FROSTED Dust – An R.O.T.G. FanFic by BKL8008 - Page 15 of 15

"The end is only the beginning of the best friendships."

Frosted Dust

Act I

The End

Somewhere far away in the chilly and misty morning, a train whistle was blowing.

Glancing lazily at a years-outdated calendar as he passed by it, and knowing all too well the reason why he had looked at it, the gaunt young man moved on through the rambling old house with no real destination in mind.

At least, with no conscious destination in mind.

He didn't linger in the parlor, where once there had been singing and life. Frosted dust covered the grand piano, its keys icing over with a soft crackle as he passed. But the dancers had all long since gone away.

Passing through the darkened dining room, where all the tattered curtains were drawn over windows etched in odd, frosted designs of ice, he dragged his pale and cool fingers across the surface of the ornately carved table that could easily serve a feast for forty or fifty. Designs of frost, at one time resembling flowers and leaves, spread over the table, covering it, as it already did the windows. Now, however, the patterns resembled something that might have come from a nightmare. Something rustled in the curtains, but he paid no mind to the slight sound. Years ago, perhaps, he might have thought that it was someone finally seeing him and taken action.

But not today.

Not on this day.

Just enough gray, morning light leaked through the remnants of the curtains to give the room an almost ethereal glow. But the curtains were ever drawn, never allowing much light to enter. Neither sunlight, nor moonlight. Especially not moonlight. Not that he would have lit a candle anyway; he knew the room, as he knew the rest of the house, so very well that he could navigate its corridors in the dark. No, the light was too painful, he knew, as the tip of his staff tapped along the floor, leaving little heaps of snow in its wake.

Indeed, in years past, that frosty table had served many a feast when it had shone with all the radiance of new and polished, fine and expensive wood. Absently knocking a tarnished silver fork off onto the floor, the man sighed and continued on without stopping to pick it up. He didn't even notice the subtle shimmering sound as the silver utensil frosted over. There was no reason to retrieve it. The last meal served on the table had long ago frozen solid, forgotten, with not even a mouse to come and carry it off. Not that it would have wanted, or even been able, to.

"The table is set, but the glasses all dry," he mumbled, suddenly recalling all of the happy times, surely from another lifetime – that he knew – when he'd sat there himself, straining to see up over the edge. But no, that table has been much smaller. He'd even tried sitting on a section of a cut log to be able to reach the wonderful smelling (if not meager servings of) foods and treats that he knew he would find there. Laughter had once filled the room at the sight of cream smeared all over his nose; he hadn't known it was there. And why were they laughing at him? He'd just sat there, perplexed to be the subject of such looks, a spoon in each hand, and had later burned in embarrassment when he'd had his little round face wiped with a scrap of rough cloth.

But then he'd laughed.

And so had she.

How long ago, he wondered, had that little boy and girl sat at that smaller table? How long had it been, since that other boy had sat at this very table, the very first house guest to the new 'secret hideout'?

"Secret," he scoffed, knowing full well that anyone who believed could see it. It wasn't that far from downtown-proper, after all. Just outside the suburbs, in fact, where the forests began before ascending into the mountains.

Pausing to look back, and surprising himself in doing so, he thought that the frosted, dry and dead centerpiece of cut flowers should have been taken to that one special guest's mother so long ago. He'd tell her where he'd been, of course. Not that anyone would believe it. He'd insisted. But his mother had only laughed at his imagination, but then scolded him. "I don't want you playing with the other kids in that falling down, old wreck of a house! Why the town council doesn't tear it down..."

"But Mom," he'd protest, "It's not! And it's an historical landmark!"

They'd forgotten the flowers.

Once upon a time, there had been cherries, hot fudge, and moist chocolate cake with ice cream on a small china plate that now only held frosted dust. He wondered if it might be stuck fast to the table.

Lingering, the man paused to place his hands on the back of the high-backed leather chair at the head of the table. Like all the rest, it was pushed in. His fingers left elongated handprints in the frost, as if someone had reached out and found that chair, clinging to it for dear life, before losing his grip and falling away into some dark and unknowable, frozen abyss.

No guest was coming to the feast of frost that was being served cold today.

"But…?" He whispered, looking down the length of the table to see one place set that was hosting clean serving ware, a clean crystal goblet free of frost, and the smaller chair pulled out to reveal a very thick book that was also free of frosty dust.

