The King of Cold Mountain

by guardianofscrewingup

Deep in a cold place in the earth, an ancient winter spirit has awakened, one that faded and went to sleep long before Jack Frost stood on splintering ice with his sister. With a deadly cold front spreading over the world, Jack and Bunny must put their differences aside to help spring prevail - and to prevent Old Man Winter from eradicating the young upstart that's taken his place.

8. Chapter 8

A/N: Sorry for the wait. Aside from a new job and new health problems on my (Saphie's part) there was a lot we were trying to do with this chapter - and a lot that got cut and put aside for the last chapter.

After this, there's just a chapter for the conclusion. Hope you enjoy the final showdown!

There were actually too many wonderful reviews last time to really respond to any individually, so just have a great big thank you from the authors. We really have enjoyed the feedback we've gotten from this story and are so glad people were entertained by it. We hope once the last chapter of this one is up and we start the next in the series that you'll keep staying with us for the ride.

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The King of Cold Mountain

by Anders, Kaylin, and Saph

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Chapter 8

Jokul Frosti built his latest fortress, not in Antarctica as he once had, but in the Himalayas, just to be a jerk about it. His fortress nestled in a jagged canyon where the wind whipped through the mountains with a noise like it was in pain. It soothed the old man's frazzled nerves.

"Not that my nerves are particularly frazzled," he said, to his latest companion. "What with one victory after another. A world covered with ice, North and the Frost kid should be thiiiis close to dead if they aren't already -" he picked at the chunks of steel still bonded to his skin, which was far more hideously mottled since his dip in the molten metal. "The steel coat isn't a bad look, either. Does it look steampunk, do you think? Steampunk's in right now."

The companion didn't answer. It wasn't much of a talker, being a snow leopard frozen in a solid block of ice.

"Yeah, you're right. I never cared much for punk anyway. And steam! Don't get me started, Jacob. You like Jacob? I think it fits. Rolls off the tongue well."

The wind screamed outside, and Jokul Frosti sighed with contentment as he settled into his icy throne.

"At the risk of playing to type, Jacob, it's good to be the king."

Which was precisely the moment the high back of the icy throne shattered, raining fragments down on Old Man Winter's head. A now-familiar boomerang finished its course arcing through the fortress, and Bunnymund caught it in the jagged window where he stood waiting.

"You again?" Old Man Winter brushed ice from his lap, looking angry at first, but his anger quickly turned to a sly grin as Bunny jumped down from the windowsill. "Come to avenge your little frost friend? Or are you here to beg for a cure? Oh tell me it's the begging one. I can't wait to tell youthere is no cure and laugh about it. Where's the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman? And the creepy spider guy? Lagging behind in the storm, huh?"

"I'm not here for Frost," said Bunny, standing steady on the ice of the palace floor as Old Man Winter walked slowly down the glittering steps to his icy throne. "He's long past anyone's help. It's just you and me, Old Man. I'm here on personal business."

"Oh, now this is an unexpected twist. The prancey dancey rabbit has come to me on a personal matter? What's the deal, rabbit - are you defecting? Come to plead your way to the winning side?"

Bunny let out a scoff that was much too amused for Old Man Winter's liking.

"You still don't get it?" he asked. "All this time and you haven't figured out who I am. What a surprise - I'd assumed the great Old Man Winter could tell Christmas from Bourke Street."

"Sleeping in the ice doesn't really give you much time to keep up with the social circuit," Old Man Winter said, waving a jagged-nailed hand, narrowing his eyes at the slangy insult he'd just barely understood. "But hey, if we're doing introductions, why not let me go first?"

He delivered an exaggerated bow as he reached the bottom step below his throne. "Jokul Frosti. The King of the Cold Mountain. Which will very soon be the Cold World - oh - I'd say about two minutes from now, when this conversation ends and I wipe the ice with your pelt. But I'm being rude, spelling out your death when I don't even know your name, Mr. -?"

"Bunnymund," he said, his tone flat. Old Man Winter snickered, but he went on. "I'm called Bunnymund."

"Dignified, real dignified, Bunnymund," Old Man Winter said, his voice mocking. "You think I haven't figured out what you are? You're what came about after the boy put me to sleep, when enough kids hadn't had the hope beaten out of them to stop believing in Easter. I'll admit, for a dance-fighting rabbit, you're not a total snooze, but you really should check yourself before I wreck yourself - which is going to happen, whether you check yourself or not."

Jokul Frosti walked languidly in a half-circle that Bunny mirrored, his every move as casual as the rabbit's was not. "You think you're so much more impressive than you are, but really, you're just a stopgap. A void filled! You think just because in that quiet after the storm when the other winter spirit let spring come back, you can take me down. Well I've got to point something out to you -" He spread his arms, grinning widely, the steel and ice cracking on his frame. "I'm Old Man Winter. I am the cold death, given form. Just who do you think you are, that you stand a spark's chance in a blizzard against me?"

Old Man Winter's smile dropped as Bunny's dark chuckle echoed through the cavern.

"That's the best you've come up with?" he said, his own sardonic grin giving way to a hard-set glare. "Slight problem with your reasoning - Jack is only a little over 300 years old. You went to sleep - how long ago? A lot more than three hundred - anyone can tell you that. Jack wasn't alive then. So tell me again, who put you to sleep?"

Old Man Winter looked abjectly confused, then narrowed his eyes. "Okay, what, I don't even know where you're going with this anymore."

"You tried to destroy spring," Bunny went on, spelling it out for him. "You attacked the place where Spring was born, destroyed all the plants, all the creatures -" his voice broke with disbelief. "Did you even know who lived there?"

Old Man Winter rolled his eyes. "What is this, a pop quiz? News flash, I destroyed it, it's gone, who ca -"

"WHO?" Bunny shouted. "LIVED THERE?"

"Ugh, jeeze!" Old Man Winter threw his hands up in the air. "Some birds, bugs, a bunch of dumb little rabbit fairies, but I killed -"

His voice dropped off, and his eyes widened.

"- them all," he finished.

The six-foot rabbit in front of him drew himself up with anger and pride. "You missed one."

It was like watching a house of cards fall, if the cards were made of ice that splintered into knives. For a second Old Man Winter stared, frozen - then his face split into a grimace of outrage. The ice of the fortress groaned around them as if it were suddenly too heavy for the mountain that held it.

He shouted with a mix of anger and indignation, That's stupid! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! For one little pooka to take me out, he'd have to -"

"Have millions believing in him, alone?" Bunny pointed at Old Man Winter with one boomerang. "You saw to that!"

"You're lying!" Old Man Winter's scream cracked with fury. "No one believed in spring anymore! There was no hope left. Not with the winter I made! Only a trickster could have stolen enough of my power -"

"Oh, tell me it stings, Old Man," Bunny growled, with a vindictive hiss. "You were powerful - you were feared - but all it took to undo the fear wasone tiny spark of hope. And now you've spent all this time chasing after a kid who never even knew you existed, while the one who took you out all those years ago has been preparing to put you away for good. Tell me that hurts you, because I've had a long time to want to see you hurting."

"The boy stole my name!" Old Man Winter clung to his story, as the fortress groaned as if in agony. "He let you bring spring back!"

"Nobody let me do anything!" Bunny shouted. "I did it, myself! Every body buried, every seed planted, every shred of hope delivered – I did it all, and it was more than your cold, more than your darkness. I put you to sleep, Old Man. Me. Alone, with as little hope as you could leave in the world – but there will never be too little hope to put you back in the ice where you belong."

"You think that was the worst of winter?" Old Man Winter raised his hands, the sweeping gesture pulling dry, whipping winds around him. "You're nothing but an unfinished job!"

He lifted his hands, ice sculptures erupting from the floor around him, snow pouring in through the windows and coalescing into snowmen bearing needle-sharp teeth.

Bunny crouched in his stance, tapping the ground. Holes dropped out of the ice around him. Sentinel eggs erupted from the tunnels, their faces grinding to frowns.

"This ends now," Old Man Winter growled, the wind carrying his soft voice through the mountains. "No one will believe in spring anymore."

"Keep telling yourself that," Bunnymund shouted over the wind. "Do you know who I am yet, Old Man? I'm the Easter Bunny. People - believe - in me!"

Old Man Winter's howl of rage shook the mountain as spring and winter went to war.

---

It was getting awfully cold in the auditorium. The school's creaky older heaters were having trouble keeping the classrooms warm, so the children had been gathered up in the auditorium, which somehow was always warmer than it should have been, in the hopes that the lack of windows would help keep the heat from getting sapped away by the storm raging outside.

Most of the kids had their coats, hats, and gloves with them, and the teachers were no longer talking about getting the kids home. Now they were discussing the logistics of "Where are we going to have them sleep?" and "How are we going to keep them warm?" in voices that weren't quite quiet enough.

Pippa sat at one of the chairs at the front of the auditorium near the stage and stared at the blue curtains hanging down. The blue reminded her of something she was trying not to think about right now, so she turned to her friends. Claude and Caleb were seated next to each other, forgoing their usual rough-housing to huddle together for warmth. Monty was bundled in his massive coat and wrapped in a scarf, huddled down in the neck of it like he was a very timid turtle and the downy garment was his shell. Cupcake was the only one who didn't seem bothered by the cold. Whether this was because she actually wasn't bothered, thanks to her very-warm-looking unicorn beanie and pink coat, or because she tended to act more on the tough side, Pippa couldn't tell, but one thing she was sure of was that she was jealous of Cupcake's nonchalance.

Pippa was cold and more than that, she was scared, and she didn't quite know how to handle that.

As for Jamie...

Wait a second, where was Jamie?

"Guys, how long ago was it that Jamie went to the bathroom?" she asked, reaching in her purse and fumbling with gloved hands for her cellphone to check the time.

"Uuuuh," said Claude, checking his watch. "A while ago."

He looked around, and went on, "I just figured he came back but was wandering around talking to the teachers or some random people. You know how he gets. He's probably trying to get permission to build a giant blanket fort or something."

Now Caleb started looking around, as well. "I don't see him."

"Maybe he's having trouble making a bowel movement," Monty put in helpfully.

"Maybe he drowned in the toilet," Caleb added, picking up on that line of thinking and making it more ridiculous.

"Maybe," said Claude, with a dramatic flair of his hands, "he got eaten by a giant poop monster."

"I'm being serious," protested Pippa. "If he did something stupid like try to go outside for some reason..."

Cupcake looked thoughtful. "Bet it'd be a good reason. Or at least an interesting one."

Pippa almost didn't take up that line of thought, but she felt compelled to ask, "Interesting, how?"

Cupcake shrugged, but she looked them all in the eye as if pre-daring them to laugh. "Interesting like how...Jamie's pulled us into interesting things before."

