Alaia Skyhawk: Here's a long one, posted from my holiday with Sparkling Moon Phoenix in London :)

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 120: Stormy Weather

The following day dawned bright and with just a scattering of clouds over Lunestra, with the guests all returned to home or guest accommodation. There was no one there to see the two new Nature Immortals off on their first foray, save for Tsar Gallus, Tsar Lunar, and Jack Frost.

Jack was there out of curiosity mostly, and perhaps some slightly mischievous hope that the pair's first attempt at flight would be good for a few chuckles. As it was, both Tanmun and Emed soared away with only some minor wobbling. The former heading off to Lumeris' Sanctuary of Nature, to do some much-needed restoration work, and the latter off to do his first weather-working.

Southern Winter was coming to an end on Lumeris, so the Spirit of Spring had his job to get started on.

Jack strolled off to wander the grounds a bit after that, waiting until it was a slightly more sociable hour before heading to the wing where the candidates were. He'd asked for the Steward candidates to be moved to another room for today, where he could sit and talk to them without the disruption of the others. He knew he couldn't test them properly, that would be down to Kosmotis, but he should still be able to narrow down the number of those that would come back to Earth for that.

The room he was shown to by one of the porters, was something of a classroom towards the far end of the candidates' wing. Inside it, sat at rows of individual desk, were the fifty potential Stewards. All of them waiting patiently, and with no visible nerves.

Calm and composed, which was a good start. Even if a handful of them were already unknowingly 'tagged' by him as being unsuitable.

Jack walked the length of the classroom, which was utterly silent but for the sound of his footsteps. But when he reached the desk, rather than going behind it to sit in the chair, instead he sat casually on the desk itself.

"As you'll all know by now, I'm Jack Frost. One of the two immortals that accompanied Tsar Lunar and Tsar Solus here. I just want to make one thing clear right away. Don't call me 'Sir' or 'Mr Frost' or anything like that. I'm just 'Jack'. I can do formal, but only when it's necessary. I'm the Guardian of Fun for my world, as well as being the Spirit of Winter. I'm not the Guardian of 'Stiff'."

One of them raised a hand, speaking once Jack had nodded in permission.

"When you came to us three days ago, and pretended to be a candidate, that was to get a measure of us. Correct?"

Jack smiled at that, shrugging.

"Guilty as charged. I knew all of you would be too awed by me being an immortal, to talk truly and openly. That would have made it a lot harder for me to do my job regarding you all."

Another hand was raised.

"Is this why Father Time had the Constellations choose and bring us here?"

"Yep." Jack jumped down off the desk, strolling up and down between the rows of candidates. "First off I'll start with one simple fact. On my world the Fearlings still roam about, but they're not a threat anymore. That's because we learnt from the mistakes made during the Old Golden Age, and discovered the way to keep them harmless and powerless."

He reached the front again, and turned to face them. "For a long time Sanderson, our Guardian of Dreams, did his best to ward off the nightmares caused by Fearlings using his power of dreams. It worked, but only to an extent. Then I came along."

He conjured up one of his special snowflakes in one hand, and a small cloud of frostdust in the other. "I was chosen from the start to be a Guardian, although I didn't actually become one for over a century. Even so, from the very beginning I had the ability to infuse people with the feelings of fun and laughter. I started out using snow as my medium for this, and later learnt to create my own version of Sanderson's dreamsand; frostdust. My power prevents all nightmares caused by Fearlings, and makes Sanderson's job easier. But that's only half of the way to deal with them."

Jack used his frostdust to form a life-sized copy of Kosmotis beside him, indicating it. "We also have Kosmotis Pitchner, who was formerly possessed by the Fearlings. After he was freed, he still had the power to sense and manipulate fear, due in part to the fact he'd also become a Legend Immortal towards the end of his possession. He made it his role to adjust and maintain the proper balance of fear on Planet Earth."

"He stops people being afraid?"

That quiet query had Jack firmly shaking his head.

"No no no, that's where the Old Golden Age went wrong. You've seen how prey animals instinctively avoid situations that could get them hurt by predators?" They all nodded. "That's Natural Fear, otherwise known as survival instincts, and it's very important. In the Old Golden Age, even that kind of fear was stomped out of the people. Their daily lives were so safe they didn't need those instincts, so when the Fearlings came along they all had no idea how to deal with the terror that came with them. It made them overreact, which made the Fearlings stronger, etcetera etcetera. Kosmotis is our Steward of Natural Fear. As the name suggests, it's his job to ensure people have good healthy survival instincts, but don't get over-worked up about things they don't need to. When that balance is maintained in a person, the Fearlings actually lose strength when too close to them."

