Guess who's back, guys?! The sequel is here, sooner than I thought it would, but it the entire plot formed one day at work. I honestly have no idea how long I have til I get REALLY GOOD internet so I apologize if I don't actually get on the ball about updating because of internet. Also, with school start in like... three weeks, and my two jobs (although one barely ever work) I don't actually know if I will be able to update daily like I used to. This is my final year of University so I really want to buckle down. I will try my hardest, but like I said, I don't know. I think the promise of once a week at least is pretty doable. So that's what I'm telling you. Could be more, but I will get at least one a week up.
Thank you for being so devoted! I'm excited to be back! Also, please don't be afraid to correct me! I do go over it, but another pair of eyes, especially one who is NOT the author is really a good thing to have! As an author I already know what it's supposed to say so it's like my eyes just magically put it there so I can miss a lot! Give me corrections, and feedback is welcome. Enjoy the return of Jack, Morgan... and now Wendy ;)
The Yeti with the charcoal colored fur spun back around to face his area of the workbench, pounding carefully with the hammer smaller than his thumb. She stepped forward and placed her booted foot in front of her. The wood gave a small whine and she looked worriedly at the creature draped in a small red pointed hat. He smiled and nodded furiously. She held a finger to her lips, with the twitch of her brow sending him a warning. He cowered before her but nodded, keeping close to her ankles. She zoomed out from her hiding spot and hugged the leg of a table just as a silver haired Yeti walked on past. She breathed and slid away from the table, looking for that special one. On her elbows and her knees, she crawled across the hardwood, spying a glimmer of something she had asked for several months ago and still wanted. The black rucksack with the embedded metal snagged on a splinter of wood She growled and pulled on the strap. Her anxiety built the more she struggled pulling away her bag. With a jerk, it loosened, but a strand of fabric stuck out of the front. She could not waste time to grieve her faithful item and tumbled out of the way of the large creature. The irises of electric blue searched the area frantically. It had to be around here somewhere.
"Pertrirk mesawa jog!" garbled an angry voice. She squealed and held her rucksack tightly to her chest, jaw set and eyes snapped open with surprise at the furry face right in front of her.
"Isabelle!" Wendy chuckled carefully, pushing aside a swaying chunk of her chestnut colored hair. The blues in her eyes looked over at the tables, wondering where that table had been tucked away so carefully. "Hey there, how are you doing today? Did you do something with your fur? You look love-"
"Wertjkuurk metwada shomet-"
"Please, not this again..." She moaned as the extra hairy Yeti lifted her up from under the table and set her upright. Three more Yetis closed in on her and she slung her head back, dreading this lecture in the Yeti language. She hated being lectured in Yeti. It made everything sound ten times angrier, and occasionally she came across a word she didn't know. Her Yeti lessons weren't yet complete. The four of them shouted at her, and she made out most of what they said. They lectured her about honestly and integrity. They reminded her about North's naughty list. They reminded her about laws. Once again, they expressed displeasure at that being the forth time in the last six months she had attempted to break in and see her gifts. Then they went on about how her parents expected her to behave and be responsible while they were out searching for Pitch.
"You honestly believe that's what they're doing?" she scoffed. "I bet they're off having fun without me. Dad's on a mountain top having a snowball fight, and Mom's flinging around dew bullets. Or worse, ugh." More yelling in Yeti. Wendy flushed scarlet as she suffered the foreign language and it's reprimanding her for being reckless and disobedient, and telling her that while they were gone, they were responsible for her and anything that happened was going to be on them. She endured the rest of this lecture as two of the Yeti's scooted her along and escorted her out the door, the third one taking her hand and walking her through the lengthy trek from the workshop to the house. Wendy looked up and scoffed at the Moon. It was annoying how she could always see the moon and the sun up at the pole. She was always being watched. She hung her head in shame, for show, as the Yeti patted her head and shuffled through the door with her. Wendy decided she had grown tired of the talk and padded across the floor to her bedroom, launching herself onto her lime green bedspread and then looking up at the rainbow wheel plastic chandelier hanging over her bed. Of course, everything about it was fake, the lights weren't even real, but it looked pretty cool to her, hanging over her bed like that. Wendy kicked off her black platform boots and stretched out, producing a small camera from her rucksack, throwing it aside and then twisting the key on a small harp shaped music box she received she was six years old. She turned the key as far as it would go and lay on the bed, listening carefully to the notes tinkling. Several moments went by and she wound it up again. She wound it up a total of five times before there was a gentle knock on the door.
"What?" Wendy moaned, sprawling out on the bed.
"That's not very polite, Wendy," sternly came the voice of her mother. She hopped up and straightened her purple skirt with the jagged edge and pulled up the collar of her cropped white t-shirt. With the politeness of an angel, she opened the door and spotted not just her mother looking down at her with displeasure contorting her brows and her lips, but also her father, leaning against the door frame and looking perhaps a little more amused than his wife, but definitely not entirely happy.
