Jack Frost stared down from the icy treetops as a group of children played merrily in the snow he'd created below. It had been three days since his awakening from the depths of the pond. He still had no idea who he was or what he was meant to do with his life. Something at the back of his head kept niggling at him; something that would open a door to explain why he'd been saved by the moon or even trapped under the ice in the first place.
But every time he reached into the dusty corners of his mind to figure out the truth, that teasing little nibble danced out of his sight like a fox in the woods. Jack sighed in frustration and sank his fingers into the bark of the tree, lacing it with frost. He knew there had to be a reason for his being here, but it continued to elude him in his desperate game of mental cat-and-mouse. If only he could speak to someone, then perhaps everything would become clear, like a trail of water crystallizing into an icicle. As long as he remained invisible, though, he'd never find any clues in his search for answers.
Still, he refused to give up. He'd find a way to make someone see him, and then he'd find out everything he wanted to know. Everything happened for a reason, and he knew that there was a very special one behind his creation. It would only be a matter of time before he'd find the scrap of information that would allow him to remember his life before rising from the pond. Once that had happened, he'd be able to live without that empty feeling haunting his insides.
Jack snapped out of his reverie as a happy shriek reached his ears. It had come from a little girl with brown hair and a beauty mark on her cheek. She had fallen in the snow after being knocked down by a flurry of snowballs, and now that she'd regained her footing, she was cheerfully pelting her friends with some impressive snowballs of her own. She laughed and playfully teased the other children in the snow. "Got you!"
"Watch out!"A boy with red hair replied as he threw a snowball back at her. The girl ducked to avoid it, then squealed with delight as she hurled another snowball-and a retort-back at him. Jack smiled to himself while he watched the girl. Even though they didn't know that he was the one who created the snow they frolicked in, it always gave him pleasure to see the joy that it gave them. If only he could join in their fun! Jack let out a sigh of longing, his breath freezing and forming a wispy white cloud in the air. What he wouldn't give to be seen for once! If only there was a way to get their attention and show them proof of his existence…
Jack's thoughts were cut off abruptly when the tree branch he was sitting on snapped beneath him. He let out a shriek and frantically attempted to grasp another branch to save himself, but before he could react, he found himself lying face-down in the snow. A second later, the severed branch fell after him and smacked him in the head, giving him a rather nice lump on the back of his skull.
"Thanks a lot!" Jack snapped sarcastically as he sat up, brushing the snow off of his cloak. "Now I remember even less than before." He shoved the tree branch off his back and got to his feet, rubbing the bump on his head and wincing. When he stood up, he could have sworn he felt something soft and warm underneath his feet. Looking down, Jack realized that he'd accidentally knocked down the little brown-haired girl in his fall.
Feeling guilty, Jack knelt next to her and tried to help her up. "I-I'm sorry," Jack apologized, but as usual, the girl took no notice of anything he'd said. She whimpered and struggled to her knees, looking down at her lap as though to hide tears. Jack narrowed his eyes as he tried to get a closer look at her face. To his surprise, tears had indeed formed in her eyes, and her mouth had scrunched up into a painful sob.
"Anna? What's wrong?" One of the other children, a girl with blond hair and blue eyes, asked the girl, kneeling next to her in the snow.
The little brown-haired girl shook her head, squeezing her eyes and wincing. Her tears flowed out onto the snow and froze like crystal beads in a necklace. "N-nothing….it's just….oh, I can't help but wish that Jack was here to join us in our snowball fight! He always threw the best snowballs, and he always helped us win when he was with us. I…I just wish he was back….I wish he'd never fallen through the ice in the first place! Oh, it's all my fault-if I hadn't begged him to take me ice-skating on Thaddeus Pond, then none of this would've ever happened!"
Jack looked on, intrigued, as the girl got to her feet and left, ignoring her friends, who were trying their best to comfort her. He'd heard plenty of locals talking about the incident with the teenage boy who'd fallen through the ice and wondered if it had anything to do with his supernatural birth. As far as he could tell from what he'd overheard from some of the villagers, a boy named Jack, who seemed to be around his age, had been out ice-skating with his sister on a pond called Thaddeus Pond when the ice had started to crack. The boy had helped his sister to get across to the safe part of the pond, but before he could follow her, he'd fallen through the ice and drowned. Although the villagers had diligently scoured the pond, the body of the boy had never been found. It had been three days now since the incident-the same amount of time that Jack had been in existence. Could it be…? Was he this girl's deceased brother? Or was the drowning merely a coincidence?
Jack shook his head, trying to clear it of the buzzing thoughts that ricocheted around his head like angry bees. No, it couldn't possibly be. He had no memory of ever having a sister in his past life, and the girl's face certainly didn't ring any bells for him. If he'd really been this girl's brother, wouldn't he have remembered saving her from falling into the ice? Wouldn't he have remembered her name before the blond-haired girl had spoken it? Wouldn't she have looked familiar to him before he'd fallen off the tree branch? Perhaps some mysterious force had wiped his memory clean after he'd risen from the ice. Or perhaps he had no relation to the girl at all. Besides, as far as he could tell, they bore no resemblance to one another. It was impossible to tell, but he did admit that if it was simply a coincidence, it was a rather serendipitous one at that.
Jack glanced back at the girl while she continued to walk away with her friends. The incurable sadness that spread across her face like frost on a windowsill struck deep into his heart like a thorn of pain. He just couldn't stand to see a child suffering that way. Whether he was her brother or not, he had to do a little something to help heal her bleeding heart. He knew he couldn't bring her brother back, but at least he might be able to bring her some temporary joy. Quickly, Jack formed an icy snowflake between his fingers and set it gently drifting along in the wind with one puff of his frozen breath. It meandered lazily through the air until it reached the girl's face and settled almost imperceptibly on her nose.
The girl looked up, her eyes filled with awe as the snowflake burst into a thousand sparks of blue light. For the briefest of moments, a happy smile lit up her grief-ridden face. Then, as swiftly as the smile had appeared, it evaporated like melting snow to be replaced by her former frown of agony. Jack frowned himself, scratching his chin and he wondered what to do. Never before had any of his special magical snowflakes or snowballs failed to cheer a heart shattered with rage, fear, or sadness. The girl's love for her brother must have been deep if Jack's magic couldn't ease her sorrow. Jack's own heart twinged in sympathy at the girl's grief. He could understand how she felt-not knowing who he really was felt nearly as terrible as losing someone he loved. If only there was a way he could reach out to her and help her through her misery.
Just before the girl disappeared from his sight, Jack made a promise to himself and the girl. He swore that whenever he saw her, he would, to the best of his abilities, do everything he could to make her feel safe and happy. If he couldn't help her through her grief, he'd make sure that the rest of her life would be filled with joy. After all, that was what he created the snow for in the first place-to bring happiness to children everywhere and ensure that a good time was had by all. And now that this girl had captured his heart, his intent to create frosty good fun had only solidified further.
