A/N: Once again, written for a prompt on tumblr. Someone wanted a Names/Heartsong fic. I was a little nervous because there are a few good ones already out there, but I did my best! I hope you enjoy.
On the morning of Jack Overland's fifteenth birthday, he woke up with a wrist that stung. The moment he was lucid enough to realize what was happening, he tore off his covers and scrabbled with his sleeve, yanking it down so he could eagerly watch the words slowly appearing on his left wrist, unfurling slowly like the first new shoots of spring.
It was late, he knew, for his Name to come. Names started to show up around the start of puberty, as best they could figure, and Jack's voice was all the evidence needed to know that he was well on his way through that particular trial. Jack's parents had told him over and over that he was normal, perfectly normal, and some people's Names came later than others'. He knew the truth, though. He knew why, when all of his friends in the neighborhood were waking up marked and beloved, his wrist had remained frustratingly bare.
It was the music.
He had been very young the first time he'd heard it. It was his first real clear memory, in fact. He was nothing but rosy cheeks and pudgy limbs those days, and he'd been toddling around his mother's kitchen one fine spring day when he'd heard faint strains of music filtering in through an open window. He'd scrambled to see what was making the noise, even going so far as to climb the shelves that his father had built with expert hand so as to get a better look. Even the best built shelves could grow old, however, and instead of finding the source of the quiet, ethereal music, he'd ended up with a broken arm.
When his mother had come running, he'd asked her through sobbing breaths what the music was. She told him many years later how much that had scared her; she'd come running when she'd heard a crash and his cries, but there was never any music. Just a quiet, breezy spring day. All the breeze had carried in through the open window was the soft scent of fresh blooms. She shook her head then, and muttered something about something unearthly trying to lure her son away.
If that was true, though, Jack wasn't entirely sure they hadn't succeeded, because since that day, the music had never left him. Even though he'd gone to see every musician he'd had the opportunity to hear, he'd never yet heard any instrument that sounded like the quiet, thrumming music that was always in the back of his mind. Some days it was gentle enough to ignore, but other days it was so loud, so forceful that he could scarcely concentrate on anything else. It was louder in spring than any other season, he'd come to find, and he'd developed a real aversion for the period as a result. The only time of year when his head felt fully clear was in the winter. It was the only time he felt free.
Free from what, he wasn't sure. He'd heard of folks going mad, hearing voices that weren't there, but he didn't feel mad. Then again, he supposed, if he were truly mad, maybe he wouldn't know it. Just to be on the safe side, he never spoke about it to anyone for fear of what they might think. Might do.
He was sure that the music was what had prevented his Name from coming. Whether it really was some unnatural magic that had sunk its claws into his heart or some madness that manifested itself only in music so sweet that it brought tears to his eyes, he wasn't really a proper mate for anyone, much less a Namemate. It only made sense that his Name wouldn't come.
But all that was changing today. It was late, but his mother always said that it was better late than never. He put his face so close to his wrist that his nose was almost touching it, trying to make sense of the lines curling their way around his wrist. Most names were relatively small, but this was sprawling out around his wrist, looping around to the back and almost extending up to his palm. Even after it had apparently finished, he couldn't help but squint at it. It seemed to shift slightly when he looked at it, like some living thing, but whenever he looked at it closely, it was right back to where it had been. More importantly, there weren't any words that he could see. Just a roiling thicket of swooping lines, and curls that reminded him almost of flowers. He stared at it, willing it to make sense, to be normal.
In the back of his mind, in the ears-not-ears that he wished he could cover up with his hands, the music sang out like never before, ethereally beautiful and triumphant. Even the leaden feeling in his stomach that he was beginning to identify through his shock and confusion as horror couldn't deaden its raucous joy.
Swallowing hard, Jack brought his wrist up against his chest, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep.
"So you were a human before you were chosen?" Tooth asked him.
"Um, yeah," Jack said, taking a sip of the chai, spicy and fragrant, she had invited him over to have. He flashed her a grin. "Why, do I look like some kind of alien or something?"
"Well, no..." she said, and stirred her tea absently. "It's just the coloring, you know. I've never seen a human that looks quite like you."
Jack shrugged. "I looked a little different while I was still alive. Brown hair, brown eyes. The white came later, after..." he trailed off, not entirely sure how to finish that sentence.
"Some of the white," Tooth corrected, pointing her spoon at him. "Your teeth have always been absolutely beautiful."
"Thanks?"
"So," Tooth said, leaning forward, immediately taking a conspiratorial air that did not comfort him one little bit. "If you're a human..."
"Yeees?" he asked, drawing the word out warily.
Tooth smiled at him, coquette to the core. "Do you have a Name?"
"No." The word surprised him, coming out before he'd even had a moment to think about it.
"No?" she asked, taken aback, likely by the bitterness in his tone.
"No," he repeated. "I didn't even have one before I-before I was chosen." He found himself reaching down to fiddle with the thin layer of rime that dusted his left wrist. It had been harder to cover the marks when he had been alive. Dust didn't do the job, and even when he fell off an apple tree and scarred up his wrist when he was sixteen, the marks had just reformed themselves above the scars, just as ornate and oddly organic as ever. In the end, he'd taken to wearing long sleeves wherever he went. The first thing he'd done while trying to get the hang of his ice powers was experiment with different ways to cover his wrist. The rime he had developed for the job now was almost unnoticeable. Perfect.
The expression on Tooth's face now had the concern and pity that he was accustomed to when revealing this news, but thankfully the disgust ubiquitous on most human faces when they found out was absent. "But that means..."
He shrugged. "I guess there just wasn't anybody ready for me," he said, and his grin had an edge to it that just dared her to call him on it.
Thankfully, she didn't. "I-of course, Jack. We can barely handle you all the time now!" she said, her tone gentle enough to let him know she was joking.
Jack just took another long sip of his tea. He did not mention the music. He could still hear it now, louder than ever, an insistent refrain always, always tickling in the back of his mind. He supposed his mother was right. If it was so much louder now, then it was likely because he'd joined the spirits-so the source of the music probably was just as unearthly as she'd feared. But then again, he thought, lips curling up in a sardonic smile, so was he.
