A/N Hey everyone! I'm finally back after a LONG and busy summer. I know I still have another story to update, but I wanted to post this one real quick while it was still November. Yes, it's for ROTG's first birthday (hehehe :P I know I'm late for that as well :3), so yeah. Happy belated Birthday, ROTG, and I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Yay! XD
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my random OCs and my crazy rain spirit, Thalassa Rainfall. :)
"Wooooooohooo!" Jack Frost whooped, shooting up into the bluer-than-blue sky and straight through a cloud. He waved his staff as he passed through it and snowflakes began to fall, his deep brown mantle flapping in the wind behind him. "Yeah!"
Flying above a few others, he stuck both his index and middle fingers in his mouth to whistle as loud as he could, the clouds responding by merging themselves together and changing from a fluffy white to a stormy gray. The wind carried the boy around and over the top of the newly-formed pack of fluffiness to wave his staff at it and start up a small snowstorm. He continued this snowstorm-making process with the wind as his aid and soon his fluffy snowflake factory covered almost half of New York.
Finally done and proud of his work, Jack floated in midair and watched as the first snowstorm of the year (at least in these parts) let the snowflakes drift down, blowing around like feathers from a burst pillow. He smiled, satisfied with the knowledge that the kids nearby would get a good snow day. He swooped down quickly, spinning and shouting as he went and soon found himself in the city, where he found a few kids already jumping up and down excitedly at the sight of the snowfall.
Jack raced around, staff in hand, and let the wind carry him from thing to thing, jumping on top of cars and street-lamps, running across windows, wall-jumping on semi-trucks and spreading his namesake over whatever he touched. He frosted over window panes, garbage cans, dog houses, sidewalks, trees; anything he deemed freezable would instantly be covered in fern-like ice patterns (although most people might not deem a cat as "freezable"). He laughed and dashed across the side of a house, letting a nearby jogger stare in wonder at how quickly the frost had covered the building. The dog she had on a leash kept running without her and she was jerked forward, just hard enough to fall face-first into a nearby trash can. Poor girl. Jack laughed so hard at the sight he very nearly fell into a trash can himself. Still grinning, he continued on his way.
After a little while of fun, frost and games, he heard a small noise that may or may not get most people's attention, but definitely caught his.
Ploink!
He froze at the sound, barely breathing and not moving a muscle, trying to discern what it was. A few different possibilities flashed through his mind, one of them being water, but he quickly threw away the idea. Until he heard it again.
Ploink!
It had landed right next to him, somewhere hidden in the grass. He was already on the ground so he squatted to get a better look at it, only to find that it was too small for him to see. He looked up at the sky and furrowed his eyebrows when he saw that his snowflakes had stopped falling. Another one fell from the sky and made a little tap! on his shoulder. He turned his head to inspect it and found a tiny drop of water. The winter spirit growled as more and more of them came down.
It was raining.
"Of all times you choose now?!" he got up and yelled at the storm. His only reply was the drone of the raindrops falling and splashing on the ground, melting whatever snowflakes were left.
A raindrop landed directly on the tip of his nose and he rubbed it off furiously, now thoroughly frustrated that the snow day he had planned was ruined. "Stupid water spirit..." he muttered angrily.
The wind whipped at the cloak he always had over his linen sweater and it flew up to flop over his already messy white hair. With a short yelp and another angry mumble he flipped it back over his head and onto his back so he could fly up and hopefully put a stop to the rain spirit that had decided to ruin his snowstorm. He soon caught back up with the clouds and looked around for the only one who could have caused this. The one and only, Thalassa Rainfall.
"Alright, where are you?!" He shouted, holding his staff in a defensive position. There was no way he would let her get away with it this time.
"Right here, ice-brain."
Startled, Jack whirled around in the air to face his oppressor. Thalassa was hovering just a few yards ahead of him in her usual turquoise-blue dress that stopped just above her knees. White, shin-length leggings with a light blue trim covered her legs, while foamy-white bracelets were wrapped delicately over her left ankle and right wrist. Her sleeves ended near her elbows, but the cloth of the sleeved continued all the way down to her waist; the same length as her blue-hued blonde hair. To finish it all off were pale yellow flats over her small, fair-skinned feet, which, if you looked close enough, matched the little bits of gold in her hazel-blue eyes.
With her right arm around her middle and her left elbow in her palm, she glanced meticulously at her fingernails before looking back at Jack. "I assume you're upset about my rainstorm?"
"Upset?!" Jack almost gawped at the woman. "I'm more than upset! This is the first time in a year this place has been cold enough for me to make a snowstorm and the kids around here more than deserve a day outta school!"
