From the author to you fabulous reader,
Ahahaha. Hello. Um, not sure if you remember me. I'm Aaron, hello all. I'm back from whatever death I had. Writer's slump, I guess. This chapter was supposed to be serious and address lots of serious issues, but then it turned into the most retarded thing I ever tried to crap out. I fixed it though, or at least I hope I did. This is my explanation for the tardiness on this one.
School has started, dear fabulous readers, and that means my life will be consumed by highly volatile professors and voluminous amounts of theoretical texts, starting with mother fuckin' Freud. Oh. Boy. Am I an excited panda. So my pace at writing stories will be crippled, but fear not, I cary around my handy-dandy-notebook everywhere, so whenever I have some free minutes, I can write at least a little bit. If you have asked for a story from me, please know that I am currently developing plots and sending them through the beginning stages of birth.
Thank you for your patients, fabulous readers. I look forward to the future projects in this up coming year and look forward to your reactions to other things I have to offer.
-There once was a disclaimer who had no friends because he was a disclaimer-
He waited in the middle of the open workshop, having been brought to the center of the frozen world and left to wait for whatever it was North thought was so important. "Jack-" Before the voice could finish, though, Jack was pulling a snow globe from his pocket and holding it out in a show of good manners, or at least as good of manners as a god of mischief could display.
"Look, I'm sorry, but when your snow globes are just laying out-" he stopped short upon seeing a pair of long ears.
"Mate..."
Jack's eyes narrowed. Why was Bunny there? He shoved his hands back into his pockets, putting the snow globe back inside, realizing that this wasn't about his sticky fingers.
Bunny crossed his arms about his chest, stern as always. His nose twitched and his ears zeroed in on the sound of Jack's sigh.
"What are you doing here?"
"Guardian business, mate."
Sandy, ever quite, stepped out from behind Bunny's leg. He looked guilty and stood with no clusters of gold above his head to explain his thoughts. It wasn't his silence that was disturbing, but the lack of sound as sand shifted and formed to his thoughts and reactions.
The three stood awkwardly, or at least Jack did; Bunny was simply content with looking menacing and mean. The large rabbit tapped his foot, sending hallow thumps vibrating through the floors, while Sandy danced his fingers along the waves of sand that drifted around his body; they stood like children waiting for their mother in the grocery story, silent, still. Occasionally, the other guardians would glance at Jack, but advert their eyes quickly lest they should linger on him judgingly.
There was a breeze, the refreshing scent of waterfalls and clouds as Toothina fluttered through the open window, eyes wide. "I just got the message. I'm I-uh" she stopped short, seeing Jack and fluttered down to the ground. She pulled her shimmering, iridescent tail out and fiddled with the feathers between her small fingers.
The odd behavior and stares that Jack was beginning to annoy him. If they had something to say, it would be more simple to just say it. He raised an eyebrow. "What message? Because I was just sort of pushed into the fire by some pint-sized elf." He was suddenly reminded of the first time he had been brought to North's shop. Then, all of the attention had been focused on him; now it was no different.
"Message about certain guardian and his child," came North's loud voice. It was different, now, than it had been in the dawn of the night, thunderous and jolting enough to demand attention by the sheer volume and bone rattling robust vibrato. He stepped out of his room where Jack and been earlier on that night, playing carelessly with North like old childhood friends, thought that relationship seemed long forgotten now. He emerged like a strict teacher, a stern parent, a tedious warden, arms cross and face gruff with his eyebrows stitched in a very impressive scowl. He looked to Jack, the others following his lead and turning to watch Jack.
"I'll just assume you're talking about me since you're all starring at me. What about me and my children? Which child? I bring joy to a lot of them. You're going to have to give me more specifics."
North held his hand up for silence. "I have been watching. Your actions with Jamie are beyond inappropriate."
"My actions?" Jack could feel something inside of him boil over, like a solid cube of dry ice when tossed in a vat of water. His cheeks flashed purple and he rose, toes curling and fingers clenching.
"Just what exactly have you seen?" The group stood around in a dead silence, all looking to North for the answer. It was clear that not even they fully understand the severity of the addressed situation.
"I have seen enough. You were just with him moment ago. I am Nicholas North, Jack Frost. I see all: naughty, or nice."
Jack curled his legs under himself. He was beyond mad. A comrade, a friend, had spied into his personal life and was now dragging it out before everyone to be discussed and looked down on.
"Mate?" Bunny hopped forward, ears twitching and nose sniffing in the air. He could smell the candied aroma of Jamie's house, and he could probably smell the sent of the boy on him. "Are you romantically involved with Jamie?"