He inhaled sharply, once, through his nose. A gasp, really – as if he'd been holding his breath without knowing it.

A cloud of icy mist filled the room as he exhaled, shoulders slumping.

He turned away once more, leaving behind the cracked plate, moldering napkin, and goblet that held nothing. Frost blossoms spread up the stem and covered it, winter beauty in shades of gray. The blossoms then twisted, their beauty perverted, writhing up the stemware as if in pain.

Then the goblet burst.

Moving past the fireplace, where upon the mantle sat assorted frosty old odds and ends – relics of a bygone time – he kicked a stray piece of firewood aside with another sigh.

There had been no fire lit in that fireplace for a long time, and the ashes of the last one to burn there still lay in the grate, as if waiting for someone to come and sweep them up. Perhaps they waited, to be given purpose in fertilizing a flower garden where now nothing grew; only weeds that sprang up and died quickly in the dry and frozen, unforgiving earth.

But the fireplace remained cold. No, there was no need of a fire. Surely he didn't need it, and surely no guests were coming who would. No, they never came anymore. It was far too cold. Not even his old enemy, who thrived in the cold and dark, could bear it.

The man passed by the fireplace with only a quick glance at his watch.

As he moved up the long marble staircase, his hand leaving a frozen trail of icicles in the frosted dust that lingered on the banister, each step bringing him closer and closer to his unrealized destination, his bare feet began to grow heavy.

Once athletic and trained, eternally young and vital, a terror to any physical challenger, the past few years had worn away that health and vitality at an astonishing rate. Yet still he climbed, his legs protesting. There wasn't even the faintest breeze to help him along, to lift him up. With a wry and faint grin, he wondered if he himself might not already be covered in frosted dust, as was the rest of the silent, crumbling old manor that only he now haunted.

Looking back down when he'd reached the top step, he saw only one set of footprints in a size that seemed far too large. There should have been another, much smaller set to accompany his. He listened to the frosty, dusty silence.

All along the hallway, down which he now shuffled with no spring to his weary step, only empty picture frames or ripped canvases greeted him. He'd once wished that he had a camera, but even the best Kodak prints that he'd once treasured faded in the cold. Small puffs of frosted dust sprang up in tiny clouds from the fraying carpet, only to settle back, unnoticed.

He glanced once more at his watch, then realized that it wasn't running.

"When did it stop?" He thought, realizing that not only did he not know, he did not care.

It was a silly affectation, he knew. He had no need of a timepiece. He wasn't even sure why he still wore it. Because it had been hisJust as he had no need of a calendar. After all, what was time to him? Or even Time Himself?

I am the frost on the bottom half of the hourglass, he thought.

He knew what day and time it was.

He always did.

It was that day.

And it was time to go.

Before him stood a door.

A closed door.

Without looking, as his hand knew the way so very well, he reached down to grasp the polished and shining silver handle, the shape of which reminded him of a shepherd boy's staff. He wondered how long that staff would wait, patiently, as shepherd boys must be, to rescue the lamb that would never come?

The door squealed in protest on cold hinges as he gently eased it open, yet no frosted dust fell from its casing.

Not this door - the only door in the whole house that he even opened these days.

He squinted in the sudden light, dull as it was that misty morning, and more heard than saw that it had begun to snow. Large flakes hit against the dingy glass panes with a "SPLAT!" sound that he promptly tuned out.

It was always snowing, or so he thought. It felt like winter.

He liked that.

He shivered as he came on into the room proper, seeing that the left pane of the split window was open. Yet the curtains were open in this, the only room in the empty house, where light was allowed to come: sunlight, moonlight, starlight. Yes, even moonlight. But if They ever spoke to him, he ignored Them. It had been too long since They'd conversed.

Outside the window, the upper branches of a naked tree (he forgot the species) waved in the gray morning light and snow, reaching up, he thought, like hands raised in supplication to some unknown and uncaring god that would never so much as give them a first glance. Indeed, they had been reaching up for so long, ever reaching further and further, that he recalled a time when they hadn't been there. Yet still they reached, pleading for an answer that would, likely, never come.

He recalled a time when they had been green. When other things had been green and growing. Growing, full of the hope and promise of new beginnings. New life.

"It feels like winter," he whispered, as he promptly stumbled over a rusty sled, just as he did each time he came in. He dropped his staff.

