Alaia Skyhawk: Next chapter was going to be this chapter, until I realised I'd almost forgotten something very important that I wanted to cover. You can probably guess what it is, from the title.
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!
~(-)~
Chapter 37: Farewell to a Founder
They day started out just like any other day during Southern Winter, with Jack being woken from one of his almost daily naps by the sounds of the chimes behind the wall, which displayed a date for early August 1851.
He floated up out of his snow-bed just as he always did, and walked over to the chair by the Ice Mirror. He didn't watch the town as much as he'd used to,and as much as he cared about Burgess and the people in it, he'd reached a stage in his immortality where he wanted to do other things. That spending more than the occasional hour here and there to watch a little of Burgess' days, instead of entertaining him, would only irritate him.
So he stopped watching so much during Southern Winter, and instead looked forward to being there in person for Northern Winter.
But that wasn't to say he didn't check in regularly with his family. One thing he always did at least twice a week, was check the high-shelf in the main living room of the family's current main house. That was where letters were left for him these days, high enough up that he could take them even when there were guests in the house. All he had to do was set the mirror to line up with the end of the shelf, and slide the letter towards him without picking it up.
Today there was no letter, just a small note. A fact that was unusual enough to make him frown as he carefully pulled it along the shelf until it came through the mirror.
When he opened it, he stared for a moment and his eyes widened, before he was then dashing out of the sanctuary so fast that he left several windswept and startled Winter Sprites in his wake.
Rising up towards the far upper airways, Jack then called out.
"Winds, tell me where Achieng is!"
It took almost a minute before one strand of wind answered, to say that the Spirit of Summer was currently near Greece. Jack didn't need to hear anymore, as he had the winds catapult him into the upper airways to reach his top flight-speed.
When he'd passed over the Mediterranean Sea, only then did he descend, and even then only to the unseen threshold of utter cold that the other Spirits of the Seasons could not cross. He then asked the winds to find her, and tell her he urgently wanted to speak with her.
When she arrived an hour or so later, she was frowning in mild annoyance. Something that was reflected in her tone of voice.
"What are you doing here, Frost? You've no business being in places where Summer holds dominance. Your season is in the South of the World at this time."
Jack drifted down, his expression solemn.
"I wanted to ask a favour. Read this, and you'll understand."
He held out the note, which she cautiously accepted. She then blinked with surprise upon reading the contents, and handed it back.
"So a man by the name of Thaddeus, who lives in your valley, is dying. What favour from me, could possibly have any relevance to that?"
"I want to be there, to pay my respects in his final days, but it's the middle of Northern Summer in Burgess." He frowned. "I could have gone without asking, but I chose to seek your approval first. At least give me some credit for doing something by the book for once."
Achieng gave him a long look, her eyebrows raised.
"I could understand if this were one of your sister's descendants, but this man is no relation to you. Why are you so set on this?"
Jack looked at the note, holding it tight.
"Because I owe him a debt of gratitude. When he and all those new families moved into my valley, their ways and beliefs could have so easily overwhelmed and washed away those of the people in the village. But Thaddeus embraced the village beliefs once he was shown them, and he made sure that every family that followed him from Kirktown, adopted those beliefs as well. If not for his efforts, I could have become forgotten in my own valley. You may not seek believers for yourself, but mine mean a lot to me."
The Spirit of Summer frowned ever so slightly, remaining silent for several moments before she sighed and tucked an errant braid behind her ear.
"There aren't actually any rules that say the Spirits of the Seasons can't go wherever they want whenever they want, regardless of what season holds sway in the place they go to. It was more an unspoken agreement that we wouldn't." She winced. "Or rather, it was something Ariko insisted on from the first time she and I met after I became the Spirit of Summer... You may go to Burgess during Northern Summer, Jack, and I won't protest. Just make sure you keep your cold to yourself, and don't make a habit of straying into summer too often. And don't let anyone but your family see you, or Ariko is sure to find out about this agreement and raise a fuss."
Jack started to grin.
"Thank you!" He called to the winds, in preparation for them to throw him in the direction of Burgess. "You have my word, there won't be so much as a sniff of winter weather in my valley while I'm there."
