Chapter 2 – Mischief and Fun –
She could hear his overjoyed laughter behind his royal room's doors as she approached the highest room in the Northern Wing of the imperial palace. Cornice entered her son's room, could not believe the mess of ice and snow piled at every corner of his room along with the wrecked silvery furniture while her energetic six year old son was jumping up and down on his bed and once in a while floated with a couple of soft winds playing around with him.
"Look, ma!" He was grinning, reached near the ceiling and does his reckless acrobatic triple tumbles that made his mother nervously blurted out when his head almost hit the crystal chandelier nearby.
"Jack, how many times did I told you to settle down?! You seemed unable to grow tired playing tricks and mayhem, sooner you will be brewing another ice storm again by gathering more winds. Come down here…I said come down here and don't even think of doing your mischievous pranks with your mother! Are you being stubborn again?! Don't you like me to tell you a new story…?"
The lively and carefree boy with his unruly white hair halted playing near the ceiling, immediately landed down towards his bed where his mother was seated, waiting for him to settle down for the night.
As soon as he felt his feet landed on the soft mattress of his bed, he obediently pulled his blankets and covers to tuck him in while his mother smiled in relief.
"I know you are a wild troublesome one, but deep inside, you are a good boy, Jack." She whispered, her hand stayed near her slightly bulging belly. "And I need you to be. Because months from now, you will have a baby sister, and you will be a good brother to her." She lovingly brushed her son's white hair with her other free hand before she started her story.
Cornice softened her voice when seeing her son had finally doze off. It must be the boredom of her forced monotonous voice, but she was glad that he had calm down. The last time she remembered he had unintentionally conjured a blizzard that destroyed the entire roof of the imperial palace. She slowly leaned down to give him a gentle kiss on the forehead before she slowly left his room by closing the doors behind her.
The moment his mother had left, the white haired boy opened his royal blue eyes. His brows furrowed in contemplation.
How could he sleep to briefly rest when the story of the little prince bothered him? The little prince who traveled many places and tried to go home to return back to his beloved thorn-filled rose. Heck, it was a sad, but a beautiful story. Even if the prince died after being bitten by the snake, Jack believed the little prince returned back home to his rose. And if he is in the little prince's shoe, he would do the same thing, except that he had to look for his own unique rose, and return home with his beloved rose. At least, it was not the worst he heard like the story of the boy who did not like to grow up, and beguiled other children to go with him in a magical place where they will never grow up, and will be battling the pirates. Wait, why did he hate that story again?! Right, it seemed the story was similar to his own life. He's eternally young, he would age slowly, and will never grow so old - he's after all, an immortal who will live forever, like everyone who was born in Niflheim. However, even though they're immortals, they can be killed. And the truth was he hated his own life. He was masking himself for the sake of not wanting his mother to see him sad. She always wanted him to smile, to be always happy.
The boy threw away his blankets away and drew near the window. With his concealed loneliness, Jack viewed his other royal half-brothers playing with themselves at the other side of western wing of the palace. They were aware of him, but they ignored him as if he never existed. To them, he was an invisible ghost, because he's still different and they didn't gave him a chance to be a brother to them. They didn't like a part of him. A part of him that was once an enemy house of their royal house. They hated he had other powers that they don't have, and yet have the same powers they all possessed.
As he watched them near his window, he bit his lower lips with a twinge of envy mixed with determination and hope that they might somehow allow him to join them with their fun when seeing them enjoying so much in their playful little game as they were laughing and throwing snowballs at each other.
He had made up his mind, he could no longer stay here alone in his room and keep pretending that he never existed. Still in his blue pajamas and ignoring he was barefooted, he opened his window and decided to join in their merriment, allowed the wintry winds to carry him towards the opposite side of the wall, and over the wall, and down the opened courtyard.
As his foot landed on the snow-covered ground, his royal brothers stopped playing. Their laughter died down and their joyful looks turned into overwhelming irritation, jealousy, and hatred. Their cold silence was broken down when one of them spoke upon seeing Jack grabbed a cupful of snow in his hands and forming it into a ball hoping to join and play with them.
"Your persistence never cease to amaze us?! Truly it had become a constant annoyance to us! And still here you are after last week when we pushed you down from the Southern tower. Unfortunately, you surprised us that you can fly. You, an arrogant showoff, giving us more reasons to shun you, a freak!" His brother did not finished as another sibling shouted at Jack in disgust.
"Yeah! Freak! You are not one of us! Why would we call you our brother?!"
His angry shouts were not enough as he approached Jack and punched him hard, making Jack fall down in shock, tasting his own blood on the corner of his lips while eyeing his snowball rolled away and trampled down by one of his brothers. It was not the way they hurt him physically, which he could take, but what comes next had made the royal blue eyed boy to lose control.