…
From then on, whenever Jack saw the girl, he did his best to make sure that she had as much fun as possible. He created intricate flurries to fall in cascades around her, snow that was perfect for sledding and snowball fights, and ice for her to skate on that would never shatter under her feet. Every time she played in the beautiful snow he'd made, the joy on her face would light up his heart like a tiny flickering flame.
A feeling of warmth and protectiveness settled over him, and much to his surprise, the pleasure he gave the girl with his snow and ice was greater than anything he'd ever known. There was something about her-a kind of vulnerability, perhaps-that made him want to protect her, to make her laugh, to see her smile. He'd never felt anything quite like it before. Maybe he really was the spirit of her brother, after all.
However, when he tried to extract any wisp of memory that might help him discover his true identity and whether or not he really was the girl's brother after all, every single lingering scrap of thought relating to his past flitted away from his sight like a mischievous butterfly. Still, he was determined to figure out the truth, and he found himself listening in on more and more conversations in the girl's hometown of Burgess. He'd never really concerned himself with the adults and teenagers of the village-to him, the only people who mattered were the children. But now that he had taken it upon himself to watch out for the girl, finding out who he might be became more important than ever.
He kept telling himself that it didn't matter if he really was her brother or not, since even if he was, then he was dead and he couldn't speak to her, but somehow he felt it was vital that he find out. It would explain this special connection he had to her, and perhaps deep down inside he wanted to feel that he belonged to someone. He had always considered himself a lone wolf, belonging to no one but himself, but now he didn't feel quite so proud of his solitude. There was something greater-comforting, even-in the thought that he had someone to look out for, to care for, to be related to. It was something he'd never known, and he treasured the solace it brought him with every passing day.
If he really was her brother-well, then it would all make sense, and his purpose for living would become clear. This one little girl might prove to be the very key to unlocking his past and discovering what he was at his center. And as long as Jack had that chance, he wasn't going to let it slip. The thought that everything would become clear to him mere days after his awakening thrilled him to the core. He'd dreaded the fact that he might have to spend his whole existence searching for the impossible, but the very real notion that he might not have to look for long pleased him greatly.
However, any hope of finding out the truth vanished as every conversation he eavesdropped on seemed to yield even fewer clues. The more days that passed, the less the villagers seemed to speak of the boy's untimely death. He heard some of the adults mention it in passing every so often, and when they did, they didn't reveal any more than what he'd already heard. The only things he knew besides what he'd heard before was that the boy's full name was Jackson Overland, and the only other family member he had besides the girl was a single mother, who'd been struggling to provide for her family ever since her husband had died years ago. He also heard a few rumors that the mother had tried to marry the boy off to a girl in a richer family to provide for them, but the boy had escaped marriage by making the girl so nervous on the wedding day that she'd fainted before they could walk up the aisle.
As amusing as this tidbit was, Jack didn't really think that any of the few new things he'd discovered really helped him to determine if he was the brother at all. He was simply listening to the scattered bits of a life story that he wasn't sure was even his own. Although he now understood why the girl had been mourning her brother-he'd also learned that although the boy was mischievous and loved to play pranks, he had a kind and caring soul and would do anything for his sister's wellbeing-he knew as much about his identity as he had when he'd risen from the pond.
It was frustrating, to say the least, but somehow the lack of news relating to anything that might help him unveil his identity cut far deeper than that. He couldn't bear the thought of not knowing whether or not he was related to the girl. If he really had been her brother, it would have given him a purpose in life and a fresh meaning for his reason to live, to create the snow that made children so happy. He knew that it was futile to hope that anything would come along that would give him any more clues, but the fact that it was going to take him longer than he'd hoped to find out who he was almost drove him to the verge of insanity. Still, the thought of making sure the little girl's life was filled with happiness to make up for the sadness of losing her brother kept Jack from losing it completely.
As the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years, he stayed as faithfully by her side as a flesh-and-blood relative would. He watched her devotedly as she grew from a tiny little girl to an awkward young adult into a confident, beautiful woman. He was there on the day of her wedding, her joy rippling through him like waves on a pond. He even provided a little light snow on the day of her marriage, providing a beautiful canvas of white to display the painting of her happiness upon.
Whenever he could, he used his icy powers to keep her safe and remove anything from her path that would cause her distress during the course of her life. One time, Jack had found her lying unconscious in the snow during a blizzard when she was a little girl. He'd picked her up and wrapped her in his cloak and vest to keep her warm before carrying her to a nearby house with an inviting light glowing from the windows. He'd placed her on the doorstop and tapped on the door with his staff before fleeing to the safety of a nearby tree. He'd watched through the window as a kindly old woman, whom he later learned was the girl's grandmother, took her in and nursed her back to health. The girl had been bewildered to find herself there and asked her grandmother how she had found her. The grandmother replied that she had found the girl lying on her doorstep and she had taken her in to protect her from the raging snowstorm. A look of awe had crossed the girl's face, and she'd declared that her guardian angel must have protected her. On hearing this, Jack smiled and quietly traced a beautiful pattern of frost on the window. As soon as the girl saw the frost, she smiled and looked out the window in awe, but Jack had already flown off by that time.
Another time, when the girl was older and took a sleigh ride to a nearby village, Jack discovered that the village was full of thieves and murderers. To protect the girl, he'd used his powers to create enough snowfall to block the path to the village. The girl, as well as everyone else, was rather confused about the sudden onslaught of snow, but they'd attempted to push on despite the roadblock. However, Jack had made sure that it was impossible to pass through and enter the village, forcing the girl and a few others to return home. When she'd found out that some of the people on the sleigh had been killed after entering the village, she was horrified and gave a prayer of thanks that her guardian angel had stopped her from proceeding. Jack's heart had glowed when he'd heard the prayer, but he gave no sign as to his existence, knowing that the girl wouldn't be able to see him anyway.
All throughout the girl's life, time and time again Jack had saved her life, only to fail to be seen by the girl despite her claims that her guardian angel was watching out for her. Part of the problem was that Jack was too shy to reveal himself to her, but the other half of the problem seemed to be that no matter how many times he'd brought an unexpected shower of snow or formed a frost pattern on a window, nobody seemed to understand that he was behind it all. They simply dismissed it as a strange coincidence or some freak of nature, never even considering the fact that some mystical being might be the cause of the sudden snowy weather.
It had always saddened Jack that nobody could see him, but not being able to be seen by the girl he loved the most was absolute agony to him. Hard as he tried, and as often as the girl claimed to have a guardian angel, she never seemed to put two and two together and realize that Jack was the one who'd saved her so many times. Of all the people who never saw him, it seemed cruel that Jack could never be seen by the girl so close to his heart. Sometimes he prayed to the Man in the Moon to let her see him somehow, but the MiM never answered his prayers. The MiM just loomed coldly and passively in the night sky as usual, seemingly content to let Jack suffer in loneliness and for the girl to remain oblivious of the true nature of her savior.
