Last Winter [JackFrostxReader] Pt.20

Jack had arrive in the North Pole at a record time, bypassing the previous record of arriving in one day and arriving in no less than thirty minutes with maximum winds that created a soft blizzard around North’s workshop when he landed. The Guardian of Wonder was nowhere to be seen as Jack walked into the globe room, the blinking lights reflecting from his eyes as he reached for the older man.

Without a thought, his eyes moved over the globe in search of your home, the place he had just been before being called by North. The workshop was silent, a silence that was strange and unnerving, but Jack didn’t seem to notice anything wrong as he jumped on to the table to get a better look at your home.

Unlike the rest of the world, there were hardly any lights blinking in your location, and the ones that were blinking seemed to be spaced greatly apart. Strange, they were spaced far apart and not anywhere near where you lived. The shadows that covered your home spread out about a fifty mile radius from you, after a certain distance the lights began to pop up more.

If he hadn’t taken a closer look, if his head had not been completely filled with thoughts of you that forced him to find any connection that lead to you, he would have not of noticed that part in the globe. It was hidden by the many lights around the world, leaving that small spot forgotten, hardly thought of as kids there didn’t believe in the Guardians.

And there was a certain mad scientist in the making, the thought made Jack grinned as he jumped to the floor when several elves came into the room. There bells jingled wildly as they ran up and began to jump to catch his attention. He almost tripped over them when they began to pull on the hem of his clothes.

“Is this revenge for freezing you that one time?” he asked one of them with a chuckle, the elf simply glared at him before pointing him towards the direction of the wooden elevator. “So, I’m guessing North is in his studio . . . and I’m probably the only other Guardian here.”

But once he had gotten on the elevator, down into the toy workshop and saw it empty, he knew something wasn’t right. There were no yetis working and though it was the day after Christmas, they should still be starting on other toys. Not only that, but the elves were all acting strangely . . . calm. They hadn’t pulled some strange tactic since they had pointed him towards the direction they were leading him to.

Thinking it was North’s workshop they were walking him too, Jack was surprised to see them leading him to a small, leafless, not all that attractive Christmas tree. The elves had all gathered around it very enthusiastically and patter the floor near them so Jack could sit down. He denied the invitation, turning away to find North, but the elves refused to let him leave.

“North’s waiting for me,” he told them, a bit annoyed, “I’m in a hurry to leave, so hurry it up at show me what you want to show me so I can go back.”

The elves seemed to be throwing a fit and he could have sworn one of them punched him in the back of the knees because in a second he had fallen forward and almost flatten the poorly decorated tree. Managing to stop his fall by placing his hands forward, he leaned above a small wooden doll that had the elves jumping for joy. It was what they had been trying to show him, and the wooden figure looked eerily familiar.

He stood up slowly with his fingers wrapped around the doll and holding it up to his eyes for a closer look. It was no bigger than the elves, obviously handmade by them because it looked nothing like North or the yeti’s masterpieces. They seemed overly proud of their work and seemed to think that this carving would impress him as much it impressed them, but Jack didn’t know what to say about the figure.

“It’s . . . cute?” and that alone was enough to put the elves in a festive mood as they congratulated one another for a great job. Jack grinned, glad to have said the right thing to them, but at a closer look at the doll, taking in the features they had tried to carve in, he only saw one thing. “Is this . . . is this Joykill?”

The elves didn’t understand what he was asking and Jack didn’t think they would. How could they know you if they had never met you before? And it wasn’t like he used that nickname around any other person that wasn’t you, but leaving the elves wondering about such a name would leave him without an answer to who the carving was.

“You now, [Name]” he tried to explain, but the elves stood there looking at him with large clueless eyes. “A person about this tall, doesn’t believe in North, and wants to cut open anything she sees as strange—including me.”

The elves nodded cheerfully, smiles plastered widely across their faces as they pointed at the carved doll. When Jack tried to give it back, the elves simply pushed it against him and refused to take it.

“She’s mine?” Jack asked, a smile adorning his face as he heard those words aloud. “Thanks, I guess.”

“I see what you pointy hats done with that.” North’s voice sent the elves scattering out the room, obviously having done something they weren’t supposed to by the looks of it, and it had something to do with the wooden doll. “Come, Jack. We need to talk.”

“Uh, sure.” Jack looked over his shoulder at the elves peeking from around the columns, “Did they take this from you or something? They usually don’t runaway that fast.”

“Come in, Jack, come in.” North ignored his question as he rushed him into his studio. The room was just as Jack had remembered it, a brightly light room with a Christmas tree near the door, a fruit cake just in case, ice sculptures decorating the tables and ice blocks stacked on the floor. North kept walking forward, reaching the large window as Jack stood back in the center of the room.

