Chioniphobia

Famous Artist

If you asked Jack Frost what color he associated most with Death, his answer would likely be 'black.' Most classical depictions of the Reaper had her dressed in flowing black robes, and the grims (lowercase g, the difference between Grim and grim still confused him sometimes) were dogs with pure black fur. With this basis, he'd assumed Grim would gravitate towards the monochrome in general.

So when Grim invited him over to her apartment, Jack hadn't been expecting this.

This happened to be a studio flat with brightly painted walls and mint green carpeting, a huge window decorated with various potted plants, yellow beanbags dotting the corners, and a crimson sofa holding court in the middle of the room. Even the refrigerator was pastel pink. Seriously, where did the Grim Reaper get a pink refrigerator?

Grim strolls over to said fridge and pulled out a juice box. "Would you like something to drink? There's water, of course, but also milk, lemonade, and juice. Go on, take a seat, a bit of frost won't hurt the furniture."

Jack sinks into a beanbag, still examining his surroundings with disbelief. "Uh, juice please?"

"There's apple, grape, or punch."

"Punch please," he says distractedly, staring at the wall directly to his left.

Grim walks over to him and sits with crossed legs, punching him playfully in the arm before handing him his juice box. "Admiring my work?"

Jack nods. It is nice work- portraits of faces all captured at different angles, flowers in budding, blooming, or wilting form, birds in flight and stick-legged deer running through stippled forests. "Where'd you get all the paint?"

Grim laughs and sips her juice. "I didn't need paint, dear. I collect colors."

No kidding, Jack thinks, giving the garishly colored room another once-over. "Collect colors?"

By way of answer, Grim draws the hourglass pendant from her robe. She flips it upside down, and Jack sees colors flash in the glass, brilliant and fleeting.

"Time steals colors away, changes them. It doesn't use them for anything, though, so I take them for my own use. It'd be a shame to have all of them go to waste, yes?"

She gestures toward one of the portraits on the wall. Jack glimpses a face-

His face. It's his face, eyes barely open, hair mottled white and brown.

"I used colors from your memories to get the shade right," she says, and he stares at her.

"My memories?"

"Yes. Didn't you ever wonder where your memories went when you lost them? The dead can't take memory with them, so I hold onto it when they leave it behind."

Jack keeps staring, face blank. "I'm not dead."

"Well, no, not now. When you were human, though, technically you should've frozen to death."

"You took my memories."

His voice is quiet. Grim regards him, her expression regretful.

"Yes. I did."

She's prepared for him to glare at her, to rage and shout and start a blizzard in the room.

She's not prepared for him to look back up at her with the same blank expression, eyes wet.

"Why didn't you give them back?" he asks.

She stays silent.

"For so long, I wondered- I didn't understand. I couldn't understand why I was alone and why I didn't know anything. You could've told me."

She could've borne his scorn and his accusation. Grim was fully prepared to take the brunt of his rage.

But there is no accusation in his voice. It's a simple statement- you could've told me- almost matter of fact, the way he says it.

The tears in his eyes bead, freeze as they touch his cheeks, and Grim feels her heart crack like glass.

"I would've, if I'd have known it would hurt you this much," she tells him.

His expression shifts to confused, and realization hits her like a blast of cold wind through an open door.

It's because I'm a stranger to him.

Had she been a friend, or even someone he trusted, like Mim, Jack likely would've shouted and raged and made a snowstorm to rival that of '68. Had she been anyone in his life that mattered to him, even marginally, he would've felt betrayed that she'd kept that information from him.

But to Jack, Grim is a nonentity. She's someone who saw him before, once, long ago, and why would a person like that care for him so? A stab in the back is only a surprise if it's from someone you care about.

"I'm sorry," she says, and he shrugs, wiping his tears.

His indifference hurts almost as much as shards of her heart piercing into her lungs.

"It's fine," he says, and she wants to scream.

No, it's not fine. It's not.

She looks at the wall.

"That one's my favorite," she blurts abruptly. "The one with you."

He smiles, doubtless bemused by this odd declaration. "I mean, with a face like that, how could it not be?"

Grim laughs and wonders if any of her talks with Jack will ever end with her heart not crushed into bits as fine as sand.