Frozen Fractals

The man in the moon was unhappy. As someone who lived for an eternity and possessed god-like power this was not a frequent occurrence. However, there were things that even he could not control. It seemed that this was one of them. The timing of everything was off. In the far reaches of the darkest corners of the world he could see Pitch plotting, even now. It would be years yet before he struck, yet the man in the moon could see him gathering power. Preparing for war. Years were nothing to the man in the moon. They flew past him like the comets shooting through space, there for only an instant. His guardians were not yet ready to face the darkness that was coming. He worried that, depending on how this day progressed, one of them never would be. There was nothing left to do but wait. Such was the life of the man in the moon.

Jack Frost was wandering. Of course, his version of wandering primarily involved streaking through the inky night sky, clear as a clarion call. The warm summer wind wove its fingers through his shaggy silver hair. He imagined that he must look extremely unkempt, which brought a slightly bitter smirk to his face. After all, who was going to see it? Somehow he had ended up on the wrong side of the world. Must have been a wrong turn somewhere. Jack generally did his best to stay on the side of the world that was currently in winter. He sighed dramatically, the speed of his flight whisking away the sound of his frustration.

He had nothing against the summer, but summers in Arendelle were particularly warm. He took a great deal of joy in subverting the seasons. With a flick of his staff early spring suddenly regressed back to icy ponds and frozen icicles. Fall leaves froze and fell to the forest floor with a flick of his hand as grass and plants frosted. However, he did not particularly enjoy creating pandemonium in the midst of a warm summer. Instead of children overcome with unexpected delight the only thing a snowstorm in summer had ever brought Jack was fear and suspicion as parents tucked their children away and whispered of witchcraft.

Jack had visited Arendelle only once or twice before. It was a good kingdom. It's people were happy and prosperous, it's rulers benevolent. They generally had mild winters. Ahead, Jack could see the candles and fire light of the village and royal palace flickering as he barreled toward them. Well, there was really nothing to do but find a place to grab a bite. Being immortal had its advantages. Among them was the fact that his body did not need sleep or food, however this did not mean he didn't enjoy these things. The one thing Jack really had going for him, no strings attached, was the flying. Who needed to be seen when a simple thought could send you spiraling through the clouds? This, at least, was what Jack told himself. The past years had been extremely lonely. The man in the moon had only spoken to him once. He had told him that his name was Jack Frost. He had the power of ice and wind and snow, which could have been a sweet deal had it not been for whole invisibility caveat. In all his years, 228 of them to be exact, he had never come across a single human being who could see him. There were a few nonhumans who could but, despite the loneliness it caused him, Jack tended to avoid them. They were legends to him and to them, well, he was nothing but an immature immortal.

Soon enough Jack found himself floating above the city. His lips curved into his trademark half-smirk, as if sharing an inside joke, before he sent himself into a dizzying nosedive towards the ground a thousand feet below. His blue hoodie billowed out around him and the air tugged at his pants, which hugged his skin. Jack never bothered with shoes. They weren't very stable on ice and they tended to come off when he was flying. Besides, he didn't feel the cold so it was of no concern to him.

Jack landed with a short skid, glazing ice over a short patch of grass in the courtyard of the royal palace. He always felt it best to seek housing in the richest house he could find. He didn't think it fair to take food from anywhere that didn't have at least a reasonable surplus. Besides, palaces tended to have unused guest bedrooms. He didn't relish the concept of stealing or breaking and entering but he did want to eat and well, it wasn't exactly like he could hold and job, earn money, and pay his own way.

He made his way toward the palace doors. Two guards were posted on either side of the archway. "Boys." Jack said mockingly, with a grand half-bow and flourishing gesture of his staff. One of the doors whipped open with a flash of cold breeze, banging helplessly against the palace wall, looking for all the world as if someone just hadn't latched it properly. Jack sauntered through calmly. Technically he was able to pass through objects but it made him feel extremely uncomfortable and he avoided it whenever possible. Unlike flying, that particular skill had just never felt natural to him.

He decided to start with food and made his way toward the faintest smell of roast pig, likely the royal families' dinner from earlier in the night. The kitchen was a grand place, with huge arching ceilings and multiple ovens. But what Jack was most interested in was the food. There were countless breads and cheese and, sure enough, some leftover roast pig. He ate until he was content and went to pour himself a glass of water when he heard the doors open. He stopped where he was. No matter how many times it happened, he still froze when people entered a room with him unexpectedly. He turned around, a guilty expression on his face.

