The King of Cold Mountain

by Anders and Saph

Chapter 2

They typically encountered each other every few decades, on the cusp of spring awakening and winter fading. Whether it was Jack laughing maniacally while frosting the flowers Bunny spread during 1700s -

"Frost!"

- or Bunny getting the drop on Jack in 1835, stringing him up by his ankle with some vines, out of reach of his staff -

"Hey! No fair, you overgrown rodent!"

"Southern hemisphere or bust, Frost."

- or, for instance, a particularly excessive blizzard in 1968 -

"It's Easter!"

"That's still winter...ish."

"It's Easter and this is Georgia!"

"Did you know," Jack said, leaning casually on his staff, speaking with a mock-informative tone of voice, "that they've never been able to ice-skate on Lake Allatoona before? Pretty far out, right?"

- the conflict was only ever postponed, rather than finished. It depended entirely on which side you were talking to whether winter was crossing boundaries it shouldn't or spring was interrupting the party too soon.

The pranking only got better after Jack became a Guardian, partially because North joined in, partially because a recent upswing in monsters to fight brought Jack and Bunny into close contact for pranking convenience much more often. After the mission to Africa, when Bunny got a few good pranks of his own in and Jack, in his rashness, nearly got them and Sandy killed, things were tense for a while. But there was only so long Jack could restrain himself before the urge to get the Easter Bunny with some payback became too strong to resist.

One of the joint efforts between him and North had involved North offering Bunny some carrots and telling them what cabinet they were in – and neglecting to tell the rabbit that said cabinet was completely packed with snow Jack had put there. It had taken Bunny a good minute to dig himself out of the snowdrift that fell on him, and North and Jack a good five minutes to stop laughing after he had.

Some of the pranks were spur of the moment, like the time Jack got all the elves involved in a rousing game of tackle football in the workshop. When Bunny popped in to talk to North about something strange he'd seen with his tunnels, Jack, mid-game, tossed the ball to him. Bunny caught it on instinct and suddenly found himself under a pile of about twenty elves. Jack had laughed so hard at the sight of Bunny struggling under an elf-pile that he couldn't concentrate enough to stay airborne and had fallen to the floor in a fit of mirth.

The trick with the snowglobes was the best by far, and Jack and North used it more than once. It was too easy to take advantage of the fact that they could send Bunny absolutely anywhere and he'd be back a moment later by tunnel with only a few minutes lost, just by hiding the right snowglobes in the right places. They typically sent him to locations that were harmless, but which no one in their right mind wanted to find themselves in, like Cleveland, Hoboken, and once, Albuquerque (with the suggestion he take a left turn there this time).

The last time they did the snowglobe trick was after Jack, North, and Bunny had patched up a little situation involving a wendigo. Jack had done much better this time than he had in Africa, which had been a recent trend in his outings with the Guardians. Now that he was listening to those with more experience, asking the right questions, and paying more attention to need-to-know information, he was making fewer mistakes, and hadn't put anyone in a dangerous position as a consequence of reckless action.

Not that it stopped Bunny from being critical - even overly critical - of the mistakes he didmake.

It frustrated Jack to no end, hence the snowglobe prank as soon as they got back to the pole. This time, the choice of destination was a little ill-advised, but even North had thought it was funny when they picked it. In fact, North and Jack fell over each other with laughter as Bunny popped back out of the ground, dripping wet and covered in duckweed.

"Oh haha, very funny," he said, flicking the duckweed from his ears. "The Everglades, great place to send a rabbit without warning. I landed on an alligator."

"I'd think after all those saltwater crocs you Aussies spend your days wrestling, one measly little American alligator would be a picnic," Jack snarked.

"It was, but that's not the point."

"Come on mister Nerves of Steel, lighten up!"

"Alligator was not part of plan, but still, a good prank," North agreed. "All have laughs, a little fun –"

"Fun for you, at the rabbit's expense," Bunny drawled, his voice as dry as his fur was not. "Yeah, that never gets old. Now if there's no actual business, I've got a full day."

Jack scoffed. "A full day of what, watching the grass grow? Making sure the trees still have their leaves?"

Bunny glared at Jack, stamped the ground, and disappeared into a tunnel.

"That went well," Jack said, only half scoffing, but North looked thoughtful when he turned back.

"I am making people work together, making strangers become friends all the time – but always, Bunny is so sensitive to any jest. Is one egg I cannot crack."

