Author's Note: I couldn't resist posting another chapter, since I know I'll be pretty busy during the week and most likely unable to post another one. So, if you haven't read chapter 57 yet, go back and read it. I posted this chapter one day after the last one. Man, I haven't done that in forever and it feels pretty awesome. This chapter has the resolution to the storm in it, as well as what became of Tooth since she was absent during all the drama. I'm sorry for cutting it off when I did but it seemed to be getting fairly long. I promise I won't wait for months and months to post the next one? Also, I had some fun naming a few Spirits in this. I'm sorry if it's too many names to keep track of, but I couldn't have only Marin and Lucian as the named Spirits in this. All the names were googled, so they all have something to do with their respective season.
Thanks, CrossoverJunkie for the art reference. I really liked it. :) And for the cute scene with Bunny and Pitch. I should totally have something like that happen in the future!
Now on with the fic!
Chapter Fifty-Eight: Seasonal Slumber Party
Lillian had to create another small thunderstorm in the cave to get the other spirits and sprites free. She used lightning to blast the locks off the cages, causing the Spring Spirits to glance at one another. Why hadn't Leif done that?
But before they could wonder further about that, an ecstatic Winter Spirit had scooped Lillian up into his arms the second he was free.
"You saved us!" he practically shouted in her ear as he squeezed the life out of her. "You saved us!"
"Oof!" Lillian replied while she struggled to breathe. But she had a grin on her face as she was stolen away by a Fall Spirit who had also hugged the life out of her. She was passed off to the Summer Spirits and finally, the Spring Spirits, the very ones who had kidnapped Jack, in fact, had Lillian between them as they hugged her.
The female Spring Spirit had tears in her eyes as she hugged Lillian more delicately than the others had.
"We didn't think we'd ever get out of here," she sobbed as she cradled Lillian in her arms. "We didn't think we'd ever meet you."
Lillian looked up at her Spring Spirits awkwardly. She didn't know what to do with them since she was so used to spreading Spring all by herself.
Then she suddenly remembered! The weather!
"We gotta get to California!" she exclaimed to them all from the Spring Spirit's arms. "There's a bad blizzard there and we have to stop it!"
"A blizzard?" the Spring Spirit said hesitantly.
A Summer Spirit gasped at that.
"That's where Marin went! She could be in danger!"
The remaining Summer Sprites exchanged worried glances. Was she ok? She wouldn't last very long in the cold and the snow.
The Winter Spirit frowned as he recalled Gethen's orders to Jack.
"Gethen forced Jack Frost to do it. Gethen said he would kill us all if he didn't. It was the threat he used on all the Spirits to get them to do his bidding."
Lillian frowned again.
"Man, he is evil! It makes me want to find him and fry his butt again!"
The Spring Spirit half smiled at that and set Lillian down on her feet.
"You need to focus. Blizzard, remember?"
"Oh!" Lillian exclaimed as she suddenly remembered. She went to walk further away from everyone to the center of the cave, but she almost fell as she was still awkward on her foot that had been frozen.
"You're injured," the male Spring Spirit said with dismay. None of the Spirits or Sprites liked to see their Seasonal injured or in distress.
"It's a long story," Lillian said as she limped to the middle of the cave. She looked around at them and noticed while there weren't a lot of Spirits or Sprites, there were enough that it would make traveling with them all a pain.
Could she make more than one Flower of Doom? She was already feeling tired from almost dying earlier and using her powers like that..
Speaking of powers, she noticed that her little storm clouds were still floating in the air and happened to be raining all over Gethen's rug.
Whoops.
She had her bracelet glow and pointed at the clouds. With a dismissive wave of her hand, the clouds dissipated and vanished.
She looked at all the Spirits and Sprites again.
"Can you guys travel on your own?" she asked hopefully, but that hope faded when they all looked so tired.
"The Spirits can," the female Spring Spirit piped up. "But we've been locked up so long and it's really tiring for us to do anymore."
"I can take some of you with me," Lillian said, but her voice sounded doubtful, "but not all of you."
