Chapter Text
OUT ON THE SEA
1 CYCL MiM
Mother Nature
≈ 16 somni old
Have you ever Fallen?
The sound of sobs bounced off the waves and were swallowed in the white of their foam. It fizzled away with the red sparks dancing above the surface, trying to burn something that would not even evaporate. And yet still it echoed.
No. You have not. Not like this.
Not hurtling down at the force and the speed unmarked by man, uncalculated by great minds and will never be calculated, at least not in full accuracy. They will study it years later- finding not it embedded into the earth, but finding the destruction it left in its wake. Bones buried. Ash falling softly and slowly, as if she hadn’t just shown them exactly how fast something can fall. It didn’t matter that she tried to stop herself. It didn’t matter that she didn’t want this. They will blame her for it. They will look at the bones and speak of the cause of the destruction. But they will not ask what caused the destruction to become destructive. They will not see that the bones are not shaped as past lives or lives taken- the bones are shaped as the bars of her cage.
Have you ever fallen into the water?
It is the only thing left to catch you. It is the only thing left that you haven’t destroyed on your downfall.
It pillows you, almost. The water rushes to you so fast you can help but think of it as the hug, the catch, the awaiting arms that you have never felt before.
She shuddered.
But the water can also feel as cruel and as unyielding as a stone wall you’ve found yourself breaking through. The bubbles caressed her like a caring hand, a caring hand that punches the air out of her lungs—oh how familiar the sentiment was. It didn’t matter. She need not breathe. She always breathed differently. Through the exploding flares, she inhaled, through the circulation of a tornado she exhaled. (Her lungs still hurt, her head hurt, her skin burned-) She didn’t need to breathe, but she breathed anyway. Sucking in a horrid breath only to fill herself with the cold invasive slip of water. It was a bit like space, wasn’t it? Cold, unbreathable, alone. But she didn’t dare try and lift her head above the water, to the fire, to the red, to the ash. Instead, she let herself sink down, down, down, in the bubbling ocean. It was so small. Just a pond. Just as small as she was now, curled up in a circle of water-filled lungs and burning skin. She burned. The water burned. And her tears, too, they burned.
Have you ever cried in the ocean?
It’s not the ocean yet, but it will be. Have you ever cried in it and found comfort that your tears would be giving back to the ocean? Have you ever felt a part of the ocean because of it?
Not like this. Not like she. She who cried in the ocean for the first time. The only thing alive and awake on the small dusty planet. She who cried for the bones she made and the fire she carried on her back and the chains wrapped around her ankles.
Your tears melded with the oceans, her tears made it.
100,000 CYCL BMiM
E. Aster Bunnymund
0 cycles old
The world was loud. Laughter, voices, music. Words for things not known yet. They bounce off their invisible waves and settle in a small heart, not much bigger than the body that holds it. Vibrant shades of colors danced as kaleidoscopes on eyelids that have not opened yet.
“Oh,” A voice of honey and caramel, “Look at this one.”
“Bright, he is,” Another voice of dark chocolate and strawberry, “Full of hope .”
Hope. That’s it. The dainty spark danced around the three beings of life, and it made its home permanently in a little creature's heart.
Cracks, a cry, a coo, a light. Glowing the same brightness as he. So close that he could reach out a paw and blindly touch the light. A half moon. A twin sun. Two lights of the same brightness. The little creature sighed in happiness as the world around him grew soft and glowed with white light.
65 EAON MiM (June 2012)
Jack Frost
age: ???
Jack was alone most of the time.
Alone. A word that clung to him like his thread-thin jacket- so old that it was transparent in places. A word that splintered into him like the hundreds of wood slivers slicing through his skin from his staff; not quite painful, but enough to make him flinch when something brushed against it. A word that is the cold.
Alone was watching the snowflakes drift through the sky, together in a million ways that Jack wasn’t. Lone flakes of ice seeped together into a thick blanket. Even snow was a harsh reminder that everything, no matter how tiny and insignificant, wasn’t as alone as he was. Jack was a snowflake in some ways. He stuck like glue to others, hoping that if he clung hard enough that they would stay together. The sun always came and melted away whatever kept them stuck to each other. So by now, he learned. He knew that if he wanted to survive, it was better if he drifted on the winds, never sticking, never landing.
So really, he wasn’t upset at them. At the guardians.
They were busy and Jack, well, Jack knew what was best for him. It wasn’t like they were avoiding Jack or anything.
Jack didn’t know what he expected after he officially became a guardian and hopped on the back of North’s sleigh. Some milk and cookies? A hand guide on ‘How To Make Your Own Holiday’? A slumber party? Turns out: not that much. North scratched the back of his head and said that usually, new guardians came around when there was an end-of-the-world crisis sort of thing, and afterward, they were free to continue whatever good works they had previously been doing until the next inevitable crisis. A real friendly “we don’t need you anymore, but we’ll call you when we do!” goodbye.
