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He tossed the glass at the wall, uncaring of where the glass fell. He knew he shouldn’t have come, he thought as he pulled at the increasingly frustrating neckline of a suit he should’ve never worn.
Why did he listen to Emily? Just because the other seasonals are there doesn’t mean he should. He’s different , he knows. He sees the way they whisper when he passes, the cold glances he receives whenever he shows up to one of their solstice meetings.
A fae of the flesh, they say.
It’s just that, when he received the summons and arrived at her cove, she was so pleased to see him, so proud of the coat she made him, even mentioned that it took her several tries to find just the right flower to stain it his favorite shade of blue. What was a gesture of goodwill is irritating him more and more with every passing moment. He doesn’t fit in here, and a stuffy suit isn’t gonna change that. He knows that now.
Jack isn’t the same as the other fae, he learned why last Easter. They were made from Emily, from the petals in the wind and frost coating the windows. Jack knows this all too well. He came from a person, not an idea, and that’s why he is so defiant, so unfitting. He can’t help it, just like they can’t help but miss Jokul. Still, it isn’t pleasant to be surrounded by people who can’t stand him as much as he can’t stand them.
He knows they hate him, so he’s still confused as to why he didn’t pass on the gala. He would much rather be messing with the elves as the workshop than drifting in some spirit’s castle for an event he can’t recall.
Why does he care what they think anyway? Who cares that Maelona thinks it’s funny to mess with the baby of the seasons? He’s approaching his third century, he should know by now to ignore it. He just can’t help his temper, not when she’s so infuriating, so infuriating to think it’s hilarious to catch a spark right as he passes through, so infuriating that he had to ice her wings and-
The door creaks open.
“I’m not in the mood for a lecture,” he mutters dully, “I’ll apologize later, once she cools off.”
“ Since when did I give a damn what you do to those buggers?”
Jack whips his head around, and his eyes meet Aster’s. Aster’s eyes break contact first as he takes a glance around at the scattered shards of glass across the floor.
“Looks like someone’s a tad bit grumpy,” he says with a tut.
“Why do you care?” No one ever cares when Jack gets in a tiff with the other fae, they usually leave the whole species to themselves.
“I just wanna know why you iced her out, is all. Mammon is having a proper fit because you got your icicles all over his vintage table.”
“I- I didn’t mean to mess with his crap. I didn’t even know I made that much ice.”
“What did you think you did?”
“I just conjured up a bit of frost to shock her, is all.” He didn’t mean to freeze host’s home. Moon, there’s a reason he doesn’t attend these idiotic formal balls.
“Why would you frost her in the first place?” Aster walks closer, outside toward the balcony Jack was leaning against. Before Jack can answer, the other catches sight of his hand.
“Bloody hell, did she scorch you?” Oh, now that he thinks about it, she did burn his hand. He glances down as blackened skin and realizes it’s tender to the touch, hissing as Aster grasps it and holds it closer to his eyes.
“It was just a little smoke, nothing she hasn’t done before.”
“Does she do that a lot? Do any of them?” Jack glances at the floor and pulls his hand away.
“I don’t know how it works between you all, but us seasonals don’t exactly see eye to eye.”
“Do you guys hurt each other?”
“It’s friendly fire, it’s not like we can kill each other. Nature doesn’t allow it,” Jack admits as he pulls off his jacket with an annoyed huff.
“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”
“It’s part of being a family.”
“Family isn’t violent.” Jack rolls his eyes.
“Isn’t it? You can’t tell me within the last couple centuries that you guardians haven’t fought before.” Aster looks at him with a pinched expression, pulling a small jar out of his pocket.
“We argue, sure, but I’ve never had Tooth sic her fairies on me, or North point a blade, purposefully that is.” Jack looks outside the balcony and up at the cloudy sky wishing for this conversation to end.
“Fae are different.”
“I didn’t even realize you were a fae, I thought you were an ice elf.” And he wishes he was. He hates the rules, the restrictions. If he were an elf he could live without laws. He still has the pointed ears, annoyingly enough.
“Seasonals are fae, I’m just not a conventional one. Haven’t you heard? I know the others aren’t exactly quiet about my immense outcasting.”