She crossed her arms, reinforcing the dare.

All of them immediately looked everywhere but each other's eyes. This was a non-subject right now. It was weird enough, all of them remembering the night they'd woken up to snow falling in their rooms. For a long time, it'd been a magical thing, a special secret they all shared. The times they'd played in the snow after that, snowballs had hit them from seemingly nowhere, and they'd caught glimpses of a boy in a blue hoodie, always grinning. Those had been magical, too.

Knowing those things, like Santa and elves and The Tooth Fairy maybe were real, if that hadn't been a dream - were definitely real, if they listened to Jamie - had been amazing...

At least they'd been amazing until the storm had hit. People were struggling out there. Some were even dying, because the snow and ice and wind just wouldn't stop. That made that grinning face and the snow in their rooms more scary than magical, more unnerving than happy.

It was too much for them to contend with, sorting out the truth from the lies and the one time they'd talked about it, none of them had been in agreement on what it all meant.

Cupcake uncrossed her arms as none of them spoke.

"Maybe something interesting is happening, and Jamie's caught up in it right now. Maybe we should even go looking for him," she insisted, glancing at the auditorium door, which was guarded by at least two teachers. No telling how they'd actually get past them, and she frowned at the logistics.

"Or we should just stay here," Pippa said timidly.

"And do what?" Cupcake challenged. "Shiver?" She looked from worried face to face. "Guys. Something amazing happened last year at this time, and now that the world's going nuts again, nobody's talking about it. Why won't you talk about it?"

She seemed bewildered. Genuinely, brashly, bravely bewildered. Why wouldn't their minds jump to the dream they'd all shared of defeating the Boogeyman with figures from stories they'd heard about all their lives, who had turned out to be so much more than the stories had ever said?

She was the only one who hadn't considered the downside to accepting that you shared your world with magical heroes - having to also accept that those heroes existed to protect them from things that made noises in the night. That tried to freeze the world.

It was one thing to be impressed that Santa dual-wielded sabers. It was another to consider that he had to because of what was out there.

All of them shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

"Cupcake, if all that's real, if it wasn't a dream..." Pippa started, but she stopped when she saw the stage curtains move slightly.

Then she heard a quiet, "psst!"

Then a louder, "Psst! Guys!"

They all looked over and saw Jamie briefly peek his head out through the side of the curtains. His eyes were wide and imploring. His head disappeared as quickly as it had peeped out and his hand reached out in its place, beckoning them over.

Cupcake immediately started walking over, and when the others didn't follow her, she glared at them. "What are you waiting for?"

They snuck their way over to the the stairs that led up to the stage, watching for teachers as they crawled up them with their heads down so they weren't seen. One by one, they slipped behind the stage curtain to meet Jamie backstage.

He looked as if he'd been outside, his hair wind-tossed and his cheeks still pink from the cold. For some reason, his boot was off and in his hand and his one sock looked wet.

The other children's expressions ranged between bewildered and afraid, but Cupcake's face lit up.

"You were outside," she said, triumphant. "Why?"

"And why's your boot off?" Caleb asked, eyeing Jamie's wet, frozen feet.

"I threw it at the Bogeyman," Jamie said, as if that happened every day. But that was how it had always been - Jamie talking matter-of-factly about strange and stranger things, barreling on as the kids (minus Cupcake) looked at him with disbelief. "But that's not important right now. Jack needs our help."

They all squirmed uncomfortably.

"Jamie, about that..." Pippa started slowly.

"We're kind of, well..." said Caleb.

"What's going on right now is kind of weird," finished Claude, in a voice that said he didn't like weird just now.

"I think our pretend thing has gone a little out of control," said Pippa, sounding unsure. "So we had some weird dreams, that doesn't mean all of that was real."

"And what if it does," Cupcake cut in. "What if it was real and Jack needs our help to end this crazy weather?"

She paused, and looked at Jamie.

"That is what he needs, right?"

Jamie nodded emphatically. "This crazy guy named Old Man Winter caused all the storms, and he's been tricking people into thinking it's Jack. Now that they're afraid of him, it's giving Old Man Winter too much power, and taking away too much of Jack's."

At that news, Claude and Caleb looked somewhat heartened, but still a little nervous.

"Jamie, say he is real, what if he's just - what if he's just telling you that?" asked Pippa.

"What are you saying?" Jamie asked.

"She's saying that when you think about it all, it's kind of scary," Claude finished for her. "I mean, I'd almost rather not believe at all than believe Jack's real if he might be ..."

"Might be killing people," Caleb said, spitting the thought out.

"What I want to know is how exactly you made the jump from snowball fights to snowing in hospitals," came a voice from the rafters of the stage. It didn't sound angry or upset, more disappointed and sad.

With that, Jack hopped down to land gracefully on the stage floor in front of them. All of them, barring Cupcake, backed away slightly, a gesture that only made the sadness in Jack's eyes more distinct.

Cupcake looked at them with a triumphant smirk. "Can we just assume it all happened now?"

Jack folded himself down into an unthreatening crouch, staff leaning over his shoulder.

"I know that he made this look like I did it. I know it's scary to think that someone you trusted could be doing something bad," he said, "but I really need you to believe me - to - to believe in me. To stop this, I need your help."

They all stood there, their expressions still unsure.

"Guys, please," Jamie said, looking at them all, entreating. "Old Man Winter is trying to freeze the world. The Guardians are fighting him, but without Jack, they might not win. And Jack can't fight him without our help - unless we believe in him."

"I believe," said Cupcake, stomping over to Jamie's side. "What is wrong with you guys? You're all scared? Well what do you think - if you just sit here not believing, that there just won't be anything to be afraid of? That snow out there says otherwise."

Pippa had to admit that sticking their heads in the sand wouldn't fix things, but fear had taken root and it was hard to rip it away.

Still seeing hesitance on their faces, Jack said, "Let me show you something."

He made his way to the stage door to the hallway, hopping along the tops of scenery and stage props, he made his way to the stage door. They all followed, Jamie finally putting on his boot as he hopped along on foot.

In the hallway, the wind shrieked against the windows as if the cold was a living creature trying to claw its way in. Snow piled up, threatening to bury the whole school.

"See that? I'm in here." Jack leaned his staff against the wall and held up his hands, wiggling his fingers. They all knew he needed it to use his powers by now.

The storm raged on outside despite it.

"I'm in here and the storms are still going on out there."

"Don't you guys see?" Jamie said. "It's all up to us." He looked at Pippa, Caleb, Claude, and Monty, who were glancing at Jack's staff and to the winter storms still raging outside. "If we don't believe in Jack...there won't be anything left to believe in."

Even Cupcake was silent for a moment as Jamie's words sunk in.

Finally, Pippa looked from the window to Jack. "But what can we do?"

Jack smiled a gentle smile. "Trust me, it'll be a lot easier this time than last time. I just need you to do two things." He picked up his staff again and pointed at them with it. "One, I need you to hit your school library. And two, I need you to talk to a few people for me..."

---

It took some planning and coordination on their parts, but they were used to getting into trouble. Even before they'd met Jack that fateful night after Easter, Jamie had always led them around on what could only be termed "shenanigans," like that time he convinced them to try to catch gremlins that he thought were living in the vents of the school.

Sneaking into the library was easy enough and before long, they were sneaking back in through the backstage door with arms full of children's books.

"Jamie, I've gotta go. I'm leaving the rest to you guys."

Jamie dropped the books immediately and launched himself at Jack, wrapping his arms around his waist.

"Come back soon," Jamie said. It was something any kid would say on seeing their best friend go, but this time, there was so much more weight to it. "As soon as you can."

Jack gave him his most reassuring smile. "Hey, of course. We're still on for tandoori in India. And sushi in Japan."

He gave Jamie one last squeeze and let go, turning to Jamie's friends.

"Thanks, guys. I promise I won't let you down."

With that, he flew off, out through the stage door again.

"Okay, let's move," said Jamie, after one last wistful look at the door, quickly taking command. "Operation: Antifreeze is go."

---

They moved quickly, spreading the word in whispers. After Jamie and his friends had told the school about their exploits fighting Pitch, naturally their classmates had been among Jack's first believers. Now they just had to rekindle the fire that the cold had put out.

"- Jack Frost needs help -."

" - We have to help Jack -"

" - the snow's not his fault, there's a bad guy causing it -"

"- Old Man Winter made us think Jack was -"

The books they passed around helped even more, the ones some of the older students read to the younger students.

"Now Jack climbed up and up and up, till he began to be quite tired, and at last he got up so high that he could look down into his mother's chimney..."

"- Jack be nimble, Jack be quick -"

"But how can he be the same one in all the stories?"

"The same way Santa can visit everyone's house in one night," was Jamie's answer, as he read his book to a group of kindergartners. That seemed to appease the girl's sense of curiosity.

Before long, phones were out and texts were being sent, kids were calling other kids, and after Monty faked an asthma attack to distract the teachers so they could sneak into the computer labs, kids were logging on to send messages across the world - to cousins and pen-pals, to family that lived across oceans. Kids cowering in parts of the world that were trapped in the cold of night woke up to buzzing phones telling them to spread the word.

"I'm totally posting this on my tumblr for a signal boost," said a fifth grader who'd snuck into the computer lab.

"Your parents let you post on tumblr? Don't you have to be thirteen for that?"

"They never pay attention to what I do on the computer."

The word was out and the message was clear: Jack was innocent and they had to believe. Most importantly of all, he and Santa and the others needed their help.

---

"Switch off!"

The nurse quickly handed over the bag valve mask to her coworker, shaking out her cramped hand as she did it.

"Linda, go ask the unit secretary if there's word on when we can get that generator going again!" a doctor called out to her.

She quickly ran out to the desk, where the secretary was just running back.

"They're still in the Boiler Room trying to fix it. They still don't know why it's not working."

It was every hospital's worst nightmare. The ice on the power lines had cut the electricity, and for reasons unknown, the backup generator hadn't kicked in. Normally, in a situation like this, the hospital staff would evacuate, but with four feet of snow on the roads and winds gusting at gale speeds, the chance of getting ambulances or a helicopter in to the hospital's landing pad were slim to none.

The result was chaos. There were no plans for this in the hospital's policies. In any dangerous situation, the goal was always to provide care until normal power was back on and to evacuate the patients and staff to surrounding hospitals if that didn't seem like a possibility.

Evacuation wasn't a possibility now. Linda Bennett bit her lip as she surveyed the chaotic ICU floor. Most of the staff were scrambling to keep their patients alive, resorting to mechanical hand pumps for respiration and hoping the battery power on the IV pumps held out. A harried pharmacy technician, her glasses askew, nearly ran into Linda, her arms full of IVs as she bustled through the busy hallway, handing them off to the outstretched hands of nurses and medical techs.