Bunny nodded to them and said he had some ‘Spring Cleaning’ to do. The crushed eggs in the tunnels all around the world weren’t going to clean up themselves. Jack wanted to help, it had partially been his fault after all, and Bunny was starting to act warmer towards Jack during the battle with Pitch. Maybe- a hopeful feeling rose in his chest- maybe Bunny would let him make it up to him. But as soon as he opened his mouth to offer, he saw Bunny’s face. Clouded green eyes and a growing glower on his face. His scowling attitude was directed towards everyone and everything, and in hindsight, Jack figured he just must have been tired, but it looked like he might have started growling and biting if Jack voiced his offer of help. Did rabbits growl? He didn’t know, but he wasn’t about to risk the fragile not-entirely-bad feelings that they had for each other. You can’t avoid someone you never see, but it felt a bit like mutual avoidance after that.
Sandy had tugged on his pant leg and used his dream sand to depict Jamie sleeping and dreaming of snowball fights and Jack Frost himself. He had work to do. Sandy couldn't make any kids believe in him, but the dreams could do some nudging in that direction, and they needed a lot of ‘nudging’ after nearly every child stopped believing. The thought brought both trembling excitement and old bitterness so Jack just smiled at Sandy and said “Good to have you back” as if they were old friends or something. As if Jack had been a part of this band of odd spirits from the beginning. Some nights he followed a string of sand that nudged his face and found a golden image of himself dancing in the dream of another child. It was the most warmth he felt since the battle.
Tooth needed to get all of her tooth boxes back to her palace, and Jack offered to help since Tooth didn’t look like she was going to bite his head off for it. Turns out only a transportation spell North had given her was needed. She gently gripped his arm and told him she was excited that he joined them before she left. Jack visited her palace a few times after that, but Tooth and her fairies were busy reorganizing the boxes and practically shedding feathers at the stress. Only a “Hi, Jack! Bye, Jack!” and a few chirps from Baby Tooth were his greeting.
North offered his hospitality to Jack and ironically, a plate of cookies and a warm glass of milk, but Jack declined. By then Jack figured he had exhausted his stay and left. Maybe he should have asked for a manual or something, now that he had this big title with no job description.
Overall, Jack respectively kept his distance, visiting every once in a while to convince himself it happened. But he knew his limits. If he tried to weasel his way into their lives again, it would no doubt end the same way it began, with him alone. They were nice and welcoming, but they were busy. There was potential that Jack could be their friend. They didn’t hate him now. They encouraged him to see them. Absolutely bizarre. It would take him a while to get used to that. Whoever heard of anyone wanting to spend time with Jack Frost? There was potential there, he knew it, he longed for it, he hoped for it, but was it worth it?
Was it better to never have company, or to inevitably lose the people he clutched so desperately to?
The question had plagued him since he sat on windowsills and watched parents read bedtime stories to their children, nestled in the warmth that can only come from the touch of a parent. Catching sight of the simple affection of a hand on a shoulder, a playful shove, a happy tackle. A brother and sister huddling under the blankets sharing stories of space and wonder, a child in the lap of a grandparent; he thought that this had to be the worst fate. To long for something he never had, never could have. Pitch got in one go, huh?
But he was wrong. Jack didn’t long for a family anymore. He wasn’t alone. Three hundred years ago Jack would have given anything to be seen by a kid, welcomed into a hug by a parent, or invited into a home.
Then his memory box sat in his hands, and Jack knew that he didn’t have to mourn over something he could never have. He did have it. He had warmth and love and laughter. He once had a life where he was never surrounded by silence. Could you even imagine? Laughter! Everywhere! So much laughter that it drowned out any unhappiness purely by its sound. Sometimes Jack had a hard time accepting that those memories were his. He spent so much time with only the wind to whisper in his ears, the thought that he once got headaches from the noise made his chest ache with longing.
It was worse. It was so much worse to lose something he loved rather than never have it.
He had a family! He had a sister! He saved her!
And now, they were gone.
