A/N: Thanks to a reviewer on Archive of Our Own, I remembered to update on fanfiction. Shoutout to Nichts. Thanks buddy. Anyways, I'm really sorry for not updating, yadda, yadda, yadda. If you want the full apology, read it on Archive of Our Own cause I'm too lazy to repeat it. Anyways, after a couple rounds of edits, I finally posted it, though not entirely satisfied with this chapter.
Answering the question of a guest without entirely spoiling the story - Jack isn't turning into a girl, per se, albeit that is an interesting idea. He's becoming "Mother Nature" in a metaphorical sense, I guess you could say. Merely developing her powers. Without developing her gender. It's hard to explain, ok?
"If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself."
-George Orwell
day one, later –
It took Jack a couple of hours to fly to the North Pole, not because of a deficiency in speed, but because for once, he couldn't find the energy to break the spell of lethargy. Not ever had he found his usual cheer so far out of reach, not even when Bunnymund had forcefully weaned Jack off caffeine – and failed, he might add. He drifted across an entire hemisphere with an ease that surpassed most human transportation, yet was surprisingly pitiful for a magical frost spirit.
In retrospect, Jack decided that Pitch's behavior had been nothing short of oddly spontaneous and out of character. The man – if he could be called one, because Jack wasn't really sure what Pitch was – never let Jack ruffle a single hair on his head, let alone lose his composure completely. If Jack had, according to Bunny, an endless well of annoyingness within, Athen Pitch had an endless ability to ignore it. Until now.
And there was something even more odd. When he had made his escape, it had been dark and musty and all a blur, but he was sure that it was almost as if he had moved the earth. When he had signed up to be a frost spirit, he hadn't known that dirt would included in his list of powers. As of late, all he had known he was capable of was making a few snowballs and shooting some frost.
The sunset streaked across the sky in a fiery palette of oranges and pinks, an ephemeral glow bringing a warm tinge to Jack's cheeks and to the terrain below. The icy glaciers below him emitted a vast spectrum of light, the cracks between forming endless, gaping chasms that must have led to the very center of the earth. He was steadily approaching a grand, castle-like structure sitting on the edge of a cliff, the wind nudging his tired feet like the gentle buffeting of waves against the shore.
Wait, tired? Jack had never felt as tired as he did right then and there, though a good day of spreading snow days and cheer had left him moderately weary before. He felt as if he could barely hold the winds together, wild as it was. For a moment, a shade of worry stroked through his heart, like an Olympic swimmer, should he lose control and plummet from the sky.
Jack flew through the window of North's Workshop, clutching his staff closely, still in shock. It was an old habit, to not use the main entrance. He had tried and failed to break into the Workshop for decades, and any competent criminal knew not to use the front door. After all, even before he had been abducted and shoved in a sack by them, he knew to avoid the seven-foot yetis lumbering around the North Pole.
"Jack!" someone called, most likely Tooth, as she was the only female Guardian. She gradually came into view, a fresh splash of blue and green against the red motif that patterned across the walls. "Where have you been? North has practically worried his beard off. Wait – what's wrong?"
For a moment, total confusion struck Jack. Toothiana was easily the most perceptive of any of the Guardians, but even her motherly instincts that made her particularly tuned in to Jack's emotions wouldn't be that accurate. She was at least twenty feet away, maybe more.
Or perhaps, he realized, he hadn't really given her a run for her money. Looking into a nearby window, he saw that his eyebrows were bunched together and that his mouth dipped down into a contemplative frown. He quickly straightened it out before Toothiana got any closer and frosted the window on impulse with his staff, as he always did when he got nervous.
"Nothing. I'm fine," Jack said, lying through his teeth. He didn't want to worry the other Guardians, and from what he had seen of Pitch, he didn't think that the Boogeyman would be able to cause too much harm.
Because of me, Jack thought, and was surprised to find that he felt guilty. Pitch had been and would most likely soon be their worst nightmare, no pun intended, the very enemy that had caused the Man in the Moon to create the Guardians in the first place. But even he couldn't ignore that the influence of the locket on Pitch had been nothing short of violent. Jack wasn't used to having that kind of effect over someone.
Toothiana stared at him incredulously and pursed her lips. Her feathers shuffled back and forth and her wings beat a calm humming noise into the evening air. She opened her mouth as if about to say something and then closed it again. Her bright, multicolored eyes scintillated like mounds of gems - rubies, emeralds, sapphires all heaped together.
"Okay," she said reluctantly. "If you say so."
