Alaia Skyhawk: Time for a bit of action. I hope you guys enjoy it :)

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 7: Protector

Snow drifted down over the village, the first fall of the season, and the laughter of excited children reached his ears as he flew down from the sky to the settlement's edge.

Jack landed in a tree, smiling widely when the children spotted him, and then he dropped to the ground so they could mob him with hugs of greeting. He then raised his head to look at the older girl walking towards the group, and his expression softened.

This was the sixth winter Emily had believed in him, and she was fourteen now. Her friends, Claire and Mary, had stopped believing in him last winter. Claire's brother, Albert, still believed, but the boy wasn't among those hugging him now. That boy stood a little awkwardly off to the side, and Jack was begining to recognise the signs. This would be the last winter that Albert believed in him. The boy was growing up, and growing out of innocent belief. The worries of the world, of making a living for himself in the future, were starting to take hold.

Emily reached her brother, and started to shoo the younger children away from him firmly. It was late in the afternoon, and the sky was starting to darken.

"Go on, go home. It's getting late. We can all play games with Jack tomorrow once we've finished our chores."

"Awww."

Emily raised her eyebrows at the protests, and nudged them into motion one-by-one.

"You know I'm right, and remember that Jack has just finished bringing winter to all the north. Let him have a rest before you all wear him out with play."

The youngsters walked away with a final wave to Jack, which he returned with a smile. He then walked deeper among the trees, out-of-sight of the village edge, and his sister followed him until he stopped and leaned against a trunk which began to ice over with frost the moment he touched it.

"You've grown. You must be two or three inches taller than when I last saw you. You're really starting to look like a young lady."

There was a slight edge to his voice, and a flicker of fear in his eyes. Emily saw that, and hugged him.

"Don't worry, Jack. Claire and Mary may have forgotten you, but I never will. I could never forget my brother, ever. I promise, I'll never stop believing in you, even when I'm old and grey."

Jack put his arms around her, resting his head on hers as he held her tight.

"Thanks."

He let go, and took a deep breath as she looked up at him. She wasn't a little girl anymore, and before much longer her time for childish play would be over. The only reason he'd gotten away with playing until he was eighteen, was because she was so much younger than him and he'd ended up supervising her and the other village children while working to collect wood each day to stockpile for winter. She didn't have that, and once she reached sixteen, chances were their parents would find a husband for her.

Emily seemed to read the thoughts in his mind, and took hold of his hand.

"Don't worry about it, Jack. Just think of this way. When I marry, and have children, I'll get to teach them all about you. All about their Uncle Jack, who will come and play with them every winter." A call sounded from the village, and she turned when she realised it was their mother. "I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow, Jack."

He watched her go, but didn't move away from the tree even when night started to fall. He couldn't help the doubts in his heart, or the fear of her no longer being able to see or hear him. Losing Claire and Mary had hurt, he'd felt the folorn snap of their belief fading away while he'd been tending Southern Winter. He didn't want to think what it would feel like if he ever felt Emily's belief in him, break.

He shook himself from his thoughts and flew to the pond, where he sat on the rocky ledge above the far side of it and gazed up at the clouded sky. When the children came the following day, he showed no sign of his depressed thoughts from the previous night. He pushed them aside, letting the childrens' laughter and Emily's smiles ease his heart.

The first two weeks of winter passed in that way, with the children occupying his days, and his thoughts occupying the nights. Every evening found him sitting on the rocks as the sun set over the village, and that was where Mother Nature found him.

He sensed her almost immediately, his gaze flicking to where she stood in the shadows at the edge of the pond, and he frowned.

"What is it?"

Mother Nature remained where she was, this being the first time she'd spoken to him since the night he'd been reborn as the Spirit of Winter. When she had said they would not speak again until time and task required it.

Her voice was soft, but solemn.

"You've done your duties most acceptably these first few years, and learnt fast and well the lessons taught to you by the winds." She glanced at the village. "You've even succeeded in gaining a firm foundation of believers, which is a remarkable feat for having only been what you now are for six years."

Jack flew down from his perch, and landed in front of her.

"But you're not here to compliment me... You're here to order a storm, aren't you?"

Mother Nature regarded him for a long moment, and nodded.

"You are perceptive, and that is good, but I must inform you that it no single storm I am here to command. I left things be because you are new, but this can wait no longer... This region, and all of the eastern and northern territories of America, are due a hard winter. There must be regular blizzards, and lesser snowfall for the rest of the time. You may grant a few clear days, but not until the arrival of spring starts to near." Her voice dropped to a warning murmur. "You cannot go easy on them. Do not make me step in and cause them greater hardship."