Jack shrugged. "Maybe dumping him on an alligator was a little out of line."

"Maybe in retrospect, is not best prank ever to be playing, but alligator was not part of plan," North agreed. "Still, now that the Guardian of Fun is among us, perhaps between you and me, we will see a few more smiles from the hare. Yes?" His eyes twinkled with familiar mirth as he clapped Jack on the shoulders. "And now my friend, Bunny is not only one with work to be doing."

With that, North departed for his workshop. Busy, busy busy. It was the hallmark of the Guardians - aside, perhaps, for Jack.

Yes, there were snow days to cause and, of course, the occasional blizzard, and he was enjoying frosting up windows more and more for the artistry of it now that he was actually getting credit for his work. But it was nearly addictive, being talked to, having people listen to him. Not to mention the physical affection: they hugged him, they patted him on the back, and they ruffled his hair. Jack felt like he'd never be able to get enough of it, of being touched, of being able to reach out to other people. It was needy, though, Jack knew, so asking for the amount of attention he wanted was out of the question. He didn't want to annoy them. If he ever got too clingy, they might stop letting him hang around at all.

As he'd told the Guardians once, he wasn't hard work and deadlines, he was snowballs and funtimes. But while snowballs and funtimes had sustained him for three hundred years, now he craved attention and contact more than ever – since he could actually get it.

Sometimes.

When they weren't busy.

"Sorry, Jack, I'm swamped right now - Topeka, both front teeth, and watch out ladies, there's a storm front rolling through – and even thought Baby Tooth has done very well with covering for me sometimes, I think it'd be a little too much for her."

"Oh." Jack tried to hold back the disappointment in his voice, but it was difficult. He knew Tooth's job was important to her though, and aside from being important to her, it was quite frankly more important than him. In the big picture. "That's okay, I understand. I'll catch you later."

"Jack," Tooth said, taking him by the hand before he could go. "When I have time, I promise we'll do something together."

Jack gently squeezed her hand before flying off.

Sandy was busy as usual, too. He tried to keep up in conversation with Jack as he worked, but the multi-tasking became a little too much for him. He started blending ideas from the dreams he was creating into the conversation by accident. When their discussion inexplicably turned into something about monkeys riding dinosaurs, Jack realized how much he was distracting Sandy from his work. As much as he wanted company it wasn't fair to the Sandman, who was always working – after all, there was always a child sleeping somewhere – so Jack excused himself from the conversation.

"I should probably head off, Sandy. Gotta bring the first snow a few places in the Southern Hemisphere," he lied. "I'll see you later?"

Sandy nodded and gave him a smile as Jack flew off into the night.

Truly, the only one of the other Guardians that even had any free time was Bunny. North had his slow days in the late winter, but production at the pole was constant – Sandy and Tooth's work was even more so, especially with the population of the world as high as it was these days, compared to how it had been in the past. Bunny was the only Guardian whose duties were inherently rush work.

But Jack was on the outs with Bunny, so swinging by for a friendly chat was out of the picture. Still, any attention, even negative attention was better than sitting around Burgess freezing and refreezing the pond, right?

Bunny was already having a conversation when Jack snuck into the Warren with a stolen snowglobe. Bunny's conversation partner, a grey-furred, long-snouted marsupial about a foot tall, noticed Jack's entrance. Bunny, his back turned to Jack, did not.

Jack waved at the Easter Bilby, who stared at him with confused recognition and lifted a finger to get Bunny's attention."Uh -"

Bunny was holding some painted leaves, looking at them with a critical eye. "Is this a color test? This is nice. Good work, mate."

The Easter Bilby glanced from Jack to Bunny again, as Jack put his finger to his lips in a "shhhh" gesture and Bunny dropped the compliment. "Yeah it is," said the bilby, whose Australian accent was even thicker than Bunny's. "I was going for sunrise on waratah."

"Teardrops are coming along well too," Bunny went on, still going through the painted leaves, which were covered with single-brushstroke shapes. "How long did all these take you?"

Jack flipped up to the top of the stone for a nice clear view. Bunny still didn't notice a thing and Bilby glanced at Jack again, his expression uncertain.

"About ten seconds a leaf. New personal best. Er -"

"Good to hear," said Bunny, handing the leaves back. "Bring it down to five over the next year and she'll be apples."

The bilby sagged with disbelief, Jack forgotten. "Ah come on mate, I only just broke ten. I've been practicing all year."

