The shadow seemed to cower into the alcove in which it was situated in. No, it wasn't an it. Tooth flew closer and found it was a girl. A pale, snow-haired girl wearing a thin white dress, which was strange, because it was so cold despite the many fires in the workshop. The girl had a sense of fragility about her, and fright and mistrust in her eyes.
How she got there, nobody but Sandy and the girl herself knew. "Um, hello there. Who are you and how did you get here?"
The girl stared at her with those haunted eyes, with a hint of wist. She just scuffled her feet, and looked down. Sandy forgot how volatile the girl was in her state, and stumbled as she scrambled away from him. She screamed, which was disturbing for them all, as it was as silent as can be. Tooth gasped, and glanced at Sandy and got a confirmation to her suspicion.
The girl was mute.
A sand image of the girl came up, along with a snowflake. Then the words 'Jacqueline Frost.' The three clueless spirits figured the girl's name was Jacqueline Frost. North, ever the intuitive one, was thinking of the snowflake. Then his mind fast-forwarded to the myth, Jack Frost. Then he looked at the girl with a white dress. White because of the frost patterns adorning the fabric!
Bunny had apparently come up with the same thought, "So, let me get this straight. The ankle-biter is mute. And the girl is a spirit. What's more, she is the elusive 'Jack Frost?'" He looked at her with respect and annoyance. "Just how long has she been by herself? And how did she keep herself hidden through four decades?"
By now, Jackie had gathered her wits and was staring at the Sandman with something akin to betrayal. More icy tears gathered in her eyes. The message was blatantly clear: You promised. He looked away, painfully aware of his mistake. So he did the one thing he could to make it right. He distracted the others by throwing a ball of dreamsand at a picture frame. The ball reflected off of the glass and bounced around, making the others duck and try to avoid it.
By the time the projectile fizzled out, Jackie was gone. North glared at the dreamer, why would he do that? Sandy was downcast, there goes another few decades of loneliness for Jackie. He wouldn't blame her if she did spend all that time alone.
When North turned to ask Bunny to track down the child, he found him frozen and staring at an arctic fox. The fox had a beautiful snowy pelt, and looked young, but there was aura about it, the kind that you would normally see around an immortal. North immediately knew why Bunny looked petrified. The fox was standing, the paws spread out, and the fur on end. It's muzzle was drawn back in a gruesome snarl.
It looked like he was mad. At all of them. Tooth was glancing at Sandy suspiciously. If Jackie was the winter spirit (there were no others), she must've somehow created winter animals, and Sandy seemed to know the fox already, by the way he was cringing.
The fox growled, a soft but deadly sound, and a wave of winter magic spread over the already cold Pole. He left the frozen Guardians to melt.
Sniffing the air, a breeze of sharp, cold smell in a forest met his nose. He ran alongside the wind, at some times riding on the wind, to get to his best friend. Her only friend. Her only constant companion, as even the beach-sand-short-man had proved.
Solstice remembered when he had observed the coming of the frost-child. A great-whipping-storm of white-flakes had spread worldwide, but it had originated nearby the den he had lived in. He was only a year-old at the time, and he had bright orange fur with patches of grey fuzz down his muzzle and tail. The curious animal had crept out of the hollow under the tree despite the cold.
The winds had almost pushed him back in, as if protecting something, or someone. He had seen a small figure huddled up not far from his home. Solstice had pushed through the strengthening gales, and made it to the trembling girl. He had sat beside her.
That's when it happened. He had felt a breeze: so cold, yet so warm and inviting. His fur changed into a warm, white coat, and he felt more at ease with the cold-dust falling from the sky. Solstice felt a... A... Connection with the crying girl beside him. He didn't bite when she reached her hand to to scratch right behind his ears.
Solstice reached the origin of the cold-forest-smell. His soul-partner was up on a tall tree, sitting in a fork. Now how was he going to get to the girl?
The wind whistled through his fur, but he ignored it. He could always climb...? But wait, no, the bark is too frost-slippery, his claws wouldn't be able to grip the trunk. He couldn't jump from branch-to-branch, there were too few, too far.
The wind rose, practically screaming at him. The fox glared at the breeze as if it was a real spirit, wondering wh—oh. If he were human, he would've facepalmed himself. Being the arctic fox he was, he settled on biting his tail.
The air current picked up the fox with a throbbing tail, carrying him to the highest, thinnest branch. There, sitting on the stick, was Jackie. The girl had frozen tears on her face. She had never cried before, it was a strange feeling. There was immense sadness, a bittersweet feeling that reminds us of the happy things that were long ago crushed. Jackie had been stronger than this, but then again, she had never felt the sting of betrayal. If she hadn't started sobbing, the weight on her chest would have exploded outwards, creating the second-biggest blizzard in history.
Instead, she had broken down. The sobs warranted just a light flurry, with the gray of her emotions painted across the sky. Her sadness radiated from her being, so tangible. Solstice couldn't help but howl to the cloud-covered silver-sun as salt-drops trailed down his snout.
Back at the North Pole, the Guardians had managed to break out of the ice cubes. Over the roaring winds outside, they heard a peculiar sound. It sounded like broken sobs and a high keening wail.
North, Tooth, and Bunny looked to Sandy, he was the only one who knew all about this 'Jack Frost,' after all. The object of speculation sighed and told them her story. He had nothing else to lose, he had already broken his promise to Jackie anyway.
'Jack Frost is not Jack Frost. Jack Frost if Jacqueline Frost, but she prefers Jackie. She was born in the year of 1581, during that worldwide blizzard. She is the first and only spirit of winter. When she was born, a few special fauna were changed to help them survive winter. A swift fox was among them, his orange fur turning to white. The fox, named Solstice, became her only trustworthy friend.' At the word trustworthy, Sandy turned away, holding back tears.
'Through the next two decades, the many smaller blizzards were caused by her. They were the result of her emotional breakdowns and her inability to control her powers. That was why not even Mother Nature was able to stop them, as Jackie is not her child. Jackie managed to control her magic and like the loneliness. Ever since then, for 423 years, she stayed way from other spirits. Until I came and found her on a roof in Michigan. I was just doing my rounds, and she didn't know who I was. We had a snowball war,' at this, Bunny snorted, 'which she won, with the help of Solstice.
Then you turned on the Guardian signal, and when I turned to leave, she asked me to promise not to tell anybody about her. I did. And she followed, just to see you guys, but she didn't want to be discovered. You know the rest.' By this time, Samdy was worn out. He had had to write all of that out with his dreamsand! He fell back onto the ground and promptly fell asleep.
The other Guardians felt like failures. They left her alone for decades, she was still just a child. Bunny shrugged, "What's done is done, we can't change the past. We better put Sandy to bed." Without further ado, he picked up the surprisingly light dreamer and tucked him into a bed in one of the guest rooms.
North looked for something to do, and walked off, drinking eggnog as he went.
The ever active Tooth was, for once, kneeling on her knees, trying not to listen to the ongoing cries and howls pounding against the windows.
Jackie had finally stopped crying. She curled up in the fork in the tree and fell asleep with Solstice resting beside her stomach.
A/N: Don't be surprised about the sad parts... Anything I post later on will probably be tragedy too.