Nevertheless, Jack still remained loyal to her happiness and safety. He could still sense that she'd never fully gotten over losing her brother, but thanks to him, he managed to make her days as bright and beautiful as he possibly could. He'd come to know everything about her, from her fears and hopes to her friends and family. It gave him joy to know her so well, but knowing all that and never being able to show her who he was wore a weary, aching hole inside his heart that he knew he'd never fill. Still, despite all that he knew about her, there was one thing about the girl that puzzled him greatly. Despite the fact that he never seemed to age a day, she continued to grow old as the years wore on by. Although he still knew nothing about his origins, Jack did sense that he wasn't quite human, but it still surprised him that he had never grown up. At first, it confused him when he saw the girl and the other humans in the nearby village aging and wondered why they didn't continually remain the same age, as he did. After he had listened to some of the villagers speak of death and funerals, Jack had come to understand that humans aged and died, unlike him. It didn't make any sense-why should he be cursed to remain immortal forever while everyone else grew old and withered?
Jack had had no reason to think about death before, but now he wondered what it would be like. He hated the idea of the girl leaving him and wished that he could be there for her when she passed into the next world. Part of him was curious as to what death would feel like, but another part of him shivered at the thought of dying. What if he fell into an empty, gaping chasm of nothingness and never felt another thing again? There was still so much to see in the world that he wanted to experience. He wanted to fly beyond the village and see what other people in exotic parts of the world were like. He wanted to know if it snowed in other places besides Burgess, and if it didn't, what kind of weather there was instead. He wanted to find his purpose in life and provide the world with something special. All of those opportunities would be lost if he died, but those dear hopes didn't stop him from wondering what it would be like if he ceased to live.
Certainly no one would miss him, except for the girl, and there would be no one to find his body lifeless on the ground. Would the girl mourn for him if she knew he was gone? He knew from all the times she'd prayed to her guardian angel and reverently mentioned her protector whenever her life was in danger or she was depressed that she truly cared about him, even if she didn't fully understand who he was. Would her heart break if she never found out who he was? Would she want him to continue to live even after she had died?
Jack could never find an answer until he discovered a way to be seen by humans, but he had the feeling that the girl wouldn't want him to die. She'd loved her brother dearly while he had been living, but she hadn't ceased to exist after he had fallen through the ice. She'd had to face a terrible ache in her heart, but she'd continued on nonetheless. Surely a girl like that wouldn't want her guardian angel to consider throwing himself into oblivion. It was a thin comfort against the anguish that was steadily rising in his chest, but it was enough to keep Jack from any further ideas of death while the girl continued to live on.
Despite this, Jack still found it hard to watch as the girl progressively aged with every passing year. With each decade that passed, some of her youth was lost, but her beauty never faded in Jack's eyes. Her smile remained the same from the one she'd shown as a girl when she'd played with her childhood friends in the flurries he'd created. Her soft brown eyes still sparkled with the delight of life and the warmth of love. Her mind remained sharp, and she kept just as close to her friends and family as she had when she was young. So often Jack had peered into her window to find her sitting before the fire with her companions, laughing as they recounted stories of their youth.
How often Jack longed to join in those discussions! It hurt him to see her sadness as she recounted years gone by and longed for the days when she'd been beautiful and could do as she pleased without worrying about aches in her bones or providing for her husband and her own daughter. If only he could tell her that she had never stopped being beautiful in his eyes and that there was so much more life left ahead for her to enjoy!
As the girl reached old age and her hair turned as gray as the bark of a dying tree, Jack noticed that her health began to suffer. It became more difficult for her to walk around to the point where she had to use a cane just to haul herself out the door. Her sight became worse, and she seemed to forget things easily. It seemed to Jack that she misplaced her glasses every day, and he had taken to throwing snowballs at her to shock her into remembering something when her memory failed her. She became ill more easily, and it took longer for her to recover from a sickness or injury. It had taken her almost six months to heal when she had broken her leg from falling over a log while walking through the woods once, and Jack felt so much pain watching her suffer that he felt as though he was the one who had the broken leg.
Now that she no longer played in the snow, Jack had to find other ways to bring her joy. He found that it was the simple things that gave the girl the most pleasure now-a little frost pattern on the window, a tiny snowflake on the nose to give her a bit of extra happiness when one of her closest friends came to visit. It was different from what he was used to, but he was glad to help the girl live through the hardest days of her life. He certainly didn't mind having to spend less effort on keeping her content-it left more energy for him to create bigger and better snow days for the other children in Burgess.
However, as the years continued to tick on slowly by and the girl's age began to catch up with her, Jack found that she was beginning to fall into the clutches of a terrible mysterious illness. He wasn't sure quite what it was, and the townspeople's speculations of what it could be didn't help either. Based on the town doctor's diagnosis, Jack came to the conclusion that it was some form of tuberculosis or another form of lung disease.
Whatever it was, the terrible sickness kept the girl confined to her bed, struggling to breathe and drenched in misery. It seemed that many people came to visit the girl on an almost daily basis now, inquiring about the state of her health and doing their best to comfort her. The girl quietly accepted their concern, but Jack could tell that what she really wanted was some sign from her guardian angel, or perhaps from God, that she would live to see the next day. Jack feared that the girl was nearing the end of her life, but since the only thing he could do was to emit cold and give the girl a sense of fun, there was nothing he could to cure her. He would fetch her a panacea if he could, but as often as he searched through the town doctor's home or the residences of the local herbalists, he could not seem to find a single herb that would heal the girl.
As the girl's health continued to deteriorate, it seemed as though some inexplicable deity was putting him through a test of sorts. How long could Jack watch the girl suffer before he lost his mind? How long would it be before he could a way to show her that she was real? The fact that there was nothing he could do to save her made him feel even more helpless. Here he was, a gifted young sprite who could bend the cold and the storms to his will, yet he could do nothing to save the life of the ailing girl he loved the most.
It was pure torture, almost a living hell, to love her so much and yet know that all his love would never save her life. She was inching closer to the realm of Death every day. It wasn't long before it would claim her and drag her down into oblivion, to the dark places under the Earth where he could not follow. Every day, Jack prayed for that day to be put off, but he knew all his pleading would do no good. Death was a force more powerful than he, and there was no use fighting against it.