This phase lasted no more than a couple of seconds, in which her feathers gave a momentary slump and her eyes crinkled in anxiety. It seemed a rather gross overreaction, but she and the other Guardians rarely saw Jack in a bad mood. Jack normally kept those mood swings to himself, but today he couldn't find the motivation to do so. To them, he was the carefree Guardian of fun - no worries, no deadlines, just play and laughter. It had been true, but he wasn't so sure now.
"Well anyways," Tooth said, giving Jack a small smile. "North cooked the entire feast by himself; you know how he gets around this time of the year. Wouldn't let the elves or the yetis touch a single thing."
"Not even the radishes?" Jack joked weakly.
"Especially not the radishes." Tooth looked at him. "I know you hate them, but just remember that North likes them, and that I don't think he appreciates when you call them mushy and overcooked."
Jack chuckled and Tooth continued. "Besides, he'd be just devastated to know that you missed out on one of his feasts. He knows how much you love them."
Jack lifted an eyebrow. "Was that a joke, Toothiana?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I can joke you know, Jack. Jack. Stop laughing!" Seeing Toothiana's mortified face only made Jack laugh more.
"Sorry," Jack wheezed, leaning onto the brick wall for support and wrapping both of his arms around his sides. "It's just that I always thought of you as prim and proper."
Toothiana looked mortified. "I am not prim and proper. There's a reason people call me the Warrior Queen."
"Brush your teeth and don't forget to floss!" Jack imitated, still laughing. "And you're a fairy. Sparkles and wings and all. That has to earn you some points on the prim scale."
"Hey," she said. "Plaque is a serious problem nowadays. You're lucky you're a frost spirit and you don't need to brush your teeth to keep them sparkling white. But every time I get a tooth from some child that hasn't been conducting proper dental hygiene – "
"You know what?" Jack asked. "I don't think I want to hear it."
"Oh, Jack," Tooth sighed. "No wonder Bunny says you're insufferable." But when Jack looked at her next, there was just the faintest hint of a smile on Tooth's face.
They settled into a ephemeral silence, one that Tooth felt perfectly comfortable because, well, when you're immortal, you start to run out of things to say after a few centuries or so. At least, that's what she had thought until she'd met Jack - for a spirit that was now over four hundred years old, he was still as voluble as ever.
Jack was too caught up in his own thoughts to notice that Tooth had stopped flying and had stopped before the hall where all of North's feasts took place. North probably delighted in these gatherings because very few days of the year did the Guardians meet up, even now. Usually it was just Jack. He had no better place to go.
It wasn't as if Jack didn't have anywhere to take up residence. If he really went on a vacation, , had the time to go, then he would go somewhere with the ideal weather - maybe Alaska. It was just that he didn't feel like it. Just staying in the Workshop made Jack go soft. Before, he had been able to handle his solitude, but when company was so eagerly offered - it was another matter altogether.
"Jack?" Tooth called, her bemused voice breaking his train of thought. "Watch out for the -"
"Oof," Jack said and fell backwards in an undignified sort of way. He rubbed his head clumsily and gave the pillar he had just run into one of his best glares.
Turning back to Tooth, who had covered her mouth, eyes alight with mirth, Jack complained, "Couldn't have warned me sooner, Tooth? What if I had knocked one of my teeth out?"
His tone was playful and teasing as usual, but a look of horror spread rapidly across Tooth's face. She covered her open mouth and her eyes widened.
"I'm so sorry Jack," she cried, voice shrill. "I wasn't thinking about your poor teeth." She flitted from side to side as she always did when she was feeling guilty.
"Well, that's new," Jack muttered. Tooth was always thinking about his teeth, and now that he had reminded her, she flew over to pry open his mouth and examine them again.
She sighed in relief and said, "They're okay."
Jack grinned, but with Tooth's fingers in his mouth, it probably turned out as a grimace. He felt an infectious good mood spread into him. Sometimes the Guardians were unbelievably gullible, clueless, or earnest for their age- for crying out loud, they were twice as old as Jack -, but they cheered him up like no one else could.
"Jack!" a new voice bellowed. "And Tooth. Long time no see, friends." His Russian accented voice was warm and deep, the type that you generally associate with hot chocolate and discussions by the fireplace.
"It's been one day, North," Tooth said, slightly cross. "And Jack almost lost a tooth because of your feast!" She said it like making someone lose a tooth was a capital crime.
