"Sparks!" North shouts up at me. I smile and wave at him, trying to be as splashy as possible.
"Might want to check your tattoos," I suggest sing-songing. "I think I might be on the naughty list."
"You attack my home?!" North roars, brandishing his swords.
"You didn't get that by the fiery assault?" I mock. "I think we're going to have to work on your deductive reasoning, old man."
"Sparks!" Tooth cries, shooting out of the workshop. She can barely fly. "What are you doing?"
"Playing with fire," I reply, throwing my hands skyward. Clouds appear overhead and lightning begins to flash. But before I can direct it, something slams against me in midair. I tumble backwards, feeling as though I've been hit by a train. A white-haired train with burning blue eyes.
"Hiya, little brother," I say cheerfully, but it's forced, false. But he doesn't know that. "Did you come out to play?"
"Sparks, stop it, dammit!" Jack shouts at me. Ice collects in the air around us. I fight the urge to wince. He's pissed. I haven't seen him this angry in...in a long time.
"Are you the strongest one left?" I ask sweetly. "The others can't come after me themselves?"
"You know that they can't." Jack snarls. "You made it so that they can't."
"Did I?"
"Stop!" Jack screams at me, shooting an icy spray at me. I lift a hand and melt the projectiles easily. "Sparks, whatever he's done to you, you need to stop this before it goes any farther." If it doesn't go any farther they'll kill us both, I think. I can at least make sure that, if there have to be any casualties, they'll be me, and only me. "Please, Sparks," Jack says, sounding desperate. "Please. You're still my sister under there. That's why you wouldn't fight me before. Please. Just come with me."
"Not an option." I say, turning to him with a smirk. Lightning rains down on the workshop, and bits of it are already on fire. North and Tooth scramble around with the yetis and elves, trying to put them out. As far as distractions go, this one is pretty top-notch, but Jack is still powerful enough to do some damage to Pitch's plan. So, I've got to get him out of here. "You want to know something?" I ask suddenly. I'm going to regret this, but I go on anyway. "About our past? Jack hesitates for a second and I continue. "Actually, it's more about you than me. See, your name? Jack Frost, that's not a coincidence. Our last name wasn't Frost. Want to know why that's what the moon calls you?" I pause. He's going to hate me. "Because that's what people called you. The townsfolk that lives outside our forest, they were the ones who called you frost."
"Why?" Jack asks, the curiosity eating him. I knew that it would.
"Because that's what you were. Frost kills crops and animals, frost damages property, frost is unwanted, frost is unneeded and most of all, frost is useless. They called you that and I guess the moon thought that it fit." Jack looks devastated, but it quickly morphs into anger. Damn if he's not more like me than I thought. And that is not a good thing. But while my anger burns and flares, his is cold and deadly. It's scary as hell, too, coming from a face that I used to wipe dirt off of when Jack fell out of a tree or something.
"That's not true." Jack growls at me, his staff pulling ice out of the air. He's about to throw something big my way. I quickly start to heat, up, darting out of the way of an enormous icy blast Jack sends my way.
"And that wasn't nice, little brother." I return. I fly a little ways off before turning and looking at him. "Oh, come on. You aren't going to come get me? And here I was, thinking that we were family."
"Dammit Sparks!" Jack shouts, chasing after me. I take off, leaving the lightning storm raging above the North Pole. It's something else to worry about, but I think I can multitask. I hope I can. I swoop left and right, bits of ice melting off of the heat that rolls off of me in waves. I'm burning too hot for any of his attacks to get to me. But that doesn't mean that I can't hear him.
"You're my sister!" Jack yells as he chases me through the air. "You're supposed to look after me; we're supposed to be there for one another. You betrayed me, you betrayed all of us! What about Sandy? Pitch kills him, and then you turn around and take his side?!" I flinch at that one, closing my eyes for only a moment. I don't want to think about Sandy. As soon as we're far enough away I turn around, preparing to vanish. Pitch has no doubt started his own attack by now, and is tearing the Pole apart. I've done my share; it's time for me to go now.
But I can't. Just as I turn, Jack constructs an icy wall around the two of us. He pours magic into it just as I start to emanate heat. He's not going to back off, I can see that in his eyes, and if he'll burn himself out of magic before I do. I was created to be stronger than him, even without belief. So instead of waiting for him to pass out from trying to freeze me, I turn off the heat for a moment and put out the fires in my skin and hair.
"Yes?" I ask silkily, in a tone I picked up from Pitch. "Clearly you wanted to say something." I tap the wall of the icy cage, watching a bit of it melt and Jack scramble to refreeze it. He's good at making snowballs, my brother, but not at keeping someone who's core temperature rivals that of the sun encased in ice. Then again, my core temperature has seemingly increased as my powers have. The cold used to make me deathly ill, now it just melts away in my presence. Regardless, though, I cool off.
"What is wrong with you?" Jack asks, sounding desperate. "Did he hurt you? Threaten you? You saw what we did together, we can take him!" I know we can. But I can't let that happen.
"Did you ever stop to think," I drawl, "that Pitch isn't making me do anything? Maybe I was tired of cleaning up your messes, Jackie."
"I was alone." Jack says quietly, but his eyes are still burning brightly, and never leave mine. "I was alone for three hundred years. No one could see me. No one cared about me. Then I find out that you were there the entire time. You knew who I was and what I had to be going through, but you ignored it! You ignored me for three-hundred years! I was alone!"
"You don't know the first thing about being alone," I hiss, genuinely this time. "And bullshit. No one cared about you? Who do you think kept you from turning the world into your own icy playground? Me! Do you know what the cold does to me, Jack?"