Tooth shifted uncomfortably in her seat as the silence lengthened. "So... Have you been to visit the others recently? I know that North's been making noise about inviting you to the Pole for 'quality Guardian bonding time'," she said. Bless her and her ability to know when to change the subject.
Jack laughed. "Yeah, he invited me up to his workshop last week. The yetis were trying out some new kind of gift box, but the elves kept stacking them up so they could go sledding..." He grinned at the memory. "And Sandy says hi whenever we run into each other, which is most nights nowadays."
Tooth smiled too, something like relief ghosting across her features before it settled back into her grin. "And Bunny?"
Jack made a face. "Haven't seen Cottontail in ages. He doesn't exactly strike me as the tea party type," he said.
Tooth sighed. "Bunny's always been the solitary type. We all were, up until recently." She tilted her head slightly as she fiddled with the rim of her teacup, eyes cast downward as if her cup of chai held the answers to all her concerns. "I know the rest of us have been trying really hard to get together more often now, but I think it's still hard for him. He's just been alone for so long..."
That unsettled something deep inside Jack's stomach. Then again, maybe it was just that damn song of his reaching a fever pitch. He just barely refrained from putting his hand up to his temple to massage it. He didn't exactly want Tooth asking questions about his headache. "Well," he said, plastering a sideways grin onto his face to cover up any lingering twinges, "Be that as it may, I think I'm the last one Bunny wants bouncing around in his warren right now."
Tooth just gave him an even look. "You'd be surprised. I don't think he hates you nearly as much as you think he does, just like I don't think you hate him nearly as much as he thinks you do. He's all bluster," she said.
"Hate him? I've never hated Bunny," Jack protested. "He just makes the best faces when I tease him."
"I know, Jack," she said soothingly. "We all know that now. Well... Maybe except Bunny."
Jack sat back in his chair and glared into his teacup, decidedly not pouting. "Bunny doesn't really think that I hate him, does he?"
"I don't think he knows what to think of you, honestly," Tooth answered.
Jack scowled. "Maybe I will pay him a visit, then, sometime. Give him something new to think about," he said.
Tooth gave him a thin smile. "I'm going to assume that was meant to be less threatening than it sounded."
Even though deciding to drop in on Bunny had been easy enough when Jack was feeling pouty and, if he was being honest with himself, a little hurt, it was a lot more difficult to bring himself to actually track down the overgrown rabbit. Sure, he might have played a few tricks on Bunny (well-a few dozen), but that didn't mean he hated him! Bunny was just easy to get a rise out of, and it always sent a thrill down Jack's spine that seemed to have a direct line to his funny bone.
It wasn't until one day a few weeks later when the silent music was echoing even louder than usual and he felt like he was going to go crazy if he couldn't get out of his own head that he finally made up his mind to go bother Bunny. If awkward and likely disastrous conversation with someone who didn't particularly like him didn't distract him, he wasn't sure what would. And honestly, anything was better than being trapped for one more minute with nothing but that song for company.
He called up some wind to get him going, then flew to the secret entrance to Bunny's warren, the one he'd shown him that ill-fated Easter not so long ago. Jack didn't let himself pause long enough to knock-he knew there was a good chance that he'd stop and head back if given half a chance. Instead, he just breezed in, noting with some satisfaction the way that his entrance ruffled the trees.
His satisfaction was short-lived, however. In fact, it lasted just long enough for the boomerang to barely miss him and embed itself in a tree not too far from his head. "Jeez, Bunny!" he snapped, whirling around. "What gives?"
Bunny stopped in his tracks, a brief look of confusion on his face before it was replaced with anger. "Jack? What the bloody hell are you doing in here? You gave me a right scare, you did!" he growled.
Jack put his hands on his hips and let his staff hang next to him. "Me? I'm not the one throwing things at people just because they come by for a visit!"
"A vi-? What are you on about, Frost?" Bunny asked, his umbrage dissolving once again into confusion.
"A visit! You know, that thing that friends do?" Jack asked. Belatedly, he realized what he'd said. But rather than shying away, he instead doubled down, crossing his arms and glaring at Bunny.
Bunny's expression quickly shifted from confused to suspicious. "Friends, eh? Since when have you been anything but a thorn in my side?" he asked.
"Oh, I dunno," Jack said, lifting up in the air again so he could drift lazily around Bunny, "Maybe around the time when we saved the world together? Seems to have a way of bringing people together."
The fur on Bunny's body did an odd kind of ripple, as if he weren't quite sure whether he wanted to tense up or relax. "True enough," he finally grumbled, like the admission had been physically drawn from his body.
Jack felt a frown tugging at the side of his mouth. "Look, if you really want me to leave, I'll leave. It's just that the rest of us have all been hanging out a lot, and I thought..." He trailed off. "Well, it doesn't matter what I thought."
Bunny settled back into a position that Jack was starting to recognize as defensive. His eyes were certainly still wary enough. "No. What did you think, Jack?"
And just like that, Jack felt the fight go out of him. He wasn't sure what it was. Maybe it was the way that he recognized that wariness. Maybe it was just that he knew that he'd put it there. "Just... I don't know. Tooth thinks you're alone too much. She thinks I am, too, probably. I don't think it's normal for a person to have that many tea parties, so I'm guessing she does it for my benefit. And she always asks to make sure I'm visiting the others, too. And I mean..." He broke off, rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly. "I think she's probably right about me. So maybe she's right about you, too."
Something flashed in Bunny's eyes, something Jack didn't like. "And what would you know about being alone, stickybeak?"
Jack instantly bristled. "What would I know? Seriously? I spent the past three hundred years alone! No one could see me, and the people who could see me, people like you, didn't want anything to do with me! You may be sitting around in here moping while your friends want to help you, but some of us had no choice!" he snapped, and it wasn't until Bunny gave a mildly alarmed look to his staff that Jack realized it was coated in ice. "I don't know what your problem is, Bunny! It's like you don't even want friends!"