Bunny's voice took on a conciliatory tone. "I'm not saying ten's not a good personal best, I'm saying speed painting is something you never stop practicing. Even I still do - all year."

The bilby rolled his eyes. So did Jack, feeling sympathy for the marsupial. The Easter Bilby was practically a newborn, having been first believed in as recently as the sixties, and he hadn't asked to share a holiday with a fussy stickler like Bunny.

"You say that like I'll ever need to be that fast," grumbled Bilby, almost too quiet for Jack to hear. "Easter's much too established with rabbits, even in Oz. I'll never convince a whole continent of kids to make the switch."

"Are you kidding?" Bunny knelt down, a little closer to the bilby's eye-level. "Mate, you're just starting out and you've already got a load of believers. You're already leagues ahead of me, timewise. You want to know a secret?"

Bilby eyed Bunny curiously, then glanced at Jack, who was also leaning in curiously. "Uh - sure mate, but -"

"Australia was the last place I visited, when I started leaving the Warren," Bunny said, charging through the Bilby's attempts at pointing Jack out. "I had to learn how to survive everywhere else before I even dared tunnel to the surface right above me, but you were born there." He pointed to the roof of the Warren, and presumably, to the Australian Outback above them. "Up there is the most dangerous, unforgiving landscape known to any creature on this world, and you belong there in a way rabbits don't. Everything out there can kill you, and it hasn't, because you're a survivor, born and believed in. You're a natural symbol of hope. The Aussie kids'll see that. Give it a few more decades and they'll take to you, every one."

Bilby still sighed, and Jack really had to strain to hear. "And what if they do? What if all the kids take to me, and you're right, ten seconds isn't good enough? What if I'm too busy running from a taipan to hide the eggs right? I could let 'em all down. That'd be just awful."

"Nah, don't even worry about that." Bunny shook his head. "That's how it goes - the more work you do, the more the kids believe you can do it. And when they believe you can do it, you can."

"But what if they don't -"

"They'll believe in you," Bunny said, confident. "I know they will. I do. And until they all do, the whole continent, you need a hand, you know where to find me. Sound fair, mate?"

Bilby, straightening a bit, nodded at the encouragement. "All right, yeah, sounds fair."

Bunny held his fist out to the marsupial. "Glad to hear it."

The bilby tapped his much smaller fist against Bunny's. Jack saw his moment, and iced their fur together.

Bunny sputtered at the sudden shock of cold, and at the realization that he couldn't pull his fist away from Bilby's. "Oh, come on. Jack!" He stood up as best he could, which was about halfway, crouched not to pull the bilby into the air.

Jack laughed and Bunny spun, glaring at him. "What's the big idea?"

Jack stood up on the standing stone, grinning. "No idea, just thought I'd drop in, say hi to an old buddy." He waved to the bilby. "Hey, Bilby old pal. How's it going?"

Bilby waved back with his free paw. "G'day, Frost."

Bunny rolled his eyes and sighed. "Right, well, you've said it. Mind un-icing us?"

"I had a question first," said Jack, scratching his head with his staff. "What was it - oh yeah! So, the Centurion Toto-kin - am I pronouncing that right?"

Bunny's ears dropped in surprise. "Where did you hear about the Centzon Totochtin?"

"That's it!" Jack exclaimed. "The Four Hundred Drunken Rabbits - sorry, that's the Three Hundred Ninety Nine Drunken Rabbits now, isn't it? Doesn't have quite the same ring to it."

The Bilby sputtered with laughter that petered out as Bunny didn't join in. "What, really? You?"

"You ran into Anansi again, didn't you," Bunny said, his tone resigned and flat. "What were you doing in Africa?"

Jack wiggled his fingers. "Flurries on Kilimanjaro last week. Anansi was in the mood to catch up. And boy did he catch me up. The trickster hare tales, Br'er Rabbit, the drunken Aztec party bunnies…about the only thing he didn't catch me up on is when exactly you got so boring."

Bunny's flat frustration hadn't shifted. "Don't you have something better to do than break into my warren? I'm training the new guy here."

Jack walked along the rock he was standing on, mostly on tiptoe, casually swinging his staff.

"So, when there's a new guy in town," he said, his lighthearted tone betrayed only by his white-knuckled grip on his staff - "Are you always this nice to them, and was I the only exception? Or is it just folks who come to take some of your workload that get the welcome mat rolled out?"

