Chapter Text
Valentine had always thought there was something romantic about winter. The cold presents an opportunity to bring people together, under the same blanket, or the same roof, over a hot chocolate or offering your jacket to someone else. Christmas itself is romantic enough, with hasty kisses under the mistletoe that linger for longer than they're meant to and heartfelt gifts that reveal secret adoration. But the snow itself, Valentine thought, was beautiful, and the season is cozy: the perfect atmosphere in which to perform her matchmaking duties.
Her older brother, Cupid himself, preferred a warmer climate. He liked the intensity of heat, the way it made hearts race and faces hot. He liked the way skin was exposed in bikinis and swim shorts, and he liked the way his arrows made people realise when they had been staring at that skin for far too long, and maybe, just maybe..
It was fair to say that Cupid was the decidedly more sexy of the two. He was older, for a start- older than even he knew. Perhaps as old as love itself, though he only looked about twenty four. He was broad and muscular, but by no means lean, with his stomach slightly spilling over his white swimming trunks and chest only loosely covered by a white cloth draped from one shoulder. A golden laurel wreath blended into his golden curls and his shockingly blue eyes with heart-shaped pupils were the most obvious clue to his identity aside from the wings on his back and the quiver of arrows on his side.
In contrast, Valentine was younger, only becoming a love spirit in the late 14th century when she was seventeen, and never aging since. She was made with soft curves, with a heart-shaped face and high cheekbones with cupid's bow lips. She favoured the more sweet and innocent romances and friendships, which was fortunate as Cupid would have assigned her to those cases anyway.
It was on one of these assignments that she first met Jack Frost.
~
It was one of Jack Frost’s favourite kinds of days: winter in Burgess. Almost a century had passed since he first passed through the frozen lake and he couldn’t help but return regularly, hiding in a tree during summer months and in a way making it his home. The town had expanded in this time, and fashion had changed, but one universal truth remained: when Jack was around, everyone enjoyed the snow.
He had been lazily flying along in the wind when a bright spot of pink against the snowy white landscape caught his eye. Curious, he lowered himself onto the snow and approached the figure, who seemed to be crouching on the peak of the hill above the village.
“What are you doing?” He wondered aloud as he stood directly behind them.
“Shhhh. I’m trying to concentrate!” She replied without looking up at him.
Jack startled before crouching next to her hurriedly.
“Are you…talking to me?” He gaped.
“What do you think? No one else is talking to me whilst I’m trying to line up my shot.” She responded irritably.
“Sorry, sorry!” He whispered as he sat beside her, peering at her attentively.
She was concentrating on threading a heart-shaped arrow through a golden bow, which Jack recognised as the same arrows used by the cherubs. When he first saw them, he thought he was looking at a particularly creepy bird, with their yellow beaks and white feathers- until he noticed their pink limbs and human hands. But this girl did not look like a cherub to him.
She was wearing a fuchsia pink capelet with gold details and the hood was drawn up over her face in a way that resembled an upside-down heart. From beneath her hood, he could see curls of hair the colour of cherry blossoms against her pinkish-white skin. Her heavily-lidded eyes were narrowed in concentration, but he could still see their startlingly turquoise colour framing heart-shaped pupils. Her cheeks were rosy, perhaps from the cold, and dotted with pink freckles- which Jack saw continued along her arms as he followed their line to her bow and arrow. A quiver of them were attached at her hip by a gold band on top of brown leather, where white fabric was draped in a kind of wrap-skirt or train. Her legs were clad in tight pink fabric with heart detailing, leading to her brown and gold sandals. The only similarity between her and one of those freaky cherubs, Jack decided, were the white-feathered wings that peaked from beneath her cape.
He was brought out of his reverie with a jolt as her arrow was released, hitting a woman dressed in furs squarely in the chest. She began urgently to talk to the man holding her arm who listened to her raptly. Jack was too far away to make out their conversation, but he saw the mysterious archer smile in a satisfied way at her work, before she finally turned to him. There was a pause while they both looked at eachother, before Jack broke the silence with a joke.
“So you must be the tooth fairy?”
She looked confused for a mere second before a smile crept onto her face.
“Then I guess you must be the Easter bunny?” She asked.
“No, the Easter bunny? Really? Do I look like a rabbit to you?” He responded, laughing.
“Your ears look big enough.” She joked, giggling at the incredulous look on his face.
“My ears are perfectly normal, thank you very much! I don’t know why, but I expected the girl covered in heart motifs to be a lot nicer.” He remarked.
“Technically, being nice to random spirits who interrupt me is not part of my job description.” She quipped.
“Ouch! Pardon me for getting excited about someone actually hearing me for the first time in years! That doesn’t happen often, you know.” He said light-heartedly, although there was a hint of sadness in his tone.
“People don’t really see me either. They more so believe in the concept of love rather than me exactly.” She explained shyly.
“So your whole thing is love? I never would have guessed.” He teased, looking her heart-covered outfit pointedly up and down.
