GUSTS.
Disclaimer: None of the characters portrayed herein belong to me. I am using Dreamworks' version of Jack Frost and Bunnymund. No copyright infringement is intended.
They are not friends.
If he's brutally honest with himself - something Jack tries hard to avoid, for all that cold Winter teaches a harshly chilled logic - he doubts they ever will be.
Had he been friends with them, he would never have weakened to the siren call of the voice from his memories, never have invaded Pitch's lair, nor delayed in rescuing the tooth fairies from their latern-like cages.
Had they been friends with him, they would not have dropped him from their company for doing so, for making that single - though devastating - mistake.
Had they been friends with him, they might have made time for more than the barest of interactions with him over his three hundred year life, might have noticed earlier that his memories were painfully incomplete, might have offered to restore them using his teeth.
Might even have cared in the slightest.
Oh, they were busy, though, throughout all those centuries. They - and he - can argue that, without doubt. Spending the entire year preparing for single festival days, in the case of North and Bunnymund, working steadfastly throughout every day's night, for Toothiana and Sandy. Being a Guardian to children the world over, in the case of all four.
But Jack? He was a boy before he was a sprite, and a sprite before ever even thinking of taking up guardianship. Yet somehow that never quite counted as being a child, as being deserving of their attention or protection. Somehow that never quite made them care.
But the North Wind has always cared, and Jack wouldn't swap that for anything.
The North Wind whispers and croons to him, cherishes him, laughs and plays with him and, when he's tired, carries him home.
The North Wind was there when he was birthed from the ice, and has been his constant companion throughout a long, solitary life. While the Man in the Moon was the first thing he saw, the North Wind was the first thing he could touch, and that has always been ever so much more important to Jack.
Bunnymund had teased Jack, had pointed out that no one would be able to see him - let alone touch him - who could not even believe in him. But Jack had lived like that unchanging for three hundred years. Bunny had started involuting after mere minutes when faced with the same situation. Jack's pretty sure Bunny hasn't forgiven him for that durability, for all he's grateful for the last minute rescue of his only remaining believer.
Truth to tell, Jack knows it's not entirely his own fortitude that explains it, for all that he'd not known how it felt to be believed in for most of his centuries-long life. Humans might not have accepted the existence of Jack Frost for the vast majority of his life, but the North Wind?
The North Wind has faith in him, and always has, and that is so much more than fickle belief.
END.
Notes: It seemed a little strange to me when I was watching the movie that all of the others would know Jack well enough to consider him a nuisance, but not well enough to realise his memories were missing until after the attack on Toothiana's palace. Also, Bunnymund turned small and cute within minutes of his belief network falling, but the whole point of the movie is that Jack has lived that way for quite literally centuries, implying to me at least that Jack has a different support structure in place. Good on him.
This is my first time writing in Guardian-verse. Comments and constructive criticism greatly welcomed - let me know what you think!
