Alaia Skyhawk: And the next arc begins! We're moving into the juicy bits of my plotting now!

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.

And a shout-out to VanRah on Deviantart, for letting me use their awesome picture of Jack Frost as the new cover for this story! Seriously, go check out their page!

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Chapter 30: Shadows

"I still think this is stupid, and messy, and illogical, and... and..."

"Not regimented and ruled with an iron fist? I hate to break it to you, Ariko, but Nature is unpredictable and chaotic by well, nature. No force of nature can be ruled by a force of man, and it won't be held to a leash made of human concepts. That's why Mother Nature wants us working this way from now on."

"...I still think this is stupid."

Ariko sat there, glaring at him and pouting. A person could be forgiven for thinking that this was the first Winter/Spring transition that the two of them had worked on together, but in fact it had been ten years since Mother Nature had told her to switch to the new methods, and this was their nineteenth transition.

Ariko had been well and truly knocked off her high-horse, but it seemed that even after a decade she was still sulking about it. And she always made a point of seeking out Jack, when the winds told her he was on his last bit of winter work before going back to the Winter Sanctuary. She did it in an obvious attempt to annoy him.

Jack kept his back to her, rolling his eyes as he ushered away the clouds he'd used for one last brief blizzard over Patagonia. Ariko had gone from being a general annoyance, haughty and self-superior, to acting like a petulant child whenever they crossed paths. She didn't treat Achieng that way, he knew that from speaking to the Spirit of Summer. No, Ariko blamed him for all these changes, which to give her credit he was the one responsible, but she simply refused to accept that this change had been for the best.

The clouds sent on their way, Jack sighed and shook his head. Speaking without turning to face her.

"You know, you glaring daggers at my back at every opportunity may have been cute a first, but now you're really starting to look like a spoiled brat. If you keep acting like a child with tantrum issues, then I'm going to start treating you like one."

He glanced over his shoulder at her, in time to see a flicker of conflict in her expression. She was determined to keep voicing her objections, but part of her didn't want to prove him right. That part was her pride, and it was the same thing he'd exploited to bring Oisin and Achieng around. They'd just been far less stubborn about it.

She flew off without another word, still pouting, and Jack let out a sigh of relief once she was gone. Southern Winter was over, and he had three and a half weeks before the first preliminary parts of Northern Winter would require his attention around the Arctic Circle.

He arrived back at the Winter Sanctuary to find Yuki playing games with the sprites, who she had shooed back home in line with Jack's expected time of return. He waved to her as he passed, petting a couple of the sprites that came to dance in greeting around his ankles, and then headed into the Ice Palace to go take a nap.

The numerals above his bed caught his attention when he went to it, his mind reading the numbers and words as he remained in thoughtful silence. Twenty-third of August 1811... In three months, three weeks, and two days, it would be exactly one-hundred years since he had died and become Jack Frost.

Jack slumped into the snow on his bed, not particularly looking forward to that anniversary. He tended to try and ignore the date of his death, December the sixteenth, each year. Not because he didn't like remembering saving his sister, but because he preferred not to think about the memories of what happened after... The cold and the dark, the desperate need to breathe, and the terror of being trapped under the ice. Those memories didn't cause him problems in the sense of him locking up when faced with them. Being trapped under ice no longer held any fear at all for him, since he couldn't become trapped anymore and he was incapable of drowning. He just didn't see the point in reliving it every year for some unnecessary purpose of posterity.

He curled up on his side under the snow, sighing as he let his body relax into that cool, cushioning hold. He wouldn't be able to avoid it this year. He knew for a fact that Yuki was planning some sort of little party, as much as he also knew it was supposed to be a surprise for him. He hadn't told her he already knew what she was planning. But he also knew that his family wanted to celebrate it as well, discretely of course. Gavin had said as much in the letter he'd left in his house two weeks ago. His father, James, had passed away three years previous.

Jack slept for a week, and then spent the next two in his library flipping through the most recent books his sprites and found and brought back. When he did go north in the middle of September, it was a relief to be working with Oisin rather than Ariko. He and the Spirit of Autumn crossed paths regularly during the weeks before Winter Threshold, and they always made time for at least a brief talk about weather conditions. It might have been a boring topic for Jack, but it was better than not being on speaking terms with Oisin at all. Not when they now had the new method down to a routine.