One day, when Jack was gallivanting through the village, sprinkling snow across the land like white confetti, he heard a group of townsfolk whispering the girl's name in urgent tones. Curious, he hovered over the townspeople as silent as a snowflake, listening intently to what they had to say. Although he couldn't hear the entire conversation, he managed to make out quite a few interesting-and alarming-tidbits: "…getting worse…" "…not too much longer now…" "…any day now, she'll…." "…I knew this would happen, but…" "…hasn't died just yet. There's still some hope….now…"
Immediately, a lump the size of a large stone began to rise in Jack's throat. Gulping down the lump, he threw himself into the air and demanded for the wind to bring him to the girl's house as fast as possible. Almost at once, the wind began pushing him through the air swifter than it ever had before. The town and surrounding countryside blurred into one blue-gray background as the wind yanked him along in its supersonic grasp. Jack kept swallowing, trying to bury the tears back down in his stomach, but they were far too persistent to allow themselves to be conquered by a few mere gulps. Soon, warm tears fell down Jack's face and froze as they fell to the ground below like raindrops. Worries began to overtake him as he wondered just how terrible the girl's condition was. Could she still breathe? Was she still coughing up blood and mucus? Did she still shiver so much that even three layers of blankets couldn't warm her? Or was she not even there for him to see one last time?
Jack forcefully shoved his worries aside as the wind dropped him onto the ground next to the log cabin that the girl lived in. "Thanks," Jack whispered hoarsely as he leapt nimbly onto the windowsill. The wind gently caressed his frosty locks like a fond maternal figure before it disappeared altogether. The wind's apparent affection made Jack smile, but he knew that his grin wouldn't last for long. He knew it would be replaced by another cascade of tears as soon as he saw the girl.
For a few moments, he couldn't bear to look through the window and discover the truth. If the girl wasn't breathing anymore, he knew he would lose his mind. Shutting his eyes, he took a few deep breaths and steeled himself. No matter how dire the girl's condition was, he needed to see her one last time and say goodbye. She meant so much to him, and he knew that she appreciated all that he'd done for her. It just wouldn't be right to abandon her at such a painful, critical moment. No matter how horrible she looked, he was going to stare the ugliness straight in the eye and let her know how much he loved her. He didn't know exactly how he'd do that, since she still couldn't see him, but he knew he'd find a way somehow. Finally, he managed to force himself to look through the window at the girl, who was curled up miserably in her bed.
To his relief, the girl didn't look terrible. But then again, she didn't look so great either. She was shivering horribly, crouched under several layers of thick blankets that seemed to have no effect on her. Strands of her unkempt gray hair messily wandered over the pillow. Every so often, Jack could hear the sickening sound of her cough echo through the room. With every cough she gave, Jack could almost feel the pain in her lungs.
More tears flowed freely down his face as he stared helplessly at her. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms and warm her, but he knew full well that he could only give out cold. If he did so much as hold her hand, he'd kill her. She was so fragile that one more tiny chill would be enough to do her in. Jack knew he wouldn't be able to stand it if he were responsible for her death. It seemed certain that she would be spending her last moments here, but he didn't want to send her any earlier to grave. Nature was working its course, and her age and illness would be her undoing in a matter of time. It was simply a fact of life, but it was the one thing in this world that Jack wished he could undo. If only he could give her everlasting youth and life like the immortality that had been bestowed upon him!
Another cough shook her frail body as she shivered under the covers. He could hear her murmuring to herself, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. Even if he did know, he could not reply or comfort her. All he could do was continue to watch as she declined even further into sickness. He tried to consider his options and concluded that there was only one thing left for him to do. Even if she was going to die in here, he could at least make sure that the last thing she saw was beautiful. Silent as a snowfall, Jack carefully created the most elegant and intricate pattern of frost that he was capable of making on her windowsill. He knew how much she loved the little ferns of frost that he left behind, and what was more fitting a farewell gift than a frosted picture on her windowsill?
The girl painfully lifted her head and turned to face the window. As soon as she saw what Jack had created, a small smile spread across her face. "Jack Frost," she whispered so quietly that Jack could barely hear her. He smiled back and stared her in the eyes, wishing that she would be able to see him for once. It hurt to be so close to her, and yet so far away from her. Unless she believed in him….
The girl's eyes widened as she stared at the space where Jack was crouching on the windowsill. "Jack Frost," she repeated, a little more loudly this time. Jack's ice-blue eyes locked with the girl's warm brown ones for a split second. A chill ran down his spine as she acknowledged his existence for the first time. He felt as though he were frozen in her gaze like a bug trapped in amber. After all this time, she finally saw him. It didn't matter that she hadn't been able to see him earlier. Now, she could finally see the person responsible for saving her life so many times. Jack felt a warm glow inside his chest at finally being able to be seen.
"It's me! It's me! Your guardian angel!" Jack half-laughed as he stared giddily back at the girl's shocked expression. Her mouth was hanging open, and she seemed to be frozen in place from shock. Eagerly, Jack opened the window and walked into the room, not noticing that he brought a miniature flurry along with him. Snow drifted around the room and wrapped itself around the girl, making her shiver even more and pull the blankets up to her chin. As soon as Jack noticed, he immediately stopped and tried to remove the fallen snow from the bedroom. "Sorry," he apologized as he sheepishly glanced back towards the shivering old woman.
The girl did not reply, but instead continued to stare at him as though she could not trust her own eyes. After a few moments, she muttered, "H-he looks exactly like my brother did when he saved me from falling through the ice in that pond…could it be? Has he come to take me away to heaven…?" A cough interrupted the rest of her sentence, and for several minutes her body was wracked with terrible coughs that caused her to hack up blood all over the covers. Jack stood by silently, wishing that he could do something more than just stand by and make the girl even colder than she was already.
After what seemed like forever, the girl finally stopped coughing and fell back onto the bed. Concerned, Jack walked over and immediately froze when he got a good look at her. Her face had the pallor of death written across it, and her blanket-covered chest failed to rise. "H-hello?" Jack stammered. He placed his trembling hand on her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake. She did not respond to his touch. Fearing the worst, Jack carefully pushed back one of her fallen eyelids and stared into her glassy brown eyes. They stared out blankly at absolute nothingness. Shakily, Jack released her eyelid, which fell back into place as though it were a loose shutter. He called her name several times and shook her, but she still did not respond.
A chill ran down Jack's spine as the terrible realization that the girl had died hit him in full force. He tried to deny it and tell himself that the girl was just sleeping, but he'd seen too many people succumb to the cold to reject the signs of death. She was gone from him forever, and there was nothing he could do to bring her back. Another slew of tears rose in Jack's eyes as he held the girl tenderly in his arms, running his fingers through her gray hair numbly. He felt as though the outside world had vanished into mist-all he could see was the girl's eerily blank face and the teardrops that fell onto his lap as he cradled her. His sobs echoed more powerfully than any avalanche as he mourned her passing.
He'd never been so emotionally broken before, and he wasn't sure if it would ever go away. Would he be doomed to endless weeping for the rest of his days? Or would the girl's passing eventually fade to nothing but a dimly painful memory? Either way, he wished that it weren't so. It didn't help that he felt responsible for her death, although he knew full well that she would have died at some point or another even if he hadn't entered her room in a cold flurry.
