Chapter 9:

If you were to ask Jack Frost, the Easter Bunny was a bit too full of himself.

Take today, for example. It was early March and Jack had been out in eastern New York taking care of a brewing storm front, doing what he could to temper the foul weather that was due in the American Northeast later in the week.

Honestly, Jack didn't even know what Bunny was expecting, coming this far north at this time of year. Of course there was going to be ice everywhere, and of course if you weren't paying attention you were going to step on a slippery patch of the stuff and fall.

The slide into someone's holly bush had just been a bonus. For Jack, anyway. And he couldn't help it if he'd laughed; Bunny's accent made his cursing so much funnier than anyone else Jack could think of, Valka being the only possible exception.

And of course the overgrown kangaroo blamed him for the fall, even though Jack had just happened to be flying over when it happened. Heck, Jack hadn't even caused this particular snowfall; there was such a thing as natural weather, for crying out loud!

So Jack was currently flying through a forest, weaving through the trees, giggling to himself as an angry Bunny sprinted after him.

"Frostbite, ya damned little pixie! Get back here an' I'll show you somethin' real funny!"

Jack only laughed harder as he sped up, pushing off of tree trunks to increase his momentum. When Bunny was angry, his accent became thicker, which Jack found absolutely hilarious.

He was still laughing when he ran full-tilt into something that had been moving very rapidly in the opposite direction. Then, physics being what it was, Jack was propelled backwards with a startled yell while whatever he'd run into went falling away from him.

Jack ended up landing at the roots of a tree, the air leaving his lungs in a rush that left his head spinning for a few moments. He screwed his eyes shut with a groan, one hand groping for the staff he'd dropped upon hitting the tree.

He found when it was dropped on his head.

"Ow!" Jack yelped, glaring up at a smirking Bunnymund as he snatched his staff up from where it had landed beside him.

"That'll teach ya to knock other people down, eh, Frostbite?"

"I didn't make you slip, Bunny. I…," Jack snapped, and promptly cut himself off when he saw what he had run into.

A horse. A young one; a filly by the looks of it, a beautiful buckskin tobiano. She had apparently just gotten to her feet and was studying him very intently. She must have liked what she saw, because a second later her ears pricked forward and she gave a few tiny bucks, snorting exuberantly.

"So Jack Frost didn't make a sheet of ice to trip somebody up an' make 'em fall into some prickly bushes? Why do I not find that believable?"

Oh, right. Jack had been so entranced with the horse he'd forgotten about the huge, uptight bunch of fuzz that was the Easter Bunny.

"There is such a thing as natural weather, Bunny. There is such a thing as natural ice. There is also such a thing as people not looking where they're going, which leads to these unfortunate little things called accidents," Jack said.

"You can drop it, Frost, I heard you laughing!" Bunny snarled, ears dropping so they were pinned against his head.

Nobody noticed the horse mirroring the action.

"Well, yeah. Don't tell me you haven't laughed when someone royally trips up," Jack said with a grin.

"Yes. No! Well…, but… ya shouldn' do stuff like that!"

Jack didn't know what was funnier, Bunny falling into a holly bush or trying to deny that he could be a bit of a jerk sometimes.

"Hypocrite!" Jack crowed, hopping onto his staff and balancing on the top. Bunny glared up at him.

"Why, ya bleedin', no-good little anklebiter…,"

That was when the horse decided to take a bite out of Bunny's tail.

Death was not entirely certain what to make of the sight of a young deathsteed doing her damndest to trample the Easter Bunny. Barely over a year old, she was much too small to actually accomplish the task, but she was certainly giving her all to it. Bunnymund, considerably bruised but not wanting to hurt the filly, was scrambling all over the clearing with a panicked look reminiscent of a rabbit being chased by blood-crazed wolves while Jack and an invisible Black Horseman and steed laughed uproariously at the base of a nearby tree.

He was not surprised that Famine had been the one to find the missing filly; her horse seemed to have an intrinsic drive to locate others of its kind. He was, however, a bit surprised that she hadn't stopped the young horse's attack; Famine would usually diffuse tense situations (unless War was involved).

Although this scene was admittedly a little hysterical.

I think the filly has become attached to your foal, Death's horse said between equine snickers of his own.

It would appear so, Death answered. It hadn't escaped his notice that if Bunnymund would start to head in Jack's direction, the filly would immediately begin to herd him away. If he did manage to get too close to the frost spirit, the little horse would pin her ears against her head, whinny as loudly as she could manage and attack with considerably greater vigor.

It was common knowledge among the Reapers that no one hurt a deathsteed's rider and got away with it. Considering the enmity between Bunnymund and Jack, it wasn't unlikely that Bunny had been yelling at the frost spirit and the filly had decided that the rabbit was threatening her newly discovered friend.

Do you think she'll bond with him? Choose him to ride her? Death's steed asked.

It will be a while yet before she's at that stage, Death said. But I suppose it is a possibility, yes. It was extremely rare that a deathsteed allowed someone who wasn't a Reaper to ride them, but it had happened before. And… well, Jack had proven unusual in more ways than just his not-fully-dead status. Death certainly didn't put bonding with a deathsteed outside the boy's realm of possibility.

Said deathsteed was currently driving and unaware Bunnymund toward a particularly thorny-looking hawthorn plant. Jack was still laughing senselessly on the ground while Famine and her steed egged the filly on. Death's horse snickered to himself while Death rubbed his forehead with a skeletal hand.

Some days, I swear I work with five-year-olds.