"Norepi-drip for Weismuller. Sodium bicarb for Macy. I have a K-Rider and a K-phos for Kove - where are they?"

"Expired," said a nurse. It was the professional term, the clinical one, the one written on the charts. It was also what they needed to say right now.

"Balls." The tech's face fell in temporary sadness, but she moved on, "Epinephrine for Murphy."

"Headed for the OR."

"The hell can they do in the OR?" asked another nurse.

"Anything they can," said Linda wearily.

"Right," said the tech and she was off like a shot, trotting along like she was holding herself back from a sprint.

Nurses suddenly surged past Linda. "Code Blue in five! Code Blue in five!"

Linda booked it for the nearest crash cart, wheeling it along to the room, breaking the locks and pulling out the trays of emergency medication as one of the doctors ran in and took over.

The patient in room five was a thirty-year-old mother of two, one who had been perfectly healthy before she'd come down with a case of bronchitis that had turned into pneumonia. Her prognosis hadn't been the best, but the antibiotics had seemed to finally start taking, and they thought they might get to see her sent home to her kids. That was the only thing she'd asked about, her entire time in the ICU, scrawling questions on a dry-erase board that had to be answered over and over because she was so out of it.

It hit close to home. Linda knew Jamie and Sophie were at school and daycare respectively, but every instinct she had almost had her running out there in the snow to get to them, as crazy as that was. All her patient wanted to do was go home and see her kids, too...

"Get that mag bolus going!"

Linda moved quickly, years of practice guiding her movements. At this point, though, to save this patient - and so many others - it would take a miracle -

The lights suddenly all turned back on. Monitors beeped, and ventilators started rattling away. The lights flickered once, briefly, but then the power stayed on. Cheers erupted through the ICU floor and echoed down the hallways from other areas of the hospital.

Down in the basement, bewildered hospital maintenance workers stood outside the door of the boiler room, trying to get in through the mysteriously locked door. As the power flickered on, in spite of the fact that none of them were in the room working on it, they looked at the lights in pure befuddled awe.

"The hell..." one of them muttered. He noticed a strange sound coming through the door, and pressed his ear against it. He listened to the strange whirring and squeaking sounds coming from inside in bewilderment.

If he'd been able to open the door, he would have seen their source. Complicated devices, with wires running from them to the main power sources of the hospital, had been set up, in an arrangement not at all traditional to human engineering.

This was because none of the engineers at work in the boiler room just then were human.

"Rowa rawuga," barked one of the yetis.

"Murga burga wrga blegha."

The yetis tweaked their work as the elves ran frantically on their hamster wheels, their tiny faces screwed up in the utmost determination, generating the power needed to keep the hospital alive.

Lives were on the line and that meant, just like they did every winter, they had to do their best to turn on the lights and banish the dark.

---

Snow hadn't fallen along the equator yet, but the temperature was inching towards cold enough for it, and the falling rain was flooding many out of home - and help. People the world over unprepared for a freeze huddled in their homes. Those who had fuel to burn did, crouched around the embers, and those who had blankets huddled under them, though the blankets they had weren't thick enough to keep out the wild wind blowing cold air and cold rain into their homes.

When more blankets fell on their roofs as if blown there by the wind, still covered in their plastic wrappings and the logos of various aid organizations, most were too cold to question it in the moment.

Very few children heard the fluttering of millions of tiny wings, and fewer still caught a sight of jewel-bright flashes zipping in and out of view when the blankets fell through windows and onto doorsteps, but something about the unseasonal hummingbirds warmed their spirits even as the blankets warmed their bodies.

In Brooklyn, two boys pressed their faces to a window, staring across an expanse of snowed-over skyscrapers as ominous groans from the iced-over Brooklyn Bridge rattled their windows.

A suspender cable snapped, rattling the ice, and the boys sucked in a simultaneous breath as the cable lashed out. A dark shape suddenly fell onto the bridge and scuttled from cable to cable. The eight-legged figure threw out a line of web and swung from the end of the lashing cable, swinging it back into place, where it stuck firmly. A moment of scuttling later, the whole iced bridge was covered with a cloud of filmy web, and the boys craned their necks to look as the giant spider-shape scuttled into the buildings below, in their direction, but out of sight.

They stood with breaths held as they stared at the direction the shape had gone - then jumped away from the windows with a screech of instinctive terror as a huge, hairy spider leg crossed their window.

The man attached to the spider legs paused at their window, beamed his gleaming grin at them, and winked over the edge of his sunglasses before scuttling on his way back up the tall building.

The boys hyperventilated in silence a moment. Then one turned to the other.

"I told you Spider-man could be black!"

The other boy shook his head. "That wasn't Spider-man! Spider-man doesn't have spider legs!"

"Maybe he mutated! You don't know!"

The argument continued, distracting the children from the cold.

Elsewhere in the world sand gusted along as if carried on a high wind from a desert, sweeping heavy snow from roofs that weren't built to support it, and blasting the ice and snow from blocked roads that lead to important places - fire stations, hospitals, shelters - with miraculous convenience. Refugees against the floods by the equator huddled on high sandy hills as the cold floods flowed by.

But in the far north, people still huddled in their homes. From Alaska to Scandinavia, people who would normally have been active, experienced in braving snowstorms for necessary food and fuel, huddled in disbelieving fear as things barely visible, barely believable in the whiteout prowled outside. Just a glimpse of icicle fangs and black holes for eyes kept the bravest homebound, and parents who had told their children cautionary stories about things mundane, the wolves and bears that got too bold when food was too scarce and crept into human homes to take human children, who had also told scary stories about the adlet, tuurngaq, grýla - suddenly found themselves denying these things, to console their children, but with dark pits in their stomachs as they began to doubt that their own stories had not come from a grain of horrible, vicious truth.

It was worse for those who waited for family members to come back in from the snow.

It was worst when the parents could no longer deny that things were trying to break in - when the noises outside couldn't be blamed on the wind, or snow settling, when burning red eyes peered through windows, and icicle claws scraped at the doors.

Many had myths and names for the man in the red coat who appeared in flashes, turning the growls into brief yelps of pain, then silence - they just didn't know to apply those names, in the moment. Except for the few who caught a glimpse of him traveling by chimney to homes already broken into, somehow still a jolly sight despite the frost-mired, battle-worn sabers in his hands.

And then there were the usual signs that spring would not sleep forever. The crocuses peeping up through the snow. The icicles dripping by the windowsills.

The Guardians held the world together as hope built from a tiny spark to real signs, astonishing people as spring broke through the cold.

---

But no amount of hope could change the fact that last year, Easter hadn't happened. And all the hope presently stretching from one corner of the Earth to the other still hadn't made it look any more like this year, Easter would happen.

Bunnymund and Old Man Winter fought on, surrounded by shattered ice and broken stone, the battle long since wound down to only them. Old Man Winter no longer fought like a madman. His howls of rage had quieted, replaced by a determined grin. It stuck, despite the black-blooded battle wounds oozing through his frozen clothes - because there was only almost as much of his blood on the ice as there was Bunny's.

"I have to tell you," said Old Man Winter, deflecting a boomerang with his spear, "honestly, nemesis-to-nemesis - for a minute there, you had me rattled. Well played, Bunnymund." He snickered again, as if Bunny's title were a particularly funny punchline.

Bunny flipped over the old man's head, out of reach of the spear, retrieving and flinging the boomerang in a smooth motion. Old Man Winter's spear throw fell short as he dodged, scraping a nick on Bunny's shoulder instead of running through his heart.

"Oh, the silent treatment, huh?" Jokul Frosti taunted, as blood from the cut poured into Bunny's fur. "Is that any way to treat your elder? Not that you'd know much about treating your elders, since all yours have been dead for so long -"

Bunny launched his other boomerang with a yell, so that it spun around behind Old Man Winter aimed for the back of his head. Bunny charged him, delivering a kick that missed, but catching his boomerang as it missed, too. It put him in the position to deflect Jokul Frosti's spear, shattering it with the boomerang and deflecting the jagged remains of the handle, while thrusting his other paw forward to break the stump of the old man's nose.

But Old Man Winter laughed as he stumbled back, the ice spear reforming in his hands, disturbing, gleeful laughter. "Really, my boy, I think you could benefit from some advice."

"Is the advice 'give it up and go to sleep now?'" asked Bunny. "Because I was about to say the same to you."

"Look, here's what I'm getting at. For a minute there, you got me all caught up in your hopey changey bullpucky but I've got one very important question for you - if you defeated me with your precious powerful hope then what am I still doing here, all awake and undefeated?"

"Like you said," Bunny growled, swiping blood from his nose. "It's time to finish the job. You'll never sleep again."

"No," agreed Jokul, in a soft voice. "No I won't."

They met in another clash of wood on ice.

"I mean, the fact of the matter is -" Old Man Winter thrust with his spear, pushing Bunny backwards as he dodged every blow. "Putting someone to sleep is not the same as defeating them. You never won. You just delayed losing. Look at you. You're losing now."

Bunny shifted forward suddenly under one of the spear-thrusts and pushed the old man's balance out from underneath him, pulling the spear from his grip and tossing it away.

"So are you."

Old Man Winter rolled out of range as Bunny brought a boomerang down hard in the ice where his head had been. "Not as fast as you." The old man's smile was as cold as the jagged mountains around his fortress as an ice shelf lifted him to his feet. He stood, panting, but battle ready, without a spear in hand. "And you know why now, don't you? Because you got lucky last time. Lucky I didn't finish the job. So there was enough hope left to delay me. So what? Delaying is all hope can do. But all the hope in the world can't stop death."

Bunny lifted his boomerang to throw it, but paused. His flanks heaved with his breathing, and his arm dropped, exhausted from the fight.

"You know it," said Old Man Winter, his breath short - but coming back quickly. "You know who else knows it? Everyone does. Everyone - except children." He spat a clod of black blood, and laughed, high like the wind whistling through icicles. "Those little sods are so good at hanging on. But they all learn, eventually -" the old man looked distant, for a moment, before his attention snapped back to Bunny. "Face it, rabbit. No matter how much hope you bring the little ones, eventually the real world beats it out of them. Eventually they realize that nothing endures like despair – that the only thing certain in this world is death." He paused, added, "and taxes. Both of all learn. Every child they die before growing up. And in that final moment - Bunnymund, I'll tell you, whether or not they ever believed in you - they all believe in me."

He yanked his hand back with a sudden jerk. Bunny's eyes widened as he jumped aside, in time to avoid being speared through with the ice shard building behind him, but not quick enough to avoid it opening a gash in his thigh.