He had nothing but his memories to keep him warm, and while those moments glowed in his chest, they filled him with an even greater longing that felt too futile to fill. And even the desire to fill that gap felt like some act of betrayal. All this time Jack wanted a family and he had one! The whole time! But they weren’t here anymore and that left him in a strange in-between stage of longing and loss. On one hand, now he didn’t have to stare through kitchen windows, watching billows of steam rise from the vegetables, and wishing, hoping that maybe this one, oh, maybe this family would be the one. He used to imagine to himself that families were the type of thing you could buy at a fancy store Jack didn’t have access to. In this store of close-knit bonds and shared stories, Jack would stroll down the aisle of participants, each able to see him, each wearing friendly smiles, and he would pick one. Instead of Jack taking his purchase home, they would take him home. Pretty great, right? Jack had dreamed that once and since then the bizarre dream stuck. Parents packaged like little dolls and extravagant homes shrunken down to playhouse size for convenience. Hah. Only now could Jack truly laugh at the strange dream without feeling the forcible yearning.
While the relief of knowing his past had lifted from the intense loneliness momentarily, Jack was still alone. He didn’t have his family physically and that almost felt worse. No, Jack didn’t look through windows looking for families, he didn’t have dreams of buying families. It felt wrong now. Like someone had buried a dagger in his chest and once they had taken it out nothing could fit back in that gaping wound. Before Jack remembered what a meal tasted like, he would stuff handfuls of snow into his mouth and munch on blades of grass. The cows were doing it so it couldn’t be harmful, right? (Wrong, very wrong) But when he had stolen a handful of strawberries from a field, no amount of snow could ever fill his stomach as the strawberries had. Missing his family was a little like that. Jack would have been okay, happy even with any cardboard cutout of a family or any company- before he knew what an actual family felt like.
He was fine with the cold.
Before he remembered warmth.
His world was so much the same, and yet entirely different. While he was still alone, he had made potential friends. They didn’t fill the loneliness, but it helped him to know that he could turn to someone in his moments of need. He had believers, though few, and he was no longer unseen. So much had changed in a short few days. His entire life was flipped on his axis. Jack just needed some time to sulk, get used to it, and figure out what to do with all this new change in his life. It was easy to fall back on the loneliness, a friendly reminder of something consistent, even if it was a fact hard to swallow. Jack knew he didn’t have to be lonely anymore, but the thought of reaching out, of stretching out a hand to the people who were too kind to tell him to leave, was terrifying, and simply put: not enough. The Guardians weren’t strawberries, they weren’t the right dagger, and they weren’t his family. They were handfuls of snow that would never satisfy. Though it was more than nothing, Jack knew munching on ice would never satisfy him.
Really, the only consistent thing was the Moon’s silence. North called him Manny, Bunny called him Tsar Lunar, Sandy signed a crescent moon, Tooth called him MiM, but Jack continued to call him simply as he was: The Moon. That was what he had always been to Jack. Not a person, not a guardian, not a celestial being, but a rock. A lifeless, silent, bright rock. And he remained that way even after Jack was a guardian.
Guardian. Jack laughed as he twirled his staff. It would be nice to know what the Guardian of Joy was supposed to do in the summer months, or in general. It didn’t help that Jack was fighting to keep his eyes open every month that passed. Even in the continents where it was always cold, Jack suppressed the urge to slouch against any tree and slip his eyes closed. His home had always been North America, it was where he was created, and when the warmer months came around, Jack wasn’t needed as much. It wasn’t his place.
He may be mischievous, but he had to follow basic weather patterns if he didn’t want Mother Nature coming after him. Naturally, he became slower and sluggish as summer came around. He didn’t hibernate completely as the simple winter spirits did, but Jack needed to sleep every night. Normally he could go months without sleeping, and Jack assumed that because of his boost in status he would be able to withstand summer. Except, his boost in status involved being powered by a handful of believers that he couldn’t play with during this season.
A building in Russia that he was leaning against was frozen over. Every time he jerked awake after nodding off, another layer of ice would coat the poor building.
Jack stood and jostled himself awake. He needed to sleep. His little theory, or hope, had proved to be futile. It was time to close the case and call it a day. With a loud yawn and purposely exaggerated stretch (it wasn’t like there was anyone there to see him be dramatic anyway), he gripped his staff and took a few steps forward.
His pity party, as some would call it, was coming to an end. Truly, Jack just needed to sort out the new changes in his life. Which was a hard thing to do for a spirit that was used to consistency. Although he was mischievous and used the element of surprise to contribute to that, Jack had expectations. Three hundred years of the same expectations and patterns and suddenly he’s thrown into saving the world? Yeah, he needed some time to process it. He could have ‘processed’ in a place he was familiar with, and with a spirit that could have helped him discuss it, but Jack needed to collect exactly why he was feeling out of sorts before he discussed it with his old friend. Now, he was pretty sure that he had done all of his thinking and could sleep on it before he tried to discuss it. His oldest and wisest friend would surely help him out and offer him a place to sleep. As he said, expectations. The Oak of Sorrows was part of those familiar constants Jack relied on.