"Jacob said you snuck into the workshop today," Morgan said to her daughter.
"I got bored!" Wendy huffed. "Well else am I supposed to do?"
"You have the TV, you have a computer, you have books, you have this huge house to yourself, you could go out and make snowman!" Morgan lectured while Wendy dramatically turned away from her.
"I do that all the time! I want a friend over once in a while..."
"Nathan and Bess are coming up next week," Jack said to her. "Just wait a little longer."
"Dad! I mean friends! Not my brother and sister!"
"Then we'll talk to Cecil and Charlee-"
"You don't get it! They're always there! They're basically like my cousins, okay? Anyone who is a part of my family or Linda's family – those are the only people I am ever around, okay?"
"You know, she wouldn't have done this if you hadn't encouraged her," Morgan mumbled to the winter spirit, as he stood beside her in his frost covered blue sweatshirt and brown trousers. Jack gave her a confounded look, his frost colored hair swaying as he quickly turned his head to her.
"How did I encourage her?!"
"You're supposed to be example! Instead you get into trouble all the time and who's the one who has to clean up your messes? Me." Wendy growled and stared dully at her parents as they began one of their classic arguments on who was the one to blame for Wendy's lack of discipline.
"I take responsibility for the things I do, and I haven't gotten into nearly as much trouble since Wendy arrived!"
"Come on guys..." Wendy moaned, slumping against the wall and waiting impatiently for them to move out of her room.
"You snuck into the workshop with her when she was three years old!"
"With permission!"
"It doesn't matter, you showed her how to get in!"
"Like she would remember that!"
"Baby Tooth reminded me," Wendy threw in. The both of her parents looked down at her with both shock and annoyance. "And no, Dad didn't show me that. Why are you so quick to blame him when I get into trouble?"
"Because he acts like a teenager and doesn't follow rules," Morgan scoffed, exiting from the room. When Jack followed Morgan, Wendy breathed happily and slammed the door. Morgan looked back and furrowed her brow at the shut door. "And don't slam doors!"
"I act like a teenager?!" Jack repeated and then laughed at the comment. "Love, have you forgotten? Frozen at fifteen! I'm going to act like a teenager forever!"
"So you remind me every time you do something stupid..."
"Have you ever thought that just maybe she acts that way because it's in her own personality?" Jack considered and Morgan sighed, her eyes moving with the motion of frustration. She removed the leather jacket she had wore over her sheer purple tunic and her leather corset belt. She kicked off the boots on her feet, the small brown bows on her cream colored leggings shaking slightly. In her bare feet, she walked over to the stove and stole the kettle to fill it with water.
"Her personality should not include going against her parents wishes," she told him.
"Never said it should! But that doesn't necessarily mean it's me doing it..."
"I didn't mean that..." she muttered apologetically as she flipped on the burner.
"Then why did you say it?"
"Well, you can't at least deny you showed her how to do things she probably shouldn't have learned."
"I don't deny it, but it's in my personality too."
"Are you sure she's not your biological daughter?" Morgan teased affectionately as she let the water boil and walked towards her husband. Jack wrapped his ice cold hands around her waist and she rested her palms against his frozen sweatshirt, loving the way her skin crawled and tightened under his temperature.
"Oh well, I forgot to tell you, nine months before Wendy was most likely born, there was this human girl and-"
"Shut up!" Morgan laughed, tilting her head back. "But really, Jack, what's going on with Wendy? For the last two years she's just gotten worse."
"She basically told us, Morgs," he said. "She's lonely."
"I don't know how. I mean she has the elves, the fairies, the Yetis, sometimes the eggs, Sandy, North, Tooth, Bunny, you, me, Linda, her family, she's got Elizabeth ad Nathan, and Hamilton-"
"That isn't what she means at all. She grew up with all of us. Elizabeth and Nathan are her siblings, I'm sure Linda and her family feel likes family. Your dad... hasn't been the same since your mother died. She can't even see half of her family because they don't believe. I don't even remember the last time she saw Brad and Max for more than ten minutes. She feels uncomfortable with Hamilton because she doesn't know how to treat him. Plus... we're never exactly home. We're always out looking for Pitch."
"What am I supposed to do, Jack?" Morgan wriggled away from his hold and proceeded to wipe down the table.
"I honestly think everything would calm down if she had a human friend who wasn't a family member."
"Yeah, like that's going to be possible!" she snarled, rubbing at a dirty spot that Wendy had probably created. "What are we supposed to do, send her to public school?! She's a Guardian child, Jack! The world doesn't even know she exists! She's not even supposed to exist!"
"How about you keep your voice down so she doesn't hear?" Jack advised firmly, looking to his daughter's bedroom door worriedly.
"What if her parents need to be contacted? Knowing her, what if she gets in trouble at school?"
