Frankly, Jack Frost was just relieved that impeccable storm herding and good snowflake making was something that he learned in his first ninety years, and not when he learned how many things he could try. The process was trial and error, and the two important jobs he had took up almost every second he had at first. The snowflakes were wonky, and every location that recieved snow was a place he had to visit. It was annoying and exhausting, and he was sure that there was an easier way. Turns out that he had relied on his staff - only a part of him and technically himself - way too much. The wind was really the only one helping him herd clouds, and if he just used his staff for orders and not direct magic, she would go to wherever he desired. And she could multitask. It was still a job he constantly overworked himself in, and the wind pinched his skin annoyed when he did.

Snowflake making wasn't easy, and the white fluff was terrible at first, but one day it just clicked with his magic - sometimes though, he would stop making a bunch and just make a special one by hand, and they were much prettier and large - and they were suddenly true to their reputation snowflakes. They were all unique and somehow he knew that without inspecting. After his discovery, it was very surprising for him to sneeze and find himself blowing snow into anOregon village as a flurry. It worked when he sighed, or just took a deep breath and blew as well. That was one way to spread some snow, he guessed flabbergasted and excited. In the end though, he never completely figured out how all of it worked, but it did.

Discovering he could create hail was unintended and uninvited.

Hoar frost was hard to make, because it wasn't completely in his control. Thankfully, normal frost was so much easier, even if his first couple of years were spent learning how not to let it destroy everything. While it came with snow, his was prettier, and eventually it spread at his every touch with only a simple single command. Humans called it fern frost, and he was giddy just over the fact his creations were noticed for something special. Sometimes, if he was more hopeful than usual, he would draw small pictures - because letters or symbols or characters for some reason felt somewhat wrong and taboo - on glass, and hope that someone would wonder just who did it. If he really really became desperate, he made what would be called a frost flower. Of course, he didn't really expect that much, but it would be nice if someone did despite how unlikely.

In March of his first year, he found that the end and beginning of autumn was entirely his game. The leaves, at the very least were. Since he realized he really was very much the embodiment of winter, he didn't find slowly phasing into his season all that shocking. As much as he hated - despised - his job sometimes, when the start of fall came biannually, the sight of his dazzling frost in the morning and warm colors - instead of white - being spread at his fingertips like fire gave him a small ember of hope every time. Because that showed him that winter wasn't only cold and dark.

In his three first years, he believed that he was able to create all types of ice and snow. When he first visited the South Pole in his fourth year, he was absolutely shocked at how big ice could get and stay in one piece. They were land in themselves as glaciers, and islands as icebergs. Like a safe haven for him and his powers (which he tested above and in the crevices of the glacial ice). And he realized he had zero control over them. Never had he created solid, large ice thicker and deeper than that of his birth lake. Ice took much more effort than snow, if the temperature didn't do it for him.. He never created anything that could disrupt the balance before, and he didn't think he would be able to create something that large anyway. Without becoming immobile for a good entire decade, that is. Not that he would try. As good as keeping nature balanced was, he despised that it forced him to create blizzards; which was something he found out a mere five days from his birth. Every second he wasted not making his scheduled severe snow-storm caused him a sharp pain somewhere in his body. (He still didn't know what parts of his body correlated to what, but it didn't matter because they all hurt excruciatingly the same) Besides, he was smart enough to know that precipitation was important and letting it have reign without him would be disastrous. Worse than his blizzards already were and worse than the lives they took with them. He was also smart enough to know that making a giant ice structure would probably cause more trouble than it was worth, for everyone.

At a century old, he explored just the tip of the iceberg of what he could do with his magic, and boy was it a lot. He was moderately aware of how little he knew, and judging by the other spirits and whatnot he managed to catch a glimpse - and usually nothing more than a polite greeting - of, he was moderately impressed that he managed to only get that far with his magic and somehow be more powerful than a lot of the others. Even if he was totally aware that being the shepherd of a season was not a position to be taken lightly.

Though he never was close enough to salt water to freeze it, it was easier to freeze than river water. The currents weren't as cooperative or slow however. It was fun to try though, and later at 111, he kept a tropical wave frozen for a half hour without touching it. In hindsight, it should have been easier, but that included him staying in heat for a long, long time, and no way in hell would he do that again after a certain scarring incident involving the desert.

Learning how to shape the clouds to make them look like hummingbirds or faces or anything caused him to pass out from exhaustion before he was able to finish. It took 10 years from 113 to 123 - judging by his mental tally - to perfect it and not collapse. And even then, he didn't think it was all that good. But he did think it was passable.