Winter Threshold's arrival, when it did finally come, roused Jack from his morose thinking and replaced it with anticipation. For when that day came, he cast a fine covering of snow over his valley and spent that night planning what would be the first story he'd tell that year.

Once morning came, all thoughts about the anniversary of his death were pushed from his mind.

Thaddeus and Gavin, being of similar age and importance to the two settlements when they were separate, now jointly led Burgess. Thaddeus in charge of the day-to-day matters, and Gavin in charge of everything to do with the shrine and the Festival of First Snow.

Burgess looked beautiful beneath the sprinkling of white that lay across it, and the change from past to present was far more apparent these days. All the old log cabins in the 'village' had been replaced with proper homes, and the town itself was still growing although the rate of that growth had slowed a bit. The shrine had evolved as well, becoming larger and more ornate. There were at least a dozen traders lingering in the town waiting for 'Jack Frost' to arrive, even if they were sceptics, just so they could get the weather prediction that would be posted at the town hall tomorrow morning.

Jack ignored those people, knowing that it would be a waste of his time to even try to convince them he was real. No sooner than they had left the valley, they would forget they'd learnt he was there. No one was immune to that... Not even Gavin's younger son had been immune.

That thought caused a flicker of a frown to cross Jack's face, as he descended towards the storm pole by the shrine, which was surrounded with a huge crowd of adults and children. Grayham's brother, David, had left to go to New York shortly after James had died. His belief in Jack Frost, had then only survived for two months before he began to believe it was a dream. Gavin barely mentioned David these days, although they kept in touch and David did plan to visit, but the awkward break was still there. Jack knew that was only going to continue to be a problem within the Bennett Family, and resigned himself to it.

Again the sombre thoughts were pushed aside, as Jack threw himself into the playful theatrics of the Festival of First Snow. He drew frost patterns at every opportunity, threw snowballs at the sceptical traders while the children looked on and giggled. He revelled in every part of it until dusk came and everyone went back to their homes.

Jack was in Gavin's new house, admiring how much more spacious it was than the old cabins had been, when Thaddeus and his wife came calling. Both Grace and Liam were grown up and married now, both with children of their own on the way. It left their parents with rather more time on their hands, which today they had chosen to spend in visiting their oldest friends here in the town.

When the couple were ushered in, Jack smiled and ran a circuit of the living room, knowing full well that it wasn't normal to have a cold breeze circle a room when all the doors were closed.

Thaddeus almost jumped in fright, before a moment where he was certain he'd heard a faint and ghostly chuckle. He glanced at Gavin, eyebrows raised, and smiled.

"Jack Frost is in here, isn't he? I always find it a wonder, the closeness of friendship your family shares with him."

Gavin returned the smile, and hung their coats on the hooks beside the door.

"Our ancestress, Emily Overland, was his first believer. We have had a special connection to him ever since, because of her."

Thaddeus nodded in understanding, even if he knew not that he'd not been told the full truth. He then looked around the room, until he spotted the corner where something unseen was drawing frosty patterns on the adjacent window.

"Welcome home, Jack Frost. It is good to have you back."

Jack smiled, waiting for Gavin to nod before speaking.

"I'm always glad to come home to Burgess. It's the high point of my year."

Gavin relayed his words, causing Thaddeus to laugh.

"That's good to hear."

The evening progressed cheerfully, with Jack remaining in his corner so as not to risk putting out the fire, but otherwise taking full part in the conversations that took place. In some ways it was hard to believe that Thaddeus and his wife had started out as sceptics. Both were so comfortable being in his presence, that at times Jack had to remind himself that they couldn't see him. It was a shame really, but Dumb Adult Logic still kept that thin barrier between them.

Days passed, weeks progressed, and the sixteenth of December grew closer. Jack found himself lingering close to his pond as the date neared, obsessively checking and thickening the ice that covered it. It didn't matter that no-one had ever fallen through the ice there since the time that he had, he always made sure to keep the ice solid and then break it so that it was obviously dangerous when the end of winter neared and the thaw began. He just couldn't shake the dark memories, of burning cold water and sinking into darkness. They lingered at the edges of his mind, hidden from those around him by his smiles and laughter.

Not even to Emily, had he described what he'd gone through that day.

