A/N: This was originally supposed to be a story but now it is a one-shot. If you want Temporis to be in other chapters or not then please SAY so.
She had hair the colour of plums, so dark and fine that it almost seemed black. Adorning her face were deep teal eyes, about the same colour as gems formed in the Earth, and yet in the right light they actually appeared to be an ocean blue colour. Her face seemed so young, and yet ancient all at the same time, as if she had many years on her life as well as none at all. The canvas for this woman's features was as pale as snow and blended in so perfectly with her simple dress is looked as if-
"Jack? Are you listening?" North's voice boomed loudly, sounding somewhat annoyed with the younger he shot him a quizzical glance.
"What? Um, yeah." The winter sprite muttered as he averted his eyes from the picture he was being shown, rubbing the back of his neck idly as he spoke.
"What is her name then?" North questioned suddenly, his eyebrows raising suspiciously.
Crap! If only he had been paying attention, then he probably would have known the answer to this question, but unfortunately, he hadn't been. Well, hopefully he'd be able to talk himself out of this one.
"I have no idea, I wasn't listening." Nailed it.
North sighed heavily and closed the heavy book he had been holding to revile its cover page 'The Book of Guardians.' which was one Jack had begged him to read to him (The text was an old and faded one that the younger could not read on his own.) It had taken the younger man quite a few hours of begging before North finally agreed, and just a few pages in, they just so happened to find another Guardian around the teen's age. Since manyny of the older sprites were usually to busy (or mature) to play with Jack and his friends, the gears in North's mind had begun to spin, as he figured that this girl might serve as a good company for Jack, which lead them up to this point now.
"That is Temporis Filiam. The daughter of our Mother Earth and Father Time." North explained as he set the book back down on his desk and got up, walking over to a high shelf and taking down one of his many snow-globes.
With this, he took in a deep and heavy breath before gently releasing it, and then he turned a quarter angle to face the other male and held out his hand containing the globe. Jack frowned a little at first, but then figured that he should take the globe from North.
"Oh, she sounds cool." Jack mused as he took the globe, having no idea what to do with it.
"I'm glad you think so, because you are going to visit her on an errand I have. Though, I am sending you in my place now." North said, smiling warmly as he went to the shelf again and took down a velvet sac, held closed with a golden rope. "Take this to her, and tell her, 'North says thank you for your's and your father's help during the Christmas season.'"
"During the Christmas season?" Jack questioned, pretty confused on how a Time Sprite could be any helpful during Christmas.
"Yes, how else do you think I deliver those presents all in one night?" North's jolly laugh at that moment shook the other to his core. "They don't stop it completely, but they do stall the morning for a few extra hours."
A funny silence suddenly filled the room as Jack tried to process how that would work, and North, sensing the other's confusion, suddenly yanked the other off his feet., turned him around, and suddenly he pushed him forward.
"Go on now. Time is wasting." He laughed loudly at his own joke as the globe was thrown and a large ClockTower like Manor came into view as the Winter Sprite disappeared into it.
It was an impressively large structure. With several large clocks making up the structure, several large gears, with what they moved not visible, decorating them, all turning and grinding slowly as propellers on the lower points of the clocks moved in unison with one another. Everything , clocks and gears alike, were a deep bronze or dingy silver in colour, and at first, everything was both silent and scentless. That was, until the frost spirit slowly stood and soon had to drop back down, clutching his head in pain as several, ear-splittingly loud thumps and chimes knocked at his head ruthlessly, as if attempting to beat him with sounds alone. This agony seemed to last forever until he felt a cool hand on his forehead.
"Dear Lord! Hasn't anyone ever told you not to come here without your head covered?" A female's voice, with a slight Scottish accent , asked bitterly as a strong hand suddenly helped the other to his feet. "Poor Lamb. I guess it wasn't your fault. North should have informed you."
"W-wait, how did you know North sent me?" Jack stuttered, his head too shaken to think clearly.
"I am a Sprite of Time, as he has informed you. We have met before, and this same scenario has happened many times before." She said in an all too serious tone, her eyes flashing a deeper teal as she did so.