"I bet you'll tell me." Jack shoots at me and that just pisses me off even more. He has no right to complain to me about being lonely, being left behind, being without someone to take care of me. All I've ever done is take care of him! Damned if I do, because clearly he damns me now, and damned if I don't, because the Guardians will kill him if I don't stop them!
"It makes me sick. It kills me. Do you know what it feels like to be dying for three-hundred years? Not fun, Jack!"
"Then why didn't you come to me! I was alone! You left me alone for three centuries! That was hell!"
"No!" I scream at him in earnest and Jack looks surprised. "No! Three-hundred years is a vacation! I would've killed to only have been alone for three-hundred years because do you know what I was doing, while you were frozen in that pond?" I'm saying too much, I'm giving too much away, but I can't stop myself. "I was waiting for you to wake up! Do you know how long I waited for you, Jack? Nine. Hundred. Years. Now, add that to the three-hundred that I spent keeping you safe. Once you've lived for over twelve-hundred years, all on your own, then you can come and bitch to me about loneliness." Jack stops for a moment, his mouth dropping open slightly.
"Twelve-hundred..." he gapes, choking on the words. "You were alone?"
"Ding-ding," I mock. "Give the in the hoodie gentleman a prize." I smile at him, but it's raw and angry, and doesn't meet my eyes. "I think I should be congratulated also," I say, playing with a bit of fire. "I mean, how many people do you know who can spend over a century completely alone, unseen, and still be as sane as I am? Relatively speaking, of course."
"But...we're together now." Jack whispers. "You don't have to be alone anymore."
"You picked the wrong side, little brother." I say, beginning to heat up again. I can see Jack's eyes tighten with concentration as he tries to keep the wall erect. "Come with me," I blurt out of nowhere. Oops. Not the plan, but I realize that it's what I want. I don't want to fight Jack; I want him to be with me, even if it's with Pitch. That way he's safe and we're together. "Please, Jack, it's not safe for you here." Telling him the truth hurts more than lying. "Please." But Jack recoils from me, as if he would never even consider coming with me. Like the idea is abhorrent to him. Which it probably is. But he doesn't know the danger he's in, and he doesn't know that Pitch has promised to keep him safe, and he's already saved me twice. Jack doesn't know these things and I can't tell him, and dammit if that doesn't make me angry enough to cause a volcanic eruption.
"You've got to be kidding me." Jack says. "Join with Pitch? He killed Sandy!"
I'm done. I touch the wall of the icy cage and it melts away instantly. I fly off and Jack follows me, shouting at me to come back with him. He still hasn't given up on me and that hurts the most.
Suddenly, I hear sleigh bells and whirl around. North and Co. fly through the air in an admittedly beat-up and scorched-looking sleigh, all weapons raised.
Oh, hell.
I keep flying, trying to weave around Jack and the rest of the Guardians, but they tag-team like the worst kind of schoolyard bullies. Where the hell is Pitch when I need him? I whistle through my teeth and Fyra appears, raining fire down on the Guardians but that doesn't stop them. They're pissed and out for blood. My blood.
"I think you're sleigh's seen better days, fat man!" I call back to North, laughing spitefully when I see his face redden. Tooth tries to out-fly me, but she's so weak that her wings barely work anymore and she can't get more than a few feet away from the sleigh. I sent Fyra to spook the reindeer, and while I'm concentrated on that, Jack flies up behind me, in between me and the sleigh. He throws up every ounce of ice he can muster, trying to box me in, but none are weapons, and none are supposed to hurt me. Even after everything, after everything I just screamed at him, Jack still believes in me, he still thinks that I can be helped. He is so wrong.
I burn through his icy walls easily, even as he rebuilds them.
"Stop, Jack," I warn him in earnest. "You're going to hurt yourself!" He ignores me, his face growing paler the more ice he sends my way. "Jack, stop!" As the words leave my lips, several things happen at once and the world seems to slow down. I see Jack's face tight with the effort of keeping me contained, but beyond that, Fyra has spooked the reindeer so badly that the sleigh can barely fly. North has thrown one of his swords in a last-ditch effort to get to me, maybe to keep me from hurting Jack, maybe to kill me, I don't know. I trace the swords' trajectory, and my eyes go wide with shock and horror. It's not going to hit me.
It's going to hit Jack.
Time speeds again and I dart forward, screaming wordlessly. I manage to push Jack out of the way before the sword impales him. But something hits me in the back and sends me flying head-over-heels through the air. There is an instant of spine-weakening agony and I see the horror that had just been in my eyes reflected on Jack's face.
I look down and see the slightly-curved blade poking out of my chest, like a sewing needle out of a voodoo doll. Gold blood leaks from my mouth, staining my lips like cheap, tacky lipstick. I look up again, and I think Jack is screaming my name, but I can't hear anything anymore. I reach out my hand for him, mouthing: I'm sorry, before I start to fall.
The wind rushes past me and I can see my own golden blood spiraling into the air like smoke. I must look like a falling star, all fire and red and gold. As I fall, I feel moisture on my cheek and it's not blood. It's tears. My tears. They turn into diamonds as soon as they leave my skin and fall with me; the last diamonds I'll ever make, I guess. I hope Pitch can win without me. I hope he keeps his promise to look after my little brother.
My eyes flutter closed and I am gone before I hit the ground.
I would like to thank each and every one of you for following/liking/reviewing this story. I had no idea that it would get the reaction that it has, and I am honored. I can only hope that you all are enjoying reading it, because I love writing it for you.
~Fae