"It's only September, Jack. Don't you think they could wait just a little longer? Besides, it took me quite a bit of energy to unfreeze those clouds." Thalassa asked innocently, even going as far as to stick her lower lip out.
"It took me even more energy to make them in the first place!"
Another gust of wind came and blew Jack's mantle up, making the boy flail his arms around frustratedly to get the cloth out of his face before growling at the water spirit in front of him.
Thalassa smirked some more and said in an anxious, sweet voice, "Are you having problems with that piece of old, rickety cloth again, Jack?"
"It's called a mantle! And no, I'm most certainly not." The winter spirit spat, knowing how much she wanted him to get rid of it.
She raised an eyebrow, looking unamused. "You do realize that a mantle is actually a kind of cloak or even a shawl for women, don't you?" She asked as she began examining her fingernails again.
Jack's face turned blue, and Thalassa wasn't sure whether it was from embarrassment or anger. "Well...this one is for men!" he sputtered furiously.
"Mm-hm." She said absentmindedly, not paying the younger spirit any attention.
"I told you before and I'll tell you again, I like it and I'm not getting rid of it no matter what you say!"
"But it's a total hazard, constantly in your way, and frankly, ugly. I would definitely throw it away and go for something more fashionable." She nodded to herself with a small smile.
Jack raised an eyebrow at her before turning purple with anger and shouting, "I came up here to show you that kids need my snowstorms and you wanna talk about fashion?!"
"At least something that's not medieval." Thalassa said, rolling her deep blue eyes at him. He was so childish sometimes and boy did he ever need new clothes. She looked him up and down, trying to think of something at would look good on the young spirit. "Hm, it should probably be blue...with at least one pocket...maybe like a hood or something..."
Jack just glowered at her and she sighed inwardly, pitying him for being so easy to provoke. She raised both of her eyebrows at him, but he only glared harder, his gaze becoming more and more hostile by the minute.
"Fine, take your precious snowstorm. And your ugly clothes. I'll be back, though." With a twirl of her finger the wind scooped her up and blew her to wherever she had in mind, leaving Jack still hovering over the rainstorm with his cloak over his face. Again. With a frustrated shove and a short curse it was back over his shoulders.
"Fashion." He spat as he set to work on re-freezing the clouds. "Completely pointless and a waste of time. I say if it's comfortable and durable then you wear it until it's worn. And I, am never replacing any of my clothes until they are completely unusable, no sir!"
The boy continued to mumble to himself as he froze the clouds a second time over, not noticing how his mood was effecting the weather. The wind increased as he flew along with all these dark thoughts of how insulting the water spirit was, blowing his big, soft snowflakes back up into the clouds to clump with other snowflakes and become thicker. And harder. But he didn't know that until he flew below the clouds.
"What the...? What'd I do?!" Jack shouted, dumbfounded that he'd accidentally created a hailstorm. He continued to fly downward and hopefully stop the wind that kept making the ice balls. It didn't work. In fact, it came down harder. "Aw, man! C'mon!" he complained at the wind which was currently disobeying him.
Then he made a big mistake; he stopped to hover in midair. Beneath the storm clouds which were now mass producing hail balls half the size of his fist and smaller. He was instantly pelted by his own ice and it hurt.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!" He shouted as the ice tore at him. The top of his mantle, which had a second layer of leather over it, did nothing to ease the pain being inflicted on his back despite it's double thickness. "What kind of death-defying snowball fight is this?!"
The boy shot back up above the clouds and again waved his magical staff at them in hopes that he could reverse the hailstorm. Again, it only served to make the ice come down in thicker clumps. He shouted at nothing in frustration decided it would be best if he just found a place to take cover and wait it out. Jack flew down below the clouds again and raced around the city for some form of shelter he could use before he was pummeled to death. Or at least close to it. Was it even possible for a spirit die in a hailstorm? He did not want to stick around to find out.
Pretty soon he found cover underneath the great branches of an oak tree in the park; it wasn't the greatest spot, but it was all he had right then so huddled against it before he got any more bruises. The hail he had created came down in torrents and he even heard a little girl across the street shriek for her mother. His heart ached at the sound, but he'd done worse, even if it was on accident. He never meant to hurt anybody; his wintry weather was supposed to be fun.
The boy's little pang of sadness proved to be useful, however, as the hail slowly turned into sleet in tune to his emotions. Not quite the softly-falling snowflakes he had aimed for, but enough for him to step outside again without fear of being beat up. When he was free to stand up again, he looked around at all the ice balls that had fallen from the sky. He also noticed the fact that there were perfectly green leaves on the ground, but he didn't even have to glance up to know that they had been pelted off the trees by the hail earlier.