"W-woah! Really?" Jack questioned as he rubbed the remaining soreness from his temple, then looking up at woman with a curious look upon his pale blue features.
"No. Only a small joke." She giggled cheerily and pointed to the sack in his hands, which he had forgotten until now. "But North always sends a thank you gift after Christmas Day."
"But Christmas was almost six months ago." Jack informed her, holding out the sack for her to take ans raising an eyebrow idly.
"Time doesn't move forward or back here. When I left the North Pole, it was exactly two hours until Christmas' end, and it is still two hours now." She frowned when the boy stared at her dumbly, so she snagged the bag from him and grabbed his arm. "But never mind that now, as North asked also that I show you around."
"He did?" Jack asked curiously and somewhat confused.
"Of course, after all, if we are to be allies I suppose it would make sense that we know the ways of each other's land."
"Wait, allies?" Jack asked, willingly being dragged towards a large door. "Not sure if you know this Temp, but I'm kinda new to this whole Guardian thing and I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Neither do I. In your time, I became a guardian about a year before you did, which is two years from now in my own time." Temporis explained as she walked quickly now. "But father tried to explain it to me, allies means in times of emergency, should the Guardians be dispatched, wewouldbeinateamoftwo. Orsomethinglikethat. Ihaven'ttheslightest."
Jack blinked slowly, trying to process what ever it was the girl was trying to say, but halfway through her sentence, she began to speak a mile per minute and everything became slurred. Though, it wasn't like he wasn't used to this. After all, this was usually the speed at which Tooth talked whenever she was busy.
"And I must apologize in advance. I... Have... Trouble... Controlling... My... Own... Time..." Her voice was very slow now, and her head was slightly bowed as if a heavy weight was weighing it down.
"Nah, don't worry about it. Its-" Jack began,but suddenly her head jerked up and she frowned.
"My Universal Time Piece must have a crinkle in it. Let us go check or else this tour will take much longer than it should."
The two entered the main room of the manor, which was filled, unsurprisingly, with more gears than clocks and was a pale white all around, except for a single silver circle on the center of a pedestal, which Temporis slowly walked over to and picked it up. It was a pocket watch, but unlike all the other watches Jack had seen so far, this one had 1-24 on it rather than stopping at 12. As she picked it up, she began to twist the hands of the clock all around until they both hit 24.
"There we are. The beginning of a new day." She said proudly as she turned towards the other sprite and held it out for him to see. "This watch, or Universal Time Piece as I have put it, is very important and also very dangerous when in the wrong hands."
"I figured. Usually time travel stuff is dangerous." Jack nodded, now very interested in what she had to say about it.
"This Time Piece permits me travel to any point in time and space." She said, her smile slowly being replaced with a frown. "But one false move in any of those time lines and Poof. It all unravels."
Her grin soon returned shortly after that sentence had left her, followed shortly after with a new found spark in her eyes as she dangled it in front of the winter's nose.
"Lets go traveling!" She said happily as she began to wind up the watch again.
"Wait, wait, ! Didn't you say the watch was dangerous and one false move could kill us all?" Jack questioned her as he reached out and took hold of her wrist, smirking a little bit. "Or at least get us into huge amounts of trouble?"
"Yes. But it is in my hands; safe hands. And we will not be going far. Let us try five minutes into the past." Her voice was now stern as she let go of the hands.
A loud chime soon sounded as the hands began to spin rapidly, and everything in the room around them began to shake and swirl into a strangely colored scene, with the thumps and chimes from earlier quickly returning. However, this time, as soon as it had started, it all ended and the two were back in the warm, and very homely scene of North's toy shop.
"So. This is five minutes ago?" Jack questioned as his head returned to normal quicker than usual. "Oh, and by the way. What is that thumping sound anyway?"
"Every birth, death, chime of a clock, and step in the universe." She explained as she pocketed the watch. "And yes. This is five minutes, so right now you should be where?"