"And what a shame that would have been," Bunny said, hopping into the room, polishing his beloved boomerang. His expression was fierce as always; Jack got the feeling that Bunny hadn't exactly forgiven him for the last time he had ruined Easter. Or the time before that. Or the time before that.
"Good to see you, Kangaroo," Jack said in a tone that was anything but good-natured. He prepared himself for another round of banter.
Bunny bristled as always, trying to make his height of over six feet seem even more impressive, puffing out his fluffy, gray chest. "What did you say, Frost?"
"Bunny!" North cried cheerfully and pulled him into a giant bear hug. It didn't quite work the same way it did for Jack, because Bunny's feet were only lifted a couple of inches off the floor. "You have made it! How was trip?"
"Yeah, yeah," the long-eared Guardian said without mirth. "Trip was good. The tunnels were safe. Weather's good in the Warren. Let's just get this over with. I have eggs to paint."
"Now?" Tooth asked. "It's months away from Easter."
"I'm going to start early this year," he explained, paw gripping threateningly on his boomerang. "Just in case someone decides to play a little practical joke again." He stared pointedly at Jack.
North chuckled. "Jack will not play joke, will you Jack? He is Guardian now. Besides, is no matter. Easter is not as important as Christmas. Everybody is knowing of that."
Bunny's eyes narrowed and he began to argue, his Australian accent becoming all the more prominent when he was angry. Jack let the century-old argument wash over him like music. The history of it had began shortly after the dark ages, and hardly a year could go by without North and Bunny going through the skit again.
"Hey," Jack whispered to himself a second before Bunny did, albeit in a stronger tone. "Easter is just as important as Christmas." He had memorized the lines already. Maybe he should have become an actor instead of a frost spirit.
Jack shrugged and tapped an elf with his foot, covering its left side with a fine sheet of ice. The elf squeaked and fell over. Tooth had started on her job already, giving what seemed to be a pep talk to the cloud of fairies surrounding her.
"Where's Sandy?" Jack asked absentmindedly, thinking again back to the reopened hole in the ground. The argument was just about ending; Bunny looked huffy, but like he had run out of things to say. "Busy with his work?"
"No," North said. "Sandy is sleeping. Lots of children were needing good dreams last night."
Jack nodded without surprise because North's feasts always took a general pattern. Tooth would work all night, Bunny would glare at Jack for hours on - his record was eight by now -, Jack would doze off, and Sandy would wake up at ten to give the children their good dreams, only to fall asleep like clockwork the next morning.
North, on the other hand, would make small talk for a couple of minutes, and then rush off to supervise the making of toys. No one could blame him, after all. Christmas was only days away.
What they did blame him for was calling them there every single night for the same old boring routine. Even the first year doing it, Jack was already bored. He couldn't imagine coming every year like the other Guardians must have, half-heartedly supporting North in his dash to make Christmas a reality.
Christmas may have been one of the best holidays in the eyes of the children, but for the Guardians, it was torture. Except for one large, jolly one.
North ushered them over to the table, a twenty foot wonder piled sky-high with foods of all kinds, or so Jack thought. Upon closer examination, it was all traditional Russian food.
North beamed and asked, "What do you think? Good? I try very hard this year to make a good feast for my friends."
They mumbled praise in response, but even their replies that wouldn't have fooled anyone were enough for North. The Guardian of Wonder looked every bit as happy as he had... yesterday. Or the day before. Or the Christmas before that.
"Enjoy!" he bellowed again, and then opened a portal to the lower level of the Workshop. Time was of the essence during Christmas-time for North, so much that he didn't even bother taking the stairs anymore.
They all sat down, Bunny keeping a distance from Jack as to keep a close eye on him and Tooth nearby. Jack put his hand on the wooden table. Almost immediately, the wood began to shrivel and droplets of water that promptly froze came out.
Jack jumped up and shock, and Bunny almost hurled a boomerang at him in surprise.
"Anything wrong, mate?" Bunny asked carefully, looking as if he wanted an excuse to throw his recently polished boomerang at Jack.
"Nothing," Jack said slowly. "Sorry. I'm just a little jumpy."
"Yeah, well, at least you know how it feels now, mate. To have to be constantly at your paws in case something happens to your eggs. Or to the children." Bunny had somehow conjured a hard-boiled egg and painted intricate patterns over its smooth surface. "Good thing Pitch hasn't come back yet, eh?"
"Yeah," Jack said, nervous at how close Bunny had come to the truth. "Yeah, it's a good thing he hasn't."