“Wind,” Jack lifted his head to tilt towards the sky. The wind brushed his cheek affectionately, “Take me home.”
He would lift off into the sky like a rocket if he had the strength. Instead, the wind plucked him up by the hood of his sweatshirt and tossed him into the sky. He spread out his limbs and let the air push him toward his destination. The rolling wind was fierce, but today it carried him gently, and Jack almost wished he could sleep on the puffs of air like this. But he knew that was too much of a burden to ask the restless and quick wind to constantly support him. The only place he truly trusted to sleep was at the base of his old friend's roots, curled against his trunk.
Burgess came into view, the glistening of his pond, now melting and lapping at the sides of the grass. Instead of dropping him down on the surface like the wind would have done in the winter, she flew him past the pond and towards the forest.
Jack rubbed at his eyes and he felt the grass beneath his feet. He yawned through speaking, “Hey, Oaky. I’m home-“
As he opened his eyes, his breath stuck in his throat, like a piece of ice wedging itself through the skin of his neck. There, the Oak Of Sorrows, that once magnificent tree, was uprooted and lying on his side, with only a few strong roots attached to the ground.
“Oak!”Jack cried, suddenly more awake than he had been all season, “What happened?”
The face of the ancient tree was gnarled and old. His eyes were knotted shut as tears slipped out of the creases and dipped onto the ground in big and round drops of water. His gaping mouth was open still but tilted into an open-mouthed frown, sob-shaped lips. Jack's fingers trembled as he placed a hand on his friend's face. His hand looked small enough to be a butterfly resting on the towering tree.
“Jack,” He croaked and opened his eyes of deep sadness. They were two pools of black that should have been disturbing, but Jack found their depth comforting. Jack had never seen the Oak with his eyes fully open- though he knew they were about the size of Jack’s head whole- because he was always tired, and he almost looked as if he bore the weight of the world on his gnarled eyebrows, “Where were you?”
The tone was almost accusatory, and Jack’s fear increased tenfold. It was like Easter all over again. Jack, where were you? Rang through his ears, Jack, where were you? Always where he shouldn’t be. Always in the wrong. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Always an accident.
“I’m sorry!”Jack spoke no louder than a whisper, as he was afraid his voice would creak and break them both, “I didn’t mean- who did this? Why didn’t you call for me? I was with the Guardians- I’m sorry-“
A hint of sorrow eased from the old tree's face, “Yes. You are where you belong now, yes? Good. Good. The Guardians have chosen wisely to accept you.”
Jack blinked back tears at the assumption that the Oak of Sorrow made without a hint of uncertainty as if he had never doubted that Jack would be worthy of that title, “Yeah. Yeah. I’m a guardian now. Of joy. Of all things. It’s probably because you took away my sorrow every year, huh?”
“You have a lot held within you now,” Oak said, tears never-ending and sinking into the earth until they turned the patch of green grass brown, “I am sorry I can’t take them away from you.”
Jack swallowed, “I didn’t- I don’t. That’s not important. What’s important is figuring out how to help you.”
“You came here for sleep and shelter, didn’t you?” The Oak moaned as if another wave of sadness crashed over him. His body of bark shuddered with the noise and the few leaves clinging to the long twirling vines of his branches shook off with a rustle. Jack heard the cries of the fallen leaves echoing in his mind.
"I cannot provide you with any shelter any longer. Please, forgive me.”
Jack bit, “You’re not important just because of that! You’re important because you're my friend! You’re! You’re my home. ”
The Oak of Sorrows was the first being who treated him with unwavering kindness. He was the first sign of shelter in the cruel world that Jack was beginning to grow accustomed to, and the first friend who listened to his jokes and kept him company when he had no more than his staff to chatter mindlessly to. The Oak of Sorrows always took away Jack’s sadness, without hesitation, without Jack even asking. He was more than just a dumping ground, though that was what most creatures came to see him as. He was someone that Jack would do anything for. How could he be anything but selfless towards the only being who treated him like he was worthy of being seen and heard?
“Alas. The Nightmare King and his shadows overcame me. Their wave of darkness was too much for me to withstand,” The Oak of Sorrows sank with self-deprivation, “Maybe if I were younger. Maybe if I were stronger. Maybe if I had not taken so much sorrow into me. But how can one stop those things? I am no immortal. I am no Guardian of Joy. I am merely a vessel, and my purpose is complete.”
“ Pitch did this. Of course, he did. He knew how important you were to me,” Jack snarled, lips curled with anger, but his eyes grew wide and regretful as he registered the rest of the tree’s words, “ ‘A vessel’? Oaky, you’re not- I never saw you as just a vessel. If I ever made you feel like that I-”
“No, my boy. It was an honor to be your friend,” Oak began to close his eyes, “You have been my home as well. The only one who stayed with me all those years. But even through your devotion, I knew that you were destined for greater things than to keep an old tree alive.”
