A Snowflake in the Wind
Summary: It is clear that this little child doesn't know who he is. That is fine with her. What's your name? he asks the child, who grins and says something in his language that Wind struggles to understand. Ak? That's a peculiar name, she giggles while sweeping around him. The Wind meets her little Snowflake for the first time. Jack is just confused about what his name is. No pairings. Oneshot.
A/N: Hello! I'm not dead! Just jabbing this out there before my muse leaves me completely again.
NOTE: THE WIND IS NEITHER FEMALE OR MALE. THEREFORE, HE/SHE WILL CONTINUOUSLY CALL HIM/HERSELF AS BOTH A HE AND A SHE. IF I'M NOT REFERRING TO JACK, SAFELY ASSUME THAT I MEAN THE WIND. ALSO, CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, HE/SHE CANNOT UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING WE PEOPLE ON EARTH SAY, BUT HE/SHE CAN GET THE GIST OF THE GENERAL MEANING. THAT IS WHY SOME WORDS IN ITALICS WILL BE PURPOSEFULLY MISSPELLED. ALSO, HE/SHE CANNOT LITERALLY "SEE" BUT CAN FEEL HIS/HER WAY AROUND, LIKE SEEING BY TOUCH.
Here you go, a oneshot on a silver platter.
She is the first one to witness the boy rising from the lake.
Wind is the first one to say hello, gently raising him up to see his... parent? Savior? He isn't sure what the moon is to the child.
She is very surprised at how clearly she can see the child. Usually, the people appear very blurry to her. After all, Wind has a lot of places to be at once. It appears, however, that the boy isn't listening to him whisper in his ear. His eyes are glazed, as if in a trance. Then the haze clears, and Wind can see the clearest of blue in his eyes, just like the lake had been before it has frozen, even though she shouldn't have been able to see colors. After setting the child down, he is suddenly unable to call out to him. What is this? Had it been it just a moment of her wishful thinking, wishing to be able to communicate with someone?
Then the boy picks up what much resembles a shepherd's stick - I think they called it a stahf, she thinks - and she can suddenly feel his small form much clearer.
Hello again
he whispers, but the boy is not paying attention again, too busy spreading frost over the lake with the strange stahf. Frost is something she knows very well as a part of nature, however, and he cannot understand why frost is being produced by this stahf stick.
Hello!
he calls again, and this time the boy hears him, and that makes her very, very happy and she lifts the boy up in the air. She hears his cry of surprise and delight - How long has it been to hear someone be delighted by her mere presence - and wraps herself around the boy's thin frame.
Then the boy moves the stahf made of frosted twig and suddenly there is an invisible chain around her and she does not like it and he drops the child -
Oh no!
He rushes down and tries, tries to slow down the child's descent, but it is too late and she flurries around him in worry when he crashes into a tree branch.
Are you okay, frost child?
he whispers frantically, and whirls around slightly in surprise when the child starts laughing. Soon she is laughing along with him, even though Wind should not have been able to laugh but the boy hears his laughter and asks him to bring him to a village that he sees not too long after.
She pauses. There is something about the boy that makes him part of the lake, part of the Earth, part of the element that he brought.
But there is something else.
There is something about this child that makes him, oddly enough, belong to the small village yonder. But how can this be? He is born of the lake, for Wind has first felt his existence under the lake, and nowhere else. Perhaps it is because the boy looks similar to those in the village, with a face and hair and a rough cloak?
Nonetheless, he acknowledges frost child's wish and sets him down into a snowdrift, in his element. The boy is not the best in the expertise of wielding the staff so it does not affect her, but again, even she has never known that she is connected to a flimsy piece of wood before. After the boy stumbles out of the snow, Wind watches in mild amusement when he staggers a little and then saunters over to the villagers that are still very much blurred to her.
The amusement turns, quite abruptly, to confusion and shock when she feels a small child, smaller than the frost boy, walk right through the child that he can see so clearly.
And the confusion turns to concern when the frost child inhales sharply and yells out a word. A word Wind has heard many times from other figures, when they wanted to greet each other. It is different, however, when the frost boy says it, so full of hurt and sad-
"Hello? HELLO?!"
Wind's concern grows as more and more figures simply walk straight through the boy's thin frame, their own bodies just denying the child's existence. Even more so when the boy turns around and leaves the village that Wind thought he belonged to, he really had thought that frost boy had belonged there as much as the lake, but apparently frost child is not interested in the small community of people any longer.
And then the child begins to sob.
Wind has seen sorrow before. He has seen people cry, laugh, shout, shiver. And it frustrates her so much that children as pure as he should even be possible of being this sad. He curls around the boy in comfort,whispering in its near-silent language,
Are you sad, frost boy?
The child raises his head up, remembering his new companion and friend. Light blue orbs that she shouldn't have been able to see the color of are wet with tears, and he sniffles as Wind whisks the tears off his face and flings them to the sky to get rid of the wretched liquid that should not have been on his face in the first place.
Frost boy, don't be sad anymore
It is clear that this little child doesn't know who he is. That is fine with her.
What's your name?
he asks the child, who grins and says something in his language that Wind struggles to understand.
Ak? That's a peculiar name
she giggles while sweeping around him. Ak seems understand him perfectly, however, and repeats his name, added with a word at the end that Wind is glad to hear.
"-frost."
Frost was something that he knew!
Silly Ak, he says, frost is something you bring.
Ak frowns and repeats his name and then the frost. It takes several tries until something occurs to her that frost might be his name.
Frost?
he asks.
Frost is Ak?
Ak lets loose a smile, one as pure as freshly fallen snow, and Wind smiles, once again, along with the child. At least, until the curious boy says something else.
Not Ak?
Wind is puzzled. Had it not been his name? He tries his best to understand what the boy is saying, concentrating on the breath that he exhales as he speaks each syllable.
"-ak frost"
She pauses for a moment, and then repeats what she has heard. The boy merely smiles and says almost (a word that, fortunately, Wind recognizes). He repeats his name, this time slightly slower, pronouncing each letter prominently. Wind repeats.
-ak frost
...
Jak frost
The boy nods.
Jak frost!
he exclaims, whooshing around and rustling leaves in excitement.
Jak frost!
And the child is happy too, laughing as Wind carries him up in her embrace. The boy accidentally moves the stahf again, but Wind is not quite bothered, as Jak is not forcing him to do anything. They spiral up into the air, dropping down and twisting sideways in sloppy, unpracticed moves, but Jak laughs nonetheless and Wind laughs along with him. They are free, as free as the air, as free as the earth, as free as the birds that fly in the air alongside with them. Wind is free, and so is the boy. The boy is free now, away from the confines of the frozen surface of the lake.
As free, perhaps, as a Snowflake in the Wind.
Hope you enjoyed it!