In The Silence

~46~

Big Root is warm and golden around them, like sunshine given form; whorls and layers of gleaming, living wood polished bright by magic and countless generations of young hands fondly patting their gigantic, sheltering friend in welcome. Jack does so as well; presses his cheek against the golden grain of the hallway wall; twines about the spindles of a staircase balustrade; wraps his fingers around a wide ledge lining a hollow as he peers out to the village of Santoff Claussen beyond where children are playing with toys never before seen in the world. Big Root is warm. And golden. And it fills Jack with a sense of belonging, of security as encompassing as his bed of Dreamsand in Sandman's castle. Big Root is like Jack, and even more so, Big Root is like Nightlight.

Big Root is a star child, and family, and Big Root will never, ever turn him away.

Ombric is smiling at him, a silly, sleepy smile that hides beneath his curling mustache, and Ombric's owl is smiling as well, smiling as only owls can smile in the content grinding of their beaks and in the quiet, content mumbling of coos and hoots that speak of snug rafters and nighttime flights through forests set alight by the Moon. This owl, clinging to Ombric's hat, is friendly. This owl, blinking round, golden eyes in feigned astonishment as they enter yet another room in their search for Katherine, likes Jack — and Jack's quite willing to like the owl in return.

Jack's kept company with owls; perched with them in pine trees late at night. Jack's listened as owls have plaintively questioned the Moon. Their questions are different: 'Who who who?' in place of his Why why why? but it's always given Jack comfort — a guilty selfish satisfaction — in knowing that the owls' questions remain as unanswered as his own. He, at least, had been given a name. He has the who, if little else.

He grins up at the owl, and grins up at Ombric as he hurries back to the elderly man's side, pressing close underneath the man's outstretched arm and burrowing his head into soft, rustling silk. "This is a nice place," Jacks tells them, man and owl both as they slowly walk towards another room further down the hall. "I can see why Katherine chose not to go with North; even if there were no children, Big Root would be a wonderful place to stay..."

"I've found it to be so," Ombric says as thick, white brows bunch up over his twinkling eyes, giving him the appearance of either deep thought or perpetual surprise. "Since I first discovered this place I've felt no need to move on, and I must say: Travel consumed me when I was younger. I was obsessed with discovering new places. New things. New ideas. So caught up was I in seeking out what was new, I had no appreciation for what was. It's something I regret, so many years later... But Big Root? This fine old fellow? Here I haven't a single regret at all."

"I'm glad." Together they look around the room, behind the door and underneath a small wicker basket upended on the floor. "Regrets aren't any fun. They squirm so." They look, but there's no sign of the storyteller and so they move back into the hall. Jack's staff trails behind them but no flowering of frost flows in their wake for Jack is holding himself in, holding himself back in deference to the old man and his star child home. "—Ombric?" Biting at his lip, Jack flips up a corner of a braided rag rug to peer underneath, although he doubts he'll find Katherine there; he wouldn't have bothered looking if the elderly man hadn't checked beneath the last four rugs they'd passed. He isn't sure how Katherine could hide underneath a rug — no matter how lumpy — but Big Root is a place of magic and rules bent unknowingly, and anything is possible.

He's not sure how he knows this, but the certainty of it fills him. Anything is possible, if only once — and that includes the implausibility of a full-grown woman successfully hiding beneath a mostly flat if somewhat rumpled rag rug.

"Yes?" Ombric is checking behind a painting, a portrait that happened to be covering a twisting tunnel at the end of which daylight gleams— and Jack feels somewhat better as he flips over the next decorative carpet. "Oh, and since we're looking, if you happen to come across a mechanical gibbon just give a shout. Well, I don't suppose shouting will be a problem — feisty contraption likes to lunge at a body, but Wilhelmina lost it a few days ago and we haven't managed to recapture it."

"Gibbon?" The word is unfamiliar to Jack, but he brings his staff to bear just in case a lunging gibbon is anything like a lunging shadow. "Uh, and mechanical?" He's not nervous, not with Big Root's laughter echoing around him, but frost now covers the hallway's floor and the hem of the man's silk robe as Jack taps the end of his staff speculatively against a hat rack that wobbles at the rough touch.

"Hmm? A gibbon is a type of monkey, and mechanical is... well... it's..." Letting the painting swing back down into place, Ombric pauses to reposition his hat causing the owl perched upon it to hoot in annoyance at being so rudely jarred. "It's complicated. Quite literally. But I doubt that's what you meant to ask about. Although, if you're interested, I can recommend several books—"

"No! That is..." Shaking his head — and keeping an eye out for lurking, complicated monkey creatures — Jack shrugs, and slides one foot through the thin layer of frost slowly starting to melt on the carpet. "What is a wizard, Ombric? Is it a man, or something else? You said you're a wizard, almost as though it's a job, like a tailor or, or a clerk. So is it a job? Or a title? Or something else?"