With trembling hands, whether from the cold or something else that he couldn't feel, he gently and lovingly returned it to its place near the door where it always waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

But that was all it did.

It waited.

It never zoomed down hills, or out into streets, or went on any more of those wild rides.

No one did; not anymore.

After all, the frosted dust was constant.

The snow remained unbroken.

Just as the room remained.

Just as he'd left it.

Alone in a home that now seemed more like a mausoleum, he thought, as he gazed out at the frozen pond near the edge of the dead, leafless forest where Spring never came. Once upon a time, he'd counted himself lucky that he'd found the old abandoned house that someone had built here long ago. The rambling house, which sat atop the unknown ruin of a forgotten and long since collapsed hovel of a centuries-dead shepherd family.

Lying on the unmade bed were a forgotten T-shirt and hoodie, and a blue insulted vest with a red stripe, the only bright spot in the lonely room. A few toys, models, things that could only be long-forgotten treasures to some other personality, lay scattered about the floor. Odds and ends lined the shelves, along with various awards that now – although covered in frost and dust – had once been displayed with pride and glowing words of praise to anyone who would listen.

Before the dancers had all gone away, they had listened.

But no longer. Salvaged from a charity donations bin were the worn plush bunny, the sled, a used art box and partial ream of paper, a toy robot, a baseball bat, a hockey stick, and a few books. One of them bore the title: They're Out There—Mysteries, Mythical Creatures, and the Unexplained Phenomena. Relics they were, with tales to tell – and no one to listen to them. The latter was even autographed.

SPLAT – SMACK – SPLAT!

Somewhere, a train whistle blew.

The man jerked his pale, gaunt face towards the window, still absently fondling the vest in his trembling hands. "What an awful, clashing color," he muttered, neatly folding it and placing it back on the bed. He wondered if he'd only imagined the whistle, as he made to yank on the stars-and-planets printed comforter and make the bed. He found a satin hockey jersey, this one blue. On the back was a name and a number on the front, emblazoned with a large snowflake graphic. The boys named the team, he remembered, having never missed a single game – or a single knocked-out tooth. Yes, it was an occupational hazard, despite the protective gear. His friend had so dearly loved the sport, too. She never missed a game, either. Or the night after a game. No, not the night!

But instead, he simply sat down on the bed and reached for the lonely and tattered, dirty old stuffed bunny.

"You don't have to do much. Just a little sign, so I know," he told the toy, placing it back on the pillow where he'd found it. "Not today. Perhaps tomorrow, then?"

The bunny stared back at him with dusty, uncaring, black-button eyes.

Once upon a time, the plush toy had been loved. The bald spots of his cold plush bore silent testimony, but the man did not listen. One of the toy's loose ears needed sewing back on.

The man's colorless eyes were roaming over the dusty old dresser, its drawers all pulled halfway out with socks, pants, shirts, shorts, trousers, and icicles hanging from their edges like executed criminals. Once upon a time, those eyes had sparkled with azure mischief, but as they fell upon the blue and green plaid pyjama trousers and gray top with green sleeves, a crystal tear fell to the floor. It lay there like a diamond, unnoticed amongst all the others.

A little pair of frosty size six ice skates sat off to one side of the dresser.

"I think they were getting too small," the man sighed again, picking up one of the little skates and cradling it to his chest, stroking away the dust, which was replaced with frost. "Should donate them, yes, some poor child would love you, no?" He asked the skate, running his free hand through his disheveled, white hair.

But the skate only said as much as the plush bunny had.

"Perhaps," he started to say, but stopped as his eyes once again fell upon the sled.

He glanced from the sled to the what-not shelf and back to the bed.

He stood up, thinking to put away the clothes in the closet, the skates and boots with their others, to hang up the wrinkled and mildewed outerwear before they could wrinkle even worse. Like the sled, they had deserved so much more than to be left – dumped – in some cold, impersonal donations bin in the middle of the night.

The nose of the sled was dented. A runner was bent.

Mouth agape, he stared as a small rivet finally gave way and a cracked board fell from the small, rusted frame.

"Jamie," Jack Frost then whimpered, clutching the mildewing pyjama top to his chest, as a great dry sob escaped him and echoed throughout the deserted corridors of Frost Manor.

"JAMIE!" The agonized scream then followed it.