Before him was a short, strawberry blond haired child who couldn't have been a day older than six. A streak of blazing platinum blond ran through one of her twin braids. She was barefoot and dressed in a long floor skimming nightgown. Slowly, as if she were still asleep, she poured herself a glass of milk, guzzled it, and left, eyes closed the entire time. Jack chuckled. She had left with a milk mustache.

Jack placed his glass in a larger basket, which he took to be the dirty dish pile and followed the girl. She walked down a few hallways and then abruptly entered her bedroom and disappeared. Inside the room, under the door, he could see the smallest flicker of candlelight. A nightlight. Scared of the dark. It's okay kid, Jack thought to himself. I'm the scariest thing in this palace tonight.

He briefly toyed with the idea of staying in the palace but there was nothing for him here, may as well keep going. Past the door of the little girl from the kitchen he peered out one of the windows of the hallway. Flicking the latch open he jumped agilely unto the ledge of the window, staff in hand. Stepping forward off the ledge he spread his arms wide and let himself fall forward, plunging toward the ground. No matter how many times he did it he never grew tired of the rush. He called the wind to him and it swept him up just as he would have crashed, sending him into a lazy upward spiral.

The walls of the palace gleamed in the silver blue moonlight.He flew along its length, peering into windows out of pure curiosity. Most of the rooms were empty or dark. In one, by the flickering candle light he could see a maid and a butler sharing a cup of tea, quietly enjoying each other's company in the night. He almost didn't notice the one with the open window.

Jack leaned back into the wind a little, just enough to slow his flight as he hovered in front of the large arching window frame. In front of him was a child. She was clothed in a heavier nightgown than the girl Jack presumed to be her sister, as if she expected it to be colder than it was. She was perched in the window seat staring out at the night and the moon. She looked to be about eight or nine years old. Her long, thick, platinum hair was pulled into a low hanging braid behind her head, pushed back with a headband. She was so still and quiet, as if she had been frozen in time. Jack couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a child her age look so serene. Bathed in moonlight, she was as still as the halls of the house, staring at the moon as if it were a riddle she was trying to solve.

Jack took advantage of the huge window frame and flew over her head into the room. He floated close to the ceiling and took in the large room. Pressed up against the wall was a large four poster canopy bed. Against the other wall was a desk, a small bookshelf and a piano. On the whole, it was the most strikingly bare room he'd ever seen belong to a child this age. It was like she'd been transplanted there from another world and brought nothing of herself with her.

He turned back toward her and found she still hadn't moved a muscle. Jack flew to her side and stood behind her. Leaning on his staff he tilted his head to try to match the angle of her gaze, determined to find what interested her so. There was only the moon. Her soft features pulled into a frown. Finally, the sweetest and most gentle voice he'd ever heard broke the silence as the girl whispered: "Please…if there's someone out there who can hear me…I can't do this." Her voice cracked and her huge, endless blue eyes began to well with tears. "Please take all this back. I can't protect Anna or my parents or myself…I can't…"

Jack watched her tighten her grip on the frame of the window, the knuckles of her small hands turning white. There was a resounding crackle, like breaking glass as ice and snow raced up the edges of the window frame. The temperature in the room suddenly plummeted and ice coated the floor under his feet. Every muscle in Jacks body froze in that moment, as solidly as the ice had frozen the window frame. He glared accusingly at his staff for a split second then looked back at the girl. She was still crying as she pulled the window closed. She pressed her tiny frame into the corner of the window seat and the window and drew her knees to her.

Jack moved to comfort her instinctively, placing a hand on her shaking shoulder that he knew she couldn't feel. "Oh god, I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened." He said. He had never been out of control of his power like that. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her. "Oh please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!"

The child was wiping at her eyes with small hands. She sniffled and pressed her forehead against the glass of the window. By this point the ice had spread up the glass part of the window. With one finger she reached up and started to draw through the ice, the heat of her hand melting where her finger traced. Jack sat on the window seat next to her and watched as she drew. She drew a short bodied stick figure with long hair standing alone in the middle of the glass, staring at it for a moment with still watery eyes. Jack knew with certainty that it was supposed to be her.

