Author's Note: I finally saw Rise of the Guardians a few days ago and now I'm completely obsessed with it. And Jack. Oh God, Jack, he's just this amazing bucket of adorable and angst all wrapped into one person and who can resist that? I certainly can't.

This piece explores a darker side of Jack, perhaps fifty or so years after his rebirth, maybe a little less, so he's still relatively young. For a spirit, anyway. This is the shortest thing I've written in a while but I hope you enjoy anyway! Or cry in a corner or…something. I'm going to stop talking now.

Darkened Ice

Sometimes, Jack wondered what it would be like. You know. To feel the sun on his face. To gaze at his reflection in the ice and not have to wonder who it was staring back at him.

Whose eyes were these? Had they always been a startling blue? Hard, and cold as the ice he conjured? Whose head of snow white hair was he running his fingers through? Or trying to, anyway. Whose hands were these? Small, pale and shaking as they were, clutching the shepard's staff that was both life and death itself. Whose mouth was this, and why was it always screaming?

How could he miss people when he'd never spoken to one? How could he hope for death when he'd never experienced life? How could his name be Jack Frost or anything at all, if there was no one around to hear it?

Why did he have so many questions when he'd never been able to answer one? Why did he still question, when it only ever brought him pain?

Here in these snow-covered woods, Jack Frost was everything, and yet he was nothing. He loved the humans who walked through him, even as he hated their every breath. He loved the ice that spiraled from the end of his staff as he twirled it this way and that.

He loved it.

And he'd never hated anything more in his life.

He hated it.

Maybe even more than he hated himself.

…No. He definitely hated himself more.

Jack lost track of time as he spun his staff in angry archs, slamming it up against trees and into the ground in a constant flurry of motion. If he was the Spirit of Winter, the bringer of death, he was going to do it right. If his fate was to hurt and be hurt, to ignore and be ignored, then what else could he do?

He stopped dead in his tracks as he noticed a human man. A soldier, it seemed, who crouched shivering under a tree. He was wearing a uniform and though it was dark, Jack could smell blood in the air; could see it staining the pure white ground even through the wind that whipped around him.

The storm he'd conjured seconds before was harsh and unforgiving, Jack knew, and this man was going to die, snow or no snow. His wounds ensured that, so what did it matter? Humans froze to death every day. What made this one any different? He was just another person that had what Jack didn't. A person who didn't see him. A person who didn't care.

He could hear the human muttering prayers now, crying as he begged his Gods to save him. His breath was harsh and labored as he clutched his musket to his chest, as if the thing could help him now.

Jack smiled cruelly, even as a single tear froze upon his cheek.

"You're wasting your time, you know. All my God told me was my name."