Secret of Frost and Moon

Winter's Sheperd

Alaia Skyhawk: Hehehe, I see a lot of my readers from the Merlin section, like ROTG as much as I do :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians, the Guardians of Childhood, or any related characters etc. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes.

~(-)~

Chapter 3: Winter's Shepherd

Spring thaw was moving in, and Jack didn't need to see the grass peeking through the thinning snow to realise that. He felt it in his very bones, the inexorable wane of winter's hold in the north. The winds told him that too, that the Northern Winter would soon end. But it wasn't an abrupt change, he could feel that the Northern Spring was already starting. It was as if the two or three weeks either side of the seasonal boundaries, were a time when the previous season coexisted with the next.

But even so, the winds told him that spring was coming, or rather, the Spirit of Spring. She was in Europe, they said, but would leave there and come here in a few days, moving east-to-west across the world like the passage of the sun. They told him that she wouldn't mind if he were still here when she arrived, that the Spirits of the Seasons were meant to cooperate at times when one season flowed into the next. Yet Jack didn't want to meet her, not now... He just wasn't ready for it.

Jack sighed, floating down upon the winds to land on the roof of his family's cabin. Emily was sat on the steps of the porch, gazing sadly across the village without actually looking at anything. He knew why... It was March now, specifically the fourteenth. Today would have been his nineteeth birthday.

He floated down now to land beside her, kneeling so that he was at the same eye-level.

"Stay safe, Emily, and don't cry for me too much. When the first snow of next winter comes to our village, I'll be here, and I'll try to help you see me again."

Jack reached out as if to cup the side of her face, but held off from actually touching her. He didn't want the strange way he turned misty-blue and ephemeral, when people who didn't believe in him passed through him, to spoil the illusion that he was able to comfort her right now.

He stood, bowing his head in reluctance, and forced himself to turn away. But not before he touched the tip of his staff to the edge of the porch where the sunlight shone on it. Emily heard the faint crackle of forming frost, and turned her head to look. She saw the frost-patterns, frowning a little in confusion as to how they'd gotten there, before a small smile of wonder lit her face at the way the icy crystals glittered in the sun when she moved her head.

Jack felt a lightening in his heart at that, and soared up into the air over the village. Once he was high enough that the gusting winds wouldn't distrurb or startle anyone, he then called to them to take him south to wait for the start of the Southern Winter.

The winds obliged more than happily with the request, and he glided in their grasp with the grace of three months of daily practice. He still had the occational shaky moment or bad landing, but he was getting used to the idea and task of flying. The winds had also become his only company, and while he was already begining to cherish his burgeoning friendship with them, it wasn't the same as being seen and talked to by people. He craved that contact, more than anything.

Jack remained lost in his thoughts as the winds carried him south, his soft sighs of loneliness lost in that rush of air. It didn't take long for the winds to release him at the top of a mountain, where it seemed snow clung to the peak's tip all year round, but he could see that towards its base autumn was still in full swing.

Jack considered going exploring, having already overflown most of the south of the world but for the South Pole region of ice. Compared to the north, other than that cap there was very little land in the south where his snow was needed and could fall. And the areas where frost could now begin forming did not need his attention. That was something else the winds had told him. Frost being on the ground after nighttime didn't mean it was winter. They'd shown him desserts during the nights, where it became very very cold even though it was summer in those regions. Frost formed on the surface of the dunes during the night in the desserts, which was why creatures living there would hide in the warm sands until the sun rose and everything became unbearably hot again.