And all the sudden, Bunny looked nothing but tired. "The thing about friends, Jack, is that they never stick around," he said, and it was at that moment that Jack realized he'd made a mistake. That flash of something-what he thought had been anger had really been nothing but pain. "Do you know how old I am, Jack?"
Jack shook his head numbly.
Bunny crooked a smile at him that was anything but happy. "Neither do I. Not anymore. Gave up counting after the first few millenia," he said, and Jack couldn't quite identify the emotion he heard there. Bitterness? Exhaustion? Maybe it wasn't a thing that even had a name.
Jack remembered what Tooth had asked him not too long ago, what species he'd been before he was chosen. He'd thought before that most of the strong spirits had probably been human and they'd just changed more than he had. Now he wasn't so sure. "What are you?" he asked before he could stop himself.
Bunny huffed a laugh. "The last of the pooka, mate. I'm not exactly from around these parts."
Well, Jack had been able to guess that much. But... "The last?" he asked.
"Yep. The last of us died out before this world was even born. Well, excepting yours truly, of course," Bunny said, and suddenly everything made a lot more sense.
If Bunny had really been alone all that time... Jeez. And Jack thought he had abandonment issues. For the first time in a long time, Jack found that he was well and truly unable to speak.
"The universe's been a lot quieter since the great war," Bunny mused, eyes far away. "That much is for sure."
And then, because he couldn't think of a single thing that was appropriate for this conversation, Jack instead blurted out the only thing still in his mind after news like that. "I don't hate you, you know."
Bunny looked up at him then and froze, as if finally realizing the vulnerability of his own position. Jack could see the exact moment that he tore himself away from his memories and realized exactly where he still stood. It was like a shade being pulled down over his eyes. "You've got an odd way of showing it, mate," he finally replied.
"No, seriously, I don't. I just messed with you because I wanted you to see me." Jack's mind was still blissfully, horrifyingly blank, completely silent but for the riotous melody behind his eyelids. He knew he was babbling now, but there wasn't an awful lot he could do about it. "You were the only one who ever really looked at me, even if all you did was yell. You made the best faces. You'd get so mad that all your fur would fluff out and you'd yell my name, and that was the first time in like a century that someone yelled my name. I couldn't stop after that."
Bunny just stared at him for a minute, obviously trying to sort through the babble to the heart of the matter. And then his shoulders shook just briefly before he dropped his head into one of his paws and just started laughing, great belly laughs that shook him from head to toe. "We really are a pair, aren't we?" he gasped out between laughs. "I thought you just had it in for spring for some reason."
Jack ran his fingers through his hair and shrugged. "Spring has always had it in for me, thank you," he muttered.
Bunny scoffed, wiping a tear from one of his eyes. "How on earth could spring have it in for someone? It's not like your season, cold as the devil and twice as unpredictable."
Jack hesitated. He couldn't exactly tell Bunny about the music. Weird as things were in the spirit world, hearing things that weren't there still wasn't normal. "Just... Everything goes wrong in spring. Even back when I was alive. I broke my arm when I was three. I fell out of an apple tree. I almost got trampled by a horse once because I couldn't hear it coming. Weird stuff," he said. He didn't have to tell Bunny that every one of those events had occurred because of the music suddenly shrilling so loudly he couldn't think straight.
But speaking of the music... Jack very suddenly went still, listening. It was still there, of course. It was always there. But it was quieter, now, gentler. It was almost... content.
He looked up to find Bunny giving him a strange look. "You all right there, Jacko? You do know that a season can't actually have it out for someone, right? Least of all mine."
Jack looked up at him, suddenly not quite sure to do with the freedom he had come down here expressly to get. "Yeah, yeah," he finally said, summoning up a shaky smile. "Just make sure to keep it in check, okay?"
Bunny snorted and shook his head. "About as much as you keep those bloody blizzards in check," he muttered.
Jack chose to ignore that. He had perfect control over his blizzards, thank you. He just chose to dump them on beautiful spring days. He thought it was probably best not to tell Bunny that, though. Instead, he just leaned on his staff with his right hand and slid his left into his pocket. "Bunny?"
Bunny looked up at him, and for once, his eyes weren't accusing. "Yeah?"
"We've both been alone for a long time," he said, carefully trying not to get into a pissing match about lengths again. "And I don't think either one of us is very good at making friends anymore. But we have each other now." At Bunny's sharp look, he quickly added, "All the Guardians, I mean. I don't think we have to be alone anymore."
Bunny considered him, and long enough that Jack was beginning to squirm. "Oi, Jack," he said, and even Jack could tell that the air was pregnant. "I reckon you're right. If you do want to come down south a visit sometimes..."
Jack leaned forward expectantly.
"You should bloody well knock first."
Jack grinned, hearing the invitation for what it was. And if there was any chance that coming down here would keep that music docile as a kitten, he wasn't going to think twice about taking it.
The first couple times it happened, Jack was able to tell himself that it was a coincidence. But he couldn't help but notice that there really was a pattern-some days he would wake up feeling generally foul-tempered and out of sorts, a discordant tune jangling in the back of his mind, and if on those days he happened to go visit his fine, furry friend, the music would quiet to a gentle hum that was almost comforting. Days that he visited Bunny never ended in the near-ubiquitous headache that Jack had come to associate with the phantom music, and when he made a regular practice of it, the song seemed to stay calm.
Stress was his first thought. Maybe just the stress of avoiding Bunny and the loneliness that had been his constant companion for longer than he could remember had been worsening his little problem. Maybe when he was upset, that gave the song some kind of in, so to speak. He definitely remembered it being nearly intolerable during their misadventures with Pitch. If stress was the culprit, however, it stood to reason that the music would have started to quiet as soon as he made friends with the other Guardians. What was it that Bunny had that the others didn't?