“What have you been doing, Jack?” North asked. Jack’s stiffen instantly, remembering the only other time he had had a ‘talk’ with North was regarding Jamie and how he should start parting from the growing boy who was now an adult. “You cannot be in contact so much with that girl.”

Jack didn’t want to glare at North and felt it better to avert his eyes away from him when he couldn’t help but narrow his eyes. He would rather have his eyes roaming the room than having to deal with North’s all-knowing gaze. Jack felt the older Russian watching him, studying his reaction as his eyes landed on what the elves had been trying to copy in the wood; a twelve inch ice sculpture of you in great detail, wearing a coat similar to North’s and a pair of boots he had seen before.

“You’ve been watching her?!” he asked, pointing at the sculpture with the smaller wooden version. Jack walked towards it, taking in how perfect it was, how it captured your ever feature, your every emotion on that ice face. With a slight edge in your eyes, questioning what was in front of you, which at this moment was Jack, but this carving captured the moment you had seen North. “You brought her here, did you?”

“Jack—”

“Didn’t you?” he asked a bit more aggressively, his eyes leaving the ice carving and moving to look at North. He didn’t turn his eyes away from Jack, they betrayed nothing of what he was thinking, but Jack knew that whatever he was thinking, it would be really bad news to what he had with you. “You can’t expect me to leave her now that she’s seen me—now that she can’t go through me like I don’t exist.”

“Jack, you are Guardian and you must look after the kids of the world—”

“But—”

“She is no longer a child, Jack.” He told Jack sternly, walking towards the sculpture he had made the second you had left the North Pole. “We cannot have her studying you, cutting you open, or writing what her experience with you is. It would shatter the children’s believes, their wonder, because she will prove their entire dreams wrong; no magic involved only science.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Jack grinned, “Only the kids and she can see me. If anything of hers is real, it’ll be placed under fantasy.”

“And how would that affect her?” North asked Jack, who lost his grin as he thought about it. With the parent you had, you’d end up in the loony bin for speaking of someone like him. North read his expression, moving next to him as Jack’s eyes looked up into the transparent ice eyes of the sculpture. “We can’t interfere with their lives, Jack, but sometimes we have no choice. At age of ten, twenty-four children stopped believing in a time span of five minutes.”

“What?” he looked away from your ice-self and up at him, “How is that her fault?”

“Show an’ tell.” North said, reaching for the wooden doll Jack held in his hands, picking up a small knife from the desk before beginning to refine the details. “Very good presentation explaining each and every one of us . . . excluding you. She answered every question of children, could prove wrong everything they had believed in.”

The wooden doll the elves had made now looked like a perfect replica of you, if added color, which North only added to the eyes, it would look like a smaller version of yourself.

“Jack,” North handed the carving to Jack, his eyes never leaving his as he spoke. “Many teeth have gone missing from before moment she met you. Many more have gone missing when you found her, and there is only one full set that Tooth has never found.”

Jack rolled the doll in his hand, speaking softly. “Her own. She doesn’t believe in Tooth and would never put them under her pillow.”

North nodded solemnly.

“But that not only problem with her,” he explained, motioning to the ice sculpture with one large hand, “Have you not asked why she could see you without believing you existed? Only one chance to have her believe in us, but her strong will to fight it is unbreakable and it is difficult to change her mind.”

“But not impossible.” Jack responded. “She saw me back then and I have asked myself how that was possible, but after that day . . . no matter how hard I tried, she couldn’t see me. I didn’t give up on her and it took me years to have her see me. What does it matter why she wasn’t able to see me after that? It was just, probably, her trying to grasp the idea of us existing after so many times being told differently.”

“Let me tell you a story, Jack.” He offered Jack as seat before taking one himself. The elves came into the room with a plate of cookies and eggnog as if knowing this was going to take a long time, time Jack didn’t want to waste talking about nothing. He has already told you he would be back, but North seemed to want to keep him here until he convince him not to go back.

“Can you just tell me the moral of this story?” Jack as with a sheepish grin as he leaned on his staff, “Just to get it over with and not waste your time.”

“You will not go back to that child until you hear this story.” North’s tone turned sharp and Jack knew there was no way out of this. If he was lucky, which he was sure he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be out of the workshop for a couple of more hours. “I will explain why you need to distance yourself from that girl, and it’s not bad thing that you do. We believe that the only one that is able to keep contact with [Name] and will not be affected is Jamie. He trusts that she will one day believe in us whole heartedly, without having to  . . . cut us open for organs.” He chuckled at the last part, but Jack’s questioning eyes made him stop.

North cleared his throat after eating a cookie, rolling his chair closer to Jack, looked him dead in the eye before starting his tale, “It is story of a dragonfly.”