She noticed that the Spring and Winter Spirits and Sprites looked the most ragged of the bunch.
"If I try to take Spring and Winter with me, can Summer and Fall go on their own?" she asked.
"We'll freeze!" a Summer Spirit exclaimed. "We can't go out into a blizzard."
"Jack, Japser and August are all working together to make the blizzard go away," Lillian said as she frowned a bit at the Summer Spirit. "It might not be so bad now. Besides, it's your job to help August! Since they're all in one spot, we have to go there too," she added decisively.
Lillian gestured at the Spirits and Sprites, beckoning them to her.
"So Spring and Winter, come here please!"
The Spring Spirits and Sprites all looked at one another a little worriedly, but their Seasonal was asking. Little Lillian wasn't Leif, but they still felt compelled to listen to her. They followed after the Winter Spirits and Sprites.
"Gather around me as close as you can," Lillian instructed.
While they were doing this, Lillian turned back to the others and gave directions on where exactly in California Jack and the other Seasonals were located. Once she was finished, she gave them a grin.
"See you there!" she called out happily.
With that, her bracelet began to glow and the largest Flower of Doom yet grew out of the ground. The little Sprites all stared at the enormous flower, which was a giant pink tulip as it loomed over them ominously. They all began to scream in terror as the flower reached down and in one big gulp, it swallowed them all whole. It then disappeared harmlessly back into the stone ground as if it had never existed.
"That is terrifying," one Summer Spirit said with a shiver.
"We better get going," a Fall Spirit pointed out.
The spirits gathered their season's Sprites together and soon they had all vanished as well, in various flames and fall leaves.
Back in California, Jack, August, and Jasper had spread out to try and raise the temperatures. They formed a sort of triangle and in the middle of it all Lillian appeared with the other Spirits and Sprites. Marin was the first to spot them and she let out a loud cheer as she stopped using her summer magic to hug onto August's arm.
"They're back!" she squealed happily. "They're all back!"
"What are you talking about?" August started to complain, but he turned to where Marin was looking at and his jaw dropped. "What the - "
Jack and Jasper had both turned at Marin's exclamation as well and stared at the now various Spirits and Sprites that had all appeared with her.
"I told you that you'd be fine," Lillian said as she patted a few Spring Sprites that were traumatized from the trip. A few had landed on her shoulders and were clinging desperately to her as if afraid that they would fade away in fright.
Lillian noticed that everyone was looking at her and she grinned in triumph at them.
"Told you I'd be back!" she said smugly to the other Seasonals. "I gave Gethen a taste of his own medicine, and look what I found! He was keeping all the Spring and Winter Spirits and Sprites captive! He even had some Summer and Fall ones too!"
"Crispin?" Jasper said in disbelief. "Kale? Laurel? You.. you're alive! I thought.. I thought you all faded."
Jasper's tone of disbelief took on a tinge of sadness as he stared at all his Fall Spirits. The truth was that he had very few left in his special forest, and he had to take on more duties for fall because of it. Since his precious Spirits kept disappearing on him and he had so few left, he had asked the ones he did have to remain in the forest and help look after his little Sprites.
He felt terrible for choosing to protect his Spirits over his Sprites, but he had more Sprites.. Now he would no longer have to choose. He hugged all his Spirits as they rushed over to him and he clung to them fiercely. He used to have over a dozen Spirits, and now he had less than half left.
Gethen did this, Jasper thought to himself as he tightened his hold on his Spirits. He hurt all of them. I'm glad Lillian got retribution for this. He deserves it and more.
Jasper normally wasn't very vindictive, but he was protective of his Spirits and Sprites. It never once ocurred to him that if he had treated Gethen better, that this could have been prevented.
"J-Jasper!" Laurel gasped out with a half-laugh. "I can't breathe!"
