When he took his very first breath (the first he can remember, anyway) he feels the snow flooding his lungs and burning his throat and the sputtering cough that rolled off his tongue when the air hitched, like a rock, in between his teeth. When he first opened his eyes he remembered seeing everything and nothing all at once; black creeping past the frame, and white everywhere, the magnificent shine of a beautiful, fragile moonbeam settling at his nose, at his forehead, at his face. At him, and the first thing he remembered thinking was, "who am I?" and the first thing he did was howl, silently, up to the moon, "what am I?"
The ice casts it's shadow when he climbs (slowly, with new legs and strange feet and wobbling fingers) to a stand, and it steadies him. It steadies and teaches him to move and walk and breathe, in a cold, snow air as he skids across the pond. And the wind, the wind brings him a staff, made of wood, hooked at the end, and it feels both heavy and light in his hands when he lifts it from the ice.
Then he learns. He learns how to walk the ice and dance the wind, how to conjure a snow, cold breath, at his fingertips. So he dances a dance with his coldness, with the winter, under the light of a moonbeam and he learns, even more, that he's Jack, that he's winter, and buried under the weight of a heavy, frozen breath he learns what a love his frost could be.