“Oh I know it’s not very subtle, is it? It’s the cape that puts it over the edge.” She agreed, before undoing the cape at the neck and pulling it off of her, revealing the short length of her hair that brushed against her exposed shoulders. Jack tried not to stare as he realised that her freckles extended to her collarbone and…lower.
When was the last time anyone had actually been able to see him staring?
“See? Much more subtle.” She declared.
“Oh, I don’t know. I still think I’d be able to identify you as Cupid from a thousand miles away.” He challenged, eyes fixing on the golden heart-shaped clasps that held up the pleated white fabric of her top.
“Then you’d be wrong. I’m not Cupid- you’re thinking of my more famous brother. He’s sort of the guy in charge of our whole operation. My name is Valentine- I’m kinda like his deputy.” She explained.
“Val-entine.” He repeated, liking the way it sounded on his lips, “As in the saint? Because you might look like one, but considering what you said about my ears earlier…”
“No! Valentine as in Valentine’s day, probably, I’m not sure- the Man in the Moon told me my name was Valentine and that was that.” She supplied.
“Wait- the Man In the Moon speaks to you too?” He questioned frantically.
She hesitated.
“He’s not very talkative. He told me my name when I first became me and not much else since.” She replied.
“That sure sounds like him.” Jack grumbled, looking ruefully at the blue sky where the moon had already started to become visible.
“So what’s your name? The Sensitive Spirit? Big-eared Billy? The King of distractions?” She prodded gleefully.
“Woah, woah! No need to guess! And also- rude?! Although ‘The King of Distractions’ does actually suit me. My name is Jack Frost!” He declared with a fist raised in mock bravado, before collapsing on his back into the snow. “And that’s all Man In Moon ever told me.”
Valentine laid down next to him and they looked up at the moon together.
“I’ve heard of you before but I didn’t know if you were real.” She confessed.
“Yeah well, neither does anyone else.” Jack said bitterly.
“And the others like us? Have you ever met them before?”
“I’m quite friendly with Sandy, but he’s not the most talkative either. I’ve crossed paths with North and Bunnymund. North seems jolly enough but it’s always Christmas when I see him, so he never does more than salute me before disappearing down a chimney. I’m convinced Bunny doesn’t like me. Probably because I’ve delayed spring a few times.” He mused.
“Yeah. The guardians seem kinda uptight, especially Bunny.” Valentine agreed.
“Yeah, especially.” Jack complained.
For a moment, they both lay next to each other in silence, staring at the Man In the Moon and daring him to acknowledge them in return.
But he just stared right back.
Impassive.
“Right.” Valentine muttered, rising gracefully to her feet and shaking the snow from her wings.
“Woah, wait- where are you going?” He said anxiously, standing up quickly.
“I’m sorry, Jack, but I’ve got to go. I have other jobs to do today.” She explained in a sorrowful tone.
“Ok but you don't have to go now, right? I mean, look around, there’s so much fun we can have in the snow!” He persuaded.
“I know, but the window of opportunity for some people to fall in love is very slim, which is why I can’t be later than I already am.” She said regretfully, tying her capelet back on as she spoke.
“But what if we never see eachother again?” He pleaded, cringing as he heard his voice crack, “I mean, it took this long for us to meet. What if it takes us another hundred years to meet again?”
“Hey, don’t worry, I’ll come find you! Once I know who I’m looking for, I can track them down quite easily. That is part of my job description.” She tried to reassure him, but he looked away from her and put his hands in his pockets, idly kicking snow with his bare foot.
“Yeah sure whatever. It doesn’t matter to me either way. I can talk to other people. They don’t talk back of course…” He tried unconvincingly to seem nonchalant.
“Oh let me think…aha!” Valentine exclaimed, producing a white-tipped arrow from her quiver, “This type of arrow can act as a kind of boomerang, meaning that if you throw it, it will lead you back to me. Of course, there’s no guarantee I’ll be free at the time, but you can just hang out near me while I work or just talk to me in between assignments. You know, if you want. ”
She handed it over to him proudly, and he examined it skeptically. “And if I were to hit someone with this arrow..?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that! It’s not a love arrow, and it knows to avoid people anyway. I mostly just use it to bring me things from far away, when I can’t be bothered to get them myself.” She explained cheerfully, “Try it!”
Jack turned the arrow over in his hands curiously, feeling the slight warmth of the metal before facing the village and hurling the arrow above the rooftops. He grinned, feeling the simple joy in throwing something without caring where it landed. His face quickly turned to surprise as the arrow came hurtling back towards him, narrowly missing his shoulder and abruptly stopping in front of Valentine, pointing directly at her heart.
“See?” She smiled, daintily plucking it from the air and handing it back to Jack.
“Yeah, not bad.” He nodded, but his face betrayed his wonder.
“So I’ll see you again soon, Jack?” She said hopefully.
“Yeah. Yeah, you will. Later, Val.” He responded casually, but smirked as he saw the subtle way her eyes lit up at the familiar nickname.
With a whoosh of feathers, she was gone, leaving behind only an impression of her nestled in the snow beside his own silhouette. The indents were near identical, only- hers had wings.
The perfect Snow Angel.