"That — is an excellent question, my boy." Ombric nods as though agreeing with himself; nods and wraps his arm around Jack's shoulders and escorts him down the spiraling staircase to the large, cozy room below. It's a room Jack's familiar with; magical flames dance and leap in bursts of vibrant color within the fireplace and upon the arm of one thickly cushioned chair Mr. Qwerty sleeps, his slowly fluttering wings alive with the watercolor splash of images taken from his dreams. "And the answer, I'm afraid, is a sitting sort of answer. Actually, it's a bedtime sort of answer, but I doubt you'll stay long enough for that. Sit, sit," he commands, patting the cushioned seat of the chair. "Sit, and I'll explain."

Jack sits, taking care not to disturb the slumbering book. The chair is pliant beneath him and the fabric is warm from the fire — and neither feeling is particularly pleasant. It's not a chair meant for a frost child; his bare feet leave ugly smirches on the pale velveteen, forcing him to sit as an adult might sit with his back stiff and straight and his toes curling uncomfortably against the wooden floor. He's sorry he's dirtied the pretty chair, Katherine's chair, and he rubs his fingers against the marks hoping the dust might brush off, but he only succeeds in spreading the stain.

"No need to fret," Ombric tells him, noticing his growing frustration with the smudge. "That chair is brown far more often than tan, and by this evening it may be aqua, or perhaps viridian. It all depends on what mood the children are in — and which paints escape their parents' supervision." He chuckles as he pulls over a stool; grunts as he sits down amidst awkwardly twisting robes and misbehaving strands of beard that refuse to curl meekly in his lap. "Magic will sort it out in the end. Magic might have that chair a coal scuttle by tomorrow, although Katherine's not as forgiving of such inconveniences as she was when she was younger. And magic, my boy, is at the heart of every wizard."

"Magic..." His staff rests across his lap and his hands rest across his staff — and he keeps them there, for they want to instead caress the beautiful, flowing pages that make up Mr. Qwerty's wings. They want to pet, and explore, and possibly read the stories he knows are contained within. Mr. Qwerty, though, is snoring, each inhalation the raspy unfamiliar sound of tissue-thin paper tearing — and it seems a shame to wake him. Jack's never been awakened from slumber, but he imagines it would be disorienting, to shift from there to here so quickly — so he keeps his hands in his lap and does his best to focus on Ombric.

"Magic!" This time the owl perched upon the elderly man's hat does his nodding for him. "The fifth force. And while magic comes in all shapes and forms, those are merely results. No, at its simplest magic can be reduced down to one building block, as t'were—"

"I believe."

The smile on Ombric's face is delighted, and the man laughs freely as he removes his hat and sets both it and the owl closer to the sinuous silver flames of the fire. "Oh ho! So you do, and so it is. Belief is the core of all magic. If a person has faith, absolute faith, it can overwhelm the physical world and the impossible will happen. Faith and science, my boy; together they keep the universe spinning. Such a shame they're stuck feuding each other... No matter." He waves a wrinkled hand as if forcefully dismissing an unpleasant thought. "Ahem, so belief... Tell me, Jack: What spells have you cast?"

The man's gesturing has disturbed Mr. Qwerty's rest and Jack gives in to temptation, gently patting the gilt edges of pages in an attempt to sooth the book before it wakes completely. "I wanted — I wanted children to see me," he admits quietly, biting down on his lip as he hears the pain lurking in the deepest tones of his voice. "That one didn't work. I don't think any of my spells have ever worked. Be not failed. Stay with me seems to cause people to leave faster. And family..." The hand still curled around his staff clenches, and there are excited yelps from young throats playing outside as snow falls from a perfectly clear sky.

"Family is the hardest," Mr. Qwerty says from behind a yawn, drawing himself to his feet and stumbling down the chair arm to rest in the lap below. "You wish at them, and they wish at you, and you'd best grow accustomed to compromise because no one will ever get precisely what they want." He yawns again, and polishes the lenses of his glasses against the soft fibers of a green and brown scarf. "Hello, Jack. I've been expecting you, but all the excitement this morning rather wore me out. I'd ask how you're doing, but it's apparent you need rescuing from Ombric's clutches."

