Secret of Frost and Moon

Amused, Confused

Alaia Skyhawk: More Groundhog! Hehehehehe! :D

And sorry to those who wanted me to give him the nickname of 'Phil' as in Punxsutawney Phil, but I actually already had nickname planned for him. Namely "Dig" or "Digger", because that's what he likes to do, lol :)

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.

And a shout-out to VanRah on Deviantart, for letting me use their awesome picture of Jack Frost as the new cover for this story! Seriously, go check out their page!

~(-)~

Chapter 39: Amused, Confused

The eggs were marching through the tunnels, forming up in ranks beside every one of the thousands of exits that would send them to places around the world. Time-zone by time-zone, the doors would close and then open again to new locations, once a set number of eggs had passed through and set about hiding themselves.

Bunny oversaw the operation with the eye of a master tactician, as the veritable sea of pastel-hued eggs ushered past him wearing the spiralling designs he'd chosen for this Easter. Of course, he had his baskets of eggs he'd painted by hand, to place down near children who were in especial need of hope this year. Sandy was always good about that, delivering a list of places and children who would need that extra attention. The children themselves were always easy to spot once he'd been told where to look. No one could mistake the hopeless expressions they almost always wore.

Bunny began to check through those baskets, to make sure he had enough eggs in them to account for all those children and still leave a few spare just in case. But even once he'd finished that, and checked that the magic of his tunnels was in tip-top shape and wouldn't falter under the massive stress it was about to be subject to. But none of those things worried him so much, as the thing which had him flattening his ears to his head when the time came for the doors to open onto the first time-zone of the night's distribution work.

And every flicker of a cool breeze that brushed by him once he was out and about, made Bunny flinch and look over his shoulder.

~(-)~

Jack was in his hall of mirrors, the Groundhog at his side as the two of them lounged on the top of the ice-spire, when a breeze from Japan informed him that Bunnymund had begun his Easter egg-hiding. It was then that, with a casual flick of his fingers, jack set the four Ice Mirrors anchored to the spire, to show the first four locations that Bunny was likely to show up at.

That done, Jack settled himself comfortably into the pile of snow he'd heaped atop the spire, and glanced at his newest Lieutenant.

"So, any bets on where he'll be when he finally strays close enough to one of my mirrors. Care to make a guess, Dig?"

The Groundhog tilted his head, having now been given the nickname of 'Dig' since that was what he liked to do. As evidenced by the spacious burrow he'd made himself in the Winter Garden. But for all the rapid rate in which he'd been learning things in the past seven weeks, he still lacked a lot of knowledge. After all, he'd started out as a non-sentient rodent, and was now an immortal Lieutenant of Winter.

"I dunno, I never heard of most of those places you said he'd show up at. How can I guess when you already know better than me?"

Jack grinned.

"It's a game. You guess just for the fun of it."

"Ohhhhh."

Jack chuckled at Dig's response, so far never failing to be amused by his new friend's lack of worldly knowledge. It was refreshing really, to have someone so close to him who knew so little about the world. Because teaching Dig about it, was like seeing it all for the first time again himself. It brought a renewed sense of wonder, when in some respects he'd become a bit jaded.