Bunny yelled in pain as more blood matted his fur, freezing on the fortress floor. He pressed his paw to the wound to stifle it as Old Man Winter walked forward, swinging his arms, pulling a spear out of the air and inspecting the tip as if at his leisure.

He raised his spear as if to strike, and when Bunny flinched, said, "No." His grin was eager. "Get up, rabbit. I could do this all day."a

Bunny did get up.

Old Man Winter dodged the boomerang that he threw, once, then twice as it whirled around again, moving now in rhythm with his enemy's weapon.

"I almost find it a shame to kill you," Old Man Winter said, his grim amusement gone as he fell into something like musing. "I can't imagine how it wouldn't be a relief not to have to live your stupid life."

"You don't know anything," Bunny growled, but his breath was coming too fast - and his blows were coming too slow.

"No? I don't know how pathetic it is, to do what you do, and live as you are? Bunnymund, I'm no poet, but there's poetry in your pathetic life." Old Man Winter grinned. "You make your whole existence revolve around them, around one little day of pleasant frivolity, but the children always disregard you in the end. They grow up and realize that no amount of Easters will ever defeat death, and they call you a cute little lie and pass you onto someone smaller and stupider, someone who won't stay stupid for too much longer."

With a sudden sweep of his spear, he caught Bunny on the side of the head, the crack of the blow resounding off the ice walls.

Bunny fell to the ice with a thud, pushing himself slowly, unsteadily up, bleeding from his left ear. He looked up at the point of an ice spear, aimed squarely at his throat.

Past the glittering spearhead, Old Man Winter's grey eyes flashed with malice - and triumph.

"I am the cold death," he said, softly. "I can sleep for a thousand years, spend eternity wiping out every last shred of life on this planet, while you waste your whole miserable life living for them – but though all children lose their belief in you, no adult will ever lose their fear of me. Only when I snuff out every life on this planet, will I be as alone as you are."

Bunny said nothing - and in the silence, his expression said the words had pierced his heart, more effectively than any spear.

Old Man Winter's smile widened - just as Jack slipped through the window on a breeze behind him.

"Where's your spark of hope now, rabbit?"

Bunny caught Jack's eye, and his desperation gave way to a sudden grin.

"Right behind you."

Old Man Winter looked over his shoulder for a split second - just long enough for a snowball to hit him in the face.

Bunny jetted to Jack's side as Old Man Winter spluttered, pawing at the snow on his face with pure indignation. "WHO DARES THROW SNOWBALLS AT -" as Old Man Winter caught sight of Jack (and Bunny, crouched by his side), his face twisted into outright disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"

Bunny crouched beside Jack, putting pressure on his leg wound as it healed. "Thanks for coming," he said softly.

Jack just grinned back at the rabbit. "Of course I showed up. This is where the fun is."

Old Man Winter's face twisted at the sight of Jack, not just alive, but unfrosted. "Don't tell me." he glared at Bunny. "A diversion? What gives, rabbit, not ready to die for vengeance after all? And here I thought we had the makings of a real special nemesis-" Old Man Winter paused. "Nemesi-sisitude. Is that a word?"

"Funny thing about vengeance," Bunny said, casually (and literally) licking his wounds. "It doesn't go well with hope. Besides, I'm not the only Guardian who's got a bone to pick with you."

"Yeah," agreed Jack. "We're team players here. Good teammates don't hog all the fun."

"So what's your game," Old Man Winter snarled, "Another fight to the death? Because your furry friend there already tried it."

"Fight to the death?" Jack snorted, walking forward, swinging his staff like someone out for a pleasant walk. "That's not really the point of winter, is it? I mean, this whole competition - spring versus winter, the new winter spirit versus the very, very old and pruny one - here you are, bashing your way through all this stuff with brute force but you're missing the point we should be focusing on."

"Aaaugh!" Old Man Winter threw his shriveled hands up in the air. "Enough with the riddles! You guys and your sense of misdirection! Just hurry up and decide who I'm killing today so we can get on with it!"

"Killing either of us won't prove that your winter is the strongest winter. You might be stronger than all the Guardians put together, but strength isn't the only force behind winter - winter also endures. It drags on through the months and clings on when it shouldn't. In the summers, icebergs still float out there in the ocean, taking forever to melt; the seas are still cold, and there are those cold snaps that ruin Easter egg hunts. I'm not even going to argue that winter should be fun or that winter should give way to spring. But when it comes to endurance, I leave you in the dust, and I bet you're not even clever enough to prove me wrong."

The lilting tone in Jack's voice, part mocking, part gently cajoling was extremely familiar to Bunny. He'd heard Anansi use that same tone when fooling a stronger enemy (or potential mark) time and time again. It seemed Jack had picked up more than Bunny had noticed from their previous mission in Africa.

Old Man Winter's frown grew progressively more indignant as Jack's tactic worked. "Is that a challenge, boy?" he waved his hands. "The new kid really thinks he's got the chops to outlast the guy who was around for centuries before? You want to talk endurance, kid? I am ancient."

"And I beat Pitch with a snowball to the face and a handful of believers," said Jack. It was technically true, since Jack's little bout of snowy fun had helped keep Jamie from giving into fear. "You hit me with the Snow Queen's shards and they didn't take, obviously. I went three hundred years without believers, without losing a spark of power. Meanwhile you needed to get tucked in for a nappy-wappy when everyone got comfortable thinking spring was right around the corner. I don't wimp out - that's all you. You might be stronger, but I'm the winter that endures - and to prove it, I'm willing to make a little wager here and sweeten the pot with something you want."

Jack cocked his head, before Jokul could protest, and added, "With the Enkidu oath backing it up." He held out his arms, as if surrendering himself. "If you win this, you get my heart. It's the only way you'll get it now."

Old Man Winter growled, the blood in his wounds literally bubbling at Jack's accusations. "You're on, Frost! Make it official and we'll see who needs a nap after this! You, me, and no more interference!"

He shot a glare at Bunny, who laughed. "Ah look, mate, he knows he couldn't take us together. You feel sorry for the blowhard yet?"

Jack tilted his head. "Maybe a little."

Bunny scoffed. "That makes one of us."

Old Man Winter narrowed his icy glare at Bunny. "Don't get smug too fast. After I demolish the Frost kid, I'm finishing what I started a thousand years ago. You're living on borrowed time."

"You beat him, and you won't have even a second to gloat about it," Bunny growled, reaching for his boomerang.

"Can we put a lid on the raging nemessisitude for about five minutes?" Jack cut in. "Before you two get started again, we have that whole 'Who's the King of Winter?' deal to figure out."

"Wow, you're really eager to bite it, aren't you kid?" Old Man Winter sneered. "Fine. A competition. If it's not a fight, what exactly did you have in mind?"

"Winter is about overcoming the world, right?" said Jack. "That means it involves overcoming the water, overcoming the earth, and overcoming fire itself. These are the conditions of the oath: Three challenges, best two out of three. If I win, you can never hurt anyone again - you can't even try to - except in self-defense, I guess. You win, you get my heart."

"And if we tie?" said the Old Man.

Jack grinned. "You're that worried about losing?"

"It's three challenges or nothing, kid. If we tie, tie goes to me. I'm not dragging this nonsense out to best twelve out of twenty-three."

"Fine." Jack raised his hands. "Tie goes to you."

He caught Bunny looking at him, an edge of worry around his features.

"Jack," he said, softly. "You sure?"

There was a part of Jack that wasn't sure. But he shrugged.

"I don't want to drag this out either," he said.

Bunny didn't say anything else. He just stood up, grooming the last of the blood from the fur around his ear, looking at Jack with the same thoughtful - and concerned - expression.

"Excellent." Old Man Winter bared his broken teeth in a ragged grin. "I agree to the terms. Challenged picks the challenges. Son, are you familiar with 'Hell's Gate?'"

---

Old Man Winter's first challenge lead them to New Zealand, where a steaming hot spring boiled - literally - out of the ground. Old Man Winter grinned at Jack. "The first challenge - triumph over water. Think you're cold enough to freeze Hell's Gate, kid?"

"It was called Tikitere first," Bunny cut in, having followed them to the site of the challenge.

Old Man Winter turned his glare on Bunny. "No one asked you."

Bunny glanced at Jack with a strange expression. Jack recognized it as a warning glance.

What was he warning him about? It was a just a little hot spring, right? Shouldn't be a problem at all.

Except, it could be a problem, couldn't it? Jack had slowly been learning to think about the consequences of his actions, and he thought of them now.

There had to be life here that could only grow in the heat and if it was cold for too long, that could kill it. Not to mention, blocking geothermal vents didn't really seem like the kind of thing that went without consequences to something or someone.

Yemaja had been right about the cycles of the world. Winter had to concede to spring, and it shouldn't go where it wasn't supposed to. That was the reason the world needed his winter instead of Jokul's, because he cared at all that there were consequences.

"No," Jack said. "Look, I'm up for this challenge, but we don't have to do it here."

Bunny nodded, an approving smile settling on his face as Old Man Winter's glare hardened. "Challenger doesn't pick the challenges, son. That's not how this works. I pick here, and I pick now. If you're not up for the challenge, I am."

He lifted his frostbitten hand, ice magic dancing in jolts at the tips of his fingers. The warm, steamy air around them cooled, the steam falling to the ground in the sudden chill.

"Of course, go ahead, freeze a hot spring on Aotearoa, of all places," Bunny snarked from the background again. "Rūaumoko's going to be thrilled. You really think you're in a position to make more enemies?"

"Rua-whoever can get in line for the same kind of beating I gave you," Old Man Winter spat. "You lost, rabbit - what are you even still doing here?"

"This is why you're going to lose. Even if you win this one, even if you get my heart in the end." It was reassuring, finally realizing that, finally having it hammer home. "This isn't the winter the world needs."

"Uh, that's the point?" Old Man Winter spat. "Anyway, you're wrong, kid. This is the winter the world needs - the winter the world needs to die! Haha! See what I did? See what I did there?"

He looked back and forth between Jack and Bunny's unamused faces, his laughter subsiding. "So say it, kid. You forfeit this match? Then say it."

Jack squeezed his eyes shut. He'd locked himself out of tying, and here he was, about to concede the first match.

This wasn't about him anymore, though. This had never been about him. This was about being a Guardian. It was about being what the world needed - even if it meant dying. He had to hope that if that happened, the choices he made here somehow nipped Jokul in the butt anyway.

Gripping his staff tightly, he said, "I forfeit."

Old Man Winter stared at him with quiet disapproval. "That's dumb."

He held out his hand and froze the spring solid.

Instantly, the ground rumbled with built-up pressure. Bunny jumped up, looking panicked.

"He forfeited the match, you gallah! There was no call for that!"

