Alaia Skyhawk: For those who are wondering where Jack is in terms of the year, it's explained in this chapter :)

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.

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Chapter 85: Gift of Faith

After she spoke, Jack glanced over his shoulder at his staff. It had been a constant part of his life since he was just fifteen years old, the year he'd at last been trusted to look after the family sheep on his own. Made by and given to him by his father. A gift handed over with great pride to his son, who had cherished it ever since.

Jack bit his lip as he thought about it, uncertain.

"A new weapon? But my staff has always been more than enough, and I can conjure other weapons from frostdust if I want to."

Mother Nature's hand on his shoulder, squeezed it lightly in reassurance.

"If you won't accept one as a requirement, accept one as a gift. I doubt you could create a weapon with your 'frostdust' alone, that will match the one I can make for you. All I will need, is a small piece of your staff."

Jack twitched, immediately reluctant.

"What? But if this ever breaks, I feel it. It hurts like hell."

Mother Nature released her grip, holding out her hand.

"I only need a tiny piece, just a sliver. That staff was once ordinary wood, but has long since become much more. That, I can sense. Just trust me. You won't regret this."

Jack eyed her warily, torn between listening or refusing. But he did, after a moment, relent. He sighed as he lifted his staff from his back, gazed at it hesitantly, and upended it. He then gripped the foot of it, infusing ice through that part while his eyes watered and he gritted his teeth at the pain. Like freeze-thaw in stone or wet wood, his ice created tiny but precise cracks. He then used his fingers to pull the thin shard of wood he'd freed, the size of a toothpick, out of the base of his staff.

He held it up, still wincing from the process.

"That enough?"

Mother Nature took it from his grasp with utmost delicacy, and nodded.

"Yes. Now tell me, were there any weapons you knew how to use well as a mortal?"

Jack blinked, then frowned a little. Mulling it over.

"We had knives, but I never learnt to fight with them. I had a sling, but didn't use it much because the trees around the village got in the way more often than not. Other than that, they only weapon I've used except a stave, was a bow when I helped the village men with the hunting. I went out with them regularly after I turned fourteen."

Mother Nature smiled, laying the shard of his staff across her hands.

"Then a bow you shall have."

She closed her eyes, a soft glow of power surrounding the shard. Before Jack's eyes, it sprouted with lush new growth that twisted and twined about itself like vines. When the wood had grown to a length of two hand-spans, green darkened to brown, bark then thickened and weathered until it looked the same as his staff. When the glow then finally faded, Mother Nature held the unmistakable grip of a bow in her grasp.

She held it out to him wordlessly, watching as he shouldered his staff once more. He then took it in his hands, noting that it frosted over at his touch just like his staff, yet it seemed to do little more. Jack eyed her again, eyebrows raised, but didn't ask what was missing. Instead he trusted instinct, and channelled some of his power into the wood he held.

He almost stumbled backwards in surprise after he did it, as eighteen inches of curved ice rushed outwards from either end of the wooden grip. And between them was strung the finest thread of frostdust, which also glistened from the cores of the icy bow-limbs that had formed.

It was a bow of wood and winter, ice and laughter, and apart from his staff nothing else had ever felt so right in his hands.

He let out a whisper of awe.

"Wow."

Mother Nature chuckled at his reaction.

"Then I trust it meets with your approval?"

Jack gripped the bowstring with his right hand, and by the same gut instinct as before, he created an arrow of ice between the string and across the obvious notch in the wooden grip for the shaft to rest. Drawing the bow felt almost effortless compared to the ones he'd known so long ago, and despite being hair-fine the string didn't bite into his fingers. Everything about it felt completely natural, an extension of himself, just like his staff.

He aimed up and released the arrow, commanding it to burst into snowflakes before it could go very far. He then gazed again at the bow, stilled awed, and took a deep breath.

"It's perfect, almost like it's a part of my staff and of me."

Mother Nature smiled.

"Technically, it is a part of your staff. That's why I asked for a piece." She sighed, her manner turning sombre. "And now I believe it's best you go. You have things to do, and should not tarry here any longer. Until you return to you time, and my memory of you is locked away, I shall wait here all the while looking forward to when you, myself, and my father can sit down for that talk."

Jack nodded in gratitude, wearing a wry smile.

"I'll be listening to the winds, for you cheering me on. I'll use this bow with pride."

After he created an ice mirror to leave, she nodded as he then turned to go.

"Good luck, Jack. I'll see you again."

Jack passed through the mirror, swallowing against the unexpected lump in his throat at the parting. This past Mother Nature barely knew him, and yet was pinning all her hopes on him. He'd been in the past barely more than an hour, and already he was homesick. He wanted to be back in the future, talking to his friends about this crazy trip into the past. He wanted to be home.

Perhaps it had been that thought, changing the destination of the mirror without him even realising it, for instead of emerging to open sky he found himself somewhere heart-achingly familiar.

He was over his pond, several feet above the tops of the surrounding trees. From that vantage point he could see nothing but forest, the nearby river, and the hills that bounded the valley. There was no road, no village, nor any sign of habitation. Just wilderness as far as his eyes could see.

Jack turned a flew to where the village would be, unable to help himself against the urge to look. Some trees seemed familiar, but overall everything was different. Some of the trees would be the younger versions of the ones he'd known in his childhood, while others were already old in this time. Those trunks fated to die, rot away, and be replaced by new trees during the century between now and then.

Because that's how far back he was, if he correctly remembered the history of the Guardians. The 'Battle of the Moon', the final fight against Pitch at this end of things, had taken place in the year 1587. Yet The Village hadn't been founded until 1699. He was a hundred and six years before his birth, and a hundred and twenty four years before the time he would become the Spirit of Winter. Kirktown didn't even exist yet, either. That wouldn't be founded until 1684.

Jack returned to the pond, hand clenched tightly around the wooden grip of his bow. He was four-hundred and thirty-seven years from home, and if he wanted to get back then he had a job to do.

Frowning in determination, he drew his bow and took aim at the rocky cliff across the pond. From his perspective, he'd not used a bow for over three-hundred years. He'd be an idiot not to practice with it before heading off.

Arrow after arrow of ice shattered against the rocks, for one hour and then two, and then another as Jack began to learn more about his new bow. It had subtle differences from the ordinary bows he'd once used. The arc of the shots was far shallower, and the arrows ignored the effects of the wind likely due to his power over the air. And when he took to the sky to see how far an arrow would go, he was startled enough to stare when it went so far it was almost beyond sight before it tumbled to the ground. At a guess it was about seven-hundred yards, more than double the distance of a typical longbow. Aiming at that sort of range would be impossible for him, even without the wind to consider. His best shot as a mortal, had been with a hunting bow at a range of forty yards.

After watching that arrow fall, and spending an hour to practice aiming at things about half the bow's range away, the sky began to darken. It was then that Jack pulled his power from the bow, reducing it to just the wooden grip once more, and tucked it under his cloak. Hanging it from his moonsilver belt just below where the band held his staff in place on the outside of the garment.

He then took off for the far upper reaches of the sky, calling the winds to him as he went. Imprinting upon them the target of his search; a tall man-made 'tower', large gatherings of Fearlings, and the face of the man that led them. It was time to see how determined Pitch was to stay hidden, or if he would be overconfident enough to be stupid. Either way he would be found, because nothing that so much as peeks up into the surface world can hide from the wind.

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Alaia Skyhawk: Short, I know, but this was interlude. We're into the action with the next chapter :)