"Clutches! Hmph." Rolling his eyes, Ombric strokes his beard and attempts to look dignified. Attempts, for the small, glittering blue ball that falls from the depths of his beard rather nullifies his efforts. "Drat," he mutters, picking up the ball and stuffing it into one of the pockets lining his robe. "I'd wondered where William the Smallest lost that..."

Mr. Qwerty rolls his eyes in turn before replacing his glasses. "Yes. Absolutely the term is clutches; I remember when you lost a five course supper to that beard. Now, Jack: I do believe you wanted to know about wizards."

"Yes, yes. Go ahead. Tell the boy." Ombric sniffs, and the owl next to him gives a warbling snicker. "Not like I was telling the tale..."

"Indeed," the book agrees drolly as he climbs back to the arm of the chair, and Jack hides his smile behind a raised hand, afraid of offending the elderly man. "So, all magic begins with I believe, and a person must believe absolutely. Most every child is capable of this but as they grow older, supposedly wiser — they begin to doubt. Oh, it doesn't happen to all adults. Santoff Claussen is filled with parents rather handy with magic. But they're not wizards."

"No?" Jack pulls his legs up into the chair for comfort, no longer noticing the smudges his bare feet are leaving behind. "But wizards are adults that can do magic?"

"Ahem!" Ombric interrupts over Mr. Qwerty's somewhat cynical, "I'd scarcely call them adults."

"It's all a matter of genetics." The wizard raises one hand, a hand glowing a radiant, rippling green — and uses it to smooth a particularly stubborn tangle out of his hair. "Not that you'd know about genetics, but as some babies are born with red hair and some are born with six fingers, some are born with the gift—"

"Genetic defect."

"—of magic!" Crossing his arms, Ombric practically pouts at the chortling book. "This is because I woke you up, isn't it? Well, we'll sort that out later. Suffice to say, long ago in my homeland children were born — different — from others. Their belief... it was closer to the songs of stars than anything previously seen. And as they grew older their belief became stronger; they themselves became — not quite human. They were wizards.

"Atlantis may be long lost, but wizarding blood wants to survive. Perhaps this world needs it to survive. I don't know. So wizards, true wizards, are rare nowadays, but wizardlings? Those with the merest touch of the gift? They're more common than most would expect."

Jack curls tighter about his staff and wraps his arms around his knees. He supposes he knows what wizards are, now. He supposes the explanation makes sense — if it had been given to someone other than him. Confusion, though, is all he feels. He'd thought he'd found a new truth; he'd thought that Ombric and Thaddeus might be the same. They feel the same to his senses. But if wizards are so incredibly rare what are the chances that he'd meet two in the space of a few years?

A frown twists at his lips as Jack rests his cheek against the curving hook of his staff. "...Then what is Thaddeus?"

Ombric opens his mouth to answer, then stops. Stops with mouth hanging open and bushy white brows more tufted in surprise than ever. "...Who?"

"Thaddeus," Mr. Qwerty repeats, his voice heavy with understanding. "Thaddeus Burgess. Am I right, Jack?" Without waiting for an answer, likely not truly needing one, the book flutters to a soft landing atop Jack's bent knees and gently pats his upper arm. "You shouldn't doubt yourself so; your Thaddeus is a wizard. A terribly powerful one for all he's untrained. He's a wizard and an adult, and that's made him terribly dangerous... hasn't it?"

"He — he doesn't mean to do things. He doesn't. He just doesn't realize..." Jack doesn't know why he's defending Thaddeus; he's angry with Thaddeus and the man's constant, stifling commands disguised as requests with all the power of a heartfelt wish behind them. Thaddeus had trapped him, bound him atop the graves of his children. The man has summoned him back to the settlement by the river, winter after winter, merely by wondering where Jack might be.

The man gave him the gift of communication, then warded him away from writing so strictly that the thought of words scratched in frost upon windows causes his stomach to clench and his fingers to tremble — and Thaddeus does. not. know. Thaddeus has not the slightest clue as to what he's done. And Jack can't tell him. Thaddeus has made sure Jack can't tell him.

"Although it's no consolation now," the book tells him, climbing daintily up his coat to perch upon his shoulder, "your Thaddeus will some day learn the true impact of his powers. I can't tell you when; no one should know that much of their own story, but I can tell you that the man will improve. Luckily he's an adult as well as a wizard. Wizards are remarkably fond of ruts, but adults can continue to grow. It's a shame so few make an effort."

There's a look of flustered affront on Ombric's face, but the crinkles at the corners of the old man's eyes admit to certain truths. "Jack my boy," he says after a long, silent while filled with the faint, far off laughter of children playing in the unexpected snowfall, his wrinkled hand resting on Jack's knee in the exact spot where Mr. Qwerty had stood. "I had no idea. None. Why, you aren't afraid of me at all!"