Bunny's expression, thus far one of mild irritation and frustration, dropped. He inhaled for a moment in silence before turning to the bilby. "Mate, you mind giving us some privacy for a moment?"

"I'd love to," said Bilby, who very clearly would have loved to excuse himself from this awkward scene, "but -" he shook his fist, still iced firmly to Bunny's.

"Frost, give us a hand."

Jack shrugged and said blithely, "I do the freezing, not the unfreezing."

Bunny sighed, and looked entreatingly at the bilby. Bilby looked back at him for a moment with a 'well what am I supposed to do?' expression before plugging one of his ears with his free paw, scrunching up his shoulder to press it against the other ear, and whistling a rendition of "Waltzing Matilda."

It wasn't a situation that leant itself to earnest, heartfelt discussion. Bunny sighed at the roof of the Warren.

"Look, Jack - when you first showed up, I -"

But Jack had caught sight of something on the standing stone that he'd never looked closely enough through the Warren to see before.

"What's this?" He brushed moss away to find carvings, old and weathered, of rabbits about the size and general shape Bunny was when he was tiny and fluffy.

Jack laughed. "Oh wow, this is rich.Don't tell me that you have that much of an ego that you have self-portraits plastered all over this place."

Bunny waved his paw. "Forget those. What I'm trying to say is -"

"No, no, I'm intrigued," said Jack, brushing more moss aside. "I mean, I always knew you were full of yourself, but these are a lot of - are they all over the others too?"

"Jack, leave them," said Bunny, a hint of a warning in his tone. "I'm trying to tell you, it wasn't -"

"No way! They're everywhere!" Jack flitted from rock to rock, brushing aside moss to reveal carvings of bunnies - painting eggs, weaving baskets, crafting exploding eggs, on and on, leaf-like pictograms of the preparations that went into Easter. "You must have spent centuries carving these. Is this what you do when you say you've got a full day when Easter's a good five months away? Sit here carving odes to yourself? What're they called, the Four Hundred Thousand Stuffy Rabbit Killjoys?" He peered closely at one of the carvings. "And when did youwear a lab coat and -" he snorted. "Are those goggles?"

The stamp of Bunny's foot on the grassy floor thundered through the Warren. The standing stones shook and the moss on them exploded to lief, covering the carvings completely. In an instant, every stone was covered, every carving hidden by new, green growth.

"Get out."

The command was as soft as the footfall had been thundering, but no less resonant.

Jack looked at Bunny in the sudden silence. He'd snowed Easter out. He'd frosted the new-grown crocuses and blown the new buds from the branches.

But he'd never seen Bunny this angry before.

"You break into my home, pry into my business, for what? To keep this ruddy stupid game of winter-versus-spring going? Well it's not a game, Frost. It never was. No matter how hard you try to make fun of everything, some things never will be."

Bunny paused, inhaling a breath that was more to steady himself than to replenish his air.

"Now get out of my Warren."

Jack floated away from the stone, his jaw hanging open slightly. Arguments that he hadn't done anything wrong surfaced in his mind, but none of them seemed strong enough in the face of Bunny's cutting anger.

Jack turned, his eyes watering a little (had to be the pollen, right?) and flew through the nearest tunnel.

Bunny sighed and dropped his gaze to the grass. Beside him, Bilby cautiously tugged against the ice holding their fists together. It gave, to his great relief.

"So I'll uh, see you around," he said, awkwardly. "Uh - good luck with, uh - all that. Hoo roo."

Bunny waved him off without a word, and the bilby disappeared down one of the nearby tunnels.

As he always did when he didn't know where else to go, Jack headed back to Burgess. He didn't have the heart to bring a snow day, but light, mournful flurries fell from the sky as he alighted gently on the lake, freezing the surface on contact. The ice under his feet reflected the light of the moon as he sighed and walked along the surface.

It was during times like this that he almost wished his heart was harder. Oh, he tried to act like he didn't need anyone sometimes, but even he wasn't self-deluded enough to think that was anything other than a front. Sometimes he wished the front was real, that he didn't need people, and that he didn't long for companionship.

Sometimes he wondered if colder was better. If he were colder, then knowing that the person who'd greeted him first in his new life with such hostility hadn't had to would hurt him less.

But then he remembered all the warmth in his life, warmth from the other Guardians, and from the kids. He remembered bits of warmth from his old life, from his mother and sister, and he knew that the price paid in loneliness was worth caring about people.