Jack stared at her, wide-eyed and unable to breath around the pounding of his heart, before he choked and started to shake his head in denial. But Mother Nature's gaze did not waver or leave his, until the moment that reality sank in and his bowed his head in defeat.

"I will do as you command, Mother Nature."

She nodded once and vanished without further word, leaving him alone upon the ice of the pond.

The following morning, when the children had finished their chores, Jack waited for them at the village edge. His solemn expression brought their exited rush to an uneasy halt, and he waved them to gather before him before he spoke as gently as he could.

"I need to tell you something... Mother Nature says that this winter has to be a harsh one, and I have to do what she says. I'm going to hold back the weather for five days, so I need you need to tell your parents and everyone else that they need to collect as much extra wood as they can in that time. I'll make sure you get a few days when you can come out and play with me, but the rest of winter you're going to have to stay inside."

One of children, Albert, frowned.

"You're going to make it storm, lots, aren't you."

Jack looked at him, at this boy verging on adulthood whose belief already began to waver, and nodded.

"I have no choice. I am the Spirit of Winter, and must obey Mother Nature's commands. If I do not, then she will bring the bad winter herself, and it would far harsher than it will be should I bring it." He looked to the younger children, who now had fear in their eyes. "But remember... when the wind howls at the windows, it's not because I'm angry. When the days are dark and gloomy, it's not because I'm unhappy with you. But if you listen carefully each night, to the wind, you might hear the Song of Winter. And when you do, I want you to join in the game and sing songs along with my wind, ok?"

The children all nodded. They feared the harsh winter, but they also trusted him to keep them safe.

Jack gave them a nudge to send them back to the village, and watched until only Emily remained at his side. She then took hold of his hand.

"Are you ok, Jack?"

He glanced at her, and let out a shuddering sigh.

"I don't want to make the winter hard, but if I don't then Mother Nature really will do it on her own, and that would make it worse." He frowned unhappily, then forced himself to become composed. "You know the wooden pole in the middle of the village, that they hang the storm lantern from?"

Emily nodded.

"Yes."

Jack turned to face her, his expression serious.

"A few hours before I start the storm, I'm going to hang ice from the top of it. From now on, whenever I have to bring a storm to the village, I'll do that so everyone knows to secure their homes against the cold and the wind. I need you to tell them that, ok? Tell them that the Spirit of Winter will warn them when storms are about to start."

He gently pushed her, sending her towards their parents cabin, and flew up into the sky before she could say another word. He began gathering the clouds that he needs for this, letting the force in them build slowly, setting a strong foundation in them that will sustain the first blizzard for several days and nights. He took his time, knowing he had five days, and knowing that Mother Nature wouldn't object to him doing this in stages.

For the weather is not something that can change in an instant, and he could not start a snowfall if there weren't already clouds in the sky. She would not object to him building this piece-by-piece.

He returned to the village on the third day to find confused adults, and children who scrambled about to and from the woods with fallen branches to pile them alongside the woodstacks behind their homes. The grown-ups were uncertain what to make of all the children doing this, and the youngsters' insistence that a bad winter was coming because the Spirit of Winter said so. By now some of the children's fathers joined them in the task of gathering additional wood, deciding it couldn't hurt to be prepared just in case, taking their axes out into the forest to where some of the coppiced trees still had branches that could be cut and collected.

Jack nodded to himself in approval, and left again to continue building the snow-clouds. He returned late on the fifth day, just as the sky was starting to darken, and found the children skattered about the central square waiting. He landed on the top of the lantern-pole, waited until they'd spotted him, and then whacked his staff against it.

Ice immediately formed beneath his feet, stretching down the pole in long icicles like reaching fingers. He took them fully halfway down the post, before he looked to the children again.

"Get everyone inside, close and latch the doors, and don't come out until the storm stops."

He leapt from the post and disappeared up into the skies, as the children started shouting and pointing to the ice on the post... The very sign that Emily had spent five days warning the villagers to watch for.

The response was fearful, but swift, and everyone rushed to secure shutters and doors and bring armfuls of wood into their homes from the stacks behind them. Within an hour the sky started to darken and snow began to fall. The wind then picked up, pelting that snow against the sides of the cluster of cabins.