It's with honest curiosity that Jack asks, "Why should I be?"

Ruffling its feathers, the owl hoots quizzically to itself as Ombric tries his best to answer. "...Because I'm a wizard, and it seems a wizard has done you terrible wrongs. Are you not frightened that I might do the same?"

"No." And although Ombric looks as if he'd expected a different answer, no is the only truthful reply Jack has to give. Likely he's missing something again. Some important subtlety that's escaped him — but he doesn't care. The elderly man has been nothing but kind to him, and while the man might be a wizard there's also something about him that calls out to Jack. Something appealing, or something that appeals. Ombric is one of his children. It's strange, having a child so tall and so old, but the man has slipped into place, there in Jack's self where all the ties to his children dwell. "Should I? You've done me no harm. Even Thaddeus doesn't mean to. Don't intentions count?"

There's a wistful smile hiding behind the thickets of Ombric's mustache, and the hand on Jack's knee squeezes lightly. "They should. Yes. They most certainly should."

~o~

End notes: And Yay for Esse slowly healing up and whining incessantly during PT! LOL! I am, though, feeling better, and sitting in the chair now to write is only slightly unpleasant rather than, "OMG!" Thank you for your well wishes. I hug you all! Please imagine little hearts and dragonflies bursting from your screen ^_~

Beta provided by Kaylessa, to whom I shall forever be indebted ^_^

Many tearful, weepy, mushy thanks to Alaia Skyhawk, lurkerlaine, Eternal She-Wolf, Twilight Cardmistress, Magiccatprincess, SecretSnow, Breezyfeather, hiddenworldwalker, Sora Tayuya, Nocturnal Leanings, TriplePivotTurn, LiviahEternal, Crystal Peak, UVNight, Smoochynose, Alana-kittychan, Tenshi Youkai no Yugure, DragonsFlame117, RandomKrazyPerson, DragonflyonBreak, blackkyu, Bookworm Gal, Rahar Moonfire, hi, savedbygrace94, Hannah, Dragowolf, Fumus000, LCAAS, Kaylessa, hisokauzumaki, Soshoryu, Anne Camp, whylime, dizappearingirl, LOSTcharlie-claireLOST, melancholyblood, I F T S, Nique17, HerHiddenSecret, I'll get to it eventually, and xxDarkHuntress23xx for their reviews. I am so sorry for making you all wait so long for this part — but hopefully you'll not need to wait nearly as long for the next. I wuvvles you!

And I do hope everyone's preordered RotG for this Tuesday, yes? Yes yes yes?

magic is the fifth force: The four fundamental forces (or interactions) of physics are gravitation, electromagnetism, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear. Magic, of course, trumps them all.

Jack's met two wizards: Oh, Jack. You've actually been around 4 wizards in the last 24 hours.

For those that missed it, Esse wrote a little ficlet called Oh So Pleasant. It actually, kinda, sorta takes place in Silence's future. Tell me if I should add on :p

And since Mr. Qwerty was feeling talkative...

excerpt from the pages of Mr. Qwerty

For all that stars seem to be solitary beings, aloof and distant, they are actually social creatures. Stars sing to each other over the vast distances of space, and the songs of stars are the most powerful spells in existence because the belief of stars is without end. And for all that stars love the Void, they also cherish life in all the myriad forms it takes. For the one thing a star fears most is being alone.

Stars took it upon themselves to be guardians of life; to encourage and nurture life wherever they found it. The bravest of stars consented to be placed into star forges, allowing them to travel in the great ships of their allies across distances otherwise unmanageable — for stars are notoriously hard to move. Stars less brave — but no less kind — sent out their beloved children to chase away threatening shadows and to ease the fears of those that could not glow on their own. Star children did not fear darkness; indeed, darkness was a poor, frail imitation of their father the Void, and they'd laugh as they chased the shadows away. Never too far away, though; otherwise, there'd be nothing to chase the next day.

The very youngest of star children, however, were given an even more important task. Frost children — those that had not yet kindled into brightness — were sent to planets where life struggled the hardest; where emerging intelligence battled heat, or cold, or drought without end. Frost children cooled scorched land and taught gentleness to onslaughts of ice. Frost children brought moisture to crops or shepherded away storm clouds when harvests were due. Frost children were beloved and they loved their charges in turn, and life flourished throughout the galaxy.