It echoed through the hall and down the stairs, through the deserted dining room and out into the empty parlor where it crossed the spacious sitting room. It echoed all around the receiving room and out through the library, and then finally, into the foyer and out the unlocked front door, which banged pointlessly on its cold, squeaking hinges, then out into the snowy morning of the worst day of the year.

Overheard, dark clouds gathered and swirled. The wind howled high above, threatening to unleash a blizzard the likes of which the world had never seen before, and certainly would never see again, should it finally break. Certainly, it would bring about the next Ice Age, should it be unleashed.

But the storm never broke. He wouldn't let it. He couldn't let it. To do so would bring too much pain, too many memories.

Somewhere in the distance, a train whistle sounded again.

But there were no birds in the naked trees to take flight in startled panic at the sudden, anguished sound that echoed up into the hills and died.

And if there was anyone at all to hear it, anyone to care, they made no sign of that. Not even the old Crone, Melancholia (or as some knew her, Malaise, Depression, Despair) ignored it. Even she, his only companion for so long, had finally grown weary of his company and left him.

The frosty dust did not move.

"Must get ready," Jack coughed, as he gathered up things to pack. He stopped only to hack violently as he choked on the frosted dust which he stirred up, rummaging about in the dresser for socks, pants, shirts, anything that he remembered might be needed for the trip home. "Long underwear, must have that, it's cold out. It's always cold out."

Perhaps there, at Frost Manor, it was. The rest of the world, though, was enjoying yet another unseasonably mild winter.

"Silly boy, always running late… head full of Dream-Sand, maybe?" Jack shook his own head, as he stuffed the outgrown pyjamas into a rucksack.

It was the height of hockey season, after all, and Caleb and Claude would be waiting.

Monty could be late. He could warm the bench, manage equipment, keep stats. Yes, Monty could be late.

But not Jamie.

Never Jamie.

"Going away…" Jack wondered, "Time to go!"

"Jack?" A shy, timid voice then called from the doorway.

"How many times, Jamie?" Jack shook his head, a smile finally crossing his pale, sunken face, "How many times must I tell you that we finish packing the night before, so that we can make our appearance at the skating rink, and that your mother won't..." He then paused, stiffening, putting the rucksack back down where he'd found it.

"Jack? Mr Frost?" That voice asked again, and Jack turned towards the voice in delighted surprise.

There was a young boy standing in the doorway!

Jack blinked, his shoulders slumping in relief, as if some great weight had just fallen from them.

Before him stood a small boy, short and skinny, with brown hair and brown eyes. In fact, he was the spitting image of Jack Frost, Jack remembered, thanks to his restored memories. He was dressed in an indigo hoodie and khaki cargo shorts that came down past his knees. His shiny black leather trainers with bright yellow laces shone (mostly), even in the dull light, and Jack saw the he must have gone outside for some foolish reason that only a young boy could come up with. His hair was wet with snowflakes; his shoes were also spotted with raindrops, even a bit of mud on the soles!

"Mud? Oh tell me you didn't track up the floors again?" Jack asked, a sudden and unfamiliar warmth filling him as he began rifling through the frosty, dusty clutter on top of the cedar wood dresser.

"Jack," the boy tried to interrupt again, but this time with a hitch in his voice as he sniffled once. Jack absently tossed him an embroidered silk handkerchief with a blue "J" shining through the frost that flew from it.

The boy caught it.

And used it.

"Jack, you mustn't…" the boy began, but was interrupted as Jack turned, a triumphant smile on his face.

"Mustn't forget your stick! And your sled! Best way to travel, other than flying!" Jack declared proudly, beaming in pride as he held it up.

A bit of rust fell from the sled's bent nose.

"You remember everything I've taught you? The bank shots? The axle jumps? Skates, where are the skates?!" He gasped.

"JACK?" The boy spoke up louder, the silk handkerchief covering most of his face as he wiped at it and sniffled. "PLEASE! You mustn't do this!"

The unexpected smile faded from Jack's face just as quickly as it had come, as the boy came closer, stepping into the light properly.

They warned me! Yes, they warned me, but I never imagined it would be this bad! The boy thought, Why don't I ever remember? Why doesn't Dad tell me this stuff? I should have listened to Mannie!

Jack looked from the boy's equally pained face to the sled, back to the silently crying boy, and then back at the rusty, cracked sled – ruined – in his trembling hand.

The nose bent, the runner rusted and broken.

A board was missing.
The sled was dead.

