Disclaimer: I do not own anything but the actual words that are written here.

Author's Note: So here we are at chapter three! This ends the first "cycle" of the story. Please offer critique above all else in any reviews you wish to leave. I am experimenting with this new style of writing, so I'm sure there's plenty that could be improved about it. Please let me know what you think! Also, these first three were posted fairly quickly, but in the future I will definitely be slowing down more. Hopefully not too much. :)

Bunny could tell when something was wrong. He could smell it. He had smelled it on Tooth when one of her fairies informed her of Pitch's attack on the palace. He had smelled it on North when the sleigh's power came to a crashing halt. He could smell it on Jack now.

Although he supposed it wasn't that he smelled it in those situations, but rather a lack of it. The it being hope. Of course, not all hope was the same. Each person he met had a different scent of hopefulness to them. In North, it was like tundra lichen, and Tooth's was a gentle mint, like tea leaves before they're picked. Sandy's hope smelled a bit like a specific cove somewhere in Costa Rica that Bunny had loved to visit each Easter. In Jack, the powerful hope that had arisen only after that fateful Easter was like clear water bubbling out of a mountain spring. And it had been dwindling for some time now.

The Guardians had welcomed Jack into their group—some more than others—more than eight years ago now. Although they had learned much about him in that time, it was still scant compared to what they knew about one another. He had divulged quite a bit about his past life and memories to them in his excitement, retelling the story of saving his sister more than once. Of his three-hundred-odd years as an immortal? Almost nothing. They had found out by observation that Jack was rather compulsory with freezing small bodies of water, that he made jokes when he was uncomfortable (and quickly departed when he was doubly uncomfortable), and that the wind was rather possessive and protective of him. They had found out from Jamie that he was capable of animating frost drawings. They had found out from Sophie and Jamie that his name had been Jack Overland when he was human and he had drowned just after saving his sister. From Jack himself, they found out what he found funny. Often at their own expense.

It was to be expected, Bunny supposed, when the person you were getting to know was so rarely ever there long enough to talk to. If Bunny had seemed reclusive, Jack was like a wraith. His long absences were punctuated with the occasional prank or, if they were lucky, a moment of repose for the boy. Bunny had long ago begun accepting Jack's appearances in the Warren, although he was never sure if it was to play some devious game or to simply take a nap. There seemed to be a good 50/50 chance there. And then he would be up and gone with only the echo of laughter left behind.

Bunny had watched with growing amusement the conversations that North and especially Tooth tried, and failed, to start with Jack. There was a neverending war to pry his thoughts out of him, and the more they tried, the less cooperative he was. "So, Jack," Tooth would say, and Jack would play along just enough to seem as though he was doing his part, but before long he'd spin the conversation so that Tooth was describing to him all manner of detail in her life. Bunny would roll his eyes with a smirk, getting back to polishing a boomerang or painting an egg. It was the same for North—and Bunny would never make the mistake of thinking that Jack was particularly skilled in the art of conversational manipulation. No, those two were just, somehow, worse than him at it.

Now, if Sandy had wanted to get anything out of Jack, he would have done it a long time ago. That little ball of dreamlike fortitude was much more astute than he seemed.

And Bunny himself... well...

"Spill it, Snowflake." He said. Jack was sitting on the roof just outside the window. It had taken Bunny a bit of an adventure to follow his scent and finally find him outside, but he wasn't going to pass up the chance to discuss the distinct lack of mountain-spring-like hope in the air. Jack cocked his head when he looked back at Bunny.

"'eya Bunny, what brings you out into the snow?" He shot back with a smile, watching Bunny step out onto the roof delicately. He sat next to Jack before answering.

"I wanna know why ya got about a lick of hope left, if that. So spill. What's got ya down?" It was blunt, and perhaps Jack would be tempted to hop onto the next breeze, but Bunny was just waiting to grab that ankle. Go ahead and try me, he couldn't help but think. Jack, to his credit, dropped his smile and looked pensive instead. He sighed after a moment.

"Eh, most of the kids in Burgess don't believe in me anymore." He said it with a shrug. Bunny knew what it felt like to lose believers. Bunny didn't know what it felt like to lose the first of a still-small number of believers after 300 years of having absolutely zero. He did, however, know that it was not the kind of concept accompanied by a shrug.

"I'm sorry," he said. Jack grinned, an eyebrow raised.

"Are you really getting that soft?" He asked. "Get ahold of yourself, Bunny!" He jumped up in comic urgency, and Bunny tensed, ready to grab that ankle. Jack didn't make his move, though, instead opting to look up at the moon, a wistful smile on his face.

"I'm not gettin' soft. I just... I hear ya is all. It ain't nice to lose believers, no matter how many ya got. It'll never be easy, but that's part of the cycle." Bunny paused, wondering if his words were getting to Jack at all. The pale spirit really did seem like a wraith now, silhouetted against the moonlit snow. "And what about Sophie? And Jamie?" As he spoke, Bunny remembered seeing Jamie sleeping on the ground outside that Easter morning. He had intended to ask about that, but the thought dashed from his mind as fast as it had appeared. Jack's body language did all the talking for him, certainly more than he'd ever divulge in words. The name was like a weapon, slamming him into a rigid, tense state.

