For those of you that feel this story is detouring from the original path, don't worry! It somewhat gets explained here?


"Man in Moon! You... You're wrong! Wrong about me! If I'm going to get put away, then at least know this! Jokul was never real! It was always just me! My Darkness! And... And... I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY FOR TAKING THEM! I'M SORRY FOR '68! I'M SORRY FOR EVERYTHING! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY, SORRY, SORRY!"


Aster's head was ringing and his ears buzzed. He could feel them droop down, as he listened to the frost child and attempted to converse, tried to get him to calm down. The snow and the dark floated, suspended, drifting around in such a way that it was almost serene. The boy refused to look at him, that much he could tell, if his stubborn nature despite their circumstance wasn't a dead giveaway as to explain why he hadn't turned yet. It was strange to look at him, to look at him and know that this, indeed, was Jack Frost. From where they stood now, the only obvious differences he could see were how his hair seemed to grow in midnight black, and only then faded to its signature snow white, and how his skin seemed to have an ashy quality added to it instead of its usual deathly pale, giving it an almost invisible grey tint.

"What do you mean, you're... y-you're not gonna? B-But, I..." It wasn't until he had turned around that he saw his eyes. A rim of gold traced the edge of his iris, otherwise leaving the ice blue intact. But that hopelessness behind him, that disappointment, that... utter despair, they shone. Despite being so foreign, they shone, and that almost broke him right then and there. He felt his expression drop, and it was evident that Frost had noticed it as he let his head fall.

"But I... all those people..." He eventually whispered, bringing Bunny back to reality, to the present. "I froze them Bunny, and I kept them," he continued, sounded utterly disgusted. "All those innocent people, and I don't even know why. And for what? I shouldn't have stayed when he came," his tone dropped, and he started crowing the same phrase, over and over again. "I shouldn't have stayed, I shouldn't have stayed." Aster gulped, and decided push this topic, to see if he could get him to relax before the other Guardians arrived and began assuming things.

"Where shouldn't you have stayed, Frostbite?" He asked softly, approaching him slowly. The winter spirit didn't notice him getting closer, or if he did, he didn't care enough to say something about it.

"I shouldn't have stayed in Burgess, I shouldn't have stayed with you guys," he shook his head, sinking into... something, that the Easter spirit couldn't identify.

"Why shouldn't you have stayed?" He pressed a bit further.

"There was no reason anymore, no reason..." his voice sank with him.

"No reason?"

"No more reason... Pitch was gone, defeated... that was the only reason you wanted me. And now he is, you don't need me anymore... I shouldn't have let Sandy find me, I should've hidden better," he began crowing again, visibly distressed. He was now directly in front of the boy now.

"Hey, Jack, Jack, calm down... we didn't just want you as a Guardian just to defeat Pitch..."

"Why then? Why, why?" His voice broke, suddenly a lot quieter.

"Because you're what we needed." He suddenly went quiet, and the snow and dark that had been floating around them unceremoniously dropped to the ground, skies suddenly clear. The child that he had now gently seated himself beside lifted his head shakily to look at him, tears beginning to bead in the corners of his eyes. He'd never seen the usually joyous child so sad, and it broke his heart, threatening to shatter him right then and there.

"Wh-What do you mean?"

"I mean, we need ya, Frostbite. You... reminded us why of we really do what we do, reminded us that we're a team and that we have to work together, that sometimes exactly what we need is a bit of flexibility and a bit of imperfection in our lives. That we need a bit of fun in our lives, instead of all of our... 'hard work and deadlines'," he nudged the kid a bit playfully, trying to rouse a bit of his former self out of him. There was a bit of an undeniable smirk from the boy at that last part, but then it was replaced with a small frown.

"Still, I shouldn't have let Sandy find me," he admitted quietly as an afterthought.

"Why's that?"

"You saw, Bunny. My Darkness. What good is a Guardian with the Darkness?" He mumbled, not looking at Bunny anymore but staring off into space. "I lost it, and I hurt all those people..."

"Because you tried to suppress it," Aster interrupted, not looking at him anymore either but staring at the same spot Jack was. "I've seen how possession by the Darkness ends up, how it works... and it's nothing like what happened to you. They don't show regret for what they did afterwards, they just keep doing it over and over again until they're stopped. But you... it's just... part of you, it seems like. If you suppress it, then it'll eventually boil over, and make you do stuff like what you did to those people."

"...Really?"

"Yeah."

"...Do you really believe that?" He asked honestly, and Aster immediately understood what he was attempting to notion. I can't believe in that anymore. Do you believe in that? Can you believe in that, for both of us? And Aster understood how vital his answer was to Jack, here and now.

"Yeah. Really."

Silence.

"...Will you come with me?" He suddenly asked, still not looking back up to the Pooka.

"Hm? Come with you where?"

"I..." He faltered, but only for a moment. "I can thaw them. But I don't know if my Darkness... can handle it... Will you come with me?" To stop me?

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll come with you." He stood up and pulled the young spirit up with them. "Where are we headed to?" Wordlessly, Jack pointed towards where he had come from, and in the distance Bunny could see footprints that had been out of the reach of the small storm he had whipped up previously. If he squinted, he could see a grey dot, just on the horizon.


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