But when the darkness started to close in, when the wind howled, the children huddled in their homes heard the wind singing a faint song. A song about ice-houses in the trees, skating on the pond, and snowball fights in the woods. It was a cheerful song, full of laughter that whispered on the edge of memory, until one-by-one the children broke the dread silence within each of their homes. By singing the childish rhymes and skipping songs, that all children in the village knew.

High above, up in the clouds, the wind carried those songs to Jack and he smiled. The children weren't afraid of the storm, they'd embraced the Game of Songs that he'd made for them. He continued on with his work, far above the land below, lost amongst the blizzard. So he didn't see the streamers of golden sand, seeking out children who would need sweet dreams to ward off the fear of winter. And he certainly didn't see the surprised expression of a little golden man on a cloud of sand, when his sand found the children of one village sound asleep and smiling. In that one small settlement, there was no fear this night.

~(-)~

After the first blizzard, Jack cut the weather back to a constant, but relatively gentle snowfall. The snow on the ground was deep, it was going to stay that way, and it was going to make things hard for the people in the village.

But the children kept their spirits up, and played around the storm pole on the handful of days when the snow wasn't falling. Jack always joined them for that, gladdened to see them so cheerful despite the hardship he was inflicting on them. It eased the guilt he felt, and made him feel proud that, despite having no choice about the harsh winter, he'd succeeded in creating this balance between his formal duties and his own wishes.

He played with the children until dusk on one of those clear days, before landing on the post in the village centre and putting a new layer icicles on it having broken the old ones off after the end of that first storm. The adults in the village turned to look when they heard the ice forming, and he saw their eyes widen. The children nearby then relayed that 'Jack Frost' said a new blizzard was coming, but that it wasn't going to be as bad as the first one.

This time the adults didn't hesitate to listen, not when the children had been right about that first, terrible storm. They didn't understand how it was possible, or why some strange spirit was giving them the warnings, but they weren't fool enough to ignore them.

Jack stayed at the village this time, for this storm didn't need him to dedicate his attention to it, and so this time he saw the sand come.

He frowned as he watched it come down in streamers from the sky, curious. It wasn't the first time he'd spotted the stuff, but it was the first time he'd seen where it went. And as he watched, and peered through tiny cracks in the shutters, he saw the stand enter some of the homes and stop above the children in each. Once there, the children sighed and smiled in their sleep, as the sand became an image above their heads. Each image was different, in some of them he could make out a tall figure with a staff taking part in a snowball fight with the child, as their wishes and memories shaped the sand into the dream they most wanted. For that's what he realised they were, and he rememberd a story from his childhood.

The Sandman, the bringer of good dreams. It was something that almost all children believed in, and he began to wonder now just how many of those childhood stories and beliefs were about figures that really existed... Legend Immortals.

Jack looked up at the trails of sand, and considered following them to their source, but decided against it. During the previous three Southern Winters, he'd gone exploring around the world trying to find others like himself who might be open to friendship... All he'd succeeded in finding was the Summer Sanctuary, a very irate Spirit of Summer and her associates, and several more lesser Legend Immortals who zealously guarded their little patches of belief. Those had been almost as bad as Achieng, and in some ways they'd been worse. If the Nature Immortals held disdain for those who needed to work for the belief of humans in order to have power, so the Legend Immortals held disdain for those who basically had their power handed to them for no effort at all. The Sandman was likely very powerful among the Legends, given how well-known he was in stories, and may not be so territorial. But even so Jack didn't feel like chancing an unpleasant encounter with him.

The weeks ticked by, becoming one month, then two, and in the village things were still hard but the children kept singing and playing. But just as things were hard for the humans, so were things even worse for the local wildlife. Food was becoming scarce for predators, and a wolfpack had been drawn in by the presence of the village, their hunger warring with instinctual fear of people. Jack monitored their presence uneasily, but they only came near the village at night when everyone was safe in their houses. But then when he brought a bright, clear day, with the village running low on certain items of food, the village hunters were not about to pass up the chance.

Jack landed inside the village, having intended to play with the children, but instead he frowned at the preparing hunters and walked to where Emily stood on the porch of her home.

"What are they doing? There's a massive wolfpack out there! Didn't they get the message I gave to the children last week?"

Emily glanced at him, her eyes full of worry as she then looked to where their father was checking his hunting bow while another man checked his rifle.