Spring. That was all he could think of. Despite what Bunny had repeatedly told him about spring being unable to hold grudges, especially against small children, Jack still wasn't so sure. Otherwise, how could he explain the music quieting so dramatically as soon as he started to cozy up to the incarnation of the season? Maybe it was even some other spring spirit who had it out for him. He'd gotten the impression that the other spring spirits tended to acquiesce to Bunny's demands, so maybe Bunny had just become some kind of unwitting protector. Either way, he was willing to bet that if he managed to stick close enough to Bunny over the next spring, he wouldn't have the same mishaps that always seemed to mar the season. If Bunny didn't get tired of him by then, anyway.
But as much as Jack had worried over that exact event, it didn't seem to be forthcoming. In fact, Bunny was barely even pretending that he didn't want him around anymore. Bunny's pantry was mysteriously gaining Jack's favorite foods, and Bunny's rock guardians didn't even give him the creepy rock hairy eye when he flitted into the warren now. Instead, Bunny's warren, with its lush greenery and craggy underground peaks, was starting to feel like a second home to him. And considering that Jack mostly just considered the open air to be his home on good days, that meant a lot.
It wasn't until almost fall that Jack realized just how much time he was spending with his fellow Guardian-and more importantly, just how much he was enjoying it. Working side by side in Bunny's ridiculous garden and trading playful jibes during Guardian meetings was beginning to feel like second nature, and he'd caught the other Guardians exchanging amused glances when they thought that he wasn't looking. He was almost afraid to find out what they were saying when he really wasn't around.
Bunny, for his part, was ignoring the teasing. He huffed in annoyance and cuffed Jack around the head whenever he asked about it and then invented some new chore that he really did have to be doing right now, ya silly drongo. Jack had stopped trying to bring it up. He'd learned pretty quickly that Bunny didn't often say exactly what he felt, but would instead take out his frustrations on weeds or leave small gifts for Jack instead of just telling him that he didn't completely abhor his presence. (Jack treasured each and every one of them.) Personally, the more Jack was around Bunny, the more he thought that the old rabbit simply didn't know how to interact like a normal person anymore. Tooth was right. Bunny really had been alone for far too long.
It was hard for Jack to get his head around, honestly. Sure, the guy blustered, but he was just as sweet as your average garden bunny down deep. Jack had caught him crooning encouragement to his growing eggs on more than one occasion, and the look of consternation he'd get on his face, the way his nose would wrinkle just the slightest bit in frustration, whenever he was planning next year's Easter-well, it was just cute. By this point, though, Jack knew better than to point that very clear fact out. The point was, Jack wasn't entirely sure how he'd managed to stay alone for this long.
As best as he could figure, Bunny just believed that he wanted to be alone. Anyone who spent more than the bare minimum of time with him knew that was a dirty lie, however. He was really bad at hiding the way he lit up when a friend dropped by with some new flower that he had just happened to find in a forest in Alaska. When he told the other Guardians about his theory one evening at North's workshop, though, all of them had just exchanged sideways looks and changed the subject.
Weirdos.
At any rate, Jack was pretty sure that other spirits definitely wanted to be Bunny's friend. He had just walled himself off. And as selfish as it seemed, Jack was almost glad that he was the only one that Bunny seemed to open up to. That winter he was forced to admit that he'd never had so much fun in his entire life-either of them. Going out and causing flurries and snowball fights, and then breezing into Bunny's warren to find a steaming mug of hot tea or cocoa waiting for him was very close to Jack's definition of perfection. (And yes, North always had the perfect cocoa to marshmallow ratio in his hot cocoa, but Bunny had introduced him to "the good stuff", the chocolate with cream that was thick and rich enough to be an entire meal. A mug of that was even worth sitting through Bunny's grumbling about how no one could out-chocolate the Easter Bunny.)
As they got into the thick of winter, however, Jack was surprised to find that it was the busiest time of year for both of them. Bunny apparently required several months of prep work for Easter, and Jack was needed all over the northern hemisphere. Between their two jobs and their other responsibilities, they didn't see an awful lot of each other for a couple months. As much fun as it was building snowmen with Jamie and dumping blizzards on school districts just about to have exams, Jack did have to admit that it was kind of lonely. And the melody in the back of his head, which had been relatively tame in recent months, was almost back to its previously obnoxious noise level. So when Bunny asked Jack if he wanted to see something really excellent a few weeks before Easter, Jack jumped at the chance.
Bunny, Jack had discovered, really did know about some neat hidden places around the world. The pooka had been around the block a few times, and so when he said he wanted to show Jack something, it was without fail something incredibly cool. This time was no different.
Jack wasn't entirely sure which country they were in, but it was definitely somewhere quiet. Just him and Bunny out in the middle of a somewhat desolate clearing. Even though most of the snow had melted by this point, the trees were still bare above them and the grass was shriveled and brown. And maybe that was Jack's style, sure, but he wasn't sure what Bunny was getting out of it. But Bunny just quirked a small, secret smile at him, so different from the sardonic smiles he'd been given even just one year ago, and motioned him to stay quiet.
The air quickly became silent and heavy with something new. Even the sounds in the back of Jack's mind were quiet. Expectant.
Jack wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't for Bunny to go quiet and thoughtful before crouching down to place both of his paws against the barren ground. A small, green shoot suddenly poked its way out of the ground, and then another. Jack found himself taking a step back, just in case he stepped on one of the newborn plants. Right before his eyes, he saw grass sprout up around what he now realized was a meadow and the shoots bud and then bloom into trumpet-shaped yellow flowers that it took him a second to recognize as daffodils. Soon enough, he found himself in a meadow full of soft, dew-tipped grass and a riot of golden flowers, and before he could even get accustomed to that, the dead trees around him suddenly started to grow supple and bud with new life. And sure, he'd seen Bunny sprout flowers as he walked before, but nothing quite like this. This, put succinctly, was spring being reborn.
Jack must have looked as shocked as he felt because Bunny looked like the cat who'd caught the cream. Rabbit. Pooka. Whatever, he was being a smug bastard. "Like 'em? I always like to start the season out with something meaningful," he said, giving Jack a wink before straightening up and dusting dirty paws off on his flanks.
"I-" Jack cleared his throat, blinking around at the verdant meadow that had not five minutes ago been a dusty husk of itself. "Meaningful?"