"We've got to unfreeze it," Jack said, as the solid ice refused to budge to the pressure of the flowing spring. "Something's going to get hurt. That wasn't part of the competition!"

"Newsflash kid," said Old Man Winter, with a dark chuckle - "Winter doesn't do the unfreezing."

Jack's eyes went wide, disgust filling his gut at Jokul saying the same words he'd said to Bunny.

"Okay! Next competition! Triumph over Earth. A race to the top of Annapurna I, no flying once you reach the base of the mountain, no gear! Ready and GO!"

A sharp, cold southern wind whipped Jokul Frosti into the air and on his way back to the Himalayas, laughing like a hyena.

Bunny was looking over the frozen spring, tapping the ground as if to sound it out. Jack hesitated, feeling the earth trembling beneath him and looking at the ice, still too cold to give.

"Go," said, Bunny. "I'll take care of this. You have to beat him."

"No," Jack said, tapping his staff on the ice at the edge. "This isn't just about me and it isn't just about this contest. If he gets my heart in the end, it'll be a heart that chokes him. I'm fixing this."

"You're a good kid, Jack," Bunny said, sounding half exasperated, half proud. "I wish I'd known how good sooner." Jack smiled at that, savoring the feeling of warmth in his heart that he'd been so sure he would die without feeling again. "But that's why you've got to go. The world needs you to win. You both said it - winter doesn't do the unfreezing. That's spring's job."

But Jack felt something else, a knowledge that might have been growing since he found himself freezing over - since he'd worked so hard to try and unfreeze himself.

"I think we were both wrong," he said, touching his staff to the edge of the ice.

He felt the edges of the ice, where it held, intensely cold, against the heat of the subterranean springs. The earth groaned beneath them as if it was in pain from the backing up of the spring. Bunny held his foot above the ground, eyes closed in concentration, and brought it down with a thud. The earth ceased to groan as the hot water funneled away from the blocked spring, but even so, the ice remained where it should not. Heat from the vents was beginning to melt it, but slowly.

"Iced-over roads, and people slipping, and holding back the plants from growing when they needed to..." Jack said slowly and as he said it, cracks started to stretch out over the ice from the place where his staff was touching it. "Everything I did for attention, it was all because I didn't realize there was something I was supposed to do. Something I was supposed to be."

He was a Guardian. Winter was meant to give way to spring. He'd always tried to make himself belong in places he didn't actually belong, but he couldn't afford to be that selfish anymore. The fact that he recognized that was one of the things that made him a Guardian.

Casting off the desire to be seen and noticed, no matter the cost, felt like fighting his way out of his own skin, leaving it behind so he had room to grow.

A single loud snap sounded through the air like a whipcrack and then the ice splintered and melted away. Around the springs, the ice and snow that had blasted over the plants melted away, too, so that the green could breathe again, no longer choked off by the white that didn't belong there.

"It looks better this way," said Jack, taking to the air with a smile.

Bunny smiled after him, and it was the same proud smile Jack had thought he would never see again.

He stamped the release holes to the spring shut again. "Get out of here, slowpoke. I'll be right in front of you."

Jack grinned. A race to Annapurna? "Is that a challenge, Cottontail?"

---

The Annapurna mountain range shouldered up against the green Pokhara Valley, peak after peak piercing the clouds to shine beneath a sky so blue it almost hurt to look at. Annapurna I, the tallest of the range, the mountain that had killed more climbers per attempt, threw a shadow upon itself. The south face of the mountain was barely more than a sheer cliff. Old Man Winter was already laboring up it when Jack landed at the base.

Bunny was already waiting as Jack landed. "He's got a hundred-meter lead on you, go go go!"

Jack tossed his staff to the rabbit. "Keep an eye on that for me, will you? No tools allowed."

Bunny caught the staff, stamping a tunnel open. "See you at the peak."

Jack looked up at the mountain rising up before him as Bunny dropped into the tunnel.

"Just like a beanstalk," Jack muttered to himself.

But he didn't need any extra juice from the kids for this. With a challenge like this, being young and spritely came in handy, and for a boy who cruised around Antarctica when he needed some time to himself, the cold of the mountain was home.

With every ridge he climbed over, every ledge he crept across, new sights rose up before him, transcendently beautiful. The race became less about beating the old man and more about getting quickly to each new icy landscape and resplendent view of the valleys below. After going so long without seeing anything beautiful, Jack was hungry for each new sight. If he was going to crash and burn at the end of this, then he was at least going to enjoy the ride.

As Jack raced up the mountain, light footsteps and little jumps and tiptoed balancing acts bringing him closer and closer to the top, his laughter echoed down into the empty valleys below. Missteps set off avalanches down below him, but he moved on, taking his usual joy from each narrow escape.

Immune to the cold, his endurance far beyond that of a mortal human, with no need to eat or drink or sleep, a climb that took many climbers days upon days took Jack just a few hours.

He'd lost track of Old Man Winter in the climb, so when the summit loomed close in his sight, he put on a burst of speed, clambering to the top like a spider monkey.

The only person there was Bunny, breathing deeply in the thin air, Jack's staff stuck in a snow bank beside him.

Jack heaved a few breaths from the exertion of his climb. "Old Man Winter?" he asked.

Bunny's grin was enormous. "Not a sign of him."

He and Jack leaped up with a cheer at the same time, their shouts of victory setting off avalanches on the mountain below and soaring into the bright blue sky. They were still laughing by the time Old Man Winter dragged himself onto the summit, lying face-down in the powder, heaving loudly like a fish out of water (or an old man exerting himself too hard).

It took him a moment to look up, and his face snapped into the most indignant of frowns as he caught sight of Bunny and Jack, waving with snide grins.

Old Man Winter howled with rage, kicked, and screamed, and did it all still lying face-down in the snow. Jack and Bunny howled with laughter. Old Man Winter stood and stamped to his feet to the sound of it.

"Get your laughs out now, you little snots!" he growled. "There's still one trial left and believe you me, this one's a doozy. The next trial is by fireand nobody laughs in front of the Earth-Eating Woman."

Bunny stopped laughing. "You still want to have a trial by fire? After that stunt you pulled with Tikitere?" he paused, disbelieving, but Old Man Winter only grinned. "In front of Pele?"

"I dunno." Old Man Winter shrugged. "Maybe. We'll see if the old girl is kicking up an impressive fuss today.

Bunny rolled his eyes and scoffed. "Your funeral."

"Nooo," sang Old Man Winter, "I believe you're the one who holds funerals when I'm involved."

Jack practically heard Bunny's temper snap. He grabbed Bunny and held him in place just as he leaped at Old Man Winter.

"You heartless old windbag!" Bunny yelled, his shout echoing through the sky and over the mountains, but he didn't push Jack off. "You're lower than a snake's armpit! Oh, I am going to love watching you fade out."

"Let him say what he wants, Bunny," Jack said, thumping him gently on the shoulder to get his attention. "Soon, that's gonna be all he'll able to do. He's not worth the energy."

Old Man Winter's smirk was back, resurrected from his previous win. But Bunny backed away, swinging his arms, pacing as if the mountain was suddenly too small to contain all three of them.

"You're a real risk-taker," Jack said dryly, rolling his eyes back to Old Man Winter. "But hey. Trial by fire time. The guy who hasn't already thumbed his nose at a lava spirit is ready."

"To Hawai'i, then," said Old Man Winter. "And your doom."

"And did I mention your dramatics are slipping?" Jack put in. "I mean. You could at least leave off the cliches. What's next? Ice puns?"

"Oh, just hurry up and fly so I can watch you die already," Old Man Winter groaned, as a gust of wind whipped him away, and Jack leapt off the mountain in pursuit.

---

The volcanic Kīlauea was, indeed, active. More than active enough for the final challenge to actually be challenging. Jack couldn't see any lava through the thick plume of smoke that billowed into the night sky from the Halemaʻumaʻu crater, a mile-wide hole at the summit of the low, wide mountain, but the glow of it filled the smoke with hot orange light.

"Woo!" hooted Old Man Winter, peering over the edge of the volcano. "The hot mama's cookin' up a storm tonight!"

"Wow, that wasn't nearly as rude as it could have been," Jack snarked. "So is Pele the only person you're afraid of enough not to insult without abandon, or are there others I should know about?"

"Kid, will you get to work dying in that fire? You're taking up my time and I've got a long eternity of freezing the world to get to."

Old Man Winter pointed across the glowing hole in the mountain.

"Now this is a very simple challenge - a leap over the fire. Winner reaches the other side without a scratch. Loser who has to fly out, uh - loses! Loser who falls in probably dies! I don't know! Can a good lava bath kill a real winter spirit? Well we sure won't find out tonight, because the realwinter spirit's going to make it to the other side unscathed! Hahaha!"

While Old Man Winter chortled, Jack rolled his eyes and glanced at Bunny, who hadn't beaten them to the summit this time. He'd stopped off to pick something up, and was now crouched over them - branches covered with red and yellow berries - muttering something prayer-like. He stood up and dropped the branches into the crater, then shot a glare at Old Man Winter.

"You're a bloody drongo, you are. Holding a challenge with Kīlauea as your obstacle, and you didn't even bring Pele an offering? What, do you think you're going to freeze the planet's core one day, too? You couldn't take spring out and you're practically spitting in every lava spirit's face that you can manage. At this rate you'll make enough enemies that someone will off you, even if it isn't us."

"I'm sorry, who's got the whole world in his hands, and who's a sad loner who's going to die alone? You're an idiot for thinking any of your dumb little rules matter anymore." But Old Man Winter glanced into the crater for a split second as if watching for a signal that the rules, according to Pele, still mattered.

Bunny broke two of the branches remaining from his offering and hid them in his paw.

"Short stick jumps first."

He held them out to Jack and the old man, his glare steadily fixed on Old Man Winter. The old man took his time in picking a stick, clearly relishing invading the personal space of someone who had every reason to still want to punch him in the face. With a sigh, Jack took his stick quickly, leaving the old man with only one choice - the short stick. He shrugged and took it from Bunny's paw.

"About how often would you say you cried yourself to sleep over the ages?" he asked, conversationally. Jack put his hand on Bunny's arm as he growled, his paws clenched into fists.

Old Man Winter walked away, chuckling, to the edge of the crater. Bunny was still breathing heavily, but he turned away and looked down when Jack squeezed his arm.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked. Bunny's anger dissipated, but with a sigh, he looked away from Jack again. He said nothing, but lifted his paw to ruffle Jack's hair gently.

Jack leaned into the contact, as the thought occurred to him that this might be the last kind touch he ever felt in his life - that crater was wide, and he felt the heat of the volcano even at this distance.

"If I can't make it," he said, suddenly, "I'll fall into the fire. Old Man Winter can't get my heart if it burns up. If you fight him right away, you can probably kill him here before he gets too much of my belief back."

