Chapter 11. Wow. I thought this story was going to be 4 or 5 chapters at most... but now it's at 11... and the last arc of the story keeps growing...
Among The Stars
Chapter 11
Jack tried not to think too much about how he was there. The moment he let that spool of thought begin to unwind in his mind, too many questions and not enough answers threatened to drive him crazy.
He had woken up with a suspicious lack of pain. And when he had pulled off his hoodie to look at his chest, the skin under his heart had been unmarred. He would have thought it had all been a dream. Except he had woken up fully dressed, which he knew wasn't the case when he had gone to bed. Then there was the frost: on the edges of his hoodie, the sheets of his bed. And when he had set his feet on the floor, he had watched the fern-like frost spread over the carpet.
And there was still a charred hole in his hoodie where the blaster bolt had burned its way through to his skin.
The sun had been up for a few hours, but the halls were empty. He guessed everyone else had been sleeping off the battle. The only people who had been up were a few yetis, elves and Bunnymund's egg shaped helpers, most of whom he found in the kitchen when his growing stomach drove him in that direction. It was a little frustrating to be surrounded by creatures he couldn't understand.
Needing something to do, he had flown back to Winter (after getting something to eat from the kitchens – along with a few pieces of Bunnymund's chocolate). He had hoped that surveying his territory would distract him for a couple hours. Otherwise, he knew he would go crazy waiting for someone to wake up so he could ask them why he wasn't dead. And, while it was a reasonable question he thought, most of his friends were the type to be extremely grumpy when woken up too early.
The walls of the ice palace, in the heart of Winter, on the edge of the forest, were made of thick blue ice.
Jack had gone all out making it, though he didn't spend much time there. It had mostly been for fun – a chance to master finger control over his powers. Hence the tower that was really just a spiraling slide.
He had covered his entire territory, relieved to see there were no hold out of Fearlings even in the thickets parts of the forest, before heading to the palace mostly because he needed something else to do. He wasn't ready to go back to Warren. Because as much as he wanted answers, part of him was wary of them.
As he stretched out on the couch made of ice – covered in several furs for some cushion – he wondered if he had always been so quick to imagine the worst case scenarios, or if it was a souvenir from his time as an Imperial.
Jack glanced over at the white wolf who lay on the bearskin rug in one corner of the room.
"I never thought I'd be so confused to be alive," he admitted.
Isolfr lifted his head from where it had rested on his paws, and opened his blue-grey eyes to look at Jack.
When Jack had left Warren, Isolfr's father Frodi had been the pack's alpha male. But it was Isolfr who had been waiting for him at the arched doorway of the ice palace, as was the duty of the alpha male. Without asking, Jack had known it meant the older wolf had died while he was gone. One more reminder that life had kept going while he had been away. And it confirmed to him that he wouldn't be leaving again.
You humans think too much, Isolfr said, returning his head to his paws.
Jack rolled his eyes, and wondered vaguely if the yetis were so quick to insult North's intelligence.
Just like North could understand the yetis, Bunnymund understood his Warrior Eggs, and Toothiana could speak with her fairies, Jack was capable of understanding the wolves in Winter. Though if he wanted to talk to a wolf in any other territory, he needed a member of the Winter pack to translate for him, something they had done with the wolves in Santoff Claussen when he was sixteen.
Jack leaned his head back.
A small breeze had come to tell him earlier that the others in Warren had woken up. But he still wasn't ready to go back.
Another breeze swept in, swirling over to him with a level of excitement that made him quirk an eyebrow curiously. The wind was almost always excited to a level, but it took a lot to get it beyond that.
The one like the sun is coming.
Jack chuckled. The wind had little interest in names, and it was interesting to hear the way it referred to his friends. This one was new, but it could only be Rapunzel – and it certainly fit. A moment later, Isolfr lifted his head, ears perked and sniffing at the air.
Someone's here.
Jack stood up and left the room. He reached the landing that overlooked the palace entryway just as he heard Rapunzel came through the arched entryway. He hadn't bothered with doors when he had built the palace – he hadn't felt like sculpting hinges from ice.
"Jack?"
"Up here," he said.
Her eyes, which had been staring at the details in the ice wall, jumped up to where he leaned against the ice banister. A grin crept to his lips unbidden as he looked down at her. Thought the expression was a little nervous, considering his confession the night before.
"You're all right!" she said, with a bright smile.
"Yup." He vaulted over the railing, the wind catching him and lowering him lightly to the floor in front of her. "I'm guessing you had something to do with that?"
Rapunzel blushed. Someone (Toothiana, probably) had prepared her for her trip to Winter. She wore a long, fur-lined purple cloak, a pair of boots and thick leggings. Her hair was braided in the way he had become used to, but it still trailed on the floor behind her.