The young spirit sighed and trudged away, lifting his arm up and balancing his staff across his right shoulder casually. He whistled for the wind to perhaps make the sleet turn into snow but all it did was send him a little breeze to blow from behind him. The gust caught itself under Jack's mantle and pushed it over his head for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.
"What is your problem already-" Jack was about to yell at the wind for being such a pest when he happened to actually look at the cloth that had been shoved in front of him. There, in the thick, slightly frosted leather, were holes. Lots and lots of holes.
He quickly kneeled down in the icey grass, threw the mantle back over his back and unbuttoned the strap in front of his neck that kept the cloak over his shoulders. As soon as it slid off he grabbed it and held it in front of him with two hands to inspect it. There were at least sixty different tear marks in the whole thing and one big, shredded hole around the place where his lower back would be, the top half mainly protected by the double layer of leather sewn on over it. He craned his neck over his shoulder to look at the back of his white sweater and sat up straighter, finding exactly what he wasn't hoping for: more little holes, but these were in his cotton shirt. The open brown vest that he was wearing over it had done nothing to help, either, but at least his pants were fine. Those actually looked good with little whitish streaks on top of the brown.
He looked down at his torn up mantle and a breeze blew straight through his ripped shirt. "Well, 'girl's-cloak', I guess it's time to say goodbye." He mumbled to himself somewhat sarcastically.
The white-haired spirit thought about what Thalassa had told him and chuckled. For almost three hundred years, he had been wearing a girl's cloak (at least in Thalassa's opinion). When he was a brand new spirit he saw a lot of guys wearing them, but that was a really long time ago and they did eventually stop. They had "cooler" clothes to wear that seemed to be more "in fashion"; especially lately.
He looked back up at the cloud covered sky with a raised eyebrow, and even though he couldn't see who he was looking for, sarcastically muttered, "Thanks a lot, MiM. You gave me a girl's cloak." Jack got back up on his feet and slung his ripped mantle over his shoulder before calling the wind to pick him up again, just a little disappointed that his stuff had been torn up.
Once up in the air, though, Jack's mood escalated back up to it's normal level of mischievousness and he spun excitedly inside a cloud as snow finally started falling again. He whooped and hollered as the rush of the wind pushed through his every fiber and got him even more pumped for the upcoming season, which was his and his alone.
Winter.
He laughed and shouted for the wind to take him home.
When he made it there, he flew straight forward with his back toward the sky and his smiling face gazing admirably at the ever-changing town he called home: Burgess, Pennsylvania. It didn't look like much, but the view was incredible and it still had his favorite little lake somewhere around the outskirts of it. Once he spotted the small body of water, Jack's grin became even wider and he dove down to meet it with his staff at the ready. He did a flip as he fell and landed perfectly on the thin layer of ice, sliding forward at record speed and using his staff to make the ice thicker.
When the almost three-hundred year old teen was satisfied with his handiwork, he leapt off the ice and ran over to an old tree that towered over the lake. He hopped over a giant root and skipped his way to the other side of the tree, where a hollow spot had begun to form. Compared to some hollow trees, this particular spot wasn't all that big; the opening of it being less than a foot in diameter and just deep enough for a wadded towel (or a torn up cloak) to be stuffed inside. The hole was very much like a small shelf of sorts, and Jack had been waiting to find something useful to put in it since he had first discovered it. He did have some small things he liked in there like a seashell and even part of a peacock feather, but other than that it was empty.
He was about to use it to keep his mantle safe (he was still kind of attached to it, and if it was in a tree he thought maybe a bird could use it for a nest or something) when he heard a stern, motherly voice from behind him.
"And just what do you think you're doing out here, young man?"
Jack's eyes widened like dinner plates and he whirled around to face whoever had said that. There, he saw a small boy with both hair and eyes a chocolate brown color, brushing bits of dirt off of a book he must've dropped just a moment ago. The nine-year-old Jack recognized as boy named Thomas, whom he often saw walking around his lake to read a book or even watch some of the animals. The small kid looked up the trail behind him at his mother, who was determinedly marching down it with a hat in one hand. Unlike her son, she didn't have a jacket on and was only wearing a pair of jeans with a knitted purple sweater for protection against the cold. She was also the one who had yelled.
"Thomas Ray Bennett, how many times do I have to tell you to put on a hat before you go outside?" Mrs. Bennett snapped at her son. She walked straight over to her slightly annoyed child and slipped the red and blue beanie over his messy hair.
"Well you're not wearing a hat." Thomas retorted, adjusting the annoying beanie with one hand so it wouldn't cover his eyes.
