It was that weekend that Jack and I had our first ever date. Officially. It had taken more than a day to convince him to leave and come back later. He had a job, so did I. Not to mention the fact that I still had to attempt to persuade my brain to not friendzone Jack for a full year. Regardless, Jack and I had decided together, that we'd be visiting Santoff Claussen. I wanted him to see his familial homeland, and I needed to know what was going on with the twins who hadn't been back to the Treehouse yet. Hey, if I wasn't gonna have any roommates anymore, I wanted to know. I let Ombric know that we'd be stopping by on Saturday and had spent the past two days running between all of my believers.
I met up with Jack in Burgess, having had Storytime with my kids there the previous day and having planned on seeing him there later anyway. We flew leisurely there, starting early in the morning. Jack and I pointed out some stuff and talked idly as we flew - me leading the way the entire time. It felt normal. Yeah, there was a nagging voice at the back of my head that kept reminding me that this was a date, but it didn't feel like that. It just felt like me and my best friend were hanging out together. It was nice.
Right before the village was in sight - and Big Root by extension - I made Jack close his eyes. I wanted him to be in just the right spot when he first set eyes on Santoff Claussen. After a few more minutes of flying, I stopped us. "Okay... Open."
He had this little indulging smile on his face as he opened his eyes. The moment he first saw the tree that was his grandmother's home - the tree that was the model for my own home - a smile spread across his face. "Is that Big Root?" He turned his face towards me but his eyes never left the sight in front of him.
I nodded, smiling at his reaction. "Yeah." My own eyes drifted towards the centerpiece of the village. "Come on, let me show you around." I led Jack to the tree, watching in from the split areas that acted as windows first. The twins were in the middle of a heated discussion with Mr. Qwerty and Ombric - about what, I didn't know. Then I led him up to the highest boughs and showed him the treehouse that got me busted and gave me the realization that eventually would have probably come to me anyway.
He stooped his way inside, eyes taking in the bits and pieces left from his grandmother's time in this world. He picked up a feather longer than his arm and turned to look at me. "What the heck has feathers this big?" He cocked a smile and tried to stick it in his hoodie.
I chuckled. "It's probably from Kailash." He shot me a confused look. "Her Snow Goose. You know, the giant goose that Mother Goose flies around on? She raised Kailash from an egg and acted like its mom. You didn't know that?"
He shook his head. "I don't know anything about her - except for what I've heard from other people. I always sort of thought of her as this old lady that told kid's stories."
"She told the stories of the Guardians with rhymes. They're all written down in Mr. Qwerty, but she spread the stories around the world when she left Santoff Claussen." I plucked the feather from where it was wedged between his hood and his shoulder and put it back on the moth-eaten pillow in the corner. "She's the reason the Guardians have legends, to begin with."
"How did she know what happened?" He sat down on the shallow step just before the rope bridge.
Now it was my turn to shot a confused look. "She was there?" His eyebrows scrunched together. "She was a Guardian, so were Ombric and Nightlight. You didn't know that either?"
He shook his head, baffled. "How did you?"
"The books. You never read them?"
He shook his head again. "No, I thought they were a load of crap." He chuckled through his bewildered daze. "What else is in there?"
"How pitch got to Earth, how the first few battles with him turned out, how his lair came into existence, how the Guardians became The Guardians... How Nightlight became mortal, who Manny is, and ... well, everything." I raised my eyebrows at him. "Almost everything I know came from those books. That's how I thought of having Ombric's help with the twins' education in the first place."
"I'm missing out on that much, huh?" He shot me that annoyingly snarky grin of his. "Well, that gives you stuff to fill me in on."
I rolled my eyes at him, shoving him a little as I did. "Har, har." I stood up, pulling him with me. "Come on, I'll show you the rest of the tree."
-
Hours later, I left with Jack still talking to Ombric about how the Guardians used to be and the twins bickering over something that Mr. Qwerty was trying to teach them. I would have loved to stay longer, but I had somewhere to be. So I headed south, towards the Mahalangur mountain range.
