This is the kind of thing I write when I'm not depressed enough to write things like Voice or Cold War or Empty Spaces. Enjoy.

Arctic Turn

~.~

Well, that had been interesting. And also painful. But then again, how could he have expected anything less from a goddess, and a Greek one at that? The gods were notorious for their dramatics and apparent oversensitivity despite being so unconcerned with the world's mortals and 'lesser' (Pfft, he thought. Pretentious zealots, the lot of 'em) immortals that they actually lived in another dimension.

Okay, he probably should have known better than to strike up a conversation with Artemis, goddess of the bloody hunt, but she'd been frolicking in the woods of Burgess and so help him he'd been curious. It wasn't every day that a deity decided to drop in on the dopey denizens of Earth they so deeply disdained (1).

And then as he dropped below the canopy to fly beside her, he probably should have been warned off by how she tried to shoot him. And then hadn't even apologised, and just looked a bit miffed for having wasted an arrow. He'd told her his name anyway – just a simple, "Hey, I'm Jack Frost, you're the Goddess Artemis, right?", nothing special. She'd given him a once-over and frowned. She'd asked him if he was a winter spirit – well, more stated, really, but since she was wrong, he took it as a question. "The Spirit of Winter, in actual fact," he'd corrected, and the look she gave him would have been enough to cow Pitch at the height of his power. He'd frozen (pun not intended) and slipped behind a few paces before regaining control of himself and putting on a burst of speed to catch up. He would say more than twenty words to her if it was the last thing he did. As he drew level with Artemis again, she eyed him warily. He gave her his best grin and, searching for something to talk about, his eyes alighted on the hounds racing at the goddess' feet. "Nice dogs you've got th-"

It was the wrong thing to say. Possibly, at that point, anything would have been the wrong thing to say, but he'd rather not test that theory. Point is, Jack quickly found himself getting close and personal with a deceptively hard tree. Had trees always been that solid? He didn't think so. Maybe it was a lamppost in disguise. Hey, maybe he was in Narnia!

It was at this point that he began to suspect that he'd got concussion, so he tried to pull himself together and find somewhere better than the forest floor to rest; he didn't want to be eaten by a wolf or a bear or something. Did they even have those around here? There'd certainly been wolves, when he was young, but that had been a long, long time ago. Probably they were all gone by now, but it couldn't hurt to be too careful, right? Concentrate, Jack, he told himself, trying to focus on not flying face-first into another iron tree. Soon enough, after much weaving and zig-zagging despite the Wind's guiding hand – tendril? gust? Whatever – he reached his most favouritest place ever, the lake he'd drowned in. He'd thought that that particular fact would have disturbed him, but apparently not. He'd been unable to die for three hundred years and having water in his lungs was just uncomfortable instead of life-threatening.

But he was digressing again.

Almost daintily, the winter spi- ahem, the Spirit of Winter, alighted on a sturdy-looking tree branch, where he promptly slipped and took a nose dive into the snow bank beneath. He muttered a number of colourful phrases in several different languages, some that would make Bunny's whiskers curl at the vulgarity. Once he'd got that out of his system, he just looked up and sighed. The drift was irritatingly deep, he'd dropped his staff and, frankly, he really could not be bothered by all of this. Screw it, he thought, I'm going to sleep. Wake me up when spring comes. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his temples, eventually drifting off into Sandy's world of choice.

~.~

Jack opened his eyes and groaned internally. Despite his wishes, spring hadn't come early to melt him out of this damned snow drift; in actual fact, the drift seemed to have grown in height. It was bright, though, and the sun wasn't directly overhead, so it was probably morning and he'd been asleep for sixteen, seventeen hours tops. While his head still hurting like buggery came as no surprise, the rest of his body seemed to have inexplicably joined in the protest against moving. He ached everywhere now, and that sucked. He felt even less inclined to fight his way out of the snow and was just about to shut himself down until he healed up completely...

...But then he remembered that he was part of a group now, he had friends, people who cared, and if they hadn't seen him in a few weeks, they'd get worried and think he'd been kidnapped by someone. Again. He actually felt kind of sorry for Pitch about that last time...Having four angry Guardians turn up on your doorstep demanding the release of someone you hadn't actually seen in years was probably a little daunting. But hey, not his fault. Jamie had introduced him to TV Tropes, and he'd spent a fortnight accumulating information in an Internet café in San Francisco. He'd eventually fallen asleep, and that's how Sandy had found him and dragged him kicking and screaming back to the Pole, because, dammit, that page had been really interesting!

In any case, he had a reason to get up now, if only to save his fellow spirits from demands to release hostages they didn't have. He moaned, but let out a literal squawk of surprise when he heard his voice. It most certainly wasn't the voice he'd fallen asleep with, and it wasn't like it had been that first time he'd uttered a word after he'd decided not to speak for a decade. His voice wasn't hoarse or breathy, just raucous. He tried saying something else (2), but again all he heard was strident screeching, only it seemed vaguely familiar.

He thought about it for a moment.

Oh. Oh. Oh, shit.

Jack lifted his head into the light and tried looking at his nose. He swore again. His nose was now a freaking beak. Bloody irritable gods and their bloody trigger-happiness, bloody bloody bloody. Bloody.