He reached for her hand but he passed through her like water. His youthful face looked crestfallen. In that moment he would have given anything to comfort this child. It happened occasionally that he would happen upon a grieving child and it always tore him apart inside. "Don't cry…" He whispered but of course she could not hear. He wondered what had made her so upset, what she had been asking the moon about. He wished so passionately to let her know she wasn't alone.

Almost without realizing it his arm shot out to the glass of the window as he drew himself next to her, a slightly taller stick person with a squiggle for hair. She didn't see it happen. Her chin was resting on her knees, staring straight through him.

"You know, I'm alone too…we have that in common…" Jack whispered.

Even though he knew she had not, the girl lifted her head when he spoke. She glanced briefly at the window. Her cerulean eyes widened in surprise and she leaned forward to stare at the drawing. With a quivering hand she reached up and touched his drawing. Her face was a mixture of a million different emotions, but primarily the strangest combination of relief and fear. "Is…someone here?" She asked, her small voice quivered a bit at the end but there was an underlying confidence in her speech, a subconscious side effect of her royal upbringing.

Jack leaned back against the opposite wall of the window seat and crossed his arms behind his head. He shook his silver hair out of his eyes. "Someone…something…Obviously when no one sees you there isn't really time to reach a consensus on what being an immortal makes you." He chuckled to himself.

The girl looked around the room furiously as if she expected him to pop out of a corner. As Jack followed the path of her eyes he noticed a thin layer of ice had started to coat some of the furniture in the room. His staff across his lap, dormant and innocent. He narrowed his eyes and made a mental note to mention this moment to the Man in the Moon if he ever deign to talk to him again.

"Whoever you are, come out where I can see you!" The child demanded, her lower lip jutting out slightly in an attempt to look stern.

"You have no idea…I would if I could…" Jack said, staring at the moon, daring the Man to provide an answer or assistance. Almost without meaning to he urged a gentle wind to stroke the child's cheek, an attempt to be reassuring.

The girl drew in a sharp breath. "Are you a ghost?"

"Maybe…." Jack sighed deeply. The natural instinct to respond when spoken to still had not left him despite his two centuries almost entirely without conversation.

"Can you just…can you give me some kind of a sign?" She asked. "Are you here to hurt me? What's going on?"

Jack thought for a moment. A sign. There was nothing he could do to directly tell her who he was. He had tried multiple times. Spelling his name in the snow or writing it on paper, there was no way to communicate who he was. It seemed to be another caveat, another downside to being a legend. In order to be seen he had to believed in. In order to be believed in, people needed to see him and know who he was. It was the kind of twisted situation that occurred in the world far too frequently. Still, there had to be something he could do to at least let the child know he wasn't planning to hurt her.

His eyes searched the room for an idea. Resting on the girls desk was the smallest statue of a horse. It would do. Determined, Jack reached over and began to draw in the iced over window. The girl watched as the shapes began to form, small mouth agape. In the brightness of the moon he noticed she had the lightest dusting of freckles he'd ever seen. Jack took a deep breath. It was time to try a new trick of his. He cupped his hands gently together under the drawing and concentrated hard. There was a gentle crackling of shifting ice as a solid, three dimensional, translucent horse peeled itself away from the ice and danced through the air of the bedroom. Instead of watching his magic Jack stared at the child who was rapt with wonder.

She let out a laugh that was two parts disbelief and one part delight. Rather impressed with himself Jack settled back down into the window seat. "Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all eternity!" Jack joked. It was a good thing he was sitting.

The child watched, the dark blue gleaming light of Jack's ice magic reflected in her eyes. As his horse gave a whinny and split into small flakes of snow she smiled, the first genuine smile he ever saw on her face. It was heart wrenchingly sweet and he sensed it was all too rare. Then her face fell back into one of worry and she took a deep breath before pushing herself off the window seat and striding toward the middle of the room. She glanced around, as if still waiting for him to reveal himself. "Stand back please…" She whispered.

Abruptly the child thrust her hands forward and began to spin them around each other. Then Jack watched her do something that shocked him more than anything else he had ever seen in his already lengthy life. She made snow. As she twisted her hands round each other she formed a snowball, glowing brightly with light blue light. Ice magic. Just like his.

She stretched her hands outward and the ball expanded with her movements. Then she lifted her hands above her and threw. Diamond flecks of snow coated the room as the ball exploded and rained down on his head. Jack reached out to touch some that had landed on his arm with trembling fingers. Real snow. Magic. Just like his. For a moment he couldn't breathe, he thought his heart would burst. "What are you? Are you like me? Can people see you?" Jack asked, questions rolling off his tongue like a snowball down a mountain. In that moment he put it together that the ice from earlier must have been this child as well. At least there was nothing wrong with his staff.

