Author's Note-Hey everyone. I hope that life is treating you well, and you haven't had to dig yourselves out of the snow too much. Also, I am sorry to say that today isn't a particularly happy post. It involves a whole lot of death in fact. I promise when we finally get through the Cold War we things will get a whole lot happier. Unfortunately, Jack Frost and battlefield heavily historically linked.

Disclaimer- I do not own Hetalia or Rise of the Guardians, nor have I ever been to the Italian Alps.

The Soldier Who Had Not Lost Hope

Only a few decades ago Jack Frost had learned that when humans decided to fight there was nothing that they could do to stop them. Winter spirits could throw the full force of their winter storms against the advancing armies and barely slow them. When they rained down snow and avalanches on the heads of soldiers or frozen them to their final sleep, the world leaders in warm houses far away would simply draft more children and send them to their deaths far from home.

With it clear that the wheels of war would not be halted by, the various Winter Spirits were left to pick sides. General Winter was to be determined to back the Russian Army even when they started to attack their neutral neighbors. The power bringer of winter argued that Russia had long ago made a pack to always come to the aid of the nation and he would do that regardless of whether or not he agreed with the nation's policies. Jack fundamentally disagreed with General Winter's policy and quickly sided with the Finns.

The battle between the Russian Bear and the swift-footed Finnish forces became a battle between General Winter and Jack Frost. The two Winter Spirits howled across the bombed-out countryside, General Winter using brute force to try to freeze Jack Frost in his steps, while Jack used cunning and camouflage to ambush the elder spirit. Both spirits caused havoc, but neither could manage to beat the other.

Then summer had come, leaving the Winter War had ended in stalemate and the Winter Spirits fleeing in front of the coming spring. General Winter was now a half a world away in a place called Alaska to fight in the islands where summer never came. Jack Frost decided to journey to another place where spring struggled to gain a foothold in the highest mountains of Europe. On the maps, this area of the battlefront was simply known as the Italian Alps, but on the ground the soldiers stationed in the trenches near the sky of the world it was called the White War.

While the rain machine gun fire and the thunder of exploding shells were the terror of most of Europe's battlefronts, Mother Nature a soldier's biggest enemy in the White War. Here you were twice as likely to be frozen by a freak snowfall or suffocated by an avalanche to die from combat wounds. The fact that winter weather was causing two-thirds of young men's deaths in the area didn't sit well with Jack. He stewed with guilt, but there was nothing that he could do to ease the suffering armies. The Winter Spirit was trying to make peace with some of that guilt when he stumbled across a small shelter scrapped out of the rocks at the top of the cliff.

"Who goes there?" A ragged looking boy asked through lips turning blue with hypoxia and face chapped white with wind from inside the shelter of his meager foxhole.

"A friend," Jack replied, keeping his voice kind and open. He had learned long ago that when a soldier saw him on the battlefield, it usually meant that they had little time left in this world. But do you tell that to a farm boy who little more than a child that they are about to die?

"You are not a soldier are you?" The soldier's eyes narrowed, but with confusion instead of suspicion. "Ghost?"

"In a way I guess." Jack shrugged and settled himself down on the rocky ledge that bordered foxhole.

"Well hello, Mr. Ghost." Even though the soldier was clearly dying of the cold, he still smiled brightly at Jack. "My name is Lt. Feliciano Vargas, though most people just call me Feliciano. I am just such a terrible soldier that people just can't bear to add my rank to my name," the boy chuckled, "honestly if I wasn't so good at drawing maps, I think they would have tried to find a way to kick me out of the army long ago. But I have talked too much, what is your name."

"The name is Jack Frost, but you can call me Jack."

"Jack, that is a very nice name. Have you visited Italy often?" The soldier asked, and when Jack shook his head, no Feliciano made a tisking noise. "That will not do, Italy is the most wonderful country on earth."

Feliciano then opened his mouth and Jack spent a pleasant afternoon sitting on a craggy rock listening to soldier chatter away like a small bird. The small Italian talked about the great artist that Italy had produced and the museum which housed their masterpieces. He spoke that his home, which stood on a hill and overlooked a brook that wound its way through hundreds of year old olive orchards. Then he practically talked to little more than a harsh whisper describing all of his favorite foods, how they were prepared, and when they were served.

"You know Jack, as much as I wish that I could be at home with a huge bowl of pasta. There is something I want even more." Feliciano said thick tongue and hoarse voice struggling to form the words.

"What?" Jack asked.

"I wish Ludwig was here." The young soldier admitted not meeting the winter spirit's eyes. "He is my very best friend in the whole world."

"He sounds nice. I hope that someday I will have a chance to meet him."

"The last thing I heard about him his brother sent me a letter telling me that Ludwig had hit by a mortar round somewhere in Poland." The statement hung in the air and then Feliciano looked up at the sky his eye's unfocused, unseeing. "The storm must be breaking. I haven't felt this warm in a very long time…It makes me very sleepy…"

"Why don't you get some sleep, then?"

"But the border?" The soldier's shivering had stopped. "I have been ordered to keep watch…it isn't safe…"

"Sleep, I will watch the border you rest."

With Jack's promise Feliciano's eyes fluttered closed, rasping breaths evened to nothing and snow fell across unruly hair painting it white. Still, Jack stayed. Only after the North Wind shepherded the unruly snowflakes into carrion around the fallen soldiers was Jack Frost satisfied with his handiwork. With a quiet prayer, the Winter Spirit left on a gust of wind. There were many other lonely boys who were going to die tonight on this mountain, and while it was beyond Jack Frost's power to save their lives, he could at least ease their passing.

It took three decades before Jack could bear to return to the slopes of the Alps. The winter encased mountains welcomed him with kind whispers and playful winds. The Winter Spirit enjoyed an afternoon play across the slopes, tripping up skiers and starting snowball fights in the small mountain town. Jack was about to try to go skating on the large glacial lake when a familiar voice on the wind stopped him in his tracks.

"Ve, Ludwig. Why can't we go down the hill one last time?" Said the double of one of the many soldiers whose deaths Jack had witnessed on this mountain during WWII.

"Because it is already late." A gruff looking blond with a strong German accent tried to explain to a very energetic Italian.

"We are having pasta right."

"No." Was the simple reply.

"But Ludwig!" The Italian remarked with a pout. "How in the world could it possibly be dinner if we don't have pasta? Dinner without pasta is practically a sin."

"We are still not having pasta for dinner. We have had pasta for dinner for the last six evenings; tonight we are having a proper German dinner."

"But all you eat is sausages…"

From a willowy spruce tree, Jack watched the two young men argue about pointless things and laughing at their own jokes, and he wept. He wept for the smiling soldier barely out of childhood who fought and died on the mountain peaks not far from here. He cried for lost generations who had lost their innocence on the battlefield. And as tears streamed down the Winter Spirit's face, Jack prayed that the youths below him would never have to experience the bloodshed that their ancestors were forced to spill.

End Note- So another sad story, but I promise I didn't knock off Northern Italy permanently. He is simply getting a long nap in while he waits for Germany to rescue him. For your own information recovery of war dead from both World Wars continues to this day. This is primarily because many of the local battlefields from these wars were fought on glaciers which entombed the unlucky souls. In recent years warming temperatures at high altitude have caused the mountains to give up the dead that they had sheltered all of these decades.

Next Chapter-The Woman Who Knit By The Window-The rise of communism had mixed effects its citizens. Some discovered new horizons. Some, like the woman that Jack watched just outside of Kiev, had their worlds drastically shrink.