Still, it was a steep price to pay. Particularly when it was so clear that the loneliness he'd endured in his first 300 years as Jack Frost hadn't been inevitable.

Someone could have taken him, new to this strange existence, under their wing. Nothing had been stopping them from doing it. They didn't have to wait for the Man in the Moon to make Jack's purpose known in order to be kind, to be welcoming to him. They'd just done it because they were busy. Or just…because.

Jack sat down on the ice and rolled back to lay there, staff in hand, looking up at the sky, at the stars beaming down, and, of course, at the moon.

He had been born in this pond and he had died on this pond – though not necessarily in that order – and he wondered if the Moon really knew how hard it had been for him. He wondered if he knew how hard it was now. Sometimes he wondered if Manny cared at all, then felt guilty for thinking that of the being that had saved his life. Even without being seen, he'd experienced so much joy in in the last 300 years that he wouldn't have had the chance to if he'd died forever on that day.

"Is this…how it works?" he asked Manny, his voice sounding fragile even to his own ears. "When people can see you? Always needing more than they can give?"

As ever, the moon was silent.

"It's…almost worse now. Because they're there and sometimes they give me their time but that makes me want more of it than I ever needed before this. And now I know you're there and you talk sometimes so it means you just never choose to talk to me."

Silence.

Jack's eyes welled up.

"I need more than this," he said, his voice a harsh whisper as he admitted the thing he found he just couldn't say to the others. "It's better now, but sometimes I still feel so alone, because now they're there. They're there and they just don't have time for me, but I know it's not fair to ask for more of their time. And I don't know what to do about it."

No answer, of course. No guidance. He wasn't really surprised about it - there never was.

Jack closed his eyes and lay there on the thin layer of ice spread over the pond.

"Jack?"

Jack sat up abruptly. Jamie stood at the pond's edge in a coat, boots, and pajamas.

He bounced with excitement as Jack sat up. "It is you! I knew it was you! We weren't supposed to get any snow today!"

Jack had seen Jamie off and on through the last…was it almost a year now? He'd made sure that he and his friends had a great winter with many a snow day, snowball fight, and sled race. Still, he hadn't ever stayed long. He was always there in glimpses, starting the fun and then flying off, always keeping them on their toes. Jack's reasoning was that belief was a fickle thing. If they thought of him as something concrete rather than magical, what if the nature of their belief changed? So he darted in and out of Jamie's life and the lives of his friends, giving them their fun and their joy and disappearing again so they could only look on in wonder.

Jamie had put on a little height even in the last few months, his front tooth long since grown back in. It made Jack realize with a pang that by zipping in and out he was also missing out.

Jack smiled at him, standing up, and was about to say hello when Jamie stepped onto the thin layer of ice without checking to see if it was thick enough. He'd gone two steps before his foot broke through, but Jack had already flown forward and caught him, zipping him back over to the bank.

He was yelling without realizing how loud his voice was.

"You never, ever go out on ice until you're sure it's thick enough!" He clutched the collar of Jamie's jacket. "Never ever! Do you hear me? You never do it!"

Jamie looked up at him with wide eyes, breathing harshly, and Jack backed away, letting go of his coat.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, Jamie."

He didn't even try to excuse it. He just backed a few steps before taking to the air to fly away

"Jack, wait!" Jamie called out. Jack paused in the air, looking back. "Are you okay?"

Jack tried to force out a "yes" that sounded believable, but found he just couldn't force himself to do it.

"Not really."

"Then how about you don't fly off, and you come over here and sit down, and we'll talk about it," Jamie said in conciliatory tones, sounding like a tiny therapist.

Jack almost laughed. "I'm not gonna dump my problems on an eight-year-old."

"I'm nine now."

Jack actually laughed at that this time. "Oh, sorry, I understand that a year makes a big difference when it comes to being qualified to listen to moody winter spirits whine."

"Yeah, well, it does," said Jamie, firmly. "Come sit down. I stole some cookies to share with you when I was sneaking out."

Jack was moved that Jamie had even thought to do that. He finally flew over and sat down next to the boy. After scaring him, the very least he could do was make sure Jamie knew it wasn't over anything he'd done wrong. (Also, cookies. How could he turn down cookies?)

Jamie gave him a large chocolate chip cookie and started munching on his own. "Now, what's wrong?" he asked, spewing out some crumbs.

Jack munched on his own and thought about it all while he was chewing. "If I…told you things about myself and they weren't, I don't know, all impressive and magical, if they were just very…human, would it change you believing in me?"