"We told them, we even reminded them this morning, but the village needs the meat, and the furs and hides to trade when we send the wagon to the big town in spring. The constant snow has meant all we've been catching is rabbits. We need the larger game." She put her hand on Jack's arm. "Please protect them. I know they can't see you, but still... Please, make sure Father and the others come back safely."

Jack went quiet, and then he nodded solemnly.

"I'll make sure they come home."

When the hunting party set out towing a sled, Jack followed them, keeping a discrete distance even though they couldn't see him. But at the same time he wanted to curse, because he already knew that most of the deer in the valley had already fled from the wolves and gone much further up the river than the village's typical hunting range. Another large pack of wolves guarded that territory fiercely, leaving the pack near the village to struggle and starve. He knew this trip was a waste of time, and he knew that those wolves would find the trail leading away from the village come nightfall.

When his father and the hunters picked a clearing and set up to camp for the night, Jack felt like he could have screamed at them for their stupidity. Instead he began to agitatedly circle the camp, flitting between it and the trail leading back to the village. It was nearing midnight when he spotted the wolves heading in the hunters' direction, and he dashed back to the camp and landed beside the man keeping watch.

"They're coming! Get the others out of the tent and climb a tree!" He was practically screaming in the man's face, but the hunter remained oblivious as the Spirit of Winter began to curse. "Damn it!"

Jack began to look around frantically at how poorly defendable the camp was in its small clearing surrounded by trees. The wolves would have more than enough cover to pick the men off from behind while others circled at the front. In the end he did the only thing he could think of, and started to throw snowballs at the watchman and the tent.

He almost whooped in success when it has the desired effect, with the men woken to scramble out with guns, knives, and bows at the ready, but he didn't let elation distract him. Jack now rattled the surrounding trees, doing everything he could possibly do to make his father and the others nervous and watchful, even if he was also terrifying them in the process... But it meant they were ready, when the first wolf came into view and was echoed by the hunting cry of its fellows.

The hunters huddled together near their fire, and the wolves began to circle the camp. Both ignored Jack, for one group could not see him, and the other saw him as a part of the natural surroundings and nothing to be concerned with. The first gunshots make the wolves scatter for a few moments, but did not drive them away as Jack had hoped. The wolves were starving, and here before them was prey. They were not going abandon this chance for a meal.

By now Jack realised the hunters were in serious trouble. The pack was a merger of three smaller ones, and totalled around twenty wolves. Five men couldn't hope to hold them off once they decided to charge at them.

The first wolf made its move and was shot dead. A second one darted towards the men, and was wounded. But the villagers were poor, their ammo was limited, and Jack saw it in their eyes the moment they knew they couldn't win... They were going to die, and there was no escape.

After several more tense moments, half of the pack charged into the firelight and towards the hunters. In that instant Jack thought on his promise to Emily and his expression hardened. He slammed down out of the air, a gale of wind flinging away the wolves on one side, before he attacked those on the other side with a blast of ice.

For the hunters, all descended into a maelstrom of whirling snow, that hid everything beyond the heart of their circle of firelight... But they could still hear. They heard the snarls, yelps, and cries of the wolves. They heard the roar and shatter of wind and ice... And then the wind dropped, the snow settled, and the air cleared... And around them was a scene beyond all comprehension.

In a ring around their camp, sprays of jagged ice-spears were scattered all pointing outwards. Many had wolves impaled on them, several other wolves lay at the edge of the firelight and had been frozen solid. Whatever survivors there were of the pack, they had fled from this fury of winter.

The men then saw the wind carve a shallow circle in the snow around the camp, and then a line pointing back towards the village, and the meaning was clear. Whatever it was that had defended the wolves, be it the Spirit of Winter or not, it wanted them to head home.

They gathered up the carcases of the wolves, unwilling to waste the meat and fur, and headed back under Jack's watchful yet unseen gaze.

The story of that night became a village legend, after the hunters returned to tell tale of how winter itself had seemed to protect them from the wolves. Any doubts as to the existence of the Spirit of Winter, that the children had spoken of for six years, were now gone. But it remained that it was only the children who could see Jack, for even if the adults believed he was there, they lacked the innocence to perceive him.

More years passed after that harsh winter, and Jack came home as he always did to the joy and laughter of the children. But then, the ninth winter after he'd died and become Jack Frost, he returned to find Emily no longer lived in the house of his parents.

She was in a different house now... with her husband.

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: There you have it. If you're wondering how old Emily is at the end of this, she's seventeen. She was eight when Jack became the Spirit of Winter, and it's been nine years :)