This is super late sorry! Also please accept the very significant amount of artistic license (writer's license?) used in this. I have no memory of 1815-16 so this is purely based on the vague details I've been able to gather.
Indonesia has its own native story about what caused the eruption of Mount Tambora called Murka Sang Kiyai too, which is really interesting and I recommend checking it out if you're interested. I tried to allude to it without including it too much because prominent religions like Islam and Christianity are things I try to avoid if possible (I don't want to offend anyone, basically)
This chapter was requested by Riala
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Year Without a Summer
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1815
Something weird was going on at Mount Tambora. Or, rather, in Mount Tambora. After centuries of dormancy, it was starting to show signs of activity again – a very dangerous thing, especially given the human settlement right at its base. Normally Lleu would have thought little of it – volcanoes erupted all the time and the humans always rebuilt what they lost – but this time was different. This time, Mother Nature had nothing to do with it. In fact, she'd come to him asking him to seek out a cause.
It wasn't impossible that the volcano was just waking up on its own (a natural phenomenon, so to speak), but there was a more likely problem: someone or something was waking it up.
Which was what had brought Lleu to the island of Sumbawa a little earlier than scheduled that year.
The village of Tambora, at the base of the volcano, had changed very little since the last time he'd been there. There were the same structures, merchants coming and going as trading flourished, the same farms and fishing. He perched himself up on the roof of the palace and surveyed the area. The wind swept fragments of conversation he couldn't understand to his ears. There seemed to be a lot of repeated words, though; whatever they were saying, a lot of people were saying it. Something interesting had happened, then.
"Wish I could speak whatever language that is," he said to no one. "Would have made things a little easier. Mom should have come here herself. She'd understand."
He stood, stretching. There was little point lingering in the town when there was work to be done and nothing for him to learn. Time to go pay a visit to the volcano.
In a matter of minutes he reached its mouth. He took one look down at it and felt dread pool in his stomach.
"Oh, that's not good."
Smoke had begun wafting up from inside it, and he could see the burning red of molten lava just waiting for its chance to hurl itself out of its prison. Lleu didn't know a whole lot about volcanoes, but he did know this one was ready to blow its top.
Natural phenomena, he wondered, or something else?
If it was natural, there really wasn't much he could do. Volcanic eruptions were a little bit beyond his skill set. If it wasn't… well, maybe he could do something about it. He could withstand a far greater temperature than most of the other nature spirits (with the exception of fire-related beings, of course), and Mom had probably chosen him for the job because of that (and likely also because as a seasonal spirit he was more trustworthy to get it done). Still, he wasn't completely immune. Lava could still burn him. He'd learned that the hard way not long after he'd become a spirit and he'd seen it for the first time.
Find the cause, he reminded himself.
"Hello?"
No response.
"Anyone home?" Was there even a spirit living in this volcano? Had one moved in recently? Maybe he should have tried to find some local spirits before coming here. "Helloooo?"
Nothing.
"Huh. Maybe it is a natural phenomenon." Well, that made things easy. "I'll just fly back, report to Mom, and she can sort it out before all hell breaks loose. Problem solved."
Lleu pivoted midair to give the village one last look. There were a few ships a little further to the south just pulling out to sea. Merchants on their way back home, presumably. The pungent smell of burning flesh filled the air.
Lleu sniffed disgustedly. That hadn't been there a moment ago.
"What is that?" he frowned. "Is that me?" He glanced down.
His boots were on fire.
"Aw, geez." That was the problem with leather. When it spontaneously combusted it stank. He quickly yanked them off and regretfully tossed them down into the lava. He'd really liked those boots. Now he was going to have to find some new ones. Preferably some less likely to catch fire. For now, though, he'd settle for getting away from the excessive heat before the rest of his clothes burned up.
Something hot struck his back. A half second later his shirt burst into flames.
"Oh, come on!" Lleu cried, spinning around. "Hey! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find decent clothes in this century?! You owe me a new pair of shoes!" His shirt, now burned to ashes, disintegrated right off his back. "And a shirt!"
The volcano either didn't understand, wasn't sentient, or just didn't care. Lava splashed up at him again, but this time he easily dodged it. But this only seemed to make it mad. The smoke intensified, and the lava began to surge, splashing against the mouth of the volcano and threatening to overflow.
"What the heck?" Lleu whispered. Wasn't this a little sudden? How did volcanoes even work anyway? Mom, you really sent the wrong guy for this job.