Sadly, life wasn't as farseeing as the stars. Great civilizations arose and in the Golden Age the greatest gift ever given by the stars was used to capture all the shadows of creation and bind them in one place. Even the Void was conquered and jailed, and the universe began filling with bright, blinding light. Life came near to dooming itself. And the Constellations ignored the pleas of the stars to open the door of the prison of lead before it was too late — for shadows forced together plot and become far more dangerous than fleeting wisps of fear.

All know how the Golden Age ended; how the shadows engineered their escape and swallowed their jailor whole, leaving behind the horror that was the Nightmare King. Possessed entirely by shadows, Pitch loathed all light and waged war upon those that dwelled in it, as well as those that cast it. Over the long centuries of battle Pitch earned many names, and the most terrible of them all was Star Slayer.

Star children fought. And lost, twisted into Fearlings that swelled the ranks of Pitch's armies. In desperation, their song broken for the very first time by doubt, the stars called upon their youngest children for rescue. Frost children tearfully left their charges and returned to their parents' sides; left their worlds to protect the stars from oblivion and to save the Void from the corrupting influence of a universe out of balance. Frost children left...

...and never returned.

The last remaining star child, Nightlight, battled the Nightmare King and struck him such a grievous blow that Pitch was bound for millennia on a small, unknown planet far from the ruins of the Constellations' civilization. Without a leader shadows fled and faded for there was no one left upon whom they could feed. And the stars that remained gathered their strength and lifted their voices in song: A dirge for all the children they'd lost.

So it was with great surprise that the last wizard of Atlantis, Ombric Shalazar, found a frost child peering through a window of his home and companion Big Root. It is possible that only Ombric, of all the men inhabiting the world, understood the significance of a frost child, for Ombric remembered when the frost children of the earth were called away. Only Ombric understood, and it filled him with hope for the future.

Jack Frost was the first star child born since the fall of the Golden Age, and the stars themselves rejoiced.

~o~

And, of course, the second part of Fumus000's drabble :D Because, you know, there wasn't nearly enough angst in this part... Hope you like it, dearling! Actually, I hope it turned out okay — everyone started getting all gabby at the end o.o I so do not know...

~o~

It's hard to get Tooth moving. Jamie's already halfway up the narrow, crooked stairs, and the boy's footprints stand out accusingly against years of accumulated dust. Bunny's had enough of the aged, creepy house full of relics of a past that couldn't have existed; heirlooms out of place and artifacts from around the world that never should have found their way to what would have been a small, tight knit community whose only reliable source of trade was the modest river running through the valley.

It is one of North's snow globes on the table, small and sparkling and perfect as Bunny carefully picks it up. Yet it's far more than one of North's snow globes; by the delicate carving and brilliant, bold colors he can tell it's one of Tashi's pieces. The Yeti artist had taught him a trick or four, and as far as Bunny knows her creations have never left Yeti lands. Yet here is this snow globe — the masterwork of a master craftsman — and within its crystal globe is this very house as once it must have stood, proud and beautiful, grand dame of the vibrant young town of Burgess.

It's impossible. As impossible as the feather earrings Tooth's clutching, holding to her chest as if they're still attached to one of her faeries. She's cooing, ever so softly — and it's to reassure herself, Bunny realizes. She's cooing with Baby Tooth perched on her shoulder, her helper's beak worriedly running through Tooth's plumage; the Guardian of Memory is crying and cooing and looking near to coming undone—

And Bunny wants to leave. Ever so much. It's a feeling that stands his fur on end; that spasms his muscles and triggers long dormant instincts to flee. This house doesn't like him. He's never hurt a child; he could never harm a child — and yet the house accuses him of precisely that.

He hurt her favorite child — and she wants him gone. Immediately. If he would be so kind.

"I'm not going to bail out now," he mutters to both the ghostly presence of the home and to Jamie waiting impatiently on the stair, his tapping foot raising fine clouds of dust that sparkle with reflected moonlight. Stepping lightly across frayed carpets, Bunny places a paw on Tooth's unoccupied shoulder and gives the faerie a gentle shake. "Hey? Let's take a squizz at this room the ankle biter's going on about, then we'll go. Doesn't set right, fossicking through this place. Can you feel it?"

Shaking hands return the earrings to the opened display case, and Toothiana closes the case with the same care normally reserved for a child's first lost tooth. "She really doesn't like you," Tooth answers, placing a hand over the paw resting on her shoulder. "Whatever did you do?"