Jack smiled. "On Earth, Fearlings actively avoid people. They lurk around the fringes, scrabbling at what little power they can get ambiently, trapped at subsistence level. That's where you come in... You are all candidates to be Stewards of Natural Fear for your worlds. Most of you won't make the grade, and I can say there are some of you I already know aren't suited for it. None of you will ever have to deal with Fearlings, so don't worry about that. But if you have the traits for it, and are willing, it will become your job to restore and maintain Natural Fear in the people of your worlds. The type of fear that doesn't make people unhappy, and which in the right situations can actually bring a great deal of fun to them."

Jack slung an arm around the shoulders of his frostdust copy of Kosmotis.

"Kosmotis and I are a team, and our powers actually compliment each other. Because Fun and Unnatural Fear can't exist in someone at the same time. But when you mix Fun and Natural Fear, as happens in 'thrill-seekers' who go to places to get excitement from being close to possible danger yet safe from it, those people really enjoy themselves. And I would guess that's a concept that none of you have heard of before."

All of them shook their heads. He could see they weren't sure what to make of everything he'd just told them. Knowing that, Jack chuckled.

"Those of you who pass my tests, and get to come to Earth to be tested by Kosmotis, will be shown it. Once you've experienced it, you'll understand."

He leapt lightly up to sit on the desk again. "Ok, down to business. Time for each of you to introduce yourselves and tell me about you."

The morning progressed on quite amiably, with the candidates gradually becoming more and more at ease with him. At midday he dismissed almost half of them, thanking them for being willing but stating that they weren't quite what he was looking for.

The other half returned to the classroom after the midday meal, whereupon he sat them in one group and started posing little Natural/Unnatural Fear scenarios to them. Getting them to debate which were Natural and which were Unnatural, and why, and in what possibly ways could something be done to rebalance them.

About two hours into this, Jack started to feel a bit 'twitchy'. Not at the session with the candidates, he was actually enjoying listening to their answers to the scenarios. It was just some little 'itch' at the back of his mind, which he shrugged off.

That is until mid-afternoon, when the winds started to rattle the classroom windows to get his attention.

The noise startled the candidates, and Jack let out an annoyed sigh.

"One minute, I'll deal with them."

He walked over to the nearest window and opened it, the winds rushing in agitated to the point they were making a real mess of the classroom. But Jack didn't notice that, he was too busy standing in stunned silence at what they were telling him about a certain weather system.

Without so much as a word to the candidates, about where he was going and why, he flew out the window unhooking his staff from his back as he went. Urging the winds to slingshot him into the far upper reaches of the atmosphere just as he would back home.

Lunestra was just south of the equator, but the winds took him to the other side of the planet and well south. When he arrived there and viewed the 'weather system' for himself, he was utterly aghast. Because the whole thing had been 'crowbarred' together, and the winds feeding it couldn't go along the paths they knew they should have been going.

The winds that fetched Jack swirled around him, fretfully telling him this was supposed to be a Grade Four rain system, with an average weight of no more than seven and an intensity no greater than five. The clouds cloaking the area had an average weight of twenty-five, and the overload of moisture was set to push the intensity to forty. No immortal-crafted storm, even the worst, was supposed to go higher than an intensity of fifteen unless there are exceptional circumstances. The combination in front of him was turning this into a Grade Twenty-Two storm, more than double the worst a Spirit of the Seasons was supposed to allow.

And it was over heavily populated areas.

Jack shushed the swirling winds, considering the situation. This was Emed's work, no doubt about it, and normally taking weather away from the one shaping it was a major breech of manners and code of conduct. But Jack knew he didn't have time for manners and protocol.

He spread his will over the entire heart of the system, almost eighty miles in each direction, and jolted the Spirit of Spring out of control of it. It was a simple trick, one that he'd used when correcting errors made by his Lieutenants, but using it against another Spirit of the Seasons was a recipe for a lecture.

Emed showed up within minutes, arriving as Jack was consulting with the winds.

"What are you doing! This isn't your world!"

Jack turned his head sharply and pinned him with a glare, cutting off one lecture with another of his own.

"What the heck do you think you're playing at?! I thought you were supposed to have studied for years to be the Spirit of Spring! This is an utter mess!"

