Tale
Chapter 3 : Meeting again
/!\ I do not own Rise of the Guardians, only my OC.
Jack Frost
The sleigh was flying high in the sky. The Guardians were heading to North America, because it was on this continent that Jack Frost had seen Lía Tale the night before. But, honestly, they had no clue on where to find the young woman. Since she was an immortal chosen by the Man in the Moon to be a Guardian, she probably had magical powers that allowed her to do multiple things, like travelling extremely quickly or disappearing suddenly.
"Where are we going exactly?" asked Jack, sitting next to North.
"To find Lía Tale." answered the man.
"Except we don't know where she is!" exclaimed the Guardian of Fun. "No one knows."
"Then what do we do?" asked North, annoyed.
"We split up." said Jack without any hesitation. "We each search one continent. Tooth can go look for her in Europe, since she's well acquainted with the French little mice, which can help her. Bunny can go look for her in Oceania..."
"Because of the accent, mate?" intervened the pooka. Jack didn't answer and looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "I'll go." sighed Bunny.
"...Sandy can go in Africa, you'll search Asia, and I'll take care of America." finished Jack. "What do you think, everyone?"
They all agreed and so, Jack's plan was adopted. He smiled. For once, the other Guardians were listening to him. He had to admit that he was glad a new Guardian had been selected, not only because he would have a new friend, a new family member, but also because he wouldn't be the most inexperienced Guardian anymore.
They flew in silent for some time, before Jack knew they were above America. After roaming the Earth for three centuries, he could always know exactly where he was. It was like an instinct.
"Well, guys, this is my stop!" he exclaimed.
He stood up, sat on the edge of the sleigh and jumped. He heard a gasp and turned around in the air, only to see Bunny looking at him free-falling, his eyes widened by fear. Jack laughed. The Easter Bunny had always had a problem with heights.
He turned around again to face the clouds underneath him. Holding his staff with one hand, he opened his arms and called the wind with his mind. As the wind carried him and brought him closer to the clouds, to the ground, he couldn't resist. Fall was almost over, was it not? He could have some fun without bothering anyone, right?
He used his staff to touch a cloud, and it started snowing.
"Winter is coming!" he exclaimed, joyful. He was always happy when he was flying, carried by the wind. Thousands of little snowflakes were falling from the sky, already covering the ground underneath the Guardian in white. He soon recognised where he was exactly : Burgess. Where he had met Jamie Bennett, his first believer, and had defeated Pith Black with the other Guardians and the children of the town.
"I haven't payed them a visit in a long time, have I?" said Jack to the wind. He heard something chirp next to his left ear. Startled, he turned his head to the left and discovered a white owl flying next to him, trying to keep up with his fast speed.
"What are you doing here?" he asked to the owl. The owl hooted and flapped its wings even faster and harder.
Jack told the wind to slow down and held a hand out toward the owl. It grabbed his sleeve strongly with its talons. Jack tucked his staff under his arm and used his now free hand to gently take the owl and put it on his shoulder. The bird held tightly onto his left shoulder while Jack took his staff back and went back to flying. With his mind, he told the wind to take them down and he landed on a roof, the owl still perched onto his shoulder.
"Phew, that was a great flight!" Jack Frost exclaimed. "And it looks like I have a new friend!"
With his right index, he tried to stroke the head of the bird, a young, white, male owl. But the owl pinched his finger with it's beak.
"Ow!" Jack let out before putting his injured finger in his mouth. It tasted like blood. The young owl was strong despite it's age. It raised its head when it heard the Guardian's cry.
"Ow?" the Guardian repeated. The owl looked at him. "Is Ow your name? Well, at least, it looks like it is."
He held his finger out again and tried, once more, to stroke the bird's head. This time, the owl let him touch him.
"Are we friend?" Jack asked with a smile. The owl moved its head like it was nodding. "Okay!" said Jack gladly. "From now on, your name is Ow, okay? Unless you don't like it, boy."
But it seemed like Ow liked his name. Jack smiled again. He had a new friend, an usual one, but still.
"I'm going to my friend Jamie's house, do you want to come with me?"
