Alaia Skyhawk:

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 129:

He glided on the winds, she wallowed. He swirled and looped through the air, while she stumbled and staggered. She tried to listen to the winds as he instructed, but as yet they had no 'voices'. What few traces of personality among them limited to a handful of breezes amid the greater whole of blank and unspeaking gusts. She'd already been taught about the winds, about how only through time and interaction would all this world's winds learn to 'speak' and 'think', but dealing with that present lack of communication was another matter.

And it didn't help that Jack clearly didn't have any issues at all with that lack.

Jack stayed near her, but didn't hold onto her. All he did was keep the winds' activities to a level that wouldn't overwhelm her, meaning Elsa was lurching around much as he'd done during his first few flights with his far more experienced winds. But the height was also starting to bother her, he could see that, enough to mean she was too rigid to ride the winds properly. And guessing she was afraid of falling to her death, Jack decided on a point blank lesson.

"Hey, Elsa."

She spared a single momentary glance at him.

"What?"

"You ever skydived?"

Her puzzled words reached him, the same moment as he made his move.

"Skydi-? Ahhhh!"

He yanked the air out from under her, and kept pulling it beyond her grasp every time she reached for it. She didn't know yet how to use her will to hover without the winds' aid, so naturally she dropped from the sky like a rock. Screaming all the way down until she hit the ground with a very audible thump.

Jack landed with casual grace near her and leaned on his staff.

"So, what did you just learn about being an immortal?"

Elsa, still somewhat stunned from terror, managed to muster up a not inconsiderable amount of anger.

"Just what were you thinking? Are you so crazy as to think dropping someone from the sky is a good idea?!"

Jack remained nonchalant.

"Are you dead? Or are you even more than slightly bruised?"

That made her pause and glance at herself, then up at the sky, then herself once more. Yes she was a little sore, but beyond that the impact had only knocked the wind out of her. And even that had been superficial, because she hadn't felt deprived of air at all and now remembered being told in one of her lessons about immortals not actually needing to breathe.

Her voice was very very quiet.

"No, I'm not."

Jack pulled her to her feet again, and pointed at the sky once more.

"Now that you know you can't die from falling, let's get back up there."

It was after dawn before they returned to the castle, with a rather windswept-looking Elsa arriving very late for breakfast with Anna, Tsarina Anser, and the others. Jack was just behind her, still as nonchalant as he'd been in the face of her disapproval as last night. This time though it was being directed at him by the now Queen Anna.

"And where did you take my sister last night? She wasn't even there for the end of the party! No one had any idea where you both were!" She pointed at Elsa. "And why does my sister look like she's been out in a gale?!"

Jack elected to rise a few inches off the floor and glide to where there was an empty seat waiting for him. His remark was mildly humourous.

"I really wonder."

Elsa raised her eyebrows at him, before looking at Anna and smiling as she started towards the seat next to her.

"He was teaching me about this."

She also rose up off the floor, although rather wobbly. She laughed as she then managed to traverse the short distance to her seat, although she stumbled when she landed.

Anna started, looking a little slack-jawed.

"You're floating!"

Christina and Nicholas were also staring, as was their father, although it was Christina who squealled in delight.

"Aunt Elsa can fly!"

Elsa, sitting down, smiled at her niece.

"Of course I can. I'd be a poor Spirit of Winter if I couldn't fly up in the sky to shape the winter weather, wouldn't I?" She glanced at Jack. "Although I need a lot of practice. Jack makes it look far easier than it is. He's also yet to say what my next lesson from him will be."

Jack held up a hand to block that line of thinking.

"Ah ah, nope. No more 'lessons'. You wouldn't have been made into the Spirit of Winter if the Allegiance hadn't already made sure you'd completed all their pre-training, which means you already know most of what you need. The rest will come from the winds, so you need to get into the habit of asking them and not me. And that means until they learn to speak clearly, you've got to learn to extract the information you need out of them. I'm here to mentor you for the sole purpose of helping you with your confidence as you start out. Northern Winter is already started here, and it's moving south over this area. What you need to do now is go out and tend to it."

Anna regarded him, confused.

"You won't be helping her?"

Jack leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest.

"Helping her wouldn't actually be helping her. I'm only going to be here a couple of weeks. As it is, Southern Winter on my world will be almost over by the time I get back, and the Northern Autumn/Winter Transition will be due to start just a handful of weeks after that. I can't leave my work to our Mother Nature, not for longer than neccessary. If there's one thing all Spirits of the Seasons learn quickly, it's a sense of duty. While there's times I may act like it, I never forget my responsibilities. If I help your sister in that way, who is she going to rely on once I leave?"

Elsa reached over to place a hand on Anna's.