Jack snapped. "What if I am?" He was being childish really, but he didn't care.
"That's bad news. You can't just go off making sweet with on of your children. Think of what your relationship does."
"Bunny's right. You're a guardian. Jamie needs a real person to love," Tooth interjected rather meekly, wings fluttering like a soft heart beat.
"So I'm not real now?" Jack asked.
"You're a spirit," Tooth corrected.
"That's all fine and dandy, but I don't go barging into your personal lives and tell you what you can and can't do."
"Jack, you are not thinking clearly. Try to picture it without bothersome love for moment."
Jack was beyond mad. His cheeks stung and his ears flashed a hot red color; he rarely ever got so mad. Clouds loomed over the workshop outside, swirling and casting off showers of ice shards and frost in a dangerous display of white and grey. "No, I can picture my life without love. I've lived for 300 hundred years without it, and I don't care to go back to that emptiness."
"That's jut it. 300 years. You're immortal and Jamie isn't," Bunny interjected. He held his hands out to show that he meant no offense, though his face and eyes displayed an aura of annoyance. So likely that Bunny would be the one to not fully understand; Jack wondered if Bunny was even capable of any emotion similar to love. They glared and stared at each others, Tooth's voice once again shifting in like a soft hand across the cheek, gentle and soothing.
"We say things like this for Jamie's well being as wells as yours too. You love Jamie and we all know that now, but Jamie will continue to grow older. He'll want a family. He'll die and you'll still be the same. We've all been through this pain, Jack. It's life and and we have to accept that. There is death all around though we cannot experience it. Don't punish yourself like that." There were tears in Tooth's eyes now and seeing that brief moment of understanding sadness gave Jack enough sense to settle and unclenched his fists.
He didn't want to hear the right thing; he understood what they were saying was right, but he didn't want to believe it, regardless of how real it was, like the eternal existence of the sun after it sinks low behind the horizon, unseen, but very, very real. Jamie had become the sun in his life and now it would be the sad time for him to accept it as it set, disappearing into the black void beyond the stars.
He wanted to think clearly, but all he could think, all he could see, was Jamie and his smile. His heart wrenched and he lashed out. In that moment, he wished that Jamie had never spied him. He didn't deserve his belief, or support. He wished that their eyes had never met and that he didn't see that spark of magic in the dark disk of Jamie's eye.
He hadn't thought about any consequences. It was just Jamie. He floated back down to the ground landing and wiggling his toes on the cold mosaic floor.
"So what then? Just say never mind. Just kidding, Jamie?"
"We know t's difficult, but it'll be the best for the both of you," Tooth remarked with a soft smile. Jack glared though he knew it wasn't her fault.
He was upset, frustrated. The rest of the guardians closed in on him, crowding around with sorrowful eyes, but Jack wanted nothing to do with them. He backed away, turning on his heel and waving over his shoulder. They would not peruse him, he knew that. North had invaded in on him enough for one night.
It was understandable that he would want to slip away into the solitude of the frosted evening, and none of the guardians made any fuss or show to follow him. At least they had that respect.
He fumbled with the globe in his front pocket, running cool fingers over the glassy surface. It had grown so cold being inside of his frosted shirt, like a smooth stone a frozen lake's edge. Jack pulled the glittering orb out and twisted it in his hand, rotating it before bringing it to his lips and kissing it, whispering a small secret of his home into it before smashing it down at the base of his feet; he turned and looked at the solemn faces of his comrades. He stepped into the portal and fell backwards into the air where he had asked the globe to take him: his home, the frozen pond in the clearing of the trees, the place where he had died, the place where he was born.
He dashed around, frosting everything he could see, the trees, the shrubs, the pond. The trees moaned and ached from the sudden rush of cold, but they stilled and quieted after a few moments, frozen in place, laminated by the blankets of frost and snow that Jack had brought his his anger, white and terrifying, like marble pillars, cold and dead. Everywhere around was coated in snow and frost; he stood, staff in hand now, with a scowl on his face and a vat of cold liquid in his heart.
Jamie would grow older, and he would stay the same. He was being stupid. He knew in the back of his mind that that would happen. What did he expect? There relationship would grow and develop, and Jack would simply be left alone in the cold and dark once Jamie reached the threshold of adulthood that Jack never saw. He flew up to a tree and nestled down onto a branch, curling into a ball and staring up into the moon's face.
