Psst, hey, you people, I know that you're out there, if you could take the time to review I'd really appreciate it, I won't hold chapters hostage but you know reviews lift my spirits. So let me know how you like it so far and maybe I'll divulge little secrets. Thank you!
Ace
I sighed as I left North's office and leaned over the banister to look at North's globe. All those glowing lights, kids I had no idea how to protect.
The first few days of my official guardianship were... rocky, to say the least. I didn't know Jack couldn't fly so well without his stupid stick so he was stuck out in the blizzard of the North Pole for like 9 hours or something. How was I supposed to know it was some sort of conduit?!
Tooth was happy to have me on the team, I think she was happy to have another female in the group. North seemed neutral about it, as long as I didn't break anything else I guess I was good, Sandy falls asleep so much I honestly can't guess how he feels about me, though I hope it's positive, and Bunny is, well, Bunny. Zapping ones tail off tends to make giant rabbits grouchy I suppose, I wouldn't know, I don't have one.
Jack was a whole other story, he wouldn't stop following me around like some puppydog to the point that I caught a news reporter in a shop window talking about the "bizarre sleet storms" popping up around the world. It was only in drier areas of the world that I could escape him and his endless questions.
"Why do you have wings?"
"Can you turn into a bird?"
"If two guys were on the moon and one guy killed the other with a rock how fucked up would that be?"
"What do you think your center is?"
My center. What I was supposed to represent in childhood, I had no idea. I was just talking to North about it, Jack gave me the explanation of what was going to happen with the little Russian nesting doll of himself-why does he have that?- so none of it was intimidating. North knew how I'd... passed on, and was respectful about it, which I appreciated, but he and I still had no idea what my center was.
"Hey Ace!" Jack said, popping up from behind the globe," how'd it go?"
"UGH." I groaned back. He frowned and flew over to me.
"Bad, I'll take it?"
"Not bad, just frustrating, still no progress made." I kicked at a little elf who was playing "Jingle Bells" over and over on his little horn. I get it, we're in Santa's Workshop, I don't need the endless Christmas music to remind me.
"If it makes you feel better, almost all the kids in the world stopped believing in us before I found my center." I stared at him, horrified," Oh god, that sounded so much more uplifting in my head."
That's it, I'm doomed.
"Hey, do you... maybe want to go somewhere?" Jack asked. My stomach did a flip. What was he asking?!
"Uhhhhh-"
"Because I think I know some kids that'll make you smile."
PHEW. I thought- nevermind. It would be nice to get out of here...
"Let's go, creamsicle."
I laughed as Jack pouted and tossed a little bit of frost at my hair before we took off. Yeah, Jack was annoying, but he could make me laugh, not just with his antics but also his stories. I guess that's why I haven't electrocuted him out of the sky since we met.
It was nightfall by the time we made it to... wherever this was. I looked at Jack as we landed in someone's backyard.
"Are we?-" I asked, but was interrupted by a little brown haired boy throwing open the back door of the house.
"JACK!" he screamed and ran out into the snow with NO BOOTS. Instinctively, I flew to the kid and held him up in the air so his bare feet wouldn't touch the snow. The boy looked up at me with big brown eyes.
"Woah." was all he said.
"Well," Jack said chuckling," I guess that's one way to get acquainted. Ace, this is Jamie, Jamie, this is Ace."
"Hey, how's it going?" I asked, Jamie still stared at with big bug eyes.
"Wow, are you a spirit too?" I laughed.
"How'd you guess? Was it the floating? That always gives it away." I set him down on a patch of relatively snow-less grass.
"I'm sorry, I just... I've never seen a spirit like you before."
"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet," Jack said," Ace, do the thing."
I spread my full wingspan out, and I swear the way Jamie's face lit up it was like a kid seeing fireworks for the first time. And then he was off, spouting rapid fire questions.
"That... is... AWESOME! Why do you need wings if you can float? What do you do? Can other people see you? Are you a legend too?-"
"Well, the wings help me fly faster,"I said," I move storms and control lightning, so I need to be super aerodynamic. Some people have seen me wayyyy up in the sky, so to them I just look like a huge bird. Ever heard of the Thunderbird?," he shook his head," that's a myth the Native Americans based off me, it's a huge bird said to bring rain and thunder. It's kind of changed though, now most people think I'm just a freakishly large bird that carries people off." Jamie laughed, but Jack looked intrigued.
"Who thinks that?" Jack asked. I thought about it.
"Nerds that live in their mom's basements and can't get girlfriends, I guess."
"Why can't they get girlfriends?"
The three of us spun around to see a little blonde girl in a nightgown standing out in the snow.
"Sophie!," Jamie screamed, with an edge of panic in his voice," You can't be out here, get back in bed!" I looked closer at the little girl, something about her was off.
"But I wanted to see Jack and the birdie." she said, then swayed a bit on her feet, and suddenly I knew exactly what was wrong. Before I could move, however, Jack was on it.
"Hey, Soph," he said softly, running his fingers through her hair," it's nice that you wanted to say hi, but it's late and you need your sleep, don't you want Mr. Sandman to come and give you a nice dream?," Sophie nodded, and I think my heart grew three sizes right then," ok, then get back to sleep. We can have a snowball fight when you're not so sleepy, I'm sure you'll kick my butt after a good night's rest." Sophie giggled. Jack looked at Jamie and jerked his head to her to tell him to take her upstairs.