"That's because I'm only out here to make sure you wear one." She pulled the zipper on his jacket up some more to keep him warm before he gently batted her hands away.
When they were done fussing around she said, "Alright, I'll be making hot cocoa for you and Leland when you two boys make it back inside, ok?" The brunette mother rubbed her son's head affectionately before walking back up the trail.
Thomas grinned a little. "With marshmallows?" He asked excitedly.
"With marshmallows." She confirmed with a smile.
"Yippee!" The boy whooped, jumping up and down. In his excitement he dropped his book again and had to stop to pick it up.
As for his mother, she called out to him one more time right before she was out of hearing distance, "Don't stay out too long!"
"I won't!" Thomas cheered, skipping down the other end of the trail to find his twin brother.
Jack shook his head with a smile at the child's antics and skipped back to the hollow side of the tree to toss his mantle into the very back of the shelf, so it wouldn't fall out or blow away. Now he had another mission to accomplish, and one that he wasn't looking forward to: finding another shirt.
And to think that not even an hour earlier he'd been telling himself it would never happen to him. Just the irony of that fact made him want to smack himself. He groaned and took a deep breath.
"As long as no one, not even Santa Claus, ever, ever hears about this I might be able to survive the next week or so." He muttered to himself.
Calling the wind, Jack leaped into the air once again, but he decided to fly low in the sky this time as he was only flying into town and not the other side of the world. He squinted his eyes a little because of all the snow flurries blowing in his face and did a few flips as he came down to land on the corner of a street. A young woman (which he happened to land next to) shivered at the sudden gust of cold winter wind and her little sister who was holding hands with her let out a high-pitched squeal. He chuckled and went the opposite direction.
He still couldn't believe it, but he was about to do his very first window shopping. Not very exciting to him, but he couldn't exactly just walk in a store and ask somebody to help him find what he needed. The best stuff was always in the windows anyway, right? So he figured he'd just do that for now.
Humming a random Christmas carol, he jumped over the cars on a nearby street and onto the next block, right where a pleasant looking corner store was.
Almost two whole weeks worth of searching later and Jack had found absolutely nothing. Nothing that had all four of his top qualities for clothing: durable, good fit, comfortable, and free. Nothing he wouldn't have to shove around like he did with his mantle. Zilch, nada, noodle. Nothing.
It really frustrated the winter spirit, because he had already been forced to give Thalassa three whole storms just so she wouldn't see him in this predicament. He really didn't like it when she stole his storms for herself, especially when he couldn't do anything about it. Like now. He hoped he could find a new shirt soon so the water spirit wouldn't get to curious and actually look for him.
A grumpy looking Jack flew over a small town in Alaska, still mumbling and grumbling to himself about how much of a pain in the neck his situation was.
"First she gripes about my mantle, then I get upset enough to overdo the weather, then my clothes get ripped up..." He rambled under his breath. "And THEN I end up trekking the continent with a hole the size of Antarctica in my shirt!"
The only answer he got was the wind blowing through his snowy white hair.
He slumped. "Gah...this is so stupid..."
Deciding to fly to Russia before Thalassa decided to drop by and give him an oh-so-pleasant hello, he quickly turned to the right to shoot across the Bering Strait. But apparently the wind had randomly given him a speed limit, as he promptly slammed his face into a previously unseen telephone pole and fell to the ground.
"Where the heck did that come from?" He moaned as he stood up. He checked his staff to make sure it didn't break or anything. It was just fine, as usual. Jack let out a sigh, chiding himself for not being more careful. The wind blew lightly over him again, as if chuckling at his clumsiness.
"What's your problem?!" He snapped frustratedly, for once not seeing what was so funny. The wind just teased him more, even going as far as taking his staff from him and keeping it just inches above his reach.
"Hey! You give that back!" Jack pouted loudly, chasing after it. The wind chuckled some more in it's own secret way. "This isn't funny! I can put you on overdrive and have you haul me across the world twenty-million times an hour if I want!"
"Not if you don't have this!" It seemed to say cheerfully. The spirit's face turned slightly purple and he ran faster to get his staff back. "You're completely useless now~"
"YOU EVIL STUPID WIND YOU!"
And so the random chase continued, with Jack running, jumping, and sometimes floating (as best he could without his staff) after his stick. The wind kept him at bay the whole time and he began to wonder if it ever gave Thalassa this much trouble. Soon enough the winter spirit was forced to stop and sit down by a tree to rest, as his legs had started to give out on him and his breath had gotten shorter.