A section of lava closest to him rose up like some kind of malformed limb and reached for him. Lleu's eyes widened in horror as the wind threw him higher up and out of its reach.
"NOT NATURAL! NOT NATURAL! PROBLEM NOT SOLVED!"
The heat was intensifying, and it was getting hard to breathe through all the smoke. An eruption was imminent now. There was no time to get Mom. What was he supposed to do? He'd never stopped an eruption before! Was it even possible?!
"Stop that! Mom said no erupting!" Lleu shouted down at it, in the hopes that the threat of Mother Nature's fury would be enough to intimidate whatever was in there into calming down. It didn't work.
If anything, the lava only became more agitated. A second lava-limb emerged and they clung to the sides of the volcano's mouth like two great arms trying to haul its body free. A second later, a large head rose above the surface, followed by a torso, knocking away large chunks of the volcano's mouth as it forced itself free. It swatted at him again, and he narrowly managed to avoid the blow by diving down lower.
"I'm sorry!" he cried, even as he dodged again, this time forced to get a little closer to the main body. "If this is about the telling Mom thing I don't have to do that! Just go back to sleep and– AHHH!" A large, molten hand snatched him around the ankle. The heat of it as it dragged him down, closer to its head, was almost unbearable, even for him. But amidst his panic and futile attempts to escape, the proximity gave him a better look at it, and he noticed something he hadn't even considered possible.
The lava monster's body wasn't made of lava. It was just covered in lava. As it dripped off, he could see fire-y faces below screaming up at him. Faces he recognised. Fire spirits. How they'd gotten there was beyond him, but a large group of them had clearly decided Mount Tambora was the perfect home, and had even found a way to join themselves together (all the easier to attack him, he supposed). Their presence must have been what was awakening the volcano, and what Mother Nature had sensed.
Adrenaline gave him strength, and one particularly hard yank managed to pull his foot free. The wind threw him well beyond the edge of the volcano, out of the fire spirits' reach. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to stop them.
The fire spirits screeched in wordless fury that he could escape them, even if only temporarily. They pulled themselves further through the volcano's mouth, tearing away more rock and releasing even more smoke. Lava splashed up around them, starting to seep over the edges. The earth shook.
The spirits were almost completely free when Mount Tambora finally decided enough was enough. There was a sound like canon fire. In the blink of an eye the top half of the volcano exploded, sending lava and rock spewing out in all directions. The sky was dyed red. The fire spirits had vanished.
And Lleu could only stare on in horror as Mount Tambora rained down around him and the village below was destroyed.
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1816
Weather had become a global catastrophe. And nothing Lleu tried did anything to even begin to fix it. He hadn't thought it possible for one volcanic eruption to have such a huge impact, but it had, and it was his fault; he'd pissed off the fire spirits and it had led to a catastrophic eruption that could have been avoided if he'd just been more careful. If he'd just managed to stop them. If he'd managed to report back to Mother Nature before it had all gone so completely wrong. If he'd done something.
And it wasn't just the weather that had been affected. There had been no sign of May Queen during the spring months. Her job had not been done, and the other spring nature spirits that worked under her guidance had been scarce at best.
He found her kneeling in her garden, dripping more water than the gutters of her cottage. England was cold and wet, significantly more so than it usually was, and it had eviscerated her garden. There was nothing left of it now but mud and limp stems. May had her back to him as he landed, but even like that he could see that her spirit was in much the same state. Guilt and sorrow played a symphony on his heartstrings.
"Mother is looking for you," she said, not turning.
"I know," Lleu replied. "I've been avoiding her." He didn't have the courage to face her after what he'd done. He didn't want to see the disappointment on her face. Or endure the fury that would come with it.
May shifted, turning to look back at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were dry. Somehow that hurt worse than any tears he could have seen her shed. "You can't hide forever."
"I'm not hiding." Well, that wasn't entirely true, but it was close enough. "I'll go to her. I just want to fix this first."
"I'm not sure it can be fixed," May murmured, gazing out vacantly at what had once been her pride and joy.
Lleu clenched his fists. He had done this. "I'll find a way or die trying."
May's attention darted back to him, eyes sharp and fierce. "We've already tried," she said, voice level despite the anger on her face. "We tried and tried to reverse the damage, to make spring bloom. But this is beyond even us. The weather fights us at every turn and winter is out of control."
Winter is out of control. Lleu felt his chest seize. Winter? "…Jack? Jack Frost?"
