Disclaimer: I do not own any of the ROTG characters; however, Rustle and the new OC's that are introduced and will appear throughout this story are my brain children.
chapter edited on: 12/27/12
Chapter 3
Jack finally understood what Bunny had been trying to tell him:
Don't do it. Run for your life.
Well… too late for that now. Not that Jack necessarily would have listened. He had questions, and he was willing to put up with anything to get answers.
The winter spirit found himself forcefully seated behind a desk by a pair of massive hands, and then a large tattooed arm swooped over his head and placed a pencil, a spiral notebook, and an eraser in front of him. Where North had even gotten a school desk, Jack didn't want to know... perhaps he had it built for just these sort of occasions?
"Um, excuse me?" Jack said, holding the notebook by its corner and looking at it curiously. "What is this for?"
"To take notes," North grinned, "Is something you will want to do."
"Yeah…" Jack put the unwanted item back on the desk and slid it to the corner as far as it would go, "I really just wanted to know if there were any other… you know? Spirits? Besides the obvious ones."
"Of course there are, Jack!" North laughed heartily, "Do you not remember Man in Moon?" The large man gestured to the skylight from which he viewed the moon.
"How could I forget?" Jack sighed. The Moon and he weren't on the greatest of terms, mainly because Manny seemed more prone to speak to North than he was to anyone else. In fact, Jack hadn't spoken to the Man in the Moon since he had become a spirit, if you could even consider that a conversation. "But… what about others? Like us, I mean."
"Well… let me see," North scratched his beard for a moment, "There is Leprechaun… Cupid…"
Jack's yawned, "Cupid? Really? I said besides the obvious."
"Trust me, Mate," Bunnymund spoke up from his spot in the back where he was leaning against a column, "Cupid. Now, there's a bloke you don't wanna meet."
"Why?" Jack looked at North for explanation.
"Is complicated," the older man mused, "Cupid has long history of messing in the affairs of Spirits as much as mortals."
"Don't we all kind of… mess with each other's affairs?" Jack grinned, remembering the race they had all participated in to gather teeth for Toothiana.
"Cupid tends to go a bit overboard," Bunny growled, "Heck, the blimey even calls himself a god for cryin' out loud."
"Yes, well… moving on," North said, steering the subject back to the topic at hand, "There is also Mother Goose and Sam Hain, though he goes by Hal Owen these days, thinks himself clever."
"Don't forget the Groundhog," Bunny muttered, his ears flattening against his head.
"You mean to tell me that the Groundhog is an actual spirit?" Jack laughed, "I thought it was just a fat rodent they kept in a cage up north?"
"Don't let her hear you say that, Mate," the Easter Bunny looked around cautiously, "She's got a wicked temper."
"Old girlfriend, eh, Kangaroo?"
"Now wait a second-"
North interrupted with a chuckle, "Bunny just has trouble sharing."
"Those are MY tunnels," the Easter spirit protested, "She should dig her own!"
"So you're saying that every holiday has a spirit?" Jack asked. He wondered how such a thing worked. Did holidays get created for spirits or did spirits mimic their actions for certain holidays?
"Not exactly," North pondered a moment, "Are many holidays on calendar, Jack, but not so many spirits. Takes special qualifications to become spirit."
"I didn't see any special qualifications in Pitch…"
Both North and Bunny grew somber at the mention of the Boogeyman. True enough, they had neither seen nor heard from the villain since his last defeat, but there was still superstition. Speaking of someone like Pitch was always asking for trouble in their opinion. Such a person was best left out of sight, out of speech, and out of mind.
"Pitch was not always monster," North explained. "Ever since there have been dreams, Jack, mankind has had nightmares. In the beginning, Pitch's job was… to help."
"Then why does he create them now?" Jack pressed.
"No one knows? Not even Sandy, who was made spirit even before Pitch." North looked up at the moon, "Only Manny knows what happened."
"Well perhaps not only Manny, eh?" Bunny pushed himself off the column and went to crouch over next to the Globe console.
"What do you mean?" Jack climbed on top of his desk to look down at the rabbit.
"Well, Manny is one of the oldest spirits in the world…" Bunny explained. Then he stopped himself, "Wait, why am I doing this. You're the one with the desks and the notebooks!" The rabbit waved his hands in a shooing motion, urging North to do his job.
"But he is not oldest spirit," North continued, taking back control of his history lesson and shooing Bunnymund away from his console in response to the Easter spirit's antics. After pushing a few buttons and twisting a rather large knob, North created a Borealis projection which showed four figures standing side by side, two men and two women.