Emed frowned, confused.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I've just brought everything together to give the Ceres region a moderate fall of rain."

Jack took hold of him by the collar, then jabbed a finger at the clouds below.

"You want to know what I see? And bear in mind I have over three-hundred years of actual experience... I see a Grade Twenty-Two storm, that is all set to dump over eighteen inches of rain on the ground below within a time-frame of between two and three hours."

The Spirit of Spring blanched pale. The terms used by Earth's Seasonals had been taught to them by Tsar Lunar via Emily Jane, and so were the same as those taught to the candidates for the Allegiance worlds. Emed knew exactly what his fellow immortal had just outlined.

"You mean..."

Jack, bluntly and angrily, shoved him back and continued his lecture.

"Yeah, flash flood of apocalyptic scale... Millions of people swept to their deaths... Millions more left homeless after the water wrecks ninety-percent of the buildings down there."

Emed was now starting to panic, eyes frantically sweeping over the rain-laden clouds below.

"What do I do? I don't know what to d-"

Jack nailed him in the back of the head with a snowball to shut him up.

"You watch how it should be done. But first, I need to get that moisture out of here."

Jack focused his attention back to the task, reading the air temperatures across the region and confirming that the area below the clouds was warmer than above. He again reached his mind over the whole span of the system, and silently asked the winds to find him warm dry air.

They sprang into action, bringing some down from the equatorial regions, and he directed them to take it above the clouds to force them downwards into the denser air-layers below. Postponing the rainfall and allowing lots of the excess moisture to leech upwards into the dry air.

Next he located the nearest seashore, to the west, and directed the winds there to go north-west creating a 'vacuum' in their wake. Jack now carefully coaxed the pending storm into motion towards that 'gap', and as soon as the leading edge was well over the waters he directed new winds to push that edge upwards... Just as if the clouds had hit an invisible mountain, and the effect was the same. Forcing clouds lower makes them hold onto their load, while forcing them upwards makes them drop it.

The clouds started to dump their burden of water back into the sea.

It had taken almost six hours to get this far, during which Emed had followed Jack anxiously as he flew about to get everything moving. But now Jack had come to a stop, and he wanted to know what was going on next.

"It that it? Is it fixed?"

Emed flinched when Jack directed a new glare at him. The Spirit of Winter did not look amused. Until now Emed and the others had only seen his 'Guardian' side, and had no idea how blunt, exacting, and intolerant of major errors his 'Spirit of the Seasons' side could be.

It was like being hit in the face with a giant wooden mallet, when you expected it to be a squeaky toy inflatable one.

"This is far from fixed. All I've done is get rid of all the excess weight in the clouds, in a place where it wouldn't hurt anything. But to do that I've had to rip a huge area of Lumeris' weather patterns out of their proper alignment. This isn't 'fixed' until I rebuild this weather system as it should be and put it back on course."

He gritted his teeth. "Thing is, I can do rain but it's not really my area of expertise. This isn't my planet either, so I'm limited to what forces from home that also exist here. Though ironically Lumeris' Spring seems to be cooler than ours, so I have a little bit of overlap with you right now. But not much."

Emed drifted closer, wringing his hands.

"Do you want me to try again?"

"No!" Jack gestured vehemently against that idea. "Fixing this will take finesse, which you've shown at this point you don't have. I don't trust you not to screw it up, and this needs to go perfectly first time or there could be a chain-reaction across other parts of the planet. So just shut up and let me concentrate."

Jack closed his eyes, grasping at the only idea he had right now. Thinking about that which he'd learnt he was a few weeks ago, and his experience yesterday of 'hearing' the Ether at the ceremony.

Unlike Emed, he was a Constel. Which meant that for all he'd specialised in Winter for all this time, he should have the ability to expand his awareness to the other seasons and their forces. He just had to put his belief and effort into it.

He hunkered down in mid-air, scolding the Spirit of Spring whenever he kept interrupting him, and focused his attention on the sources he was getting his nature power from at this point. He also focused on 'listening' in the manner Jamie had described, back when he'd talked about his Etheric Theory lessons all those years ago. Jack was trusting his instincts here, his intuition, his belief. Just as he had when learning to create his ice mirrors, and learning to create frostdust.

For Emed, forced to drift there through minute after minute of silence from Jack, it was agonising. So much so he jumped in fright when Jack let out a small gasp.

He inched closer.

"Do you know what to d-"

"Shut it."

