Chapter Text
During the summer, Jack's pond was the local swimming hole, and it'd stayed that way even after the town of Burgess built a community swimming pool. Unlike the community pool, it stayed cool all year round and never got gross the way the pool did sometimes (especially the year all the filters got clogged with gunk that made everything smell like death. No one ever figured out how all the filters got cracked, or found out who swapped out the chlorine with pond scum, and Jack remained suspiciously quiet about the whole incident). You couldn't see the bottom of the pond even at the best of times, but there was nothing in it more dangerous than some fish and the odd frog.
Over the last year, Jamie and his friends had pretty much taken over the pond and it's environs. The other kids came – of course they did! -- but really, it was Jamie's gang's place.
Jamie let out what he would later insist was a manly scream when Cupcake grabbed him by the shoulders and dunked him under the water. He came up with a bit of pond scum stuck to his hair, still shrieking with laughter as he paddled away from the girl. Up on the ground, Sophie and Jack snickered while Jack made the lemonaid frozen. In the heat, it would melt before very long, but at least it would be cold to drink. Claude and Caleb were "racing" from one end of the pond to the other, which mostly involved them flailing around trying to tangle each other up. Monty was busy doing his very best drowned rat impersonation while he helped Pippa with her sunblock and muttering dark promises of vengence that might or might not involve frogs put down swim trunks.
Something moved in the cold water, unseen and unremarked.
If life had a soundtrack, the Jaws music would have been playing. Instead, the air was filled with Sophie's happy nonsense song as Pippa and Monty laid claim to some lemonade.
"Hey Jack, how do you feel about frozen frogs-?"
Something slimy brushed against Caleb's shin, making him yelp and flail his way to shore. "There's something down there!"
His brother laughed at him, continuing to tread water. "Don't be such a baby!"
Slimy hands gripped Claude's waist, sending him racing after his twin with a shriek that he would never be able to describe as anything but shrill and girlie. Jack rocketed to his feet, scooping up his staff in one smooth motion as Cupcake and Jamie wisely followed Claude's lead before they could be caught by whatever was lurking in the water.
There was nothing in Jack's pond that should have been dangerous to anyone. It was his place, and nothing dangerous could ever settle here; he'd chased away the things that liked to lurked in the dark corners of the world before, when he was just a winter spirit. If something had slunk in, it was in for a nasty surprise. Jack approached the water's edge, staff at the ready to turn something into a monster-cicle. A shape moved beneath the water, chased by a butterfly that fluttered near the surface.
"Oh, that's your game."
Jamie crept up to Jack's side, following his line of sight with open curiosity. "Is someone there?" he whispered. Jack nodded, gesturing for silence as he followed the shape with his staff, only slightly more at ease. Cupcake immediately joined them, craning to see. Sophie went right past Jack, wading into the water to chase after the butterfly, ignoring the protests of the other children. Cupcake immediately waded in after her, followed by the groaning Jamie. "C'mon, Sophie!"
"Mermaid!" Sophie announced as she was pulled out of the water.
Mother Nature finally surfaced from the shoulders up wearing an affronted expression. "I never!"
"That's right Sophie," Jack crooned, freezing the water beneath his feet as he walked past the shore, "it's a mermaid." He watched the others carefully for their reactions – he'd been considering introducing Mother Nature to his first believer, but he wasn't sure anyone could even see her. Sophie wasn't even sure fire proof; the kid saw and believed in things as easily as she breathed. But Cupcake dropped the squirming child, and Jamie froze with his eyes on Mother Nature, like he thought she would disappear if he moved. There was a wariness there that worried Jack as something akin to recognition flashed across Jamie's face.
"I am no such thing!" Mother Nature disappeared back under the water with barely a ripple, coming back up with a significant spray of water beside Jack. The storm cloud grey dress had been replaced by one in pond scum green, and the water made it cling to her in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of a fish tail. Jack couldn't help it; as Sophie splashed her way over and wrapped her arms around Mother Nature's legs, so pleased with having captured her very own mermaid, he started to laugh. "Dear and blessed- I am not a mermaid! Child, release me at once!"
