Ever since she was very small, the first glow of magic inside her had been Elaine's sensory powers.
She had always been able to sense death.
She could clearly remember visiting a relative in the hospital with her mother.
Elaine had screamed and cried and carried on, not understanding that no one else could feel the ripping pain in her chest. The empty feeling, the hollow ache.
Her mother had made her sit outside the room for making a scene.
Elaine had declared. "She's going to die! She's going to die!"
Ever since then she knew better then to tell people about her gifts. Even her mother, who had similar powers, could not understand.
No one understood why the young girl locked herself in the bathroom during social events or ran away during concerts and large theatrical productions.
The official diagnosis was something along the lines of Anxiety and Depression.
But for Elaine, it was more like the constant pressure, a thousand different feelings at once. Empathy.
So as she entered the magical corona at the end of Jack Frost's life, Elaine felt a great many things.
Fear and Acceptance from Jack. Deep Sorrow from his sister
But there was something...something different.
What was that thread around the boy's neck?
Elaine reached out and the thread tangled around her wrist, and Jack fell into her hands.
Apparently no one could see them, and then they were in another place, somewhere cold and dark.
There was a cut in the sky where Elaine looked, and a girl stepped from it.
She was a twelve year old, same age as Elaine.
Her hair was up in high blue pigtails, and she held a scythe, and wore what appeared to be gothic Lolita style clothing.
"An angel of death?" Jack said weakly.
"Shinigami." The girl said. "My name is Ninako."
Elaine was busy examining the threads. It was Jack' life, in the tiny threads, and somehow she understood.
Ninako raised her scythe to cut the threads, and Elaine pulled them back, weaving them back into Jack's life thread.
"No!" Elaine said.
"No?" Ninako lowered her scythe.
"No?" Jack looked at her, confused.
Very few people liked him enough to save his life, and this girl was a stranger. Why would she intervene on his behalf?
Elaine tapped the Auryn on her shoulder. "There are...three dragons on the Auryn. The Auryn represents life. I'm supposed to get three second chances if I die here. He can have one."
"I-I don't understand..." Jack said. "Why would you give me part of your life?"
Elaine met his sapphire eyes with her turquoise ones. "I don't know."
A bright light flashed, and Jack and Elaine vanished from that in-between realm, free-falling into the past.