The bird just held even tighter to Jack's shoulder. The message was clear : "You belong to me, now. I'm not going anywhere. This is my perch now."
"Great! Now, this town looks a little sad. What do you say we make things more fun here?"
The bird looked at him with curiosity. Jack brandished his staff above his head, and the few tiny snowflakes that were falling from the skies became hundreds and hundreds of big and soft white snowflakes. Ow hooted, amused, and hit a snowflake near him with his wing.
"Now we go see Jamie."
Jack walked on the roof, jumped on the nearest roof, and so on. He was going slowly, stopping every few steps to freeze something: the streets, fountains, roof-tiles... he was just having fun. He had completely forgotten about Lía Tale and his mission.
Lía Tale
She was near Burgess, next to a small pond covered in ice. Her bare feet couldn't feel the cold, her hood was covered in snow. Winter had arrived extremely quickly, snow covering the ground and the trees, the houses and the rocks in only a matter of minutes.
"I'm sure that all the kids of this town will ask for the legend of Jack Frost tonight." she told Feather, who flying not far from her. "Fortunately, I came prepared."
She pulled a tapestry out of a pocket inside her cloak. She unfolded it, as she walked onto the pond, her feet on the ice. It showed a young man with white hair and pale blue eyes holding a crooked staff. Snowflakes were coming out of the staff and, inside each one of them, you could see a different scene: the teenage boy floating above a pond, carried by the wind above the clouds, making winter come, fighting the Boogie Man...
"I'm particularly proud of this one, Feather. When I weave important tales and legends, I'm in some kind of a transe, and I can see the events I'm depicting in my mind. And what I saw when I wove this one..." she stopped, pensive, before looking at the tapestry again. "I wove this yesterday right after the meeting, and I think the man I saw last night on the roof was Jack Frost."
She folded the tapestry and put it back in her cloak. She looked at the moon for a moment. It seemed like it was full, but she knew that it was decrescent.
"What is your plan for me, Man in the Moon?" she asked, but she got no answer.
She sighed. With one hand, she adjusted her hood on her head and continued walking toward Burgess as the snow kept on falling, leaving a frozen pond behind her.
Lía Tale was walking in the streets of Burgess. Thanks to the snow and the cold weather, in addition to the really late hour, there wasn't anyone in the streets. But if there had been humans outside, they wouldn't have seen her anyway.
She was playing with her dagger, using the reflection of the moonlight on the black steel blade to create a small beam of light. She pensively stroked the purple crystal embedded in the handle.
"Who am I going to visit now?" she wondered. Feather was walking next to her, running to keep up with the spirit. With her tiny bird legs, the crow was quite slow and clumsy when walking, but she still enjoyed hopping on the ground next to her immortal friend. She croaked.
"I'll just look for an open window..." murmured Lía for herself. She would slip in discreetly, tell the kid a tale and be on her way to another house. She often acted like her job was hard and demanding, but the truth was that she loved being a tale-teller: seeing the kids' amazed faces while she told them all about faraway lands, magical beings, immortal Guardians and other incredible stories... she loved it. The only down-side was when her story was over and the children could no longer see her. It was like she had never interacted with them. Like she had never existed.
She kept on walking, observing the town around her. It was a lovely little city, almost a village, with beautiful houses, gardens covered in snow, statues of important people... and somehow, it felt a bit familiar.
"I've been here before", she whispered to Feather. But when she turned her head, she saw that the crow looked afraid. Feather hid behind her legs with a small croak. Immediately, Lía stopped playing with her dagger and stood on guard. Her legs were slightly bent to keep her balance, her left hand holding the dagger (she was a leftie), her right one raised to block any incoming hit.
Her hood fell, revealing her face and her hair, still pulled up into a tight bun held by a long pin. Her eyes changed, became different. More feline. Her pupils were cat-like, reflecting the moonlight, almost completely hiding the iris. With those eyes, she could see in the dark better than any cat.
"Who's here?" she said with a firm and strong voice. She felt like someone was watching her. She heard an owl hoot, but got no answer to her question. After staying on guard for a few minutes, the tension in her muscles eased and she let her guard down. She put her dagger back into its scabbard and turned to Feather, still hiding behind her legs.