"Yep. Daffodils sound right for this year." He turned and gave Jack a half smile. "They're good for new beginnings, or so they say," he said.
"New beginnings, huh?" Jack nudged one of the fresh blooms with his foot, thankful when it didn't immediately freeze. "Hey, do you-"
"Aster!"
A voice cut through the clearing, and both of them turned to identify the source. A willowy young woman with gnarled, bark-like skin peeked out from behind one of the trees, green leaves poking out of her hair. Jack didn't spend a lot of time around spring spirits, but even he could identify a dryad.
She stepped out a little further into the clearing. "Aster? Is it starting? Which flower have you chosen?" she asked.
Jack could feel his eyebrows attempting to clear his hairline. 'Aster'?
The dryad hummed and bent down low so she could inspect the flowers scattered around their feet. "Hmm. Daffodils. A little simple, but they're pretty enough," she said, sounding a bit disappointed.
Something in her dismissive tone set Jack's teeth on edge, and his retort was out before he could even think about it. "What's wrong with simple?" he asked, crossing his arms in front of himself.
She blinked and straightened, noticing Jack for the first time. "A winter spirit? Aster, what on earth is a winter spirit doing here?" she asked, and Jack wondered if she often said "cow dung" in the same tone of voice that she said "winter spirit". Then again, knowing a plant spirit, she might be all about cow dung. They had weird feelings about fertilizer.
Jack was gratified to see that Bunny looked irritated as well. "He's here as my guest," he growled out, as if that should really be the end of it. "Jack's no ordinary winter sprite."
"Jack?" She peered forward, looking for all the world like an owl. "Jack Frost? The one who kills seedlings for fun?"
"Jack Frost the Guardian," Aster corrected.
"Right," she said, and Jack bristled. It was rare to see someone literally looking down their nose at him, but this dryad had somehow accomplished it. "I remember. The ascended ex-human."
Jack had the distinct impression that humans weren't much more popular amongst dryads than winter spirits. He put his hands up in a wide-open gesture. "Look, lady, I'm just here to see the pretty flowers. I think."
She frowned at him for a moment, or more precisely his hands, then took a step forward. "I thought humans had those doodles on their arms. You know, the ones they go and carve into the nearest tree the first chance they get," she said. Her frown intensified, as if she weren't sure if his bare wrist made him better or worse than an average human.
Jack pulled his hands back as if burned and wrapped his left hand around his staff so his wrist would be hidden from view. "Names. They're our Names," he said shortly.
"Your names?" she asked skeptically.
"No, not our names, our Names," he snapped back. "The name of the person we're supposed to-"
He bit back what he was going to say, taking in the dryad's confused disdain and Bunny's wince. Even if she didn't know what it meant, Bunny definitely did. And this was really the last conversation he wanted to have with him. Ever.
Locking his lips in a tight line, Jack whirled around and took off into the spring air, only just managing not to ice the daffodils in his anger. So much for new beginnings.
After finding a nearby outcropping of rocks to pout on that did not have one single speck of plant life on them, Jack didn't really know what to do with himself. The discussion with Bunny was pretty inevitable now. Really, he was lucky that it had taken him this long to notice that he was somehow defective. No Name meant no Namemate. No Namemate meant that there was no other half of his soul. People sometimes fell in love with people who weren't their Namemates. Sometimes they even got married. But there was always that little bit of regret, that knowledge that as well as they fit, they never fit quite right. Considering that Jack had never even managed to find that, his loneliness was pretty much a life sentence.
Jack looked down at his wrist. He'd worked for years to perfect a treatment that would cover his wrist just so. The glittering ice was just pale enough to blend in seamlessly with his skin. Only someone who knew the trick would even know it was there, unless they touched him. And that didn't exactly happen often. He repressed a sigh, refusing to sound as pathetic as he felt. And goddamn it all, the music in his mind that had gone so still, so breathlessly excited, when the daffodils were sprouting? It was back to full volume. All Jack wanted was some peace and quiet.
"Jack?"
Well, wasn't that just perfect.
"Oi, Frostbite. Did you have to choose somewhere so bloody cold?" Bunny asked, clambering up the rocks so he could crouch down next to him.
"I dunno," Jack said, and he couldn't seem to tamp down on the bitterness in his voice, no matter how much he knew Bunny didn't deserve it. "Seems about right for a winter spirit like me."
Even as he refused to look at him, Jack could still feel the warmth of Bunny's body when he sat down next to him. It wasn't even much of a surprise when he felt Bunny's paw on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Jack. I should've thought that there might be other spring spirits out and about. The first new flowers of the season always stir them up something fierce," he said. "I just... I suppose I just wanted to share it with you this year. See if I couldn't set your springs right once and for all."
Jack sagged under Bunny's grip. It had been so much easier when he could just get mad at Bunny and move on with his life. Now everything was so much more complicated. "It wasn't your fault, Bunny. Or should I be calling you 'Aster'?" he asked, giving him a sideways look that he was sure wasn't very fair.
Bunny sighed and removed his paw from Jack's shoulder so he could rub it down his face. "Aster is my real name, or part of it. Doesn't seem to be much point in using it anymore, though. The only people who knew what it means died a long time ago."
"I thought an aster was a flower," Jack interrupted. He knew that much about them, at least.
Bunny huffed out a laugh. "It is now. That one might have been my fault, even. And it's still the name the other spring spirits prefer." He paused. "Probably due to the flower thing, actually."
"So why do we call you 'Bunny'?" Jack asked.
Bunny shrugged, looking out at the distance. "It's what I've become now, I suppose. The littlies think of me as a giant rabbit, and I care more about what they think than what those old barkheads do."
From everything he knew about Bunny, that seemed about right. But... "But which one do you like better?" Jack pressed.
Bunny sighed, for once sounding every one of his many years. "I'm not sure I rightly know anymore, Jacko. My old name sounds like an antique now. Ancient history. I like it, but I don't particularly like the remembering that tags along with it."
"Ah," Jack said. "The-" He stopped himself before he could say it.