"You are not our brother because your mother is not from our royal house! Your mother is a whore from the lineage of a warmongering sky god -….!"
His royal sibling wasn't able to splutter more hateful words when the heavens darkened and winds howled and started gathering ice, spiraling into a horrible snowstorm coupled with furious lightings and thunders. It became worst when a deadly lightning hit a lifeless snow-covered tree in the courtyard where his brothers stood nearby, devastating the tree by splintering it into countless of pieces.
Not only the terrible sight made them scampered, leaving their brother still down on the ground, but the sound of the entire imperial palace awakened and alarmed that made the royal guards and servants hurried outside to check the commotion.
Struggling up to his feet when realizing the troubling weather was caused by his tumultuous emotions, Jack hurried to sneak back inside the palace while the ugly destructive weather slowly subsided.
As soon as he was inside, he hid immediately under the main staircase while he could hear his father's kingly authoritative voice ordering his imperial guards. His father's voice soon faded away after a few minutes, replaced by the sight of some servants meeting and reporting to his worried mother who walked passed before his sight while other people from his father's court dashed to and fro in a hurry before they were gone in his view.
Slowly he stepped back, retreating to the darkest corner under the stairs before he lowered himself into a crouch, had let the silence, the darkness and the cold be his companions.
He tried to swallow back the burdening loneliness, but couldn't when a tear rolled down from one of his eyes and fell towards the cold crystal ground before him. The white haired boy stared at his tear that turned frozen before it reached on the floor. Bursting into a puff of snow which started to drift around him, Jack slowly grabbed hold one of the snowflakes and tried to shove away his sadness by conjuring it to glide and swirl on his open palm as if it was gracefully dancing to comfort him.
But his solitude did not lasted long when someone appeared and stepped near the miserable and lonely boy.
"Six years I've watched you, and really you amused yourself with this?!"
Jack summoned magically away his snowflake, lifted his eyes at the one speaking at him in the darkness.
"Come on, Jack! You could do better than this. We have a lot of fun times! And earlier should be fun to you too, you literally scared them to death!"
His glinting grin seemed to illuminate in the darkness around them while the boy's royal blue eyes followed the god of mischief who lowered himself down on the little boy's eye level.
"They deserved it, didn't they?! The truth is I've been a little disappointed, you should have retaliated more! Hurt them as they had hurt you!"
Loki does an ordinary magic trick, he materialized a card, a King of Spades, and soon he wickedly morphed it into an ice-cold steel, a dagger, that he played around his fingers before he multiplied the dangerous weapon and juggled all the blades to amuse the boy before he threw it high above and magically changed the daggers into a golden spear, that he pierced mercilessly on the ground like a real bloodthirsty fiend he is.
"And that my dear boy is how you do it." Upon saying those words, Loki's eyes slightly glowed briefly.
He quickly altered his vileness into playful mischiefs and tricks as not to scare the wind swept haired boy for he deeply could relate himself, his discriminated and misunderstood existence with Jack.
They were both outcast for being rejected by people who supposed to be their family. For he could see his once younger self in the white haired boy before him. "Don't stay and mope here for eternity! Don't let them defeat you all over again. They will hate you, and you will hate them back! If they cut you with a knife, cut them with a sword. If they burn you with a torch, then burn them with a rain of hellfire." The cunning god chuckled darkly. "Put my mischief and your fun together, they will have mayhem and chaos!" He held out his hand towards the boy. "I will give you what I wasn't able to give to your ancestors and your brothers who I longed mentored and molded as my own prodigies. I will treat you most special for you reminded me of my own self way back - trampled down, ignored, and isolated by those stronger and powerful than me as I lived under their shadows. Now, I equaled and opposed them because of my wit, words and sorcery. Come with me, Jack. We will travel far from here. Into another world where we will have a hell of a time!"
As he stood up to join Loki, their surroundings vanished and was soon replaced by another world. A world he never seen before. It was beautiful, but unlike his own Niflheim, this world had all the elements of nature combined for its people.
The boy slightly moved aside when mortal people were walking near them, busy with their work and other mundane activities that they do with their short-lived lives.
"Behold, Midgard where aimless and weak-minded mortals lived astray! And here, we will have our little fun!" Loki's smile turned into a devilish sneer.
Deep inside, he hated this world. The world his brother, Thor, sworn to protect. But also a world so much loved by a particular goddess he loathed.
"Go on, Jack, there are no rules here. You could do anything here with me. No one can see and hear us! Take for example…." Loki pointed his hand and magically conjured a dung left by the passing horses on the busy street to appear on the pavement. The foul excrement was stepped by a horrified man with a distinct position in his society who was fashionably dressed enough to go to an important party, had recently left a high-end shoe shop and had ignored the merry children singing carols and asking for alms.