Jack Frost looked up at the projection in amazement, "Who… who are they?"
"Those are the Hierarchs, Mate…" Bunny smirked. It wasn't often that you saw Jack Frost speechless, and the rabbit wasn't going to pass up a chance to enjoy it, "…the oldest spirits in the world."
"They are the spirits in whom children and adults all believe," North explained further, "They have no holidays like Bunny or myself, and no specific job like Toothiana or Sandy. They keep the world in balance. They are the source of all spirits."
North stepped up to the first person, a man dressed in a shimmering suit of pale grey. His face was difficult to make out, in fact the faces of any of them were difficult to discern. Jack was suddenly quite disappointed in the quality of the projection, but he listened to North with undistracted interest.
"First is Manny; you know him! Manny watches over whole world, not just children but their parents too. Because of his compassion, you exist Jack Frost, as do all of us. The Guardians are his spirits. In a way… we are his children," North grinned at the see-through picture of his friend, "Is that not so, Manny?"
Jack didn't hear any sort of response, but like always, North seemed to hear something which Jack could not. It set a little bit of a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, which was saying something, but Jack was unable of placing his finger on what it meant.
"Then we have Father Time!" North boomed, pulling Jack out of his internal brooding.
"Wait…" the white haired youth blinked a few times, "Father Time? As in the baby who becomes an old man in the course of a year?"
"Foolish nonsense," North dismissed his statement, "Purely Hollywood shenanigans… Spirits do not age, Jack. Is impossible!"
Jack wanted to point out that it wasn't impossible, because North had gotten even older when the children stopped believing last year, but something in the back of his head, perhaps his conscience, was telling him that it was a point better left unmade.
"However," Bunny spoke up, "He does look different, depending on who is bloody looking at him. He looked to be the same age as North to me, but he was barely twenty when Toothiana looked at him. You should have seen her swoon!" The rabbit chuckled at his private little joke.
"So what does Father Time do?" Jack asked, curious about a spirit who changed appearance with each person he met.
"Who knows?" North shrugged, "Perhaps everything… perhaps nothing? It is said, he began when the world began; that is why he and Mother Earth are so perfect for one another."
"Wait!" Jack snapped his fingers and pointed to the third projected a figure-a woman with long, curly locks of hair that were intertwined with flowers and leaves and berries, wearing a dress of what looked to be plants and water at the same time. "That's Mother Earth."
"Correct, Jack!" North gave him a thumbs up, "She is particularly powerful spirit because everything around us is a part of her!"
Jack looked around, suddenly nervous, "Am I standing in her eye or something when I go skating?"
"Bwah! Ha ha ha!" Bunny held his sides tightly, "See! I'm not the only one who thinks like that!"
North frowned for a moment, obviously having lost some long standing bet with the Easter Bunny just now. The old man quickly shook it off, however, and was his normal, jovial self in seconds, "Well… perhaps you and Jack Frost are more alike than you are willing to admit, Bunny!" The Guardian of Wonder fixed the Easter Bunny with a knowing look, which shut the rabbit up instantly.
"What's that, Cottontail?" Jack grinned, "We sharing a brainwave at the moment?"
"Not in your life, Frostbite!" Bunnymund huffed and hopped back over to his column on the far side of the room, giving both of the other guardians the silent treatment as he turned his back to them.
"He is so funny!" Rustle exclaimed, coming into the room, holding an elf by its jingle bell hat one hand and his birch twig in the other. The elf was grinning from ear to ear and making a series of comical noises, and every so often Rustle would bust into a fit of laughter, as if the elf had told an amazing joke.
Jack, Bunny, and North all looked at one another in confusion.
"Oh! Welcome back, young one," North quickly produced another desk from practically thin air and made his way towards Rustle with a notebook and pencil in hand, but the Summer spirit had already taken up a perch next to Jack, crouching atop the winter spirit's desk.
North almost did a double take when looking at the two of them. Despite their different garments and hair styles, the two of them were so similar in attitude and demeanor that it was astonishing.
"Who're they?" Rustle motioned to the four figures.
"The man in the moon," Jack pointed to the first one, "Father Time, Mother Earth… and…" He stopped at the last one, turning to North, "Hey! Old man, who is she?"
"Nyhte," Rustle said, pointing at the last figure, a woman dressed in an elegant black dress which seemed dotted with starlight. She too had long, flowing hair, but it was dark as the midnight sky and completely void of any flowers or twigs sticking out from it.
"Correct, Rustle," North was definitely impressed, "How do you know of her?"