It’s silent for a moment. Aster rolls up Jack’s sleeve and holds his injured hand once again, pulling at his darkened fingers with a wince.
“I, uh, have heard rumors but I never take anything at face value.”
“Maybe you should, I doubt they’re too far off anyway.” It’s usually something about him being an abomination of nature, then about his failure to fulfill the spot that Jokul left behind. Like he said, not too far off.
“I would prefer you to tell me straight up, I don’t wanna know you through the eyes of someone who would set you on fire.” Funny enough, she’s probably the most accurate in her depiction of his unfitting status.
“There’s not much to it, I would've thought Manny told you all what I am before I joined the clubhouse.”
“That old bloke doesn't tell us bull. I've hardly heard a peep from his mouth in the last millenia.” Well, that’s news. They knew just as little about him as he did about himself.
“Can you just tell me? You know, I really have no idea who you are behind the snark. Neither do the rest of them,” he says as he unscrews the jar held in his other hand and scoops a glob onto Jack’s offended fingers.
“It’s not really an interesting story. I died, Manny found me, and I was reborn as the fae in winter’s name.” Of course, he didn’t know the first part for quite a while. He doesn't know how long he spent wandering in the Antarctic snow, begging to be given a purpose. He doesn’t like to think about that stretch of time, it always makes him dizzy and weird. He was found after some time, of course, by Emily.
“I’m sorry, you died?” Aster looks like he’s about to be sick.
“Well yeah, I had no clue until I jacked my memory box from Pitch on Easter, but I fell into a lake in Winter trying to save my sister and Manny thought I was meant for immortality.” The story was a little more unpleasant in recollection, of course. Reliving the minutes he spent thrashing as ice cold water filled his lungs was one of the more unpleasant experiences he’s had.
“What do you mean you had no clue? You didn’t remember?” Aster ceases rubbing the salve into Jack’s hand, peering at him with a puzzled expression.
“I woke up with not a thought in my mind, fuzzball. I thought I was meant for solitude until I met the court.” It was quite disconcerting to awake from the ice with no memories at all, though he supposed it may have been worse to be conscious of his life and be unable to interact with his sister. She must’ve been alive when he rose, brushing past him with the same unseeing and uncaring manner that the other children did. It would’ve been devastating.
Aster brushes past a particularly tender spot on his fingers and he bites his lip to suppress a cry. He’s not that much of a baby.
“Surely you could tell.”
“I mean, I knew there was something missing. I was inherently wrong, different from the other fae. I had wants other than just keeping winter up and running. I wanted fun. I was defiant. Not to say I’m not still a fae, I mean I’m still bound by the rules of the court.”
“That sounds miserable, I’ve heard horror stories about the court.”
“They’re not all that bad you know? You just have to abide by the word of the land and tend to your duties.” Of course the rules to abide by are never-ending. There’s a reason he goes by Jack Frost instead of the proper name given to him by the moon.
“I could never bow down to someone else, pooka are independent species.” Something in Aster’s voice goes tight, and Jack remembers with a twinge of sympathy that Aster is the only one of his kind and there is a reason for that.
“It’s how I'm hardwired. I just wonder sometimes what life is like as a human sometimes,” he says, his sentence ending quieter than it started.
“Are you and the other fae always so violent?” Jack supposes he could say yes. He’s been present for public beheadings in the Otherworld, where defying the court meant defying your maker. Compared to that, his fingers were just a scuff.
“Sometimes, they don’t really like me. I replaced Jokul. They think I’m childish and too young for the job.”
“Emily seems to like you.”
“She has to, she’s my mother. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here.” And he’s glad that she was the one to take him. To be a sprite of the Unseelie would’ve meant living an even more restricted life than he does now, bound by the Otherworld
“You say she’s a mother but she doesn’t exactly keep her children in check, does she?”
“It’s just a scratch, kangaroo.”
“You’re burnt. I’ve heard you whine over a warm breeze, and I know this hurts.” It’s hurting less and less with whatever magic cream Aster gave him but fire isn’t exactly pleasant for ice fae.