Both immortals bellowed laughing while Loki started gesturing at Jack to do his turn. The boy gave a wide mischievous grin, summoned his inherent power of frosts targeting the same man who this time curses under his breath, wiping desperately his newly bought boots which were soiled.
The man's thoughts were revealed magically by Loki's power.
He had no time for this. He will be late with an appointment with the King of Arendelle.
The mortal man moved a step, only to slip on the sheet of ice that appeared from nowhere, slid further on the side of the road where piles of horse dung are.
Loki roared with laughter, gave a series of playful skips towards the fallen man who was now cursing the gods.
"Yes! Vent your anger! Hate everyone, even yourself! Destroy yourself and your stupid fellow beings! You blame everything when things don't go your own way! You also blame the gods! Do you know you mortals shouldn't curse your own gods! That is what you get you vain ugly petty creature controlled by your emotions!" Loki was taunting at the man who was oblivious of his presence.
The lord of mischief did not realized the immortal boy he was mentoring in his nasty ways, stood motionless at the far side when a platinum blonde girl wearing a dark ocean blue dress and a midnight blue cloak with trimmings of white fur, left a chocolate shop nearby and briefly spoke at the stunned white haired boy whose eyes twitched upon hearing her words.
"That's not nice."
Hearing a voice beside him, the white haired boy turned to face her. "W-What…?!"Jack's royal blue eyes locked at her.
"What did he do to deserve that? But even if he offended you, that was never fair."
"Y-You…can see me…?!" Jack stammered, feeling guilt and shame, his words trailing off. Lowering his face, the white haired boy's astounded eyes noticed and stared lingeringly at the girl's bare hands, which were never bothered by the intolerable bitter cold of the winter season and by his extreme wintry cold presence.
"Of course, I can see you and what you did with the ice. I could see, hear and feel them - the snow, the ice and the cold." She spoke while holding the handle of her newly bought box of chocolates for her to share with her youngest sister.
A graceful elder woman with intricate features with her long brown hair tied into a bun, and wearing rich hues of lilacs and magenta elegant royal robes halted a few paces, ignored her other female escorts and royal guards when realizing her eldest daughter was trailing slightly behind her, called her name.
"Elsa…?!"
She was shocked when her daughter was talking at no one. She tried to composed herself, was aware and knew some children play with their so-called imaginary friends. A child of her tender age was no different. It was a time when a child's mind was filled with fertile imaginations. The queen slowly drew near her dear eldest girl. "Come, my dear, we don't want your father and your sister, Anna, to wait for us that long, don't you?" She paused when Elsa held her hand inside her box of chocolates and offered a chocolate to nobody.
"Here, want one. My mother's calling me, and I don't want my father and my sister to wait long for us …"
Upon seeing her child acted so weirdly, the queen quickly grabbed little Elsa and carried her six year old daughter with burgeoning fear especially when they were out here in the public and the people around might start to notice the princess and her concealed secrets that only she and her husband, the king, knows.
Dropping her offered chocolate as soon as her mother held her and hurried towards their awaiting royal carriage parked nearby, Elsa viewed the strange pale boy bended down to grab her offered chocolate on the snow-covered ground. Curiously, he observed and sniffed at it before unwrapping the chocolate's wrapping, and have taken a bite, then swallowing it whole. After he swallowed it, Jack smiled wide happily with his known toothy grin at the girl who bit her lips to prevent herself from laughing loudly, smiled radiantly back at him who had no idea that the chocolate had smeared his pearly white teeth. She wrapped her arms around her mother's neck and lost sight of him when her mother entered their carriage.
He viewed the elder woman carried the girl he was talking to, and hurried as if the mother had seen a ghost or worst. The carriage drove off instantly, followed by other escorted carriages pulled by four pair of horses.
The sight disappeared when Loki came to view once more before him, alarmed that the boy had eaten a food in that world.
"Hey!" Loki lowered down to have an eye level with Jack. "Spit that out! We don't eat lower being's food especially mortal humans!"
"But it's good!"
"Good?!"
Jack bewildered at Loki's furious reaction when he spoke the word good. The lord of mischief was fuming. He tried to explain before his godly ancestor's face will be flashing red with full blown fury. "What's wrong?! I didn't steal it! She gave it to me…"
The horned god's eyes widened when hearing the boy's words. It was an act of compassion. And the boy like the very nature of ice, and like the ice's closest ally, the moon, reflected such manners. And he didn't like it at all. He had intended to initiate the boy in the icy winds of his twistedness. He brought Jack here to raze the damn world little by little, but not to be shone by the light of kindness.