The girl was looking around the room, waiting for a reaction of some kind. He flew toward her and circled her, examining her for a sign that she might be like him. To his surprise he saw she left footprints in the snow.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

Jack's eyes widened, startled. "CAN YOU SEE ME!?"

The girl just stared straight through him, pivoting in place. "Did I hurt you?" Her voice cracked with the question.

"Of course not!" Jack half-yelped, startled by the question. There had to be some way to let her know he was okay. If only she could hear him…

He touched his staff to the wall. Thick cords of icy ivy crawled up the wall, threading through and around each other. An instant later they bloomed with ice flowers.

She started toward them in disbelief. "You're like me…" She whispered, her eyes alight with new hope. "Please, show yourself!"

"I can't!" Jack tried to tell her, his voice almost breaking. Abandoning all good sense he tried to prove to her that he was here. In 228 years this was the closest he had come to being seen. He summoned a great icy wind that whipped through the room, spiraling around the girl. She giggled even though it made her headband fly off.

Still, she looked like she was waiting for something. His eyes settled on the piano and he raced over to it. He sat down on the bench and took a deep breath. On a normal day he would have no trouble playing a piano. He actually quite enjoyed the instrument and had driven more than a handful of people away from homes they thought were haunted by playing in the night. As his long fingers hovered over the keys he took a deep breath, his heart racing. Best not to get his hopes up. His strange existence had a strange way of preventing him from revealing himself in ways like this. Things he normally could have touched, he passed through.

Finally he let his fingers touch the keys. He played for her the song the wind whispered to him when he flew. Its notes started soft and bitter sweet then gathered speed like a howl of joy. He played for a moment then looked around for her. She sat at his side on the piano bench, staring upwards, looking for all the worlds like she was meeting his eyes. His breath caught in his throat.

"You can't talk to me, can you?"

Jack leaned forward and played the two lowest notes on the keyboard, trying to hit the keys as softly as possible. He worried she would get in trouble if someone heard the piano this late at night.

"Can you let me see you?"

Low notes on the piano again.

She was silent for a moment, staring at the piano keys. "How did you get here? How did you find me?"

Jack paused for a moment. He didn't know how to answer that. Besides, it had kind of been an accident. But how could he-

"I'm sorry, that won't work. Too complex to answer…" The brows of her face furrowed and a smile tugged at her mouth. "Okay, well, we can do this! Let's see…if I keep it to yes or no questions can you play high and low notes to answer?"

Excitedly Jack played a few high notes. Human contact. Actual human contact. He was talking to someone. Someone knew he was here. It wasn't everything he had been hoping for. She didn't know who he was. She didn't believe in Jack Frost. But she believed in the presence in her room and for now that was enough for him.

"Okay well, let's see. Are you here to hurt me?" She asked quietly.

Jacks arms shot out to play a low note almost before she finished the question.

"So you're a nice ghost?"

Jack paused at this question. He wasn't a ghost but he didn't think now was the time to be splitting hairs. But still, it didn't really suit him to let her think he was dead or that her room was haunted. He played a few notes in the middle of the keyboard.

She bit her lower lip. "So…yes and no?" She paused for a moment. "Okay wait, are you a ghost?"

Low notes.

"No. Okay. But you are nice?"

High notes. Jack could barely keep himself from taking flight; he was so excited to be having an actual conversation.

"Good. My name is Elsa."

Jack thought this was a beautiful name. It suited her now but he could almost glimpse the woman she would become. Poised and powerful. She was going to grow into her name in a big way.

"Can you tell me your name if I guess?"

High notes again. However Jack privately felt this was not going to get them anywhere.

"Does it start with an A?"

Low notes.

"B?"

Low notes.

They continued this way until they reached 'J', where Jack happily played a handful of high notes.

"Hmm…okay a 'J' name…" Elsa muttered to herself. "John, Jacob, Jeb, James, Jeff, Jamie, Jason, Jack, Jare-"

Jack interrupted her by furiously playing high notes when she said his name. He could believe it. He let out a whoop of joy and did a backflip off the piano bench. Someone had said his name. After all these years, someone finally knew his name.

"Jack?" Elsa asked.

More high notes to confirm.

"Okay, nice to meet you Jack."