"He's right, I have to do this on my own. That he'll be there watching me, ensuring I don't make any big mistakes, is enough. And with that in mind, as soon as breakfast is over, I should head out."

Jack looked to Anna again, glancing at Kristoff as well when he guessed the new Queen might need some extra reinforcement.

"Don't prepare any meals for Elsa, unless she's specifically said she'll be there for them. Immortals don't need to eat or drink, and she's going to be away for days or even weeks at a time. You'll have to get used to that, and to not worry about her while she's working. If you worry, that means you're not trusting that she can do this on her own. You believe in her, right?"

Anna looked almost insulted.

"Of course I do! She's my sister."

"Then have faith in her, and she'll be fine."

His little speech did its work, and Anna spent the rest of breakfast discussing day-to-day things with those at the table while Jack entertained the Prince and Princess.

He let Elsa decide the time to head out, saying nothing as he followed after her. She did exit through the front door of the castle, but he'd caught her glance towards the windows of the dining room. He didn't doubt that a few months from now she'd be using windows more than doors. When gravity wasn't an issue you had to deal with, walking to a door when there's a perfectly good window close to you, really went against the grain.

Elsa led him up into the nearby mountains, to a place where a glistening castle of ice stood atop one of the peaks. Being a sculptor and builder of things with ice, he was more than a little impressed when he thought on how she'd made this while mortal. And her choice of position was good as well; far above the snowline, meaning the grip of 'winter's' cold never left the peak. Hence the place had survived despite infrequent visits from her since.

Elsa landed on the steps, smiling with pride.

"What do you think?"

Jack gave one of the walls a closer inspection, then nodded in approval.

"Flawless, and structurally strong. A perfect blend of form and function."

Elsa smiled at the approval.

"I've thought about making this my Sanctuary of Winter."

Jack did pause at that, and grimaced a little when he realised he was going to have to step on her idea.

"This is fine for a casual place to stay when you're working in the north, but it's far too close to Arendelle to be your Winter Sanctuary. I suggest you find a place in the far south were the ice and snow never melts, far from people, and make your Winter Sanctuary there."

Elsa now looked confused, and a touch upset.

"Why? Why so far away?"

Jack gestured towards the castle and town visible so far far below. A distance to be sure, but not enough.

"People can get to you too easily here, and in decades to come you're going to want a place that's completely private." He grimaced, as his next words dug up his own memories. To a point he almost grit his teeth. "Also you need to put a certain amount of distance between you, your sister, and her descendants. I speak from experience, so trust me on that one. My advice, don't go to Arendell more than a handful of times during Northern Summers, and only for short visits of a day or two. Your Southern Winter work will be a more than valid excuse."

Elsa stalked towards him, frowning with rising emotion.

"Then when should I spend time here?"

Jack ignored it. He'd seen a hint of this the day before, but her determination to stay close to Anna would only hurt more if he didn't say what had to be said. His entire manner changing from his friendly 'Guardian of Fun' self, to his cold-as-is-needed 'Spirit of Winter' self.

"Use the Northern Winters, but again in between your work. On my world, I generally do most of my work when it's night-time in my old hometown, so I can spend the daylight hours with the children there and my sister's descendants. Even then, I don't go every day. You could do the same thing here."

He sighed "Remember you're not 'Queen Elsa Arend' anymore. You're Elsa Fjautre, the Spirit of Winter, and that has to come first. It must come first."

Elsa stopped when he pinned her with that solemn regard, actually taking a step backwards.

"So you're saying I have to stop being Elsa Arrend?"

Jack shook his head.

"I never stopped being Jackson Overland, in my heart, but he did have to take a back seat in a lot of things." He grimaced. "Personally I don't think Tsarina Anser and the other Constellations should have asked you to be a Spirit of Winter, you're too attatched to people for it." Elsa looked offended, but he continued. "But you've also been Queen of a country for almost twenty years, and I'm sure that's taught you a lot about putting duty before feelings. This is the same thing, and you have to treat it like that."

It was as if the idea finally clicked into place, and Elsa's eyes widened in understanding. She'd been too worried about Anna, Kristoff, and their children. She did need to distance herself.

The pent up emotion in her visibly deflated, and at once her expression took on the definite look of a 'queen'.

"I understand, and you're right. I suppose you could say I'm a different kind of queen now, with a much larger kingdom. One that has rules which even I have no ability or authority to bend. Even if it means people get hurt." She pulled herself up straight, and started to walk off. "If you can keep watch from a distance, please do. There's an area I can sense is due a blizzard, and I'm going to see to that."

