Chapter 3: The Hands of Time
"Who?"
"Father Time. Old friend." North said rather bluntly as he started to walk away.
"Well what can he do?"
"Well he can…well control time…more or less."
"He can control time? Why haven't we used his powers before?"
"He's not one to recon with Jack. Time is a precious thing. If he does decide to help us it will only be by the grace of the Moon." North said putting on his jacket.
"So how will he help us then? I don't even know who the girl is...other than her Frost power...but-?" Jack said.
"Hopefully the star will be enough. If this is what is supposed to be it will be…if not-" North looked to the sky. "-then… we will come back and start to make more toys again." He shrugged.
Jack wondered how he could possibly know so little about all the other people in this world like the Guardians. He always did wonder what the St. Patrick's day leprechaun looked like. He followed with the orb in his arm.
He wondered if he was right in doing this…there was only one way to find out.
He followed North and Sandman into the sled.
"So where are we going to find Father Time?"
"Where there is the largest time." North said.
"Time?" Jack repeated.
Sandman shook his head. A clock formed over his head.
"The biggest clock? Where's-" Jack said as North opened a portal to so quickly he couldn't finish his sentence.
"-that?" Jack said as he looked around. "London?"
"It is the Big Ben!" North said as they bellowed towards the large clock tower.
"He lives in the big ben?" Jack asked. He started to wonder if the old man had a French accent too…
"Now…" North said as they floated up to a balcony surrounding the outside of the clock tower. "We go inside. I will see if he will answer but if he doesn't…"
"Then we try again." Jack said.
"Or we can leave." North said.
"Are you scared of him?"
"No, no. It's just he has his ties with time…and as a Guardian I prefer time to be on my side."
Jack looked to Sandman for more clarification.
Sandman's sand created a scythe.
"Death?"
"Well not just death my boy. I have to use time to its best to get all of the gifts back. He is not of the Moon's Guardians. He is gifted but not chosen. He does not hold any responsibility but for time to function correctly, and to correct what is fated to be …correct."
"But the Moon is his boss too?"
"Well…it seems our Moon has a little control over some things. But time has a way of keeping balance. When there is death there is birth. He over sees this. I am not certain, he can unbalance these scales for our own benefit."
"Well I don't really think it's for my own benefit." Jack said looking at the orb hard.
"Nor do I..but we are with the Moon, and the Moon's benefit is not always Time's. The Moon has awakened here though...and It is time." North opened the doors to the inside of the clock. They looked at the large face and North walked closer as he looked for a small cog wheel. "Ah." He said. He stuck his finger in the middle of it and spun it, as it moved in a clockwise motion and with a slight push the clock seemed to open from the back outwards, as if a door was opening to the London sky.
Except, Jack noticed there wasn't a sky but rather a larger space of starry sky, cog wheels floating here and there…as if they'd found their way to a different place other than Earth.
"Woah." Jack stepped back.
"Well the door opened, so we shall enter." North nodded and boldly stepped into the darkness. Jack and Sandman followed.
They walked no longer than ten steps before they heard a voice. Large, bellowing.
"What tidings with time do you have today Giver of the gifts?"
They looked to see an old man, large, tall, in a blue robe, both fragile and strong. Quite frankly Jack hadn't expected to ever know a man bigger than Nicholas St. North, but well quite frankly he just had.
His scythe was long and shimmered white silver as if it was a pure white light. His hourglass dusted rather regular sand that dusted down against an upward pale blue-silver dust. Not like the star's…it was rather there but not at the same time...
"Well actually it is the Moon that, we believe, asked us here." North spoke up.
"Ah, the Moon. He has a way of rising and falling in the midst of my dealings with time." Father Time shrugged as if he was half annoyed, half accepting of this.
"He showed me a…a dream…or rather a memory…but I interacted with it. The Moon…well I'm quite sure, wants me to go back to help one of the Frost's keepers. I just…I know that it sounds-"
"Ah, you are the new guardian, are you? The one they call "Jack Frost"?" He bent down, closer to Jack.
"I am." Jack nodded.
"Let me see it."
Jack hesitantly handed over the orb. Father Time looked at it for a long minute as he twisted it in his hands.
"It is a Moon's memory. How strange that Moon is that he gives one to you, you know they can only be…or only have been ever given every hundred years…luckily the Moon only intervenes as much." Father Time said.
"A hundred years?" Jack was surprised.
"And yet you're face does not understand, that you were also one of the Moon's decided exceptions. You were supposed to be dead. He raised you from death, something even I do not control. I only make sure the sands are equal, quite literally. Normally I watch over this, and yet you are one of the few pieces of sand that hovers midway between the spiritual and the physical. Not all of the past or current Guardians had to die first you know." Father Time put the hourglass extremely close to Jack's face.
"Well…will you do it?" North said getting a little impatient.
"If the Moon wants it. It wants it. So yes other Mid-Sander." The timeless man was tall, and large but had an old bitter voice of a man who had seen a million lives and not cared much for now at all.
"So how do I get there?"
"Mix this sand of time, with your Moon's memories. It will act like the spirit sand does in my hourglass, but as you see, the real-physical world in it's tendency will divide from the spirit." Father Time handed him a small bag, in a blue pouch.
Jack noticed how for every grain of sand that landed into the physical pile of sand, a sort of earthy color, a silver grey pile grew the same. It was as if the hourglass worked both ways, as if gravity didn't affect the spirit sand. It was rather perplexing.
"So I only have until the Moon sand- or Moon memory and the Sand of Time divides?"
"When the last two grains separate you will return here, and the passage will break. What you do with this knowledge is your own to keep…but remember, the Moon is a strange…thing…I suspect if he wanted you to dabble in the past, it is for a reason, not for mischief."
"You…you know my...uh... reputation?"
"I know a lot of things. I also know, I'd prefer if you didn't have to ruin Mother Nature's things all the time…"
Jack was taken back.
"They…have a …or had a …" North trailed off.
Sandman's sand over his head turned into a little heartbeat.
"Ah, well I'll try, but Frost does kind of do that…" Jack sat in a rather awkward silence before he spoke again. "Well thank you…the uh…Moon and I appreciate it."
"Yes! Yes! All is good now, thank you Father Time, we shall go back to the North now." St. North swung quickly back to the cog door and guided the pack through to his sled.
"Whatever you are planning…" Father Time looked upwards, "I hope you have good reason."