Bunny still didn't say anything, just squeezed his paw gently in Jack's hair, as a big brother might pet their younger sibling. As Jack could remember doing to his sister, all those years ago - as he'd done to Jamie, just a few hours before.

They stood that way as Old Man Winter swung his arms back and forth at the edge of the volcanic crater, psyching himself up for the jump.

"And-a-one, and-a- hey! Are you losers watching this?"

He backed up, up, and took off running. His leap took him high over the volcanic plume - high, but not high enough.

"Ooh, he's out," Bunny said, eagerly, letting go of Jack. "Maybe he'll burn himself up."

Old Man Winter fell, flailing and flapping his limbs madly, and a gust of suddenly cold wind whipped him back into the air and out of the range of the volcano. He landed clumsily on the other side, just as a glow from behind them caught Bunny and Jack's attention.

They turned around just in time to spot Tooth before she zipped up next to them, Sandy close behind, carrying North and Anansi on a glowing cloud.

"How's the plan going? Did you win?" Tooth asked, Baby Tooth chirping anxiously beside her.

"Not yet, but you're just in time to watch it happen," Bunny told her, grinning at Jack. "The old man's one for two - Jack takes this one, and it's all over."

"And if I don't take it, hey, you're all here to take him out in the heat," said Jack, trying for humor and realizing too late that he'd not quite reached it.

"Jack," said Tooth, her expression worried, "that's not funny."

"Was almost funny," North put in. "Good try, Jack. Humor under stress, very important. Gold star."

"You can do it, mate," Bunny insisted, putting his paw on Jack's shoulder again. "One jump and it's all over."

Sandy, smiling, flipped him a double-thumbs-up.

"It's safe to say that everyone here believes in you," said Anansi, looking at Jack over his glasses with bright eyes.

"Except maybe for him," North put in, looking over his shoulder. They all turned as Old Man Winter drew up behind them, winded from his failed jump and walk back over.

"Well well well," he said, eyeing the Guardians with a stare too disappointed for his usual mirthful evil. "The peanut gallery finally decides to show up. Where exactly have you clowns been?"

"Oh, you know," said North. "Around."

"Bringing supplies," said Tooth.

"Repairing bridges," Anansi put in.

Sandy whipped up a few houses of of glittering dreamsand and dusted the 'snow' off their roofs with a likewise-sandy feather duster.

"Fighting snowmen, keeping safe the people's homes -" North shrugged. "You know. Guardian stuff."

Old Man Winter looked from Guardian to Guardian, his mouth falling open in indignation. "You guys were cheating!"

"Oh really," said Bunny, crossing his arms. "You wanna explain how them doing their jobs is cheating?"

"I'm tired," Old Man Winter insisted, "from kicking your cottontail, you long-eared failure. If I was at the top of my game, this little whelp never would have beaten me up the mountain -"

"That sound like the whining of a winter spirit who can't endure to anyone else?" asked Bunny catching Jack's eye. "Sounds like it to me." Out of the corner of his eye, Jack spotted Sandy jingling a set of keys over a bundle of sand cradled in two of Anansi's legs as the Spider mock-cooed at it. Jack grinned.

"Uh, the competition was my idea," he said, planting a hand on his hip. "They were just doing their jobs. You know, making the world safe for children? Now I may have stopped off to get some of my believers back, but that was before this competition was ever set. You feeling that drain? I told you, I'm the world the winter needs, not you."

Old Man Winter seethed so hard that the hot, dry air around them chilled a few degrees - more frost crystallized on his skin and the volcano rumbled softly beneath their feet. "We'll see about that, boy. Stop stalling and jump."

Jack took a deep breath, and looked at the crater. His words to Bunny burned in his mind. 'Old Man Winter can't get my heart if it burns up.'

He felt a soft, cool hand touch his, and looked over to Tooth. She offered him a small smile, the glow from the lava lighting up the jewel tones on her feathers.

Behind her, North, Sandy, and Anansi wore similar, encouraging smiles. Bunny clapped a paw on Jack's shoulder, and when Jack turned around, he was smiling too.

"Jack," said North - "Whatever happens - we are proud of you."

"Hello!" Old Man Winter shouted. "Are we having a competition here, or are we just staring lovingly into each other's' eyes? Move it, people! Some of us have a world to destroy!"

"Go show him how it's done," said Bunny, shrugging towards the volcano.

Jack handed his staff to Bunny again, and started his walk to the edge of the crater.

The heat built in the ground beneath him as he walked, hot enough to burn his feet, and he gave the crater a wide berth, circling around it at a distance until the angle of the wind blew the plume of smoke just enough to his left that he could see the other side of the volcano.

"Okay," he said. A mile jump. A mile jump. "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick...just think of it as a really big candle."

He could feel the kids' belief in him, rolling in the pit of his being. His climb up the mountain hadn't depleted him. Whatever Jamie and the other kids were doing, whatever they were thinking, singing, talking about - it was working. It was making him strong.

It was making it so maybe he could do things he never could before. Just like North had to have once discovered he could visit every house in the world in one night or Bunny had discovered he could hide millions of eggs at once. This was his moment now.

Over to the left was a whole team of heroes who believed in him, too. Their belief didn't do what a child's could, but it still meant something. He glanced at the other Guardians, watching him with eager hope.

It was like having his family in the bleachers, waiting to cheer for his first home run - only, with the balance of nature on the line instead of the game any other kid would have to worry about.

He couldn't wait to celebrate winning with them.

Jack took off running at the volcano. His mad dash ate up the ground, building up all the speed he could, and he jumped - high, high over the plume of smoke, elated and terrified at the same time to be flying without wind, Kīlauea's metaphorical candlestick rolling beneath him.

He started to come down - realizing as he did that he was just going to make the edge of the crater. He let out a whoop of triumph, landed - and crashed through the thin lip of the crater, taking the edge with him.

His whoop of triumph turned to a shout of terror, then an "Oof!" of pain as he clapped his hands over the solid (hot) edge, the breath knocked out of him, his hands and hoodie singed by the hot rock. He scrabbled, burning, fighting his instincts to let go, and suddenly caught his foot on a sharp rock, pushing himself up and over the lip of the crater -

He could hear the Guardians shouting in triumph all the way on the other side of the volcano. He barely had time to sit up before a tunnel opened next to him, and then Bunny was yanking him to his feet.

"You made it!" he was laughing.

So was Jack. "I know!"

They hollered with victory, shouting and jumping as the adrenaline wore off. Bunny pulled Jack straight off the ground into a huge hug, and Jack hugged him back, burying his face in Bunny's ruff, elated to feel soft fur and a friend's warm hug instead of the fires of Kīlauea.

Bunny planted him back on the lava, ruffling his hair with both paws.

"Good onya, you little ripper," he said, grinning from ear to ear.

Jack could feel his own grin, so wide it almost hurt. He hadn't smiled this much since he'd become a Guardian himself.

"C'mon, let's get you back over," said Bunny, stamping open a tunnel again. Jack followed him back to the others, where he was instantly bowled over by a three-Guardian hug. Nobody objected when Anansi enveloped them all in his spider-grip again.

Jack didn't recognize the bone-chilling screech as coming from Old Man Winter until the others had let him go, and then they all stared, as the King of Cold Mountain had a screaming tantrum.

"No! NO! I won't do it! I won't take the oath! You all and me, fight to the death, come on, let's go. Right now."

He forged a spear, but it was brittle in the hot, dry air. None of the Guardians took a stance.

"That's...not how it works," said Anansi, almost gently (but only almost).

"You see, agreeing to take the oath is taking the oath," said Tooth. "Jack, how did you put it?"

"A competition, with the Enkidu Oath backing it up," said Jack. "You said you agreed to the terms. If I won, the oath was in place. And I just won. You can't back out of the Oath now, you've already taken it."

Old Man Winter's disbelief was almost pitiful, panic and anger fighting for dominance in his expression.

"You're just afraid," he said, his voice building to a yell. "I still have the power! All the power of winter, at my command! I feel it! You just know you can't win!"

"Except your Oath was not to hurt anyone ever again," said Jack. "You can't even try. So of course we won't fight you. You'd be breaking the Oath by starting a fight with us."

"It's over," said Bunny. "Go find some hole to crawl in, Old Man. You're never going to hurt anyone ever again."

"But I have the power," Old Man Winter insisted.

"You can use it," Jack said lightly. "...Just not to hurt anyone."

Old Man Winter looked at him with sheer disbelief. "But that's what power's for!"

"Not for you," said Bunny. "Not anymore."

"Then kill me," Old Man Winter hissed, through gritted teeth. The Guardians paused, silent, staring at him. "Give me a warrior's death. I won't fade away like some beggar in a cave. Kill me now."

There was a long pause as the Guardians stared at him.

Finally, Bunny spoke.

"You have hope, old man," he said. "You can find something better to live for." His voice was a combination of disgust, frustration, and - probably worse, to Old Man Winter - pity. "There are people dead who deserved what you have, and they didn't get it because of you. You don't deserve it, but you're not allowed to waste it just because you don't know that it's a gift."

He turned his back on Old Man Winter and stamped a hole in the ground. Before he could go, Old Man Winter snorted, his wretchedness and his disgust thick on his voice.

"They got what they deserved," he spat, and Bunny froze with one foot over the hole. "They lived like cowards, underground, and they died like cowards underground. And now you're giving them exactly the end they deserved - an un-avenged one. But I deserve the glorious death I've given worthier warriors than you, you cotton-tailed coward. I hope the spirits of your stupid little pooka family at least have the decency to roll over in their graves with shame that you didn't have the chops to avenge them."

Bunny held his position with his foot over the open tunnel, inhaled, then closed the tunnel. He whirled around and stomped back to Old Man Winter.

Jack took a step forward to stop him, but a light tug on his back made him look over his shoulder. Anansi had strung a line of web to the back of Jack's hoodie, and he shook his head slightly.

"Noooo," he said, softly. "Let him. This is going to be righteous."

The spider's small smile was almost scarier than his fangy grin.

Bunny crouched down beside the wretched old man.

"You don't know anything," he said, almost conversationally, his voice almost completely free of anger. "Look at you - you're like a rabid creature. For someone with such big goals, you're bloody small. It's sad enough I don't think I can even hate you anymore."

In the face of those words, Jack could see Old Man Winter hitting rock bottom - and then even that giving way beneath his feet.

"And you know, I'm relieved," Bunny continued, as implacable as the sunrise. "Hate is a heavy thing to carry around. Too heavy for me and too useless. Hating you never gave me anything. It never gave me back anyone you took from me. It never gave me any kind of clarity. Pretty much the opposite, actually."