"You're one of us, now, mate. We aren't the BIg Four anymore - should be called the Big Five." Bunny smiled, or at least as close to a smile as the gruff Guardian could get. It filled him with such a wholehearted feeling for a moment that he felt ashamed,
Jack found it funny how each of the Guardians had accepted him so quickly as a member of their group. Even now, decades after the defeat of the Nightmare King, it was hard for Jack to adjust to their confined sort of lifestyle.
"You know what, Bunny? You may look tough on the outside, but you're just a softy on the inside," said Jack. Bunny looked irritated, but he didn't reply.
He looked out the window longingly, snow whirling outside in a wild blizzard. He wanted to know what it was like to race on the wind day after day, seeing how many times around the world it could take him, sleeping whenever he got tired, creating snowstorms everywhere he went.
But now Jack had responsibilities - the children. Though he loved the little rascals with all his heart, it just wasn't the same anymore. It wasn't as if North and the others expected him to do anything, because he was Jack Frost. What else could he do but make snow days?
Whenever he made a child smile with the prospect of making snowmen and sledding, Jack felt the same sort of warm feeling inside his heart. But he also knew that, should another danger rise, the child's life would be his to take care of. He had always hated responsibility.
And he still wasn't believed in. Jaime and his handful of friends had grown into middle-aged people, seniors by now, and it was just hard to make adults believe. Jack could count on one hand how many human beings knew he existed.
It was different with North and the other Guardians. They had so many children believing in them that they hardly seemed to cherish the belief of each. Jack took whatever he could get. It was better than nothing, and he knew that nothing felt like. He knew all too well what nothing felt like.
It had been hard twenty, thirty years ago when the children had stopped believing in him. First Cupcake, then Monty, and gradually the rest. All but Jaime. Jack had expected it; after all, who would be so loyal to him as to hold steadfast in their belief for fifty years? Jaime had been a pleasant surprise, like a nice, warm pocket in his heart that was nice to have when he had forgotten it was there.
A warm, golden glow filled the room, and Jack snapped out of his reverie. Apparently, he had been daydreaming for some time, because Bunny's eggs crowded the table already - either that, or Bunny had been practicing a lot.
"Hey, Sandy," Jack greeted, yawning and stretching. "What's up?"
The question was asked more out of habit and politeness than anything, but Jack soon regretted it. A multitude of images flashed above Sandy's head, so fast and each emitting such a bright light that it was enough to give people a seizure. Jack recognized a couple here and there, but then the next image would already be present, shattering the possibility of having a cohesive message.
"Uh...sorry, Sandy. I'm kinda lost here. But I think somebody else might understand," Jack said bemusedly. The other Guardians would be full-time translators for the Sandman if they hadn't already been busy with other things.
Sandy seemed very excited about something and repeated his message again without complaint. He pointed to Jack's neck. Jack looked down and saw the silver, ornate locket, seeming so fragile resting against his chest. The look on Sandy's face - Jack could have sworn that the Guardian of Dreams looked like he had been reunited with an old friend. Or perhaps, seeing the brooding look begin to spread across a round, golden face, an enemy.
He began to gesture wildly in his excitement, images in sand appearing in and out of existence in the blink of an eye. Through the chaos, Jack could barely make out the face of a young girl, a tree, a locket, and what appeared to look like a spaceship.
"This is still about the locket, right?" Jack asked carefully. He wanted to make sure that he deciphered this right, because something on Sandy's face told him that he would want to know.
Sandy was patient still, He conjured up one image at a time until it became somewhat clearer what he meant. First appeared the locket, there was no doubt about it; the very shape had been branded into Jack's mind. Then a lightning bolt. A girl. And finally, there was the image of a looming figure that Jack recognized to be the Boogeyman.
His eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. "So you're saying that the locket belonged to a girl." Sandy nodded vigorously, urging Jack on. The little man looked ready to explode with pent up excitement as he bounced up and down, like the laws of gravity no longer applied to him.
So it belonged to the girl sleeping in the tree. Somehow, that didn't entirely surprise Jack. It had been stuck inside the very tree that she was in, after all.
"And the girl knows Pitch?"
Sandy's face was considering and he tilted his head to the side a little. Jack knew what that meant. So the girl knew Pitch, but Jack wasn't entirely right yet.
He tried again. "So the girl knows Pitch, but not that well?" Sandy, this time, shook his head so hard that Jack thought it was going to disconnect from his shoulders. The golden Guardian procured an image of two people holding hands, one tall and one short. Then the same two people with the smaller sitting on the lap of the other.