May's anger dissipated into the vaguely annoyed expression she often got when Jack was mentioned. (Lleu didn't think he'd ever understand why she didn't like him.) "It's not his fault," she said, her words defying her expression and her tone alike. "Whatever you did has affected all of us. It made me weak. And it will probably do the same to Ceres if nothing is done to stop Jack Frost."
Without spring, winter couldn't end. The balance between the seasons had been tipped. Worse, Jack had a lot of enemies who would be more than happy to blame this whole mess on him. "Why hasn't Mom…?" Lleu didn't even know how to end the question. Why hadn't she stopped him? Hadn't she noticed? Surely she must have. This wasn't something you could fail to notice, no matter how isolated you were.
"I don't think she can," May said, apparently knowing exactly what he was asking even if Lleu himself didn't.
"But she's Mother Nature!"
"And what happens if she does stop him? The way things are now she would probably have to use force, and you know she's always been soft on him." The look on her face said that Lleu had always been soft on him, too, and, well, she wasn't wrong. He'd still argue that everyone else was just too harsh, though. "And say she succeeds. Say Frost and the rest of the winter spirits are locked away for their and everyone else's safety. What then? There's still no spring. Winter doesn't need them now. It will just continue to spread except without its shepherd to maintain any form of control." She paused, then, softer, "We're almost due for autumn. Summer is well and truly overdue. You haven't managed to regain control, and there's no way Ceres will be able to if you can't."
Lleu felt hope slip away from him so fast that Bunnymund could probably sense the hole it left behind, even on the other side of the world. "Then what do we do?"
May looked up at him sadly. Her silence was answer enough.
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North America was in shambles. The prolonged winter had killed countless crops, and preventing even more from growing at all. Humans were dying from the effects of the famine in unprecedented numbers. The guilt of knowing that he was the cause of it, and that he didn't even know why it was happening was the worst part. How could he stop something when he didn't even know what had caused it in the first place? And how could he stop it when he couldn't even stop himself?
It was supposed to be the middle of summer, but there he was, standing in a field that had completely frosted over. The crops that had been growing there had long since died. His fault. People were starving and dying and it was his fault.
And it wasn't even just in North America. Europe was suffering the same, and Asia was even worse. If something wasn't done soon… He didn't even want to think about it.
But just flying to Antarctica and hiding away like he normally did on his off-season only made things worse. When he was present, he could at least try to control it, to minimise the damage even as winter fought against his control. Without a shepherd, it would destroy everything.
No one had confronted him about it yet. That in itself was a cause for concern. Where was May Queen with spring? Where was Lleu to take charge of summer? Where was Ceres, yelling at him for destroying everything worse than he'd ever done before? Where was Mother Nature? He couldn't remember seeing a single other spirit for months. Where had everybody gone?
The wind howled in his ear. Jack looked up at the sky, the blue completely blocked out by red-tinged fog. It would snow again soon. As if it wasn't already cold enough.
"What do I do?" he whispered forlornly. What could he do? He needed help. But where could he look? Mother Nature was out who knew where, and no one else would ever be willing to help him.
The wind tussled his hair in a comforting way, but it did nothing to ease the tangle of emotions he'd become.
"Thanks," he said anyway. The wind, at least, was always there for him. "Let's try the meadow again. Maybe Mom's back by now." Or maybe the sprites would be willing to tell him where she'd gone.
Mother Nature's meadow was an anomaly of the natural world. No matter what season it was, it would always be warm and fertile – a splash of colour no matter how grey everything else had become. Which was why it was so jarring when Jack only found decay. Even here, in this haven, the weather had destroyed everything.
He took a step backwards as the shock of it hit him. I should leave, he realised. Before they spot me. Mother Nature would surely never forgive him for this. He really had ruined everything. He spun, the wind already picking up around him, but a familiar voice calling his name effectively rooted him to the earth. He felt himself tense, his shoulders hunching up to his ears as he prepared himself for her fury.
"Look at me, Jack."
He didn't want to. He didn't want to see her look at him with anything less than the kindness she'd always shown him. But, then, he'd never been able to disobey her.
Slowly, he turned back around, and let his gaze settle on her nose. He still couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes.
Her posture was as tall and regal as ever, but there was something… less about her. Like some of her vibrancy had been washed away by the unending rain. He opened his mouth to apologise, but his voice got stuck in his throat.