Jasper released them with a sheepish grin. Since Jasper looked young for a Seasonal (Jack Frost's Fall twin and all), his Spirits all looked much older than him. It was very strange to see, but they seemed to be quite used to it. The Spirits all had various shades of fall colors for their hair, with various browns and reds. The little Sprites had all flown over as well and now were resting on the various shoulders of the Spirits, but most had chosen to fly over to their Seasonal, and now Jasper had more than a few Sprites on his own shoulders and some were even resting on his head or in his brown hoodie.
August and Marin were in a similar position as the Summer Sprites and Spirits had all migrated over to them. Marin grinned at them all happily, ignoring the weather which had gone from snow to a sort of freezing rain. She had the blanket over her head to form a sort of hood to cover her hair and she opened the blanket a bit more to allow some Summer Sprites to rest safely on her shoulders, so they would be sheltered a bit from the rain.
"Dax?" August said, blinking. He hadn't seen the Summer Spirit for several years, but Dax was busy checking Marin over.
"Are you alright?" Dax asked her anxiously. He held her by the arms and seemed to be examining every inch of her.
"D-Dax..!" Marin exclaimed as she tried to pull away from him. "I'm fine! Really!"
Dax didn't seem convinced as his greyish-blue eyes were filled with concern. The wind whipped his hair, which was much darker than Marin's. While Marin had orangeish blond hair, Dax's hair was more of a darker blond, almost brown. Unlike August, he preferred to have a more modern look and kept his hair shorter, but not too short. It was shorter than his shoulders, but long enough that he had to keep brushing it out of his eyes.
He had a bit of a surfer look to him, since he was wearing a bright t-shirt with a pair of shorts and sandals on his feet. Normally he'd be very comfortable in this attire, but now he was freezing cold. He ignored this however, as he looked at Marin earnestly.
"Are you sure?" he asked her. "What did Gethen make you do?"
August rolled his eyes at Dax, since he had already had words with Marin and they had things mostly sorted out. He hadn't been happy with her, but even he could deduce that Gethen had been behind all the strange behavior, since he was holding all those Spirits and Sprites captive.
"We don't have time for any of this!" he exclaimed impatiently, as all the Seasonals, Spirits and Sprites turned to him as one. "We have a storm to stop, or did you forget?!" he shouted as he waved impatiently at the stormy sky.
"Yeah!" Lillian said from one of her spirits' arms. The spirit had scooped her up possessively when Jack had come over by them. "All the Spirits and Sprites who feel up to helping need to help bring up the temperature! If you feel too bad then don't help out and we'll get you guys out of here as soon as we can!"
So with that, Lillian was set back on her feet and she and the other Seasonals went about trying to raise the temperature.
They managed to do it in the end as the weather went from freezing rain to eventually just plain rain. The thunderstorm was definitely a severe one, but Lillian had coaxed some of her spirits into helping her tame the storm a bit.
By the end of it, they were all completely drenched and wind blown from the storm. Lillian was panting with the exertion of using so much of her powers like that as she brushed some damp curls from her face.
"'K-Kay," she said sounding very tired. "Now.. Now we gotta.. fix the temperatures."
She looked around at the other Seasonals who all looked as exhausted as she felt. None more so than Jack and August, who had been using their powers extensively before they even began to battle the storm.
"We can split up for that," Jasper piped up. "Fall and Spring can help raise the temperatures or lower them. Winter can lower the temperatures where it's too hot, and Summer can raise them where it's too cold."
"I'm going to need a spa day after this," August grumbled as he looked more like a drowned Sun God than anything else.
Dax smirked at his Seasonal at that, as he had forgotten just how vain August Bay could really be. He sidled up to Marin, who was sticking close to August. He hooked an arm companionably through hers and called out: "I call dibs on Texas!" as he vanished in a spurt of flames with her.
Everyone could hear her exasperated cry of "Dax!" as they disappeared.
August rolled his eyes and looked at the remaining Summer Sprites.
"We'll take care of Florida, I suppose."
So one by one, the Seasonals all vanished as they stated their destinations, determined to fix the weather channel that Gethen had broken.*
Meanwhile, back at the Pole, North and Bunny had arrived with Mother Nature and had rushed her off to a room. They had piled many warm blankets on her and North had instructed his yetis to put a lot of warm water bottles in the bed near her.
