Chapter Text
The yetis were sweeping up the remains of yet another broken window as North watched, hands clasped behind his back. The elves were already chipping apart the hailstone for some nefarious purpose that Jack decided he really didn't want to thing about; North had called it a new record, and Phil looked like he wanted to murder something. "Things are not going so well," North mused as the yetis executed a complicated little dance around the elves so they could get a new pane of glass into the window.
"Girls are crazy."
The worst part is you're not wrong.
Honestly, that was the most important lesson Jack could take from all this. One moment things had been fine, then there were storms, and hailstones, and the lingering feeling that maybe he had done something wrong. Jack knew he hadn't, but he also hadn't meant to say what he had about Pitch, even if every word of it was true. She'd left Jack alone at his pond, keeping him from following with a gust of wind that had knocked him flat until she was gone.
"A bit," North agreed. "Family can do that to even the best of us."
Jack grunted, watching the elves scurry off with their icy treasure. There was something deeply worrying about their chatter, but he doubted they could do much real damage before they were stopped, either by the yetis or their own incompetence. North watched the storm raging outside, snow hissing against the windows. The hail had stopped, but the snow was not likely to end for several days. North sighed hugely, stroking his beard. "Have you spoken with her since?"
"I kinda like myself not fried, North." Jack balanced easily on the rail beside North, pacing back and forth.
The worst part is you're not wrong.
"Maybe take a peace offering?" North suggested. "I understand she is very fond of Phil's cookies."
"I didn't do anything wrong!" Jack protested. There was something in the look North turned on him that made Jack think You know, maybe a hailstone or two launched at an uncomfortable place doesn't sound like such a bad idea.
He might have to go find out what the elves were up to. Maybe lend them a hand.
"Not what I meant." Jack continued to walk along the rail, following North as he used his staff to keep his balance. "Think of it more as... 'I want a moment of your time, here is something to buy it.'" North jabbed the air with a beefy finger. "I have just the thing!"
There were time when Jack thought that someone has big as North just shouldn't be able to move that fast. But North went and did it anyway, darting about at speeds that would have done Bunnymund proud, hunting through racks of already completed toys until he found something that made him cry out with joy. The butterfly sat slightly on his palm, wind up wings flapping slowly as he showed it to Jack.
"You know she's got the real thing, right?"
"People who have cats keep stuffed animals too," North retorted, pressing the clockwork butterfly into Jack's hands.
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The sun beat down on Jack, making him wish for cooler climes; North's snow globe had dropped him in the middle of a vast expanse of sun burned grass, the only real feature a flat, muddy river that oozed into the distance. He found Mother Nature there in a dress the same golden brown as the grass, river mud squishing beneath her feet as she walked along the bank. Jack took the wind up butterfly from the pocket of his hoodie and let it fly. "Y'know, I'm starting to think North made that for you."
"Did he now." She raised a hand to catch the clockwork, her expression unreadable. Jack waited, half expecting her to crush the delicate little thing. "He does realize that I am no child to be appeased by a pretty bauble?"
"I think he's just been looking for an excuse," Jack admitted, going over his last few conversations with North in his head. There had been a constant, carefully polite interest in how things were going with the nature spirit (on top of seeing how Jack was adjusting to being a Guardian and gaining believers, and a brief but intense discussion on the inadvisability of lending any of the elves to Bunnymund on a permanent basis) that, in retrospect, Jack really should have been paying more attention to.
The toy butterfly disappeared into a pocket hidden in the folds of Mother Nature's skirt. "And you, Jack Frost? What are you looking for?"
Jack shrugged, digging his hands into his pockets, staff held in the crook of his arm. "You said I wasn't wrong."
On the opposite bank, a herd of gazelles cautiously approached the water to drink. Nothing moved in the water to disturb them, but they were still wary. "And you weren't. Pitch Black threw the natural order out of balance, and he had to be stopped." Clouds scurried across the sky, thin and white and nearly insubstantial. "But I wonder if you and your cohort remember that it must be a balance between the extremes."
"I think I hear a lecture coming..." Jack quirked an eyebrow, watching a log drift slowly down the river.
"You're free to leave, if you'd rather." The herd quickly backed away from the river bank as the log drifted on. "Or you can listen, and possibly even learn something."
"Well, I did come all this way. Might as well stay for story time."