She flew off, shakily, and Jack watched her go without moving so much as an inch. After a discrete talk with Tsarina Anser before he'd gone to sleep for the jounrey here, he knew Elsa held a deep-rooted aversion to causing storms and blizzards with her power. That she'd gone off now to build one, was a clear sign that she'd made the choice to face and overcome that. A part of his purpose in being here.

Jack returned to Arendelle, to just generally hang around where he could see what was going on, but no one could pester him with questions about Elsa. Yet it was from this vantage point that, for the first time, he saw what his own sister must have gone through when she'd first learnt he was the Spirit of Winter.

Anna went about her daily duties, but kept pausing to look up at the sky. Concern clouding her expression, along with a hint of loneliness. Her children did the same, as did Kristoff.

Jack fled the castle, and started hanging around the town instead.

Whisps of wind, while unable to speak yet, still carried snatches of conversation with them amid the general news he was gleaning from them about Elsa's activities. And so he heard the captured murmurs of people asking about her, wondering how she was doing, and asking when they might see her next. The winds of this world hadn't yet learnt to 'filter' out the unnecessary or unwanted bits of gossip from the information they gave him, not when passing over the town meant those gleaned words were freshly caught in their airy strands.

Once again Jack fled, this time to Elsa's ice castle. So high in the mountains the winds had lost those fragments of gossip by the time they reached him. Except he couldn't get much peace their either... Elsa's other snowman creation, a very large fellow with a bit of a temper, had decided he was an intruder since she wasn't there to instruct the snowman otherwise.

Jack, with a lack of anywhere else to go, went to the end of the castle dock and sat there. Making sure that any winds he spoke to had come from directions other than over the direction of the town.

He spent two days out there at the end of the dock, before Kristoff came strolling along it.

"For a Guardian of Fun, you look extremely depressed."

Jack sighed, resigned to the fact the man wasn't likely to go away without a decent conversation.

"Yeah, well being immortal isn't always sunshine and rainbows. If you're wondering how Elsa's doing, she's fine. Crafted a first-rate blizzard north of here, very nicely done for a beginner, but then I know she's had ice powers all her life. That shows in her finesse. She's the other side of the world at the moment, ushering in the first frosts for one of the regions there. I've been using the winds to keep an eye on things, Your Majesty."

Kristoff grimaced at the title, and awkwardly sat down.

"You'd think after seventeen years of being 'Prince' Kristoff, I'd be used to titles by now. Scary thing is I grew up as an orphan, and now I'm a king."

Jack managed a half-hearted smile.

"So, just 'Kristoff' eh?"

"Please. I avoid my title when I can manage it." He glanced at Jack again. "Now, back to the subject you just tried to avoid. Why so depressed? You were all happy and set keeping my kids entertained, but then a day after Elsa headed out you started avoiding everyone. Why?"

Jack quite clearly didn't want to answer that, but as Yuki would say 'better out than in'.

"I had a younger sister too, back when I became immortal... Watching her grow old, then letting her go, was hard."

Kristoff gave him a long look, starting to get the idea.

"It's like living your distant past all over again, only this time you're seeing things from the other side. Right?"

Jack clasped his hands in front of him, bracing elbows on knees as he stared out over the water.

"I knew things couldn't have been easy for my sister, especially once she was old enough to understand more about my work and its problems. Its challenges and trials, and the loneliness of isolation when up amongst the clouds for days or even weeks on end. Yeah sure I had the winds to talk to, but they're not exactly the best conversationalists... To see Anna and you all so obviously worrying about Elsa. I've never forgotten my sister, and always believed she was held strongly in my heart and memories, but now I know that they had faded a lot more than I'd realised." He bowed his head. "I've been reminded, they've become crystal clear again, and the misty fog of emotional 'distance' has gone."

Kristoff raised his eyebrows.

"That really a bad thing?"

Jack gave him an almost sharp look in response to that.

"When you're three-hundred and fifty-eight years old, and your sister has been dead for almost three-hundred of those, you move on. You remember the past fondly, but it's only for rare moments that you truly look back. But now I feel like I've been dumped right back in the thick of it. I'd gotten over the separation from her, caused by death, but now... I miss her so much."

There weres tears welling up in his eyes, which he quickly wiped away before they could spill over and freeze on his face. But despite the following silence, Kristoff understood. As he then raised a hand to pat Jack on the shoulder in sympathy.

"Hey, no matter how long you've lived, you're never too old to cry."

"Yeah, but being an immortal means making sure mortals don't see you do it. Because if we're not sure what to do, how can they trust in us to guide them?"

The hand patted once again onto the shoulder.

"I won't say anything if you won't."

"Thanks."

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: Poor Jack, I'm really raking him through the angst.

As for Elsa's new second name, it's a Nordic word for Snowy weather with dry, light snowflakes that aren't falling very quickly.