“No!” Jack shouted, “No! I’m not just going to let you die,” His voice trembled and cracked like thin ice, “I’m going to get help. I’ll bring someone who can fix this. I won’t- I won’t lose you too.”
“Jack…” He whispered, “Don’t…”
He shot into the sky and ice splintered from his feet as angry webs as the wind propelled him forwards. The wind matched his urgency and fed off his building panic and shame. He did this. Jack did this. Not Pitch. If Jack had come home sooner, if he gave in to sleep sooner, if he didn’t waste time sulking about his past and loneliness, he would have had a family to come back to. Now, that family was nearly gone. Oak was hanging on the last shreds of survival, Jack knew. He probably waited, simply waiting, for Jack to come back, while he was off doing who knows what. All this time, in pain, in need, and Jack wasn’t there when he needed him. He heaved gulps of fresh air, but somehow the rush and sting of wind against his eyes only made it worse.
Why was he like this? How could he let this happen? All he had to do was come home and then he could have helped Oak sooner. What if it was too late now? What if he died before Jack came back? The thought nearly had him turning around, and the wind had to gently coax him into moving again before the panic pushed him to dive back down into the forest.
“North!” Jack hollered at the door, the North Pole ice was slightly more biting than normal due to his panic. He was dimly aware that there were small flurries around his head, “ North!”
The door opened, “Jack?” Yetis surrounded the confounded large man, who normally left answering doors to his workmen. The wind raged around him, picking up snow and tossing it all around him and into the workshop. North’s wide eyes flickered at the storm raging behind him.
“I need to see Bunny,” Jack gripped the edges of his staff, turning it blue, “I need to see him now.”
North tried, “What-“
“North, now, ” Jack resisted the urge to pin North at the edge of his staff in a threat, “I don’t have time to explain! I’m already too late! If I- I can’t- I need-“
North placed two hands on the anxious boy's shoulders, they were warm, and they startled Jack out of his spiraling anxiety, “Alright. Alright. I will get Bunny. Through snow globe. Just wait.”
He tossed a glowing orb from his robes and the portal opened with a thudding bass to shake the ground. As soon as North stepped through the swirling mist that looked vaguely more green than normal portals, Jack dropped to the floor in a crouch. He wrapped his hands around his head and let his staff sink into the crock of his arm. Frost spread in every direction from his toes and the Yetis garbled their exclamations and stepped back.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the image of Oak, fallen on his side as if the weight of all the sorrows he borrowed had tipped him over like a tea kettle. The image of those great big tears rolling down his bark, filled with all the sadness trapped inside his gnarled and twisted branches and roots. The thought of never hearing Oaky’s long drone of a voice, deep and laced with sadness, but also strongly comforting. Jack thought of never swinging on those long vines around Oaky’s head, of never hearing the chatter of the leaves that were filled with more wisdom any leaves ought to have, of never falling asleep in the crook of two arm-like branches, of never seeing the twinkle in Oaky’s eyes when the first snowfall touched the tip of the old tree’s nose. Worse than anything, Jack would lose their conversations, hours long and filled with inside jokes that only friends of two hundred and sixty-three years can understand.
Mostly, Jack would lose the shared despair between them. He was the type of being who understood everything. He never dismissed your sadness, taking it in as you spoke, never once interrupting, never once growing tired of the same hurt repeated and retold. The Oak of sorrows understood sadness, and he knew just how to comfort the most depressed souls. Jack shared everything with him, and though the Oak never shared all of his sorrows with him, Jack knew he understood the tree better than any creature had ever bothered to learn. To them, he was merely a kind soul willing to listen and help, but Jack knew he was more than that. He saw the cracks in his bark and the shudder of his leaves every time he took on more sadness than his large frame could keep. The Oak of Sorrows was a tree of size otherworldly, but he wasn’t big enough to store the world's sadness alone. The world deposited it anyway like he was a charity dumping ground. And Oaky took it. Every time. So much sorrow was packed into every fiber in that tree, Jack feared he would burst from it and his large open mouth would fill up with more than just the darkness of the pit. Now the Oak of Sorrows fell to the ground, too heavy with everyone else’s baggage to stand.
A grumpy voice cut through the harsh, quick breaths Jack was making, “Alright, what sort of trouble did you make now, mate?”
Jack looked up, hands still around his head, his eyes crystal, nearly overflowing. They stared at each other, the scowl on Bunny’s face shifting to shock as his furred eyebrows rose and his nose twitched.
“Jack…?”
