EDIT: This used to be the first of those drabbles, but I switched it with Who I am. It just did not fit too well as a first chapter.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Rise of the Guardians


Jack Frost laughed as he watched the children rowdily make their way back inside. He had just returned to the little town of Burgess after spending some time north, bringing the first snow of the season with him. He barely needed to do anything to get a snowball fight started in the school yard. He ran along the fence surrounding the yard, throwing snowballs to anyone who didn't look like they were having enough fun. The bell had put a stop to it, though.

"Well, that was fun."

He jumped from the fence and flew to a nearby rooftop, looking for more entertainment. The town was quiet as the adults worked and the children studied. He landed briefly on a clothesline, wondering if he should return to the lake he called home until classes ended for the day. He needed to make sure to freeze it. Maybe the kids would come ice skating.

Before he could take a decision, a yell followed by a thump broke the silence. Jack grinned, recognizing the sound of someone slipping on a patch of ice. Jumping to the roof of the building the noise came from, he made his way to the edge so he could peer down at the unfortunate victim. His grin died when he did.

There was blood. That in itself was not too upsetting. People sometime got hurt when they played and that was no reason to stop having fun. The sense of danger just made it all the more exiting. But that was a lot of blood. And the elderly man it belonged to laid still where he fell.

"Hey, you alright there?"

Looking closer, Jack could see that he had smashed his head on the hard, frozen stairs when he slipped. The old man still lived, his unfocussed eyes staring up at the sky. He made a feeble attempt to push himself up. The blood dripped from the stairs to pool underneath it.

"Just... hang in there, I'll find some help."

He looked in the nearby windows, hoping to throw a snowball in one of them to attract attention to the bleeding old man. No one was home. He flew in a circle around the area, trying to find someone who could help. A young man walked down a street two blocks away, talking to someone on his cell phone.

"Hey! You! Someone needs your help."

The man did not hear him, of course. Jack landed in front of him, wondering how to get him to the old man. He grinned as an idea hit him, running in the direction he needed the man to go before throwing a snowball at him. The man turned around with a frown, peering at the narrow street the snowball had come from. The street that would lead him to the injured old man.

"Who threw that?" the man shouted in his general direction with a frown on his face.

Jack waited expectantly for him to come investigate, a new snowball prepared to keep him going in the right direction. Much to his disappointment, the man just shrugged and continued on, resuming his phone conversation.

"What? Come on! You can't just leave," he shouted at the man's retreating back. "There's an old man that might be dying right now!"

The man did not turn around. He did not hear him. They never did. He saw a group of women talking enthusiastically as they exited a coffee house. He flew to them, waving his staff around.

"Help! Someone is dying. You need to call for help. Someone! Anyone..."

The women just walked through him. He felt a moment of despair at his inability to be heard. It was nothing new, but it still hurt. In frustration, he striked his staff on the sidewalk, feeling a moment of satisfaction as the chatter turned to shrieks and yelps as the women fell in a heap. His satisfaction was short-lived, however, as he remembered the old man bleeding on the stairs. He hoped none of them had gotten seriously hurt.

Feeling useless, he flew back to the stairs where he had left the elderly gentleman. He landed lightly on the railing and looked down at the old man. He had given up on attempting to stand and was now trying to look around with his still unfocused eyes, weakly calling for help. No one walked down the isolated little street. No doubt he had chosen to live here because of how quiet it was. Now, there was no one to hear his calls.

"It hurts, doesn't it? To be alone and have no one who can hear you..."

The old man gave no signs that he heard his words. He finally stopped trying to call for help. He stopped moving entirely except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. It kept getting slower.

"I would help you if I could. But you can't even see me, what use am I?"

The old man did not answer. Jack stopped trying to talk to him. He just crouched there on the railing, feeling powerless. As the old man breathed one last time, Jack could swear he looked right at him. Before he could be sure, however, his eyes had grown dull and unseeing.

Jack stayed there staring at the dead man for what felt like an eternity before a young woman coming home from work spotted the blood under the stairs and called help. He stayed there staring at the bloodstains on the steps after the body had been taken away.

It snowed again on Burgess the next day. A light coat of powdery snow, just enough to cover the ground. Just enough to cover the blood on the stairs.


This did not really turned out as well as I had hoped, but I'll try to do better in the future.