His moment of sorrow was interrupted by the thump of booted footsteps echoing across the floor. Frightened, Jack dropped the girl, hastily covering her with a blanket before he flew out the window. Crouching out of sight of the approaching humans, he gathered up just enough courage to peek through the window. He watched thoughtfully as the humans wept over the corpse as he had before speaking quietly amongst themselves and covering the girl in a snowy white shroud. A few moments later, they had picked her up and carried her away from the house.
Furious, Jack flew at the humans, clenching his staff in rage. "Let go of her! She's mine-you can't just take her away from me! Give her back!" Jack yelled. Focusing with all his might, he let forth a blast of tremendous icy power along with a terrifyingly inhuman shriek. A brief flurry of snow knocked the humans onto their backs, causing them to lose their grip on the corpse and send it flying into a nearby pile of snow.
Grinning sneakily, Jack pounced on top of the girl's body like a kitten before peeling back the shroud to look at her face for the last time. Even though time had gradually erased the beauty she'd had in her youth, somehow she was still the same as the little girl running playfully through the snowdrifts that he'd known for so long. He ran his fingers longingly through her hair, wishing that he could bring her back to life. His eyes drifted absently around the area until they settled on a glowing glimpse of white through the clouds.
Starting, Jack blinked and squinted at the whiteness until he recognized it and smacked his forehead in shame. How could he have forgotten about the Man in the Moon? If there was anyone who could revive the girl, it was the MiM. Jack knew it was a desperate move, and he knew full well that the MiM might not grant his request if the MiM thought it foolish. Still, he had no other choice, so with a prayer on his lips and his heart thudding in his icy chest, he looked to the MiM for guidance as he held the girl's head in his lap.
"Man in the Moon…please, listen to me. I know we've had some…uh…communications issues since you told me my name, but I hope you'll understand what I want to do for once. I don't know if you can even do it or not, but if you can…could you please bring this girl back to life? She means so much to me-during all those years I spent alone, she was the only thing keeping me going sometimes. There was something special about her…something that I wanted to protect with my life if it came to that. I don't know why, but to me, this girl meant so much more than all the other humans that I've seen. If she were to be gone for good….I don't know if I'd ever get pleasure in bringing snow days again. She was like a sister to me, and without her I'd have nothing to live for. So please…if you can work a miracle for me, then for once could you hear me and help me out here? I've gone so long without hearing your voice, and I know I'm being selfish here, but just ONCE, could you do something good for a fellow spirit?" Jack pleaded.
For several moments, he waited with bated breath, hoping against hope that the MiM would heed his request. He knew it wasn't likely to happen, but still…he'd suffered in silence so long that the MiM was almost obligated to help him out. If the MiM didn't do anything…well…Jack would prefer not to think about it.
As usual, it seemed that the MiM had ignored his desperate plea. Nothing had changed about the girl's appearance in the past five minutes. Furthermore, Jack saw the humans who had been carrying her start to approach him, muttering amongst themselves. Furiously, Jack clenched the girl's body tightly in his arms, refusing to give up her corpse. He let out a savage snarl like a wolf and threw blasts of icy magic at the men in an attempt to stall them. His snowy powers caused the men to stumble and slip, but it seemed to barely hinder their progress. All his efforts eventually proved futile, and the men managed to easily take away the girl, despite his death-grip.
For a while, all Jack was able to do was watch the girl's sheeted body grow fainter and fainter as it was whisked away by the men. A terrible feeling took hold of his insides. He felt as though a tornado were tearing apart his heart, leaving only bleeding shreds behind. All of his emotions were blurring together into a sorrowful, angry mass, and he wasn't sure whether to cry or scream. All he knew was that the emptiness inside was more powerful than any magic he'd ever cast. The emotions continued to bubble up inside, despite his attempts to hold them in. After all, he knew full well that he couldn't lose it-if he did, he might wind up killing someone with his powers if he wasn't careful.
He took several deep gulping breaths, trying to tame the monstrous feelings inside him. Although he calmed down to a certain degree, he couldn't prevent himself from letting out a lonely, heart-wrenching howl, like a dying wolf. Whipping around to face the MiM, Jack released a barrage of hurtful comments upon the majestic white orb. "You….you ignored me. You ignored me like you did for all these years. What is it that you have against me? Are you-are you blind? Why would you just forget a fellow spirit like me? I've never done anything to spite you in all the time I've been alive. You just like to play with me, don't you? You-you-you heartless, cruel, stupid monster! I hope you're satisfied with what you've done, Man in the Moon, because if you think that I'd ever want to speak to you again after what YOU DID TO ME…then you haven't known me long enough. Just-just forget about it, okay! After today…don't count on me to do anything nice for kids ever again. Winter isn't just fun and games, you know-and I'll make sure that YOU will suffer the most out of anyone the next time it snows again!"
With that, Jack turned and fled the scene like a bat out of Hell. He didn't care where his feet took him-all he wanted was to go somewhere where the moon couldn't see him. He crashed recklessly through the trees standing starkly against the winter landscape, severing more than a few branches as he stumbled into them, but continuing on nevertheless despite a couple of knots forming on his head. At one point, he even tripped and heard a loud crack as his ankle twisted at a painful angle. Falling to the ground with a thump, he lay gasping for several moments, trying to ignore the agony. After a couple of minutes, he struggled to his feet, cursing under his breath as his ankle continued to throb.
Grumbling, he summoned the wind, telling it to carry him as fast as it could. Almost immediately, he felt himself yanked through the air at a surprisingly rapid rate. Trees passed him swiftly in a blur as the ground under his feet melted away like snowflakes in the sun. Eventually, the wind dumped him roughly into the branches of a tree. "Ouch!" Jack complained, shaking twigs out of his hair as he tried to get his bearings.
The wind bit at his cheek, as if in contempt, before it died away completely. "Well, you can forget about helping me again," Jack complained as he glanced at the ground. Apparently, the wind had chosen to deposit him as high up in the tree as possible. Luckily, the tree wasn't a particularly tall one, and Jack would probably have been able to leap down without a problem were it not for the highly awkward position that he now found himself in. His legs had somehow managed to bend themselves in a way so that his left leg was crossed over his right, his arms were behind his back, and his back bent forward like a hunched old man's.
Humiliated, Jack took a minute or two to untangle himself, then slowly climbed down, wincing as he put weight on his bad ankle. He still wasn't even really sure how a transparent spirit could even break an ankle-if people could pass right through him, then did he even HAVE any bones to begin with?-but that wasn't his most important issue at the moment. The more important things were getting himself out of this tree and figuring out what to do with the rest of his life now that the girl was gone.
Eventually, Jack reached the snowy ground and looked out over the wintry landscape. If he squinted, he could just make out the faint outline of the village that the girl had lived in, standing out like a dark speck against the pure white snow. He even thought that he heard the sounds of mournful singing and weeping drifting on the wind. Of course-the girl's funeral would happen soon, if it were not taking place already, and her family and friends would be weeping for her and remembering her life.