"'You sick of this yet?!" Jack wheezed as hard as he could. The wind responded by curtly dropping the staff on his head. "Ow! Thanks for nothing."
His invisible companiwent was now silent, as if blushing. Jack made a mental note to quit hanging out with so many weirdos when he wasn't alone; he already had the wind, which was already hard for him to handle without nearly dying a few times.
He rubbed his head and picked up his staff, glaring at the sky. He looked around to see where he was and found that the chase had led him most of the way up a mountainside on the outskirts of town. A long, winding road leading away from the hill and down towards the small civilized area wasn't too far away from where he was sitting down, and he was just high enough on top of the hill to have a pretty good view to the west. He saw a few cars drive by and he let out a long, tired breath before getting up and walking out of the small group of trees towards the road. When he turned around was when he noticed that the hill continued to go up, and quite steeply, so that the road he was headed towards cut through the not-quite-so-rocky side of it.
Just as he had made it out of the trees and out into the open road, his foot landed right into a big muddy puddle, letting him slip backwards and fall with a THUD into the dirt. In the excitement of such a quick-to-be-painful-trip, he accidentally caused ice to spread out across most of the pavement in front of him. "Wow I'm an idiot today..." He said when he saw what he'd done.
Shoving himself off the ground and looking disappointedly at the mess he'd made, he wondered how he'd be able to get so much ice off the ground before any cars slipped on it. If anybody was unfortunate enough to skid on that ice they'd be in for a really bumpy ride cutting straight down the rest of the hill, and it didn't matter which direction on the road they were coming from.
With a few more curses to himself, Jack began the long and tedious (not to mention ridiculous) process of chipping the ice off the road. Not a minute after he'd started, though, a semi truck came zooming down the road towards the ice.
"No! Stop! Stop it!" Jack shouted, waving his arms around to try and stop the man from driving off the road, even though he new the driver probably couldn't see him. "SLOW DOWN PLEASE...!"
Sure enough, the driver wasn't paying any attention and drove full speed across the ice. If Jack thought the truck was fast before, he was wrong. The truck began to slide sideways almost immediately and he jumped out of the way just in time. The wind immediately lifted him into the air, flew him to the front of the semi truck and Jack used all his strength to make a snow drift to stop it from crashing down the hill. In an instant there was a twenty-foot dune of snow in front of the truck and thankfully, it was enough to stop it. Jack breathed a huge sigh of relief and floated over to see if the driver was okay.
The man was unconscious and unhurt, as the airbag that had popped out in response to the crash had come out just in time to save him (although it did knock him out pretty good). Now he just needed to wait until someone came driving along and they would call the police or something about the new road block. To make sure the man would stay alright Jack decided to stick around until somebody else could get the proper help that was necessary.
Sure enough, in a few minutes a 20-year-old girl and her gruff (even angry-looking) father came driving up the road in a dark blue jeep. The girl was already driving slowly on the icy hill so when she saw the semi-truck in the way she was able to stop smoothly without any fear of crashing into it. Once stopped the old man nearly jumped out of the vehicle, claiming he needed to take a dump, and his over-worried daughter responded instantly by yelling at him from her standpoint next to the car. "Dad!"
"What? What's wrong with goin' to the outhouse?" The man shouted over his shoulder as his wobbly legs carried him farther and farther away.
"Oh, nothing, just the fact that there isn't one!" The young woman rolled her eyes. "Crazy old grandpa..."
"I heard that!" Her father snapped. "And y'know, back in the old days we would just-"
"I've heard about the old days, dad..." She interrupted as kindly and slowly as she could before he could get into any details. She crossed her arms and Jack chuckled.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He waved it off and kept on wobbling while his daughter walked towards the front of the semi-truck to see what had happened to the driver. When she saw what had occurred she took out her cell phone and in a few minutes the police and an ambulance had arrived to deal with the unconscious truck driver and the rest of the situation (they had just assumed the snow had fallen from the higher part of the mountain).
While they were scooping away all the snow and ice for him, Jack watched everyone curiously from his perch atop his staff as he became more and more unamused by the minute. Curiosity overcoming him, the winter spirit jumped back down on his feet so he could wander around the semi and see what was in it. While everyone else was too busy to be anywhere near the back of the semi (or even see the trailer doors being opened), he carefully opened the back doors of the trailer.
It took a while for Jack to get it open (sneaking into semi-truck trailers wasn't exactly his thing), but when he did he jumped right in to see what was inside. He was surprised to find that it was mostly clothes, and thought that this might be his lucky shot at getting a new sweater for himself that he would never ever wreck in a hailstorm. He climbed around the inside of the trailer curiously, as most everything there had been knocked over from the force of the crash earlier, and poked at some of the clothing racks with his staff (he may be a frost spirit who's over a hundred years old, but he still doesn't quite know what some of these things are because he never took the time to wander around the inside of places like clothing stores; he had funner things to do).
