In The Silence
~11~
Jack's return to the village is greeted with cheers. Oh, he knows the children aren't cheering him; never him, whoever would be happy to greet a frost child? —Besides a man of sand; besides sing-song minnow maidens, but Jack doesn't add them to his reckoning, because they aren't children, and it's children that matter for reasons he's not yet figured out. But there are cheers as the snow falls plump and thick over the village square, and his children rush out of brown-grey houses as fast as they can pull on boots and mittens and cloaks.
Well, they feel like his children, but as Jack rushes around the square, frost filling in for footprints, he can't help but be confused. They feel like his children — but they're so big! And there are new children, small children, that he's never met before, and it's those he takes particular delight in. He tugs at their sleeves, spinning them around on cobbles — cobbles? had there always been cobbles? — grown slick with ice, and they wobble and fall upon padded bottoms with gleeful shrieks and whooping laughs. Other children, bigger children that he'd mistake for adults if he didn't know better are laughing as well, and helping the small ones back to their feet.
And there, there coming out of her house is his general of winter! He would know her anywhere, even if she's now as tall as him... and holding the hand of a young brown-haired brown-eyed boy. She kneels down in front of the boy, and Jack crouches down as well, because there's something here he doesn't understand and he wants to understand but the only thing his memory dredges up is the sound of cracking ice.
"Isn't the snow beautiful?" his general asks the brown on brown boy, her gloved hand tousling his hair. "I remember when it used to snow like this; snowy days were the most magical days of all." She's carefully wrapping a knitted muffler — Jack knows this muffler, knows it and he loses his footing on the ice; falls to his knees but doesn't notice, all he can focus on is the muffler — around the boy's neck, and the girl-child's smile is both wistful and radiant.
"There you go! That should keep you plenty warm." Tears are sparkling from her lashes, but her smile never dims. "Ready to have a little fun?"
He's dropped his staff. Scrabbling through snow and ice he finds it, and holds it tightly to his chest where the unbreakable broken thing throbs in time with his gasping breaths. He doesn't understand why his girl would give away her muffler, give it away to a brown brown child she's picking up with the easy grace of a mother and he doesn't understand but she's smiling at the snow and saying...
"What would you like to do first, Jack boy?"
He's at his lake, his ice-glass lake, and it looks so small now that he's played in the ocean. He's at his lake, sitting cross-legged atop his slender staff, staring up at the Moon. He's trying to understand. He's not sure if there's understanding to be had — but he'd like a little, if at all possible. Not that the Moon's ever granted any of his requests, not a single one... but still...
He was Snowflake's Jack boy. Snowflake moonbeam, his first and ever friend. Could... Could it be his girl is a moonbeam, needing a Jack boy of her very own? It's possible, he thinks, his unblinking stare never leaving the smiling, smug face of the Moon. At times the girl glows exactly like a moonbeam. But if she were a moonbeam...
...then he would gladly be her Jack boy. It's been so long since he's been anyone's Jack boy. He sighs, unaccountably weary, and swings down from the crook of his staff, letting his heels slide lazily back and forth across the ice. Maybe, just maybe, there's a different Jack for every moonbeam. Maybe, just maybe, that's why he couldn't be hers — because he always and forever will be Snowflake's Jack boy. If that were the case, if it were, then he wouldn't begrudge his general her Jack.
Even if he was a brown brown roly-poly clumsy Jack boy, wrapped snugly in a scarf that wasn't his.
Jack visits children in far away towns — because seeing the other Jack boy, the not him Jack boy, out in the snow seems to attract the malevolent interest of his shadow. He plays games with the other children — and occasional tricks, because it's funny the way they mince across ice or jump after hats that the Wind teasingly plucks from their heads, and Jack has discovered that his laughter helps keep his shadow at bay. But he's always careful, so extraordinarily careful to keep his tricks small, and he always always always stops the moment one of the children shows the least sign of upset.
Every evening, though, finds him back in the village square, peering through the window at his girl-child and her Jack boy, because he needs to make sure they are safe and happy and there. And every night before returning to his lake he sits on the rooftops of the snow-capped houses, struggling against the jagged shards in his chest to find words, any words at all, because there's so much he wants to say, so much he wants to ask, but not even the tiniest 'Why?' can make it past the unbreakable broken thing stuck inside him.
Why does he care?
Why must he play?
...Why wasn't he enough?
The Moon, unwilling to face his questions, dips down below the horizon, and every night Jack returns to his lake — defeated.
~o~
End Notes: Short part, but that's where it wanted to end. Oh well. Wai! Jack still has no understanding of time. Poor, poor Jack boy. I've purposefully left vague if the little boy is a son, or a new brother. Me, I'm leaning towards brother; it was common at the time to reuse a name, especially if the name was of familial importance, so it's not out of the realm of reason that Jack's parents would have named a new son after their lost one. You, though, are free to come to your own conclusions ^_^
Many humble and heartfelt thanks to Eternal She-Wolf, FyreFlyte, hisokauzumaki, Tenshi Youkai no Yugure, Crystal Peak, JediClaire, Bookworm Gal, Alaia Skyhawk, anonymous hi, another anonymous reviewer ^_^, UVNight, Clio Ying, Jenniyah, fourty-eight, DoomCabbit,Beanatrix LeString, Kaylessa, Master Li, and Anne Camp for your reviews, which absolutely made a very trying time away from home better. Your support and encouragement have me attempting to write the next part curled uncomfortably in a hotel chair when I should be trying to grab a few hours of sleep. I don't think I'll get the part written, since my laptop keyboard is laughable in a laugh-until-I-cry way — but I am trying!
If you're reading only for the story, thank you for stopping by! Even if you don't have time or inclination to leave a review, I'm happy if my story was able to entertain you for a few minutes. Have a jolly grand day — or at least one better than mine lol!