Phil was helping out too, and nobody seemed to notice that he had two Winter Sprites perched on his shoulders. Phil had rescued Neve and Neva not long after North and Bunny had rushed off. Even though the cooler had flown out of the shadow near Bunny's feet, neither he nor North had taken any notice of the cooler as they had other worries on their mind at the time.
Will Mother Nature be alright? Neva asked Neve worriedly.
Neve looked at Mother Nature, who seemed to be asleep for now. She looked pale and cold, but she was alive. He nodded and gave Neva a reassuring smile.
She'll be better after she rests, he said in his crisp, cool voice.
Phil, even though he was a yeti, couldn't understand the language of Winter any better than anyone else, so he ignored the Sprites' chatter as he put one last blanket on Mother Nature.
"Crikey, ya might as well turn yer workshop into a hospital," Bunny said as he watched the yetis dash around.
"Da," North said in agreement. "But first we help sick Jack and Lillian and now Mother Nature. I cannot turn the away."
"I know," Bunny said. "What about the others though? Where are they gonna go?"
"Others?" North looked at Bunny curiously. They were standing near the doorway to the room that Mother Nature was being helped in.
"The other Seasonals!' Bunny said exasperatedly. "And the Spirits and Sprites."
They didn't yet know about the ones that had been rescued by Lillian, but they knew that everyone would be dangerously exhausted after fixing everything.
North looked puzzled and shrugged.
"They will return to their own homes?" he suggested. "I have room, but North Pole is not good for Summer Spirits or Sprites."
Bunny gave a shiver at that and nodded. He couldn't wait to get back to his Warren finally. It was a few hours after that, that Pitch and Sandy finally turned up. Tooth, who of course had no idea of the epic showdown that took place, had gone back to her Palace after finishing up tooth collecting. She had heard there were storms in California and so had decided to wait until they had died down to go there.
"Sandy! Pitch!" North exclaimed. He and Bunny were sitting in arm chairs by the fire, debating on whether or not they should return to California. North had said that they should leave it up to Jack, while Bunny had been determined to go and see if there were any stranded people or kids that needed help. North had said that it was still the middle of the night and what kid would be out in that weather then?
Bunny had been about ready to retort when Sandy's golden biplane touched down, just as Pitch stepped out of the shadows of the globe.
Pitch dusted off his hands as Sandy got out of his plane.
"Where have you two been?!" Bunny said, his tone slightly accusing as he looked mostly at Pitch.
Pitch frowned and went to reply to Bunny, but Sandy beat him to it as several golden symbols appeared over Sandy's head.
"Wait, wait.. Slow down my friend!" North said as he tried to read the rapidly changing symbols.
So Sandy slowed down and North gave a big grin at that.
"So you and Pitch were spreading dreams and Nightmares to keep children inside and away from storm!"
Bunny stopped looking at Pitch suspiciously at that and looked surprised.
"You were?" he said, starting to feel a tad guilty for immediately suspecting the worst.
Pitch gave Bunny a look at that.
"I did explain the purpose of my nightmares, didn't I? Jack and Lillian are safe and are fixing the storm and the temperatures as we speak. In fact, the storm was much better when Sandy and I left. The temperatures were much higher and the heavy rain was helping to melt the snow."
"Good!" North exclaimed as he clapped his hands. "This calls for celebration! And eggnog!"
Sandy happily accepted a mug of eggnog, the only one besides North to do so. Pitch asked an elf for tea, while Bunny took a mug with a carrot in it.
"How is Mother Nature?" Pitch attempted to ask North casually, but his slightly trembling hands gave him away. He held his mug of tea more tightly and his voice sounded strained. It had already been a long night and it wasn't even over yet.
"She's restin'," Bunny said. "The yetis are lookin' after her. August and his Summer Spirit unfroze her and we decided ta take her back to the Pole with us."
