Living With You
What if Chaos's magic played a trick she didn't know about?
It was pretty normal across the board. North was carving, Tooth was in the field, Jack was spreading winter and fun, Bunny was painting, Sandy was giving out wonderful dreams to the children of the world, and Phil the Yeti was still at the end of his proverbial rope. All this was fairly boring in the eyes of mischief herself. Chaos wasn't necessarily a bad lady, they were all friends with her in some capacity. Jack had, in the past, had a whole heap of fun with her in particular. As she watched from her collected shadows, a gift from Pitch in an attempt to win her over which had failed, she smiled at her friends going on about their lives.
Leaning on an oak her multicolored eyes shone in the moonlight, her patchwork jeans and bright rainbow colored tee standing out against the grey of the winter night. She tapped her shoe, the only part of her that was not bright and cheerful, but plain black, on the ground she summoned the shadows to her and they took her to the warren. Bunny smelled her the moment she walked in.
"Chaos? That you Sheila?" He called, not bothering to look up.
"It is." She called back, meandering over to sit with him.
"What brings ya?" He asked, finally meeting her eyes with a small mischievous smile.
"I'm bored." She complained lightly, but Bunny's stomach knotted up at the thought.
"What's gotcha so bored, mate?" He asked, not wanting her to focus on it, but needing to know.
"Everything's been so…ordinary recently." She offered. "Jack's a new guardian! He's literally the spirit of fun! I thought you'd want to be a bit closer to the only child in the spirit world but you've really not gotten to know one another at all. I can't help realizing how little you know each other." She explained. She sounded concerned, and he had to admit, she had a point.
"I know, but we've got jobs to do, and he's not been around long enough to be comfortable with us yet. We're just givin' him time, mate." He explained. It was correct, but it was boring.
"I know…" She noted the slightly worried look on his face. "Oh don't worry Aster, I'm not going to DO anything. I'm just sayin'." She held her hands up in front of her.
"I know you're not, but sometimes your magic gets ahead of ya." Bunny soothed. He knew she meant well, and he couldn't help feeling bad for her. Sure she had power issues, but so did Jack and he had turned out fine.
"Yeah, I should probably go, I don't want this to trigger something. It was nice seeing you." She fluxed back to an older speech pattern. That woman was older than any of them, and somehow she retained the youth of a child, which was likely what made Bunny so fond of her, but he couldn't shake the feeling something had just gone wrong.
Shaking his head he decided to head to the pole to see if North needed anything. Knocking on the door to North's office he found something interesting.
North was sleeping in his chair and his ears were twitching around even though- wait. North's ears were…he was…
Bunny nearly feinted.
North was little, maybe six, and covered in a thick black coat of shiny fur with grey-ish markings all over it, in the form of stripes. He also appeared to have white paws. Bunny suppressed his first instinct to panic, but not the second which was a little choked 'aww' sound. Then he realized he was going to have to deal with North, as a kit.
"North's a kit." He muttered as he stumbled back into the door. "North…is a kit." He shook his head. "Bloody perfect." He half-cursed, padding over to the little mass of fur to wake him, see what he remembered and take him to the warren. "Come on mate, wake up." He nudged the little one's shoulder. He opened an eye and blinked up at Bunny wearily with the same icy blue eyes he had sported before.
"Bunny?" His voice was much smaller, higher and…a little more thickly Russian. Great, as if he didn't already have enough trouble understanding him when he got excited.
"Yeah, that's me. You remember anything?" He asked. The little furry incarnation of North shook his head, ears flopping backward in the process.
"Alright, that's okay mate. Here, let's take you to the warren and I'll see if I can't get the others." He offered. North's sleepy little toddler brain didn't bother with making sense of his words, just held out his paws for Bunny to pick him up. He did, of course, and found him much lighter than he'd thought, and much fluffier. He discovered that he was about ninety percent fur. He had to suppress a chuckle when he snuggled into him, falling asleep again immediately.
"Sleepy little bloke, aren'tcha?" He whispered as he stepped into his tunnel.
Once he got the newly changed North bedded down he realized something equally horrifying and adorable; all the guardians were kits. North looked to be about six, and that seemed to be the common age, give or take. It was about then that he realized how genius Jack Frost really must be. He could talk perfectly, and answer questions without thinking. He was maybe four, the youngest, and he was incredible for his age.
Soon he had them curled up in a big pile, a golden-furred Sandy who was about North's age and Jack's size was on top, snoring lightly. Tooth had basically changed shapes and kept her coloration except that her face was a light tan fur color. Jack was an arctic-hare type pooka with pure white fur and grey markings. He had rolled his eyes when he saw it, he had figured.
He stopped being frustrated somewhere around the point where a tiny golden bunny nudged him with his nose and quirked his head to the side. He had ended up on the bottom of the sleep-pile with Jack curled up in his arms and Tooth, North and Sandy slung over him like crash victims. Something odd about the pooka as a species, they purred, like cats. He had forgotten how much he missed the sound until they all fell asleep and their purrs fell into a chorus together, lulling him to sleep.
