surrounded by trees that were dressed not with leaves, but with white gowns of snow and crowns of icicles. Sheets of ice make their ballroom as they twirl and the guardian is happy to play the valiant knight to a beautiful princess, his sword a shepherd's hook he carries.
Jack's face seems to go a bit blank but there is still a tender and fond gaze in his eyes.
Then the ice cracks and it spreads, trying to trap the princess, in it's cold snare. The knight, her guardian, refuses to let any harm or fear come her way so he tells her 'we're going to have a little fun instead, I promise my dear this isn't a joke, 'twas no trick fair maiden, we're going to play a game as simple as one two three, you're going to play hopscotch with me'.
Those are words that they've heard before and it leaves an acrid, bitter taste to think of a young brave boy and his guardian who play games as simple as hopscotch.
Her knight waits for her on stable land as she takes tentative steps to him. He wields his sword - the staff - and uses it to pull her to safety, but at a price for the young knight. He is lugged onto the ice and ensnared and he knows it but he is so enchanted by his sister's joy and safety and laughter that he stands to join her. The ice breaks, leaving him to sink in water as black as nightmares. There are no farewells from the fair maiden to her knight but he is happy to have served her so that she might smile another night. The guardian is cold and alone and scared and he sinks with the weight of mortality into the dark, dark lake.
The other guardians are enthralled and listen with horror etched on their features.
Then like eggs on an Easter morning or the glint of a memory box when so much has been forgotten or the glimmer of golden dreams on a stormy night or the awakening to toys that had never seemed to exist out of imaginations, the young guardian saw the moon.
Jack's eyes are wide like the lunar planet itself and a bit star struck, like a child seeing it's mother for the first time.
It was beautiful and it chased away the shadows and darkness and the guardian was no longer afraid nor alone. His body rose into the light as everything was washed away from him, the color of his hair and the chestnut of his eyes, his pain and memories both the happy and sad, death and even life, until all that was left was a boy, a shepard's hook, and the power to make children smile.
And that boy's name was Jack Frost.