Warnings: None.
Story in Session. Please stay in your seats for the duration of this original yet unoriginal work. Remember, no Guardians or children were harmed during the making of this fanfiction.
It was the middle of winter, and it was hot. He was melting.
It took a steady stream of water pouring from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose for Jack to realize that in this case, the common phrase was quite literal. Alarmingly literal.
Note to self: NEVER be a winter spirit in the heat. Because what's warmth in reality can quickly turn into your fiery death. Or, Jack thought as the wind set him down carefully on the grassy ground—ground which immediately became a puddle...your watery grave.
And when you can't help but be a winter spirit and no matter how hard you tried nothing you did to not be one worked, such as performing rain dances, trying to change his personality by being nice (yeah right) sleeping like a bat, wearing shoes, tripping over a brick (which he totally did on purpose), befriending a pack of squirrels that turned out to be rabid...did squirrels even live in packs? They certainly did if they wanted to draw out battle plans to get you in your sleep...which these particular squirrels did...no more sleeping upside-down.
Wait, what?
And when you really, truly cannot not help being a winter spirit...
Well, you try not to melt.
But right now he could make his own lake if he continued to simply stand here thinking about squirrels like a simpleton. simply. a simple simpleton.
Jack shook away these thoughts that were more likely than not a result of 300 years spent on the edge of insanity, being invisible to everyone and doing strange things, but most of all thinking strange things because when you're invisible you have no one else to talk to but yourself and no one to stop you from thinking or saying completely idiotic run-on sentences that stop you from keeping yourself from melting...
At this point Jack thought that even his mind needed to take a breath. And a break. A looong break.
Jack finally made it to his lake—not the one currently water-falling from his face—,dropped to his knees with a squeal of delight (a manly squeal, thank you) and face planted into the water. Cold, ahh yes.
It wasn't enough.
After a few minutes of not drowning but appearing to do so (how could he drown? He'd turned into a human fountain and he wasn't dead), Jack rolled onto his back to glare at the sun and give the back of his head a well-deserved soak. When was the last time he washed his hair anyway? He grabbed up the staff by his side that was apparently sun bathing (the traitor) and pretended to stab the glowing orb of heat that melts you from the inside out and makes you vomit a lake with it. "Die sun," he commanded, whilst summoning his powers to give himself a cool-down.
As happy, fluffy white clouds rapidly covered the offense—it was the middle of winter for crying out loud, what was Summer thinking?—and the power of its light dwindled, Jack made haste to reassure the orb. You know, just in case it was sentient like Manny and decided to call up Karma sometime. "But don't really die," he told it. "Because if you died then everyone would be blinded and confused and animals who can see in the dark would probably take over the world. And then they would become the superior race but then we'd probably evolve and learn to cope without our sight and retake the planet. But if those squirrels can see in the dark, they'd probably eat us all in our sleep; start with our toes, and nibble them off one by one." Then, before he could continue with his random rant, he had to roll back over because water pooling in your mouth was not fun. He should know. He was the guardian of fun.
As the sun winked it's last goodbye, it SNOWED. Not just snowed. It SNOWED. And believe Jack when he says, there is no other way to put it.
And it was cold. To Jack, at least. To anyone who wasn't a winter elemental it was COLD and nothing less.
Good news: there would be no second lake in Burgess. Though Jack liked to wreak havoc on the poor town he had limits. The lines were drawn at drowning people, and...well, he'd think of something else later.
Two hours passed before Jack emerged from the lake, stretching like a cat after a nap, with an impressive layer of ice over his face. The mask cracked and fell off when he tried to stand up and tripped over some random bric—uh, HUMONGOUS protrusion that popped out of NOWHERE and attacked him like a NINJA. He was lucky to be alive! But he wrestled the brute and hogtied it and claimed it for Spain and...yeah.
Jack got to his feet (success! What? No, Jack wasn't scared of falling over at all.) and breathed in the wonderful wintry air. Wow...snowflakes up the nose.
He twirled his staff, causing the snow to fall just a bit harder. This put a bit more of a strain on his powers than he would have liked, but he figured this was a result of nearly being melted. No big deal.
Jack observed the snow falling until it had formed a healthy layer over the ground. He'd have a talk with Summer about the heat later, he decided. But for now, a slow, mischievous grin spread over the spirit's face. "Hey, wind!" Jack called out. "...snowball fight?"
He should have known better, really.
The wind quit roaring for a split second. Jack felt fear. Then the wind kicked up its previous task, howling and tossing the storm about, and for a moment the boy thought he was safe.
He thought wrong.
In the midst of the storm Jack swore that he could hear a faint rumbling sound.
Foo...fahhRRRRR...FFFMmmm...BRRRRRRRRRR!
He never saw it coming. And Jack had to admit, even as a winter spirit, brr was right. No, it was BRRRRRRRRRR! The towering wall of snow rode the wind right over the boy, like a furious white monster swooping down on innocent prey. When the storm let up and people forced their way out of their snow-blocked doors, the kids used the mound for sledding for weeks. And Jack remained buried there for just as long.