Part of Jack wanted to fly to the town and see if the funeral was already going on, but something inside him held him back. He didn't trust the wind anymore after that tree incident-he had a feeling it might be too angry at him to let him ride on it for a while. Besides, he wanted to take some time to himself to sort out his feelings and figure out what everything meant. He remained there for some time, gazing mindlessly into the silent landscape. Then he snapped out of his trance and turned away into the woods, giving the village one last wistful glance before disappearing into the shadows of the trees.
…..
Jack gritted his teeth as he struck his staff into the ground for the umpteenth time. The snowflakes around him morphed into furious flurries that reflected his current mood. Jack squinted at the whirlpool of snowflakes and nodded. "Hmmm. Not bad. But I bet I could do better…"
Jack proceeded to refine the flurry until it spun in a perfect blinding circle, matching the storm of feelings inside him that he'd had ever since the girl had died. A few weeks ago, he'd watched her funeral passively from a tree, feeling angrier than ever that nobody could see him. He'd done so much for the girl, yet he was nothing more than a passing fancy in her mind that had had no substantial appearance in her life until the last few moments before her death.
Acknowledging that she was gone was even more painful than acknowledging that he really wasn't a real person to her. He wanted to tell himself that she really had seen him, that she really did know who he was and appreciated all that he'd given to her, but the very fact that he could never appear at her funeral in a corporeal form proved a cruel reminder that he was her personal guardian only in his fantasies.
If he'd really wanted the girl to see him, he would have had to do something to convince her to see him and stick around afterwards while she had been alive. That chance had come and gone, and Jack had to admit to himself now that perhaps his love for the girl wasn't love so much as a desire to give himself a purpose and pretend he meant something to someone. The girl had just been something he had plucked out of the world to act as his focus, and now that she was gone, he no longer had a defined purpose in life other than creating snow, or perhaps helping the seasons advance in their eternal march.
Jack had always wanted something more than that-a real human purpose to aspire to and fulfill. Protecting the girl and making her happy was the closest thing he'd ever had to one. He wasn't entirely sure what he wanted in life, but he knew that if he had something to live for, it would help to quell the uneasy sense he'd always had of being useless and unwanted. After all, if he really was needed, wouldn't someone have seen him by now? Wouldn't someone have come for him and told him that he was loved? He might as well have been an orphan for all he knew.
He'd always been jealous of seeing families huddled together around a fire, laughing and telling stories to one another. He craved that sense of belonging as much as any other human, but how would he ever get it if people just went right through him? It seemed that nothing he could do would ever attract their attention. Yet he still felt that he was placed in the world for a reason. Every human that was born eventually grew up to become something later in life-a baker, a street sweeper, a spouse, even a mayor. Why shouldn't he be the same?
Jack may have had special ice powers and the ability to drift on the wind like a snowflake, but at his core, he was still very human. And so he desired what they had, and searched endlessly for something to cling to and give him purpose in a world where he was constantly ignored. Yet, now that he had finally found a purpose, it had been taken away from him forever. All he had left was sadness and rage.
That may not have been so terrible if he'd had someone to confide in, but the other spirits he did know of either ignored him or were just friendly enough to have a brief conversation with every once in a while. Even the MiM, who was the only person that Jack had actually ever told anything personal about himself to, seemed to enjoy giving him the cold shoulder. So what else was Jack to do but use his magic to take out his anger, sadness, futility, and loss?
Jack smiled as a spiral of snow pirouetted upwards from his staff. It wasn't a smile of joy or relief-it was something a little more sinister than that. It was a smile of pure mischief; a desire to do something a little more extreme.
An icy laugh left Jack's lips as he spun his staff around, forming the flurry into a more complex pattern. As they spun and flipped, the snowflakes seemed to get larger and denser. In a couple more turns of his staff, Jack succeeded in creating an impressive harem of snowballs, each one at least the side of his head. Still grinning at his success, Jack made a flinging outward motion with his staff, and the snowballs thundered down the slope of the mountain ridge that he stood on. They continued to gain mass as they rolled downhill, and in a matter of moments, the snowballs had morphed into a deadly avalanche.
For a few moments, Jack stood still, shocked at the dangerous and beautiful thing he had created. He hesitated, wondering if it was too risky to create something so out-of-control. It might hurt innocent humans, after all. Was it worth it to create something so life-threatening just to express his grief? Perhaps he could do something a little less dangerous to release his emotions…
Jack shook his head, focusing intently as he attempted to whip up a snowstorm. He'd been crying almost every day for weeks now. Nothing else that he could do would ever enable him to fully express everything that he felt. Humans were nothing to him-if he accidentally hurt someone, then so be it. Nobody could see him, anyway-why should it matter if someone was caught up in a snowstorm by mistake? It was all they deserved for ignoring him, anyway. Besides, he reflected with a naughty grin, it would be punishment enough for the MiM to see the children he so cherished suffer with runny noses and snowy clothes for several weeks.
Jack let out a whoop of joy as he conjured up the massive snowy clouds above him. A chilly wind nipped at his nose and lifted his cloak as he sent the wind and the clouds out into the landscape. Just for good measure, he blew out a handful of snowflakes into the storm, prompting it onward towards the town where the girl had once lived, although he felt certain that it would reach and torment various other villages as well.
"Bet you're sorry you ignored me, huh?" Jack taunted as the clouds blocked out the moon, which was just beginning to glow wanly in the night sky. "You thought I'd never do anything to your precious kids because you thought I liked kids myself…well, you're wrong! Just because you never talked to me doesn't mean I haven't noticed. Hope you like being blind for a while!"
The MiM did not reply, but Jack could feel a coldness spreading throughout his skin as the clouds blocked out the shining white satellite. For a moment he shivered, wondering if he'd been too rash in his actions. Then he heard the distant shriek of people who were caught unaware in the unexpected storm and laughed, completely forgetting any regrets he might have had about tormenting everyone with his wild snowy creations.
…
"Oh please, wake up…please be okay…you can't die! I-I won't let you!" Jack pleaded shakily as he held the drenched girl's head in his lap. He was still shaking from the experience of diving into the water to save her and was still amazed that he'd managed to get out safely with both of them in one piece, considering that he knew nothing about swimming.
Only a few moments before, he'd been watching idly from a tree as the girl slid happily across the ice, laughing and twirling about on her ice skates as if nothing else in the world mattered. He'd been amused at her playful antics for a while, but just as he grew bored and began to turn away, there'd been a loud crack and a terrible scream echoing across the pond. Turning, Jack managed to get a glimpse of the girl's pale hand waving frantically in the air just before she went under.
Horrified at what he'd done, Jack had found himself racing across the ice and jumping into the pond to save her. He'd thrashed desperately, scanning the underwater landscape to find her. Luckily, it hadn't taken him too long to locate where she was sinking and grab hold of her, but the weight of her and both of their clothes dragged them ever deeper under the surface of the water, even as he struggled valiantly to surface. He wasn't sure if he could die or not, but for some vague unknown reason, the thought of drowning terrified him, and he had no intent of leaving this world before he'd discovered his purpose in life.