I trusted Jack enough to believe that he'd spoken with Tooth, but I had to make sure that she didn't hold any of this against me. She was a friend that I couldn't let hate me for something I didn't even know about. Not only that, but she most definitely was resenting someone for this and I didn't want her burning any bridges or walling herself up over this.
It took almost an hour to get there, but once I was inside I was met with fairies that wouldn't meet my eye or speak to me. I tried for a good ten minutes to ask any of them where Tooth was until I almost gave up and decided to look by myself. When I was about twenty feet away from the center platform one of them finally spoke to me. Well, yelled at me might be more appropriate. She completely reamed me out about the Jack situation and I didn't have a single chance to give any sort of apology. She kept cutting off the beginnings of my sentences with more things to yell at me about. I knew it was Baby Tooth from having seen her on Jack's shoulder at every meeting and such.
"Baby -" She chomped on my words again and chewed me out some more. When she finally had to take a breath I jumped at my chance to finally speak. "Baby Tooth, I didn't know. That's why I made Jack come and apologize because I didn't want Tooth to think I was conspiring against her all this time." She looked at me with these adorable little eyes that were so full of betrayal that I wanted to hug her and make her believe in me again. "Please, I need to make sure Tooth is okay." She watched me for a while. I didn't say anything else - more because she'd stopped yelling and I didn't want to be assaulted anymore with chirps than anything else. Also, I didn't want to push her because she could just as easily decide to leave in a huff and not speak to me for years. Eventually, she grudgingly crossed her arms and told me that Tooth was sleeping.
It wasn't the first time that Tooth had been sleeping when I stopped by. Usually, she slept for a little less than a day around twice a week - but that was more from her inability to give away her control than it was anything else. Most of the time I just waited until she woke up - and I decided to do the same this time. "When she wakes up can you please tell her that I'm here?" Baby Tooth hesitated with a skeptical look on her face before she nodded. Her shoulders relaxed and she unfolded her arms, asking where I was going to wait. "The room with my box. There's something I want to go back to." She said that she'd get one of the other fairies to come and help me once she explained to any of them that would listen.
I made my way down the spire that grew every decade. It was already four stories higher than the first time I came to Punjam Hy Loo. The walk got longer every so many years, but it always ended the same way, with me standing in a room that collected dust with every passing day. I ended up hesitating just inside the archway, looking around the room for a few minutes.
It had been a long time since I'd stopped by to relive any memories... The last time I'd been here was before Caeden died and, then, it was just to remember Isabella's 18th birthday where I'd crashed it and made a fool of myself because I was invisible and no one would know. What I wanted to see this time want quite as jovial. As I plucked my box from where it sat nestled in the wall, I couldn't help the small part of me that didn't want to relive the memory I had in mind in such a vivid way. I'd relayed Tori's demise so many times to other people that I'd sort of removed myself from the actual event by now... kind of in the same way that Pitch wasn't the same entity from the stories once you got to know him. The day I died felt more like something I'd watched, rather than lived. Well, you know what I mean.
Now that I'd gotten over how my best friend was in love with me - for the most part, anyway - I'd had time to think back on our conversation that had led up to that, and the part that had caught my attention was what Jack had said about how all of the other immortals avoid the topic of their death like the plague. After thinking about it, I'd realized that the reason I was different about it was that I didn't think I was Tori anymore... I was Story. But, at the end of the day, that's who I used to be, and when you got down to the nitty-gritty of things... that was a vast difference between me and my friends - me and my peers.
So I figured that, if me - Story re-watched the death of Tori, then maybe I'd start viewing it as my death since they were my memories that I was viewing. So my plan was to rewatch that whole ordeal and try to reconnect to it - hell now that I know more about how Jack was feeling back then maybe I'd notice it more and learn something. I took a deep breath and sat down on the floor, crossing my legs as I did. I started at that little box of mine, for the first time hesitant to peek inside.
Eventually, when the fairy stopped in to see me, it was one of Baby Tooth's sisters. The yellow plume on her head set her apart from all of the others. Many of them looked very similar, but some - I'd noticed - where somewhat distinctive, mostly from their wings though they'd have to be resting somewhere for you to notice. She glared at me grumpily with her arms crossed.