"Right on there, mate. Remembering them is still hard." Bunny was quiet for a few minutes, and then, studiously avoiding looking at Jack, he started again. "Have you ever heard much about the Heartsong?"
"The what?"
Bunny cracked a grin at that, but still didn't look up at him. "The Heartsong. Every pooka has one of their very own, y'see. And when the universe was full of us, it was also full of song."
Jack nodded even though Bunny couldn't see it, recalling Bunny's words from all those months ago: "The universe's been a lot quieter since the great war." Was that what he meant? Did pookas sing or something?
"Now, you've gotta understand-it wasn't a song we could hear with our ears. Not the outer ones, anyway. It's a song you hear in your heart."
And just like that, Jack's blood went cold. "What do you mean?" he asked, proud to hear no trace of a tremor in his voice.
"It's hard to explain, exactly, to someone who's never heard it. Every pooka in the entire universe had their own unique song. Every fiber of them would be singing with it. It's not a thing you can turn off. And before-" He broke off. "Before everything, you could hear them all, like the finest symphony in the world. But there were special ones. Everyone had one song that they could hear clearer than any others, the one song that would call to their very soul. Supposed to be the most beautiful sound you could ever hear." Finally, Bunny turned to give Jack a lukewarm smile. "You humans have your Names. We pooka had our Heartsongs."
"And-" Jack broke off, had to wet his throat and try again. "And you can hear that song all the time? Inside your head?"
Bunny frowned at him. "I suppose that's as good a description as any. Not that I've heard them for ages."
The world wasn't moving in slow motion, was it? Because Jack felt for sure like his heart had just stopped. "What? Why?"
"Couldn't do it anymore," Bunny said simply. "I never found my Heartsong before the war, and that was bad enough, never finding the song that resonated with mine. But the silence? I couldn't take it, Jack. Had to close off the ears you use to hear it. Otherwise I couldn't stop listening for something that would never come back."
"You can close it out?" Jack asked, unconsciously reaching up to rub at his ears. He wasn't a pooka or anything, but if what he was hearing was anything like Bunny was describing, and there was a way to shut it off... It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, but at the last moment, Jack stopped himself. Bunny had said that he didn't have a Heartsong. Just like Jack, he was alone. Jack couldn't ask Bunny how to get rid of whatever he was hearing, not when Bunny would probably give anything to hear something just like it.
Jack's heart beat double time as he examined that thought and found that it was completely true. No matter how much he wanted the music out of his head and out of his life, he couldn't ask something like that of Bunny. Couldn't hurt him like that. It was almost like- It was almost as if-
Bunny must have heard Jack's soft noise of distress, because he finally turned to look at him. "No use getting all broken up about it there, Jack. Just didn't want you thinking you were alone. If I'm remembering correctly, having no Name is no small thing in the human world. Well, no Heartsong wasn't natural in mine, either. For the longest time, I thought that maybe I just never got one because I was meant to be alone. Because I was going to be the only one left. But who knows, yeah? Maybe it's just a Guardian thing." He reached out to give Jack's shoulder a squeeze. "We're all a bit wonky, I suspect."
Jack just swallowed and nodded, trying to pretend that he hadn't just realized that he was most likely head over heels in love with his best friend. His best friend who was a male ancient alien rabbit thing. His best friend that was as Nameless as he was. His best friend that he could not lose now. Not after finally finding someone who understood.
Bunny watched him, starting to look concerned. "You all right there, mate?"
"Yeah," Jack said, nodding before the word was even out of his mouth. "Just peachy. I-sorry. To make you think about all this again."
"No dramas, Jacko. Remembering the past isn't exactly my idea of a great day off, but I reckon it's good to remember sometimes." He finally looked down at what he'd been avoiding for all this time: Jack's wrist. "And if you did want to call me Aster, I think that would be all right."
Jack summoned up a smile for him at that. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Now what do you say we go back to the warren for a nice cuppa? I think we could both use it."
The next few days were stressful for Jack. He tried to go about the motions of early spring, a snowy dusting here, a late frost there, but his mind was whirling with a million thoughts at once. Every new sprout, every freshly-budding tree reminded him of Aster. He'd find himself grinning at pale pink magnolias, but his expression would slip the moment he thought about being caught at it. He felt like there were butterflies in his insides, alternately a tickling, bubbling sort of joy that he couldn't quite restrain and a clawing panic deep inside him. Love, for all the songs and sonnets, was terrifying.
He knew he had to keep this to himself. He had just finally managed to create a little family for himself-or at the very least, some friends. People acknowledged him now. Spirits nodded to him as he passed, and word was even starting to get out amongst mortal children. All that could easily be ruined, though, if he let it slip that he had feelings for Aster. Gender seemed to matter less in the spirit world than it had when he had been human, but he had a feeling that even the spirit world wouldn't take well to a little sprite of an ex-human aiming for the last of the endless pooka. And that wasn't even considering how fast Aster would probably drop him if he knew that Jack had been having less than platonic thoughts towards him. He'd never hinted even once that he wanted anything more than friendship. Most days he didn't even say much about wanting that. Still, Jack thought that they'd become friends all the same-which was even more incentive to keep his big mouth shut.
Besides, it wasn't as if he was meant to be with anyone, anyway.
Still, there was that little voice in the back of his head, the one that whispered, "But he doesn't have anyone, either. He understands what it's like. He likes you. When you're with him, things are warm and soft-and in a good way." He tried to ignore that voice most of the time, because he knew exactly what it was: hope. And he supposed he had Aster to thank for that as well.
Eventually, the voice became pretty easy to ignore because the only thing he could hear when he shut his eyes was song, song, song. And that hopeful little voice had an opinion on this, too, even as it was drowned out. Aster had said that the Heartsong was something beautiful. Something wonderful. Something that connected you to the people who loved you. And Jack could hear something that sounded awfully similar. It was too ridiculous to think he was actually hearing some weird, long-forgotten pooka melody, but maybe it was some other spirit thing that no one had ever bothered to explain to him. Maybe it didn't have to be a bad thing.