"North's office, about to visit you." Jack explained as the two began to walk in that direction and sure enough, there he was with North.
"I have no idea, I wasn't listening." Past Jack muttered as he leaned back in the chair, both men were mindless to the ones standing behind them.
"Heh, typical Jack Frost." Jack mused as he followed behind Temp, who stopped suddenly and turned to face him.
"They can't see of hear us since to them, we are just a fleeting moment." Temp said softly as she slipped carefully into the room, followed by Jack.
"Really? Hm, thats pretty cool." The winter sprite said turning his head just for a second.
As he was turning back around, he accidentally ran into the girl, who proceeded to gently shove him back. He stumbled, knocking his staff (Which had been propped against the wall by Past Jack earlier),and causing an involuntary snowball to shoot itself at North as said man turned around quickly.
"Are you crazy!?" Temp yelped loudly as she turned to sew two stunned Jacks.
"I thought you said we were a fleeting moment!" Present Jack yelled back, looking to see where the snowball had landed, only to see that it had suddenly disappeared. "And that your watch was in 'safe hands'.
"Yes! But that does not mean we can not move things around. Everything can change in a fleeting moment! Has no one taught you that saying!?" Temporis slapped the back of his head. "And my hands are safe. It's just your head that is empty!"
"I get that a lot, actually." Jack mused as he rolled his eyes. "And my head can't be empty. It's been filled with drums all day, because no ones explained any of this 'time sprite' buzz to poor old Jack."
"I can very quickly turn you into 'Old Jack' if you do-" Temporis was suddenly cut off by a grunt from Past-North , who was now looking around curiously.
"That was odd." North muttered as he looked up to see one of his hanging airplanes (Which had been knocked down by the snowball) hanging in a lopsided way just behind his head. "Old wires maybe?"
With a frown, he took the plane down carefully and examined it's wires before setting the plane down on the table and giving Past Jack just enough time to regain his composure before speaking again. Temporis suddenly let out a breath of relief before grabbing Jack's arm.
"You best be glad that airplane was there or else we would have been in very deep trouble." She growled as she suddenly pulled at him towards his Past-self.
"Relax. Bunny says I have the luck of a leprechaun when it comes to these types of things." The teen laughed, allowing her once more to pull him.
The snow globe had been thrown, just like it had been before, and the three teens jumped through it. However, when they landed, only one Jack, and one Temporis stood up. Temporis huffed angrily suddenly and went back inside with Jack following close at her heels. With an annoyed grunt, she returned to the main-room of her manor and put the watch away.
"I don't know why you're so angry." Jack began with an apologetic frown Nd a sigh. "Everything worked out and this time travel bizz seems pretty easy."
"Well, it isn't. And it doesn't always work out you Imp!" She complained as she rubbed her head. "But you have learned your lesson. Now lets forget this and move on with the tour."
She left the room first, not noticing that her watch wasn't in its place anymore, but she soon did realize this and then came back promptly and held out her hand.
"Give it back." She said sternly as her eyebrows knitted together.
"Give what back?" Jack asked, looking confused and totally innocent.
"You know what. We've been through this before." She reminded him, folding her arms over her chest. "Put the watch back. Now."
"We've been through this before? Temporis, I just met you- I really don't know-" He paused for a moment, finally remembering who he was talking to. "Oh! Right."
"Seriously? They call me a Sprite of Time for a reason." Temporis huffed with a shake of the head with a smile.
"Right, right, right. Gotcha." With that being said, the watch was returned to its rightful place.
"Its alright. Just don't try to take it again."
"Sorry, just thought we already caught up with present time." He said with a shrug as he patted the girl's shoulder.
"Well we didn't, actually, I still think our past selves are still on their tour of the house." Temporis explained as she tried to think. "Which means, since we're already part of this sequence of events- wait... I have no idea what that means but I think it would be best if we left for a little while."
"Wanna go back to North's place?"
"Sure." With that being said, the two went to leave, only to have Temporis stop again to ask one final question. "What happened to that fruit-cake anyway?"a