I rolled my eyes when I noticed. "Oh, come on. You guys all know that I'd never do something like that to a friend. I've been friends with Tooth almost as long as I have with Jack - you've all heard the way I've tried to pump her up about it. I didn't know." Her grimace slowly turned into a pout as her arms fell. She chittered at me how Baby Tooth explained but that they were all just mad. Not necessarily at me, but just in general and they'd all been swooning over Jack - and his teeth - for so long that for him to wrong their boss like that was incomprehensible. I nodded along with her confusion. "I know, it threw me too." She glanced down at the box in my hands and jumped a little. She apologized for forgetting before flitting over to land on my hand.
She was almost weightless - they all were - and if I hadn't watched her land I wouldn't have realized she was there. She crept forward a little until she could stretch her hand out to the box before looking over her shoulder at me and waiting for the all clear. I took a deep breath and nodded haltingly. Diamonds danced at the corners of my vision as the bright and colorful palace was replaced with a storm and my own voice swearing.
"Damn-it! I hate rain." I squinted my eyes and leaned forward, trying to see more than five feet from my headlights. "Shit, I can't even see." Without looking I jammed the radio button to turn it off. You know, it's much easier to see - I meanconcentrate - when it's quiet. Good thing I called mom earlier, there's no way I'm gonna make it home early. If I remembered right - and the storm wasn't messing with my sense of distance - the blinky light should have been coming up, just beyond which was a parking lot that I could sit at until the storm was traversable.
A flash of lightning cracked across the sky as the thunder was drummed loud enough to make my car vibrate. I saw the silhouette of the church on the hill and my suspicions were validated. "About time." I was only going about thirty miles an hour to try and make some sort of an effort to get home, but anything more than that would have had me stiff as a teenage boy's laundry. It had taken almost twice as long as usual just to get this far - and I wasn't even one third done with my drive home! As it was, my nerves were on edge and my muscles were tight. Too many times I'd caught a deer rampaging across the road for shits and giggles to feel at ease in crappy weather like this.
Finally, I hit the uphill to the light, which I could see lazily blinking red as if it didn't even know there was any rain. Almost at the intersection, I saw a car turn off of it. I had a second to notice their headlights were off before they almost ran into me. I yanked on my wheel to avoid a collision. "Turn your lights on asshole! You're gonna kill yourself -" I cut off my own sentence when I started to feel my car listing to the right. "Shit." I turned my wheel the other way, but as soon as I moved it, my car slid very quickly a much longer distance than it should have.
The hairs on my arms stood up. "No, no, no-no nononono." I didn't have a chance to think anything else before I heard what sounded like a tree snapping and my car started to tip over. The tumble only lasted a few seconds but I instantly knew that I was in deep doo-doo. On the way down, two of my windows shattered and more dents than I could count were thudded into place on what used to be my car. Oh, and to top it all off, my shit whacked me in the face as I fell - by which I mean the contents of my purse and backpack.
When I came to a stop my car was half buried in mud already. There was no way it was gonna get loose without a crane. I was sore but I know that the adrenaline surging through my nerves probably dulled anything worse. I was bleeding from the multitude of cuts I'd gotten when my windows broke and the steering column was squishing my legs. I'd seen the animated Dr. Strange movie enough times to know that car crashes could shatter bones, but I didn't think anything was that bad. I did have a raging headache that probably guaranteed a concussion. No passing out then.
The worst part of all of it was probably that my airbag never went off. I'd heard somewhere that some Chrystlers had malfunctioning bags, but I'd never excepted to be in a bad enough accident to need it. So of course, there was a giant gash on my head that was bleeding way more than the others. At least I didn't break my neck. I moved to wipe some of the blood off my forehead before it could get into my eye and a sharp-ass pain tore through my chest. I hissed in through my teeth. Damn, did I break a rib? I took a tentative breath which cut off halfway as I jerked in pain. "This is not good."