"We could always ask Hamilton if he would be willing to pose as her father for instances like that. I mean it's believable, right? Elizabeth and Nathan are her sister and brother and she does have Barry in her name."
"Jack, there are no records of her existence anywhere. No birth records, no recognition, nothing. It wouldn't be believable. Besides, she doesn't belong down there! She gets to visit Harrisburg on the promise that she stays with them."
"One day a month!" Jack added for emphasis. Morgan looked to him and crossed her arms across her chest.
"This is the world she knows! She might become good friends with someone, but then all she would have to talk about is this world! She would be thought of as crazy and wouldn't be believed. Elizabeth and Nathan already get grief for believing their mother is a spirit who controls the summer moisture and fights with Pitch. I simply believed in you and the others and that was enough for people to believe I needed psychiatric help."
"But you had Linda, Morgan! She believed you! Every word you said, and never stopped! There could still be someone who would believe."
"I can't take that risk. She lives among Guardians-"
"She's also human!"
"But she doesn't know that!" Morgan snapped and Jack took a step back from her sudden tone.
"She's going to find out eventually..." Jack said. "Morgan, she's nine. She's going to figure out everyone else ages, but we're not, that she's aging, and it's probably going to happen soon. And then she's going to discover that she's adopted."
"And what if she wants to find her birth mother?"
"Then, we let her seek her out."
"So she can find out she was a garbage baby?!"
"Morgan, not so loud..." he hushed, keeping an eye on the door some distance away.
"She's still a kid. She doesn't know how to control herself."
"And you are a mother first, a Guardian second, and a human being third. Which is exactly why you're acting this way. You know, if you limit her, she's just going to rebel, and it will be ten times worse."
"What's she going to do, take the sleigh and go to Pennsylvania?" Jack chuckled sheepishly. Morgan's jaw dropped with the horror of her own words. "Oh my God, she's going to take the sleigh..."
"She's nine, Morgan. Imagine what she'll be like when she's a teenager."
"Maybe she'll be more mature then and listen."
"He he he... yeah, sure. You just keep believing that," Jack's voice dripped with sarcasm. He walked through the house and enter the living room, taking up a spot on the old fashioned couch that sat in front of the Tudor style fireplace. He reclined, propping his bare feet up against the arm of the couch at its end and using the other arm to rest his hand on. "Morgan, what do you plan on doing when she becomes a teenager and starts wanting a relationship?" The woman, who had just begun to enter the living room, stopped in the door and blinked rapidly. Her face washed of its color and she stared at him, mouth agape. Jack smirked, pleased with himself for making her stop as she did.
"Well, we don't have to worry about that right now, do we?"
"If I remember right, you had an innocent kid crush on me when you were ten."
"Okay, but that's because you were around."
"And what about Tristan? You were eleven, you started liking him and twelve, and you dated him when you were thirteen. And then there was us. It will come sooner than you think."
"Uh, well... it..." Jack moved over and allowed her to sit on the cushion beside him. Morgan huffed as she rested in the spot, and leaned towards the winter spirit, dropping her head onto his shoulder. Jack tousled her hazelnut hair, shifting her length of waves around her neck. "I just don't know how to raise a child this way. I don't know how to take care of a child in a world that is so different from what she wants. I don't want to deny her what she wants I just... don't know."
"You know... maybe that's how your mother felt," he whispered carefully, the ice on his lips tickling her ear. Her eyes widened with his observation and he grinned at her. "I'm just saying, love. I don't think her methods were great and I think she got a little mean. But you know she loved you, and I think the older she got, the more she learned, and she was just trying."
"Our relationship was getting so much better..." Morgan sniffed. Jack grazed her cheek with the touch of her lips, holding her warm body against his freezing form. "And then she... just..."
"You know, that might be another thing..." Jack added. "Do you remember how confused Wendy was when she died? She has never experienced death. Simply put, Morgan, we need to let her see the real world. What happened to my little realistic girl?" Morgan chuckled and pulled herself further into his body, nuzzling his chest.
"I don't know how anymore..."
"Maybe we should start with being home more."
"But with Pitch-"
"But we also have a very realistic life, and we need to learn to balance work and family my dear."
"She still needs to be disciplined. She can't bust into North's workshop. And you are going to discipline her!" Jack groaned, head swinging down to his chest. He rolled his head so he could peer down at the beauty in his lap and.
"Only because you're pretty," he laughed. She scowled. "And because she is our daughter and it is my duty as her father to raise her and make sure she makes the right decisions."
"That's better!" She chirped and leapt up to kiss him.
Also I do want to add, you can come and chat with me too! You can message me on here, or find me on Skype, roseofphantom2010 or find my tumblr, roseofphantom. You talk to me about my story, your story, advice on something, have questions, or even if you just feel like chatting! See you in the next chapter!