But every time it was on the tip of his tongue, every time he was just about to burst into the warren to ask Aster about it, he remembered the look on his face as he'd spoken about it. He'd looked... lost. Like it was a dream he wished he could have given up on a long, long time ago. But maybe the Guardian of Hope couldn't give up on anything, not anymore. It made Jack's heart hurt to think about.
As much as he tried to distract himself, though, the soft, thrumming refrain had gotten louder and louder, what had been tuneful becoming discordant and painful. It was almost worse than it had been before he'd started becoming friends with Aster in the first place, and he wasn't sure how he'd ever been able to bear it alone. Scared or not, before even a full week had passed, Jack found himself flying back towards the entrance to Aster's warren.
Jack hovered outside the entrance for more than a few minutes dithering, but the minute he actually stepped foot inside the warren, he felt a warm wash of familiarity settle over him. As much as he hated to admit it, walking into the warren felt like coming home. He'd managed not to think too hard about that any other time he'd visited, though, and he wasn't about to start now.
He didn't see any sign of Aster, but that wasn't particularly shocking considering how close they were to Easter. However, that didn't mean that he was without greeting. His only warning was a quiet skittering in the bushes before he was overrun with vibrant little eggs.
"Hey there, little guys," he said, crouching down so he could get a look at their brightly-colored shells. They looked to be handpainted this time, and with designs so intricate that they almost made his eyes cross as they hopped around him excitedly. It wasn't until one particularly effervescent egg did a little pirouette right in front of his eyes that he realized what he was looking at. He immediately reached out to try and grab an egg to get a better look, but Aster's eggs had always been free spirits. The moment they got wind that he was trying to catch them, they hit the ground running.
He was so caught up in trying to catch the little buggers that he almost tripped over Aster, who was sedately painting on the banks of the river of color. Aster, who was evidently not expecting company, dropped the egg he was working on and it promptly ran off to go take a dip in glitter.
"Oh jeez," Jack said, taking a step back. "I'm sorry, Aster. I didn't see you there."
Aster, who'd really been looking more amused than angry by the truth of it, made a soft noise in his throat, then shook his head. "Nah, mate. It's not a big deal. I'm ahead of schedule this year. There's a lot more where that one came from," he said, and a smile crinkled at the corners of his eyes. "Where are you dashing off to so quick, Jacko?"
Jack had to take a sudden deep breath to quiet those darn butterflies again before he could talk. "I-I, um, I was just trying to catch some of those eggs," he said, all in a rush.
Aster, to his credit, just raised an eyebrow at him. "What, the great Jack Frost can't even catch one little goog?" he asked, and then, as if to add insult to injury, he reached out and one of the little eggs that Jack had just chased all over creation hopped up into his paw without a second thought.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Those things are fast," he grumbled, and leaned in close so he could finally get his look at the design on the egg. Whatever air was left in his lungs quickly left them. It was just as he thought-the designs that Aster's eggs were sporting today looked almost identical to the bizarre markings he'd been layering with frost for as many years as he could remember. "What..." He swallowed, tried again. "What's on these?"
Something twisted at the edge of Aster's mouth, and he pulled the egg back in to cradle towards his chest. "Nothing much, Frostbite. Just me being a bit nostalgic," he said, voice low.
Nostalgic? "So is that like some kind of pooka thing?" Jack asked. He would have tried to get closer to see better, but that would have meant getting right up in Aster's personal space.
"It's pooka writing," Aster said, and Jack's head started to feel as if his own personal blizzard were going on inside of it. "The language I used to use as a kit."
"So," Jack started, eyes darting around the clearing at the scores of eggs that Aster had already completed, "All these eggs say things?" Did his arm say something? All these years, he'd thought it was just chickenscratch, some doodles that had mistakenly made their way onto his wrist instead of the Name he'd always been meant to have. But maybe...
"Er..." Aster glanced away, obviously seeing where this was going. "They do," he said, in a way that very much sounded as if he were hedging his bets. "They're a bit personal, though."
Well, if he thought that was about to make Jack less interested, he had a lot to learn about trickster spirits with crushes."So what, you just started using Easter eggs like your own personal diary?" he asked.
Aster sputtered a bit and shook his head. "It's not like that, you annoying little blighter." (Jack grinned. He didn't mean it.) "It's just... All this talk of Names and Heartsongs... It just left me feeling a bit nostalgic for the old days." He looked down at the eggs. "I haven't used the old words in a long time."
"Hmm..." Jack looked around until he found a particularly attention-hungry violet egg with Pookan words scrolling all across its surface in a golden-hued paint. He picked it up. "So what does this one say?"
That earned him an exasperated glare. "Just said it was personal, didn't I?" Aster growled.
"C'mon, Aster," Jack coaxed, and he was gratified to see Aster blink and swallow, an odd look on his face. And he'd been a little weird the first time Jack had called him that, too, hadn't he? Well, it made sense, he guessed, if he wasn't used to it. And Jack wasn't opposed to using underhanded methods, not when he was this close to understanding the marks that had plagued him his entire life, and even afterward. "Asterrrr."
"Cripes, you can't take no for an answer, can you?" Aster groused, grabbing the egg from Jack's grasp. "This one..." His eyes went soft. "It's a bit of a song that my dam used to sing to us when I was a kit."
Jack swallowed around the lump in his throat. He wondered if he'd every be able to get Aster to sing a bit of it to him. He doubted it; music was likely a sore spot.
Despite what others thought, Jack did know when enough was enough. So instead of pushing for details, he reached for the next egg, a little red one that was butting against his ankles. "And this one? What does this say?"
To his surprise and extreme pleasure, Jack saw Aster get a bit red around the nose. It even started to extend up the soft skin of his ears. "This is-" He coughed a little to hide his embarrassment. "It's a little love poem that was popular back in the day. I saw many a young buck try to give this one to their first love."
Jack abruptly became very aware of the seductive curl of the words around his fingertips, and the deep scarlet of the shell suddenly seemed a lot less innocent. "You have someone you want to give a love poem to?" he teased, hoping to cover up his awkwardness.