“It’s not even that bad.” Of course, at that moment, he reached the tips of Jack’s fingers, where the brunt of the burns were, and he let out a sharp gasp at the sting, his fingers throbbing painfully once more.
“Sure, sounds like it all right,” Aster grumbles with a pointed look.
“Look, there’s nothing I can do about her. I wasn’t even supposed to be here and she knows that.”
Aster wipes excess salve on his sleeve, replying, “You were invited, what do you mean you weren’t supposed to be here?”
Was he invited? Maybe, but everyone was technically invited as a formality. That didn’t mean he was wanted.
“I was just a pity guest Emily dragged along.” Jack shifts his weight from foot to foot, then remembers he doesn’t even really need to stand. He needs to do something with his hands.
“You’re not a pity guest, you’re a member of the seasonals. And anyway, you’re a guardian. You were meant to attend in our name.” He coats the last of Jack’s burn in the solution and lets go of his hand.
“I-” he sighs, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s not the same and you know it.”
“How exactly is that, do you reckon?”
“I can think of many reasons.” Frost creeps up in the railing, unnoticed by Jack. Aster glances at him worriedly.
“Name these supposed reasons.”
“For starters, you guys don’t even attend every event you're invited to, I’ve literally been with Sandy when he ditches these things. Secondly, we are not the same. You all were someone when you were chosen. I’m not just a guardian.” Jack sort of wishes he was. Funny enough, he doesn’t know who he would want to be. They’re all so different it’s maddening. How is it that he is different, not any more odd than any of them, and feels so separated. Even among oddities, he was an oddity.
“You’re a guardian in the same way we are.”
“I’m an Unseelie and a seasonal and a human, in a way. And I don’t belong with them either.” Too human for the fae and too fae to be human.
Jack stays quiet and wrings his wrists. Aster moves to stand in front of him, forcing eye contact.
“Initiated the same way, same purpose as us. You’re a guardian.” He says it so matter of factly, like there's no question about it and it makes Jack want to strangle him.
“I don’t work like you all.”
“We have a shooting star and warrior fairy, you are not the strangest member. You’re being dull.”
“You’re dull.” Wow, Jack, great comeback.
“Stop deflecting.”
“I just don’t-” He cuts himself off. “I’m not the same.”
“So you don’t belong anywhere? Is that what you think?”
“Yes. How many times do I have to tell you?” Jack raises his voice and it makes him want to die a little. Why is he so insistent? He doesn’t look away.
“As many times as you want because it’s a load of crock and I think you know it.” Jack opens his mouth to speak but Aster holds out a finger before he gets a chance.
“We include you, not out of pity, but because you are a guardian. When you swore an oath, you made the agreement to be our friend whether you like it or not. We want you to be a part of this, and once you stop wallowing in your own negativity, I believe you’ll come to enjoy it.” Aster says it so matter of factly it makes Jack a little nauseous. He’s just so sure.
“It’s hard.” And Moon is it, it’s so hard to trust in them, so hard to accept. He’s barely discovered who he was and now he’s expected to accept who he is, who he has become.
“Everything is hard. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.” Aster says this in such a stern tone that there’s no room for argument, but Jack refuses to agree.
“I know you’re hung up on some bull over the seasonals, and I can’t help with that because it’s not my business, but you will always have a place with us.”
“I know that now.” And maybe he does. He will.
“Now don’t forget it, you bumby. And next time you get hurt, come to us instead of running out. You know I have the best healing ointment on the planet, don’t you?” Aster picks up Jack’s coat where it fell to the floor and Jack faintly registers that he should probably put it back on before he goes back out there, if just to please Emily.
“I’ll remember it next time,” he says as he takes his coat from Aster, squeezing it with white knuckled hands. Ouch.
“There better not be a next time. If she lays a flame on you again, you’ll have to hold North by the beard to keep him off of her.” The image brings a grin to Jack’s face, a chuckle bubbling up from his throat. That would be nice, to be protected, cared for. Something to expect.
He walks toward the door, where there is undoubtedly a group of spirits who want nothing but Jack to leave, but where there is also a group of people who he belongs to.
“That’s good to hear.”