Pitch nodded, looking relieved at this. When he had seen that storm was much better, he had been half afraid that Mother Nature had been left frozen and would still be at that spot in California.
Sandy looked at Pitch and made some golden Zzz's appear over his head. Then he followed it up by miming someone sleeping.
Pitch narrowed his eyes at the Guardian. He knew what Sandy was hinting at and he wasn't having any of it.
"If you think for one minute that I'm sleeping when my children are still out there, fixing this weather..!" Pitch hissed in anger.
Sandy held up his hands to say he meant no harm, but he could see how exhausted Pitch was. Even he was pretty tired.
But Pitch refused to go to sleep, and not wanting to leave Pitch alone in his vigil, the other Guardians remained in the room with him as they all sipped their mugs and waited for the two child spirits to return.
Jamie woke up the next morning, completely unaware that Pitch had been at his house last night and his mom had decided that Jamie didn't need to know either. After he had eaten his breakfast, Jamie had settled down in front of the tv to see if there was any news on about the strange weather.
He was completely astonished to see footage of the storm in California and even more so when he clearly saw Jack and Lillian in the background. Later on in other clips, he could even see Pitch and Sandy, plus North and Bunny!
He hurriedly scrambled for his DVR remote and recorded what he could. He also raced off for his cell phone so he could text the other kids.
They wouldn't believe this!
It was one day after Jamie's news revelation that all the Seasonals had finally turned up at the Pole. Pitch had been going out of his mind with worry, but the other Guardians had all assured Pitch that it would take a long time for them to get the weather of the entire world completely fixed.
Tooth had eventually turned up too, and helped out in trying to calm Pitch down, but Pitch refused to be comforted until he could see his children again. Mother Nature was still mostly bedridden as she was recovering and with one child sick and two missing, he was extremely short tempered and kept snapping at anyone who tried to speak to him.
They were all surprised when Jack, Lillian, Jasper and August all appeared in a heap in the globe room. It was Lillian who had convinced them to go to the Pole, since Mother Nature was recuperating there. The others had seen North and Bunny take off with her, so it seemed to Lillian the most logical place to go for now.
Shortly after the Seasonals appeared, the other Spirits and Sprites appeared as well, and they all lay on the floor too tired to move.
"..'M never moving again.." Lillian mumbled sleepily. She had her head resting on Jack and looked likely to fall asleep where she was. She could hear footsteps hurrying towards them, but she was too tired to open her eyes.
"..Pitch..?" Jack said wearily, as he struggled to keep his eyes open. He was laying on the floor but his head was turned and he could see Pitch's feet coming towards them.
Pitch looked down at them worriedly.
"Are you alright? What happened?"
Bunny toed Jasper with a foot as he and the other Guardians had rushed over as well.
"What are you all doin' here?" he asked the mostly unconscious Seasonals.
August was down for the count, so Jasper was the one that answered.
"..Mother.. Nature.." he explained, his voice hardly above a whisper.
"Crikey," Bunny said with a shake of his head. "Did ya think we couldn't take care of her? What are we supposed ta do with you all?! North ain't got the beds for everyone."
"We will make room!" North exclaimed. "Will be slumber party for Seasonals! Is much fun!"
He gave Bunny a look and Bunny realized that the yetis would be able to keep an eye on everyone and make sure they got their proper rest. Bunny could help with the checks too, just in case.
Marin shivered as she still had North's hat on. She and the others had dried out as the days wore on, but they hadn't time to change their clothes and they were in the North Pole now.
"..Cold.." she mumbled as she tried to use Dax and August as blankets.
"Right!" North said authoritatively. "We get everyone to bed! Bunny, you grab Spring! Pitch will grab Jack and Lillian! Tooth, you get Summer and I will take Fall!"
And so it didn't take long before the Seasonals and their various Spirits and Sprites were all housed in North's guest rooms. North really didn't have enough beds, so all the Spirits and Sprites were piled into the rooms with their respective Seasonal. The Seasonal got the bed and the rest had to bunk on the floor.