A fire truck eventually pulled up behind the semi while Jack was exploring and the loud honk it made right before it parked made him nearly jump out of skin from surprise. He assumed the truck came to drop of firemen to help with the snow shoveling that had to be done and kept on rummaging through the heap of clothes.
"Hey you! Did you open this?" He heard someone shout.
"No, but I saw him go behind it a few minutes ago."
"I swear, I didn't open it! I thought-"
"I don't care what you think, just keep it closed."
"Yes, boss."
Jack was confused. What in the world could they possibly be talking about? He thought about it for a minute before shrugging it off and tossing aside a random sock he found in the pile. He was just about to pick up what looked like a green jacket of some sort when he heard the doors of the trailer squeak. That's when it hit him.
They were closing up the trailer.
He gasped at the thought and dashed towards the closing doors. The light from outside wasn't that far ahead, but it disappeared all to soon and he slammed into the metal a second after it had closed. His head throbbed painfully from the collision and he soon fell unconscious.
Jack awoke to the sound of pounding doors and a still throbbing head, though it didn't hurt nearly as much as before. He also heard some shouting with the pounding, but he wasn't conscious enough to make out any words so he just laid there on the cold, hard floor and pulled a nearby jacket out from a pile of clothes and used it for a pillow.
"Jaaaaaaack..."
His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates when he realized who was outside. Thalassa Rainfall.
"Oh Jacky~o!" She said in a sing-song voice.
He had a sudden urge to die a horrible death right about then, but instead he just kept very quiet and waited until she went away. How could she possibly know if he was in here or not anyway?
"Jacky, I know you're in there."
The winter spirit resisted the temptation to groan at her horrible nicknames for him. He grabbed another jacket and pulled it over his head like a little kid who didn't want to go to school.
"Jack." the woman shouted more seriously. "I can literally sense your flow of magic power."
"Ugh, really?!" He slammed his hand against the floor in frustration, then pulled back into himself from the pain in his hand.
"No, but thanks for falling for it." She said nochalantly. He heard her giggle to herself and he mentally face palmed for being so stupid. "Did you fall asleep or something? 'Cause there's some frost creeping it's way out from behind the doors, and that's how I really knew you were in there. Hee hee! Did you have a good dream?"
"No I didn't, thank you very much." Jack said sarcastically as he attempted to stand. His legs were really sore now, thanks to the friendly jog he had with the wind a few hours ago, and he decided to just lay back down on some clothes almost immediately after trying.
"You don't have to be so grumpy about it, ice-cube. Do you want me to get you out of there or not?"
He nearly groaned when he remembered that he was stuck in the trailer with no way to get out until they unloaded the cargo. Speaking of which, the truck still wasn't moving. Had they already driven to the store they had to make the shipment to or were they still at the crash site?
"Yeah, but where are we?" He finally answered.
"At a gas station in Canada. The driver won't be back for a little while now, but we still have to hurry."
"Then why haven't you opened the doors yet?"
"Because I want to make a deal with you first."
Jack sighed inwardly and took a deep breath (Manny knows he needs it) before asking, "And what might that be?"
"If I let you out, you'll let me give you this new shirt."
He blinked a few times in confusion. Had she had that thing ready for him this whole time and just decided to tease him until he relented? Was she that desperate to give him new clothes? He would admit that she had a pretty unique sense of fashion and always looked really nice (though never to her, of course), but for her to be that desperate to get him a new shirt... that was just an unbelievable level of obsession.
"Um, I..." He stammered, finding the words hard to say. How on on earth do you even admit such a thing to a person like her?
"Yes?" For some reason she also sounded a little nervous. That was new, but it made him feel a little better about it.
He swallowed before rattling off nearly everything he had in his brain. "I accidentally tore up my other shirt and my mantle is practically destroyed from a hailstorm, so as much as I hate it, I don't really have a choice right now."
Silence.
Was she gone already? Why would she leave so soon? Or maybe she just wasn't listening to him. But that didn't make any sense either!
More silence.
"Um, Thalassa?" He ventured. He hoped she didn't faint or something from the shock of hearing what he said.
"I'm sorry! I'm just, really freaking out right now!" She said in an excited, high-pitched voice. Was she... fangirling? Good grief this lady was weird. It was just a shirt!
"Yeah, great, now can you let me out already?"
She snapped out of her reverie. "Oh! Yes, of course."
