Jack's bare feet touched the ground right outside of North's home in the Arctic, the snow feeling soft like a pillow between his toes. The cold never affected him, if anything it made him feel better, stronger, more at peace. He was glad the jolly old man made his toys and wonders here instead of, say, the desert. Jack jumped through a window, swinging in and stepping down weightlessly without a sound. The room was empty, the fire flickered softly in the furnace but the usually worn leather cush chairs had no indent of where someone would've usually had sitten. He shrugged it off; Maybe North had to take care of business and trusted Jack on his own. Sure Jack Frost, the spirit of micheviousness himself enjoyed getting into trouble, but he didnt do it disrespectfully. Either way, he couldn't wait to find some sort of prank against Bunnymund. He chucked to himself, remembering the time when he pretended to fall out of the fast moving, rickety sleigh. The hare almost had a heart attack.
The winter spirit paced the room before making his way back out the window and perching on the slippery roof. He liked heights. It made him feel like he was safe. Sure he could fall, but this way he could see everything, everything coming, everything going, the way everything worked.. even if all he was looking at was a plain snowfilled sky and an overdose of white powder covering any ground that mightve shown at some point, it still warmed a smile to his face. Slowly but surely, though, his mind wandered its way into less carefree thoughts. Something kept bringing it to Jamie. Was his own head trying to guilt him? Everytime he had aimed to visit his first and only human friend he had been swept away by some sort of event. He was getting nervous. What if Jamie was getting upset..? No, Jack's subconcious replied subtly, Jamie is determined as ever, which is why he was the last light left on the entire earth when Pitch tried to take over. He looks up to you, he wouldn't change that for anything. Jack smiled a little again, both at the relief of what his head had assured him and at the fact that the voices in his mind were actually saying things he WANTED to hear for a change. Maybe Jack was gaining a little more self confidence if his mind automatically tried to do something other than reject his hopes and tear down any tower of peace he had made on his own. "Jack!" A voice shouted from inside the room. Jack blinked a few times before slipping down the roof like a slide, grabbing the edge of the roof panels just in time and swinging himself back into the room, landing gracefully as always and brushing off the snow that had piled into the wrinkles and folds of his hoodie. He glanced up to the tall Russian man pulling off his jacket and plopping his black fur cap onto the floor for the elves to take to its rightful place, wherever that was. "You came! Is there news about Pitch?" Jack opened his mouth to speak, but stayed quiet, remembering back to that girl and starting to feel a little unsure. Was she even worth mentioning? For all he knew, she could just be a spirit scared to be in the sight of others. He didnt know much about spirits other than himself, so it was possible. But still, North had told him to bring up anyone suspicious, and he wasnt going to exclude her, even if she didnt seem to have anything to do with the nightmare king. "I ran into a girl in the forest near Burgess," He started. North blinked at him with a blank look. "So what?" The man asked, not trying to sound rude but questioning why Jack would bring up something so normal. "Well.. what was weird was that she seemed to be watching me or spying on me or something. That, plus she had the ears and tail like a fox, her feet were like paws.. she didnt look completely human, sort of like Tooth, just with a different animal." If Tooth had heard him call her part animal she would've freaked. Even though the extatic guardian was a hummingbird hybrid, she didnt like to be adressed as anything more or less than the tooth fairy. But North suddenly got a look of dawn, like a lightbulb clicked off somewhere in his head, eyes flickering with a glow that indicated something forming in the intricate, creative brain he housed. "Fox girl? Blonde hair and big, big, bright, bright, bright green eyes?" As he said this, North raised his fingers to pull his eye sockets wider to indicate, though sort of strangely, eyes bigger than even his. Jack was a little surprised that North knew the girl's description. She must be important somehow if North remembers her, he thought. Keep in mind that North is the santa clause. He delivers gifts to every child in the world. He probably just remembered her from there." And there was the voice echoing again, going back to its old, negative state. Jack didnt see how something in him could be so downcast. He was in general happy.. sure things were getting more and more nerving with Pitch on the rise and the sudden meet up with the fox girl and the worry that Jamie might've thought he left him, but Jack couldnt really call himself upset. He was always calmer than most, his smile kept itself up and he couldnt remember the last time he ever faked truely being happy. "Come, Jack," North said, his voice rushed like it was when he got a sudden idea or thought, running without another word out to the hallway. Jack shook his thoughts away with a small movement of his head and jogged after.