"Have you measure that?" he asked, nodding to the golden river of hair.
"Seventy feet," she said. "That's the estimate, anyway."
"That's a lot of hair," he said, brow quirking again as he tried to get his head around the number. "I saw what you did to Black last night."
Her cheeks darkened even further, and she looked away modestly. "Bunny says my hair purged the shadows out of him."
"Cottontail's usually right about things like that." And from what he had seen, it made sense. Not that he had a clue how it could have worked.
"When I saw it, all I could think of what that maybe... maybe it could save you. So I pressed it to your chest, over the shot. When the glow faded, your chest was healed and you were asleep. Nightlight took you back to your room – he said you had been exhausted before Black..." she trailed off. "I- I wanted to stay with you, but Tooth said I should get some sleep as well."
"Thanks," Jack said. Not sure exactly what part he was thanking her for. Though for saving his life certainly stood out as the most obvious.
"Are you sure you're all right?"
Jack chuckled. "You've gotta stop asking me that, Punz – I'm fine. You?"
"I wasn't the one who got shot last nigh- Oh."
Jack followed her gaze back to the top of the stairs, where Isolfr was coming down the steps, eyes fixed on the princess.
"He's beautiful," Rapunzel said, watching the wolf with transfixed eyes.
Jack leaned on his staff, watching Isolfr carefully as he walked past the Winter Governor and headed directly for Rapunzel. The wolf sniffed at her curiously, then rubbed up against her coat.
She giggled and crouched down to scratch the wolf behind the ears.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Jack couldn't bite it back, staring as the wolf's tail began to wag, his head pushing into Rapunzel's hand. "If I tried that, he'd bite my hand off."
"No he wouldn't – he's a big sweetheart," Rapunzel cooed, not looking away from the wolf she was lavishing her attention on.
"Uh-huh." Jack rolled his eyes and looked away. He was not jealous of the wolf. He was not. He refused to be!
But he looked back after a moment... and felt his lips twitch in a grin at the sight of her smile – even as she continued to coo and giggle at Isolfr. If the wolf could elicit that smile... maybe he wasn't so bad.
She will be a good mate for you.
And like that, Jack remembered why he didn't like the creature at the same time he felt blood rush to his face. "How about you keep your opinions to yourself, fur ball!"
The wolf barked in laughter.
Rapunzel looked between Jack and the wolf she was still scratching. "Can you talk to him?"
Jack nodded, hand over his face to cover his flushed cheeks, and fairly sure he wasn't capable of speech.
"What did he say?"
"Don't ask," he muttered. He glared at Isolfr through his fingers.
Apparently satisfied, the wolf turned and left the palace, no doubt returning to the pack.
"He'll be back," Jack said, when he saw Rapunzel's crestfallen expression. "Unfortunately."
"How did you ever leave this place?" Rapunzel asked.
Jack chuckled again and started up the stairs, gesturing for her to follow him. He propped his staff against his shoulder.
"Teen rebellion, I guess," he admitted. Then he shook his head. "No. The trust is that I was scared. Tsar Lunar chooses the Governors, and he chose me when I was fourteen. I didn't fully understand what it mean. So when I turned seventeen, and the responsibility started hitting me, I convinced myself I would rather be a pilot and joined the academy. Cottontail told me not to come back, so after I was kicked out of the academy I didn't know what to do. I met Hiccup on accident – he had just run away from Berk and was finding that people didn't like hiring a ship with a one man crew. Especially when that one man comes from a planet of space pirates. It worked out for us to stick together.
"A few months later Merida stowed away while we were on BunBroch and we couldn't send her back without feeling like hypocrites. And, of course, Merida has her own way of convincing people.
"And I just realized you're going to freeze if you stay in here," he sighed, turning back to face her. "Sorry."
"I'm fine," she assured.
Jack shook his head. "I would really rather you not get sick – we've been through enough in the past few days."
He turned to lead her back down the hallway they had just come down. But before he could pass her, a small hand caught his wrist and he stopped. His heard skipped a beat at the skin contact of her fingers around his hand.
"Jack."
His nervousness rushed back at her tone, every muscle in his body tense with the memory of the night before. Why, he wasn't sure. But he still was.
"Can- can we talk?" she asked. Her voice was barely a whisper, but it echoed off the blue ice that made up the wall.
Jack sighed. "All right."
He led her into the room he hand been in before she arrived – what Toothiana called his parlor, though he wasn't sure that was the right word. It was the only room set up for anyone with a warm body that needed to talk to him badly enough to brave the cold rather than just wait for him to return to a warmer territory. Toothiana had provided him with several blankets and furs (since she was usually the one who came to talk to him).
"Jack, did you mean what you said last night?" Rapunzel asked, after taking a seat on the couch.
Jack remained standing, leaning on his staff.