Moving very carefully, I tried to take off my seatbelt - which had done its job - and get my door open. I yanked on the handle as hard as I could in the state I was in but it wouldn't budge. Shit. There goes plan A. Plan B was to call someone - most probably 911. As my eyes roved the scattered contents of my car, I finally spotted my phone... Ten feet away on the ground in the rain. My stomach sank as I realized just how fucked I was. And there goes plan B.
Anything deeper than a shallow breath made my entire torso hurt like I'd been struck by lightning. It was hard to think straight with the pain in my chest and the downpour pummeling my face - not to mention the headache and blood now dripping into my eye. Still, I had to think of a way to call for help. I had no clue how long this storm was supposed to last - or if anyone would notice my car down here when it did. I had to get help now or I might not make it 'til later. Maybe there's someone in the church? I looked up and noticed that a light was on. For a second I thought I was home free, but then I realized that if no one had heard my car crashing through half of the woods, then they wouldn't hear me yelling for help. I could barely get enough air in to actually breathe, let alone get enough volume to be heard over the storm. So that meant that plan C was a dud too.
"Shit." I'd breathed the word as what little breath I could get was let out. As I sat there, trying to figure out some way to get out of this, I could feel the adrenaline wearing off. The more it did, the more I could feel, and the more I could feel, the more I hurt - like, a lot. It was definitely more than a few cuts and bruises. The only good thing coming out of any of this was that the half-frozen rain was cooling me off and soothing some of the horrendous stinging from the cuts. Wait a second... frozen... My eyebrows flew up as I realized that with a little help from some magic I might be able to get out of this hell hole.
"Jac-" I cut off when I was reminded of the broken rib that felt like it was trying to carve through my skin. Shallow breaths. After taking the deepest breath I could manage, I tried again. "Jack, please." It wasn't very loud - and it sounded more like a croak - but I'd said it. I managed to croak it out a few more times before I coughed - hard - and when I tasted the blood that came with it I knew that unless I got help... I was going to die there. Within my mind, I called out to, prayed to, begged for anyone that could save me. A small part of me was loathed to need saving but the rest of me did not want to die. I refused. I'd never seen anything in this world, not a single one of the sights that danced at the edge of my imagination, waiting to prove themselves real. I wasn't even twenty years old. It wasn't supposed to be like this, I wasn't supposed to die there. I couldn't die without ever actually living...
As I begged in my mind to be saved again, I realized something. This wasn't the first time I'd begged for something from an unknown, unseen force. In fact, this wasn't even the biggest request I'd ever made. I'd asked for magic - real unfiltered magic - for longer than I could remember, and I'd sworn that If I could have it... I'd gladly be normal for the rest of my life. Jack was magic. He lived and breathed the magic that gave him life and a purpose... he was the answer to my prayers. And all I'd done since meeting him was to be normal, and okay with it because I knew Jack... I'd upheld my end of the deal.
It turns out that the rest of my life was a lot shorter than I thought it would be. I could feel hot tears on my face as my world crumbled around me. I wanted to scream in frustration and shake whoever took this deal but... I couldn't make myself regret asking for it for so much of my life. I'd met Jack Frost and he was one of the best friends I'd ever had. Magic had been proven real to me and I'd had the best winter of my life since I was almost too young to remember. Even as my sight started to darken and I couldn't fight off the fogginess in my head anymore, that alone made me happy.
As my vision faded away, diamonds shattered across it violently and in an instant, I remembered that I was alive, I was Story and it had been years since that had happened. I took a huge and shuddering breath as tears stung my eyes. I didn't know if they were residual from reliving my memories or if they were from the overwhelming joy that I was alive. Whatever it was, I didn't care. I brought my hands to my face and tried to calm my nerves that were on fire. I was shaking like thirty people had walked through me and I felt colder than I ever had at the Sanctuary.
When I finally managed to calm down, I wiped at my eyes and blearily blinked them to see a concerned fairy patting my shoulder. I weakly let out my breath. "Why did it stop? I wanted to go for a little while longer." She chirruped about how I looked like I was about to have a seizure or something and that she'd made the executive decision to end the flashback. She shrugged her shoulders in apology at me and offered to take me back where I'd left off when I was ready.