Achieng watched him as he flew off, wearing a mildly bemused expression that he barely got a glimpse of before the winds flung him back into the far upper airways. But he was in no real frame-of-mind to dwell on the fact she'd as much as told him he could visit his family whenever he wanted to during Northern Summer... So long as he didn't flaunt that he was in Burgess, cause a nuisance, or push his luck and visit too often.
It he had thought about it, he'd have realised just how surprising it was for her to do that. It was probably the first time she'd made an honest effort at friendship with him.
Yes, he'd think on it later, but for now a more solemn matter awaited him.
Once he'd gotten a reasonable distance away from Achieng, Jack stopped and created an Ice Mirror, and then slipped through it. He emerged in the pantry at the house of the head of the Bennett Family, a position now held by Grayham. Now, it seemed, the time had come for Thaddeus to follow after Grayham's father, Gavin. The man who had been his comrade and joint-mayor until nine years ago, and had died at a very respectable age of seventy-five. But Thaddeus had gone much further than even Gavin had managed, for it was only now that time was catching up with him, at the age of eighty-one.
People were living longer now, than they had back when Jack had been young, but even so the age the retired mayor had reached was an exceptional one. Thinking on it in that sense, Thaddeus had seemed determined to defy the burdens of age on his body. Only last winter, he'd made a point of showing he could still split logs with the best of them. It had seemed he might hold on forever... almost.
Jack cautiously came out of the pantry and into the kitchen, finding it empty although there were signs a meal had been eaten recently. He walked through to the living room, still careful in case there were guests who would be startled by doors apparently opening by themselves, and it was there he found Grayham sat by the fire mending a hole in a boot.
Grayham jolted when Jack cleared his throat, and quickly got up in surprise when he saw him.
"Jack, what are you doing here? It's the middle of summer!"
The Spirit of Winter sighed, and leaned against the door-frame. But as casual as the pose may be, his expression was solemn.
"The Spirit of Summer knows, and she doesn't mind, so long as I don't let the town children know I'm here. I've come to pay a debt of gratitude."
At the clear hint about the condition of Thaddeus, Grayham sighed and indicated Jack should seat himself before doing the same. Although the movement came with a wince, for at the age of sixty-one, Grayham was nearing the end of his years himself, and a lifetime of outdoor labour was telling on him.
"Then you'll have to wait until the town's children are asleep. Thaddeus' granddaughter, Amelia, is tending to him. I've been visiting every day since he became bedridden. She'll let us in, even if the hour is late."
Jack nodded in understanding, before taking the boot an materials from Grayham when the elderly man tried to resume mending it. Jack mended it instead, both to pass the time and also as a distraction, but his relative didn't remark on it. Both of them knew he was thinking about another inevitable event that would happen sometime in the next few years.
Deaths tended to be sudden, or progress too quickly for him to arrive or during a season where he hadn't been able to come. Besides his sister, Jack had only been at three other deathbeds during all his years. The family always did their best to hide long-term illnesses, and only tell him of deaths after they'd already happened. They hated reminding him of how fleeting they were in comparison to his immortal state.
And Jack had never protested against that, because it was hard enough knowing they would die, without being there to actually see it happen.
The two of them sat in silence for the rest of the afternoon, not speaking even when Grayham had his evening meal. And then, at close to ten o'clock, they set out to Thaddeus' home.
Burgess was quiet at this hour, although the sky was only just starting to darken and the air was still warm. The warmth put Jack on edge, even though it was nothing that could harm him. It was just that he'd never walked about somewhere in summer, not even once, since before he became the Spirit of Winter. To be doing so now, was incredibly strange for him, and actually made him feel uncertain. Almost as if he expected Achieng to come screaming down at the sky yelling at him, even thought he knew she wouldn't.
Yes, perhaps was it. It was better than admitting that he simply wasn't used to being somewhere during summer, not anymore. The feeling of doing so, was such a distant memory that he'd no longer recalled what it felt like.
He and Grayham reached the house, and after knocking on the door and waiting, a middle-aged woman opened the door.