With each Season to their own room, their powers naturally leaked out and helped keep the room at the optimal temperature for themselves. So while the Seasonals were all resting and recovering the Guardians all held an impromptu meeting in the globe room.
"You know, Jack did much to help save the children of the world by restoring the weather to how it should be," North said as he looked proud.
Tooth nodded her agreement.
"He is totally Guardian material."
Bunny looked thoughtful.
"We have been gettin' on better with him. Ya think we should ask again after he's rested?"
"Da," North said happily. "Is time to make Jack a Guardian!"
Sandy waved his hands around and golden symbols appeared above his head.
Bunny stared at Sandy and spluttered in shock.
"Ya can't be serious!"
Sandy gave Bunny a look that said he was dead serious. He made a golden symbol of the moon appear over his head to indicate that the Man in the Moon would agree with him.
Tooth interjected while Bunny continued to splutter.
"You guys did say that he helped out a lot to protect the children," she said as she glanced at Bunny.
"He spends as much time here as any of us," North said with amusement. "We can add him to ceremony!"
Bunny looked beside himself at that.
"..But.. but.. Pitch?! A Guardian?!"
Lillian opened her eyes the next day to see a pair of worried lilac ones staring down at her. She gave a puzzled frown until she blinked and suddenly she saw a Spring Spirit come into focus. It was the female one and she was looking at Lillian worriedly.
Lillian sat up with a yawn and rubbed her eyes. She looked around to see some Spring Sprites all snuggled up around her on the bed. She saw the two Spring Spirits in the room.
"Aren't there supposed to be more of you?" she asked them sleepily.
She had been so busy helping to fix the weather that she hadn't taken notice of how many Spring Sprites and Spirits there were. But now that she was looking, there only five Sprites and two Spirits. Compared to the dozens of Summer and Fall Sprites she had always seen flitting about, she realized her Spring ones seemed to be lacking.
"They all faded away," the female Spring Spirit said sadly. She had brown hair like Lillian, but hers was lighter. She had it pulled back into a french braid.
"Faded?" Lillian asked.
"It's what happens when we die," the male Spring Spirit piped up, seeing at how sad this conversation was making his friend. "We've been held captive for so long that a lot of us didn't make it."
"That's horrible!" Lillian exclaimed as she woke up more. "How long did Gethen have you guys locked up anyway?"
"Too long," the female Spirit said. "He.. he captured Leif too."
"Leif?" Lillian cocked her head. "Isn't that the name of the guy who was the Spirit of Spring before me? I heard Bunny talking about him once with North."
The male Spring Spirit looked hesitant to tell Lillian this, but he knew that she would ask about it anyway.
"He faded when you were made the new Spirit of Spring," he said softly to her. "A lot of the others lost hope after that, and more of the Spring Spirits and Sprites began to fade."
"What?!" Lillian said as she leapt up from the bed, careful not to disturb the Sprites that were still sleeping. "No..! I.. I didn't do that!"
"We're not saying you did," the female Spirit said hastily.
But Lillian moved away from them, looking upset.
"No.. you're lying! I didn't kill Leif!" she shouted as she raced out of the room.
"Flora, why did you have to bring him up?" the male Spring Spirit said in exasperation. He ran a hand through his short, dark brown hair in frustration. "You upset our new Seasonal! We just met her a few days ago!"
"I miss him, Kel," she said with a sniffle as tears fell down her cheeks. "Why did he have to go?"
"Oh, Flora," Kelby said as he wrapped his arms around her. He couldn't stay mad at his friend when she was so upset.
The sound of little running feet alerted the Guardians that Lillian was awake. Pitch was in the globe room pacing back and forth as he waited for Jack and Lillian to wake up. It had taken a lot of convincing from the others for Pitch to stop checking on Jack and Lillian while they slept, and having Pitch busy pacing actually gave them time to plan the ceremony they were planning on having later on in the day.
Pitch perked up when Lillian raced out from the bedrooms and into the globe room. She spotted Pitch and ran over to him, barrelling into him and clutching onto him as she started to cry desperately.