He stood suddenly, zipping on the air to hover near Bunny’s face, “Can you heal trees?”
“Tress, mate?” Bunny repeated, looking at him with a face that only spiked Jack’s anger.
He thought he was stupid. Bunny always thought Jack was stupid, and if he didn’t take him seriously, then the Oak of Sorrows wouldn’t get help, and if the Oak of Sorrows didn’t get help he-
Jack pushed the crook of his staff up against Bunny’s neck, not too firmly to hurt, but hard enough to wipe away the condescending glint in the whites of his eyes, “You're the Guardian of spring, aren’t you? Can you heal trees or not? ”
He had seen it, hadn’t he? The weird little flower thing he did when a tunnel closed. If he sprouted flowers then surely he had some power over their growth?
“Aye. I fix them. Does me being able to heal trees warrant having your staff up in me face?” Bunny’s eyes narrowed at the weapon, but he didn’t shove back though Jack knew he could if he wanted to. Jack stepped back if only to get Bunny to agree easier, and his glowing staff dipped close to the ground. He could hear Bunny’s quiet grumble of, “Ever heard of personal space?” as he brushed off his fur.
“He- He is uprooted, but still alive. He’s…” Jack’s voice broke and dropped into a whisper, “He’s dying. I need your help.”
Bunny blinked, “Alright. Where to, Frostbite?”
Just like that, he believed him. If Jack had the time, he would have started in shock at the worry flickering over Bunny’s face. They weren’t friends, He reminded himself firmly, they weren’t friends. But Bunny was a good person despite the harsh words and apathetic character- Jack knew that much. He could help.
Jack murmured ‘Burgess’ and a tunnel formed underneath them. Normally Jack would whoop and holler at the exciting twists and turns, but he was focusing too much on how to breathe normally to waste breath on exclamations.
“Hurry,” Jack whispered, and Bunny’s long ears twitched backward, indicating he had heard. Maybe under less dire circumstances, Bunny would take it as a challenge. All he did was bolt faster, not as fast as Jack was urging him, but almost.
As soon as the summer air greeted him, Jack shot off towards his tree a cry on his lips, “Oak!”
Please don’t be dead, Jack prayed, Please don’t be dead.
He crumpled to his knees in front of the old tree’s face and whispered, “Oak! I brought help. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be just fine. He’s- He’s the Guardian of Spring. He can fix you.”
“Oh, my dear Jack,” The tree's mouth was closed, and that in itself made Jack sink further to the Earth. The Oak of Sorrows always had his mouth open, gaping wide enough to catch all of the bleeding sorrows that seeped from people and spirits alike. The only time Jack ever saw it closed was the temporary purse of lips to create a sound. He didn’t want to think about what it meant.
“My time has come to a close. There is nothing you or your friend can do.”
Those words made him even angrier. At what, he didn’t know. He could be mad at the fact that Oak was dying, that Oak was accepting it, that Bunny couldn’t help, that Oak called Bunny his friend, that he was so lonely in the first place, that he had to say goodbye to his oldest friend, his only friend for so long.
“No!” Growing from the large and burled trunk, a branch was narrowed at its tips and small enough that Jack could wrap his hand around it. The narrowed branch brushed the underside of his cheek, and Jack’s anger seeped out of him enough to allow him to weakly grip the caressing branch in his hand.
He pleaded, “I promised I’d help you. I can’t just let you- you’re not- please-“
The Oak of Sorrows interrupted him for the first time in his life, “Jack. Look at me.”
He brought his eyes to meet the gaping black holes of sadness that were the tree's eyes. They were wide, and they seemed to pierce him in place. Centuries of pain swirling in the dark depths of his eyes left Jack’s pleas dead on his lips. He wondered if the tree was ever a normal tree. He wondered if the Oak of Sorrows began in his own Sorrows, or if his sorrows consisted of the weight of others since the beginning. He wondered if depending so heavily on Oaky had kept him here longer than he would have liked to stay.
“ I am old, and I am tired. My trunk is full of Sorrows, and I have no room left. My body is spent as is my heart. It is too full of sadness and I...I can go on no longer.”
“But I-“ Jack curled up to the trunk and felt the tremble of Oaky’s breaths reverberate through his smaller body. Every season he fell asleep like this: smooth and gnarled bark under his skin, a shuddering breath to keep him half-awake and shake half of the leaves off with it, a branch covering his shoulders, “I don’t want you to go yet. I have so much to tell you.”
His thick lips twitched up just barely before they dropped, “The only joy in my heart comes from you, little winter sprout. Tell me of your tales so that this old oak may pass into this world with happiness in his heart.”