He was about to punch the ground to bring catastrophe in that accursed place, but he had halted when he felt the very land where they were standing had a powerful counter magic, and had repelled his own devastating powers, prompting Loki to stand up and viewed keenly the sudden magical appearances of petals of white winter roses swirling in the wind.
"Damn!" Loki whispered under his breath. He had placed them in a wrong place. And he knew they have to go before her very presence will appear before them. Because, the moment she will, it will be confronting the council of the gods, and his father, Odin, will be one of them, who he will be facing and his lies and deceit will be of no use.
He quickly placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and left immediately the mortal world, returning back to Niflheim.
Unable to move, Loki just gave an annoying wide smile when seeing streams of lightning around him while the winter prince beside him was pulled by his own mother who embraced him tight.
"Why am I not surprised?" Loki held out both of his hands, showing he is unarmed before Thor who frowned at him while his descendant, the Winter King, drew near with a glare at his own godly ancestor. "Oh right, Jack's mother could call you anytime, my brother. She was after all from your direct blood." He paused, rolled his eyes away from Thor to his furious royal descendant. "I can't help it, it is my nature, seeing my own young descendant, all alone. What way for me to wipe off Jack's sad frown but to turn it upside down into a smile!"
"Don't tell me you went to Midgard to cause trouble there! I swore I will protect that world." Thor clutched his weapon, Mjölnir. Knowing he will never allow Loki to tell lies, sought for a more truthful answer, eyed at little Jack. "Jack, did he bring you in Midgard? Did he kill anyone?"
"Jack did not need to answer your question, brother. " Loki's eyes narrowed piercingly. "For he was so exhausted with the fun we had, he doesn't recall a thing that occurred." Upon saying such the little white haired prince felt his eyelids felt heavy, surrendered to sleep with his sight of the god of thunder turning blurry. Cornice caught her son before he fell down, viewed Thor almost lost his temper when realizing what Loki had done to outwit him with his magic. Thor quickly grabbed hold of Loki's collar.
"You made him forget everything! There is one reason you did that, Loki! You didn't like what happened there. Whatever you were planning backlashed at you!" Thor pushed his brother after letting him go. "And you hated it. You hated everything that is of good, especially of lov-…."
"Don't you even dare say her name and her power!" Loki's most gut-wrenching words lashed at Thor, ignoring his royal descendants gathered around him and Thor. "It seemed you two are still keeping secrets from me just like before! You with her behind my back!" The god of thunder fell in absolute miserable silence when seeing Loki's eyes filled with raw anguish of being betrayed as if he had unmasked Loki and saw the truth long hidden by his brother. It was filled with unforgettable pain, that even time would never heal, making Thor faced away with a hint of guilt for the first time, prompting the most powerful god of Asgard to immediately fly away.
Loki remained still with his head lowered. His face covered with shadows as he gave a dark maddening chuckle while rolls of tears, not of mirth, fell across his face. He stopped his insane laughter after a few seconds when he had completely gathered himself back again, gave out a high-held authoritative look, showing he is the dominant god lord of Niflheim, especially in the lands of his Great Royal House, the Frosti Family.
"The lord of thunder is forbidden to step here so are his kin." Loki spoke up for everyone to hear, while Cornice's eyes were filled with flooding tears, knew what that meant - that their once fragile short-lived peace was now shattered.
Loki did not stare at her and her little boy sleeping in her arms. She almost drew near her husband, but the Winter King was clearly an unbending blind follower of his godly ancestor, did not moved an inch to face her. For him and his entire royal house, Loki's commands are the law.
Giving his most brutal orders, Loki whispered. "Kill everyone not our own."
Quickly, she summoned her strongest ice storms to protect her and her child as they flee, flying up high towards the skies where the clouds hid them until they were safely back in the protection of her own home in the heavens.
A/N:
Counting the days until Thor Ragnarok Movie Shows. I'm so excited, except the excitement seemed to have ebbed away when I have checked out this story's stats. Out of 74 views, I only received one review, 3 follows, and 2 likes for two weeks. Thank you so much for these people who did follow, like, and reviewed, even how few.
Seriously, I've regretted posting this story in this fanbase, which was kinda silent and cold (Sheesh! I know all of you admire Elsa and wished to be like her, and hoping Jack Frost is your boy toy).
Losing the motivation and interest to continue writing, two more chapters and I will be surrendering and ending my epic fantasy stories within this year. (I'll be counting down until December of this year, and then, good bye forever.) And I'll be back wasting my time on gaming instead rather than writing fanfiction. :-(
But I am still hopeful and grateful for those who are loyal enough to follow, like and will review these stories until it reached the desired number 50 or even a 100 which is a lot better.