He stood up and returned to the Guardians. "Besides, you haven't killed my entire family." When he was level with them, he put his paw on Jack's shoulder. "Just the ones I had back then."

Jack had to look at him again to smile. Tooth, hovering at Bunny's other side, took his free paw, and he looked at her with gratitude. North clapped him on the back, and Bunny only staggered under the affection a little bit.

"Is good," the Cossack said. "Later, we shall celebrate! Shake off old, new day of building future! We-"

"Hey, North, a picture's worth a thousand words," Anansi said, producing a camera from...somewhere, and using his legs to gather the rest of the Guardians into a group huddle. Sandy helpfully provided everyone with dreamsand moose antlers, and Bunny tolerated being the center of the pile until Anansi had snapped the picture. It happened so fast they barely had any time to react at all before he released them and probably resulted in the least flattering candid photo ever.

"So no," said Bunny, turning back to Old Man Winter. "I won't kill you. Instead, I'm going to go and bring Spring again. And if you knew anything about the ones you took from me, you'd know they'd be proud of that. Too proud even to have any room left to hate you."

"You're done," Jack said, about as gently as Old Man Winter deserved - which was to say, not very. "And we're done with you."

"And none too soon," North agreed. "If we can be going now, I have workshop to rebuild. Christmas does not make itself." His expression shifted to something a touch sheepish. "And the elves, sometimes they do not do so well in the wild. They are little and slow, and world is so big. They belong at fireside, not in pine forest."

Jack felt the rest of winter flowing back to him as the Enkidu Oath finished kicking in. The burst of strength refueled his tired limbs, and he stretched, breathing in deep, feeling the chill inside him strengthening him against the heat of the volcano.

"Bunny," he said, as Bunny stamped open another tunnel. The rabbit looked up. "Let me come with you. I can help bring spring this year, now that I've got a new trick up my sleeve."

There was still a lot of snow to melt, after all, and a lot of Old Man Winter's mess to clean up.

Bunny started to smile - but suddenly grabbed his boomerang and threw it, with a shout. "Jack! Look out!"

He grabbed Jack, yanking him behind himself and whipping out his other boomerang as the spear Old Man Winter had thrown fell harmlessly to the side, passing right through where Jack had been. Old Man Winter yelled in anger and pain, gripping his throwing arm were Bunny's boomerang had struck it, knocking the spear off aim, and reached to pull another one out of the air.

"If I can't have winter, no one can!" he screeched, reaching to pull another spear out of the air.

The Guardians whipped out their weapons to defend, but no spear appeared out of the air in Old Man Winter's hands. Instead, he stood weaponless, looking at his hands in horror as water beaded on his frozen skin, pooling in his palms, dripping from his fingers.

Jack sucked in a sharp breath. "He's thawing out."

Old Man Winter looked at his thawing skin, his face twisting with pain as he began to be, again, what he was - a frozen corpse, with no more magic to keep him iced, at the edge of a volcano.

"You attacked another with intent to hurt," Anansi announced. "The Oath is broken." Old Man Winter looked at them, his expression desperate. "Old Man, you have undone yourself."

"No," Jokul Frosti said, softly at first. Then his face twisted with hatred. "No! I'm still the strongest! You won by trickery! That's all love is! A trick to keep people fighting for you when you're too weak to deserve it! You never could have faced me head-on!"

Bunny put his paw on Jack's shoulder, guiding him away. "The old gallah can shout himself to death without us. Let's go."

The Guardians walked away, leaving Old Man Winter shouting behind them. "You won't last, boy, you don't know what you're part of! You'll all freeze one day, all of you! Nothing will outlast the freeze!"

Kīlauea shook suddenly beneath them. The Guardians stopped whirling back to look at the crater, and the smoke above it suddenly burning brighter with more roiling magma.

A voice like the hiss of seawater meeting red hot lava roared, "Dat so, Old Man?"

More smoke poured from the volcano, and globs of lava erupted with it, raining down around the lip of the crater. Old Man Winter's pallor suddenly went paler.

The Guardians scurried away from the mounting eruption. Old Man Winter tried to follow, but his broken Oath ate away at his vigor. He stumbled on the smooth ground and fell as lava spewed from the crater, shooting high in the air and hanging in a shifting, loose, female shape.

An arm flowed from the lava-woman, and she snatched Old Man Winter up with it. Steam hissed where the lava and Old Man Winter's waterlogged skin met, and he screamed, half in pain, half in terror, as the dripping lava hand brought him close to where a face should have been. A hole opened in the eyeless face, lava dripping from the edges like searing teeth.

A voice issued from the gaping mouth - "You still looking to catch cracks, haole?"

"I give! I give!" Old Man Winter shrieked. He half-laughed, half-shrieked his terror. "Haha, did I say nothing would outlast the freeze? What a mix-up! I meant nothing but fire! Fire is the mightiest! Pele is the mightiest! Winter will never touch her!"

The Earth-Eating Woman tossed her head as if to flip a long sheet of hair, planting her other lava-arm on her hip, and lifted Old Man Winter higher. "I no needed you to tell me dat!"

"Let me join you!" the old man screamed. "I'm a great lackey! Just ask - well no they're dead now, so you can't ask them. Just don't kill me! I'll serve the winning side!"

"If I so mighty, what I need an old lolo can't keep his oaths for? Listen to de Moon's people, Old Man. You undone."

The lava hand closed around Old Man Winter, muffling his screams.

When Pele opened her hand, only a cloud of dust dropped to the lip of the crater, with something sparkling in the center of it. The figure of the lava woman sagged back into the volcano, and Kīlauea stilled beneath the Guardians' feet.

Jack hopped to the top of his staff in the silence, peering over to the cloud of dust. There in the black rocks lay a lump of ice shaped like -

"Jack!" Bunny, Tooth, and North called as Jack flew to the edge of the volcano, recoiling from landing there as the heat nipped at his feet. He scooped up the glittering lump of ice and flew back to the Guardians, where the lava was still cool enough for him to stand on.

"A heart," Jack said, holding out the lump of ice. "Old Man Winter's heart."

Bunny scoffed. "He had one?"

Fractures ran deep through the heart, some gaping like crevasses in miniature. Jack turned it over, looking at the cracks

"Careful," Bunny backed away slightly from it, as if the heart could still hurt him. "We don't know if it still has his power."

"I...don't think it does," said Jack, pausing to give Bunny a reassuring glance. An "I've-thought-about-this" glance. "I can't feel anything from it, but -"

He looked deeper into the facets of the heart. The ice clung to his skin, but nothing else happened - except that Jack could see something moving, deep in the ice - a picture, though very small.

He brought the heart closer to his eyes, and seemed to be transfixed by something he saw in it. He froze as if having a vision, his eyes unblinking, completely still.

"Jack!" Tooth said, reaching out to him. She touched his shoulder, but he didn't respond.

"A mighty viking pillaged his way through life," Anansi said, suddenly, looking with a distant expression into the glowing smoke of Kīlauea. "Young, and strong, and then - older and stronger."

While Anansi narrated for the rest of the Guardians, Jack found that he couldn't look away as the vision played out of Old Man Winter's life, and he was dismayed by most of what he saw - like the first time Jokul Frosti's strength wasn't enough, when his village was set upon by a larger raiding party. As the invaders pillaged their way horrifically through his people and Jokul Frosti fought back to back with his brother, their chief, hopelessness set in...

---

"They're too strong for us," the chief finally admitted.

"Yes," agreed his brother, and his sword flashed, severing his own brother's head.

Jokul Frosti delivered the head of the chief to the leader of the raiding party, tossing it at his feet like a sack of rocks, saying, "I have conquered this village for you."

The other Viking ruler said, "your own brother?" But in a tone that was impressed, not horrified.

Jokul Frosti beamed a terrible grin. "He was a loser. I know the winning side when I see it."

He was not, and never became, what anyone would call a kind man.

But by the time he became old, when he had pillaged his way through life, always on the strong side of victory, when he had settled from raiding life in a village that deferred to him - as those weaklings ought - people might have said he softened a little. At least where his two grandchildren were concerned. After all, he was not harping constantly on them to toughen up, to test their limits, to fight against each other so that they would be prepared to fight the rest of the world into submission. Even though they were bordering on the age of four - well old enough to start lifting a wooden axe that was only barely a toy.

Sometimes he even hugged the smaller twin, the boy born with a limp that had never gone away.

"What's that you've got there?"

"I found it, grandpa, near the cliffs."

The young boy held up a stone he'd chipped out of the rock himself, with the strange imprint of a spiral shell in it. No one had yet named it a nautilus fossil, but someday, someone would.

Jokul Frosti marveled over it like the treasure it was - not because he knew the value of a fossil, but because his grandson had taken the time to share it with him. "Wow, that is something impressive."

"What do you think it is?"

"Maybe it's...a dead baby sea monster!" the old man said, tickling his grandson, his laughter filling the air and mingling with the boy's. It was not the mocking laughter Jack had heard from Old Man Winter, but the joyful, bubbling laughter of someone who was primarily concerned with the joy of another.

"That's gross, grandpa!"

Gossip around the village was that Frosti, in fact, loved his grandchildren - even though one was so obviously a born weakling. You would never have caught such softness from the Jokul of old.

The killing storm whipped in from the northern sea, without a warning in early spring, while the old man and his grandchildren were out by the sea, where the granddaughter loved to run, and the grandson loved to look for treasure in the rocks. They trudged homeward through deeper and deeper snow, the old man's joints stiff and creaking, dragging the two children on as, one after the other, they stopped walking and fell on the cold trail.

The wind burned the children's skin raw, then black. The snow piled up around them, until they were walled in cold they no longer felt.

"We'll be home soon," the old man reassured them. "There's a roaring fire waiting - I don't know about you, but I just can't wait to feel warm again."

The little girl was still in his arms. The boy's eyes were open just slightly, and his voice was soft as he said, "But I'm all right. I don't feel cold anymore."

His expression was placid - and it stayed that way.

Jokul Frosti wept brokenly, the tears freezing to his face before the wind had time to whip them away. Still, the drive to survive had never left him, so he trudged out into the storm. The wind tore at his cloak and whipped at his wool cap. It stole the air from his lungs and drove him to his knees.

The world went dark and the cold stole into his heart, into the very core of him, leeching his life away.

And he thought: Please, not like this.

Then the cold was in his bones and the world went dark, even though a farmhouse was within sight. The last thing he felt was misery that turned into the deepest hatred.

---

"He died," narrated Anansi, "The old man who had never been defeated - and he chose the winning side."

---

In that nearby farmhouse, a child had been peering out the window, lifting the shutter to see how high the snow was. He'd quickly closed it when he saw a strange shape out in the field, something human, but of the ice and the storm.