Aster scowled and snatched the egg from his grasp. "Told you it was personal."
Well, he usually knew when enough was enough. Jack winced. "Yeah, sorry. How about this one? What does it say?" he asked, picking up a solitary little green egg that was a little off to the side of the others.
Aster only gave the egg a passing glance before scoffing. "Just some rubbish about missin' people. I told you, I'm in a bit of a mood today," he said, sounding as if he'd really prefer being anywhere else.
Jack swallowed and turned the egg over and over in his fingers. This was all uncomfortably intimate. Here was Aster telling him anything he asked, even when he obviously didn't want to, even telling him about the Heartsong thing and the people he'd loved... and Jack was too scared to even tell him about his own Name. Because he was sure now that that's what it actually was. A Name. He even had a pretty good idea whose. The butterflies in his stomach had teeth now, bringing tears to his eyes and an ache to his heart. Even waking up alone in the middle of a frozen lake or facing down the Guardian of Fear all alone didn't worry him as much as the idea of what had to come next.
Well. Jack Frost had never been one to back down from what scared him.
"Aster..." Jack said, and he pulled his sleeve back with trembling fingers. The thin rime that he had spent so long perfecting, so long maintaining, started to melt away, water dripping off his wrist like the tears he could feel caught in his throat. For the first time in centuries, the strange marks that encircled his wrist were laid bare for the world to see. "What does this say?"
Aster carefully kneeled down and took his hand into both of his paws with a gentle calm belied only by the way his paws shook. He laid Jack's palm in one of his paws, then traced the trembling lines on Jack's wrist with one claw. When he finally spoke, his voice was reverent.
It was a sibilant hiss, and it felt familiar to Jack. An almost-name, soft syllables that made it feel like something tight was finally unfurling in his heart. But he had to know. He had to be sure. He let out a long, shaky breath. "What does it mean?" he asked.
It took a moment for Aster to find his voice, and when he finally looked up from what Jack now realized to be words, his eyes were shining. "It's my name," he said simply, and then bent his head to press a soft kiss to Jack's wrist.
With shaking fingers, Jack turned so he could lay his right hand on Aster's head, stroke down across his ears, tangle into the fur at his ruff. Aster just shut his eyes and pressed into the caress, and as he did so, Jack realized that what he had initially mistaken as his own joy was more than that. That music, the siren song that had tormented him for his entire life, was twining with his emotions, amplifying them. It wasn't just his feelings, he knew. They were Aster's. And by god, they were as beautiful as anything he'd ever heard. Aster was right. The Heartsong, when properly heard, was beautiful enough to bring him to tears.
"I hear it," he whispered, and Aster just mumbled something against his arm. "I hear the Heartsong," he repeated, and this time Aster's eyes flew open.
"That can't be," he said, claws tightening infinitesimally around Jack's wrist, but his voice was unsure. There was the barest note of something Jack could only identify as hope. "You're not a pooka."
Jack shook his head, the joy and hope and intangible love flowing from the Heartsong hiccuping up out of him as he tried to make himself clear. "No, seriously, Aster. I hear it. I've always heard it. I heard it even when I was just a little kid. I heard it even before I got my Name," he said, and he willed Aster to hear what was not being said. Even before he had been chosen, even before they had even met, Jack had always been his. And he had always been Jack's. Jack just hadn't known how to listen. But now he did. "Listen, Aster, come on. Open your ears and you'll hear it, too."
Aster pulled away, just the slightest bit. If Jack hadn't been holding on for dear life, he probably would have pulled away further. "Jack, that's not funny. You can joke about spring-you can even joke about Easter-but you can't joke about that," he said.
Jack just leaned in further, pressed his face against Aster's cheek. "I wouldn't joke about a thing like this, Aster. I've heard music for almost my entire life. I just never said anything because, I mean, that's normal for a pooka. That's not normal for a human. I thought I was going crazy. It wasn't until I died that I thought maybe I was hearing something real. And it wasn't until you told me about the Heartsong that I thought I might be hearing something good," he said. He rubbed his cheek against Aster's, luxuriating in the feeling of warm, soft fur. "But it is good. You've gotta hear it, Aster. You were right. I've never heard anything so beautiful."
There was a long, long silence, and then Jack felt a slight twitch against his skin, and he got the impression that Aster was doing something with his ears that he couldn't see. And then Aster's entire body went taut against his, a tense stillness that was finally broken by all his breath heaving out of him in a sob. "Jack," he said, and Jack was suddenly sure that Aster could hear exactly what he could. There was a resonance now in the Song, one that had never been there before. Maybe it's what the Song could be if only both parties were open to it. For the first time, Jack finally let go and instead of trying to ignore the music in his head or beat it back into submission, he lost himself to his Song, and to Aster's.
When he finally came back to himself, he found Aster quietly weeping in his arms, and he became aware of a wetness on his own cheeks as well. They were happy tears, though, he was sure of it. He could feel it in the Song. He could feel Aster's relief and bewilderment and happiness. And love. So much love. He ran the fingers of his free hand through Aster's fur and tried to hum something soothing, but he found that it was impossible not to hum in tune with the Song running from the back of his mind down to his fingertips. Maybe that was worse.
He stopped and started to pull away, but Aster tugged at the arm still in his grasp, finally letting go as he pulled Jack into his arms. "Don't stop," he whispered, voice hoarse. "I've been waiting so long to hear that song."
Obediently, Jack leaned back into Aster's warmth, using both of his newly-freed limbs to wind his way through Aster's ruff and holding him tight. He'd really never thought himself to have much of a voice, but humming to his new Namemate was completely worth it when he felt the old scars in the Song, loneliness and hopelessness and grief, fading into contentment. He peeked around Aster's fur to peer at the Name around his wrist. It felt bizarre to finally have some positive emotions to associate with the thing, pride and pleasure finally replacing disgust and disappointment. Those feelings were only amplified when Aster started to hum along with their little song, his light baritone seeping into all of the cold, aching places in Jack and helping to warm him from the inside out.
Finally, he felt whole.