"Like if it turned out you were secretly an alien instead of a magical spirit? Or a mutant? Or aninterdimensional alien (or mutant)?"

"Something like that, yeah," said Jack.

"I belief in adiens, doo," Jamie said around a mouth full of cookie. He swallowed. "So not really. Besides, it's hard not to believe in somebody when they're trying to protect you from the bogeyman. You could have been just a normal older kid doing that and I'd still have believed in you."

Jack looked at him, at the honest affection on his face, and decided to take a risk and hoped it panned out. So he talked, about waking up in the very pond they were sitting on the bank of. He talked about all his years alone and about the fight with Pitch. He talked about getting his memories back, and the life he'd left behind when the ice cracked - and how scary it was ("So that's why you were so upset about that." "Bingo. I'm sorry I yelled at you, though, you scared me for a second.") And he talked what he'd meant in the alley about his center.

It all spilled out and the talking brought him into the now, into feeling aimless even though he was believed in, in wanting people's time even when it wasn't fair to ask for it. His chance of a family had died when he did and he didn't know how to articulate that to the Guardians, namely because he hadn't figured out how to tell them he'd even died at all, fearing their pity. So far, he'd just explained that he'd been made a Guardian because he saved his sister and left it at that.

"Three hundred years," was all Jamie could say. The two of them were lying in the dirt at the edge of the pond, looking up at the stars. "You know, a lot of people would go crazy from that. I read a thing about monkeys, where someone raised some in complete isolation and they went insane."

Jamie turned to look at Jack, his eyes going wide and bugging out of his head at the word "insane."

"Yeah, well. I was still around people, even if they didn't see me."

"It makes sense you're lonely though," Jamie went on. "You should tell the other Guardians about it."

Jack held out his hand for another cookie and Jamie placed one in his palm.

"What? No way. Then they'll be all weirded out and guilted into spending time with me and they'll think I'm clingy or something. No, I just have to – I just have to find a way to deal with this."

"If you're ever lonely, you can always talk to me," Jamie said. Something in his tone made it clear that it wouldn't just be for Jack's benefit, that he'd enjoy spending time with Jack, too.

"I appreciate it, but like I said, you're eight –"

"Nine."

"Right, nine, sorry, but you have friends. You have a life – one I will gladly rain snowballs and fun on, but you don't have to –"

"Maybe I want to," said Jamie. "You're my friend."

It was as simple as that. Jack was his friend and he liked spending time with him. It was a child's thinking, that friendship could just be declared and it could be fun and happy and uncomplicated by things like work and fears of intrusiveness.

"And you're really cool," Jamie went on. "…no pun intended. I mean with all the stuff you can do and how brave you are and everything."

"That pun better not have been intended," Jack said warmly. "I don't do ice puns."

"Anyway, whenever you need someone to talk to, I'm here," said Jamie. "We can hang out."

Jack looked over at the boy and smiled at him. "I think…I think I might take you up on that."

It felt good to know that he didn't have to be alone. (Also, that he might be able to score more cookies later on. They were pretty good.)

In the dark places of the world, something was active, something that controlled the shadows as much as he dwelled in them.

His activity meant that other things in the dark had become restless. He hadn't woken any of them on purpose, but his presence alone had sent them slithering up to the surface to wreak havoc, keeping the Guardians busy.

Pitch Black had never been the type to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It had taken him time to find this particular place, but he knew he'd found what he was looking for the moment he'd walked in. It was cold deep in the shadows, but not usually this cold.

This was the cold that froze the marrow in bones and stripped life away from living things like it had never belonged to them in the first place. It was the cold that settled in someone's soul when they found themselves trapped outdoors in a blizzard and knew they wouldn't get out alive.

Jack Frost had turned down his offer of an alliance between the cold and dark, but he wasn't the only being in the world that could provide the ice half of the equation.

Deep in the shadows, buried under thick ice, an old man lay – haggard, frostbitten, and dreaming.

The thing about dreams was that they could be turned into nightmares and when people had nightmares, they often woke up.

"Rise and shine," Pitch said softly in his oily tones, coaxing the old man's dream into something dark and cold – something that involved small children cowering from a chill wind. "Or perhaps I should say 'rise and shadow,' shouldn't I?"

The old man's eyes flew open, grey irises flashing under the ice.

"After all, the sun won't be shining anymore."