Jack thought back to the cracked photograph that he had seen of a man that had looked so similar to Pitch and the young girl, finally connecting it to Sandy's message.
"She's … his daughter," he said finally, and Sandy shot up and down triumphantly, creating an image of a bingo board above his head. It was amazing how detailed the miniscule sand sculptures could get, as if they had been carved out by the tiniest sculptor in the world.
"But how do you know this? Did you know the girl or something? Or did Pitch tell you?" Jack's curiosity didn't just stop there. He had a million more questions to ask. but the Sandman didn't exactly seem like the right recipient. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to tell the other Guardians that Pitch was back yet.
There was a sorrowful expression on Sandy's face, innocent and pure like that of a child. If North hadn't told him otherwise, Jack would have never guessed that Sandy was the oldest of any Guardian. He had existed for thousands of years before he had become a Guardian.
In the final picture Sandy would make that night, Jack saw a figure that was unmistakably that of Sandy himself and a young girl sitting together. They looked so peaceful, the golden silhouettes dancing and revolving in that midnight air that Jack was taken aback for a moment.
"She was your friend."
Sandy shrugged and nodded, looking very sad. Understanding hit Jack. The Sandman thought that the girl was gone, that Pitch's daughter was dead. Contradictory words sprung to his mouth but he couldn't bear to say them out loud.
He wasn't even sure yet that the girl was the subject in question. Jack couldn't connect the face of the sleeping child with that of Pitch, a nemesis that had sowed seeds of terror in every child across the globe since he had been only decades old.
Jack wanted to ask Sandy more, but he looked so tired and small that he pushed another question back down his throat and decided to stay quiet. It bubbled up anyhow.
"So, she's dead, right?" Jack tried to confirm, ignoring a voice in his head that he was being inconsiderate and blunt. After all, if Sandy had looked so sad at just the mention of this girl, who was he to start talking about her hypothetical death?
Sandy didn't look annoyed, thankfully. Most of the Guardians had insurmountable levels of patience; in fact, Jack would have placed a general stereotype that all Guardians were patient, had it not been for a certain Australian resembling Pooka. The golden man simply nodded once and turned away, golden sand floating above the palm of his hand.
Jack looked up as well, noticing only that Tooth and Bunny were nowhere to be seen, though the latter had covered half of the room with painted hard-boiled eggs. He sighed, brushed aside a few eggs, and placed his head on his arms, which were resting on the oaken table.
If he was a Guardian now, why did he still feel so left out? He still had difficulty telling them things that they should have a right to know, like the fact that Pitch was back. It was like there was someone restraining him from inside.
Jack wanted to wait for North, but slowly his eyes closed and he drifted off, with the last thing that he remembered being golden waves of sand spiraling from Sandy's hands out the open window towards awaiting children beyond.
day two -
Jack snuck out just after midnight, having not been able to sleep much after his short respite. He had woken up next to an uneaten feast, well, at least partially uneaten. Or perhaps an elf or two had taken a short break because around the food on each plate there were rings of tiny nibbles.
He stretched out muscles sore from staying in one place for two long, as they always were after he rested. Though his mind and body were usually one, sometimes they contradicted; his mind needed rest occasionally, his body was always restless. Jack pushed himself up from off the table and hooked thin fingers onto an ancient wooden staff.
He ran towards the nearest exit, wishing that the wind would be able to carry him even indoors like North's snowglobes and Bunny's tunnels. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. The stone floor, with intricate, tiny carvings, bit into his bare feet, which were roughened from centuries of use. Jack didn't see why people wore shoes.
Panting, he flung open a window; as the wind greeted him, blanketing his hair with layers of snow, he smiled. It blew that healthy white tinge back into his cold cheeks. And with the faint tinkling lights behind him from gentle candlelight, Jack slipped out into icy darkness.
This time, he knew exactly where he wanted to go. There was no ambivalence or indecision - no, he had already been given too much time to contemplate that. Jack usually went with his gut feeling, and right now its internal GPS was telling him to trace his way back down the very route he had taken not too long ago. That made sense - Jack Frost, part-time homing pigeon.
He let himself fall from the window, limbs flung out, knowing that he would be caught like a lightweight leaf in the wind. He somersaulted and twirled himself dizzy under the light of the moon - the Man in the Moon. THe creator of the Guardians himself in all his glory.
Humoring himself, Jack let his thoughts wander, as they always did, going off tangents until he wandered light years away from where he had first begun.