Amelia smiled when she recognised Grayham, totally unaware of Jack's presence, and she gestured for him to enter.
"You're by a little late today. No trouble at home, I hope?"
Grayham stepped inside, but before she could close the door, he held it open for a few moments more to allow Jack inside as well. And then, in response to her frown of confusion, he explained.
"Jack Frost is here to pay his respects. He's come here in summer, for Thaddeus."
Amelia's brought her hands to her mouth in surprise. The Burgesses, those that lived in the town that is, were the only ones to know that the Bennetts could see Jack even as adults. Such was the trust and friendship the families shared with each other.
"Jack Frost is here, to see my grandfather?"
Grayham glanced at Jack, then nodded to Amelia in confirmation.
"I'll take him up to see him, if you would make some tea?"
"Y-yes, of course. I'll be up shortly."
Amelia hurried along the hallway towards the kitchen, and Grayham indicated to Jack that he should follow him up the nearby stairs. Once at the top, he then stopped outside one of the doors there and faced Jack.
"Thaddeus is very ill, and weak, and he tires easily."
Jack sighed.
"I'm no stranger to seeing the effects of old age, and I remember how old he looked the last time I saw him just a few months ago."
Grayham laid a hand on Jack's shoulder.
"He looks very little like he did then... He's so frail, you may not recognise him."
Inside the room, laid in bed beneath a thin cover so that the summer heat didn't make him too warm, Thaddeus opened his eyes as he heard voices outside his door. He then sighed and grumbled, irritated despite his condition. So what that he was dying? That was no reason to stand out there, talking about him, as if dying made you incapable of hearing.
When the door did open, he'd closed his eyes again. His aged and weakened voice, a rasping whisper of annoyance.
"Grayham Bennett, I am not so ill as to be talked about as though I were not just beyond the door and able to hear you. The hour is late, and I am tired, so whoever that fellow you have with you is, take him back to where you found him. I want no strangers coming in here to give me their pity."
Grayham and Jack had paused just inside the threshold, glancing at each other before the Spirit of Winter spoke hesitantly.
"You can hear me, Thaddeus?"
Thaddeus grumbled under his breath before responding.
"Of course I can, and by the sounds of your voice, you're some disgustingly young man, no doubt in excellent health. All I want is some peace in my final days. Now go away."
Jack looked at Grayham again, and shrugged.
"I guess I won't be needing an interpreter."
Grayham looked confused.
"How is this even possible?"
"I learnt from Sandy that sometimes it happens like this. Sometimes, when a person is close to death, the clouds are lifted from their eyes, the veil is lifted from their ears, and their minds open to the truth of the unseen around them. It's rare, but having a degree of even partial belief beforehand, makes it more likely."
Thaddeus, listening to them talking, snapped out as loud as he could muster.
"If you would kindly stop talking as though I were not here! I told you to get out!"
He opened his eyes, intending to glare at his friend and the as yet un-introduced second person, but then he went still. His eyes widened as they lit upon the figure beside Grayham. A seemingly young barefoot man with hair as white as snow, eyes like the bluest winter sky, who was garbed in simple clothes and a grey cloak trimmed with fur. That figured carried a staff of gnarled wood, curved over at the tip like a shepherd's crook.
A breathe of awe passed the dying man's lips.
"...Jack Frost..."
Jack touched Grayham's should in silent request to be left alone in the room. Grayham then walked out and closed the door, before Jack then walked slowly over to the bed.
Once there, he smiled softly.
"Hello, Thaddeus... I must say, I never expected this. I never expected to be able to talk to you, truly, face-to-face."
He leaned his staff against the wall, and sat down in the chair next to the bed as Thaddeus tried to make sense of this.
"Tis summer. What are you doing here, during this warm season?"
Jack sighed.
"I received a message from Grayham, that you were dying. I knew then that I had to come." He reached out, clasping cool fingers over the old man's frail hand. "You've done so much for me. If not for you and your efforts, the village and its beliefs about me could have swept under by the tide of all the new families who followed you here. I could have been forgotten, but you worked hard to make sure that all those new families would instead believe in me. You protected the town, and the village, and were key in bringing the two of them together. I can't thank you enough for that."