"Goodnight, it was cool meeting you Ace." Jamie said, as he led his sister by the hand to the door.
"You too, Jamie." I answered back. The minute they were gone Jack turned to me with a big smile on his face.
"So what did you think?" he asked. I smiled.
"Lovely kids, why could they immediately see me though? They didn't grow up on the legend."
"Jamie was my first believer, ever since he could see me, he's been able to see other lesser known spirits like us. I guess he's just become more open to our world." I blinked. That was amazing, I've had children see me before in fleeting glances, but that's all it ever amounted to. Those kids, they grew up knowing the story of the Thunderbird and go on to tell their children and their children's children, but the thought of being able to actually talk and interact with kids was a brand new experience. I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear.
Jamie and Sophie... Sophie... my smile faltered.
"What's wrong?" Jack asked.
"Does Sophie get sick a lot?" I asked, Jack frowned," Is she a frail kid?" he blinked, obviously thinking, and shook his head
"I... no. No she's always been pretty healthy, for a little kid anyway. Why?" I bit my lip.
"She's sick, Jack."
It was like someone had poured a bucket of ice water over him- er.. maybe in his case, hot water.
"Wh- she looked fine! Just a little tired, but even Jamie told her to go to bed because it was past her bedtime-"
"He told her to go to bed because she was sick. I know what very sick children look like, her eyes were glazed, her skin was pale and her muscles were taut, she couldn't even stand up straight. I don't like that she came down here in the cold like that, Jack."
Jack, for a second looked concerned, but then snorted.
"What am I worried for- she's fine. She's probably just got the flu, it's November, it's flu season. She's a strong kid, she'll fight it off."
Oh fuck no. I was not having this.
"Just so you know, Frost, the flu is a pretty big fucking deal," I hissed," Do you know how many kids die every year from the flu? Or pneumonia? Do not just blow me off like I don't know my shit, I do. I had enough of that bullshit back in my life because I was a woman and I will not let another man fucking condescend to me now that I'm dead, too."
To my surprise, Jack didn't try to argue with me or roll his eyes and walk off, he actually stayed and listened. I caught a glint of something in his eyes as he stared at me, was it sadness? I don't know.
"I'm sorry," he muttered," I didn't mean to sound patronizing. I just... what happened to you, Ace?"
I almost unleashed another shitstorm on him, but his last sentence didn't sound like he pitied me, or was disgusted with me, in fact it sounded just... curious.
And then it hit me like a lace to the face. He actually wanted to get to know me.
Well... that was something new.
"I- I'm... falling?!" I screeched. The ground underneath me was rapidly disappearing into a huge hole. Without thinking I grabbed onto Jack's hoodie, because if I was falling into some hellish sinkhole to the center of the earth I wasn't going alone, fuck no. We exchanged panicked looks before tumbling down into some underground tunnel of dirt, and believe me, having this skinny shoeless moron smacking into me at every turn wasn't comfy.
Finally, after what felt like a thousand years, the tunnel spat us both out in the middle of some woods. I was fine, other than feeling like my spine exploded, but Jack got lost somewhere along the way.
"Nice ta see ya," I looked up and saw Bunny, with a huge shit eating grin on his face,"maybe I should, uh, give ya both some alone time?"
What- oh.
Nevermind, I found Frosty, he wasn't lost after all, he was just face first in between my legs.
"This is a compromising position, isn't it?" Jack asked. I glared at Bunnymund.
"You tell anyone about this and I swear I will wear one of your feet on my belt as a good luck charm." I threatened. Bunny just rolled his eyes and helped us up.
I looked around, trying to see where exactly Bunny had taken us, but my question was quickly answered.
"Next time, Bunny, could you maybe give us a warning you're about to use your tunnels?," Jack asked, next to me," Where are we any- woah..."
Woah, alright.
We were standing in front of a huge, abandoned building. The sign in front was too worn to read, unfortunately, but by the design of the place and it's sheer size I guess it had once been some kind of hospital or research lab. The front steps were littered with garbage and broken bottles, all the windows I could see were either broken or opaque with years of built up grime, it looked like something out of a cheap ghost adventuring show on tv. I was shocked that places like this still existed, just left for nature to take over. Nature and hobos.
"North said he saw something on the globe that pointed ta here," Bunny said, he didn't look too happy about this place either," a sign of somethin', he wouldn't say what but he told me ta grab you guys and check it out."
"Oh man," I groaned," you mean we gotta explore this?!"
As if on cue, the sign in front fell off.
"Oh come on,"Jack said, walking up to the front doors," all we gotta do is give this place a quick look, see if we find anything, and head back to the North Pole. It's an adventure! What are you two, a bunch of babie-EEEEE!"
Jack screeched like a little girl as a tiny raccoon walked out of the building and between his legs, Bunny and I cracked up.
"Awright, enough's enough," Bunny said, once we'd sufficiently got our giggles out," Ace, Snowcone, follow me, and keep your eyes peeled for anythin' weird. I wanna be in and out of this place within three hours, you hear?"
The three of us stepped inside the lobby of the building, and because I suppose whatever gods out there decided that this whole situation wasn't cliche enough, the doors slammed shut behind us.
"We hear." I muttered.
Ok kids, this is where the M rating starts to kick in! Hold onto your butts.