A sudden thought struggle him as he continued to flounder in the water: Was it possible for the wind to reach him here and carry him back to the surface? He wasn't entirely sure, but now was not a time to doubt when a child's life was on the line. He'd pleaded aloud for the wind to carry him to the surface, and for a time nothing seemed to happen. Despite the fact that the wind didn't seem to hear him in the water, he'd continued to beg for his life, as he had no other way of escaping.
Just as the water began to blur before his eyes and he gave up hope of ever being saved, he felt himself lifted up through the hole in the ice that the girl had fallen through and dumped onto the thicker ice on the pond. Coughing out water, Jack had looked around in confusion, wondering if by some chance somebody had grabbed them and pulled them to safety. Seeing as there was no one else around, though, Jack figured that the wind must have been able to get through to him after all. He half-heartedly thanked the wind for saving him and felt it brush against his cheek, a tad bit reproachfully, it seemed. Then it disappeared as soon as it had arrived, and Jack was left alone to come up with a solution to revive the soaking-wet girl.
Jack had tried shaking her, calling her name, and even pressing on her chest to see if she would cough out the water she'd undoubtedly swallowed, but nothing seemed to work. He was beginning to worry that she'd drowned or frozen to death, since she'd been completely lifeless for almost a half-hour. Nervously, Jack shook her once more, hoping against hope that this time, he might finally get a response out of her.
Still, there was nothing. "Oh, for heaven's sake!" Jack fumed, angrily throwing a snowball at a tree. It splattered in a rather unsatisfactory way as it hit the bark, prompting Jack to attempt to throw a better one. "I go through all of THAT and nearly DROWN to save her, and then she dies on me? That's just…so not fair!"
At the moment that Jack's second snowball hit the tree, he heard a cough and felt the girl's head shift in his lap. Startled, Jack looked down and almost fell backwards with relief when he saw that the girl's eyes were opened. "I'm so sorry…I didn't mean for you to fall in when I frosted that pond. I just…wanted someone to have fun for once…I was having a really bad week, it's a long story…." Jack stammered awkwardly as he brushed her bangs out of her eyes.
The little girl shivered and looked straight at him. "Jack," she said quietly, in a voice that seemed to resonate like an echo in Jack's ears.
Jack started again, then blinked in shock and stared hard at the girl, unwilling to believe what he had just heard. "You….you can see me?" Jack spluttered in an incredulous voice. His heart raced as he continued to stare at the girl, hoping that she would repeat that one precious word again. Was she the first person to see him after the girl's death? Or was Jack merely imagining it out of loneliness and guilt?
No, he was not. "Jack," the girl repeated again, a little more loudly this time.
Jack laughed and hugged her, near-delirious with joy. After all this time, finally he'd found someone who could actually see him. "T-that's right! That's me! Y-you can see me…do you really see me? C-can you feel me? I-I was the one who saved your life! Y-yeah, that's me!" Jack giggled.
However, the girl didn't seem to be looking at him any longer, but rather at a far-off dark shape in the distance that became ever closer with every passing second. "Jack…" the girl said for the third time, but she seemed to be addressing the dark figure in the distance rather than Jack.
"Annabeth! Are you okay?" called the dark figure with a note of concern. Jack still couldn't make him out completely, but the figure appeared to be a boy around his own age, if not slightly taller and older than him. He began to wonder if he was the girl's brother or not, but he didn't have to ponder for long.
"Y-yes! I'm okay!" Annabeth stammered as she staggered over the pond and threw herself into his arms, shaking in pure terror.
The older boy put his arms around Annabeth comfortingly. "Annabeth, I was so worried about you! When you went under, I thought you were gone for good! And you wonder why I keep telling you to be careful when you go ice-skating," he scolded.
Annabeth hung her head in shame. "I know, Jack," she said sheepishly. "But…I think someone saved me. I don't who it was-I didn't see anyone else besides you….you didn't save me, did you?"
The other Jack frowned and ran his fingers through his younger sister's hair. "No, I wasn't anywhere near you when you fell into the water. I ran off to get help, but then I saw you come out of the water and wake up…"
Annabeth's forehead wrinkled as she mulled over the conundrum, then shrugged. "Maybe whoever did it left before I woke up," she said. She clung tightly to her brother's hand as they walked away from the pond, discussing who might've been Annabeth's mysterious savior.
Jack Frost watched silently as the profile of the two siblings faded away into the distance. Just before they disappeared entirely, Jack heard Annabeth say, "Jack, I'm scared. I don't ever want to go back there again….I don't want to almost die again."
Her brother replied, "Don't worry, Annabeth. You'll never have to go back there again if that's what you want."
"Good," Annabeth said.
The rest of the conversation veered off in another direction entirely after that, but Jack didn't hear another word that they said. All he could hear in his mind was the girl saying, "I'm scared. I don't even want to go back there again." The whole situation reminded him of the fear he'd felt upon first waking up in the ice, but more than that, it made him realize just how reckless he'd been since he'd started wreaking havoc upon the land with his blizzards and avalanches.
He didn't think about the possible consequences of the storms-it was the only way he had to cope with the death of the girl, and he figured that nothing too bad would happen to anyone. Sure, he'd seen a few people freeze to death before, but most of the time his wintry creations had never hurt more than a couple of people. He'd allowed his raging emotions to consume him to the point where all concern and reason left him, like a bird taking flight. All that had mattered was getting rid of the pain he felt deep down inside. Anything else that happened because of his storms were of no consequence to him. Although he'd felt a bit guilty for potentially harming people, he'd managed to convince himself that it really wasn't that bad, and the worst he'd do to someone was freeze them.
Still, that hadn't been enough to entirely eliminate his feelings of remorse, and now the incident with the girl today had reminded him that even if he didn't think he was hurting anyone, there would always be someone whose life would be lost because of his thoughtlessness. Jack hung his head in shame, wondering how he could possibly have persuaded himself that what he was doing was harmless. He'd known all along that the snowstorms and avalanches were dangerous, but he was having so much fun making them that he really didn't stop and think about the repercussions, lest that ruin his sense of enjoyment.
Who knows how many other children and adults he'd endangered? Jack dimly remembered hearing something about an unusually large avalanche taking the lives of a few hundred people, but at the time he'd dismissed it as an exaggeration. But now, seeing how just a harmless blanket of ice over a pond could almost drown a little girl, he realized now that the villagers may not having been making up the body count. It was chilling to think that he had been the one responsible for the demise of so many innocents.
He wondered why he hadn't listened to his conscience before-it might have spared a lot of trouble. Remembering all the storms he'd made, he pondered just what other tales might be true, then shut his eyes in agony as all the stories he'd heard haunted his mind: A boy dying in a snowstorm; a family getting caught in a blinding blizzard and dying of frostbite and hunger; a girl being buried under the snow; a man being crushed by a falling tree weighed down by snow.