The hallways were crowded with not only christmas trees and various toys, but creatures of all kinds. The yetis babbled in their own strange language, being large enough to fill the entire width of the hall as they bustled right through anything in their way unknowingly, going to their stations or to a break from work. Meanwhile, the elfs scampered around the floors in groups, giggling to themselves and finding stupid but entertaining ways for fun. Either Jack was tripping on a stray elf or having to duck under the flailing arms of a running yeti, but eventually he caught up to North at the room on the end of the hall, his office. The santa clause pushed the door open and Jack walked in, smiling at the rememberance. The place hadn't changed in looks, the firetruck still moved in and out on its own, the train station made of ice still sat, shattered in places but the glisten of the very faint sunlight in the arctic and the twinkle that ice just gave off on its own made it beautiful either way. North took the time that Jack was using to glance around in awe to go to his desk, crouching down and opening a drawer, mumbling a quiet, "Nope, not it," before slamming it shut and rushing open another. "Nope," he muttered again, then opened the third. "Ah hah!," the fat man shouted, pulling out a stack of christmas themed folders and slamming them down on the desk. A brown furred yeti, Jack knew him as Phil, brough over a chair of ice for Jack to sit in. The spirit plopped down, putting his foot up on the armrest and holding his staff both tightly and carelessly to his side, leaning over the papers with a slight cock of his head to the side. North was fingering through each one, eyes narrowed and a specticle on to magnify the bright blue orbs and help him read the names of each. He flipped so fast, Jack couldnt read the first few sylables of a name before it was replaced with the next. Eventually he gave up trying to read them, continuing his awestricken glance around the room until North's second "Ah hah!' brought him back to earth. Pushing all of the other files aside, North placed one smaller one gengerly in front of Jack, watching him patiently. The pale fingers reached forward and pulled the folder open... "Mother Nature... Ilia Grove," Jack read out loud. There was a small black and white picture paperclipped to the top right section of the folder, a picture of a girl that looked exactly like the one that Jack met. So her name was Ilia... wait. Mother Nature..? She was a child! North seemed to notice Jack's confusion, leaning back in his chair with a stretch. "Not all spirits are as world thinks they are. Like most children might not think Tooth looks how she does," He gives a small shrug. "Mother Nature is simply title the humans have given to a spirit that controls and regulates environment. It never says anywhere that she was motherlike at all." Jack stared down at the picture, nodding in response to North. He wondered how children who didn't yet see him still would think of him. Did they think Jack Frost was older? Younger? Did they even call him Jack Frost at all? "Sort of like me," North continued, "They all think my name is Santa Clause. But tis not," He chuckled a little, shaking his head. "Silly humans. But! Back to point." North's look grew serious yet again and Jack looked up from his gaze over the document. "As you've probably figured, Ilia's center is curiosity, so her spying on you, Jack, isn't something too much worry about. But, what IS to worry about is how she ran when you confronted her. Ilia is shy but she doesnt easily get panicked like you described."
"So Pitch could actually be involved then?" Jack asked, half hopeful that he was right so that they wouldnt have a dead end on what Pitch was planning. But if he was right, that would mean that Pitch was in fact using spirits to his disposal... which wasnt good. Spirits were strong in themselves, and if one or more found their way into the darkness that Pitch had fallen into, it might be much closer to impossible to stop him again. Jack remembered back to the chaos he had caused before the guardians had come to ask for his help, and he was just playing around. The thought of someone with powers granted from the Man in the Moon himself using those powers for fear's sake didnt seem good. And if Pitch wanted a spirit on his side, all he would have to do is promise their desperate and lonely selves a home and family, a cause, a reason of belonging and being, and they would sap it right up. Jack would know.. those three hundred years of loss and loneliness, wondering who he was, why he was there, or if the Man in the Moon had just forgotten him, having so many questions gone unanswered and not a single source of comfort.. it almost drove him crazy. He wouldve done anything probably to be seen and loved.
North nodded, rubbing his temples with his head bowed slightly and his eyebrows knitted together. "Its possible, yes.." he said in a deep thought. "Agh! Too much brainwork!" The man shook his head and stood, stretching yet again. Christmas was up in a few months, it had apparentally taken its toll on the hard working guardian of wonder. He smiled, the smile finding its way to Jack's heart and bringing the corners of his own mouth up in return. "You've done well, Jack, for now, take a break. Go visit your friend, Jamie, you've been meaning to for long time." Jack nearly jumped for joy. He could finally see Jamie uninterupted! The winter spirit turned to the door but just as he gripped the brass handle that would lead him to the hallway again, the russian accent reached his ears again. "But Jack... be wary of Pitch. He's still out there, and wont be very happy with you since you defeated him that once." Jack nodded, looking down at his pale hand on the handle before pulling, waving behind him to the father-like figure, and running all the way to the main doors of the North Pole, diving under yetis and over elves at mach speed. With all the new information he had gotten, he could finally try to figure out what Pitch might be planning.. but first, he was going to visit his best friend back in Burgess. The town was very overdue for a snowstorm... Jack couldnt wait to see Jamie and all the other kid's faces when they awoke to the winter finally being brought. "I'm on my way," He beamed as the wind carried him across the Arctic Ocean towards the America's.