When the day came, Jack spend the early hours before Burgess dawn, back at the Winter Sanctuary where he got a bigger surprise than he'd expected. Yuki had actually managed to bake him a cake, albeit a small one and only with the help of the Selkies. The members of that Tribe of Myth, filled the Sanctuary Plaza with tables of food and drink, and the air within the cavern with music and songs and laughter. Sprites ran everywhere, chased by Selkie children, both groups giggling and smiling in joy.

And in the face of that, Jack felt the dark memories being pushed aside. He was still smiling when he arrived in Burgess just after dawn, and entered Gavin's home to find the interior decked with garlands and paper-chains. And the biggest present of all was a book, a leather-bound book marked with nothing more on the cover than the Snowflake Symbol of the Winter Sanctuary. And inside...

It was a family tree, starting with Emily and Albert, and one other entry beside hers which was noted as being her brother.

~Jackson Overland/Jack Frost~

Born: 14th March 1693

Died: 16th December 1711

Reborn: 16th December 1711

Jack closed the book and held it close, wordless with emotion. And then he let out a shuddering sigh, a hint of tears in his eyes, and held it out to Gavin.

"You look after it for me. Write in it every name, every birth, every marriage and death. I want it to be Emily's living legacy, a record of this family that means so much to me."

Gavin accepted it back and passed it to his wife, before he lay a hand on Jack's arm.

"You may remember this day as being the one you died, but we remember it as the day you came back to us. Happy one-hundreth anniversary as the Spirit of Winter, Uncle Jack."

Jack pulled him and his wife into a hug, starting to laugh in joy. In that moment, he felt like nothing could mar or spoil the year that was ahead...

He was wrong...

On June the eighteenth, 1812, another war broke out between America and Britain, and David was among the casualties during the initial months of the conflict. He would never get to return to Burgess, would never get to rekindle his belief in Jack. He was gone, without ever remembering what it was that he had lost when he moved to New York.

It was a bleak time, apprehension ran rife even as far inland as Burgess. And nowhere else was that uncertainty stronger than it was in the newest of the children to have moved to the town with their families.

It was this winter, that Jack saw his first Fearling. A shadowy figure that looked like a twisted wraith, a shadow of men that shunned the light. It stalked the town perimeter, staying under the eaves of the forest. Most often glimpsed at night when there was no moon visible, but occasionally Jack saw it during the day when the sky was overcast and gloomy. He tried to drive it away, but it always eluded him, slipping from shadow-to-shadow in the blink of an eye.

As more news of the war trickled in, and the children's' inner fears grew worse, a second Fearling joined the first. By the time Ariko began her early spring work, and then Spring Threshold arrived, there were five of them. And Jack knew his time in the North of the World was almost up, and that he would be forced to leave. The Fearlings had stayed out of the town, almost as if they knew he'd be on them in an instant should they try to enter, and yet they also clearly knew that all they needed to do was wait for him to leave.

The dilemma tore at his heart, but unbeknownst to him, Sandy had also noticed the gathering Fearlings. Most had gathered along the coastal regions, as expected with the British ships blockading ocean trade, giving him a great deal of extra work distributing soothing dreams to as many children in those places as he could. He'd followed signs of the Fearlings inland, tracking them and driving many away with his whips of dreamsand. Those that he managed to wound wouldn't return, not until they'd recovered, but there were still plenty more lurking in the shadows.

When Sandy tracked some of the Fearlings to Burgess, it was with some surprise. The town was a haven of belief, filled to the brim with joy and happiness especially during the winter months. Fear held little power here. But he saw signs out in the woods that Jack had been fighting the creatures, in the form of jagged shards of ice clinging to trees where they'd been flung at shadows which vanished from reach between one moment and the next.

But little did he know, that Jack had come up with another idea of how to deal with them. For this day he'd gathered the children at the fallen log in Jack's Wood, and was telling them story after story about the Guardians.

Jack perched on the log, surrounded by a semi-circle of avidly-listening children. Words from Katherine's stories about the Guardians, flowing from him at a pace which would have seemed frantic had he not kept his expression fixed into a smile.

It was the Guardian's job to protect children from the Fearlings, after a century of this immortal life and lots of conversations with Ombric, Jack knew that. If he couldn't be here during Northern Summer to keep the creatures at bay, then all he could do was arm the children with as much belief and faith as he could muster in them. After that, he just had to hope that his efforts were enough to keep fear at bay and the Fearlings out of the town.

He should have been paying attention to the time and the weather, for the clouds overhead combined with the early dusk meant that here under the trees the gloom was growing. Jack didn't see the lurking wraiths, until one of the children saw them first and shrieked.