This was his home, and the best place to speak to the moon. Many times he had returned to this place and chatted privately with the face of white in the black sky, asking him questions and receiving no answers. The moon had only spoken to him once after his first aching breath. "Live." And Jack did. He had lived enough for all the children that couldn't, he had lived generations of lives, seen children grow, marry, have children of their own; and in return see those children grow, marry, and bring life of their own into this ever turning world. Jack was fixed in one spot in time, stuck in his adolescent body, not a boy, not a man.
He traced the rippling waves of bark beneath his feet with his toe, figuring it would do no good to speak to the moon. The moon would surly agree with the others. It would be painful to eventually watch Jamie slip away from his reach in childhood, and he was unsure if he had the courage to see the other grow older and fade away into the eroding effects of time.
He sat for a long while in silence, listening to nothing but the sound of the Earth as it moved, breathed, grew.
He was a pitiful sight, a shell of a boy left in the tree, curled, face buried in his knees.
He had been so absorbed in self pity that did not see the eruption of gold, shimmering light as it cast a soft glow on the abused trees. The light flickered and snaked, swirling around the trunks and leaves, making no noise but the gentle sound of shifting sand.
It was this noise that caught Jack's attention, he lifted his face from his knees and looked around as the gold brightened his solemn, white world. He squinted and watched as Sandy slid down the sand like a long slide from the starry heavens. The golden dunes of sand caught him and formed into a little cloud upon which he sat, floating closer to Jack who merely blinked.
Jack would have turned him away and asked that he leave had it not been for the bright smile in corner of his golden brown eye. The sand above his head quickly shifted into a small figure of a boy who ran and jumped and played. Jamie.
He watched as Jamie danced and laughed silently, leaping, falling, climbing until he came across another figure, an older boy with an oaken staff. Jamie leapt and embarrassed the older boy and the shape of his young figure changed and grew until he was the same size as the other. They still hugged, holding onto each other until the boy with the oaken staff pulled away and Jamie grew and grew. All the while as Jamie grew, the other boy floated around his head, pointing, showing, laughing, kissing, comforting.
Other figures came in and out of Jamie's life, some making him happy, others making him sad, but the other floating boy with the staff stayed near and never left. If Jamie fell, the other boy would catch him. If Jamie flew and the other boy would take him higher. Jamie hunched, old and withered, and waddled forward, receding into a hospital bed with the other boy standing beside him amongst the other faces of Jamie's friends and family.
"Okay I get it. I need to stay by his side because I'm his guardian," Jack snorted.
Sandy shook his head and the figures of people disappeared into yellow dust. Sandy spoke again, the sand morphing above his messy hair. The other boy stood beside Jamie's figure again, this time with a graduate hat and a teacher's stick. The boy showed Jamie and taught him, they stood close and Jamie pointed to groups of sand around them that had shaped into the forms of couples, boys and girls hugging and kissing.
The boy showed him, held him close and kissed him sweetly before he let go and brought Jamie's hand into another girl's hand.
"I'm supposed to teach Jamie?"
The clouds of sand dissipated into the air once more and Sandy nodded, gesturing with his hands to show that there was still more to take from what he had just showed Jack. "I'm supposed to teach Jamie about love, be there for him and help him?"
Sandy nodded again.
"Yeah, but I don't remember anything about love, or relationships. Jamie would be better off-"
The shifting sound of sand stopped Jack as Sandy plucked a golden strand of gold from the air, it went off through the trees somewhere where Jack couldn't see. There was Jamie's voice and two figures hugged and held onto each other, whispering soft words to each other as their bodies twisted and tangled together. Jack's cheek's flashed hot; he was staring at Jamie's dream again, that strand that Sandy held between his fingers lead to Jamie's house and was what brought him ideas of love and romance with Jack on a strand of dreams.
"It's okay to be with him, because I'm supposed to teach him?"
Sandy remained as silent as ever, but his face spoke a thousand words with one simple smile.
Jack nodded as he leaned forward and ran his hand through the sand that showed Jamie's dream, waving it away. "You gotta quit showing me his dreams, Sandy; he deserves a little privacy regardless if they have to do with me or not.
Sandy shrugged the strand of sand vanished. He was helpful and Jack was glad that he had come to him. He was so easily forgotten because he never spoke, but it seemed that what he had to say was always the most important.
"What about North and everyone else? I suspect old fuddy-cookie-muncher will still spy and try to get me in trouble."
Sandy shook his head and pointed up to the moon; Jack's eyes followed and he stared at the white, ambient light for a few seconds. "The Man in the Moon says so?"
Jack looked down for a conformation to his question, but found nothing except for empty air and a few dust specks left from Sandy's dreams. Jack leaned back on his tree branch and rested his head, thinking about the information he had just been told before he closed his eyes and drifted off into a sound sleep.