Jack couldn’t stop the sob from his mouth, a hiccuping noise, dry and tearing through his chest. He wanted to joke and mock roll his eyes at the nickname but instead, he trembled at the sound and wondered if he’d ever be called a ‘little winter sprout’ again. No tears fell from his eyes. Jack could not remember the last time he shed a tear, but his eyes were crystal with unshed ones. Instead, the sorrow carved out of his chest in a sob, and Jack wondered if he was made of wood too and if he had a gaping hole in his trunk where the noise originated.
“You are the Guardian of Joy, yes?”
Jack nodded and gestured with his head to Bunny.
Bunny himself was crouching in the glass on his hunches torn between leaving them in privacy and staying to help, “And he’s the Guardian of Spring. He could heal you. Make it so you don’t have to bear anyone’s sadness anymore.”
“I have never wished to die,” The tree said thoughtfully, “but as I lay on my side, I realize that I have no desire to stand once again. Let me lie here and let me rest. I have not slept yet in my lifetime. Will you protect me, Guardian, and tell me a bedtime story?”
Jack froze and the world around him shrank. It was just him and Oak like it had always been, in the great big world. And right then, it wasn’t three hundred years of formed trust, but the first moment Jack laid eyes on the old tree, the first moment he felt safe.
“Oh, you’re an old fella, aren’t you?” Jack had said, as he swirled around the tree, jostling the leaves as he did so.
“Perhaps you may be older,” The Oak said, “But you look young and tired. Come rest at my roots, and I shall protect you, and tell you a bedtime story.”
Jack hiccuped again and nodded his head, “I’ll tell you a bedtime story. Of my family. I have a family, you know that?”
His voice rumbled, and Jack felt the vibrations on his cheek, “Oh, that is wonderful news.”
“It is,” Jack sucked in a shaky breath, “and they were wonderful. I don’t remember much. But I do remember that we’re always laughing. Always. So much that Mom had to tell us to be quieter. “
Oak sighed, “You were surrounded by the opposite of silence.” He knew of Jack’s distaste for the quiet. He knew everything.
Jack let out a laugh, sad and miserable compared to the ones in his memories, “And I was always playing with the village kids. I would hide in the trees and make faces at them. And I would tell them stories, I don’t know what they were, but they would always laugh.”
“You are good at making people laugh,” The Tree murmured, his eyes slipping closed. Though his wide eyes had scared Jack, he would stare at them forever if he meant that the Oak of Sorrows would stay awake, just for a little while longer.
“And- and,” Jack stuttered and sat up a bit frantically as the tree gave a breathy shutter, “And I’m good at saving people too. I saved my sister. She laughed while I did it.”
“You are good at saving others,” A smile formed on the Oak of Sorrows lips and it spread wider and wider; happy. His full lips looked strange pressed together, and the carved wood seemed to crack and resist the foreign expression. Oaky kept smiling anyway, “You have saved me too, Jack.”
“But I never made you laugh.”
“Perhaps not,” The tears stopped flowing, now only the wet stains on the bark were left as every bit of borrowed Sorrow had left the good tree, “But you made me smile. I have never smiled before.”
Jack whispered, “I can save you. Please.”
“You have, Jack,” The Oak, empty of his Sorrows, responded, “You have.”
It was unclear how long Jack spent, curled up next to the tree, the wet bark brushing against his face. For some time he fell asleep, but it was the sleep of exhaustion and depression; a type of sleep that Jack had never experienced next to his tree of protection and contentment. But it wasn’t his tree anymore. It wasn’t Oaky. It was just wood, empty of sorrows, empty of a soul, empty of comfort and warmth. It was cold to touch now, as Jack’s frost curled over the tree, coating it in a thin form of protection. When the summer sun melted it, maybe the water could wash him clean. Jack’s heaviness lightened slightly at that.
“Jack,” Bunny said, his face somber, “Jack.”
“What?” He croaked.
Two hops forwards, Jack could hear the sound of his heavy paws, but he didn’t look up from where he was gazing mindlessly at the frost that curled around a blade of brown grass.
“You can’t stay here, mate. Let’s get you back to North’s workshop. He has a nice guest room for you there,” Bunny was being abnormally kind, but Jack assumed that after seeing a loved one… die, he would be kinder than normal. It would be rude to yell at a mourning person. That was the only reason.
“I have to protect him,” Jack said.
Bunny sighed, annoyance maybe? Or pity. “You know that’s not what he meant, Frostbite.”
Jack didn’t dare blink even as the air stung his eyes, “ It was always so hard to tell what he meant. He was so good at listening, he forgot how to express himself.”
“I’m sorry, mate,” Some shuffling and Bunny sat down near him, a few branches back, and Jack was glad for the distance, “He seemed like a good tree.”