"Wish I knew..." Bunny escorts her up the staircase; the wood underfoot creaks alarmingly and he's pathetically, gratefully glad that Tooth is hovering instead of adding her miniscule weight to the overburdened stairs. There are more rooms on the second floor, but there's no time to look through them; Jamie's waiting for them at the end of a short hall. "I doubt it's Pitch this old gal's worked up about; him and his minions are the only ones I've ever gone rounds with. Well, besides Jack..." Hunching his shoulders protectively, Bunny shakes his head roughly as if the violent motion might break loose the guilt he feels over those particular memories. Yeah, he'd attacked the smug larrikin — although he knows now there'd been no malice behind that fateful Easter Sunday blizzard. He'd attacked, and he plans to make amends for that, even if it takes years. But it wasn't like Frost was some defenseless ankle biter, either. It can't be that that's so upset the tranquility of the house...

"So mate," he asks the boy, squatting down to eye level although it's hard to meet the accusation prevalent in the child's normally trusting gaze. "What is it you wanted to show us?"

Jamie glowers, disbelief and sheer annoyance momentarily robbing him of his voice. "You know," he says after a hard, gulping swallow that manages to choke back rising anger, "a law was made nearly two hundred years ago — and it's still on the books even though newcomers to Burgess try to get it removed every few years. Here it's a crime to harm winter children. Or any spirit associated with snow, I guess." He continues to glare at the Pooka as he violently twists the knob and pushes the door open. "I looked it up. —Cousin Jack is specifically mentioned."

"Cousin Jac...k..,"Bunny begins — but can't continue. The door's been opened and he can't unsee what lies inside. Neither can he believe what he sees; not when he stumbles forward, not when he falls to his knees in front of dozens upon dozens of pictures hanging from the walls and resting on the floor. Oils and acrylics and watercolors, chalk drawings on slate and finger-paints on construction paper. No matter the medium they all share a common theme. In each picture there's a boy white of hair and blue of eyes smiling wildly — and playing in snow.

Some of the pictures are obvious children's work; great globs of color lacking any detail. And some of the pictures, still the work of young minds, have the pale boy small as one of Tooth's fairies or large as a cloud — and most only share the vaguest resemblance to Jack. A few, however... Sketches, drawings, an elegantly framed painting taking pride of place on the wall, are the creations of skilled artists — and their subject matter is indisputably Jack Frost.

Toothiana is frozen in the doorway, her breathing quick and shallow as Baby Tooth darts about excitedly from picture to picture, chattering and clapping in absolute joy. "How?" she asks breathlessly. "How is this possible?"

Bunny presses a paw to the brass plate of the large painting in front of him — and wheezes. "Cousin Jack by Ruth Anne Burgess... 1895. I — I don't understand. No one believed in Jack Frost; no one saw him, until you. What is this, Jamie?" Anger's always come too easily to him, because anger's far easier to deal with than confusion. "What kind of prank is this?!"

Jamie's kneeling at the far corner of the room, his backpack opened in front of him while he rummages inside. Looking up, he shrugs with studied carelessness learned by watching his best friend's dealings with the Guardian of Hope. It's a shrug meant to infuriate. "You're right. No one believed in Jack Frost. But every Burgess in town knows the story of Cousin Jack." His voice takes on the sing-song quality of something learned by rote.

"Cousin Jack the winter child saved Thaddeus Burgess and his family from the bitter winter of 1795. And Cousin Jack saved the entire town from famine by holding back winter in 1816. Always treat Cousin Jack respectfully and invite him to your games, for all he wants is friendship and a chance to join your play." Smiling sheepishly, Jamie ducks his head as he pulls out a slightly crinkled piece of paper from his backpack. "My Dad was a Burgess. He taught me the legend not long before he, well..." Another shrug, a smaller shrug meant only for himself. "All the children are told stories of our Cousin Jack... and Dad said, if I was really lucky and kept both my mind and my heart open — I might be able to see him when I grew up.

"I asked Jack about it." Painstakingly smoothing the creases out of the paper, Jamie proudly leans his crayon masterpiece next to a charcoal study. It's his favorite out of all the pictures he's done. It's Jack — the very first time he saw him in his room, surrounded by snowflakes and a look of indescribable joy on his face. Jamie wasn't able to capture that moment, not in crayon upon lined paper, but every time he looks at the picture — he remembers. "He said there's always been wizards in the Burgess family, and that any child that grew up to be a wizard could see him."

There's a dazed, far away look in Tooth's lilac eyes as she slowly walks from picture to picture, studying each one as if in search of some elusive answer. They speak to her, for each childish doodle holds a heartfelt wish; they're memories that never made their way into her palace. Every Burgess child wishing they might grow up to be a wizard — not for the magic, and not for the power, but for the chance to meet their beloved cousin.

When will my frost child play once more in my halls? the house asks her, and the plaintiveness of the question brings fresh tears to Tooth's eyes.