Once again, he looked at the boy.

"Jamie," he breathed, shaking his head as he sat down hard on the bed.

The sled fell to the floor, a puff of frosted dust a mute testimony to its lost potential.

The boy took another step forward, into the bedroom proper.

After all, he knew the room. He'd known the way to the room through the maze-like, empty corridors of Frost Manor. He needed no guide. Somehow, he never had, he realized, as it was all coming back to him now. He'd been coming here for years, always on this day. No other Immortal ever came; not anymore.

"Jamie?" Jack implored, holding out his empty arms in desperation.

"No, sir," the boy whispered softly, and Jack looked closer at his sincere face.

This boy did not have the brown, thick hair or well-defined face; one could see his cheekbones. This boy's face wasn't as full, less round, and less colored than he recalled. His messy, damp hair was also a deep, dark brown that was almost black and tinged ever so faintly with auburn highlights if the light hit it just so. His hoodie was the wrong color, too. Too purple. And those long shorts? What fashion statement was that? And across the bridge of his nose, and just a very slight scattering of them that made him so adorable, were…were…

"Freckles?" Jack wondered.

But it was not the freckles that broke Jack Frost out of his reverie.

It was the glasses.

Fashionable, small rectangular frames rode the middle of the bridge of the boy's lightly freckled nose, but just high enough so that his messy dark hair just brushed the glasses if he didn't keep it pushed away.

The glasses brought it all crashing down around Jack again as he stared into those teary eyes that should have been so beautifully brown – like Jack's own had once been – but instead were a shifting mix of gold and green and hazel. And no, the frames weren't red.

Jack broke eye contact with the boy and instead stared down at the intruder's shoes.

Any other time, so long ago (he thought) the Magic that shielded Frost Manor would have gone off, if even a child had dared intrude into the grounds. After all, North had his Workshop and Yetis. Bunny had his Warren and egg statues. Tooth had her Palace and Faeries, etc., etc. Even Pitch Black had his own Lair and Nightmares.

But then Jack remembered.

No, no magical Guardian or Spirit World defenses. Not for this boy.

Not for everyone's much-anticipated.

Not for the boy that everyone loved and celebrated each year.

"Baby New Year," Jack whimpered, turning his head to stare at the ruined sled once again as it all came crashing back to him then.

New Year said nothing at all.

But he did take another unsteady step forward. "Closing out January already," he offered, "Not a baby anymore. Looks like a nearsighted year, and puberty's just around the corner," he sighed, "I'll be old enough to drink by the time the Leprechaun goes to work! Won't be long, and I'll recycle again, start the whole mess over for Dad, I mean, old Father Time."

He regretted his words as soon as he'd said them.

"Shouldn't you be harassing the Groundhog?" Jack managed, wrapping himself in a veneer of cold aloofness and rigid uncaring that was intended to tell the boy that he was neither welcome nor appreciated there. New Year might have been universally loved, but to Jack, he was nothing more than an annual reminder of what Jack had lost.

The only problem was, was that the act didn't work.

It never had.

They confronted one another, young New Year and Jack Frost, across the empty bedroom with only the ice-diamond tears between them.

It had been the glasses that had brought something (something precious) back to Jack Frost - That one fateful day in Burgess, about five years ago, when Jack had met the boy who would become to the first to see him in over three hundred years.

The Last Light.

"Jack?" New Year asked again, offering his hand, which Jack did not accept. "I didn't know him, remember? I'm just a month old!"

Jack Frost only shook his head, then covered his face with his hands. For the longest time, he said nothing at all.

"He was the Last Light, Newbie. That's what we called him, you see, after the battle with Pitch Black," Jack explained, "His name was Jamie Bennett, and he literally saved the world - saved Childhood Itself," Jack choked, as if the words were physically hurting him, "He believed in me! And … and he … loved me."

New Year nodded. "Bunnymund told me some of it."

Jack nodded as well, staring at a small, oblong box on the dresser with a picture of a little boy on the end of it. He honestly didn't know whose teeth it contained, and, he realized, he didn't care.

He already had enough painful memories to last for all Eternity.

"He s-saved us, Newbie," Jack finally managed, his shoulders trembling, "Like I said, he was the Last Light. He resurrected the Sandman. He even turned Pitch's black Nightmare Sand back on him."

Jack paused again, two more crystal tears falling to the floor.

"And he deserved so much more!"