All at once, it was gone. Jack slung his staff over his shoulder casually before he turned to look back at Bunny. He smiled sadly.

"They still believe. Actually, heh," he paused, briefly. "I'm worried about Jamie. He's been lonely... I don't think he wants to stop believing." He paused again, staring at Bunny so intensely that the Easter spirit felt scrutinized on a level he was not expecting, at least not from Jack. "I try to be there for him." Bunny thought for a moment that Jack's penetrating glare wasn't a glare at all, that there was some kind of silent plea in those big, round eyes of a—troublemaker. Troublemaker, Bunny. This was Jack. This was a dare.

"To be fair, Frostbite, we did warn you about this," he said, returning the glare with a smug raise of a brow. The subtle distaste that flicked onto Jack's features wasn't enough reason to move on from the I-told-you-sos, but the lack of any other reaction—any retorts—was. Bunny cleared his throat before continuing, dropping all notes of irony from his voice and adopting something far more gentle. "Sometimes they don't wanna let go. I guess, yeah, all we can do is be there when they need us until they don't need us anymore. But we just can't stand in the way of growing up, no matter how much they want us to." Jack's body spoke for him again, but this time his words did too. He took a step back, expression fierce with something Bunny would have identified as rage if he didn't know Jack very well. And really, he didn't know Jack very well.

"Have you ever thought that maybe some people can still believe? Even when they grow up? Is there something so wrong with that?" Bunny now stood as well, but not to agitate Jack further. He put his paws up in a gesture of calming. "I'm sick of hearing people tell Jamie that he has to let go and grow up. Do you know how much it bothers him? And there's nothing I can do about it! I can't just leave and never return. He barely has anyone but me!" Bunny blinked, his eyes wide.

And once again, he was steeped in thought. So it was it guilt, then? The Last Light had always been particularly attached to Jack, and now he had guilted Winter itself into staying around—into feeling boxed in and surrounded by failing belief? Into watching Jamie get teased and tortured for his persistence in believing? Bunny had seen it a million times, and it was particularly Tooth who had suffered from watching the same. She had eventually holed up, avoiding the field. It was why she had tried so hard to make Jack understand. His hysterical breathing was finally settling, although his hand was still clutching his staff with a shaking fist. Bunny wondered then if Jack had understood. If he'd listened at all.

"Please tell me you took our advice a while back, mate." He blurted suddenly after the long pause. Jack's eyes widened again. Was that fear, or—

"Of course I did," he snapped.

—insult. Right, then. "Just makin' sure, ya gumby."

Bunny was fighting the urge to throw a jab at Jack's overly tense state. He was wound up like... like a bloody woggabaliri ball. Making a few comments at his expense would have made for a great laugh if only there weren't such an ominous undercurrent to the entire conversation. And, three hundred or not, Jack was still just a brat in some ways. And a friend. Most of the time. He certainly didn't deserve to feel so abysmally hopeless.

"Listen, Jack," Bunny said, lowering his paws. "We've all had to deal with somethin' like this before. It's... well, it's one of the drawbacks of being a Guardian, I guess ya could say." He paused, mulling over his next offer. He didn't really want to, but... "I'll talk to him, if ya'd like. Maybe I can get the little dodger to let go." He smirked, thinking of twenty reasons Jamie might not want to believe anymore. Jack's head jerked to face him with shock. Bunny smirked. People were always stunned when he offered to do something nice. Insulting, he supposed, but nonetheless amusing. Jack's shock was gone quickly, replaced with resignation.

"Nah, I've been planning to talk to him for a while now. I think I will when I head down there next month. But hey..." he stepped toward the window. When one foot was on the sill, he finished: "Thanks." And then he ducked inside.

Bunny was glad to be away from the frigid snow—his feet were absolutely frozen. He had sniffed at the air all the way back, but he still couldn't make out any more of that mountain water hope than he had before. Being the Guardian of Hope had taught him one thing, however: hope blooms like a flower. Perhaps in this case, he should think of it as forming like an icicle. It doesn't always happen immediately, but it only takes the strategic planting of a seed to grow.

North was chatting Jack up when Bunny finally stepped into the globe room, nabbing a mug of hot cocoa and a cookie off some elves on his way there. He stood on the balcony and watched as Tooth fluttered up to the two below.

"You're back! Where were you?" She asked. Bunny munched away in amusement. He wondered what Jack would say about their conversation outside, if anything.

"Did you miss me?" He asked instead, throwing the conversation back into her court, again. Bunny couldn't help but smirk. This was becoming a favorite form of entertainment.

"It's hard to miss someone who's already so mysterious" she tutted, fluttering away with an air of mock-indignation. Bunny's brows raised. So she was finally wising up, was she? This might get more interesting in the near future.

Of course everyone knew that Tooth could hold a grudge—for perhaps a day, if she tried—and she was back to chatting with Jack not five minutes later. Bunny hopped down to the floor below and joined them not long after, taking a seat near the massive hearth to warm his feet up thoroughly. And as he laid back, enjoying that cocoa to the last drop, he was certain he could smell the water of a cold mountain spring in the air.

And hey, who knew? Maybe, by the time Jack got back to Burgess, Jamie would have already forgotten all about him.