"I still don't get it," Bunny admits, ears pressed tightly against his skull in distress. "If all you ankle biters believed in Jack — why couldn't you see him?"

"Magic doesn't follow rules; at least, not the ones we're used to." Standing, the boy slings his backpack over his shoulder, nearly overbalancing. "It was the day after the battle with Pitch that I made the connection. —And as soon as I told my cousins Jack's last name, every one of them could see him. And then we had to keep Jack from bashing his head against the wall; two hundred years — and he never realized he hadn't told any of the Burgesses his last name!" Jamie's laughter is loud, but not unwelcome. "So we took him out for ice cream, and then we played hide and seek — and I don't think I've ever seen anyone as happy as Jack was, each time one of us found him. ...Although he wasn't really hiding all that well. Being invisible for so long, I guess he never needed to learn how."

It's funny, but Bunny can't laugh. He can barely breathe, because he gets it now. Cousin Jack. Cousin Jack. Generations of Burgesses innately understood the truth that Bunny's just now beginning to grasp. There was no uncle Jack or grandpa Jack, just eternally young cousin Jack because Jack Frost...

...is a frost child.

"Tooth," he keens, and his blindly reaching paw is caught by the fairy; caught and pressed between warm, soft hands. "I can't. I can't! I keep trying to make up for the mistakes I've made, but how can I make up for this? How?"

Tooth is hugging him, and Jamie is hugging him as well, and even Baby Tooth is clutching a hank of his fur and warbling reassurance. None of it helps. What he needs — isn't here. He needs — to speak with himself.

"It's okay, Bunny," Jamie tells him with all the authority a young boy can muster. "I didn't bring you here to make you sad. You said you wanted to know how Jack couldn't recognize his own tombstone — and this is why. Jack's always been part of the Burgess family. A long, long time ago he might have died, but to us he's always been alive. And even though he knows about his past now — he hasn't made the connection, because why would Thaddeus put up a tombstone for someone still living?"

Long after Toothiana leaves to escort Jamie home, Bunny sits in the room filled with lovingly rendered images of a frost child that had never given up hope, and waits to hear the sound of a Pooka's feet upon the stairs.

~o~

Definitions for expressions most likely misused:
squizz: look, as in, "Take a squizz at this!"
fossick: search, rummage

~o~

And, finally, Kaylessa's drabble. -huggles- I don't think it's quite what you were wanting, and you deserve so much better, but this is what wanted to be written ^^;; At least we get to end with a bit of warm fuzzy... angst. Huh. Who knew angst could be warm and fuzzy?

~o~

He's lying atop his lake, resting upon ice grown brittle as winter gracefully gives way to spring. Water wells up from cracks and soaks into the back of his hoodie and pants, but he pays it little mind. His entire existence has revolved around water in one form or another, and it seems fitting to share this night with the lake that had birthed him.

The lake that had killed him, he knows now. He knows, oh, so many things, now. And it's tempting, so terribly tempting to surrender his reclaimed memories to the lake once more, because he's not all that sure what to do with them.

He's not that boy though he has the memories. That's not his family though the ache behind his closed eyelids begs to differ. His first general of winter couldn't have been his sister. Yet the face in the memories matches exactly the face in his dreams, and Jack can't tell if the bleating sound escaping from his mouth is a laugh, or a sob.

He remembers. He remembers everything.

A laugh of water sounds the same as a sob and he wants so badly to be at the bottom of his lake. He wasn't that brown-haired brown-eyed boy in his memories. He wasn't that lost, hopeless waif abandoned by the Moon. He wasn't, isn't, couldn't be...

But the memories say otherwise.

He opens his eyes and stares up at the stars overhead, but their song offers no comfort. In his left hand he holds his memory box. His ossuary, he thinks grimly; resting place for his only earthly remains. Baby teeth grown frail with time that safeguard all the memories of his childhood, and hidden inside the enameled gold yet another box, a smaller box, containing one unbelievably heavy tooth that holds all of his memories. Every. single. one.

No one should have to remember their death. But it's there. It's there — and it mocks him.

His right hand presses against Snowflake; presses against gold and possibility and love. His moonbeam's been asleep since being returned. Likely Snowflake's been asleep since the last confrontation with Pitch in Burgess. Which... is something he'll need to look in to. Perhaps the Lady's been away too long. Perhaps... Snowflake's dreams are a moonbeam's dreams — and something more. Jack's always known that, but tonight the knowledge strikes hard and draws forth anguish.

"Did you know?" he asks the moonbeam. "Did you know she was my sister?"