Thaddeus smiled at that, his expression filling with pride.
"I've been honoured to do that for you. You've been a blessing to this place, and brought such joy to the children here." He paused, thoughtful. "Although, I've always wondered why. Why did you suddenly choose to show yourself to the village children all those year ago? Why did you choose to become the protector of their homes and families during the winter months. You, who rule winter everywhere in this vast world. Why choose to do that, for a little settlement in the middle of nowhere?"
Jack looked as though he were thinking about it, before the smallest smile tugged at his mouth.
"Can you keep a secret?"
Thaddeus laughed weakly at that.
"Good sir, I am on my deathbed. I should think by now, that any secret you tell me will surely go with me to my grave."
Jack laughed softly, and sighed.
"I chose the village, this valley, because it was my home... This is where I spent almost my entire childhood. Playing in these woods, doing my chores, and helping my father with our tiny herd of seven sheep."
The old man's eye widened, the implications of those words, sinking in.
"You lived in the village? You were human, a mortal?"
Jack bowed his head a little, before he looked out the window at the darkening sky, his gaze distant.
"I just happened to die at the right place, the right time, and for the right reasons... Falling through the ice on my pond, in the act of saving my sister from that very fate. I caught the eye of he who lives in the moon, and he chose me to become something new. A second chance, and a new kind of life. He chose me to become the Spirit of Winter, and I have been that ever since. But I have also never stopped watching over my sister while she was alive, and then her descendants as well. They are still my family, even now."
"The Bennetts..." Thaddeus let out a single quiet laugh at that, shaking his head in wonder. "I should have guessed as much. The Bennetts have always seemed to know far more about you than anyone else here." He looked again at Jack. "May I ask, what it is like to become immortal?"
Jack's expression became wry.
"It's not what mortals imagine it to be. Those who would wish for and seek immortality, expecting it to bring them power, are fools. It is no gift, Thaddeus. To be immortal, is to live while watching the world pass you by. It grows and changes while you remain the same. You are forced to watch the people you love and care about, grow old and die around you. You're forced to distance yourself a certain amount, or be forever driven to your knees by grief with each passing of a life that you witness... And you remember them all. Even when a memory has faded to the back of your mind, it can return without warning and shake you to your core."
Thaddeus nodded in grim understanding.
"So I see. You live a harsh life, Jack Frost."
"Jackson Overland." Jack smiled. "That's who I was before, just as all other immortals like me, were someone before. Some of us endure for uncountable ages, others choose to fade away after just a few decades, but we were all someone. Chosen for a task, or to fulfil a need, until time comes that we decide that we are ready to rest. To pass into whatever place it is, that the spirits of men go when their time in the mortal life is done."
"Then I may yet meet you again, Jackson Overland. In the afterlife."
Jack paused at that, thinking of his oath to protect the children of the world, always, and sighed.
"Maybe. But it's going to be a long time, before I believe I will feel that my task is done. In fact, I don't think I will ever consider it done, not until the end of man. I will always have a purpose, so long as there are children who I can make smile."
He waited for a response, but the old man had drifted into exhausted sleep. But there was a smile on Thaddeus' face.
Jack remained in vigil throughout the night, besides using an Ice Mirror to contact Marzanna to make a request. By morning she had found what he'd asked for, a relatively flat chunk of rock that was covered in small white crystals on one side, and dark sedimentary encrustation on the other. It had come from his collection of similar pieces, which had been given to him either by Ombric, or found by the Winter Sprites over the years.
It was almost a foot in width, and half as much again long, but its crude appearance hid what was beneath its surface. Jack carefully used his powers to fracture both rough faces off it, by creating ice inside the stone along two parallel lines. And once he'd discarded those two faces through a mirror, he set his attention on the slab of blue lace agate that lay on his lap and began to polish it with ice.
He worked on it all morning, throughout the comings and goings of Amelia and Grayham. Thaddeus woke just before noon, and watched Jack though the course of eating the food that his granddaughter brought him. And then he and Jack talked about the past, about stories of things they had seen and experienced, and all the while Jack's hands never stopped moving.