"You're still not looking at me," she said.
"Please," he begged. It wasn't really a coherent request, but it rarely needed to be with her. Please don't make me.
She strode towards him, her footfalls squelching in the mud. Jack didn't move until she stopped before him and gently lifted his chin so that he was forced to look her in the eye.
The anger and hatred he'd expected to see weren't there. She just looked sad. Disappointment, he decided, was the worst thing he could have found. Typical, then, that that was what was there.
Or, at least, he thought it was, until she pulled him into a deep embrace.
"This is not your fault," she said. "Stop blaming yourself."
Jack felt his eyes well with tears and he quickly buried his face into her shoulder before they could fall. "Yes it is."
"It's not."
"It is!"
Mother Nature pulled back, but kept her hands firmly planted on his shoulders. She raised one slender eyebrow and asked, "Are you arguing with me?"
It was a trap. There was no correct answer here. Might as well tell the truth. "Yes."
She narrowed her eyes.
"M-Maybe?" He fidgeted. "I just… think that maybe you're not completely informed about what's… going on?"
"I'm your mother. I know everything," Mother Nature told him with more confidence than such a statement probably warranted. But he knew better than to try arguing again. "This is not your fault, Jack."
Jack pulled away, defensive. "But it is! Winter is my responsibility! It's my job! And it's destroying everything! People are dying!"
She studied him silently for a long moment. Then, "Do you remember what I told you the first time you saw what winter was truly capable of?"
He remembered. He didn't think he'd ever forget a single detail about that day. "You said… that winter is not me, that it's the intention that sets us apart." He knew where she was going with this, but part of him still wanted to fight her logic with the facts that the entire world was faced with. "But–!"
"Would you like to know what caused this?"
He knew what the answer would be already. She would tell him that it was winter out of control, not him. She would say it wasn't his fault, even though it was.
"Fire spirits," she said.
Jack stared at her. That was… decidedly the last thing he'd expected. She smiled softly at his dumbfounded expression.
"Doesn't make much sense, does it?" Mother Nature shook her head. "But it's true. They caused Mount Tambora to erupt, and that – and that alone – is what caused this. Not you, not winter, and certainly not that other idiot son of mine."
"But how could…? Winter…"
She reached out for him again, cupping his face with her hands. And this time he didn't pull away. "Silly boy, do you really think you're capable of such a worldwide catastrophe? That's rather egotistical of you. This is a volcanic winter beyond anyone's control. We cannot stop it. All we can do is try to minimise the damage and wait for it to fix itself, as the Earth is wont to do."
He didn't understand. What was a volcanic winter? How could something like an eruption cause this? It was lava – practically the exact opposite of frost and snow.
"It's complicated," she said, reading the confusion in his expression. "I will explain it to you once the crisis is averted. For now, all you need to know is that this is not your fault, and all you need to do is your very best to keep winter under control. So far, you've been doing perfectly."
'Perfectly' was not the word he would have used. He could barely do anything! But then he thought about what happened when he did nothing, and decided that maybe he was doing something after all.
"What I want you to do now," Mother Nature continued, releasing him, "is to summon the other winter spirits, and tell them all exactly what I've told you. None of us can do this alone. We have to work together. I will ensure the other seasons do the same. Alright?"
"Okay," Jack breathed.
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Lleu trudged into the meadow like a man on his way to his own execution. He knew Mom would find him eventually. He'd just hoped he'd be able to do something to fix this mess before she did. But now, after that talk with May… It was time to face facts. He needed help, and the only person he could think of who might know what to do was her.
She was waiting in the doorway of her castle when he approached, hands on her hips and a decidedly unimpressed expression on her face. Lleu cringed. This was it for him. He hoped they remembered his favourite flowers were sunflowers for his funeral.
"Crawling home with your tail between your legs?" she called to him as soon as he was within earshot.
"I don't have a tail…"
Mother Nature somehow managed to look even less impressed. "I wait a whole year for you to come back and I'm greeted with technicalities."
"…Sorry?"
"Do you have any idea how worried I've been? I had to hear from the sprites that you hadn't been blown to bits by that eruption! Which is more than I can say for those damned fire sprites that caused all this."
Lleu blinked. "The… uh… the fire sprites that caused all this?"
"Yes, unless you've somehow developed the ability to erupt a volcano," she said pointedly.
Huh. "So… you're not going to kill me?"
Mother Nature rolled her eyes so hard for a moment he was sure they would fall out of her head and zip off into the trees.