If the last time Pitch came back, the Man in the Moon made me a Guardian, Jack thought, then I wonder who's gonna be initiated this time.
That was an interesting idea. It was impossible for Jack to have never met another spirit or something of the sort, but he didn't know that many, and he wasn't entirely sure how many existed. He had, of course, met the Big Four before he had become a Guardian, but it was only because they were some of the most famous immortals.
Jack knew about a handful of others that were popular in modern culture - the Groundhog, Leprechaun, Pegasus. They liked to flaunt themselves before humankind and had done so for so long that they had been imbedded in its culture.
Some, on the other hand, liked to keep themselves hidden away. Jack had heard stories of seclusive spirits luring unsuspecting immortals and humans alike into their dark recesses, usually in caves or ocean abysses. The Man in the Moon hadn't created all of them. Some were said to be older than the moon itself.
He soared, bursting into cloud after cloud, each a dark wisp barely illuminated by the glow of the moon. Moisture bit at his face and froze as he went higher, until he brushed them off with his sleeve. Jack was so high above the ground that the suburbs and cities below looked like twinkling lights on a Christmas tree. Though it was below freezing, he was so attuned to the weather that it felt as if it was seventy degrees and sunny, at least to normal people. Jack would have overheated in that kind of temperature.
He looked up at the moon, a thousand questions racing through his head. Why was Pitch back? And what did the Man in the Moon have to do with this. A gray smile on a shining white face looked back. Well, that was helpful - more silence. Though it wasn't as if Jack had expected anything else.
Wind swooped through vortexes of space in between Jack and the ground, pushing him to new heights that almost made him dizzy. Thankfully, he wasn't afraid of heights. That would be like an Olympic diver, afraid of water, or a chef afraid of fire. His job description allowed no room for that fear.
In this particular moment, Jack enforced no control over the wind; he simply flowed along it like a salmon in a river, able to swim upstream but unwilling to. It began to take him along a familiar path again, across valleys and rivers to a sight that was easy on the eyes. Montana.
Pitch's little clearing arrived in sight, dark and foreboding in the lack of illumination. He didn't have to tell the wind even once to set him down. By the time he noticed the hole, he was already descending towards the entrance.
He laughed nervously, air rushing out from his lungs in a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "No turning back now, I guess, huh?" The wind was silent, as if it too felt the suspense pressing down on its shoulders.
It was funny how eager he had been to leave a couple of hours ago; if eager could describe the feeling he had experienced. It was more as if he felt as if a meeting with PItch was inevitable, and that he should get it over with anyways. Now that his feet were firmly planted on the ground, he stared into the dark capillary spilling into a complex network of veins and arteries beneath, able to compose an extensive list of places he would rather be than there.
He prodded some earth with the bottom of his staff, watching as a small clump of dirt was dislodged, falling so far that Jack couldn't even hear the thump that it most likely made. Unless gravity had somehow ceased to exist for a few seconds.
His resolve felt shaky. Jack stepped back a little until he wasn't dangerously close to the edge of the hole anymore and considered his options, scarce as they were. He could either go back to the safety of the North Pole without anyone having realized that he had been absent or venture into a dark tunnel where unknown perils might await him.
It was an easy choice at first, until he realized that he would never get the information that he wanted if he didn't go in. And Jack Frost was a sucker for information. He had been tormented by the Man in the Moon, who supposedly had answers to his questions, for centuries. He had let the Guardians down when his memories had been at stake, contained in their little receptacles of teeth. Now he was about to give in to temptation once more.
Jack took a deep breath and before he could change his mind, he took a step forward and plummeted downwards, freefalling to another universe below.
As reaching the ground began to seem a more probable event, Jack started to panic, thoughts racing through his head a mile per minute. He had fallen for more than a couple of seconds, at least, and his speed was only increasing. Though he was immortal - but not entirely sure he couldn't be killed -, a couple hundred foot drop couldn't feel all too good.
Oddly, the ground seemed to reach up towards him, reacting to his anxiety. It swelled up like the crescendo of a great musical piece, softened and eased his landing. It felt as if he had fallen onto the world's largest pillow rather than dirt and rocks.
He looked around and even in the dim light he noticed it, most likely because it radiated light itself.
"Whoa," he said. There, leaning against the wall was a golden scythe, as if that name did it justice, shimmering like Sandy's dreamsand. It was one of the most impressive weapons he had ever seen. It made his staff look like a child's toy.