"Of course." It came out just above a whisper, and he found he couldn't look at her from embarrassment, though the feeling still made no sense.
She didn't respond for a moment, and he looked over to see her staring down at her hands, which she was worrying in her in her lap, while she worried her lower lip between her teeth.
All the worst case scenarios he had come up with in the past week came rushing back to him, even beyond the obvious. Thoughts of her changing her mind, or her admitting her parents already had her betrothed to someone else.
"Punz." He knelt down in front of her, reaching out to try and still her hands before her nails broke the skin she was scraping in her agitation. "It's okay."
But the moment his skin touched hers she pulled her hands way and stood up, walking to the far side of the room.
Jack frowned. His instinct was to reach out to her, but her reaction to his touch held him back. "Rapunzel?"
"I-" She let out a shuddering breath. "Jack-"
Jack finally risked a step forward. But when he reached out to touch her shoulder she flinched away.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"How can you love me?" she asked. "You?"
Jack leaned on his staff, still frowning as he tried to understand what was going on. He wished he could brush it off as another example of women being crazy... but he was too involved this time.
"Should I be asking the question, Princess?"
"I'm not good enough, Jack."
The wind picked him up before realized he had given it the command and set him down in front of her.
"How can you say that?" he asked.
She refused to meet his gaze. "I'm never good enough."
"What?"
"You said you never heard of Corona before you saw my name in the Tower computer, right?"
"Yeah." Jack frowned. "And I notice you haven't said much about it." He had thought it was homesickness that kept her from talking about her homeworld... but her expression gave him the impression it might have been something else. "You haven't said anything about going back, either."
"Because I..." she sighed. "Jack, my parents... I'm the first born. By Corona law, I should be the heir to the throne. But the council – one of the council men, his son courted me a few years ago. But I realized he was only interested in my title. But when I said no, his father began to say that I wasn't capable of ruling on my own. They put so much pressure on my father he agreed to make my younger brother the heir.
"After the years of training I've gone through to prepare for the throne, I didn't understand how they could turn on me. I've done everything they ever asked of me, every challenge they ever gave me." She sighed. "I know I shouldn't... it's not so much that I'm upset about not getting the crown. I just wondered why I wasn't good enough. What hadn't I done? Or what had I done wrong?"
"Rapunzel—"
She cut him off before he could reassure her. "In the tower."
Jack's breath caught in his throat.
"Gothel was just like Black," she said quietly. "She kept..." her voice broke. "She kept telling me that no one would come rescue me. My people couldn't make a move with the blockade, and the media was silenced. No one who could rescue me knew I was there. And even if they did, they wouldn't care. She said I was—"
"Rapunzel."
She stopped talking, but still didn't look up at him.
"Rapunzel," he whispered. He touched her cheek, running his fingers down her jaw, gently lifting her chin so their eyes met.
He actually knew what he wanted to say... but when their eyes met, he put that on the shelf for the time being.
Instead... he kissed her.
He felt, rather than heard, he breath catch in surprise. But just before he started to pull back, she leaned in, small hands wrapping around the folds of his shirt.
He would have liked to stay there for a long, long time...
"Jack!"
But apparently that wasn't an option.
Rapunzel started to step back, but Jack tightened his arm around her waist to keep her close even as he broke the kiss and turned to glare at Nightlight, who hovered in the doorway.
"Can't it wait-"
"Gothel is dead," Nightlight said over Jack's protest.
#
"We need t' talk about your habit of bein' late," Bunnymund said, with a pointed look at Jack as he followed Nightlight into the war room in Warren palace. The Pooka's green eyes glanced down at Jack and Rapunzel's joined hands, eyebrows raising – but he didn't comment. And Jack thought he saw a flash of approval.
"I was trying to take care of my responsibilities," Jack said.
"Is that what you call it?" Nightlight muttered.
Rapunzel squeaked, and when Jack turned to glare at his friend, he could see her blushing bright pink from the corner of his eye.
Merida snorted, and Jack wondered how much of the joke she had gotten – or if she was just amused at the thought of him taking care of his responsibilities. She and Hiccup were seated at the table near North.
Jack took his own seat next to Nightlight. Rapunzel took the chair on his other side, and he didn't let go of her hand. He knew she still needed reassurance that he didn't have time to give, and only hoped his hold would help convince her.
"What happened?" he asked, glancing at the other Governors.
"There was a coup on Pallash last night," Kathrine said. "We don't know yet if it was rebels who infiltrated the military, or if the military just got tired of Gothel."
"Normally, we wouldn't have much reason to notice – we try to stay out of galactic politics," Bunnymund said, his eyes looking at Rapunzel. "But the important part is that the blockade on Corona has been lifted. The Night Fury can take you home as soon as you'd like, Princess."