The next day was spent teaching them how to use their various limbs and what they could do. Jack stayed on the ground, thankfully. He couldn't stay sour about the situation with the pack romping around him, chorus of little giggles everywhere. He had almost had about five heart-attacks, three of them Jack, and still he couldn't stop smiling.
"JACK!" He practically sprinted to the banks of the dye river when the poor little nutter had tripped while trying to dye an egg. He had managed to get a firm hold on him before he had fallen far, but his whole body had ended up tye-dyed vibrantly.
"Eew, I'm a snow-cone." Jack had cooed in the most adorable little voice he had ever heard. Bunny's chastising comment had been cut off in his throat, a laugh escaping instead but Jack had just looked so upset his heart broke. Everyone had dissolved in giggles within moments and Jack looked like he could cry.
"Easy there mate, come on let's getcha cleaned up." He had soothed, nuzzling him while trying to keep himself mostly clean. In the end his concern for Jack had won out though and he had snuggled the little fur-ball into his arms, dye or no he would calm his baby brother down. It had taken him a good three hours to groom all the dye out and that left Jack super shiny and fluffy. He fell asleep unknowingly snuggled up to Sandy. He couldn't help himself when he found the lot of them snuggled up in groups, North and Tooth, Jack and Sandy.
His camera was filled with super-cute snuggle pictures by the end of day two.
It was about three days into the whole adventure when he discovered Jack, lying on his back all sprawled out…back to normal.
"Mate? Frostbite?" he nudged the boy awake.
"What?" He groaned.
"You're back to normal, do…do you remember anything?" he asked. Jack just looked around groggily in confusion.
"No…what should I remember?" Bunny chuckled and motioned for him to follow, leading him into the little room where the others were still out cold in a furry mass of purring. Jack's eyes widened to the point that Bunny imagined it hurt. He had done the same thing, he was certain, but what shocked him most was his secondary reaction, a chuckle and a small, warm smile. He didn't waste time settling down in the floor and scratching between the little gold pooka's ears. He leaned into the touch immediately and started to purr louder. Jack chuckled.
"I'm guessing that'd be Sandy then." He grinned as the little kit shook out his fur and climbed happily into Jack's lap, padding around a little before falling right back to sleep. When Sandy moved he woke up Tooth, who's big purple eyes were at half-mast.
"Jackie?" She cooed quietly.
"Yeah Tooth, that'd be me." He chuckled at a whisper. Jack gave her head a pet and got nudged by North almost instantly, so he naturally had to pet him too.
"That means you must be North." Jack guessed. North nodded and snuggled up to his other side. Bunny watched the three melt under his touch and couldn't help but wonder how he managed to become so good with people, especially kids.
"Wow mate, you handled this better than I did, I'll hand it to ya." Bunny complimented. Jack was covered in kits and he had to admit, he had never seen the kid look so calm, so happy. Bunny sat down next to him and motioned to the huge nest they all somehow managed to avoid every time. He helped Bunny scoop them up and bed them down for the night.
"You just can't say no to babies, and these have floppy ears and twitchy noses. It's impossible." He admitted. The purring chorus that managed to curl up around him on the bed was awe-inspiring. "Plus they're so very black-mail-able later." He added with a smirk.
"You know that's not a half-bad idea, Frostbite." He agreed much to Jack's happy surprise. He didn't admit that he also wanted something to remind him of this sight, his warren full of life again. As he hopped off to find his camera he almost snorted when he caught the last glimpse of Tooth's foot kicking in time to the scratches Jack was giving her ear.
When he walked back in Jack was nose-to-nose in greeting with Sandy. He didn't even warn him before he snapped the picture.
"Hey!" It took him exactly two seconds to forget the picture when the little ones started to romp. He was getting play-attacked by three little fluffy bunnies and he was completely unconcerned with the snapping sounds off to his side. Bunny couldn't stop laughing.
"Come here Sandy, there ya go!" Jack held up a sleepy golden bunny which then got a picture taken, same with Tooth and North. They then started pouncing on Bunny and Jack nearly fell over laughing.
"That's right! Attack my furry minions!" Jack chuckled.
"Don't you go sickin' kits on me now, Frostbite." Bunny griped playfully as North caught his ear. With one eye closed he tried to pull him off and heard Jack snapping pictures from the same camera.
About a week later it was Tooth who was sprawled out under a blanket of fluffy baby guardians, and her reaction was purely a happy one. A high-pitched girly squeak which had both boys and the kits holding their ears.
They wore off one-by-one, leaving Sandy for last. They didn't know when he would return to normal but based on a count of days made a bunny to centuries lived they figured they had a while. The next time Chaos came around, Bunny made a mental note to thank her.
I know it's not the best ending, and if you'd like to see more, please let me know and I'll definitely explore this one a bit more thoroughly. Thanks in advance, you are all such lovely people! :)