"She told me I was special," Rustle said with a smile.
"You've met the Lady of the Evening sky?" Bunnymund turned his head, looking at the blue-haired kid skeptically.
"Not exactly…" Rustle furrowed his brow, "But I remember her telling me that… and my name."
Jack looked at the boy, remembering how the Man in the Moon had said something similar to him. Was Rustle a spirit created by someone other than the Man in the Moon?
"Do you know what this means?" North said, crouching down and placing a hand on each of Rustle's shoulders. The old man had a wild look of excitement in his eyes.
"Um… no." Both Jack and Rustle looked at one another blankly and then back at North as if he were crazy.
"This is a spirit of the Twilight!" He picked up the young boy and spun him around with a whoop. "She has not created a spirit in ages! Most of them have faded from the world as we know it!"
"Aye," Bunny said seriously, "And for good reason!" The rabbit hopped front and center, "Most of the twilight spirits wound up like Pitch Black… or worse."
"Rustle isn't like that!" Jack snapped, jumping up into Bunnymund's face.
"He isn't now! But give him a few decades!"
"He's had hundreds!" Jack yelled, "Hundreds of decades all by himself, and he isn't like that! I wasn't like that either!"
"Whoa there! Easy now, Jack, no one said anything about you!" Bunny held up his hands to calm the winter spirit.
"Yeah… I'm sure you probably had this same conversation multiple times before I became a Guardian!" Jack glared at the rabbit before storming off in a huff, leaving behind a bewildered Rustle-who regarded the entire seen with a look of minor annoyance. He found the Easter Bunny to be loud and insufferable, and, after a moment's thought, the Summer spirit decided he didn't really like the rabbit all that much.
Bunnymund made up his mind quickly to go after Jack, but one of North's massive hands stopped him.
"Oy! Mate, lemme go!" he snapped at the older Guardian.
"Is not wise decision," North said simply. Pointing towards Rustle who was now curiously following Jack. "You would only make things worse."
"Worse? I just wanna apologize to the kid," Bunny ruffled.
"Aye, but life has not been so easy for Jack Frost," the old man looked down at the now empty corridor with a look of intense sorrow, "Things have been good this past year, but before? He was just like this Rustle… alone… lost… invisible. Which of us can say we understand how that feels?"
Bunny made to speak up, wanting to say that he understood better than anyone what being invisible felt like. After losing Easter back in the battle with Pitch, a child had walked right through him. Bunnymund opened his mouth to speak; however, North fixed him with a knowing glance and the Easter spirit froze.
Did he really understand? He had lost the children for less than a day, and that feeling of invisibility had been unbearable. He'd shrunk to nothing more than a fluffy, grey rabbit… smaller than some you might find in a pet store. Who knows how much longer he would have lasted had they not defeated Pitch. If Bunnymund were honest with himself, and this was a thought that had nagged him for months now, he probably would have faded away.
Jack had been like that for over three hundred years, and if Rustle was to be believed… almost a thousand.
"How do they stand it?" Bunny asked with a ragged breath.
North smiled, "They are strong spirits… that Jack Frost in particular."
A/N -
And there we go! Another chapter. Till next time! Read/Review/Recommend! The only three R's that matter!
I went back and edited some on Chapter 2. I hate making stupid mistakes like that. If you every catch anything, please let me know. I'm not an author who gets mad at her errors being pointed out. Point them out and I will fix them. I like a quality product, but after reading something so many times, it is easy to miss little things here and there.
As for Rustle... I'm really starting to enjoy his character, though I can't wait to develop him further. I also really like this dynamic between Bunny and Jack. There are so many Snowbunny? (JackRabbit? FrostBunny? Don't know what you call it, they need to nail that down, but…) there are so many fics with the two of them that they are all the BEST of friends... and I don't think that would have happened. There is probably a level of respect between the two of them now, but there is a long way to work towards them being the best of friends... or more. So I like that I am going to get to develop that as well.
For people wondering what the romance is going to wind up looking like? I like to be realistic. In life, people have friends, they have romantic interests, friends who become romantic interests... people tend to be attracted to multiple people at the same time. I think Jack Frost would be the same way, once he starts thinking about those sorts of things... and well me, I love a good Love Tetrahedon, so... yeah! Expect some twists and turns in the future, there may be a little fan service for everyone out there with what I have planned (but not like something silly, just... there will be genuine moments between all of the characters, even if it seems like Rustle is getting more spotlight than he should. What can I say? His momma's proud of him!) I'm going to be working hard to make certain that he is a justifiable OC.