He needs resolution and so he follows the beckoning thread of Snowflake's dreams. Follows until he's in the dream of a frost child, of a village forever caught in time, forever at the verge of twilight, forever missed. It's grown over the years as old friends settled; it's grown, and yet it's exactly the same as the first time he came. Children — friends, family, family — play in the snow, intent on their games...

"Hello, Jack."

...and she's at his side. His girl-child. His first general of winter. His sister. She's holding his hand and smiling at him smiling at a secret finally revealed and she's warm where she presses against his side and her hair smells of wood smoke where it presses against his cheek.

Tears escape him — and they aren't the tears of a frost child at all but droplets of liquid light. "Why?" he asks her, whispering the question into the shell of her ear before leaning back to drink in the familiarity of her face. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"What is the greater truth? I was your general of winter for more years than I was your sister, even while I was living. —And you were so terribly fragile." He loves her smile; he's always loved her smile, and Jack wants it back as she tells him these things. Instead, the sorrow brimming in her warm brown eyes is pain enough it might kill him a second time. "If you had known who I was, would you have had the strength to go back after your first visit? Or any of the times after? Now that you do know... are you tempted to stay? For this," she sweeps her arm outwards, encompassing the village and the forest beyond, "is no place for the living."

He ducks his head, petulantly kicking at soft, cool snow. "Not like I'm alive."

"Oh, Jack." She hugs him; wraps her arms around him with all the fierce strength he remembers from countless piggy-back rides given centuries ago. "I don't think there's anyone that's lived more than you. Your life has been exceedingly strange, I'll grant you that, but who else can claim they've met their sister nearly three hundred years after they've both passed on?"

She means to cheer him, but Jack feels wronged somehow. Not by her — never by her — but by circumstances. Three hundred years of desperate wondering; of raging, and pleading, and eventual feigned indifference leading up to this. A revelation that could have saved him so much heartache, if only he'd received it sooner.

Three centuries sooner.

Memories that his lake had faded to pale remnants are fresh and brilliant as a bruise in his mind. He's angry, and he's been angry since sitting down to view the rest of the memories faithfully preserved inside the enameled gold box. He'd sat down upon his lake underneath the watchful gaze of the Moon, eager to view the rest of his childhood. That is, after all, what baby teeth contained; all the best of a child's memories. What he'd gotten instead was a tooth in its own sealed container, a tooth nearly too heavy to hold. A tooth that contained each and every moment of both his lives, memories he'd gladly given to the water, memories he's never wanted, and his slightest stray thought floods him with remembrances so bitter it feels like he's drowning again.

"I nearly killed you," he tells her, his voice hard and edged with self-loathing. "The blizzard you got caught in, it was mine."

"You saved my life," she tells him, as her grip around him impossibly tightens. "I went out on the ice when you told me to stay back."

A tremor wracks his body and shakes them both, and his voice shatters when he admits, "I let you die."

Her own voice is softer than snow caught on a breeze as she whispers into his ear, "I made you live. I think I've got you beat."

It startles a laugh from him, a great, gasping choke of a laugh as he allows himself to relax in his sister's embrace. "I didn't know it was a contest."

"Everything with you is a contest, Jack!" She loosens her hold but keeps a firm clasp on his hand. "Betcha, dare ya, race ya!" She giggles lightly, as carefree as when she'd been a child playing with her older brother in freshly fallen snow. "I've stayed here all this time, just to make sure you didn't. I've stayed here while so many others have moved on. And I think I'll stay a while longer — for you owe me a skating trip. Shh," she cautions, smoothing the tip of her finger over his forming frown. "It's okay. It was a long, long time ago, though I know you remember it like yesterday. I love you, Jack. And I loved skating with you best of all. Do say you'll come with. I promise you, the ice here can never crack."

"Ice skating, huh?" He knows there's a lake just beyond the forest's edge; he knows it's there, though he's never seen it. And he knows in this timeless, placeless place there will be ice skates waiting for them — even if he doesn't need them. And he knows this is his sister's way of helping him cope with an avalanche of memories he cannot deal with on his own... "Think you're good enough to take on the master?"

There's a smirk on her face, a naughty, mocking grin that matches his own. "How 'bout I race ya!" she gleefully shouts as she shoves him hard, knocking him down into the soft, powdery snow and vaulting over him before he has the chance to do more than grunt at the impact. "What are you waiting for, slowpoke?"

Blinking, he scrapes snow from his face — and whoops. "You're on!" he screams at her retreating back, and within seconds he's flying after her, dark memories once more forgotten in favor of the present. Later, he'll deal with them.

Now, he has a little sister to school.