"Nice dress," Jack murmured sotto voce. She sniffed derisively, muttering back about how civilized beings changed their clothes every now and again, if only for the sake of variety.
"Gwant a wish!" Sophie caroled, clinging to Mother Nature's skirt with amazing tenacity even as she waded to the shore. The sight, coupled with Jack's laughter, was enough to set the others off. Even Cupcake was giggling as she tried to untangle Sophie. "Mermaid make a wish!"
"I have never known a mermaid who granted wishes." Sophie was finally detached, and Mother Nature sat at the edge of the water, wringing out her sodden skirt. "They'll make all kinds of promises, but they never follow through. Minds like goldfish, teeth like sharks. Do stop giggling and introduce me, Jack." There was an unspoken Or I'll start lobbing lightning at you, in there, but the whole image she presented remained too much for Jack. It didn't help that Sophie had switched from clinging to her skirt to playing with her hair. By the time she was done, it'd be even worse than when Jack had tangled it with the north wind.
After a great deal of trouble (and a long glare from Mother Nature that threatened Horrible Things), Jack managed to pull off something that was just over-the-top formal enough to be ridiculous. "Ladies, gentlemen... Sophie... allow me to introduce Mother Nature."
Sophie yanked hard on a lock of hair. "Mermaid!"
Maybe if she could have seen the look on Mother Nature's face, she would have stopped... but probably not.
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"We're very big on recycling and being green in my house," Monty announced. Two hours in and most of the New and Shiny had worn off Mother Nature – after all, it was still a hot day, and there was a cool pond to play in, and the nature spirit didn't seem inclined to do more than sit there and let Sophie turn her hair into a bird's nest. She was accepted as Jack's Friend, and that was all there was to it; all the kids took some time to chat with her, then it was back to fun and cool water. Jack kept a cautious eye on things, but she didn't seem inclined to pull her favorite hail trick, so it was all good. "Save the Earth, you know?"
"I shouldn't worry about that too much," Mother Nature said in confidential tones. "In the long run, it'll all work out alright." She took one of Sophie's sloppy braids and undid it carefully. "Planets are very resilient things, and they adapt to climate changes all the time."
Monty relaxed a bit, trying not to pick at the week old sunburn on his shoulders.
"Of course," she went on, not-smiling pleasantly, "humanity will likely be wiped out by the sudden change in global temperature, all the pollutants dumped into the air and water, and the massive earthquakes that will be caused by the shifting of the tectonic plates. But I'm really looking forward to the new species that will arise from the proverbial and literal ashes."
Sometimes, it was very easy to tell who's daughter Mother Nature was.
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The storm probably shouldn't have come as a surprise. Jamie and his friends went running for home as the first drops hit the ground, and Mother Nature didn't even bother to look apologetic about it. Thunder rolled and rain sheeted down, insuring that the children would be stuck inside for the rest of the day.
"I thought you were having fun!" It felt almost like a personal betrayal.
"I was. But I came here to bring the rain." She turned her face up to the dark sky.
"You could have put it off!"
"What do you think I've been doing all afternoon, Jack Frost?" Mother Nature hissed. "This should have started hours ago!" She waved a hand at the clouds, eyes flashing. "This was meant to be nothing more than a gentle rain, but I pushed, and I put it off, and now it must be a storm, or it will become something so much worse!" The nature spirit drew herself up to her full, not inconsiderable height. "The weather must do what it must do. I can no more lock away the bad weather than I would try to imprison fear! It is the very height of hubris, and leads only to destruction!"
"We couldn't just let Pitch run wild!" Jack snapped back, barely aware of the rising cold. "He kidnapped Tooth's girls, he destroyed Easter, and he was going to kill Jamie! After everything he did, he deserved what he got!"
The world snapped into focus then, as the two nature spirits realized that they had revealed more than they ever meant to.
"Who told you?" Her voice was flat and lifeless.
"I didn't-" Jack raised a hand to try and catch Mother Nature as the wind lifted her, but he couldn't quite bring himself to close the gap between them.
"You did." Her lip twitched into something that was too sad and pained to be a smile, though it bore a passing resemblance. "And the worst part is that you're not wrong."