By afternoon Jack had the front of the slab as smooth and glossy as once of his ice mirrors, revealing in all its glory the lines and lacy layers of blues and whites which made up the agate and gave it its name. Jack then began working with a single finger, tracing patterns over and over upon the surface. Each pass being a delicate act of freezing away parts of the agate similar to the way he'd split it.
It was nearing evening when Thaddeus at last commented upon what Jack was doing, in a tone that was neither resigned or upset.
"You're making a memorial for me, aren't you."
It wasn't a question, but Jack did raise his head to look and nod.
"I want the people of Burgess to always remember how much good you did for this place, and for me." He smiled. "I've never tried this before. So I can't say whether it will be a work of art, or a disaster."
Thaddeus laughed, his mirth then becoming a fit of coughing that left him gasping for breath, but he didn't stop smiling.
"You've already done so much for me, more than I can ever say, by being here in my final days. It's been a honour to believe in you, Jack, and to finally see you."
Jack nodded.
"Yes, and it's been an honour to be believed in by you, Thaddeus Burgess. You can trust that the Bennetts will make sure you're remembered, just as they make sure I am remembered. You may have had humble beginnings, just as I did, but you've become your own sort of legend. This town will never be the same without you."
"Aye, it will never be the same... Because it will continue to become greater than anything I was able to raise it up to."
The door opened, and Amelia walked in.
"Grandfather, I have your supper."
Jack moved from the chair by the bed, and retreated to the on in the corner out of Amelia's way. He remained there even after she'd blown out the candles and left, with Thaddeus having drifted off to sleep once again. The old man's breathing set the rhythm with which Jack continued to engrave the agate slab, until an early hour in the morning when the regular pauses between each tracing of ice, became a pause that didn't end.
Jack raised his head and looked through the darkened room, to where Thaddeus had gone still and silent, before quietly resuming his work upon the slab.
Come morning's light, when Amelia entered the room to open the curtains, her cry of grief echoed out soon after as she rushed to Thaddeus' side... And then she saw that which had been left on the table beside his bed.
A slab of polished blue and white stone, with lacy patterns like snowflakes rippled through it. At the centre, nestled upon a bed of engraved ivy and Christmas ferns, was a perfect picture of a younger Thaddeus, sleeping. Above him floated Jack Frost, head bowed in respect, with his staff in clasped hands held diagonal across his front. Lastly, below all that, were a few lines of words that brought tears of gratitude to her eyes to add to those of her grief.
.~*~.
They showed you a dream
You listened to their words
You spread that dream to others
.~*~.
Winter's Shepherd, that I am
My thanks are ever yours
As the First Snows come each year,
to lay my frozen flowers upon your resting place
.~*~.
Sleep well, Thaddeus Burgess,
and know that I will always watch over those you left behind
.~*~.
Jack Frost
.~*~.
Amelia picked up the slab and held it tight to her chest, sobbing as Jack slipped away unseen and silent through an Ice Mirror.
It was from within his sleeping chamber in the Winter Sanctuary, that he then watched the funeral two days later. And when the time came for the first snows, and his return to Burgess near the end of November, it was to the cemetery that he went first during the hour after dawn. To where Thaddeus had been laid to rest in a place of honour at the centre-top of the graveyard, and where a grand capping-stone had been set over it to declare its importance to the people of the town. But most significant of all was that a small recess had been cut out in an odd shape at the top of the stone, to allow a certain blue slab to be inlaid into it.
Jack smiled softly, and tapped his staff upon the capping-stone, binding it with his power so that no force of weather or man could damage it or remove the piece of agate that it cradled. And when he flew away to head to the shrine and the waiting children, a cluster of snowflakes that looked almost like flowers lay at the foot of the snow-dusted grave. Jack's voice a whisper upon the wind.
"Farewell, Thaddeus."
~(-)~
Alaia Skyhawk: I honestly cannot believe I got so caught up in the stuff with Sandy, that I almost forgot I had this planned. But at least I remembered it in time, even if only just. I hope you all liked it :)