Chapter Text
No one ever sees the snowball coming.
Of course, who would be expecting a snowball to the back of the head in the middle of a rainstorm in May? Certainly not Mother Nature, who'd been whipping it up into a real blow.
Jack had thought long and hard about his plan (a whole five minutes, a record for him).
By Jack's way of thinking, no one should have to be alone. Not even people who didn't think they could be bribed and hit other people with hail for no good reason. And it wasn't like Jack had anything more important to be doing; winter was over, and spring was well underway. He could hang around Tooth and help her and the girls out, or harass Bunny... but this was way more interesting.
The snowball hit Mother Nature right in the back of her head, sending icy bits of slush dripping down the high neck of her gown. Three centuries had taught Jack that everyone reacted much the same way when they had a slushy snowball dripping down their back, even if you were a powerful nature spirit. Mother Nature froze with a tiny gasp, then she shuddered from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She turned sharply, using the wind to move more gracefully than even Jack could manage, bloodless lips pulled back in an outraged snarl--
Jack threw his second snowball and got her right in the face.
Long black hair whipped about in the wind like a nest of snakes as Mother Nature raised both hands, wiping slush from her face. The snarl was gone, replaced with a careful blankness that didn't reach her eyes. The butterflies had had been infesting the clouds converged on her, forming a shield around her. She dropped into the clouds like a puppet with the strings cut while the butterflies swarmed Jack, zapping him with little bursts of static. They didn't hurt, but they were enough to keep Jack distracted. He almost didn't see the slushball coming, busy as he was trying to shoo away the static butterflies, and it still clipped his shoulder as he spun to avoid it.
"You gonna keep hiding in the clouds?" Jack teased, using the north wind to push the cloud cover away, pulling together another snowball as he watched for another flash of black hair and pale skin. Mother Nature let out a breathless laugh that seemed like it came from all around him.
"Haven't you ever played Hide and Seek, Jack Frost?" A blast of warm air made his hair stand on end, and Jack spun quickly, lobbing his snowball in the direction the warm wind had come from. Mother Nature shrieked, and Jack crowed his triumph, his wind ripping the cloud cover away. She was clawing melting snow off her rump, cursing snow, winter, and most especially Jack.
"Found you!" Jack spun around Mother Nature, laughing right up until she caught the front of his hoodie in a vice like grip.
Her teeth looked very sharp when she smiled, and she smashed a slushy snowball of her own down on the top of Jack's head.
Not even Jack was immune to the universal response a body had to snow dripping down the back.
"Tag," Mother Nature purred in his ear, "you're it." Then she was gone, streaking downward with the wind whipping around her. She wasn't as fast or controlled as Tooth, but she was still better than Jack, who rolled with every shift of the north wind. Jack would never have been able to catch her...
But he didn't have to. It might have been spring, it might have been warm, but where Jack Frost went, winter followed. And with winter and Jack came a flurry of snowballs, splattering against the ground as Mother Nature ducked and dodged them, pausing just long enough to let Jack aim before getting out of the way. He readied the next volley as she landed at the edge of the lake, looking up at him with a smile that should have been worrying.
Jack was ready for static butterflies, for snowballs, for hail. What he wasn't ready for was a great water spout shooting up and smacking him out of the air. He let himself fall, landing as lightly as a leaf on the grass, which froze beneath him as he grinned. Flowers bloomed where Mother Nature walked, and Jack saw bare feet peek from beneath the hem of her gown when she moved. She sat on the grass beside him, snow still dribbling off her hair.
"So it's true what they say about you."
"And what's that?" Jack used his staff to lever himself upright, then draped it across his knees.
"That you really are utterly, totally, barking mad." She combed the last bit of snowball out of her hair and flicked it at his nose. Jack wiped at the snow with a false scowl, jostling a laugh out of Mother Nature that seemed to surprise her. "Oh yes, I do know a madman when I see him."
"I'm just having a little fun." Jack let the north wind lift him, circling the nature spirit. The wind caught at her hair, tangling it into elflocks. She glared at him through the sudden tangle of black hair, and then it was raining just on Jack. Icicles formed on his own silvery locks, obscuring his vision until he snapped them off. "It's kinda my thing."
"So I've heard. Did anyone bother to tell you what my thing is?" The static butterflies were back, hovering around their mistress. One of them landed above Mother Nature's ear and sat there like a living hair ornament. The rest began to flock around Jack in a way that reminded him of the way Tooth's fairies would gather... right before they'd swarm someone.
"Uh... hitting people with weather?" Jack suggested, blowing a puff of cold air at one of the butterflies while Mother Nature combed her hair out with her fingers, calling the wind to pull him into the relative safety of the air as the butterfly wings began to crackle ominously. "You really like zapping things."
"That I do," she agreed. "So tell me, Guardian, why would you risk my not inconsiderable wrath for the sake of fun? I am no friend to your little order, nor am I a child to be made into a believer."
Jack landed again, standing in front of Mother Nature as she continued to comb out her hair, giving his staff a little twirl. "Maybe you look like you could use a little fun." He looked up at the storm clouds as they rolled onward, leaving behind blue skies and bright sunlight. The answer seemed to satisfy her; the butterflies chased after the clouds, all except the one in Mother Nature's hair. "It's pretty hard to have fun when you're pretty much on your own-"
Mother Nature stood, brushing grass from her skirt. "Perhaps another day, I'll show you how I really have fun," she said crisply. "But not, I think, today. I have duties to attend to – as I'm sure you do."
"Mmmm... nope. Looking at a clear schedule here." Jack kept pace with Mother Nature as she walked. From the side, it was easy to see the resemblance; she shared Pitch's long nose and brow, and there was something in the not-exactly-a-smile she was turning on him...
"Don't think you could keep up with me if I didn't want you to, imp."
The north wind came to Jack without being called, answering Mother Nature's unspoken challenge.
He couldn't keep up, exactly, but she never got so far ahead that he lost her either. All he had to do was follow the butterflies.