Alaia Skyhawk: lol, I'm loving all this fun and fluff. Onwards!

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians, the Guardians of Childhood, or any related characters etc. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes.

~(-)~

Chapter 6: Children and Games

Laughter rang out in the air around the pond, air which was subject to the passage of snowballs being flung back and forth. Two months had passed, and winter was entering its final stage, but that didn't matter to the siblings playing among the trees. They were together, here and now, and that was enough.

Emily ducked behind a tree as another of Jack's snowballs came her wait, and she shouted out in a voice full of laughter.

"No fair! You don't have to grab snow like I do, you can just make it!"

Jack's chuckle came from behind a bush, which rustled as he stuck his head up out of it from among snow-laden branches.

"I'm the Spirit of Winter, what do you expect?"

At that moment he took a snowball to the face, as Emily whooped her success and went racing for a new place to take cover. Jack rose out of his bush and took flight, racing after her and getting her with a snowball to the back. Her squeal of mirth rang out among the trees, reaching the ears of the group of children making their way towards the pond.

Emily's friend, Claire, glanced at her brother, Albert, and the rest of the village children. Everyone in the village had noticed how happy Emily had become over the past few weeks. How she had been transformed from a solemn and mostly quiet girl, into one whose smile was like a ray of sunshine instead of gloomy like an overcast day. While the adults hadn't noticed much beyond that, the children had seen her sneaking away into the forest at every chance she got. They'd then seen her returning, flushed with happiness and dusted with snow.

Today they'd decided to follow her, and now found her throwing snowballs when there was no one there, and being hit by snowballs in return. Neither she nor her unseen playmate noticed the other children, not until Claire called out.

"Emily! Who... Who are you playing with?"

Emily dropped the snowball she'd been about to throw and gasped in surprise. She spun to face the small group of girls and boys, then looked to Jack for guidance where he'd landed in the branches of a nearby tree.

He smiled at her, and shrugged.

"You can tell them. Children aren't adults. Children are allowed to take part in our games. More people to play, means more fun, right?"

Emily hesitated, and then faced back to her friends and started to smile.

"Can you all keep a secret?" At her secretive whisper, she caught their attention and they nodded eagerly, and she waved an arm to indicate the pond. "This pond is special. It's the home of the Spirit of Winter, Jack Frost... But he's not just any Jack, he's our Jack. After he fell through the ice, the moon lifted him up again and told him he had to look after winter. But Jack is still our Jack, and he still likes to play when he's not too busy spreading snow and frost where it's needed."

One of the children, Claire, gasped.

"Is it really Jack, your brother?"

Beside her, Albert scoffed in sceptisism.

"It can't be. She's just making it up because she's still upset her brother died."

"Hey!"

Jack exclamation went unheard by all but his sister, as he conjured a snowball and threw it past Albert's ear, to which Emily looked at him sharply.

"Jack!"

Jack grinned unrepentatly, and began leaping from branch to branch among the trees, dislodging snow as he went. The children couldn't see him, but they could see the snow being jolted loose, and hear the faintest echo of a boy laughing. It made them nervous.

Another girl, Mary, whimpered.

"Is that him?"

Emily nodded.

"It is, but you have to do something before you can see him. Close your eyes, and believe in him. Really believe. You have to, or you won't see him."

Mary and Claire closed their eyes without hesitation, as did three of the four boys. Albert grumbled after that, and closed his as well, while around them Jack kept shaking snow from the trees while Emily spoke softly. Jack knew this was going to work, it wasn't like when he'd kindled Emily's belief in him. This time he had her to kindle her friends' belief for him.

"He's dressed the same as he always was, with his cloak, and the edges are covered with frost. His eyes are blue now, his hair is white like snow, and he has a staff that was the stick he used to save me last winter." Jack landed behind her, and she finished. "Now believe, and open your eyes."

Claire opened hers first, and gasped when she spotted the white-haired figure stood behind her friend.

"I see him! He's real!"

Mary was next to open her eyes, then the boys, and they all stared in surprise and wonder as well. Only Albert couldn't see him, and the boy scowled.

"You're all making fun of me. There's no one there!"