"And it's really probable that perfect faces would cause people to babble and fuss about soul-eating demons in the end." He chuckled after the fact so he didn't have to increase the length of the time-consuming cloud sculpting.

These were all things that he kept in his mind heading into the double human-life expectancy age. At one point in his 140s, after learning a new trick or two, he took an educated guess that the iceberg was at least half visible by now. However, these tricks took years to learn, and every one that he tried took longer than the last. He would swear that his multitasking would cause the ninety years of learning snowflake making and storm herding to turn into a millenium (which he really didn't hope he had, though he didn't want to die per se).

Around 151, he discovered he could enchant snowflakes. He loved it. They could cause all types of emotions, but they were limited to his at moment one. He had learned this from an off morning (because he never practiced at night with nobody awake) that caused his test deer to rampage in a open field, which earned him a swift (accidental, angry) kick to his stomach. Even if said deer couldn't see him. In his confusion, Jack shot another snowflake that caused the deer to mirror his expression, and the poor thing looked almost pained and ran away. He was mortified at the implied abilities that just one magic snowflake could have. If he was in really bad pain, would the enchanted snowflake be able to physically hurt someone? That was the point - even if he almost decided before from his unplanned and despair-ridden/angry blizzards earlier - where he decided to better control his emotions than he already did, so on any given off daytime, he would learn to take it with a smile around anyone who could possibly be hurt by giving anything else. The snowflakes would be enchanted with joy, pride, determination, and sometimes even a bit of hope, and that was it. It took him until 220 to lie to himself without breaking his facade even a tiny bit. (It's not like there was anyone else to lie to.) He fancied himself a trickster.

At 224, he tried to enchant frost images, and came out with little success. With more important things in mind, he forgot about it. Within his experiments, however, determined at first, he managed to get a small (flying?) frost snow leopard to stalk him for a few seconds. He thought it was cute, adorable even, but the enjoyment was quickly sucked out of him when his next five hundred attempts failed in vain. He wasn't a quitter, but he doubted the 3D snow-to-the-touch animals would help anyone, let alone his sanity.

At 237, he found he had a knack for quickly sculpting and making murals with his ice. In his free time, he brought up a half-pillar of ice from out of the snow, and he melted it at different angles with his finger, much like how he watched the mortals do it with their ice picks and other tools. Honestly, he never tried for a long period of time before hand, and in his actual free time, which was either a small break in mid-April or mid-October (he forgot as they looked the same), he actually did. The result was pretty, and he engraved the image to his mind before melting it back into snow. A few days later, he tried it again on a break in the mountainside after melting the frost that had already froze over. He traced his frost into a design with his frozen fingernails, and he quite liked his small finished product of a sweet child he remembered from months back catching a snowflake. Looking at it from an outsider's perspective and then his, he really did think it was an ability he had always had but never fully utilized. Maybe it would cause someone to believe in him one day (yeah, right).

At 261, he started to go a bit insane with the idea of spending his eternity talking to no one but himself. So, as any slightly logical person would conclude, he very much needed someone or something to talk to. Therefore, he took a pointer from the legions of children he observed, and made snow people. The exact way that the children did. They were unrealistic, and quite cute if he would say so himself. He assumed that he could make a very good replica of a human, but he wanted to think he wasn't that far gone, that he would meet someone eventually. With that in his mind, he would set up the temporary people shaped snow wherever he happened to stop in - which was Burgess quite often - and just talk. It was a one-sided awkwardness at first, but the feeling faded. He started to have actual conversations. If Jack imagined that the snow was alive (the wind helped and he was thankful for that), talking, human, - which was not as bad as making the snow hyper realistic, mind you - then he felt as though it wasn't just snow. There was wonder in the difference of blind eyes to seeing ones.

At 291, he just gave up hoping that someone would ever see him, believe in him, and that was the year where his snow people truly became snow people (and his assumption of being able to make it that way proved). And even with half-blind eyes it still felt more real. Later in the year though, the comfort it provided was pushed aside when Jack had a sudden realization and resignation. Why pretend to have conversations with people of snow when he could pretend with people of flesh? He'd pretended to be a part of children's games before, so why not just walk and talk with children in the same way? His decision made everything just a bit better, a bit more fun, a bit happier and a bit more sad.

On his 300th year, he learned of a special, powerful magic he didn't even know he could do. That was also the year in which he mastered the magic he first tried 39 ago, and found the magic he'd been hoping existed for 300.

A/N: Yes, in my head canon, only Winter and Summer spirits exist. The whole leaf change is a lore that's fairly popular and is also mentioned/shown in the art book. Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this. Point out any mistakes or whatnot. I'm probably going to post this on AO3. Hope you enjoyed.