Emed almost audibly clamped his mouth shut, but Jack ignored him. He'd started to 'hear' his season; a whistling whisper like winds, a misty sort of hush like thick clouds full of waiting snow, the quiet crackle of thawing ice stood in sunlight, chiming musically, and dozens of other counterpoints and melodies. He could also faintly hear the rippled pulse of water, the buzz of warmth in addition to the stillness of cold. That grew in volume, and then came the 'leaf rustle' and 'woody creak' of growing things. He was picking up on the 'sound' coming from the Spirit of Spring close to him.

To test it Jack reached with his will, for the forces he knew he was connected to, and 'gripped' them. Drawing extra power into himself to push away some of the fatigue he was already feeling from working a weather system on this world not his own.

When that worked, he changed tact and reached for the ones that the Spirit of Spring was getting power from. He didn't have the knowledge or ability to connect them to himself, but that didn't mean he couldn't potentially draw from them in the way a wizard would draw power from the Ether for spells. With that in mind he gripped as many bits of Spring as he could make out, and tapped into them.

Jack let out a startled yelp when he felt the inrush of 'alien' power, thus described because to him the Power of Spring was indeed a very alien thing. That was when the nearby Spirit of Spring exclaimed and pointed at him.

"Your hair!"

Jack's eyes snapped open, part of his attention firmly locked on continuing to draw power from the new sources. He then grabbed a lock of hair and pulled it down into view. Blinking brown eyes in surprise when he saw it.

His hair was now brown with just a few streaks of white, and the frost on his clothing had all melted. He also noticed that his body temperature had risen considerably... He was almost warm.

He swallowed uncomfortably.

"Now I know how Bunny felt when I pranked him yesterday... This is really strange." He turned his attention back to the Spirit of Spring. "But enough of that, we've got some weather to fix. And you've got a very important lesson to learn, that should have been the first thing you were ever taught when you were trained for this."

Emed, still stunned, managed a hesitant query.

"What?"

Jack, mulling over the whole new set of senses he felt like he'd been given, gazed distantly over the tops of the surrounding clouds. Able as he was, at this moment, to sense the forces of both Winter and Spring.

"The lesson about who your most important teacher is. And once you've learnt it, I'm going to make sure Tanmun and the Constellations learn it as well."

~(-)~

At the Citadel there was tension and confusion. Not least because Jack had raced off under unusual circumstances the day before and hadn't come back yet, but because reports from the other side of the world said a whole weather system had gone into reverse and broken up over the sea. Followed by a new weather system coming together out of the remains of the old one, to resume the path the old one had been following.

There was little doubt Jack was involved, by the why and how remained a mystery.

It was early afternoon when a porter finally rushed into the room where Jamie and the others were, to announce that Jack had returned. On his heels came said Spirit of Winter, who strode in followed by a chargrinned Father Nature Tanmun and a very sheepish Spirit of Spring Emed. Most startling of all though, was that Jack's hair was mostly brown, as were his eyes, and there wasn't a trace of frost on his clothing... He also looked very angry.

Jack didn't look at Jamie, Bunny, or Tsar Lunar. Instead he glared at the nearby Wyatt, Tsar Gallus, and Tsar Vespa.

"Are you lot a bunch of complete idiots?!" He pointed at the two new Nature Immortals, the Spirit of Spring in particular. "Do you have any idea what he did? He almost set off a rainstorm right out of the apocalypse! And he did it by dumbly doing exactly what you'd taught him to do with all your theory lessons! What have you been teaching these guys?!"

He waved his arms in agitation. "Back on Earth, none of us ever made mistakes like that. Not once! Yes we weren't exactly the best at first, but we never did anything that would cause a natural disaster!"

Tsar Gallus, knocked off balance by the unexpected tirade, started to stammer.

"If... If we have erred so badly, then please tell us where the training has failed so that we can fix it. We'll need to see where our system has differed from the training you received before you became the Spirit of Winter for your world."

Jack deadpanned, then glanced at Tsar Lunar.

"You not told them that yet? About the circumstances in which ninety-eight percent of Earth's immortals became immortal."

Tsar Lunar, with a small wince of understanding for Jack's reaction, shook his head.

"It never came up in discussions."

Jack let out an exasperated sigh, muttering under his breath before he turned back to Tsar Gallus.

"You want to know what training I got before I was chosen?" Tsar Gallus nodded, and Jack answered. "None. I became an immortal after I'd already died. I fell through the ice on a pond, drowned, then woke up a few hours later after night had fallen. I was then basically told 'You're the Spirit of Winter, now get on with it'."

