Vestige

(A/N: This is supposed to be a follow-up to 'Make Hay While the Sun Shines.' Unless otherwise mentioned, these stories all take place in totally different universes. Also, angst follows. You have been warned.)

Jack was completely still. The moonlight accented him as the center of a chiaroscuro landscape: a pale figure, seven feet above the ground on the trunk of a black tree. Behind him, the black forest and ink-blue sky; below him, the wide field of pure white snow.

This would have been a good moment to draw him.

Except that, even as Rapunzel stepped closer and closer to him, she could recognize less and less of the Jack she knew. His skin, always pale, had taken on a blue sheen. Congealed ice covered his form. Icicles hung from his cloak, from his staff, even from his hair, where they obscured his face. He perched, motionless, in the rotted-out trunk of a dead tree. He might have been a statue; not even a puff of mist betrayed that he breathed.

Rapunzel stepped closer towards him, her heart aching for the carefree, lost boy. She wanted to shake him and urge the Jack she knew to show himself. She wanted to cry for him and beg him to come to life, for her love, because if his heart froze hers would break.

But she didn't. She was a princess; she knew that now. Hiccup and Merida had tried words, they had tried weapons, they had tried fire and lightning to get him to budge. Nothing had worked. Tears wouldn't work either.

"Hello, Jack," she said, when she stood before the dead tree and its silent guardian.

No answer came, except for her heart growing louder in her ears. Was this what love really meant? Was this what Merida and Hiccup shared, what Mother had never been able to give Rapunzel? Here Jack Frost was, some unrecognizable thing of ice and darkness, not even recognizing her, and she still loved him, though it made no sense, she still loved him.

Rapunzel stood there for a minute, and then got bored. She had a very low tolerance for boredom. So she looked around for something to use, and spotted a stick, lying on the ground. She walked to it, picked it up, and walked back. Her boots crunched on the snow and her hair slid into place behind her.

She knelt in the snow and began to draw, each line precise and careful. She looked up, frequently, at her model. The portrait of Jack Frost in his new guise began to take shape. She was just reaching over to put the finishing touch on his staff when he spoke:

"What … are you… drawing?"

His voice cracked, and his words came slowly. She looked up at him with a smile that was perfectly balanced between brightness and sobriety.

"I'm drawing you."

"Why?"

She heard the incredulity even through the coldness, and it made her laugh. "Because you're beautiful."

There was another long pause, before he said, "Don't… lie… to me."

"I'm not lying." She looked up and saw that he was moving slowly down the tree trunk, not so much crawling as sliding slowly, his eyes never leaving her.

"I'm not… the boy… you want to draw."

His words struck her, but she wouldn't let it show. Instead she bent over her drawing again. "I don't believe that."

"That boy… is gone. He's dead… beneath… the ice."

"I don't believe that." She looked up at him. "Jack, I know you're in there. Even if it's just the slightest vestige of you – then it's you. And I love you." Her voice barely cracked. "So, I draw you."

"Stop." He swung his staff down and struck it through the snow before Rapunzel, obliterating the drawing. "Don't… say things like… that."

"Like what? That I love you?" Rapunzel pushed herself up so that she could be on his level. One blue eye was barely visible beneath the sheet of ice.

"Drawing me." He dropped his gaze. "You're only drawing… what you want… to see." His words were speeding up; he seemed to be getting angry. "And you're only loving… a dream…"

"Why does it upset you, Jack?"

"Stop – trying to pin – me down!" The air was getting colder and the wind was starting to pick up. "Love—art—names—they're all the same thing. They're all – chains—pulling me down."

Rapunzel shook her head. "You're wrong, Jack. I don't want to pull you down. I… I think I love you best when you're flying and free, and happy." She stared at him, and when he didn't respond, she pressed on, "Jack – my Jack – I know you're still there. I know that you're still alive, even though you cover yourself in ice. And so I'll capture you every way I can – I'll draw you, sing about you, stitch you into silk, I'll chase you to the ends of the earth, until you come back to me, or until I'm sure that you're dead. If you come back to me, Jack, we can be free and happy together, I promise."

He shook his head. "Don't – don't talk like that—that name – those lies –"

"They're not lies, Jack."

"Just leave me alone, Zellie!" He stepped back from her, swung his staff in a wide arc, and summoned up a wind. It took him away and it took Rapunzel's breath away, to see him take off, dwindling until he was almost the size of a star, and then out of sight.

It was then that she began to feel really cold. She wrapped her hair around herself and started to walk back to the cabin. She hadn't walked for more than ten minutes before the empty field of snow was interrupted by a black shadow that landed on it, cat-like. Hiccup jumped off of the dragon's back and hurried forward to take Rapunzel onto the saddle.

"There you are – Merida's been worried sick, we all have been – why are you smiling?"

"He called me 'Zellie.'"