Happens roughly five weeks after Broken Spirit.

Jamie laughed as he and Jack frolicked in the newly laid down snow. The sprite had made a wonderland just for his First Believer, and had laced every snowflake with Fun. Jamie was thrilled.

They now played 'Hide in the drifts' and had even talked Bunny, who was in the area, into playing with them. (Of course Jack threatening to bring the game into the warren if he refused helped immensely). There was just one problem.

Neither Pooka nor boy knew where the Guardian of Fun had hidden himself, and it had been an hour since they had started a new round.

"Alright Frostbite you got us. Come on out. Yer very funny, Snowflake!"

No response. Jamie was worried.

"Jack? You can come out. We give up!"

Bunny was about to chew the frost spirit out, when all of a sudden, he spotted the blue hoodie curled up in a drift.

"There ya are! Ye nearly gave Jamie a heart attack ye brumby! Now come on!"

Sighing, he went over and roughly pawed the shoulder of the sprite, forcing him to turn upward. What he saw brought everything to a screeching halt. Rage and annoyance melted away as the sight before the Pooka's green eyes registered in his brain.

"Oh crykie..."

Blank, clouded orbs stared into nothingness, unfocussed, unsparkling.

Utterly dead.

"Oh no...Jack!" Jamie dropped to eyelevel and said "Jack...I see you."

The dead eyes didn't register that he had said anything. This more than anything scared the young boy. Jack had five relapses so far, but the boy was able to use his belief phrase to snap him out of it.

"It didn't work." Jamie panicked "It didn't work!"

"Now now, ankle-biter, calm yerself." Bunny soothed, placing his paw on Jamie's shoulder. The boy turned on him, stressed and scared, his brown eyes shining with unshed tears

"You don't understand, Bunny! IT DIDN'T WORK! He's so deep this time that not even I can reach him! This is bad Bunny!"

"No doubt. But yer panic is scarin' him. Listen, I'll get him to the warren, an' you try to find Autumn. If his First Believer can't get through the fog, maybe family ties will."

"And if they can't?"

"Guardian of Hope, mate. I don't do 'can't' Now run. She's probably at the lake."

As Bunny disappeared with the dead-eyed Guardian of Fun, Jamie ran as fast as he could to Jack's lake, the hope the Pooka had left with him shining brightly.

"This has got to work!"

ROTG

"Oh Frostbite...Ye aint in there mate...ye jus' aint in there are ye?"

He had set the boy down in his own nest, and the kid had simply whimpered pitifully and curled up, looking like a scared pooka kit. Bunny again cursed the previous Summer for breaking the Guardian of Fun so badly that it kept happening at random intervals. Jack hid a lot emotionally, and one of the things he hid was the effects after being completely broken. Bunny had a feeling the relapses were not the full extent of the trauma.

Jack's dull eyes watched Bunny intensely, his body ready to spring if the Pooka made any threatening movements. Bunny sighed and backed up. Being a prey animal, he knew when too close was a bad distance to be in a situation like this.

"Easy mate." He soothed softly. Tone was everything. Tone told emotion. Tone told intent and tone told mood. "I'm not gonna hurtcha."

Jack seemed to settle at this, and Bunny inched closer, arms up. The whiter-than-snows began a clacking noise that increased along with a whine that grew more pleading as the pooka approached, then gently rubbed the shaking spirit's back

"No need to submit, Jackie. I ain't gonna hurtcha. Stop that."

The clacking increased at his gentle touch, the whining grew less. Clearly the teeth were not a submissive gesture.

"Guess you're jus' clacking because yer declaring fer me not ta hitcha. Guess it makes sense."

After a time, the clacking finally stopped, and Jack fell into a fitful sleep.

Bunny sighed, his heart aching for the young Guardian. "Hurry up, Bennett. I may get annoyed with Frostbite, but I would rather see him hyperactive, than dyin' ta everything like he is now."

He rubbed the back of the winter spirit again,

"Come back to us, Jackie. We still got a score ta settle in our game."