Jack shook his head, wincing as tears fell down his face. He could not deny it any longer-he was causing destruction and pain for hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Because of his foolishness, even little children were dying, all because he felt the need to express himself in an irresponsible manner. Just because it was fun to create these wild snowy abominations didn't mean that it was safe.
Jack knew that creating misery when he was hurting inside was not what he truly wanted. He just wanted to do something to feel better after losing all sense of purpose, but all that he had done was take away the loved ones of humans who had nothing to do with him and could not possibly understand why winter seemed to be attacking them. All they knew was that their friends and family had died with no reason, just like the girl had.
Jack didn't want others to feel the same way that he had when the girl died. He was no better than the MiM for ignoring others and taking out his pain on them. Jack shuddered to think of comparing himself to the heartless celestial entity who had seemingly revived him for no purpose, but he couldn't deny that he was equally as cruel, if not worse.
If he truly wanted to be human, then he would have to put his personal feelings aside and stop mindlessly hurting people. It would be difficult, as Jack had no other outlet to work through his grief, but there was no other option. He was not the center of the universe, after all, and he needed to be responsible when he created things. He resolved to be more careful when creating powerful snow creations in the future and make sure that they wouldn't hurt anyone when he did.
"I'm sorry," Jack whispered, mournfully looking up at the moon, which was just beginning to peek out of the fading blue sky. "I…I know what I did was horrible, but I'm not going to ever do anything as bad again. I know that I was in the wrong…please, forgive me, because I know I can't forgive myself."
The MiM said nothing, but a warm beam of moonlight shone cheerily down on Jack, as if in response. Jack wasn't sure whether the moon was comforting him or mocking him, but either way he was glad for the contact. "Thanks," Jack said softly. He basked in the beam for as long as it shone on him, but as soon as it had faded away, Jack turned and flew to the top of a tree, brooding and contemplating what he had done and what he would do next. He wasn't sure if he'd ever find another purpose, but for now, he was certain that whatever happened, he would never endanger another living thing again, purposefully or not.
….
Jack sat up with a gasp, glancing wildly around the room. As Jack wiped the sleep out of his eyes, the room gradually began to clear until he realized that he was lying on North's couch in the jolly Russian's workshop. Confused, Jack shoved the blanket off his lap and walked over to the clock to see what time it was. To his surprise, the old grandfather clock indicated that it was almost two o'clock in the morning.
"Huh?" Jack muttered, still trying to get a grip on reality. Even though he was beginning to realize that his experiences with the girl before and after her death had all been a dream, he was still in a sleepy haze and not quite fully awake yet. Groggy as he was, a revelation managed to become fairly obvious to him: The girl that he'd tried so hard to bring joy to was his sister all along! Of course, he hadn't known it back then since he'd still had amnesia in regards to his past, but now his attachment to her and his desire to keep her safe was as clear as dawn. No wonder the MiM had chosen him as a Guardian-even after Jack had died, he'd still continued to protect his sister throughout her life, even up to her dying day.
Jack smiled tiredly and considered returning to sleep, but something nagged him in the back of his mind. Even though he'd gotten plenty of rest and recovered from his fatigue quickly, it still bothered him that he had enough power in him to knock him out cold at random times, and he had no way of predicting how much power could incapacitate him. He was afraid that there might come a day when he would black out during an important battle and fail to aid the Guardians, and he had no intention of letting that happen.
He'd intended to take some time to practice his skills so he'd get to know his own limits better, but the Guardians had fussed over him endlessly during his recovery, especially Tooth and her mini-fairies, so he'd hardly had a moment to himself. The few moments he had been alone were mostly spent sleeping, since it had taken quite a while to recover his energy after the incident at the frozen pond a week earlier. But now that Jack was wide awake and nobody else was up, he figured that this would be a perfect time to experiment a bit before anyone else noticed. He was a bit tired, but not nearly tired enough to drift off again, and unless someone got up for a midnight snack, there was little to no chance of someone missing him and wondering where he'd gone off to.
Nervously, Jack glanced around to make sure that nobody had seen him get up. All he could sense were the darkness of the early morning and the snores of North and the yetis and elves in the workshop. Perfect. Jack climbed nimbly out the window and drifted softly to the ground, then began to tiptoe quietly in search of a good place to practice his magic. After a few moments of searching, Jack found a clearing in a circle of pine trees that provided plenty of cover from prying eyes and enough space to allow all sorts of experimentation.
Grinning, Jack decided to begin with a small warm-up. Shutting his eyes and focusing intensely, he summoned just the tiniest snowflake into existence. Jack watched for a few moments as it drifted on the wind, then decided to up the difficulty just a tiny bit. Instead of a snowflake, this time Jack managed to conjure up a small flurry. Although it was harder than creating a snowflake, he didn't even break a sweat.
After that, Jack gradually processed through several levels of snow-conjuring difficulty, ranging from creating a miniature snow-cloud to summoning up a medium-sized avalanche. By the time he got all the way up to a solid energy blast, though, he was beginning to show signs of weariness. When he finally managed an energy blast a third of the size of the one that he'd made when he'd tried to save Pitch, however, he was knocked to the ground and his vision spun dizzily for several minutes. Jack knew that if he pushed himself any further, he would pass out again. He sat still for several minutes, gasping for breath and wiping sweat from his brow. When he finally felt strong enough to stand, he got shakily to his feet and started to walk back in the direction of the North Pole, hoping that nobody had woken up and noticed his absence.
Just as Jack was about to take off into the sky, though, a sinister presence stopped him dead in his tracks. A flash of something shadowy immediately caught Jack's attention. He tentatively stepped towards the shadows, holding his trusty staff protectively out in front of him. A few seconds later, he saw two golden eyes glare malevolently out from the pine trees. Jack immediately recognized the eyes and went cold. It was Pitch Black.
Hoping that Pitch didn't recognize him, Jack shot up like a rocket into one of the pine trees and stood still, praying that Pitch wouldn't hear his pounding heart in the darkness. As he peered out from the snowy branches, he saw the lithe boogeyman step out into the center of the trees and stare seemingly straight at him. Pitch's eerie British accent pierced the air, sending the white hairs on the back of Jack's neck straight up. "Frost, I know you're out there somewhere. It's been quite a while since we've seen each other since…that incident. If you're up there somewhere, would you mind coming down for a few minutes? I'd like to speak with you about what you've done. Don't be afraid-there's no Nightmares out to get you this time, I promise."
Jack gasped but did not venture into the open. There was no way that he'd ever go out and speak with Pitch in the middle of the night. Although Pitch might be honest about having no Nightmares with him, Jack was certain that the Nightmare King had far worse terrors up his sleeve in store for Jack if the frost spirit made one wrong move.