Okay, so suddenly I'm a bird, he thought. What the hell do I do now? He looked up at the cloudless blue sky, past the vast walls of white that towered either side of him. Probably ought to get out of here before I try anything else. Now how do I get up? 'Cause I don't think birds can fly upside down. He struggled for several minutes like an overturned beetle. To an outsider, it was probably the most hilarious thing they'd seen this side of the New Year, but to Jack it was intensely frustrating, moreso even than when he'd run out of change for that computer in San Francisco and had had to spend several hours nicking coins out of pockets and off the street when he could've been browsing more TV Tropes pages.

After about five minutes of wasted effort, he stopped waggling his ar- wings. It wasn't working. Actually, it was doing the opposite of working, digging him deeper into the snow. He growled – or at least attempted to. He tried to remember if he'd ever seen a bird right itself before. No luck.

Right. Okay. That was fun, he thought. Now maybe I could try using physics to my advantage, instead of flailing around like an idiot.

He flexed his still-aching ar- wings to get a feel for the new and unfamiliar muscles, and determined that if he opened just the one instead of both, as he'd been doing before, he could probably manage to flip himself over.

After several attempts, he finally managed to right himself. This, he believed, called for a celebration. Not a lame glass of champagne or something, this achievement surely required a carnival. But he was getting ahead of himself; first things first, he needed to get out of this snow drift. He eyed the tall white walls of his prison. Even if he'd known how to use his new wings for flight, he was pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to get out that way. Well. Can't go over it. Can't go under it...

Jack took a deep breath (not that he needed to) and threw himself head first into the bank. It felt like he'd been pushing through the snow for hours, but eventually, at last, he poked his head out into daylight. He glared at the sun. It had barely moved, though he'd been certain that eternity had passed while he'd been stuck in the snow. The sun glared back, and he winced and looked away, temporarily blinded. Having a staring competition with the sun was a bad idea. He'd only won that one time because there had been a solar eclipse.

Anyway. Now to find out exactly what kind of bird he was. Awkwardly, he waddled over to the frozen lake, and peered curiously at his reflection. His beak and feet were the same shade of blue as his hoodie, although how that made any sense at all he had no clue; the rest of his body was a light blue-tinged grey with darker wingtips, and on top of his head was a mess of white feathers sticking up any which way. A seabird of some sort, one he'd seen before but couldn't remember the name of. Well, he'd find out later, he was sure.

But what was he to do now? Seeing as how this was a goddess' fault, it probably wouldn't just wear off after a few days. They never did anything by half-measures. Well, I should probably try to find my staff. Jack turned and stared at the hulking mass of snow he'd escaped from. On second thoughts, maybe not. He frowned and glanced at the sky – either not quite noon, or just past, if he was any judge. If it was the latter, Jamie was probably getting up now, and Jack needed desperately someone bigger than he was now with thumbs to help find his staff. If it was the former, and Jamie was still asleep, well, he'd just have to peck at his window or something.

New goal in place, Jack started waddling in the direction of Burgess. Very quickly he noticed that he wasn't getting very far very fast and decided that he'd probably better learn how to use the appendages that used to be his arms. Likely it would be quicker than walking to town on tiny webbed bird-feet.

He'd observed birds many times before, because there was only so much to do in the 250 years before computers were invented. He knew how they took off, how they used thermals to gain altitude, how they caught fish and how they landed, but never in all his years had he ever thought that that information would come in handy. Cautiously, he spread his wings. He looked at them critically and decided that they'd just have to do. At least he wasn't a chicken or something. That would have been not only embarrassing, but so mortifying he'd have to hide beneath Antarctica for a few centuries until it all blew over (3).

He beat his wings experimentally a couple of times. He could definitely feel the lift. It'd doubtless be a lot easier to do this from a tree branch or even a rock or something, but that would be somewhat counterintuitive as he'd need to be able to use his wings in order to get up there in the first place (4). Oh well. Can but try. He crouched, the muscles in his stubby legs readying for takeoff, and leapt into the air, beating his wings furiously. The sky was getting closer and the ground further away and he could feel the Wind – desperately searching for him, but unable to without the conduit that was his staff – buffeting his feathers.

He got five metres before landing flat on his face.

Well, it beat walking.

~.~

(1) Try saying that five times fast.

(2) "I'm Jack Frost, and I'm awesome!"

(3) Don't question why he has contingency plans for being turned into a chicken. Just don't.

(4) Kind of like when you buy scissors at the supermarket, and you need scissors to get the scissors out of the bloody stupid plastic packaging.

Disclaimer: Eenope, t'ain't mine. But I'd love to see this particular story animated, if only because I wrote it and find it amusing and therefore assume that so will everyone else.

A/N: I know I promised that I would never try humour again, but screw that. I'm too cheerful right now. Tumblr, what have you done to me? Also, why is it that whenever I try humour, I have to resist having a dozen footnotes in as many lines? I would say I've read too much Terry Pratchett, but that's impossible. You can never have too much Pratchett.

Oh, and about the "Bloody bloody bloody. Bloody." thing, that's what I do when I get really riled up in the presence of family members and small children so I don't say anything more offensive to the ears. I think that's probably what Jack would do now that he's around children a lot and has people to be disappointed in him.

Next chapter: Jamie gets the pet bird he's always wanted. Then he realises only he can see it and that magic is more hilarious than he'd previously suspected.

More notes over on my fanfic-specific tumblr at idoloni . tumblr . com.