A ball of snow visibly rose from the ground all on its own, and was flung to hit him in the face. That act jolted Albert's belief, as the boy shouted towards the point behind Emily that all his friends were looking at.

"What did you do that for?"

He stopped and blinked when he realised he could see the person behind Emily, and Jack grinned before leaping into the air to land on a nearby branch.

He then waved his staff, chuckling.

"So who wants to join in mine and Emily's snowball fight?"

"ME!"

Within moments everything descended into a chaos of snowballs and laughter, with Jack conjuring piles of snowballs for everyone to use once the snow near the pond had been churned up by all the running around. And when the children sat down to rest on the banks, he entertained them further by skimming around the ice on the pond, in loops and spins and even jumps up into the air.

Jack whooped and laughed as they cheered him on, overcome by what seemed like a sudden surge of energy. It wasn't really a great deal, but it was enough to make him itch for movement and play as if he'd been pent up all Southern Winter and Northern Winter had just started. Instead he knew from last year's experience, that he should have been tiring a little by now. It was only after coming to a stop, and bowing to them comically in conclusion of his display, that it dawned on him what had caused it.

Their belief... He'd just gained the belief of six more children, and now that he looked for it, he could feel the additional power that gave him. It was but a small flicker in comparison to what he wielded as the Spirit of Winter, but the power that their belief gave him felt warm and happy. It was sunshine glittering on frost, and laughter mixed with snowballs. Was this how all Legend Immortals felt when they had people who believed in them? If so, he wasn't surprised they defended their patches of belief so strongly. He just had to wonder how many of them had turned that protectiveness into bitter possessiveness. How many had lost this feeling of wonder towards the belief of a child?

The moment was broken by the nearby call of one of the village adults, signalling it was time for the children to return to their homes.

Jack gave them a smile and a wink, chuckling.

"Remember... Our secret."

Emily and the others nodded, and waved to him before charging through the trees back towards the village. Once they were gone, Jack ascended into the sky to follow the winds' call. There were some avalanches he needed to go deal with.

The following morning, after completing their chores, the children all rushed back to the woods to play with him. He was a little tired when they arrived, having had to trigger avalanches in Russia, southern France, and the far north before dashing back here again. But he hid his fatigue and welcomed them cheerfully. Their belief in him pushing away his tiredness. What began now was a truly idyllic time for him, playing with the children in between his other duties as the days then weeks passed, and then spring came and he bid them farewell until next winter's first snows.

He returned the following year to a group of very excited children, whose number had increased by two since the two youngest children in the village were old enough to be allowed out to the woods. But even as the children came out to the woods to play with him, he warned them never to wander in the woods if he wasn't there and there was no adult with them either. That winter the games became more than just snowball fights, after Jack started building secret tree-houses out of ice for them to play in.

By the third winter the adults are starting to notice. They'd seen the platforms of ice in the trees, and heard the children talking about the Spirit of Winter, Jack Frost. But natural adult doubts interfered with pure and innocent belief, so they couldn't see him even as they gradually began to accept he must exist in some fashion. Al they knew was that all the children in the village seemed to know of him., and that he watched over them whenever they were in the woods. Seeing as the children never came to harm, not even the time when there was a bear in the area, Jack's presence began to seep into the subconscious faith of all those who lived in the settlement.

He'd seen it in other places, with the minor Legend Immortals he'd taken the slight risk of spying on during the past two years. All of them had still been very particular about their little patch, the small region where they were believed in, and so he'd still kept a tactful distance. The village near his pond was becoming his little patch of belief, and he knew in his heart it always would be.

But one thing he had noticed, was that all the children who could see him had forgotten he was once Jackson Overland, Emily's brother. Only she remembered that now, and it seemed that it wasn't meant to be that any but her would know who he used to be.

Jack watched her playing with the others, as he took a moment to sit in a tree and have a moment's rest. While he was there, Emily smiled up at him. She was eleven years old now, and had grown so much, but even so she still revelled in these games. And for him, that was enough. He was content.

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: And so Emily has spread the belief about Jack, to the other children in the village. Some small time-skips will start happening now, since I don't think doing multiple chapters about each winter he spends his time doing nothing but avalanches and snowball fights, would read all that well. There won't be any overly big jumps yet, but things will move forward to take in the major events I've got planned :)