hey! I'm glad you guys liked Valley Forge! It was fun to write, and while I'm continuing that and this new other Arc, here is my take on Easter Sunday of '68! I know there are a billion of these, but I hope you like it!
PS: For all you Stark Twins fans, I wrote a huge chunk of it today!
It was warm- far too warm for Jack Frost as he crouched, panting, in Virginia. The sun seemed to be concentrating all it's energy on him, and he felt like he was melting.
An idea popped into his head. It would solve all his problems!
No, you're not allowed to do that. He chided himself. He pushed it down.
It bobbed back up to the surface like a cork.
He knew he wasn't supposed to make it snow during any season except his own. But he didn't want to leave his home by the lake just yet and head to Antarctica for the Spring and Summer. He felt as though something was holding him here, like a rope was tied to his tree here and the other end was knotted around his chest. And he was hoping, beyond hope, that it was the Moon, finally ready to give him some answers.
Maybe...maybe just a little. Just a little dash of frost, just so the temperature would drop just a few degrees, just enough for Jack to sweat it out and make it through the day. Plus, it would be better for the kids. And a layer of frost would look perfect on the brightly colored eggs! More kids would see them and believe In the Easter Bunny. I mean, Jack had never actually talked to the guy, but he knew he was real when he had seen him racing by, crossing paths with the winter spirit as nothing more than a flash of big ears and gray fur. Jack always called out, but the Bunny never stopped, only kept running. Jack had learned to stop feeling wounded. It was nothing personal, right? I mean, when you have that many believers you must be busy. So even though Jack had never spoken to him, he knew he was real. Just because you don't talk to someone doesn't make them not real. Right?
Grinning madly, Jack concentrated on his staff, calling his powers of winter. He sighed with relief when his friend the North Wind wrapped around him in its version of a hug. Carefully, very, very carefully, Jack commanded a thin layer of frost to creep gently over the glimmering colors, making them brighter and sharper. It was slow going, though, so Jack tapped a little deeper into his power and commanded the frost to go faster. It surged in him like an ocean wave, and so did the frost, thickening and shooting out farther in flowery patterns.
Elation coursed through Jack's veins. Finally, he had found a way to help! Something that would benefit both him and the Easter Bunny! And maybe it really was the moon holding him here, just so he could do this, and help, and meet the Easter Bunny, who would talk to him, an maybe...maybe...help him get believers.
So wrapped up was he in his own joy and hope that he at first didn't notice the dark, snow-heavy clouds that had began to roll across the previously clear sky. It was only when big, fat snowflakes began to drift from the clouds did his happiness turn to panic.
It wasn't supposed to snow! That was, for once, too much! Jack frantically tried to rein in the snow before it got out of hand, but to his horror, it only became thicker and faster, obscuring his vision. No! No no no! He tried to tell it. But it wouldn't listen. Jack could only stare as snow stuck to the ground, burying the eggs in their heavy powder. The temperature had dropped to below freezing. The kids couldn't even come outside. What have I done?
Suddenly, barely two inches from his foot, a perfect circle of earth caved in and a huge gray blur shot out of it, so close that Jack felt it brush his arm. Crying out in shock, Jack stumbled backwards, slamming into a snowdrift and turning at the last second so that his staff wouldn't be trapped beneath him.
He stared up at the gray blur. He stared up at the livid Easter Bunny. Jack gulped and opened his mouth, about to explain what happened, but the Bunny cut him off, snow spraying out from under his feet, stomping towards him with green eyes blazing.
"Whah' the hell is wrong w' you, eh mate?!"
Jack gawked. The Easter Bunny was... Australian?! And he said a bad word!
"Its bad enough I barely have enough eggs t' hide, but this is ridiculous! I have a job to do, a responsibility, which is more than you've ever dealt with!" He dew himself up to his full towering height. "I've got a reputation to keep up, mate!"
Jack's shame vanished, replaced with indignation. The part about him not having responsibility, he could take, because he accepted that was mostly true. But all this yelling and blaming (and cussing!) just for a reputation was ridiculous. Jack just wanted to talk to one person, was that so much! Plus it had been an accident!
Jack sprang to his feet, feeling uncomfortable heat rise into his cheeks."Oh, yeah?" He yelled petulantly, "Well then I'm not sorry it happened! And you— you're nothing but a— a— a big—!"
His argument was cut off by his own yelp when the Bunny grabbed two handfuls of his hoodie in paws and lifted Jack off the ground, his face wrought with rage as Jack lost his grip on his staff. "I don't care, you ignorant brat!" He roared, "NO ONE cares about you or anything about you! It would be better for this whole world of you didn't exist!"
The words stabbed the poor winter spirit like knives to the chest. But Jack didn't say anything back to that, just stared at the Easter Bunny numbly...because...because...
A horrible, awful wave reared in his stomach like bile, rising up in sickening horror and realization.
He was right.
Jack heard himself say something flatly and monotonous, something like, "You're despicable, for thinking you have the right to live. I hate you." He said it to himself, of course, not the the Bunny. These words were directed at Jack Frost, the horrible one that didn't exist. He hated Jack Frost.
So he was even more confused, but distantly, when the Bunny gaped at him in furious shock and threw him to the ground, Jack's head bouncing hard, too hard, against a tree trunk.
More than his skull felt broken now. He felt as if his spirit had been ripped right out of him.
Ignoring the agony behind his ear, Jack took off, dimly hearing the Easter Bunny yelling profanities behind him.
So...you like? Should I continue? Or should I update Valley Forge next? Give me your thoughts!
Review!