I let out a breath again and looked at the box. I was already a lot more in tune with my death to the point where I didn't want to dive back in. But at the same time, I needed to take a closer look at what happened after. That was the whole reason I came here for this in the first place. Weakly, I nodded. She fluttered down to the tooth box again and, as soon as she set her hand on it, the diamonds danced me back to the darkness.
Slowly, colors started showing up. Though blurry and almost indistinguishable, I started to make things out. As I got my bearings back, sounds slowly began filtering back onto my ears. I could hear the rain and see the hazy lights from up the hill. The only thing in perfect clarity was the moon. I moved towards the mangled wreck that used to be my car and tried to see myself but no matter what angle I tried it was like someone had super blended an oil pastel drawing. Everything else was more or less easy to see except for my own face. I just stood there for a while, feeling a sizzling sensation whenever a raindrop passed through me. I looked around and noticed that a ways away there was what looked like a person but I couldn't tell. For all I knew it could have been a weird tree with how my sight was. I didn't have long to dwell on it though because at the next moment a familiar blue streak shot down and ripped my car door off its hinges.
"Tori!" He pulled something out of my car - from how blurry it was, probably me. "Come on, come on..." I could hear the desperation in his voice. He shook me a little and whatever I was now sort of vibrated. So I'm still connected? His face fell. I may not have been able to see it very well, but I could tell that much. "No..." I barely heard him, but the tone of voice betrayed what was about to happen. He stumbled backward a little and curled around himself. "No!" Even with everything blurred I could tell that he was tense - and a moment later he shot upright, floating upwards a little as he did. "Manny! Bring her back! Make her Immortal - like you did with me!"
"Why?" Even without the context, I knew it was Manny's voice that responded. No one else could have a voice so calm and kind.
"Because she doesn't deserve to die here! She deserves a life like mine." His voice kept cracking as he pled my case. From where I stood, I was shocked. I'd never in my life thought that I could be magic. But... he was right. At least about knowing to bring it up.
"Why do you believe that, Jack?" For what it's worth, Manny didn't sound like he needed convincing. More like he was humoring Jack by having this conversation.
"Because..." He hesitated, dropping his gaze to where my body rested. "She cares about this world. The mortal one and the magic one. She hasn't had a chance to do one-tenth of what she's capable of... hasn't done what she was meant to do." He looked back up at the moon. I followed his gaze and I could swear that I saw Manny's smiling face on it. "You see everyone, so I know you've seen her. She wants this world more than anyone I've ever met, and you know it... How can you just let her die?" As my eyelids fluttered open I heard him mumble under his breath. "You owe me. You left me alone for three hundred years with no word on what to do to get believers. I finally found one that I care about - you can't let her die."
As I reveled in the new knowledge that I was an immortal, the memory ended. My view was broken by the pattern and I was brought back to the present. The first time it had happened to me, I'd been so engrossed by what had actually happened that I wasn't paying attention to what was around me. I hadn't remembered that last part that Jack had said, and I definitely didn't remember a person standing by the road. The latter of the two is what caught my attention more now. "Someone else was there."
I stared at the box in utter confusion. "Who -" Who was there watching us? That my mouth wouldn't say, my mind answered. I tried to think of anyone that would logically be there and my list ended up pretty small. The most obvious answer would be the driver of the other car. Surely they would have noticed what happened to my car and had come to investigate. But that got written off pretty quickly because they would have come to try and help me or called 911 or something. My next best guess was Mors. I mean, death was a pretty obvious option and Mors had said that ze was present at as many immortal's deaths as possible - if only to not let their souls drift too far away. But the Mors I knew now looked nothing like the figure that I saw.
I couldn't think of anyone reasonable that would have been there, but whoever it was looked vaguely familiar - like someone I knew in a dream or that I had noticed walking by on a sidewalk decades ago. It was bugging me that someone I knew now was there and had never told me. It was almost as worrisome to me as the fact that the people I knew were vanishing, still.