“He was good,” Jack murmured and closed his eyes, “Even though he had so much sorrow. The world’s Sorrow. He had everybody’s, you know. Everybody’s pain. Even yours.”
“Mine?” Bunny jerked, “How?”
“When you have too much sadness, it escapes you. Through your tears or sometimes it just leaks out of you without you even knowing it. But usually, it always comes back when you least expect it. Oaky- The, ah, Oak of Sorrows, he was like a magnet for those escaping sorrows. He collected everyone’s so they wouldn’t float back to people. And he listened to anyone who would tell him of their woes. It was crazy. So many people would come, spirits too, and just pour their whole life stories out to him. And he just took it. All of it. He just understood. He cared and he wanted to take that sadness away.”
Bunny frowned, “But you can’t take away all of it.”
“No,” Jack frowned, “The sadness escaped from him too. Out of his leaves, or the cracks in his bark. Little bits would come back to you, but he could keep most of it.”
“So when he was crying there, did all the sadness go back to where it came from?”
Jack looked at the puddle of dirt that was slightly damp, around it the blades of grass were starting to turn brown, forming a small ring around it, “It went into the Earth. Mother Nature created him. She will accept his collection into the ground. He could have let it all go back to them, you know, and then he wouldn’t have died. But he didn’t. He kept it all. He didn’t want me to- to-“ have back my sorrow.
He didn’t bother finishing. His words were gone, dissolving into shame and grief. The most sadness that the tree took on was Jack’s. Jack never meant for it to be that way. The Oak told him that he wanted it, that he could handle it, and it was just so inviting. The sadness was locked inside him and to have someone willing to listen and comfort him was a luxury Jack never had. He never meant for it to come to this. He never meant for it to come to his friend so heavy with sorrow he could barely find the will to stand.
“It’s not your fault,” Bunny said, “ I know you think it is.”
“Isn’t it?” Jack said bitterly, “ I should have- I’m always too late.”
“No, mate,” He said, shifting up to a crouch again, “You weren’t the one to knock him over.”
Jack let out a ring of frost around him, sparkling and dancing across every surface it came into contact with, “But I was the one to keep him there. My sadness weighed him down.”
It was broken. His pride, the image that he wanted to keep up around Bunny and everyone. That he was untouchable. Just a brat with snowballs and icicles and an annoying laugh. Jack Frost didn’t care. Jack Frost didn’t cry. Jack Frost didn’t have so much sadness that he killed his only friend with it.
Well , He thought bitterly, the cat’s out of the bag now.
Bunny was seeing Jack completely bare and broken and vulnerable; he supposed it was some tormented version of payback. He had seen Bunny, after all, hurt and angry and without hope. He even saw him as small as a basketball with short ears and entirely fluff.
Bunny stood now, his paws crunching over the frost, “I said, No , mate. It looked like to me that you were the one to make him smile, not keep him down.”
Jack sniffled in response.
“Alright, sniffles,” Bunny said with his voice as gentle as it was when Bunny was playing with Sophie in his Warren. Gentle was an odd word to describe him as. Jack narrowed his eyebrows in resistance, “It’s time to let him rest, ta?”
He held out a hand and though Jack wished nothing more for him to go away and leave him to frost over the entire forest, Bunny was showing him kindness and holding out his hand. Jack knew he didn’t have it in him to reject it.
“Let’s get you ta bed,” Bunny tapped the ground a few times, and Jack pulled his hood over his head, hating the way his eyes were permanently glossy and almost see-through, “You look like you’re about to fall over.”
“Don’t sound so smug,” Jack mumbled, “Do bunnies not sleep?”
Bunny's left ear twitched, the one that indicated annoyance. Jack wondered what he would do this time in response to Jack's habit of annoying every creature he came in contact with.
Though, to his surprise, Bunny only quipped, “Less than winter sprites.”
When they got to North’s workshop, one of the yetis, Phill, escorted Jack to the guest room. Jack took one look at North, bustling in worry and pent-up energy, and felt dread sink into him. Bunny, surprisingly, came to his rescue and told North the gist of it and asked one of the yetis to walk Jack to his room. He sat on the warm bed, unfamiliar with fluffy surfaces after leaning against only a gnarled trunk for so long.
Jack frowned and the lip that turned down started to tremble. He bit out a grumbling, whining, crying, noise that displayed his frustration at himself and the pain that he felt creeping out of him. The noise hurt, and Jack rolled into the covers to block his mouth. The sounds of the workshop buzzed around Jack so he couldn’t sleep as he sobbed. Not with the noise, not with the quiet. Jack couldn’t sleep without his friend. Jack couldn’t sleep alone.