There was a loud creak, a shove, and another creak as one of the double doors of the trailer swung out. The sudden light made Jack want to jump into the clothes pile to hide from it, but he blinked a few times and he was okay. He grabbed his staff off of the floor and hopped outside. He yawned and stretched comfortably, glad to finally be back in the open air. He turned to the side to see Thalassa (wearing a brand new dress, of course) holding something blue and grinning so much he was almost afraid her face would split.
"Alright, let's get the fashion lecture over with so I can catch up on making snowstorms."
She rolled her eyes and began explaining excitedly, handing him a folded piece of deep, sky blue colored cloth. "Here; it's called a hooded sweatshirt, but I've heard some people call it a hoodie for short. It's a brand new type of clothing that's not very popular yet, but I think you might like it." He glanced at her warily before taking it, unfolding it and holding it out in front of him so he could see the whole thing out in front of him.
It was a very simple style; no embroidery or fancy letters on the front (which Jack was extremely grateful for), long sleeves, a big pocket on the lower part of the front, and a hood with strings in it for adjusting the size of the hole where his face would be. He held one of the sleeves up to his right arm to see if it was long enough, and found that it was perfect.
"It's made of a magical kind of cloth that's actually sheep's wool, with special spells put on it for extra comfort and endurance. This one should last a good two thousand years or so without so much as a nick and moths will never come near it should you ever put it away somewhere." She continued explaining as he put the hoodie on over his old linen sweater.
The winter spirit looked surprised and asked, "Did you make this yourself?"
"Oh yes." She nodded enthusiastically. "Any kind of clothing I want, I always make myself. Do you like it?"
"Are you kidding? It's perfect!" Jack grinned.
"YAY!" Thalassa cheered and even sprinkled water into the air, she was so overjoyed that she had completed her mission, and when it landed on Jack it turned into little spots of sparkling frost. "Wow!" She exclaimed when she saw what had happened.
Getting an idea, Jack brushed his fingertips over the edge of the cuffs and little bits of frost quietly trailed up the fabric. More frost also began to appear on other parts of the hoodie and pretty soon it nearly covered the whole thing.
"Oh wow, Jack! That is so pretty!" She squealed happily as she stared at all the frost on Jack's hoodie.
"It was your idea." He pointed out. "And thanks for the hood. I really like it."
The blue-blonde gaped. "Do my ears deceive me? Did I just accidentally hear this guy say thank you? Is the world as we know it coming to an end?!" Thalassa squeaked, staring at him as if he grew another head.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Yep. Just like it does every day."
The rain woman giggled at his joke. But then she kept on giggling and wouldn't stop, as if she had just thought of something hilarious to do. Jack looked at her confusedly and she covered her mouth with her hands. A thought suddenly appeared in his head about what she might be planning and he instantly began to discourage her.
"No. Just, no." Jack said firmly, waving his hand in her face. She only laughed harder.
"Aw, c'mon! Can't I tell a few friends? It's a hilarious story really. Jack Frost getting stuck inside a semi-truck trailer?" She giggled uncontrolably.
"Absolutely not." He shook his head seriously. "If the Easter Bunny ever hears a word about this then I will be dead meat, 'cause that kangaroo is just waiting to get back at me for that blizzard I gave him on Easter a few years ago."
"Wha-? Did you just call the Easter Bunny a kangaroo?" She said, trying not to fall over laughing.
"Uh-huh, and rightly so!"
"'Rightly so'?" She scoffed with a smile. "What could that poor bunny possibly do to you that would be so bad?"
"That 'poor bunny' of yours is a tai-chi master with killer boomerangs! And those things hurt really bad, by the way (I know that from personal experience). Not to mention his pools of Easter egg dye. I could become a walking rainbow!"
"Wouldn't that mean your hoodie would be ruined?!" Thalassa gasped in fear, her dainty finger already on the edge of her mouth worriedly.
Jack saw his chance to freak her out acted as serious as possible when he said, "This thing would never be blue again."
"Ah!" She squeaked, horrified, then began angrily agreeing with him. "That nasty kangaroo! I worked so hard on that beautiful cloth; how dare he do that to my precious artwork! Why, if he even tries it he won't even be able to carry a hard-boiled egg in his paw when I'm through with him!"
The winter spirit grinned as she continued rambling to herself, his plan working even more effectively than he thought it would. With jump and a quick, "See ya later, Thal!" he was in the sky.
She snapped out of her muttering episode and waved at him with a bright smile as he disappeared. "Bye-bye!"
"Thanks for the hoodie!" He shouted back before he was completely swept away.