"Well, Fifi, it seems no one is here. You were scared by an owl, girl!"
The tale-teller laughed and pulled her hood back on her head. "Now let's get to work!"
She couldn't find any open windows. With the cold wind and the snowflakes falling from the sky, no human in their right mind would keep their windows open. And parents were always so protective of their children that it was sure no child had their window open that night.
"It'll be harder to slip inside with no open windows." sighed Lía.
Of course, she could just go home and rest for the night. After all, she didn't have to do this. She didn't have to tell tale to children, keep legends alive in their minds and make them dream of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, Jack Frost, dryades, unicorns, dragons and nymphs... but also of scary monsters like Medusa, the Boogie Man, trolls and ogres.
Because, as a tale-teller, it was her responsibility, her duty, to keep all the tales and legends alive. Even the ones that were scary or sad. The kids needed to be reminded that not everything was sparkles and rainbows in this world. That they would need to face challenges and problems throughout their lives, but that, with patience, courage and willpower, they could overcome them.
The tale-teller kept on walking in the deserted streets of the small town and finally spotted a slightly open window on the top floor of a charming little house. She smiled.
"Gotta go now, Feather, but I'll try to be fast." she said to the crow before jumping above the wooden fence that went around the garden. She then used the gutter pipe to climb up and perched onto the windowsill. She glanced inside and saw a dark child room. There were drawings on the walls, toys on the floor and books on the desk, the bedside table and the floor.
But the covers of the bed were not undone, the small lamp on the night table was on, and the boy who occupied the room, who was ten or eleven years old, was sitting on the edge of the bed. He was staring... well, staring at her.
Lía quickly pulled back and hid before realising that the little one couldn't see her. Even after three centuries of being invisible, she still wasn't used to it.
"The kid can't see me." she whispered to herself. Well, not until she would start telling her tale. Then, she would magically be visible to the child. Hypnotised by her voice, he would see her and listen to her as she would tell an incredible story to him. He wouldn't be surprised by her magic tricks, her tapestries and her strange physical features. But as soon as the story would be over, he would forget all about her. Only the memory of the tale would stay, like a knowledge the child always had.
"Well, there we go!" she said to herself. She held her hand out and used it to lift the window, slowly so that the boy wouldn't notice it. She had lifted it enough and was about to slip inside the room when the child said something that made her freeze.
"Jack?"
Jack Frost
He was heading to Jamie Bennett's house, Ow perched on his shoulder. He still wasn't thinking about his mission, and had completely forgotten about the threat that Pandore posed, or about the immortal he had to find. Jack was still calling snow and bringing winter to the town, excited to see his friend Jamie. He hadn't payed him a visit since last winter, and knew that the child was getting older with each year that passed by. Soon enough, he would be too old to believe in him and wouldn't be able to see him anymore. Jack secretly hoped that Jamie would always believe in him, but the other Guardians had all warned him : sooner or later, he would be forgotten by the kid.
But, before it happened, he had decided that he would spend as much time as possible with him.
Jack wanted Jamie to be aware of his visit. Standing on a roof, a few minutes away from Jamie's house, he waved his staff in the air and used his magic to create frost, which appeared on every window of the town. The frost formed beautiful and delicate ice flowers on the glass of the windows. That way, Jamie would know that his Guardian friend was about to visit him.
"We're almost there", Jack said to Ow. "We should continue walking."
Ow hooted, and Jack headed to Jamie's house.
Lía Tale
Lía's heart stopped for a second as she thought that the kid could see her. She then realised that he hadn't said her name, but the name "Jack". What he was staring at earlier wasn't her; it was the ice flowers on the window, the ones that appeared in winter, at night. And that Jack Frost was held responsible for their appearance. The child hadn't talked to her, he was simply waiting for Jack Frost. For the legendary winter spirit loved by the children of the world.
Lía sighed as she slipped into the room. Of course the boy wasn't talking to her, and couldn't see her. She was no one. She literally didn't exist, at least for him.
She got closer to the bed and crouched down to look him in the eye. She was invisible to him, she was now a hundred percent sure of it.