Tsar Gallus gaped, as did Tsar Vespa, even as Wyatt looked equally aghast.

The Pooka, like them, clearly found it inconceivable.

"You received no advance training? And yet you never made any big mistakes?"

Jack frowned, folding his arms across his chest.

"No, because our Mother Nature told me the one simple thing I needed. That whenever I was in doubt about what to do or how to do it, to ask the greatest experts on such matters in existence. She told me, as she told all of the Spirits of the Seasons; 'Ask the winds'."

Wyatt blinked in confusion.

"The winds?"

Jack gestured towards the windows, at the open air beyond.

"The winds on each world have been a part of their weather ever since they developed an atmosphere. Since long before life developed on them, or civilisations eventually came to be. The winds know how the climate has changed in all that time, how that has effected the weather patterns. Now winds don't start out with a 'consciousness', they didn't have one of their own. They learnt to have 'minds' and 'personalities' from the immortals who treat them as if they have them. It gives them the ability to act upon the 'memories' they have, and speak what they know to those willing to listen. The winds here haven't had anyone to talk to since the old immortals were all killed. They've pestered me for company ever since I arrived."

Tsar Lunar interrupted, explaining.

"What he's saying is that the student must first acknowledge the teacher, before the teacher can speak. Tanmun and Emed were never told to listen to the winds, and so blotted out the words the winds were trying to tell them. A sad thing for the Winds of Lumeris, who have waited so long to gift their help and knowledge to those in need of it."

Jack glowered at them.

"You're lucky I was here, and you're damned lucky I'm a Constel! I'd never have been able to fix that mess properly without that."

Bunny came over, peering at his colleague's altered appearance.

"Ok, mate, I think they get it. Also, does the Constel thing have anything to do with what's happened to your hair?"

Jack took hold of and eyed a lock of his hair again.

"There's no point in me stopping my draw of power until I'm sure Emed has a proper grip on what he's doing. Even if I'm not finding this particularly comfortable. I need it to be able to sense what he's up to."

Jamie had also come over now, intrigued.

"What did you do?"

Jack glanced at him.

"I did the whole 'believe and trust your intuition' thing. Tsar Lunar said I was a Constel, I showed that I was at the ceremony. So that means that somewhere in me was the ability to sense, tap into, and control the other seasons. Desperation did the rest. What Emed did could have seriously screwed over Lumeris' weather for two or three years with backlash imbalances."

Jamie raised his eyebrows.

"You linked into Lumeris' Spring?"

Jack's response was bland.

"Not permanently. I can't connect myself to new forces. I'm constantly have to maintain it up here." He tapped the side of his head and then shudders. "And geeze, I'd forgotten what it's like to be warm. My body hasn't been above ten degrees since I died, and now it's almost what it was when I was mortal."

He shuddered again and grimaced. "I might have some fun with this and Ariko when we get home, just to see the look on her face, and I might give Autumn a shot, but I won't be trying Summer. Not while I stay connected to winter at the same time. This is weird enough as it is."

Tsar Gallus spoke up, now that things seemed to be settling back down in the wake of the tirade.

"Will you go with Emed and mentor him for a while?"

Jack snorted and shook his head.

"No, I'm going to go back to what I was doing before the winds came to warn me trouble was brewing. There's no point in me babying him. If he just keeps asking the winds for advice, he'll pick things up fast enough on his own."

Jack turned about-face and stalked from the room, a final glimpse of him revealing a repeat of his 'body is warm' shudder.

As soon as he was gone an awkward silence fell, until Emed hesitantly started to make a move.

"I should go and get back to work. Jack isn't the only one who scolded me. The winds had a lot to say as well, once I started listening."

Tanmun also started to move, although both new immortals seemed torn about leaving and possibly catching up to Jack. Bunny responded to that by going to the nearest window, opening it, and then pointed out it.

"Just go this way."

A breeze entered and circled the pair, who winced at another scolding only they could hear. Emed then nodded to the Pooka.

"Thank you."

Both of them flew out the window, and Bunny closed it behind them. He then mused to himself, thoughtful.

"I think I get now why Spirits of the Seasons use windows more often than doors... A quick and discrete escape."

Of those present, only two had heard the story related to that remark, Tsar Lunar and Jamie both chuckling in response. While everyone else except that trio, remained baffled.

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: Yep, Pooka Brotherhood screwed up on another section of education... Bunny must be starting to feel a bit embarrassed by them by now XD