It was just a spark of belief, but it was belief nonetheless.

"Inga," he hissed to his sister. "Inga, there's a man made of ice outside. I think it's a frost giant."

"There's no frost giant, you're being silly," said his older sister.

The boy opened the flap again and looked out. The lump that had been in the snow earlier was now gone. Maybe it had just been in his head.

He turned to his sister. "I don't see it now."

"Close the shutter, you're letting the cold in."

The boy turned back to see a frostbitten face that eyes with irises as pale grey as the sky during a blizzard, and screamed.

They were only the first. Some got frozen in their homes, but most were taken as they tried to travel, tried to make it home despite the cold.

---

'No one makes it home tonight,' he'd said after putting the shards in Jack's eyes. It hadn't been the first time he'd said it.

Jack pulled back from the vision with a gasp. The other guardians were looking at him with obvious anxiety.

"Jack? You still with us, mate?"

Jack nodded. "He was heartbroken," he said, looking at the heart again.

Bunny's expression hardened, and he snorted at the heart and its fractures. "Yeah, I could see that."

"No, I mean -" Jack wrapped his fingers around the heart, still feeling the utter sadness Jokul Frosti had felt the moment that he felt his grandchildren, first the strong one, then the weak one, die frozen in his arms. "His grandchildren were the only things he ever loved more than himself, and they all died together in a storm - and that killed him more than the cold did. If the only things he ever loved weren't allowed to live in the world, why should anything else?"

A moment of silence hung in the air as Jack and Bunny both processed that, and Bunny's expression twisted.

"So that was behind it," he said, looking away. "He lost his loved ones, and it killed him, so he turned around and tried to do the same to the rest of the world -"

He broke off, clenching his paws into fists, then releasing them.

Jack put his hand on Bunny's shoulder. It took the rabbit a second to look up at him, but when he did, the grief still there was written on his face.

"He was always taking whatever side was stronger," Jack said. "He was willing to die by the Oath rather than live in a world where hope and love could be stronger than the cold...when he'd never given them a chance until the end. He was alone," he said. "Like us - but he never had any hope. And he was so sad, and he never even knew how sad he was, because it took him his entire life to love anything at all. So he hurt a lot of people - he hurt us - because when he finally did love something, losing it broke him that much."

He paused, looking at the heart.

"I don't even really know how to feel about this," said Jack. "He hurt me. He nearly killed me, but -"

He looked at the little clump of ice in his hand.

"This is the part of him - the only part of him - that was good."

It was made of ice. That meant Jack could fix the cracks in it. So he did. For a moment they glowed with blue light, then sealed up, leaving the old man's heart pristine in his hand.

Then, before the others could stop him, he held it to his chest.

"What are you doing?" There was an edge of fear to Bunny's voice. "Jack, no -"

It glowed just slightly and Jack cringed as it passed through his shirt and then his skin. When he looked up at them again, his face looked slightly different. Older, somehow. He now had the tiniest hint of crow's feet around his eyes, though they were more the kind people got in their mid-twenties than the deep wrinkles they relaxed into in old age.

"It's warm. No bleedover. I'm okay." He shrugged. "The rest of Old Man Winter can go rot, but...even in the worst people, aren't the good parts worth saving? If they can be saved..."

Bunny gave Jack his "you've got kangaroos loose in the top paddock" expression. "You didn't know that would be safe! What if his spirit had still been in there and it overpowered you? You could have been - sometimes I just want to -" he clenched his paws, as if wringing an imaginary Jack's neck.

Jack just reached out and hugged him. For a second Bunny stiffened, awkwardly craning his neck to keep glaring - but then he heaved a resigned sigh and hugged Jack back.

"You're never going to stop giving me reasons to worry, are you."

"Being a handful is a full-time job."

"Yeah, well." Bunny squeezed his paw through Jacks' hair once more before letting him go. "Old Man Winter's lucky someone's willing to forgive him, because it's going to be a while before I can."

He chuckled once before realizing that his joke didn't much qualify as a joke, and more as a confession.

"That's okay," said Jack gently. "You have a right not to. Maybe not ever."

Bunny looked at him with a sigh, then at Tooth as she put her hand on his shoulder. North, Anansi, and Sandman crowded around them both, quiet, but supportive as they held their moment of silence on the volcano.

A thought suddenly occurred to Jack. "What are we going to do about the Snow Queen's mirror? Old Man Winter had some of the shards on him -"

Tooth lifted her hand to her mouth in thought. "A lot of them fell in Colorado and the foundry - and he might have saved up more somewhere."

Sandy winced, pictograming a time bomb above his head.

"When we're done taking care of spring, we need to figure out what to do with those," said Jack. "Sandy's 're a problem waiting to happen. I could probably melt them, but if the water still has evil properties -"

"It get you outta my house, I can burn dat rubbish away," said a woman's voice.

They all jumped as a shapely young woman ambled out of nowhere, her white dress stark against her dark skin. She was barefoot, but left red-hot footprints on the lava flow, and the air rippled with heat around her. She held the branches of red berries Bunny had tossed into the volcano's crater and plucked the fruit from them as she walked.

"Well well, an offer of aid from Pele," said Anansi, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a spiderleg. "Certainly not a tale you hear every day."

Pele rolled her eyes impatiently. "Dat Snow Wahine loose in de head," she said, popping a berry into her mouth. "I'da met her, I'da left her all buss up. A mirror dat show only de bad?" she sneered, rolling her eyes. "Waste of a good mirror. As if de bad all dat matter in life! As if de good not make it worth our time. So what's it gonna be, you come back with de mirror, or you puttin' Kīlauea behind you now?"

She sounded as though either resolution would be just fine with her.

"We're honored by your help," said Jack. "I'll gather the shards myself."

"Dat de truth," said Pele, tossing sparks from her long black hair. "By de way," she added. "Rūaumoko is no-o-ot pleased." She chuckled darkly. At Jack's worried expression, she added, "He'd be furious if you hadn't cleaned up de lolo's mess, so don't look at me like dat." She rolled her eyes. "You want to keep your eyes on Aotearoa, for de sake a' your children."

Kīlauea shook beneath them, suddenly, as Pele popped another berry into her mouth.

"Aurie - now get out a' my house," she said, calmly, but all of them felt a hot spark of dread in the pits of their stomachs. "But bring more 'Ōhelo, when you come back," she said, sounding pleased. "Dis fit to break de mout'."

With a little wave of her fingertips, she clearly dismissed them. Bunny opened a tunnel into the hot earth and Jack dove in after him, as Tooth, Anansi, Sandy, and North took to the sky before Pele could decide they'd overstayed their welcome.

---

"You ready for this, mate?"

"Breaking up a worldwide cold front? Normally I'd complain, but frankly even I could use a break from winter."

Bunny took a sharp turn, rocketing them along at breakneck speed. "Now we've got to be smart about this. The ground's frozen solid, so too much of that snow melts too fast, we've got a worldwide flood on our hands. Stick to un-freezing the ground for now. I'll tell you when it's safe to go to work on the snow. Did you get all that?"

"Ground now, snow later," Jack called. "Got it."

They erupted from the ground onto a snow-covered soccer field next to a cinderblock building, unmistakable as a public elementary school. Grey clouds still roiled overhead, dropping the occasional flake of snow. Jack knew the school - it was Jamie's. The snowbanks outside were so high, the poor kids had likely been trapped inside overnight. Fortunately, his worries about them surviving the cold were assuaged by the clouds of condensation drifting up from vents from the cafeteria. At the very least, they had heat somewhere.

Jack dug his toes into the snowbank, feeling the frozen ground beneath the snow cover and looked at Bunny, who gazed at the blanketed sky.

"First things first mate," he said, looking back at Jack and shrugging skywards. "Think you can shed a little light on the world?"

Jack crouched on the snowbank and grinned. "Bunny, I do that every time I ice up Pitch's undershorts."

He rocketed straight up, the wind that bore him shaking the snow from the pines around the soccer field. He burst through the layer of clouds and into the same burning bright sunshine that had dazzled Annapurna, leaving a gap in the cloud cover behind him.

A single ray of sunshine beamed through the gap, down to the snowy field where Bunny waited. Only he heard the stirring, deep down, of life beneath the piles of snow - the spring that had been waiting, so long, to wake up.

He stamped the ground, and deep in the earth, seeds opened and pushed green shoots through the frozen Earth - slowly, at first, then faster, breaking the frozen ground with single-minded purpose as the first of the ice began to melt.

The first crocus was peeping through the snow when Jack dropped back out of the sky, a high wind pushing the clouds east. They trundled seaward like puffy grey sheep, more rays of sunshine striking the snowy field and the school. Jack's dive earthward carried him in a spiral around the town of Burgess, his staff outstretched, shaking snow from the treetops. Power lines heavy with ice lifted as their burdens melted and dropped, and the lights in the school flared on again.

As Jack landed, he could see a familiar face in the cafeteria windows facing the soccer field. He couldn't hear what Jamie was saying as he called other children over, but his face was alight with relief - and as the other children joined him, their astonishment changed to wonder, and as the icicles around their window began to drip - to hope.

Jack caught Bunny's eye again, landed beside him, and they both grinned.

"Not bad, for the opening act," said Bunny, as the kids crowded around the window, waving, excited, pulling more of their friends over.

They could each feel it - the children's belief building, growing stronger - making them strong.

Jack gripped his staff, his burns from Kīlauea and his weariness from Annapurna forgotten. "Race you to Seattle."

Bunny chuckled, as the last of his injuries from his fight with Old Man Winter disappeared beneath regrown fur. "Frost, you're as slow a learner as you are a flier."

He took off and Jack flew after, laughing.

In the equatorial regions, where the temperature hadn't been cold enough for snow, a few strategically opened tunnels took care of the floodwater. Jack flew overhead as

Bunny zoomed over the snow, flowers growing in his footprints as hope took root in the world, giving both of them momentum.

Jack wasn't sad to shake the snow from the trees. The sight of the tiny buds growing on the grey, bare trees evoked a sense of rightness that he'd never regarded them with before.

But then, spring had always been something Bunny had brought in spite of him. It had never been something they'd brought together.

Jack opened the way for spring, sweeping the clouds from the sky, exhilarated with the race to keep up with Bunny's pace - a race he was losing, but happily so. By the time they'd covered half the northern hemisphere, with the floods subsiding, with the green bursting through the snow and the icicles melting, so much relief had settled on the world that Bunny could have finished the job himself.

But he kept stopping, waiting for Jack, with the same look of satisfaction as Jack caught up, bringing the sun with him.

And Jack, who'd never thought he'd see the day when Bunny would do something with him because he wanted to, not because he needed to, was happy to see winter give way to spring for the first time in his second life.