"Oh."
"Yes, oh. Now if you're done being needlessly dramatic we have work to do."
"Jack!" Lleu cried, suddenly remembering his conversation with May.
"Is already doing his part," Mother Nature finished. "While you were off having a pity party he's been busy reducing the damage with the other winter spirits."
"Wow, no favouritism in this family," he muttered. But he was glad to hear that Jack was not only alright, but that he wasn't as out of control as May's report had made him imagine. Too bad he couldn't check for himself, but that was just the way it had to be, he supposed. Winter and summer had to stay separate. For Jack's sake.
"Are you done?"
"Yeah, okay, what do you want me to do? Besides never going near a volcano ever again."
"Gather the other summer spirits, and distribute yourselves in the areas that have been hit the hardest. Like I told Jack, this isn't something we can miraculously fix. We just have to do our best to control what we can while we ride it out. The winter spirits are trying to get a grip on the weather. You and the spring spirits will have to do what you can for the humans' crops, and the areas most densely populated by wildlife."
That sounded like a better plan than the one he'd come up with (which consisted mostly of 'panic and hope that somehow fixes something'). It would be hard work, and it would probably take a really long time, but it sounded doable. "And Ceres' spirits?" They would likely be feeling the effects harder than the spring spirits, even. Autumn gave way to winter, after all.
"They will go to the places less strongly impacted," Mother Nature declared. "I will inform Ceres myself."
Just as well. Somehow Lleu doubted she'd be thrilled by it all. He could imagine her already blaming Jack for everything, and she'd interpret it as having to clean up after him, too. Hopefully Mom would be able to get her off Jack's back about it. Poor kid didn't need further antagonism, especially when none of it was his fault to begin with.
"Oh, and Lleu?"
Lleu turned back from where he'd been about to take off.
Mother Nature crossed her arms. "Next time just tell me. Adults aren't allowed to run away from their problems."
"If you'd approached me about the job a few years earlier I wouldn't have to acknowledge that!" he retorted, the wind already shooting him upwards. Though if she'd approached him earlier he might not have said yes. And that would have been a shame.
Guest Review Responses:
EriTheBear: I'm not super fond of peanut butter either haha (I was traumatised by a saute that had WAY too much peanut butter in it and it changed me as a person)
Painapple: Must include the meese! To be fair, there were no outward indications that they knew. They were just running away
Guest: (Ch.22:) ...I have not actually read the books ^^' My knowledge is owed to the wiki site and all you lovely people who answer my questions (Ch.26:) Awwww you're too kind (Ch.41:) Yes! (Ch.57:) Saddest fairy tale honestly (Ch.85:) Thank! (Ch.94:) Aquilo is actually the correct form. In Latin, nouns are declined so they have different endings based on which form they need to take. In the nominative form (which is the subject of the sentence (e.g. in the sentence 'cats do things' cats are the subject)) it's just Aquilo. It's only if Aquilo was declined would it add the n (for example the accusative form (the object of the sentence ('things' in the earlier example)) makes it Aquilo-n-em (Aquilonem)). In English we don't use declensions like that, so it just remains as Aquilo no matter what role the name plays in the sentence. I know that Rick Riordan writes it as Aquilon in his books, but that's technically the incorrect form. I hope that clears things up a bit :) (Ch.107:) Best horse (Ch.124:) Yeah it was gonna be 200 but I worked out how long that would take and it really stressed me out so I did a poll and everyone who voted was okay with reducing it down to 150 so that's what it's gonna be sorry :/
Guest: (Ch.12:) Flee is the cutest nickname ever I stg. I don't include a lot of Joyce's book canon into my writing cause I like to keep book and movie canon separate (for example I don't like that he made Jack and Nightlight the same person), but Flee is definitely something I will include :) And yeah I chose Emma back when we didn't have a name for her cause like you said one of Jamie's friends is called Pippa and I thought it would be too confusing (I also just like Emma better) (Ch.15:) I'm Australian so mum is just what we have here but yeah... looks weird so I choose mom instead for writing... (Ch.36:) That's a really interesting theory actually. I like that
Summerstorm: (Ch.53:) Ah, good ol' Shakespeare. Bless him. (Ch.96:) That's a spoiler ;) (Ch.113:) I'm really sorry but all the remaining chapter slots have been filled :( I've got a long list ^^' (Ch.118:) Wow I did not know that that's super interesting!