It was one of the newer children, and the older youths rushed to their side to reassure them. But even the twelve and thirteen-year-olds trembled when the Fearlings gathered in a line and began to advance on the crowd of children.

Jack stared at them, overcome with horror. But then he scowled, a surge of fierce protectiveness and fury rising in his chest, and he grabbed the closest thing he had to hand to launch as a distraction.

A snowball.

It struck the middle-most Fearling right in between the eyes, causing it to whine in sudden surprise while the other Fearlings hesitated. And then Jack heard one of the children laugh at the sight, and got a much better idea than stories.

He sent a burst of power across the ground under the feet of the children, conjuring hundreds of snowballs within easy reach.

"New game! Let's see who can hit the Boogey Monsters with the most snowballs, before our laughing drives them away!"

He picked up another snowball of his own, and slammed it into the furthest of the Fearlings. Within moments all the children joined in, even the newest ones. Meanwhile, high above, Sandy arrived on the scene just in time to see Jack Frost rally sixty children into chasing away the creatures. And not only that, but when the youngsters headed home and the Fearlings tried again, the children didn't hesitate even a second before starting to grab snow to barrage the creatures.

Sandy lingered around Burgess for a couple more days, watching as Jack joyously taught the new 'game' to all the children in the area. He also taught them that, even if there was no snow on the ground, they could throw anything they could pick up at the 'not so scary monsters'. He was actively mocking the Fearlings in front of the children, who loved his fun and games so much that their fear of the creatures was utterly banished.

The Fearlings left; their prey was no longer afraid of them.

It was after the creatures had gone, that Sandy descended from his discrete vantage point and headed to Jack's pond. The Spirit of Winter was there, breaking the ice up so it would thaw quickly and no one would be tempted to try skating on it.

He waved when Jack spotted him, and smiled in greeting.

Jack grinned in return, swooping over and radiating a level of excitement that had him restlessly jumping about. It was then that he proverbially threw out the window, any thoughts Sandy had about his observations being 'discrete'.

Jack waved his arms about, laughing in exhilaration.

"I saw you watching! Did you see how the kids scared them away! I'd been trying for weeks to drive them off, and then it occured to me that the way to make them leave was for the children to stop being scared." He darted close, almost bouncing with glee. "It was like when I saved my sister, the day I died and became Jack Frost. She was so scared that she couldn't move, but I helped her to stop being scared by making it a game of hopscotch. So that's what I did the other day, I turned it into a game so the children wouldn't be afraid anymore, and it worked!"

He laughed and flopped down into what remained of a soggy snow-bank, staring up at the sky, and Sandy moved so that he was above him and Jack could see the question-mark over his head.

Jack grinned.

"I'm going to keep teaching them, Sandy. I'm going to teach them to turn fear into fun, to laugh in the face of the dark. If any Fearling comes anywhere near Burgess again, it's going to get the biggest surprise it's ever had!"

He leapt up into the air again, startling Sandy who backed hastily out of his way. Jack then pointed at the moon, which was a crescent above the treetops, and then at the melting snow. His words held an edge to them that spoke of his inner sense of revelation.

"Just like how snow brightens even a moonless, starless night, I'm going to inspire children to turn their fears into fun. Even if no one outside this valley can see me, the Bennetts can spread stories about how Jack Frost scares away nightmares by throwing snow at them." He clenched his fists, determined. "Even if children can't see me, I can still help them through those stories." He looked over to Sandy, as if only now remembering he was there. "I don't mean to be a bother or anything, but could you maybe spread a few dreams about that? Boogey Monsters being chased away by throwing snowballs at them and laughing?"

Sandy was staring at Jack, wide-eyed and utterly astounded, until he shook himself to his senses and nodded enthusiastically. Several images and symbols above his head, then conveyed how much of a good idea he thought it was.

Jack began to bounce on the spot some more, before he then exploded up into the skies in his enthusiasm.

"I need to start planning how I'm going to teach the children who can't see me! Thanks for agreeing to help using dreams!"

The Spirit of Winter was gone from sight within moments, leaving Sandy alone beside the pond.

He floated there, seeming breathless, and then a radiant smile of excitement lit up his face and he too raced up into the skies. But unlike Jack, he didn't head south... Sandy headed north.

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: Can anyone guess where he's going? Hehehehe! :D