"..I didn't do it..!" she wailed into his shirt while she hugged onto him. "I didn't!"
Pitch looked perplexed and a little concerned.
"What didn't you do?"
Lillian pulled away enough to look up at Pitch with her emerald eyes full of tears.
"They said I killed Leif!"
Pitch's face darkened at that as he wrapped his arms around Lillian. He gently picked her up and held her close.
"Who was saying that?"
Lillian sniffled and wiped some of her tears away.
"The Spirits," she said in a wobbly voice. "They said he died when I was chosen to be a Spirit."
Pitch sighed at that. Of course, they would upset Lillian as soon as she was awake.
"That doesn't make it your fault," he told her sternly. "The Man in the Moon chose you to be the Child of Spring. He probably didn't realize that Leif was still around. Besides, if he hadn't chosen you, then you would have died. Now stop all this crying, it will be time for breakfast soon."
It was a little while later when mostly everyone was awake and gathered at North's table for breakfast. Extra chairs had been brought out, and all the Spirits and Sprites were sitting with their respective Seasonals. They all looked very uncomfortable, especially Kelby and Flora who noticed that Pitch Black kept glaring at them for some reason.
The only ones who seemed at ease with it all were the Guardians, Jack, and Lillian.
"It will take more than one night for you all to recover," North said as he dug into his pancakes. He had made them himself and they were pretty delicious. "I suggest you all stay here while you do so, since it will only use up more of your energy to go home. Once you have all rested, then you may go home."
"But I'm f-freezing!" Marin complained, as she still had North's hat on. All the Summer Spirits were wrapped in warm blankets, even August.
"It'll take me two seconds to get home," August grumbled as he ate his breakfast. Even though he had brushed his hair and was wearing fresh clothes that still had that Sun God quality, his complexion wasn't quite where it should be and he had dark shadows under his eyes. It was obvious that the trip might be too much for him.
"I will see if yetis can find you warmer clothes," North said placatingly. "In meantime, we have many blankets. Anyway, I was thinking after lunch we can all gather in the globe room and get to know one another better. Is not often that Guardians and Seasonals mix, no?"
The Seasonals all looked a bit awkward at that, but no one dared to disagree with a Guardian.
They didn't know it, but North had been conspiring with Tooth, Bunny and Sandy since last night and the elves and yetis that were free were wrangling together a last minute ceremony. North had been all for a circus-like bonanza until Tooth stamped out the idea of the elves juggling flaming torches. Sandy had suggested they have the ceremony down by Jack's lake, but North had said he wanted something more official and since they were all at the Pole, then the Seasonals could witness it too.
It would be epic!
*A reviewer once made a comment on how Gethen broke the weather channel, and this is a reference to that. I will probably never stop making references to it, since it amused me so much. :)
Author's Note: Whew, another chapter out! Even though there was a little angst tossed in (darn you Flora), I'm enjoying having all of the Seasonals bunk at the Pole for now. This is the part that I was upset about in the other chapter, btw. I had planned for them to all collapse in a heap from tiredness and Mother Nature was going to show up and take them all back to her Palace. It was supposed to be a cute bonding moment with them all and Mother Nature could finally clear the air with Jack and Lillian. Instead, she wound up frozen and at the Pole, so I decided to move the slumber party to there instead.
Did you enjoy my reference to the movie version of the ceremony North tries to force on Jack? I couldn't remember if I actually had the flaming torches in my version of what happened, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have another reference to it.
Anyway, the ceremony will be first thing in the next chapter, followed up by some cute fluffy moments with the Seasonals. I think it's high time that Jack and Lillian spend some time with them, don't you? I'm also going to include an idea that I had forever ago. I found it posted in one of my chapters and thought it would be cute to include. It was more of a wistful idea that Lillian had before all the drama went down, and now that things have calmed down for now it's time to see that idea happen.
I don't need any plot help at the moment, but if you guys have any ideas for cute, fluffy moments that you want to see, feel free to post away!