"Jack?" the boy called again. "Jack Frost? Are you here?"
Only the wind answered. The kid seemed disappointed. It looked like he had been waiting for this for a long time, and that he was about to give up. About to stop believing in the Guardian of Fun.
"Oh no!" Lía thought. It broke he heart to see the little one so disappointed. She didn't want him to lose hope and wonder, as believing in the Guardians brought fun and magic to all the children.
She put her hand on the boy's shoulder and whispered, with the voice that she always used to tell tales.
"It's okay, he will come. Jack Frost is coming, because winter is coming too. He will be there very soon, alright? Don't worry."
The child nodded, a bit reassured. He was beginning to see her appear before him, kneeling near him, one hand on his shoulder. He was hypnotised by her strange yet beautiful gaze.
"Now, while we wait for him, do you want me to tell you the legend of Jack Frost?"
He nodded again. She got up slowly, her eyes still in his, and saw that he couldn't take his eyes off her. Good. He wanted to listen to her. Those who didn't want to hear her tales could simply decide not to listen to her, and she would no longer exist for them. And children were the only ones receptive to her deep voice and strange eyes. Her pupils weren't feline anymore, but she still had odd eyes.
She pulled a tapestry out of her cloak as she sat on the edge of the bed, near the child. It was the one telling the story of Jack Frost.
"Three-hundred and twenty-one years ago, a child came to this world. He had a warm, brown gaze and hair as brown as chocolate. His name was Jack, or Jackson. He grew up and..."
She was telling her story, narrating the youth of the boy who would become the Guardian of Fun, when a noise distracted her. The hoot of an owl. And then...
Jack Frost
Jack saw Jamie's house. He jumped above the fence and looked around. Jamie had opened his window to let the winter spirit in. Jack noticed that the window was slightly more opened than usual. It let the cold air and the few snowflakes still falling from the sky in.
"It's probably nothing", he thought to himself.
He then jumped and landed on the windowsill. Ow hooted, disturbed by the jump. His staff in one hand, the other one hanging on the frame of the window, Jack put his head through the opening and slipped inside. And then...
o
They were staring at each other, not realising what was happening. Their eyes met, spring green and glacier blue against icy blue. Lía was kneeling near Jamie, holding a tapestry in one hand, Jack was standing next to the window, holding his staff, Ow perched on his shoulder. Two immortals staring at each other, taken by surprise by the presence of the other.
They could have stayed like this a long time, motionless, silent, eye to eye... but something else happened. The magic that allowed Lía to become visible to the children while telling tales went haywire and, though she had stopped speaking and looking at him for a minute now, Lía Tale was still visible to Jamie. But Jack's presence had brought the child back to total consciousness, so he was fully aware of the young woman's presence, as well as of Jack Frost's presence.
"Jack?" Jamie said hesitantly. "And... who are you?" he asked to Lía.
She blinked twice, shocked. Her eyes went from Jack to Jamie, and from Jamie to Jack, again and again.
"You... you can see me?" she stammered. "You can see me?"
"Well... yeah!" answered Jamie.
He didn't understand what was happening. But then, suddenly, he understood and his mouth opened because of the surprise.
"Are you another Guardian? Are you Jack's friend? Jack, why didn't you tell me about her?"
Jack kept quiet, too surprised and confused to say anything.
"I am not a Guardian." Lía replied sharply. "I am not, and will never be."
"What? But..." Jamie seemed puzzled.
"She is a Guardian." assured Jack Frost. He held a hand out like he was trying to calm a shy, scared, wild animal down. "She was just chosen by the Man in the Moon. You need to come with me, Lía."
Lía looked bewildered. Angry. Sad. Happy. Furious. Her feelings were overwhelming and she didn't know what to do. But she needed to get out of here. That she knew.
"I said I am not a Guardian!" she exclaimed.
Then, something happened. It was like all the air around her was just suctioned out with a small noise and Lía... changed. She didn't disappear, and Jack suddenly understood how she had managed to vanish before his eyes. How she had stayed hidden and elusive all those centuries.
She had turned into a crow.