He lurched forwards without actually noticing, drawn to it like a magnet. Of course, Jack had seen Pitch with his scythe before, the two of them making quite the intimidating team. But it had changed entirely. The edges weren't as jagged as before, nor as rough and unformed. The reformed scythe before him could only be described as majestic, the edges a soft metallic color, light and versatile. It somehow utilized the small amount of moonlight to the maximum, shooting off rays of glory in a three-yard radius around it.
It looked entirely out of place. Not like something that would belong to Pitch Black, the Nightmare King, the Boogeyman, or whatever else he was called. Jack only had one name, for all that he knew. Maybe the scarier you were, the more names people decided to give you.
"Frost." The voice was cold and without humor. "Decided to show up again?"
Jack whirled around on his toes, reaching for his staff and pointing it directly at the figure behind him. "Do you always sneak up on people?" It seemed like the wrong moment to ask the question, but he was infamous for speaking without thinking.
"It's habit." Pitch seemed determined to make his answers as short and concise as possible, as if he wanted to get the very conversation over with.
Speaking of Pitch, he looked the worse for wear. There were dark bags under his face, underlining his wild eyes with smoky, expressive marks, and his hair flew out in every which direction.
"Yeah, that's cool. Being the Boogeyman and all, I - I get it. So, yeah," Jack shuffled his feet around awkwardly, abashed at have being caught. It wasn't as if he hadn't expected it.
"You know," he said finally, will collapsing under Pitch's intense golden stare. "This was a really bad idea. I shouldn't have come. I'm just gonna go now. Glad to see you're okay. Um… see you later, I guess." He was about to turn to leave when Pitch clasped a firm hand around Jack's wrist.
"Wait," Pitch said. "So eager to leave, are you, Frost? Do I frighten you?"
When Jack got a good look at him, Pitch was almost smiling. He could see it in his golden eyes, some brand of good humor struggling to push through that somber mask. It was a mocking, sarcastic glow that infused Jack with a smidgen of hope.
"No," Jack stated. He thought he sounded very much like a rebellious child. "You wish. I'm not scared of you." A part of him wanted to say, "Not when you're like this," but he pushed it back down his throat.
"Lies," Pitch replied, voice becoming softer. "Why are you lying, Jack? I can smell your fear from a mile away. It's so distinctive I couldn't have mistaken it for that of anyone else. You fear me. You fear what I might do to you, to your Guardians."
"And more importantly," he continued, "if you fear me so, why did you come back? I suppose it makes complete sense in your mind - someone threatens you and you come closer. I'm no Guardian, Jack. I'm not a big jolly ball of wonder, nor - gods forbid - a fluffy little rabbit."
Gods? Jack thought, musing over Pitch's word choice. The notion left his mind quickly in light of other matters - namely, delivering a scathing retort.
"You think I don't know that?" Jack asked incredulously. "It's not as if I just forgot entirely about what happened fifty years ago - when you tried to take over the world. I'm not stupid."
"Oh, I agree," Pitch said, beginning to circle around Jack in a way that made him feel like prey. "You're something else entirely. So tell me Jack, why did you come back? You knew I wasn't exactly going to welcome you back with open arms."
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right?" Jack laughed breathily. The reply sounded shaky even to him.
"Really?" Pitch said, leaning in closer, so close that Jack could smell him - a musty scent of sandalwood and bay rum. "I don't believe you. If you wanted to keep me close, then you could have done that thirty, forty years ago. I suppose that is the question - why now, Jack Frost?"
"So I was curious," Jack said, something indignant in him firing up. "Sue me."
"Well then, indulge my curiosity and give me an actual answer," Pitch said resolutely. Jack saw no way to sway him otherwise.
"Fine. I don't know how to explain it," he said reluctantly, as Pitch raised an arched eyebrow. "I was curious. And I felt kind of sorry for you, locked up in that hole for fifty years. All I saw was the new hole that opened up in Montana when I was flying cross-country yesterday -"
"A new entrance opened up?" Pitch asked, suddenly looking very interested. "I wasn't aware of that. That's how you got in, correct?"
"There are more?" Jack said, feeling alarmed. "How come I - we - haven't noticed any of them? I've practically been to every spot in the United States in the last fifty years."
"But not all at once," Pitch answered. "Maybe over the course of fifty years, but in perhaps one year, you couldn't possibly have traveled everywhere. And not all of them are in the United States."
He started laughing. "What is it?" Jack asked, abruptly self-conscious.