What about what Jack said, though? The way he spoke... it was like I was his lifeline. I always thought that Jamie was the one person he couldn't live without but... I mean, he did get better while I was there, but... He really has loved me all this time. Part of me just didn't believe it, I mean that's a fantasy of a crazed fangirl that the object of her affections is in love with her. I'd never given a crap about those ideals, I'd rather enjoy a story with a good tale or characters that I'd fall in love with - figuratively. But... that would explain just about everything Jack had ever done for me.
I don't know why, but that understanding made me really sad. I wondered if I was even Jack's friend if he only ever wanted me to be his girlfriend. It made me feel really lonely if I was being honest. That's part of why I made him swear that he'd still be my friend when all of this was over, no matter which way it ended. If things changed between us then I'd know that he always had an ulterior motive. But I really, really hoped nothing was different when next Christmas ended.
The fairy on my knee looked up and cooed happily. I followed her gaze to see Tooth standing awkwardly in the doorway, looking like she'd rather turn around and leave than come in and speak with me. The fairy flew over to her and landed on her shoulder. She chirped into her ear and Tooth listened without looking away from me. The fairy pointed at me and said something that was too soft for me to hear that made Tooth blink in surprise and finally break her gaze away from me, looking at her with mild concern. "What?" She chirruped again and Tooth's eyes went back to me. "It's okay." The fairy nodded and flittered away.
I'd gotten up to put my box away when I heard Tooth's footsteps. I looked over my shoulder to see her coming to a stop about ten feet away. It was oddly reminiscent of how I'd stood when I found Jack on my roof the other night. She gave me a weak smile and rubbed her forearm. "My fairies have been whispering for a while now." She grimaced slightly. "They're arguing over whose side they're gonna pick; you or Jack."
"I didn't want to spit them up."
"I know." She smiled at me and this one wasn't forced - or at least it wasn't entirely forced. "Baby Tooth told me that you were here to apologize, but you don't have to. I'm the one who should apologize." I opened my mouth to respond but she cut me off. "I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. I'm sorry that I thought you'd gone behind my back all this time." She rubbed her arm again. "Jack told me that you made him apologize." She looked down at the floor. "He also told me about the deal you two made."
"It was the best thing I could think of." I shrugged. "It's just really weird to think that he thought differently all this time and I didn't even notice. I couldn't just turn him down, but..."
She smiled at me. "It's okay, Story." She shifted and she no longer looked closed off to me, which dropped a huge weight off my shoulders. "I don't blame you." She giggled lightly. "Too bad I didn't listen to my instincts back when we first met, huh?"
I gave her a smile, immensely happy that there were no hard feelings. "I should have, too. I'm really sorry about how you found out."
She shook her head at me. "Don't be, I'm sure it was a much bigger surprise for you."
My eyes widened. "You could say that again." We both chuckled at that.
Tooth moved closer and we both sat down at the base of the wall, watching through the archway. After a moment she cleared her throat. "If you don't mind my asking... what memory were you watching." I looked over at her and she quickly reiterated her question. "My fairy told me that you were crying when you came out of it and that you looked like you were getting sick." Her expression was full of concern. "What memory would do that to you?"
I pulled my legs in and rested my chin on my knees. "The conversation Jack and I had that led to that announcement started with him commenting about how I don't view my death the same way as the rest of the immortals who've died." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tooth put her hand over her mouth, probably starting to realize where I was going with this. "I kinda realized that I've distanced myself from it and I thought that going through it again would reconnect me." I closed my eyes and sighed, instantly going back to the acceptance I'd made back then. "I was right. I also wanted to know if I'd missed anything my first time around - specifically with Jack -"
"What do you mean?"
"Jack was there, when I became Story Tale." And when I was dead.
She blinked in surprise. "He never told us that." She looked down at her feet.
"If he hadn't asked Manny to turn me into an immortal, I might not be here." Her head shot up. "I want to believe that I'm interesting enough that he'd have brought me back regardless, but unless he ever tells me his reasonings, I'll never know." Tooth didn't say anything in response to that. She just slid herself closer and hugged me from the side.