One week into getting that hoodie and Jack's life felt like pure bliss so far. The cloth was so light compared to the cloak he wore before and felt so soft that he soon acquired a habit of stuffing his hands inside the pocket. It was by far the most comfortable thing he had ever worn. Also, thanks to that random episode that came with it, he was on better terms with Thalassa now and they had come to an agreement to make their own storms and not steal them from each other (though how they actually managed that without arguing and making fun of each other Jack has never figured out). The rain spirit still fuses over his clothes now and then but he enjoys every chance he has to tease her over her obsession with clothes.
The wind abruptly snapped him out of his thoughts by pushing him off the rooftop he had perched on and he barely escaped hitting the pavement of the street had he not fallen into a dumpster. An angry alley cat immediately mad a display of it's dislike for Jack's sudden appearance by hissing and clawing at him. "Really?!" Jack yelled at the cat before he leaped out of the dumpster full of junk and flew away.
"Well that was an adventure..." The winter spirit mumbled to himself. "Why do you always do that when I'm thinking, huh?!" He began yelling at the wind as he jumped from roof to roof in the run-down city.
The gust he was flying on responded by dropping him into another alley and lifting him back up again. He shrieked and gripped his staff like a lifeline, eyes nearly popping out from the shock.
"I will never understand you..." Jack shook his head annoyingly. He could've sworn he heard a giggle from his invisible partner and he just rolled his eyes. Just then something familiar caught his eye and he flew down to investigate it.
It was a fairly odd clothesline, one that you don't see very often, strung between two separate buildings with each end attached right next to a window. On that clothesline was a hoodie that looked just like Jack's except it was green, but Jack still thought it looked like his. There was also a young boy sitting by one of the windows and looking very impatient.
"Mom, when is my hoodie gonna dry? It's been out there for months." The little boy asked, staring at the green hoodie. Jack raised an eyebrow at the kid and walked on top of the clothesline like a tightrope.
"It'll dry when it gets dry, and no, it has not been out there for months." He heard who assumed to be the boy's mother shout from inside the house.
"Yeah, but it sure feels like it has..." The little lad crossed his arms on the window sill and rested his messy, brown-haired head on top of that, now sulking more than ever.
"Aw, c'mon, kiddo. Cheer up!" Jack then tapped the end of his staff on the opposite end of the line from the child.
Frost instantly zoomed and blossomed out like rapidly growing blue vines, weaving around each and every peace of cloth in it's path and climbing across the whole clothesline. The little boy's eyes widened with amazement at the sight and he even stood up to watch the fast-growing frost. Jack grinned at his dumbfounded reaction and laughed when the kid started jumping up and down and yelling for his mother and little sister to come watch. Deciding to leave it like that, he shot up into the sky, thinking of the next place he could dump a heap of snow on.
"Wow, that was a nice thing for Jack to do." Thalassa commented aloud as she watched the winter spirit fly away without even noticing her. She stroked the fur of a nearby cat that had made it's way on the rooftop to her and it purred it's agreement. She sighed contentedly, looking out at the rest of the city from her seat on the edge of a rooftop.
"Ice and water are so different, y'know?" She asked the cat absentmindedly, as it purred and rubbed it's back against her hand. "And yet they're very nearly the exact same thing. Their only difference is that one is solid and one is liquid. That's really it, and yet we treat each other like polar opposites. Of course, it's not as bad as ice and fire, but we still yell at each other like bickering in-laws." She giggled to herself mischievously at her own joke.
"But I still think we're connected. It's like an invisible line that you can only see if you look hard enough for our similarities. Like, I know I don't like it when my clothes get ripped. Neither does Jack apparently, but I am glad it happened to him because he has absolutely no sense of style." The woman laughed again. "We also both like to pick on each other; that's another similarity. I could really go on and on, but I think you can already see how Jack and I are connected, even if it was just a little scuffle over some frosty clothes."
The cat let out a small "Meow," as if in agreement.
"You got it!" She smiled warmly at the pet. "We're connected like the Frost on the Clothesline."
Aw, poor Jack. How I tortured him in this story... :3 Teeheehee! I really do not know how I thought of all this, but it was extremely fun and I've been planning to write something about how he got his hoodie since either May or June. I'm really glad I finished this! XD
So! How'd ya like it? Good, bad, ugly, horrible? Please let me know what you think! Although I know it's kind of sloppy, cuz I had some MAJOR problems with both my wi-fi connection AND the fanfiction site last night (which was when I first attempted to post this), and I ended up just leaving my computer on the floor by my bed around 2 am so I could sleep. :/ I hope you liked it and thanks for reading everyone! :)
PEACE OUT PPLZ! ~Bluesy