Pitch rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, it's just that it seems a rather stupid thing to do - to risk your life because you felt sorry for someone. What if I had attacked you," he said, moving behind Jack, "or kept you captive here?" Jack could feel Pitch's hot breath on the back of his neck.
He couldn't answer, couldn't move, too aware of Pitch's proximity. A frost spirit, frozen to the spot. The irony of it was apparent to Jack.
"You are too trusting of people. Only seeing the best out of them, blind to everything else," Pitch said. "If I had really tried to hurt you, do you really doubt that I could?"
"But you're weaker now," Jack blurted out, only wanted to rid of the uncomfortable air that surrounded them. He felt somewhat suffocated. "The shadows - they aren't obeying you anymore."
Pitch's lips tightened. Jack got the feeling that he had said something wrong, but before he could make amends, Pitch spoke. "You're right. For such a naive frost spirit, you can come remarkably close to the truth." And that was the end of that matter, or so Pitch thought. Jack couldn't just let it rest there.
"I - I want to know," he added.
Pitch stared at him, eyebrows raised. "Pardon?"
"Why are you weaker now? What happened to you while you were trapped in here -or is it something that I did? Because the last time I came, that shadow came out of you - "
His ramble was cut off with an impatient remark. "It isn't as if you could have done this, Frost. Don't place yourself in such high regard; you don't have the ability to do anything. If I were to attack you and your pathetic Guardians again - "
"You would lose," Jack finished, cutting him off.
Pitch's mouth tightened. "Well, aren't you obstinate as hell."
As if hadn't heard that line before. "Anything else I don't know?" Jack asked, voice adopting that same satirical monotone it did every time he spoke to Bunny.
Jack looked down and saw a shimmering glint of metal, and - remembering the locket that he had forgotten to take off - he went out on a limb and shrugged it off, holding it towards Pitch in an outstretched palm. Pitch's golden eyes widened. In the very back of his head, Jack wondered if he had gone too far. That had become a habitual feeling.
"But this can, right?" Jack said, recalling how Pitch had reacted to the locket at first. He looked like that right now, mouth slightly open, as if he couldn't believe what Jack was doing. He did not stir for a while, then took the locket from Jack with shaking hands. His trembling fingers brushed against Jack's for the briefest of moments. They were so warm that they sent a shiver snaking up his back.
Pitch grasped the locket so tightly that his knuckles turned white, enveloped it into his long hands so that only a lean cord dangled out. If he hadn't known Pitch, then he would have said that the man was close to tears. Pitch didn't seem like the type to cry.
He swallowed, seemed to compose himself, and murmured something that Jack could barely catch as they danced through the air on a whisper. "Thank you." He probably hadn't meant for Jack to hear. The Nightmare King, actually thanking someone. What that would do for his reputation.
It was as if - Jack realized - the locket was alive, like a long-lost friend that Pitch had not seen for centuries, finally return to its rightful home. If Pitch made a fist, the locket seemed to fit perfectly into the seam between his fingers and palm, as if he had manufactured the trinket himself. Or perhaps he had. Jack was way out of his depth here.
"Come in," Pitch said suddenly, breaking Jack's train of thought. "It seems we have a lot to discuss."
This time, there was a definite, grateful - albeit small - smile on his face. The entire air seemed to warm, as if Pitch had magically lifted the dark atmosphere. Jack could suddenly notice the finite details of the lair, realizing that it wasn't the average villain's hideout. On the walls, there hung painting after painting, the material cracking, all dating back to the Renaissance or earlier still. There were built-in bookshelves on the walls, stocked with books in languages he could not read. Candlelight illuminated the dimmest areas of the room. It was odd that he hadn't noticed it before.
"You've been redecorating," Jack said in wonder. No longer was it the same dreary place, littered with rusted birdcages, the centerpiece a dark globe. "It looks nice."
"Oh, I've tidied up here and there," Pitch said, brushing off the remark with the air of a monarch. "It was getting rather unsightly. Wouldn't do for visitors."
He has changed, Jack thought, the doubt being erased from his mind.
This time, when he followed Pitch into the sitting room - having to take two steps for every one of his long strides - there was no preexistent fear in his mind. He wished he had been afraid, had turned back there, had never visited Pitch in the first place, for there was no diviner in the world who could have predicted what web of plots and secrets he would soon be plunged into.
A/N: Sorry guys, again. As always, read and review! Or favorite. Or follow. Or do god knows what it's America people do whatever you want and this is the worst run on sentence I've ever written sorry it's kinda going on and on but I feel like rambling today
-wiindsongieeeeee